Iran Proposes a Fee For the Strait, Mamdani Wants ID For Grocery Store, & SpaceX Releases Earnings

Key Takeaway

When facing impossible odds, know when to pivot. Trump's repeated backing off from Iran strikes reveals a critical truth: fighting someone who believes dying for their cause guarantees heaven requires different tactics than economic leverage. If you can't win psychologically before the fight starts, you've already lost. The lesson? Understand your opponent's frame of reference deeply, or waste resources fighting unwinnable battles. Apply this to negotiations, competition, and conflict—sometimes the smartest move is recognizing when your leverage doesn't match theirs.

Episode Overview

Tom Bilyeu analyzes Trump's fifth stand-down from striking Iran since March, examining why the U.S. keeps backing off despite leaked attack plans. He explores General Jack Keane's insights on compromised mediators, Saudi Arabia's reluctance to support action, America's depleted munitions stockpiles, and the fundamental difference between fighting for legacy versus fighting for religious conviction.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Iran Proposes a Fee For the Strait, Mamdani Wants ID For Grocery Store, & SpaceX Releases Earnings from Impact Theory. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Good morning everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Tom Billu Show live. We are indeed coming to you live and boy does the world give us plenty to talk about. Trump's attack plans for Iran got leaked. But my question is does it really matter. General Jack Keane's breakdown of Iran paints a very distressing picture of what's really happening. And at least for myself, it is far darker than I thought. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant is sweating the Fed to help bail out Japan. We're going to talk about what it actually means for you.

Manny is forced to back off his ID requirement for shoppers in state-run grocery stores when people freak out at the hypocrisy of not needing an ID to vote, but needing one to buy staples at the grocery store. Way too much shod and fa there for me. More evidence out of New York that taxpayer dollars are in fact going to illegal immigrants. We're going to be covering that. The Senate shoots down the Save America Act, ensuring that voter fraud continues. That's fun. All right. Someone leaked Trump's battle plan, but honestly, it may not have mattered.

So, on Friday, US officials described the plan to CBS, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN. Energy infrastructure, one of the harshest campaigns of the war. Uh, everything going to be wrapped up before markets open on Monday, which by the way, that kind of thing drives me crazy. Uh, I don't know what would be worse. The fact that it's all just a big game of manipulation or actually letting it happen and the market's going into actual freef fall. So, I get why they do it, but there's still something so grotesque about it.

But, nonetheless, so Saturday night, Trump calls it off. He didn't blame the leak, but if you heard him uh going basically saying that we have a leaker, there were all kinds of reports that these people should be going to jail. Uh, but he did say, and this is the part that I think really ends up mattering. He said Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, and Iran uh asked him to hold. Now, what hides in all of this is the uh thing that as you clear away all of the noise and really get down to, okay, what what is the pattern in Trump's behavior?

What's actually going on in Iran, can we trust the people that are negotiating on our behalf? Because remember, the vast majority of the negotiations are not between our team and their team directly. Things are going through mediators. Now, this is the fifth time since March that Trump has announced or threatened some major strike on Iran only to then stand down. And retired General Jack Keane has a theory about why the talks never end up producing anything fruitful uh that I think is very insightful and it puts pieces on the board that I hadn't been giving enough weight to.

Uh so it'll be very interesting to see what you guys think about this. Um so let's go ahead and play that clip. things to unpack here. Number one is the mediators. It is well known in the Middle East region by our intelligence services, by all the players that the Pakistanis and the guitaris are compromised because they favor Iran at the expense of the United States. This is historical. This is not new. And yet they're the mediator. Now, this is being played sped up. Is that because it was because this is obviously somebody recording off the TV?

Nope. We just have playback way cranked up. All right. Back it up a smidge and then let's start again. by our intelligence services, by all the players that the Pakistanis and the Qataris are compromised because they favor Iran at the expense of the United States. This is historical. This is not new. And yet, they're the mediators. So, their influence here, I think, has played a part in misleading the United States in terms of Iran's real intentions. The second thing are our allies and partners led by Saudi Arabia.

Let us point out and remind the audience here that when we were going to open the straits of moose forcibly, Saudi denied us the use of our air base and denied us the use of their airspace and also told the president and discouraged them from doing it because they thought the operation would fail because they knew nothing about the details of that operation nor are they qualified to make that kind of an assumption. And what the Saudis are doing here is for the fourth time they have influenced the president.

One is on the straer moves. Two other times it's well known that he was close to going back to major combat operations and they talked him as well as other allies in the region down from doing that and let's try to make a deal. That is what is going on here. So what's going on with the Saudis? The the fact of the matter is the Sauris are not willing to sacrifice to rid the Middle East region of Iran's aggression. That is the absolute fact that we're seeing playing out here.

What do I mean by sacrifice? Casualties and the damage to some of their oil reserves. That's the re that's the reality that's taking place here. They're willing for us to make that sacrifice for sure. They're willing for Israel to make that sacrifice for sure. That's despite the fact that they've been under a nuclear and security umbrella since World War II. Despite the fact that the United States led a coalition to stop Saddam Hussein from taking Saudi oil fields after they took the Kuwaiti oil fields and we liberated them despite the fact that after the the Saudi government killed Cassoi, the Trump administration certainly wire brushed them for that but still maintain a relationship with this kingdom.

And I think this is shameful that they lack the spine to stand up for their people and for the region here and support the president on what has taken place. place. place. All right. So to me um one I think you have to take what he says with a grain of salt. Obviously this is somebody that understands the military extraordinarily well. However, he is very much looking at the world through his own lens. And this is where I think people confuse America first with America only.

America is the bully where we go into a region, we make a decision that people may or may not have even been on board with. We start doing things that draw us into a conflict that we don't have an obvious path to win. We don't have an obvious path to get out of. And then we get pissy when they're not willing to play ball in the way that we want them to play ball. So, uh, you can only take the we're going to keep you protected.

He was talking about them being under the um nuclear umbrella of the US since World War II. You can only take that so far when you're showing that you can't militarily defeat Iran, that they're able to use this mosquito fleet to continue to harass ships going through the strait. Um that they're able to hit exposed air bases, that they will for sure be able to hit the energy infrastructure that is going to be permanently vulnerable uh to attack. So, what does it do if you say, "Okay, we have nuclear weapons, which we're obviously not going to use uh to win a conventional war with Iran, especially, we're not going to use nukes when they're using drones uh and much smaller munitions.

It would be seen as completely unhinged by the entire globe. So, that certainly isn't going to play out. So, that's going to be cold comfort. They are certainly not going to be inspired by that. And so the fact that the people closest there on the ground, the most exposed to Iran, are telling you this isn't going to work to escalate, lets you know that Trump has really backed himself into a corner. There's so many reports going around that we just don't have the munitions to keep fighting this in the way that we've been fighting it.

Uh that we've diminished on the conservative side, I haven't seen anybody say that we've diminished less than half uh of most of our like big resources, our long-d distanceance precision munitions. those are uh you hear 50 60% depleted. Now, if you're just talking about Iran, that means that you could continue to wage war for quite some time. But unfortunately, we're not just talking about Iran. Remember, all eyes on China, at least from where I'm sitting. And so now, if you're having to hold some stockpiles in reserve because you know that something might be happening over in China in the near future, now you really are in a difficult situation where you're not going to be able to press your advantage.

So now all of a sudden you start looking at Trump backing off constantly, constantly giving them a chance to um negotiate even though so far none of the go negotiations have gone well. And when you listen to Trump when he's um decided that he's going to move forward with strikes, that's probably closer to the truth of what the negotiations are are actually like because they match what the Iranians themselves are saying, which is that we're not even really talking to you guys. We're only talking to your mediators.

Uh we are not backing down on nuclear. We are not backing down on controlling the straight. They have said time and time again that things are never going back to the way that they were in the straight of Hormuz. Meaning they are going to be in control. They're happy to work with Oman, but they're going to do it one way or the other. So if Aman chooses not to get on board, so what? Like they're just going to do it anyway. So they're now having direct negotiations with Aman.

they are literally icing the US out. And so when Trump is coming in and saying these guys are impossible to deal with, they clearly don't want a deal. That seems like the actual truth of what's going on. And so hearing uh General Keane talking about the fact that even our negotiators aren't on our side. Saudi Arabia is does not have the stomach to push this through. And honestly, can you blame them? If your entire economy is predicated on your ability to get oil out of the region and there are two options, ships going through the straight and a pipeline that bypasses the straight but is completely exposed to attack.

to attack. to attack. If you know, hey, US, if you guys escalate these attacks, then they're just going to do that. At some point, it is just in their self-interest to say, all right, we'd rather pay a toll. And so that is rapidly seeming like the reality here. And at this point, given how many times Trump has backed out of this, I don't think anybody should read his posturing as anything other than posturing. And that if he's got the dual whammy of um we're running out of munitions, and we know we need to keep some of these in reserves just to keep China at bay, unknown threats at bay, uh then we've got a limitation on what we can do just from a munition standpoint.

And even if we didn't have a problem with the munitions, we have the allies in the region that don't have the stomach for us to push forward. Now, of course, the GCC nations are not a unified block. So maybe the UAE is ready to press uh forward, but clearly Saudi, which is one of the most important, largest countries in the region, is telling you not to do it. Then there's going to be tremendous incentive to not do it. especially if I'm correct and a lot of this started and continues to be about Trump trying to protect the investments into the US that were promised to him by the GCC nations.

And if they're saying, "Listen, man, if you start doing things that get more of our um infrastructure destroyed, then we're going to have to rescend all of those promised dollars." And now the AI industry is on its own. And I've talked many times about how much wealth has been accumulated in the UAE and earmarked for investments. And the vast majority of investment dollars the world over pour into the US stock market. The US stock market is essentially AI. It's just one big trade on AI. So when I talk about AI having systemic risk, and we're going to be diving deep into this in hour three.

When I talk about AI having systemic risk, you think that is in all capital letters, flashing neon signs. Uh Trump is certainly aware of that. And so he is going to continue to be swayed by Saudi saying please don't do this. So that becomes a question of how many options are left. You don't have the munitions, you don't have the support of the people in the region, and you need their money. their money. their money. man, that that is not a good trifecta for us actually being a being able to uh get a military victory out of this war.

And that means you're now negotiating from a place of weakness, which is certainly not a good place to be in. So, um I appreciate General Keane's analysis. I'm very grateful to get the insights from somebody who understands the military and the players in this better than I do. But at the same time, when I hear the way that he approaches it, when I hear his tone, this is somebody who has that sense of like, but hold on, bro. We're America. We've been doing cool things for you since World War II.

And ultimately, this is going to be, this is an old reference, but this is going to be some Janet Jackson [ __ ] I know you used to do nice things for me, but what have you done for me lately? You've gotten me bombed. you've shown that you don't have the ability to stand these guys down. And I hate to say it, but this is now uh exactly what I warned it was going to be like a month ago, six weeks ago maybe when I said this is starting to look like our Suez Canal moment, which many people say when the British Empire failed to stand down Egypt and maintain control of the uh Suez Canal, that was the end of them as an empire.

You're never going to know it in the moment when it's happening, but boy, when you look back, you go, "Yeah, that was the moment that everybody went," [snorts] these guys can't do what they used to be able to do. And unfortunately, if you guys have ever paid attention to the UFC when um this happened twice, Anderson Silva seemed impossible to beat and so he was beating people uh psychologically before they ever got in the ring with him. And then once he got knocked out, all of a sudden it was like, "Oh, he is mortal." and then he basically lost and just retired.

Uh, and then same thing with Conor McGregor. He used to beat people before he ever got in the ring. And then you get to a point where you're starting to get a little bit older, them joints ain't working the way that they used to, and you lose. And then all of a sudden, it's game over. People just don't lose to you psychologically before you walk into the ring. Everyone since World War II has lost to the US psychologically before they walked into the ring. We have been sanctioning Iran to death and it for years and it hasn't stopped them from uh exerting force in the region.

We have now been bombing them for months off and on more off and on. I'm well aware of that. But we have been bombing them a lot to the point that we're worried about our own munition uh stockpiles and they just keep pushing forward. And so now all of a sudden nobody's going to lose to us psychologically before they ever get into the match. So that is where as a global hegeimon the vast vast vast vast majority of the battles have to be won psychologically. If you actually have to go blow things up every time there's a disagreement and you can't just muscle your way in, the game is already over.

Nobody can afford to actually start launching munitions every time somebody gets uppidity. And so, boy oh boy, is this looking like the Kota to uh the the old world order. I mean, just I don't see any way around that. So, uh, from this being a, uh, far more ominous signal than anybody who wants to see America come out of this ahead, I don't think there's any way to see it than that. Th this is a very um, bad sign. Now, you can always pull a rabbit out of a hat somehow some way, but I don't see any path to that right now.

Um, I I it's interesting to me as the war progresses, the shift in blame keeps like like like kind of like zigzagging. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because at first it was Iran is the aggressor. They started this whole thing. Then it became we're only going to war because Israel was about to get attacked. Then it was no, we're here to protect the GCC in the straight of Hermoose because those guys are getting attacked. Then it was we have to get Iran because the Houthis are their proxy group and if we don't take Iran out, the Houthies are going to kill everybody.

And now it's we would win this a war, but it's Saudis Saudis fault because the Saudi doesn't want to get their uh cities bombed for the greater good. And I just think in another 3 weeks we're not even going to be talking about Saudi anymore. We're going to be like, really, it's Oman's fault because why are you even over there? You guys should have just let Iran win anyway. So I I I feel like I'm not the smartest guy in the room. I feel like I'm not even top 10 smartest guys in the room.

But I think that if I was going to go to There's only six of us. That's what I mean. there's four other people that might walk in the room. I'm going to tell them that they're smarter than me. But I know if I were to go into a war with a foreign adversary, I'll be like, hm, let's look at the chessboard, right? Like it's just like you have to look at, okay, there's other GCC nations. Okay, we have to protect them. Are you guys okay if we go to war?

Yeah. Yeah, we're good to war. You know, you guys might get some blowback. Okay, cool. Yeah, let's do it. Cool. Okay, then I have to negotiate with them. How can I negotiate with a foreign entity? Let me send my my best and brightest. Who do we have over there? Steve Woodclaus and Jared Kushner. So, we have a real estate mogul uh doing our um negotiations and now we're blaming the IRGC and Saudi saying they're not even negotiating good faith. Yeah. Because your your son-in-law is here.

Like, where's the real who's the diplomats? Who was the guy that was here 40 years ago? Where's that guy? Bring him. I know him. Who's this guy that who's the babyface guy that just bought a a hotel two miles east of me? Why is this guy trying to negotiate my borders now? So I I I think that we just keep talking about one thing that oh yeah that's not really the problem. This is the new problem and then this is not going to be a problem.

This is the new problem and the narrative just keeps moving further and further and further away. Yeah. Whenever you're being propagandized you can expect it to shift and shift and shift. If you've ever had an argument with somebody. So um in business I have a phrase that we've been using since back in the Quest days which is don't make me chase you. And so what will happen is you'll get in an argument with somebody and if everybody puts their thesis forward at the beginning and you say, 'Okay, so this is what we're arguing about.

Yes, this is what we're arguing about. Great. When I defeat your argument there, if you just move on to the next argument like you just laid out, no, no, no, for real though, it's actually about Saudi. No, no, no. For real, it's about and you're just like constantly actually it was about this, this, this. Um, you'll see that a lot in business. Okay, an initiative failed. Why did it fail? Let's set our both of our thesis up in the beginning. Cool. You've said your thing. Yes, that's exactly why this failed.

Awesome. Defeat that. Then the person moves on to something. Then they move on move on to something. Then they move on to something. So finally, I would just say to people literally, don't make me chase you. Tell me what the thing is. Let's have the debate at the thing. And don't make losing the initial argument make you say that something else is actually the real deal. And that that is what always happens in propaganda because people don't want to take the L. So the reality that I think we're going to have to face is we we are running up against two or three very knowable things right off the bat.

Thing number one, we are not the postworld war II America that we used to be from a manufacturing capability standpoint. We do not have the ability to manufacture munitions at the rate that we once did. We are a nation that is so buried under debt right now that we can't tap into the okay well let's just run hot for a little while produce these munitions which we can just pump off these assembly lines as fast as we want as long as we're willing to pay for it now we don't have the ability to pump them off the assembly line as fast as we want and it the more that we spend money on this you've already got a divided nation that is feeling the weight of the abuse that you've done to the economy for the last I mean really since 1971 but we've been abusing in the economy for a very long time.

You want to clock it at 30 years. You want to clock it at 50 years. There's going to be arguments able to be made on both of those counts. So, you've abused your economy and part of that abuse has been sending all of your manufacturing capabilities effectively over to China, which is now your primary rival who loves that you've gotten into this quagmire with Iran in the Middle East so that your eyes off the ball so that they can go do what they want, namely make themselves a hegeimon in Asia.

It will start there and then they'll see how far they can expand. So, um all of that is bad. Now, one thing that we're not talking about in this because I think um Jared Kushner, it's possible he's evil. I don't know enough about him, but it he is extraordinarily smart. And so, the fact that we sent him over there to negotiate, that doesn't bother me at all. He's very bright and if he understands um how to get what we need, then we're going to be fine.

The mistake I think we keep making is we think that the Iranians think with a western mindset and they don't. This is frame of reference. When you fail to understand how dramatically different somebody's frame of reference is, you will be eternally surprised by how they interpret the world. You have a theocratic regime. So they [snorts] believe in a way that I think a lot in in a way that Trump cannot even mentally model. They believe that God is telling them to do something and they must see it through.

They are also in a fight for their lives in terms of being able to maintain power within their own country that if they get booted uh out of power that that will be an existential exit for them. for them. for them. This is the IRGC you're saying. IRGC. Yes. So the IRGC is literally willing to fight until the absolute last man for two things. One, God is telling them to do it. and two um if they don't they'll be taken out of power by their own people possibly um a gun uh to the head.

So that you're going to fight in a very different way. So the inability for us to mentally model um the way that the Middle East thinks on mass and the way that the IRGC thinks specifically thinks specifically thinks specifically um is a huge part of this problem. And I know that this has become like a a third rail of sorts, but when you're talking about an honor culture um that is born out of out of out of um hurting and then is translated through Islamic doctrine, you are going to find yourself in a very difficult position where people do not back down easily.

They are not the people that you can scare off the ball. They are prepared to fight. Uh they believe that being martyed in the name of jihad is the like greatest thing that you could do. They consider America the big Satan. So imagine the big Satan comes to fight. You know that the fastest way to heaven is to die trying to stop them. Uh and so these are the guys you think you're going to be able to bully. It's just it is a failure to be able to understand the frame of reference that the other person holds.

And so uh even though the right answer and I've said this since we were talking about Israel and Gaza, the right answer is people have to think economically. Like if you want to see uh Israel and Palestine move forward in a um way that makes lives better for their kids through my western lens or through anybody's western lens, then they're going to have to switch over to an economic way of thinking and saying, "Okay, this is the land that we've got now. We're going to make the most of it and we're going to make sure that we've got a good trajectory from an innovation standpoint, from a GDP standpoint to really build something that matters." But that isn't their frame of reference.

or frame of reference is to be uh coherent with the word of God. And so that is a very different way of thinking about things which is why you're going to see continued violence. And it's like you start putting all of that on the table and actually looking at it realistically and you end up where we are. You can't break them because you don't have the financial wherewithal nor the munitions. Even if you're willing to spend the money, you don't have the ability to produce them fast enough.

Maybe in 18 months from now if someone like Palmer Lucky can actually create a new type of weapon that can be produced on automotive assembly lines and we can spark Detroit backup and just make it a hub of munitions maybe, but certainly not today. not today. not today. Um Um Um I I feel like we're getting propagandized and I think that the same talking points that we're using against them can actually be turned against us because we are also fighting this war. We also think God is with us.

We also have our backs against the wall and we also think if we don't get out of this thing it's going to be existential crisis for our well-being. So everything I would disagree with that. I I need you to really define terms. Everything that you paint the IRGC with that there their fear that if they don't come out this war unscathed that their power will be vastly diminished. I would also say that Trump has the same fear because because because there's a very big difference between I'm going to get Gaddafi and I'm going to get voted out of office and maybe in prison.

I don't think they're going to get the Gaddafi though because we just we're seeing by this war that they don't have the internal um they don't have the internal um beef that we thought they have there. There's not that much descent in their country cuz if they have we've been trying to we already tried to arm the people that are on the ground the the Kurds that um initial attempt didn't happen. It was enough people that would start the internal revolution. We've been announcing that we're trying to revolutionize them.

would be talking to the um the GCC states around them to try to get some type of descent and that descent hasn't happened. So unless they're just a very underground just like the nuclear bomb millions and millions of people which I don't think is is accurate, I don't think that they're as they're in as much trouble as we are projecting onto them. And yes, I know that they killed 10,000 to 40,000 depending on the numbers, but that wasn't enough to spark the revolution that I think that we assume that they would have.

Yeah, it that one I can't say. I don't know what the level of um resistance is within the country in terms of um are we actually facing some sort of coup within the country? There for a minute it looked like they were. It's always hard to tell. Is this a very small minority of people that are making a lot of noise? is you kill the 40,000 people and that's just game over. And it was like those are the 40,000 and hey like in a country of 93 million that's just completely irrelevant.

We shut that [ __ ] down. We don't have to worry about anything. Um or is there more of uh more destabilization both within the IRGC and uh the broader scope of the country? My gut instinct is when you kill the amount of leadership that you've killed that there's far more destabilization than we think. But I'm even willing to set that one aside and say, "Cool, I'll concede that that's not an issue at all." Um, now you get into the when you look at the way that um the Supreme Leader Kumini Leader Kumini Leader Kumini originally came into power in 1978 79, I can never remember.

um one of those two years when he came into power um that he did it off the back of a more traditional reading of the Quran, a more orthodox reading, that might be a better way to say it. Certainly a more extremist reading, and was like, you guys are not pious. You've completely lost your path. And so he comes to power on that. Yes, we want that. Yes, the word of God. Yes, we're going to follow this to a tea. And then it's been non-stop indoctrination around the idea of of of um we have to get rid of the influence of the infidels.

We have to kill the little satan Israel. We have to kill the big Satan uh America. And some people will ask you to read that as like a political kill. Um, but I I'll say that they are fighting the way that you would expect a true believer to fight, somebody who really believes in their cause at a deep level in a way that America certainly does not. And I don't know if we need to get into a theological um discussion of that, but I I will say this.

Um, I don't think Trump believes, this is one man's opinion. I don't think Trump believes in I must do the will of God in the same way that a country led by a cleric believes that they need to do the will of God. That that would be my take. my take. my take. I don't think their will of God is to go to war with America. I think their will of God is to respect their homeland and to fight for their territory. And if we aren't knocking at their doors and they're not.

The death to America chants have been going on around the region, not just specifically in Iran. And every time a deaf to America chant happens, a little girl school got bombed 24 hours earlier. Every time a deaf to America chant happens, we just destabilized the region through 30 miles to the west. I feel like we're not talking about the same thing. same thing. same thing. Cuz I'm going to just say one line. You're saying that there's the reason that they are saying death to America. That's the guy that's leading this charge and he's on a war path with America because he needs to kill the little Satan and the big Satan.

That's what I heard you say. Yeah. So I'm saying something slightly to the side of that which is I agree with you that they are fighting for their homeland. I very much agree with you that we have started the act of aggression in this moment. Uh what I'm saying is Trump will back off. He'll back off because um he's more concerned about the economics. He's more concerned about his legacy. These guys will not back off because they are not concerned about that. They are actually concerned with getting into heaven.

And the person who is like if I die in this fight I go to heaven. They're going to fight in a way that the person who is like I just need to make sure the economy is good and that I'm remembered well is not going to fight. Like it's just two radically different things. And so what I'm what the picture I am specifically trying to address right now is hey if you want to understand why Trump keeps backing off why he is in my opinion why you should share my opinion that he is growing weaker by the day in the way that he is prosecuting this war is entirely because he does not have the veracity of his beliefs in the way that the Iranians have the veracity of their beliefs.

I think Trump is far more concerned with personal legacy and the economic stability of the United States and quite frankly that people back down and acknowledge his power. That's what's motivating him. And that's so much weaker than I will be rejected or greeted into heaven based on how I do this. That's what I'm trying to get people to understand. This this was me trying to explain the the frame of reference that you're encountering at the negotiating table. One side is like you're asking me to do something that goes against the will of God and like but really really not as like a a statement that you use to rally people behind you as a thing that you believe to the core of your existence.

You're entirely dedicated to this. You're willing to suffer decades and decades of sanctions. you're willing to be a global pariah to be isolated and on the outside. It's the same thing I think when I look at Palestine is like, bro, at some point like take a lesson from what happened in Cypress. Cypress had a very similar thing happened to them except far more abrupt and done by a military and they just they wept when their land was stolen from them, but then they just moved the [ __ ] on.

And that happened more recently than what happened in uh Israel Palestine. So even if you take the Israel just came in and occupied this in the most imperialistic sinister way possible as Turkey did to Cyprus, um you look at Cypress and it's now a thriving economy and people grow up normal middle class existence and while yes you can still find people who are very very sad about what they lost as a country they're just moving on. And so when you look at Palestine, it's like, bro, you were offered a state.

I get you didn't want it, but you were offered a state multiple times, rejected it because you're like, nope. Like, we have a vision of what we're going to get. We're either going to get that or we're going to reject everything. And then you you go, "Oh, that's why literally generation after generation after generation, they keep making the same decisions." and they are treating this as a military um that there is a occupying military force in the name of Israel that has stolen their land from them and it's unjust and they're not going to back down but you can literally parallel that to Cyprus and the responses have been so different and I think it is because partly not entirely but partly because of uh it being an honor culture and partly because of the theology ology and if you're lacking those two things, your the way that you play this out will be very very different.

different. different. Nice. We didn't really capture we didn't really talk about the leakers, but to your point, it might not matter. Yeah. I mean, that's my thing. It's like some people are saying, "What do you mean it's not even a leak? Like this was like announced." Other people are saying, "No, this was a leak and these people should be charged with treason." So, it's like, listen, was he going to go through with the attack anyway? And my point is, no, he wasn't going to go through with that attack.

That attack was never going to happen because Saudi Arabia is going to tell you, "I'm not giving you the dollars that you want. They're going to strike our energy infrastructure. This is going to be bad for the economy. This is going to be bad for our partnership. You're already losing a ton of bases in the Middle East." Uh, I forget the number, but something like we had 13 bases, and I don't know if all of them have been destroyed, but they've largely been degraded or destroyed.

And so now you've got your allies who are like, "Yeah, I'm not sure how much on your side. I really am, so I'd really like you to not do this." uh you're losing your bases rapidly over here. And so it's just one weakened position after another. And the question becomes why? And I'm saying when you pit these two things together, the frames of reference, it becomes very clear that America does not have the stomach for this for a whole host of reasons. Mostly economic, mostly a loss of faith in us.

um not faith, a lack of like belief in us as the rightful global hegeimon and just obviously not wanting to deal with the financial consequences of that. And then you're going up against a a religious theocracy. And I'm even in this I'm not asking anybody to believe that they're not right. You can believe that Islam actually is the word of God or isn't the word of God. It literally doesn't matter. I'm just saying what does it do to somebody when they believe it? And what we're watching play out is the I'm just going to be really blunt, the weak willed going up against the strong willed who can use asymmetric warfare and you're going to lose that every time if you're not willing to go to total warfare.

And even though Trump has said basically, I'm willing to go to total warfare. Meaning his exact quote was these strikes are going to be bigger than anything since World War II. So I'll say that's him nodding to no no for real. I'm going all the way to total warfare. He said back in March, we're going to wipe a civilization off the map. He's never going to do it. That's not going to happen. It's not going to happen for all the reasons that I just laid out.

So, um I hear we are being propagandized. Every word choice is a bit of propaganda. So, even the things I'm saying is propaganda in that I have a frame of reference. I'm communicating from my frame of reference. But the thing that I'm trying to get people to understand is this is the collision of two frames of reference that almost nobody ever talks about. That's never part of the discussion. We're talking about the munitions, which is great. You've got to talk about it. But there is a far more predictive story, which is the collision of um wills that are informed by very different things.

And once you start mapping what's going to happen based on those frames of reference, I think you will understand that Trump is going to try to bully every time at the negotiating table. He is never going to get what he wants because he's up against a theocratic regime that believes that this is their path to heaven is to stop you from doing this. And so they are going to, as you said, defend their homeland for sure. That is what they're doing. But they're doing it with a tenacity that we will continue to underestimate at our own peril uh because of that theocratic background.

I mean, just look at how we steamrolled Venezuela. steamrolled Venezuela. steamrolled Venezuela. Partly because Venezuela is a far weaker country. just economically because they're um much they they were just completely eroded by socialism, but I think they also just don't have the belief that God wants them to do what they're doing in the same way. They're not willing to die for it in the same way that the Iranians are. Um we got a lot of Call of Duty uh fans in the chat. They just want us to drop a nuke and just like level it.

Do they really? Like people are actually saying those words like, "Yeah, let's just blow lick the Middle East up. Let's stop playing. Let's just like Yeah, we keep we keep saving them. They're just trolling. No, no, they're serious. Okay. Well, then let's address it. So, how do you feel about that? Here is precisely why that is obviously the wrong answer. Um, what the US is doing right now is it is rapidly eroding its ability to be the global hedgeimon precisely because you have to win the vast majority of your battles through psychology.

So, people have to love you. They have to want you to win. They have to feel like you're the just, benevolent ruler. And yes, you are sometimes harsh on the bad guys, but you're only ever harsh on the bad guys. And because you're so strong, because you're so prosperous, because you've exported so much media that makes me as this person in, you know, insert whatever country around the world that you want, I actually admire America and I'm uh, you know, I consider myself a foreignb born American or at least I wish that my country had a similar bill of rights.

I wish that my country had similar freedom of speech. like I think that what you have built as a country is very admirable and so I'm pro America or I may not be pro America but I really am uh in awe of your technological prowess and you are so much more technologically powerful than I am that I'm going to um accept that you rule the world and I'm not going to challenge you. Okay, you have to win. I'm talking like 99.999% of your battles must be won like that.

Okay. uh if you drop a nuke then everybody goes you're evil you are an evil empire there is no difference between you and uh Stalin or you and um Hitler and so now longtime allies go yeah we can't touch you with a 10-ft pole and all of a sudden you find long before we even did that they're not letting Europe is not letting us use their bases now imagine that we've just dropped a nuclear bomb on the Middle East when they had not done an overt act of um aggression against us at all.

You're never going to convince the world that them doing roadside bombs and stuff like that or working through their proxies means that we had to drop a nuclear bomb on them. So, they're just going to say, um, yes, there was a horrific attack on October 7th and yes, sure, Hamas is a proxy of Iran, but that was an attack on Israel. Let Israel do its own defense. In fact, Israel's already responded. so disproportionately that um that's already crazy. So the fact that you're dropping a nuke now is because you were losing and you were losing because you were a fool.

You were underprepared for this. You have a narcissistic psychopath uh in the White House. And so the fact that he dropped the bomb, you guys have no moral authority whatsoever. I would much rather China run the entire world than you psychopathic [ __ ] And so now everybody's against you. That that would be to the detriment of every human on Earth, first of all. And then second, a detriment for sure in the extreme to every American who will instantly become the pariah the world over. You will be hunted in the vast majority of countries you go to.

If somebody hears an American accent, you are likely to be hassled at best. Uh assaulted or killed at worst. Dude, it would be so crazy that that is a patently ridiculous statement. Whoever launches the first nuke loses. Period. End of story. Even [ __ ] Putin hasn't launched a nuclear weapon yet. And he's really getting into a dangerous situation in uh Ukraine. So, bro, like that is the most self-destructive [ __ ] I've ever heard in my life. If you actually believe that you have no sense of self-preservation, you are so interested in people backing down to you that you actually will drop a [ __ ] nuke on them.

That is some wild ass [ __ ] Now, I can make a very strong case for America dropping nuclear weapons on Japan. It actually worked out tremendously. Even if you think that it was an absolute moral disgrace and um it shows that America has um no soul, whatever. Cool. You can say all those things, but the actual outcome of that was extremely positive. Now, the outcome that you would get today if you did that is a universe away from the outcome that you got then. People now debate like should we, should we not?

But remember, America only entered that war because of Pearl Harbor and the fact there was already a war waging like crazy in Europe. And we understood uh the beginnings of some of the atrocities that we would discover more and more later, but it felt like a completely justified war. And as you dig in, Japan really did train every person in Japan to be basically willing to fight to the death. And they had them all ready um to be like kamicazi soldiers no matter where you found them.

It didn't have to be in an airplane. And so one of the things, and you guys know I've asked you a million times to go research Japan, uh what you see is that even before the nukes were dropped, there was a a deep sense of fatigue because people believed that their life was about to end. They believed that they were going to have to fight to the death and that each and every one of them was going to die in some bayonet uh scene in the streets of Japan as the um armies invaded.

That was their mentality. That's where they were like, I mean, [ __ ] this is the end. They weren't thinking about the future. They all thought they were going to die. And so when the nukes dropped and it was like, yo, we have unconditionally surrendered, there was a sense of relief as reported by the Japanese, like thank God, bro. like we were all caught up in this crazy [ __ ] There was no sense of future. You guys are giving us a future. We may be an occupied nation. We may have just lost.

We may have had to embrace defeat. Uh but it's better than embracing that we were about to die. And keep in mind, they were already malnourished by the time the US gets them to unconditionally surrender. So they were already in the process of being starved to death. I mean, it's just like it was so different. And if you can't build a mental model of what it would be like to drop a nuke on Iran now now now versus what it was like then, dude, that's wild.

So, I choose to believe you guys are just trolls because dude, that would be so self-defeating. That was an abrupt way to enter this exit uh end of the sentence. I mean, look, I can loop again, but that's it. that's it. that's it. Um, there were just some civilian targets killed in Ukraine right now and I think this is a very great place to ground it because when you nuke somebody, you can't just nuke the IRGC in their household and not anybody that is around them.

So, there was 44 um people have been reported injured in the mass Russian strike on Kiev and Kiev region. Another 17 people tragically were killed. My condolences to their family and loved one. It was a heavy strike. 24 ballistic missiles, four Zurkon Onyx missiles, and another 115 drones. A significant number of them jet powered. The main targets of the attack were warehouse facilities belonging to civilian businesses. There were also strikes on infrastructure and a railway station. These facilities have nothing to do with the war. A brewing company, construction materials, warehouses, and a civilian logistics facility.

This is also in response to um I know Ukraine was started to bomb Russia's like Amazon equivalent. So then Russia started to say, "Well, we're going to take our gloves off and now we're bombing civilians, too." And this is just that death spiral of trying to one up the other person and before you know it it's just death on both sides. Yes. And this is where the moral authority comes in. So Russia was the aggressor and so the fact that people are backing Ukraine more than they're backing Russia I think makes perfect sense.

sense. sense. Uh so yeah, you don't want to position yourself as the aggressor. America is clearly the aggressor with Iran. And so to continue to um exacerbate that is a fool's errand. Now, as I've said many times, if we had the munitions, conventional munitions, I would want to see us win this war because we were stupid enough to get into it because of our global standing, our allies are going to realize we're weak if we have to end up backing out of it at this point.

And that is going to be extremely costly. And so into that vacuum of power will be a lot of people jockeying for power. You'll have Iran jockeying for power in the region. You'll have China feeling like they have a much better green light to do whatever the hell they want. Uh in Asia, keep in mind they're already pushing out into the Pacific Ocean trying to see is the US going to push back or are they going to now be able to control the Pacific? Uh so yeah, I know that there are people that bang the drum and say that what we want are uh multiple um hegeimon and honestly I thought about it for a while and I was like would would we benefit from that?

Uh and the answer is you will only benefit once there is stability but as there is a battle going on you are certainly not going to. Uh, and if we end up in a cold war that is as um vicious as the cold war that we had with Russia where we're in constant um proxy conflict in a bunch of different places. Uh we got spies everywhere. I mean that that is just not something that I want to see people live through now. That means that and the constant threat of nuclear annihilation.

uh what we the drum we should have been beating for a very long time is for America to maintain its moral authority but unfortunately that ship sailed a very long time ago. Uh so yeah I I don't know that there's any way to be a global hegeimon and maintain your soul. I'm just not sure. Um okay we have super chats. Nope. No super chats. Oh y'all y'all don't like us today. Forget y'all. Forget y'all too then. Uh, I'm just joking. You guys are so generous. Thank you for your time.

That's generous. That's the most important thing, your attention. Um, okay. Let's talk about Mom Donnie. Um, and the grocery store um ID thing. Um, I'm going pass you to Mike Tom. But I have to say that the ID that Mom Donnie required, it's not the same ID that the Save Act requires because it's just a driver's license, but the Save Act requires it to be a citizen's uh verification, which is a passport or birth certificate or things like that. So, it's not like he wants people to show up with passports to the Mini grocery store.

grocery store. grocery store. Well, I'm very glad that you handed me with that caveat, Drew. Uh, so what's going on right now is Manny is running smack into the reality that when you create an incentive structure, people are going to abuse that incentive structure. The grocery stores that he wants to create, create an incentive structure for people to come buy things cheaply and then go resell them themselves. And so he knows we're going to have to wall this off somehow. There are going to be some people that are allowed in and other people that aren't so that we can keep control on this.

Now, what Drew is trying to say is, well, listen, we were being true too draconian with the uh Save Act, and that's the problem. It's not that we don't want an ID for um people to vote. It's that we just want a sensible ID. And if that's what the left were saying, then I would be all for it. But it isn't what the left are saying. They fully recognize that they've created an incentive structure to bring in illegal immigrants and then make sure that they have every conceivable possibility to vote that you can give them.

So that some of them will that people are going to follow that incentive structure and they're going to vote whether it's ballot harvesting which is shocking but nonetheless legal but happening like crazy here in California or whether it's just outright fraud which we've seen more and more examples of and you're going to keep seeing investigations being done and I have a feeling it's just a feeling but I have a feeling you're going to uncover a significant amount of voter fraud in due time as you realize that people will take advantage of this stuff.

The reason that this conversation about Mam Donnie is so important is because what you see is him realizing, oh, people do abuse the system. So all I'm trying to get across is yes, [ __ ] people abuse systems. When you put a system that has an incentive structure, people will follow the incentive structure. If people have an incentive to vote illegally, they will vote illegally. If people have an incentive to go to the grocery store, snap things up that are 30% below market value, they know that they can go sell them elsewhere at market value.

This is how black market economies work. There's just no way around this. And so now he's caught in this trap of [ __ ] we can't give away the game over here and admit that we're just trying to make sure that the incentive structure is as aggressive as possible for immigrants to vote, even when they're not allowed to. uh by requiring some sort of identification to stop people from abusing our system over here. Now, the good news for Mamdani is that he has the backs stop of federal tax dollars.

He does not have to run, sorry, not federal, state tax dollars. He does not have to run the grocery stores at a profit like all of his competition does. He can simply bleed taxpayers. And to the tune of millions of dollars a year per store, he can just keep going. it doesn't matter to him. So if he has to make that sacrifice on behalf of you, the taxpayer, uh then he will to make sure that he doesn't have to give up the game over here by saying, "Oh yeah, [ __ ] that's right.

Requiring ID is bad mojo." He already got beaten up over this when he required two forms of ID to shovel snow and get paid for that. and he realizes I'm just going to create another weakness for everybody essentially on the left in the DSA specifically who want to eliminate borders uh and certainly don't want people to be required to show ID to vote and by the way want illegals to be able to vote which they have said in no uncertain terms. Uh so yeah, you can uh I hope see right through exactly what's happening.

And this is one of the reasons if you guys saw the footage, I think we have the clip. Um he doesn't say it himself. When asked about the ID situation, he hands the mic off to somebody else on his team so that the memes are not of his face. They are of her. How her. How her. How Here we go. People from taking advantage of that uh you know that deal basically. And is there going to be a limit on the number of items that someone can take that are discounted at that level from that essential basket?

So, our RFP makes very clear that this is a program for New Yorkers to be able to put food on the table, not a program for people to be able to make a quick buck through reselling. I'm going to pass it over to our EDC head GPAC to add some additional details. details. details. Yes. If you look at our RFP for the operator, um we are looking to make sure that we target New Yorkers, whether it be a sort of a library card thing or and and also we manage who's buying and it's and that is focused on everyday New Yorkers.

So, we are mindful of that. Um and so we're going to make sure that we have all the place all the things in place to make ensure that that does not happen. happen. happen. Yeah. How this is just reality like you are now making contact with reality. But again, they will hide this. So, if they decide to go forward with no need for any identification, there's no database or something like that that's able to track who's supposed to buy it and who's not, then they'll just throw taxpayer dollars at this.

The odds that he lets a signature signature signature um campaign promise go unfunded is effectively zero. and what he's going to say when he comes to the budget again uh when he has to do it next year. I guess technically these don't come on board until what 28 29 something like that. So he's got some time before it actually shows up in the budget. But what you're going to see is he's just going to say the rich aren't paying their fair share. We need to keep taxing the rich to keep closing the budget holes.

and he's going to run into the real question of how much do you erode your tax base with all of these anti-wealth uh taxes. He's now starting to lose people on the left. Um so Prof, if you guys saw that, was none too pleased to be doxed um in the uh PAT to terror database that was put out there. So we'll see um how long people go along with this, but that's going to be the question. where can he actually find recurring revenue that closes the budget shortfall, which the remember the budget shortfall every year is growing.

So every year he's got to find things to do, one-time taxes, deferrals, or just increase taxes unless he can do something that is self- sustaining, either cutting the budget or taxing people so much in a way where you actually recoup those tax dollars to permanently close the budget. He has gone in the opposite direction. He has made the gap that he will need to close next year bigger than the gap that he had to close this year. So, and by the way, he's missing still a ton of his signature policies.

So, that gap is likely to continue to grow under Mom Donnie. So, we'll see. Yeah. We also have you pulled this link says more taxpayers are going to illegal immigrants. I pulled up the link, but it's the ICE thing. Was that tied or was there a different um the thing that they were talking about with that was Oh god. Yeah. The judge blocked that New York can't do it. And then he he sent out a rally call that says there's a immigrant support helpline. They can call in.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is it. Play play this video. It's not a video. It's just a link to What's it say? Let me just read this. Public safety does not come from masked uh armed agents taking people off our streets to immigrant New Yorkers. You belong in this city and this city stands with you. If you need legal support, our immigration legal support hotline is free. Yeah. Confidential and available regardless of your immigration status. So, what I'm getting at is this is a series of things that Mom Donnie has done where he says this is a taxpayer funded initiative and we're going to take care of you regardless of whether you have legal status or not.

Uh this is a part of his um is he calling it daycare or childare, whatever the name of the um prek stuff that he's doing, the 2-year-olds. Um that is regardless of immigrant status. There have been several things like that. Uh the DSA has talked specifically about other um housing related initiatives uh tied to um that same phrase, it doesn't matter what your immigration status is, we're going to help you. But these are all taxpayerf funded things. And so if you guys remember back in the day, it was like, no, no, no, you guys are ridiculous.

Don't be crazy. These are all right rightwing conspiracies that these things help um illegal immigrants. And now they're just directly appealing to illegal immigrants, saying it doesn't matter what your legal status is. These things apply to you. This is not just Mam Donnie, by the way. This is, uh, in you see this coming out of, um, Minneapolis, uh, Seattle. You're going to hear this kind of stuff more and more and more. Um, and as the DSA continues to gain power, which they most certainly are, you're going to see this in any of their sanctuary cities that it is it's all taxpayer funded.

So, anytime you hear them signal to um undocumented illegal immigrants, they're saying taxpayer dollars are going to go to you. And if you look at the actual draw, because the next argument you're going to hear, and I did a deep dive on this, you guys can go check it out. Um the argument that you hear is, well, illegal immigrants are actually net contributors to um the social systems. It just isn't true. So, when you look at them over the long run, they are net draws very substantively.

And not just in America, by the way. You see the same thing in Nordic countries. If you look at the Nordic country push back on immigration, yo, it's real talk. Because unfortunately, when you get people to come to the country, not because they want a uh better life by contributing and by getting their shot at um adding value, building their way up, instead coming for the federal dollars that they're able to get through um social services programs, then they just end up taking from the social services programs.

And so this is one of those things you can't both say uh the government spends way too much and we're getting this K-shaped economy as a result of all this inflation and oh by the way we don't want borders and we want everybody to come here and be able to be taken care of and there will be no requirement for ID and this applies no matter what your immigration status is. It it is just mathematically not going to work. And this is where if you actually want to make things better for people, then you have to say, "Okay, we've got a finite number of people that we're going to take care of and now we're going to get aggressive about taking care of those people." Um, you can't create the incentive structure for people to flood in and then take care of all of them as well.

It just doesn't work. work. work. Yeah. Um, I want to kind of pivot into the DSA more because Bernie Sanders was on CNN talking about the red wave. At first I thought you meant like Republicans are starting to turn unfortunately. But now you're talking about the hammer and the sickle red wave. So that type of red to give you an example. One of the more controversial ones is that [ __ ] has said America deserved 9/11. Are you comfortable with that association? No, I am not. I think that's a dumb statement.

On the other hand, he has a whole lot of followers and there's a lot of things that he's saying that are making sense to a lot of people. I think, you know, we have to get above cancel culture. you know, when you're doing radio, whatever they do podcast, three hours a day, you say dumb things. I suspect if you go back over your career, there may be one or two things that you said that you may have regretted. But I think what we have got to do is look at the totality of where people are coming from say say say uh and go forward.

So when someone like James Carville says he doesn't want to be in the same political party as Hassan [ __ ] which one are you going to take? Well, that's not much of a choice. If Mr. Carville doesn't want to be in my party, the party that I belong to, that PA that LS sayed belongs to, he can start his own party. But I think so. Wait, is that we need a big tent? There it is. Uh, yeah. So, big tent is our whole thing now. Everybody's saying we got to make a big tent.

We got to welcome these guys in. Now, listen. I'm actually politically uh empathetic. You're going to watch Democrats all start sounding like DSA members because the energy is in the DSA. And listen, as a a PSA to all the young people out there, um you get the world that you are um willing to build. And so young people ultimately become the people in power and they take over and they really will run this thing. And old people, there is just something about looking at somebody who's old as [ __ ] telling you um how you should live.

people just reject it instinctively. Um, I certainly understand that. I remember when I was young thinking, "Oo, man, one day I'm going to be old and I'm going to be the person that just everybody's like, "Oh, that guy's [ __ ] old." And that is the reality. That's the trajectory. And young people should rise up, grab the bull by the horns, and do the thing. My thing is I really want young people to understand, cool, you guys should wrestle the world away from the old people. That's how it's meant to work.

That is how evolution saw fit to set this up. I don't begrudge young people that at all. Um, I would just say make sure that you actually do something that's going to be good for you, that's going to be good for your kids. Um, have your eyes on that prize. You don't owe difference to anybody as I don't owe difference to you. I'm not going to defer to anybody because they're young or because they're female or because they're uh racial minority. I don't give a [ __ ] This is a battle of ideas and I'm going to come at you with my best ideas and I expect you guys to do the same.

But you have youth on your side. And there really is something powerful about youth as an aesthetic. There's something powerful about youth as an energy. There's something powerful that nature made sure that young people come in and stop the society from oifying. However, you can come in and change things but not change it for the better. So I love the energy that young people have. Uh it's absolutely phenomenal. So come in and change things, but make sure that you set a point on the horizon. and you say we're aiming at this and this is why this is better because right now the DSA has set a point on the horizon and that point on the horizon is communism and we have seen that play out and it plays out.

It is an absolute it is a quite literal bloodbath. It's not what I want to see for you guys. Um and you are going to get the world that you want and so if the world that you want is that blood bath, you will suffer the consequences far more than somebody like James Carville who's already knocking on heaven's door. So it's like that's just the reality of age. he's going to tap out and you guys are going to be left to actually deal with that [ __ ] And so I would see say be very careful about what point on the horizon that you're aiming at.

So I get why Bernie is on this side. This is him finally being vindicated with energy for something he's been fighting for for a long time. But when you see somebody like um Newsome starting to say things that sound very DSAish, DSAish, DSAish, um don't be surprised. You're you're going to get more and more of that. It is where the energy is in the party. And by the way, even though the more I study him, the more I absolutely hate his messaging, messaging, messaging, uh, shout out to Hassan [ __ ] Holy [ __ ] that kid has made himself important.

Like, god damn. Uh, and I will say in person, that kid was lovely. He was super nice. Now, the [ __ ] he says is absolutely unhinged. And if you go along with his uh vision of where you're going to end up, it is not going to be a good time for anybody. But nonetheless, he is a very potent voice. Now, the fact that people talk about Hassan [ __ ] and they constantly quote the uh the US deserve 9/11. That is like some basic [ __ ] [ __ ] that he says.

He has essentially screamed into a microphone that people should be out killing capitalists, that the street should run with their blood. I mean, not not things like that. Literally, that uh and people don't bring that [ __ ] up. That's where I'm like, what the [ __ ] like he has advocated for the murder of uh I think a senator or congressman. Uh that was clipped out of context. No, there's no context in which you can say the words, if you actually want to improve things, go kill Rick Scott.

Say [ __ ] that is a direct quote, [ __ ] Pull it up, right? No, stop. stop. stop. I can pull the [ __ ] clip up and play it. it. it. So the whole No, no, no. Just pull the clip. You can play it if I'll pull the If this wasn't bad TV, you could play it for an hour. But like I agree it's it's stupid phrasing, but the clip is clearly taken out of context. That Rick Scott one play the clip. I just I just I just If you cared about fraud or Medicaid, if you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott.

Okay. You wouldn't make Rick Scott, former governor of Florida, Rick Scott. You wouldn't make him the the uh current What is his current office? What is he? He's the Richard Lynn Scott as an American attorney businessman politician, Navy veteran serving as the senior United States senator from Florida. Uh seat he has held since 2019 and also I believe this past election cycle he was I'm waiting for the part where it makes it okay. it okay. it okay. It's the beginning. Did we already hear it? It's the it's if you cared about Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott.

So what happened here? And this is why I'm trying to be precise cuz this happens to a lot of creators. I'm sure this happens to you. I'm sure as we get bigger it's going to happen to you. He said something very hyperbolic, right? And he was making a joke in response to a conversation that some and he watched a clip of I forget if it was a senator or a congressperson who was basically like fraud this, fraud that, all this Medicare fraud. And Hassan was like, "If you really cared about fraud, you would kill Rick Scott." Terrible phrasing, but what he's trying to get at is Rick Scott committed Medicare fraud.

Like he committed fraud. And what happens is, and this is what Drew was saying, we've got your context we've got your context now. now. now. Okay. So, Medicaid fraud, if you cared about it, you would kill the person who perpetrated Medicaid fraud. Now, how would you feel if I said, uh, if you cared about, um, social services fraud, you would kill the woman that just got convicted for the Learing Center. It Here's the thing. It is a different thing in that regard. It is somebody who committed fraud, and I'm saying if you cared about that fraud, you would go kill her.

Okay? I think we just disagree on the comment. comment. comment. That's fine. It's [ __ ] insane. And what I'm saying is if this weren't So, keep in mind Hassan [ __ ] there's video footage of him receiving Ma's little red book and him being just like, "Oh my god, this is incredible." And the guy with him, he didn't say it, but the guy with him said, "This book, some say this book is more important than the Bible." Uh, and Mao killed 45 million people. So, this is a guy who admires uh a an one of, if not the greatest mass murderer ever to walk the earth.

And then he says, "Oh, if you cared about this thing, you would go kill that person." Now, I get it. He's saying, "If you cared about that." Now, flash forward and he's talking about killing capitalists. Let the streets run with their blood. And I think somebody even like in his chat tries to tell him to chill and he just like [ __ ] presses the gas pedal. Now, do I understand that he's a shock jock? Yes, I do. So, I'm not saying arrest him for inciting violence. Not where I'm going with this.

What I'm saying is if you're trying to show that his mentality is anti-American, you do not have to go to the rather tame America deserve 9/11 because that you can actually put policy prescriptions behind it and explain why there's going to be retaliation. So, that one I was always like, okay, [ __ ] you. but never um got to the point where I was like, "This is just murderous." Now, what is outlandishly murderous is basically basically basically uh sing for Mao saying, "If you cared about fraud, you would kill the perpetrators of fraud." That's crazy.

You don't even have to insert a person. Just the statement, "If you cared about fraud, you would kill perpetrators of fraud." That's wild. And so I'm just saying this is somebody that has a totally different mental map of the world and how to handle problems, who does not have a problem with violence as long as he's the one perpetrating the violence. And so that's where this gets crazy. So I'm merely trying to say if you actually want to know what makes him as a uh purveyor of ideas, somebody who I think will lead young people to a place that will be bad for young people.

It is the ideology that's aligned with communism which actually does use violence to get its way. And so he has a history of saying if you had this problem you should turn to violence. And I'm just saying woo that is not something that I think we should be getting behind. That's it. I think that we're at a very pivotal moment right now. Um I've been following politics since George Bush pass. uh to uh not uh No Kid Left Behind because in one year tuition rates increased 15 to 25% and I lost like four or five friends at like my college who couldn't afford school anymore because the tuition increase cuz everybody was getting forced to graduate and student loans was free and everybody was just taking them and going and going to school.

Um, and at that point I was like, "Okay, what politicians past actually like in fact like impact my life. So I'm gonna like pay attention to this a little bit more." And I think it's interesting where we are right now because where the DSA is doing to the Democrats is very very very simple and very very very almost identical to what the Tea Party did to the Republican party or the Bolevixs to the Mencheviks. Yes. Uh, I'm talking about America because I feel like it's a very specific system and system and system and I think they're actually running the other playbook.

But go ahead. But I want to hear the full point. Yeah. The the full point that I'm saying is that where where a party starts, there's fringe ideas. The entire birther movement was based off of Obama's not really an American and he's taking over the country. He's going to lead communism here. The communist revolution never came. Um I guess they were wrong about that. But but the birther movement didn't it? didn't it? didn't it? And it was Obama's fault. Hassan is Obama's fault. What are we talking about?

I'm I've strike that down. Remove that from the record. We have better arguments. arguments. arguments. Meaning you take back that never arrive. No, we have better arguments than that. Come on, we're not going to get into that pigeon hole. That's a distraction. Um, but the birthers led to the Tea Party. The Tea Party teamed up with Occupy Wall Street cuz this was right around the time that the economic down uh turn happened. So, the economic wall the uh Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party were like, "Hey, the establishment hates us.

We need to go anti-establishment." That party out like grew together. Then Trump came and was like, "Oo, it's a bunch of people who are very very mad and want to drain the swamp. I could drain the swamp. Hey guys, I'll be the leader of this party." and he took the Republican party and they he's been taking it ever since. What I am fearful of is that I do think Hassan [ __ ] being the face of violence on the streets, I think that that's not really true. I think he's a streamer.

Streamers are supposed to say dumb [ __ ] We have the people on the left who say dumb [ __ ] Glenn Beck says dumb [ __ ] to Republicans um at that point. So we have talking heads. Laura Loomer is saying dumb [ __ ] Now our president says dumb [ __ ] We we have people who say dumb we have people who say dumb things to rally up their base and get people going. So I'm not going to say that Hassan [ __ ] is the face. But what I am going to say is that Hassan [ __ ] cracks the door open to the DSA takeover of the Democrats.

And then there might be some charismatic leader who's like, "Oh, there's a bunch of people who are anti-establishment that wants a one party system. Let me take it over and then I will become that big bad guy that actually is going to come." So, I do give you credit there because I do think that they are less they are setting the seeds for a charismatic [ __ ] to take over and become Mao. Yes, that is true. I give it to you. I give the concession. However, I think that that that what we're doing right now of let's just talk about young people.

Let's say that they're being distracted. Let's address what they believe and not how they feel or their problems, I think is a miss right now. And I think where politics is right now, we're discussing streamers. We're discussing whether somebody said what they said three years ago versus actual politics, actual policy, actual laws being passed, actual bills being passed. We need to have more C-SPAN and less CNN. We need to have more Senate and House floor and less Twitch stream recaps. And I think that that's something that we should encourage our audience to do as well.

I don't want you to say what you got from another podcast to own me. I'm not trying to own you. I think we should actually read the appropriation bill that we all passed because it passed without none of us being mad. But every time the Save Act gets struck down, we spend 30 minutes on the Save Act. But we don't talk about the bill that allowed the SP the bill that allowed Morocco to have a claim over North Africa and allow the um that fueled the Moroccan government to say, "Okay, you can take over Sueta." And then now we're talking about Sueta as this Islam immigrant takeover.

But we didn't talk about the steps and the seeds that the government plants before they do that big thing. So I would just ask everybody respectfully. I love everybody. I want us all to win. I want America be a great place. I don't have fu money. I'm not about just hop in a jet and leave and let America burn. I will be here holding my kid trying to not burn in in the process. But I think that we need to all just come to the terms that we're all being propagandized.

We're all being lied to. There are immigrants who yes want America to burn. And there are Republicans who don't give a [ __ ] about America and just want to make as much money as possible. All those things can be true at the same time. I think us as American citizens need to realize what actually is important and focus on what's actually is important and let's just stop trying to dissect the 30 second clip to see what he meant and what it can possibly lead to and let's talk about the mechanisms in place like money and politics that actually leads to these um perversions.

Um okay, all of that was absolutely brilliant. If you can just confirm that the feed is correct cuz on my side it just went super weird. Um, that would be great. great. great. I see people. Yeah, mine's working. Mine is not, which is very strange. I see the replay. Do command R. Anyway, well, not if you guys are good, I'm good. Um, okay. So, here is what I'll say. You I'll look at you like a policy wonk and you have this rebuttal many times where I'm going down a path and then you're like, but hey, we're not talking about like housing improvement and things like that.

Okay. So, um, you're the policy wonk of the show. Uh, for people that don't know that term, it's people that are obsessed with what does the actual policy say. I think that's great and I love that and I think that you um, while I don't love it as a reorienting mechanism because I think you're wrong to do that, I think that you're right to make sure that those things get covered. I think that's brilliant. Now, here's where um I think you have made a um you're you're doing something that makes you valuable because it's different and it's good to have another voice.

Here's why I completely understand what you're saying and believe that the thing that I am obsessed with in this moment is far more important than the policy wonk thing. And that is when you said the the very thing you said I want struck from the record and we've got better arguments is where I think you're making a mistake. a mistake. a mistake. And it goes like this. Politics is downstream of culture. So who has a better bill of rights than America? Russia. Uh under uh Stalin their bill of rights it was extraordinary.

And it was like you can't if anybody even tries to suppress your free speech, they're going to be dealt with. Okay, we know the reality of that is what's known as a parchment guarantee. Meaning it might be on paper, but it isn't what they actually enforced. And what matters is what actually gets enforced. And there uh Justice Scalia did a whole talk about this, actually quite brilliant. I think he's dead now, but uh anyway, his videos live on and you can go look at them. So understanding that you have when you fight for the soul of a country, you're actually fighting for the cultural beliefs.

You're not fighting for the policies. The policies only matter if the culture is aligned with them. And so what I'm saying is no, no, no. The very thing, especially in a populist moment, the very thing that you have to do if you want to win the soul of young people is really the most important thing is you have to address like you were saying, what do they feel? Where are they trying to go? What is the world that they're trying to bring in? What did we break or um not fix because it was broken before we got here, but hey, we just rode along with it that is now making their life worse.

All of those things have to be addressed. But if we don't understand that, I don't know that there's any causal link because I was not paying attention to politics at this time. I don't know that there's any causal link between Obama and the DSA. But what I do know is that if you're telling me that people were saying the communists are coming, the communists are [ __ ] here. And so I'm like, whoa. I literally until you said that, I've never heard that before. I never heard that anybody was saying back in the Obama days, this is going to lead to communism.

So now I'm hearing that live for the first time and I'm like, holy [ __ ] holy [ __ ] holy [ __ ] we have communism. So if people were saying this is going to lead to communism, now I'm like, [ __ ] what the hell? Like I'm going to have to go back and did we start planting seeds? Because I always saw the rise of the DSA as being this totally separate thing that had to do with youth culture finding their way to communist ideas because of the long march through the institutions which started a very long time ago in the west born out of France comes over here they literally say this is how we're going to win and we start doing this and I've said many times the long march of the institutions is a phrase it's not like Tom trying to be descriptive it's a phrase because it was known because They documented it and said, "This is what we're going to do." That's what I thought gave us the DSA.

So, if people are saying, "Well, Obama was actually a product of that. He's a step on this continuum that has now led us." I'll need to look at that. But that is not something to turn away from. And man, I get it. We all have a thing that we respond to. Mhm. And the thing that I respond to because of the way that I'm wired and because of the reading that I've done about history, I I am absolutely the alarm bell for people to understand that communism is the single most murderous um governmental style that humanity has ever brought to bear.

And that if we want to debate, we don't actually want communism. We want the free market authoritarianism that China does. We can have that debate separately. But these guys are openly celebrating Mao. They are openly saying we need to get rid of borders. They are openly saying that we need to get rid of the police. And I promise you what will replace the police is the Czecha. Look it up. And so this is one of those things I I am that alarm bell and I will sound that alarm bell out of moral obligation.

Because remember, anybody listening to my voice right now, I think what I'm doing right now is bad for business, not good for business. This is the worst thing that I could be doing when I'm trying to launch a video game. The only reason that I don't stop doing it, it isn't because I don't have the money. It is because I literally will not be able to look myself in the eye if I get on a private flight and I flee and America burns behind me. And I felt like I didn't [ __ ] do anything to try to stop this.

I could have. and instead I was following my passions and building this game and pretending that I couldn't see or hear what was happening around me. And so literally we had a meeting yesterday where the partnerships team was expressing hey now they were actually very um open to letting me go and I appreciate that very much. It is hard to find uh partners as good as they are and but they were saying listen there are some things that you cover that create a problem for us economically.

We have lost deals because of the things that I have said. We literally had somebody say, "Because of things Tom has said about Islam, I am now taking your advertising dollars away." And my response is, "I get it. I'm not going to stop saying it, but I get it. I understand. They need to do what they need to do." So, none of this is anything other than me going, "Holy shit." Like, America was good to me. Really good to me. And it was good to me because of a set of structures that can be repaired.

And so I need to help people repair those. Now there will be a policy wonk side of this which is why I love that you represent that. But to diminish that, we do have to have the cultural battle that we have to talk about the the like biggest soldiers in the march to communism, which right now is a one-two punch of um Mam Donnie and uh Hassan [ __ ] That that's your one-two punch. They are two of the dream team. there are going to be more and we are absolutely going to have to say here is the idea that they're putting forward and this is why it's a terrible idea and I want to reiterate he is a shock jock he needs to say things that are provocative it is an extraordinarily good strategy if you can stomach it emotionally I cannot I can only say what I believe to be true but it's an extraordinarily good strategy if you're willing to say things you don't necessarily believe in to get people's attention and so he's done a phenomenal job of building a very large audience and animating them with this kind of rhetoric to soak the streets with the blood of capitalists and things like that.

Hey, I get it. I'm not saying he is um instigating violence. I know many people make that argument. I think in totality it does. I think that it actually um creates a millure in society where people want to be violent. But my belief on that is you've got to unless he actually said go kill Rick Scott then to me total pass. I've got I'm happy to be in the war with ideas. I am using that that example not to say that he called for people to go kill Rick Scott.

I'm saying that there's, in my opinion, there's no excuse for saying if you believed in actually fighting fraud, you would go kill Rick Scott because I think you can put enough together to see that he actually does think that violence is the right answer for certain problems. He has said it over and over again. And so when you take it as a gestalt, I'm not saying go arrest him. What I'm saying is these are terrible ideas. Do not buy into these ideas. as a culture. This is absolutely piss poor.

And instead, and this honestly, I I have a feeling I'm gonna be saying this a lot, and boy, do I feel weird as somebody who doesn't even believe that God is real. This is going to end up being a collision of what is you've got. Um certainly radical Islam, you can just say this is about the the concept of jihad, of waging war. Let's assume it's an analogy. It's a very potent analogy. And if everything that you come at you do with a like we've got to do this in the spirit of waging war, then you've got Christianity which is the spark of the divine is in the individual and if you take my coat, let me give you my shirt.

The these are just very different metaphors and the metaphors will echo. Now the great irony of my life is I'm more of the war metaphor guy. I'm far more drawn to that rhetoric of ah but when I look at like oo we're in a time where the war rhetoric gets a little hairy doesn't mean I'm not going to use it. I find myself incredibly drawn to that. So I can see it like slipping out of my mouth. Uh and then somebody playing this clip back. It it is that I find myself being like oh actually we need to be reminding ourselves there is a spark of divinity in each of us.

We cannot be pushovers. Absolutely. We must draw the line. And and I used to wear this shirt uh called the Lord's Gym and it was like a picture of Christ [ __ ] bloodied and pushing up and the cross is on his back and it's big and [ __ ] heavy. I can't tell you how much that [ __ ] speaks to me. But we have to find a way to be both like this is what America is. This is what it stands for and I'm not going to back down. Uh I'm not going to um ease off of what I believe and be very careful about uh our rhetoric and the vision of what we're trying to paint for people.

both where we want to get and the method we're going to use to get there. And so maybe I am a voice that will never be able to to capture the spirit of this moment. That's fine. I'm here to earn my own respect. But I think it is very important that we fight the cultural battle. We cannot simply go, "Oh, but we need to talk about housing policy." We need to talk about housing policy. That is incredibly potent. But what we don't want to do is say, "Oh, this is a ridiculous waste of time to address something that one of the most influential voices in America is saying because politics, those policies are downstream of culture." Heard culture is culture is important.

I concede that point. I do want to clarify though, Obama wasn't the lead to the DSA. DSA. DSA. Thank God. Love that. Okay. I think those are two separate issues. I have s dude as somebody who was just old enough to to be um completely swept up. I wasn't paying attention to politics, but when he got elected, I was euphoric. So, I want him upon analysis to be extraordinary. I don't know. I've never looked at looked at looked at PSA doesn't like him, though. They call him a wararmonger because he was he was the OG droner.

Y'all forget Obama told y'all how this drone thing works. He blew up everybody. Hey. Uh, all right. Let's jump over to Japan. Uh, or I should say Washington because Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant is urging the Federal Reserve to help defend the Japanese yen after the US Treasury's intervention failed to stabilize the currency. Bessent wants to Fed to expand its FEMA dollar lending facil facility, allowing the bank of Japan to support the yen without selling US treasuries. Analysts warn the move could spook markets, deepen concerns over the yen, and test the Fed's independence.

What Scott Besson is doing is not going to save the yen. Let's be abundantly clear about that. And this is a systemic risk that could end up impacting all of your money. And that is what Besson is actually trying to deal with. I don't think he secretly cares about the yen at all. But let's get into the facts. Tuesday, Besson told CNBC it's reasonable for the Fed to consider upsizing the FEMA offering for Japan so they can further defend the yen if needed. Now, if you don't know what FEMA is, FEMA is a different FEMA from the emergency response.

This is FIM AA. It allows countries to borrow against their US Treasury holdings. So, you've got a bunch of US debt. Cool. We're going to let you borrow against that. So, you can raise cash without having to sell your treasuries. Now, in the case of yen, they're trying to do that so that the Japanese can defend the yen without having to sell their treasuries. They are the largest holder of US treasuries. Now, Besson said the purpose of these facilities is just to protect the US economy and keep volatility offshore.

I think that's bang- on correct. I think he's right to be focused on that. I think that you're going to need the Japanese bubble to deflate slowly. You do not want this to burst overnight. It will be way too traumatic. Now, when you take that his as his actual objective, then all of this starts to make more sense. And Bessant right now is talking warm and fuzzy about Japan. But as a reminder, and I hate that this is true. This is certainly not my vision of the way that the US ought to be.

But we have had our highest diplomats say this in the past. It's a very famous quote I think from Kissinger. Uh but the quote is roughly the US doesn't have allies. It just has interests. So when I hear Bessant talk warm and fuzzy about Japan and I see him almost holding hands uh with the prime minister of Japan, they were sort of shaking hands, sort of holding hands. It was very interesting. Um what I see is somebody who is an economic shark. Remember he made an obscene amount of personal wealth off of breaking the back of the British pound.

So this is not somebody who is known for thinking about the welfare of other countries. He's somebody who understands the economic uh machinery and he knows how to leverage it. So with that in mind, um I think we need to look at this uh through that lens. Now, we're making sure that the economic stress that the Japanese are feeling right now doesn't spread to the US because uh if we ignore their economic stress, they're even though I think they're doing things that don't make sense, I don't think they're going to be able to defend the yen through anything other than economic growth.

But if we don't create this facility through FEMA to allow them to borrow against their debt to defend the yen, they will sell that debt. that will create a gap in um our own ability to raise debt, which remember we have a $2 trillion roughly deficit every year. And so we don't want to be in a position where there isn't appetite for our debt, the less appetite there is for our debt with money that's already out in the world, the more we have to print money to buy our own debt.

And so we don't want to see ourselves in that position, which is, by the way, the exact position that Japan is in. They own I think 50% or more of their own debt, which is absolute insanity. absolute insanity. absolute insanity. But nonetheless, that's Japan. They're going to have to deal with that. So, it makes sense from that perspective. But there are going to be realities to be faced. Um because I think Japan is going to keep attempting and failing to defend their currency. And so that's going to put us in a very difficult situation.

The 10-year TR Treasury traded above, this is in the US, traded above 4.7% last week. Now, if Japan raises intervention dollars the normal way it sells its treasuries, that yield is going to climb. And so, that obviously would put us in a bad position. We have to roll over a ton of debt this year. And so, we want people to believe that, you know, interest rates are are nice and steady. There's they're not going to be going up. Ideally, they'd be going down. So Besson is pushing for for more FEMA so that it would stop that specifically from happening.

So the real lens is that Washington is defending its own bond market and Tokyo is just getting the currency support as a side effect. The Fed so far has declined to comment about whether they're going to make more funds available or not. So remember, you've got the Treasury, you've got the Fed, they are separate. Okay, supposedly the Fed is independent. Now I secretly think that that's probably the exact opposite. I think Tom's feelings, this is you're going to hear this denied until the end of time, but I think Walsh and Trump met.

Again, this is me prognosticating. I don't have any information to this point. Uh, but I think that they met and I think Trump was like, "Listen, bro. There are things that I need to get done and I need to know that you're the guy that already believes and wants these things." So, we're not colluding. We're just on the same page. And there was some talk about, "I do, but listen, I think there's going to be a ton of deflation from AI. um I'm going to have to do things, especially in the early days, that may seem counterintuitive to you.

I'm not going to lower rates right away because it's going to make it seem like you actually are telling me to do things when we both know you're not telling me to do it. It's just that we both agree on the long-term vision of where we need to end up. It was something like that. Way too many winks and nudges and nods, but enough plausible deniability that if somebody were secretly recording the conversation, it would have been fine. Again, that's just my speculation. I am making this up based on what I believe to be true about humans in general uh and these two specifically.

So that is roughly where we are now. Again, they haven't commented yet. So the Fed, this is what we're talking about. They haven't commented on expanding FEMA and it would require an FOMC vote and the committee isn't even scheduled to meet until midepptember. So that's all a big question mark. Now turning our eyes to Japan. Takayichi's cabinet approved a 21.3 trillion yen stimulus package which is the largest since the pandemic. 11.7 trillion yen for cost of living relief. 7.2 trillion yen for 17 strategic sectors including AI, semiconductors, and ship building.

And she's saying this is just responsible, proactive fiscal policy. So, hey, yes, we're going to have to um incur all of this debt, but it's a good idea because quite frankly, things are destabil destabilizing with China. We're going to have to take care of that. Inflation is hitting us. So, we're going to have to deal with that. That's the cost of living stuff. and then just make sure that we're taking care of infrastructure so that we can be um certainly with AI a technological superpower which Japan has historically been until they hit this malaise where they're just now riddled with these zombie companies that aren't actually innovating for yet another one of the reasons I want to keep government out of industry because when the government is just pumping you full of cheap money then these companies can't by artificially holding rates low these companies can stay in business effective effectively forever because all they have to do is clear the hurdle of the interest, the ridiculously low interest on their loans.

They don't actually have to be a profitable business. It's crazy. They suck up all this talent. The talent, much like the government uh during um under Biden was sucking out all of the talent out of the uh normal economy. Um you want to get these people out of these zombie companies and into truly innovative companies. Okay, this is all from Japan's perspective. All something part of what they call Abay Namics. So their previous uh prime minister was a guy named Shinszo Abbe. He ended up being uh assassinated by the way, but he had a particular playbook and Takayuchi came up under him.

Now Abbe ran basically the Abay Nomics experiment for about eight years. Had three arrows in their quivers they always talked about. So arrow one was easy money, arrow two was government spending. uh and you fire them um like constantly and then arrow three was structural reform. The problem is the structural reform wasn't working. So they were doing arrows one and two but it never actually got the structural reform. And the question becomes why? And the fact that they didn't get the structural reform is what all eyes need to be on because this is why trying to borrow money against their US treasuries to defend the yen I don't think is going to work in the final analysis because the only thing that's actually going to shore up the yen long term is people wanting to buy assets in Japan with their yen.

that will keep a strong appetite because as Japan raises their rates, what ends up happening is people start liquidating the Japanese yen carry trade and they're getting out of yen. So you might see a temporary spike, but then there's just less demand for yen over time because people aren't taking those loans out. And so as the every time the government of Japan defends the yen, people become more convinced that Japan is in economic trouble, which means that there not a place to invest. So very ironically, the more they try to defend the yen, the weaker they actually make it, the more they have to defend it, which makes it even weaker.

And what they should be doing is just saying, "All right, look, this is going to suck, and the yen is going to drop in value, but that's going to allow us to actually do the real structural reforms, get rid of all these zombie companies, which means they will have to die, which means that employees will become unemployed, which means we then have to find a way to actually grow our economy." And the problem is they don't have any great ideas now spending the money on the infrastructure at least for AI saying look AI is going to be part of the future and we cannot be beholden to all these other countries we can't be waiting for China to do the free models we can't be beholden to the US for their very expensive but cutting edge frontier models we need to control our own destiny that that has to be the playbook and looking to somebody like SoftBank which has been sending money all over the world with these insane investments that have actually paid off but uh just an insane amount of capital that's gone elsewhere.

You want the incentive structure for that guy to be investing internally in Japan given that he is Japanese. So you've got to deal with that kind of thing to create those incentives so that the money flows into Japan because that's the right place for the money. You're not doing it because you have some obligation to Japan, which is what I fear they're going to do. I fear they're going to pull a gun out and tell people, "Hey, you're Japanese. you're going to be investing your money here even if it's a terrible return.

We'll see. We There have been these mystic mysterious tweets that have been happening on X to that effect, but uh Japan actually hasn't taken any policy action like that yet. So, we'll see. But if they don't fix the growth of their economy, this is never going to work. So, we we are now in a wait andsee strategy. But I don't love that the global markets, especially the US, are so tied into what Japan is doing. So, we are going to have to unwind this carefully. So, I understand why Bessant is getting involved, but dear investors, you need to pay attention to this and react accordingly.

Don't keep trying to eek out every dollar of the yen carry trade. This obviously is not financial advice. Um, but I would really think through what are the mechanisms at play here. What is Bessant really trying to signal? What is really going on? And then what does that mean for your money? It's going to be consequential. For some reason, I'm I'm less apprehensive about this again because Scott Bessant, I got the paper Scott Bessant, I got the paper um Treasury Secretary has done it time and time again.

And I do think that I am team. I want the stock market to collapse so that way the housing market can collapse right behind it. But I do feel like Japan has been holding us down. And I feel like Japan is who we think Israel is because as we've been giving them money and they've been saying all this, we're your number one ally. Japan has been paying us for years and we bombed them. Like Japan could have been petty and not inflate our currency and not participate in capitalism as they done.

They could have been very vindictive and because of where we started to how we are now. So, I'm less like I I feel like we need a stronger Japan to make America like I'm okay with that tie. Am I just being like distracted in that? Like, no, no, not at all. Like, you're you're giving a a like philosophical emotional answer. And I would say I love a strong Japan. Japan's a tremendous ally. Uh the more you research Japan, I think the more you'll be excited by, oh, I love that the US and Japan are allies.

And this is like the greatest example of, okay, we had real beef and we managed to get over it. They became an extraordinary country. We have benefited economically. We certainly benefit by having a very strong ally uh right off the shore of China. Uh so there are a lot of great things and China or sorry Japan is the great exporter of culture right now. So our kids whether we want to believe it or not are being wildly influenced by the Japanese and so oh man I want this to work out well.

I certainly do not want the stock market to crash to get your housing prices to come down because that certainly isn't necessary. That would be a replay of 2008 which was absolutely devastating and I don't think we've recovered even yet. But on the housing thing, we should definitely want to radically end nimiism. We should we have to break people's uh mental model for a house is the way that you should be thinking about getting rich. It's not going to be easy because it's the only asset class people understand.

But nonetheless, we're we're going to have to put in some work there. Um so yeah, I want to see that come through supply and demand. Just build more houses anyway. uh with the Japan. The reason that you're right and we should all want this to play out well for Japan and for the rest of the world is that Japan has sort of unintentionally sacrificed for the rest of the world. They thought by keeping the Japanese yen artificially uh sorry their interest rates artificially low that Japanese investors would get these cheap loans and grow these extraordinary companies and it did not happen.

But then they were trapped and they had no way out of it because um if you just let the companies fail because everybody is, you know, under all this debt, um you're going to be in trouble. And then Japan started buying so much of its own debt that it now needs to keep rates low because if the rates start going up, Japan itself has to pay the interest rates on that stuff because they are just having to soak up so much of their own um debt to keep that market going.

So they're like, "Damn, we don't want the rates to go up." But for them to restructure and get back to a positive inflation story because they're going to use uh inflation as the mechanism, then they have to build companies that innovate so that uh basically wages are going up, companies are growing, workers are able to demand better wages because they're offering so much power to these companies. And then that creates a positive inflation story. I'm put positive in quotes. Uh but they are creating not a printingled inflation run, but instead they're creating an innovation power of the worker inflation, which puts you in a much better my quality of life is actually going up.

People can afford more, people charge more. And as long as that ratio is better to you, you're getting richer over time and not better to the um the asset class because inflation is driving asset values up over time and then everybody's getting poorer that we want to see them get into that situation given the the way that things are. to do that. This needs to be a slow and orderly transition where everybody who actually took advantage of the carry trade, basically Japanese people, but then they sent the money out and then people all over the world who borrowed in yen and then sent the money out.

Um, we need them to nice and slowly bring that money back. Uh, but that's going to need to play out over years, not months. Um, so I'm really hoping that people are just reading the tea leaves and are willing to leave some money on the table, which they probably won't. Even saying that sentence, I'm like, "Oh god." Uh, but leave some money on the table to remove risk. And um, it's certainly a trade I make every day, but it is not a trade that most people make.

Somebody said, "We need Japan to be good, otherwise we won't get our Gundams." So, Gundams." So, Gundams." So, a fact. be like we I we haven't talked about this yet, but they announced a uh Neon Genesis Evangelion continuation, which I was just I was watching that cuz you Yeah, you've been banging that, bro. It's so good. But bro. It's so good. But it's one where you're going to be like, "Wait, kids were watching this." It Yeah, it gets pretty intense. Um All right, let's jump into some super chats.

We got a few super chats to go through. We got four. Yeah, super chat. First up comes from Brutus Lugo. Tom, a lot of these immigrants are our mothers, fathers, cousins, etc. In New York City, we don't give a [ __ ] if taxpayer dollars help them a bit. Um, well, so I would say be careful, any of us, for speaking on behalf of everybody. I think that America, New York included, is far more divided. Um, certainly New York is far more left-leaning than say um Nebraska, but uh I don't think that it's universal.

The big problem is that there's a big difference between wanting to help people and putting things in place structurally to actually help people. And so seeing people go, okay, this is something I've said a lot. We can have whatever we want. We just can't have everything that we want. So what is it that we want to help people with? What are we going to make sure that people get for free? And then make sure that you build the structure so that it can be self- sustaining.

The thing that we broke is this idea of, oh, this needs to be self-sustaining. The only thing that we have that's self- sustaining is money printing. Obviously, I've talked endlessly about the dangers of that. We're also, I think, already very deep into the moral hazard where you have a very large number of people that are um net receivers. So, they receive more from the government than they pay, which basically means they're being paid to be citizens. And so, um, when you get into that situation, you've created an incentive where people are actually better off not working than they are working.

And I think we could do a whole treatise on this. That that's where you really get yourself into trouble. And this is where I'd be interesting one day, Drew, for you and I to to do an analysis of when was black America at its best. Was it when it was more isolationist, Black Wall Street? Obviously, racism [ __ ] that up. It gets bombed. All that [ __ ] But I'm just saying there's I think enough data and enough historical context to say were they actually better off there where it was like strong family units.

We're going to take care of oursel. We're going to do our thing. And then you look at the metrics or because my mental model I haven't done a deep dive on this but my mental model is that what ended up breaking um black society and creating this like permanent battle with um poverty is the breaking of the family. And so maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's my current mental model. And so I'd be very interested to see if that actually holds up under scrutiny. If it does hold up under scrutiny, you get into, okay, this becomes a problem where you create an incentive structure like what we're talking about in New York where you say, hey, immigrants, come one, come all uh but come because you're going to get this free handout.

Now you create a dependency loop. And the question is how do we get them out of that? How do we create a um an incentive structure for them to become people that contribute? Like let me I'll I'll run a fantasy scenario. This isn't real yet. We have not put the mechanisms in place. But um if our birth rate isn't strong enough, then bringing people immigrants in is one very powerful solution to do that. And if we create an incentive structure for the most entrepreneurial-minded people on planet Earth and we just get them to pile into America with basically, obviously I'm making this up, but if we said, "Listen, we'll help you for the first six months to get on your feet, but then after that you're on your own, and if you don't hit certain metrics, uh, we ship you back or it's like, well, you just can't get any, uh, more federal dollars, whatever." I have not thought deeply enough not I have not thought deeply enough about this to know if that's a good idea.

But if you want to understand sort of what I want to be true, it would be something like that where we get the best and the brightest, the most entrepreneurial-minded. Not just people that are already wealthy, but people that are really like, yo, I'm here because I want to do something. I want to rise up. I want to contribute. I want to do something rad, but like [ __ ] I can't just arrive and be homeless. Um, so whatever it takes to get the most entrepreneurial-minded people on Earth that share American values, I want to do.

Now, notice the huge caveat of share American values. Uh, and so it becomes obviously difficult to vet people, but that'd be awesome. So, I'm not somebody who's just like, I don't want anybody else to be here. I'm just like, [ __ ] The math of trying to pay for this all the um the danger that you create for yourself when the incentive structure to come here is to get free things is just horrific. And I I really think it does something to the human psyche when people do not have to um fight for their shelter, their food.

And we have gotten into this weird place where it's like, "No, that's a right and it should just be taken care of for you. It should be taken care of by the government, the people that are good at it. They're making enough money. There's a surplus there and it should just be handed to other people." I I really think evolution set us up where that just [ __ ] people up and it completely breaks them. Call that the rich kid problem. It's just that we're the government is rich and we're creating rich kid problems with all the people that are not having to fight for their survival.

And I know people are not going to like that. This is again me saying, listen, I respond to war type language. But that idea of like, yo, I've really got to go do this thing. There's nobody coming to rescue me. That's very important. We pay for their education for scheas. That would be one I'm putting my full weight behind. Uh, if we want to pay for healthcare, awesome. We have to do it in a smart way, not the way we're [ __ ] doing now, where we spend more per person and get worse results.

But like, I'm all for that [ __ ] It's just got to be self- sustaining. Okay, that was a very long answer to that. Uh, but anyway, that's how I see that. Rebel Without a Cause says, "Every time they chant death to America, a school gets bombed 24 hours ago. Bro, the Marine Corps himline to the shores to the Tripoli comes from the origin of our country and fighting Islamic pirates." Yeah, y'all don't know history. Yeah, also true. Uh yeah, I mean, look, we can get into the Tripoli of it all, but people aren't going to like that answer.

answer. answer. Let's dive into that. Okay. So, Tripoli, uh, Africa, we were sending ships around the world, um, as you do in commerce, and they were getting grabbed by the Barbarie pirates. And the Barbarie pirates were enslaving, uh, the people that they caught. And so, they were taking Europeans into slavery, Americans into slavery. And so, yes, many American were sold into slavery by the Islamic Barbarie pirates. And so, um, Jefferson when he gets into office, uh, sends over a delegation and is like, "Why are you doing this?" And I forget who he was talking to.

He talked to an ambassador somewhere. And the ambassador says, "Well, our Quran says that if you're a non-believer, then it's okay for us to behead, enslave, etc." Uh, and so he was like, "Holy shit." So anyway, he ends up um getting himself a Quran, reading the Quran, trying to figure out why these guys believe what they believe. Uh, and then we realize, okay, we're going to have to go to war. And so he sends people to fight them um and uses force. And so that was his read on that after hearing directly from their emissary that we are doing this not because we hate you.

Uh we are doing this because the Quran says that we can is how it's usually represented. And I don't know the actual words. If he said can or if he said obligated to uh if he said jihad, I don't none of that. I know. I'd have to go much deeper on this. Uh but yeah, that's the story of Tripoli. That's how it ends up in the song. So I'm curious, right? When we talk about death to America in this context, he was saying that we had beef with Islam since Tripoli.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the assumption that I'm doing a a cause and effect change of logic. That assumption is that we've always been at beef with um Islam. Well, yeah. I mean, that's in an American context, sure. But I would say that we've had a steady beef with Islam. No, that'd be a massive exaggeration. Okay. Okay. Okay. But if you from my perspective, but if you look at Christianity, Christianity has had a long-standing and current beef with Islam. with Islam. with Islam. Uh you don't have to go far to find Christians literally right now today almost certainly as we are talking um being killed, captured, enslaved in Africa.

Africa. Africa. So, um this is an ongoing beef um with Christians and Islam colliding. And you can look at the the history of both. Uh how does Christianity conquer versus how does uh Islam conquer? They are different. Um and by the way, I saw this really cool video of [ __ ] It's I need shortorthhand for this so I don't have to explain every time why I I'm mentioning a video that I don't have a link to. Um but it's one that I was like whoa that's interesting but was like I don't know how to [ __ ] talk about this.

So anyway, the whitest kid you can imagine. I'm talking [ __ ] Hitler would have been proud of this kid. The whitest kid the world because he wasn't American. The whitest kid the world has ever produced. The blondest hair uh on the beach like [ __ ] shirtless six-pack abs just looking white white. And I forget where he's from, Norway or something. And the guy was like, "Why are you um why'd you convert to Islam?" And he gives this whole story and he was dating this Christian and she he was raised atheist.

This Christian girl that he was dating got him turned on this idea of God. And he was like, "Wow, this is really cool." But he was like, "I was having trouble finding a lot of answers." And so I end up finding Islam. My best friend was Muslim. And so he started telling me about the prophet Muhammad. And just all the answers come rushing in. The girl gives me an ultimatum. and it's her or Islam. I choose Islam. Cool. So, here's the the whitest kid the world has ever produced is uh Muslim.

And so, this is why I'm driven crazy when people are like, "This is about race." It's not about race, man. This is about um you've got And here's the bad news. Like if you're if you don't want your country to become um Islamic, Islamic, Islamic, they've got a lot of cool [ __ ] going for them. Like if you're into war, dude, they've got dope ass stories. Like their their prophet, so you've got Jesus, super chill. You take my jacket, I'm going to give you my shirt. Then you've got um you [ __ ] with me and I'm going to take your head.

And listen, there's something to be said for that. That's pretty [ __ ] cool. And so I could just see like this guy, he was doing all the hum and like again, whitest kid you've ever seen in your life. And I was like, "Yeah, there is something dope." Like if you didn't grow up with it and they've got like all these words and they just do things super differently. I get the appeal and it's like super masculine and very aggressive. I get it. I get why people get down.

So, but nonetheless, these are going to collide. But I say that to remind people this is an ideology. This is not a race. So, don't lose sight of that. You had Sorry. You had asked something I think slightly different than what I ended up answering. It's doesn't matter. Okay. It's a friend. All right. Fire away. Swirling dragon mist says, "I theorized the zombie genre is the repressed expression of political violence. The zombie disease being incurable, a proxy to express murderous anger towards foregone ideological conclusions. Not my thing.

Haha. thing. Haha. thing. Haha. You might be taken with that. That's interesting. Read the the la last sentence of that again. Uh the zombie disease being incurable, a proxy to express murderous anger towards foregone ideological conclusions. The woke mind. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Um, I have the zombie thing actually came up. Like there is a historical story here which unfortunately I don't know well enough to repeat. So that might be what it is in a modern context where you feel like people are just mindless NPCs.

And so um I could see that right now people using that genre to talk about that people that you feel have been captured can't be persuaded or sort of mindless. But there's something about the slow and lumbering thing that I think has to be taken into account that feels like if you've got a sprinter zombie movie, I could see that because the um the animist that people have, regardless of what side you're on, you don't look across and see bumbling idiots. You look across and see this hyperdestructive uh existential risk.

That's how the left and the right talk about each other right now. Um so maybe yes to sprinter zombies and no to lumbering. I don't know. It's interesting. It's interesting. interesting. interesting. Uh, last super chat for now. Mad or last super chat we have. Mad GP45 says, "It's not okay to take someone's livelihood and definitely never okay to refer to death or killing. They do they do mean it coworker dismissing death threats lead thousands to millions dying because they disagree. Thanks Tom making it clear." it clear." it clear." Word.

Yeah. Uh, I agree. I'm not a big cancel culture fan. U, what do I really think? Like even Hassan, I think he should be able to do his thing. uh Asmin Gold should be able to do his thing and both of them say some pretty crazy [ __ ] Um so yeah, even the DSA like I actually think they say things that will lead to uh murder at scale and they should be able to fight for their ideas. So yeah, cool. All right, first up, Marushia Dark says, "Communism versus capitalism with state controls, aka the Chinese model, is a distinction without a difference.

The problem is authoritarian and authoritarianism and coercive force. No one has an issue with voluntary Amish communes, for instance. Dude, I'm with you. Uh it is wild to me that people are like, "Oh, like they're getting good results now. I'm perfectly happy to accept an authoritarian dictator." And those same people in the same breath will freak out that Trump is acting like a dictator. Xihinping actually is a dictator. So that [ __ ] is wild wild. wild wild. wild wild. That's true. That's true. That's true. Heisenberg says, "Sorry, I'm behind.

There needs to be a bright effing line that calling for political violence is unacceptable for a streamer and influencer to do unless you think civil war is a good thing. No excuse for proddding mentally unstable to kill." Yeah. Uh yeah, I'm I have more leeway for people to say what they're going to say as long as they're not directly calling for violence. Uh I certainly understand your position. Um, again, my thing on that was just trying to show people what his actual mentality is. Uh, because I think people give him a pass because he's hip, he's young, uh, he's eloquent, he captures that energy, but yo, it is a literal murderous agenda.

Cringe 8373 with a $100 super chat. Hey, let's go with the $100 super chat. Hey, we out here for real. Thank you. That's appreciate it, appreciate it, appreciate it, Tom. This is my thank you to Drew and the rest of the team. I think this discourse is important for our society, especially with all the garbage on YouTube, YouTube, YouTube, man. Thank you. That is amazing. And I appreciate the love that you have for the team. These guys are dope. Uh, and I appreciate them very much as well.

Shout out to Cringe. Thank you for that. No joke. Thank you. Thank you. That the last one? Oh, yeah. That was the last one. Sorry. There we go. All right, guys. Thank you so much for joining us today and every day. You guys are incredible. Thank you for the super chats. The support is felt very deeply. Um, I am doing today my AI master class. So, if you want to see the positive side, the utility side of AI, I'm going to be talking about that today at 1 PM Pacific.

I'll show you how to launch a company using AI. Remember, I'm using AI daily. My company is using AI daily. We know exactly what's real and what's total [ __ ] And I'm going to walk you guys through how to distinguish between the two. How to use AI in a real way to build things you might not have thought possible to do by yourself. It really is now possible. It's for free today, uh 100 p.m. Pacific. The link is in the description. And if you want to sign up, you can still sign up right now.

Uh, join me 1:00 p.m. Pacific today. It will be live, so you get to spend more time with me. Let's go. All right, guys. Thank you again so much and we will see you on Friday. Love you guys. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.