The Tom Bilyeu Show LIVE | Join US! May The 4th We Are With You!

Key Takeaway

Freedom beats dictatorship in the long run, despite short-term chaos. When a dictator gets it right, progress is fast—but when they're wrong, the catastrophe is devastating. History proves this: Mao's forced agricultural policies killed 45 million people because no one could challenge his authority. America's messy, chaotic system allows for course correction through innovation and dissent. The only way forward is breaking consensus through new ideas, and that requires freedom—even when it's uncomfortable.

Episode Overview

Tom Bilyeu analyzes the emerging US-China showdown, framing the Iran conflict as a proxy battle for global influence. He discusses Trump's 'Project Freedom' initiative, China's unprecedented use of 'blocking rules' to counter US sanctions, and the fundamental clash between authoritarian control and democratic freedom as competing models for navigating global uncertainty.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Tom Bilyeu Show LIVE | Join US! May The 4th We Are With You! from Impact Theory. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Heat. Heat. [snorts] Heat. Good morning everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Tom Billy Show live. I'm excited you guys are joining us today of all days. May the 4th be with you all. Uh I absolutely am a total psychopath for Star Wars. We've got a little treat for you guys coming up in a little while. But first, let's get through everything that is going on in the world. Trump is attempting what he calls a humanitarian effort to get ships through the straight of Hormuse. This is Project Freedom.

So far, it is struggling to deliver results. We'll see what comes of that. Trump is also withdrawing troops from Germany after the chancellor said that Iran is humiliating the US. Trump vows that he's going to do a lot more than the initial 5,000 troops that he's talking about now. We'll see how far that goes. Uh more wild words uh for all of Europe. In fact, China makes it clear that they will not recognize US sanctions over the purchase of Iranian oil. and that is pitting the two largest economies against each other in a standoff.

Uh that could get very messy. Elizabeth Warren sells 20,000 shares of Spirit Airlines just two weeks before it goes under. Man, she's good. She's so good. There are so many people, Drew, in uh Congress that are just unbelievable traders. What is their secret? The timing is just impeccable, you know. And in unrelated news, Representative Tim Burett points out how corrupt DC is when it comes to investing. We'll see if it ever stops. Warren Buffett said at his most recent shareholder meeting that people are treating the stock market like a casino in record numbers.

Drew, have we heard anybody else say that? I feel like I feel like someone around here has said that over and over again. Still brewing in there. All right. In an effort to curb fraud and abuse, all SNAP uh benefit recipients are going to need to reapply. We've got a story on that one. Marjgerie Taylor Green put Trump on blast for not releasing the Epstein files. That one's not going away. New data shows men have remained constant with their political views, but women have skewed far more liberal, and we've all been living through the consequences of that.

So, we're going to be talking about that and a whole lot more. Shout out to our Kshi sponsor for today's episode who we turn to for understanding what the odds are of a given situation. Uh it's really been interesting watching Khi rise as fast as they have for people trying to not only uh place their bets on culture but also just get an understanding of where culture is. Uh so super honored that those guys have uh shown us some love. So shout out to those guys.

All right, Drew. It continues to be a fascinating moment in history. Yes, there's been a lot of changes in the Middle East region. The straight her moose drama has continued to be drama. Um, bringing it over to the Kashi prediction markets, they are pretty much pricing in that the price of oil will stay above 111. 54% chance that'll be 11050. 44% chance above 111. To me, that just means that the market thinks that there's going to be more turmoil in the straight of Hormuse. This is going to be done.

done. done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No time soon. a safe bet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that is very wise on behalf of the public. Though I'm surprised that the numbers aren't a little bit more wild because I don't see what people think the end of this is. So, uh, we're starting to hear rumors coming out of Iran that they are more likely, I should say the US is reporting on the word coming out of Iran, which is that, um, the they're going to for the first time be flexible on some of their nuclear ambitions.

Now, we'll see how true that ends up being. I think a more realistic read is probably that we don't exactly know who's in control. control. control. There's probably nobody speaking with one authoritative voice that can actually see this all the way through. We talked about in our initial coverage of the war that one of the brilliant moves that the Iranians did was that they decentralized command. So, you have a whole bunch of people that if the head gets lpped off, which it obviously was in the early days uh and the early minutes of the strikes, that they would still have people that understood the assignment before um the Supreme Leader was killed.

And so, I think that we're still struggling with a lot of that. You hear Trump make reference to it all the time that there's been regime change. These guys are much more reasonable. We'll see. I think that the reason that he'll say one thing and then a ship will still get attacked in the straight of four moves is that you have that decentralized command that there are people that are making decisions based on the initial thinking which I mean look there's so much propaganda it is so hard to know what's really true uh but if it's true that you still have regime uh pro- regime elements marching in freedom square I think it's called freedom square uh in tyrron um basically saying nope we support this regime we support the new supreme leader.

Um if there is as much support for him as we're being asked to believe, then um unless they see a path to their own victory, something that they can claim is a win. I think they're going to keep doubling down and doubling down. So I don't think this is going away anytime soon. Uh I think this is a classic case of it's easy to start a war and it's very hard to get out. Um so yeah, so yeah, so yeah, here we are. The president over the weekend also announced Project Freedom.

Let's go to Fox News. They covered it this weekend. Project Freedom launched this morning. The president calls it a humanitarian effort to safely guide some 800 cargo ships and tankers and their 20,000 crew members safely out of the straight of Hormuz. The president says these stranded ships are running out of food and supplies and are merely neutral bystanders in this whole thing. In a very very very all the people stuck on the ships. Yeah, just kind of waiting for it all to play out. The true social post, the president Trump, President Trump went on to say, "For the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we've told these countries that we will guide their ships safely out of these restricted waterways so that they can freely and abley get on with their business." The ship movement is merely meant to free up people, companies, and countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong.

They are victims of circumstance. This is a humanitarian gesture. gesture. gesture. Really funny hearing China respond to all this stuff. like when um Trump put something out, I'm going to paraphrase, but it was like, I don't think China has the uh appetite to open the straight and then they clap back and we're like, the straight was open before you went in there, bro. What do you got to do with that? No sanctions don't matter to us. We already got our deal going. Mind your business, Trump.

business, Trump. business, Trump. Yeah. So uh in in a world where the information flows this rapidly and this kind of thing can get out to the world, we are uh going to have a pretty fascinating time as we collide headon with China. Um this is not something we're going to be able to brush off. We have a bigger story about that in the future, but um you know, one of the things that I was beating the drum about before things really kicked off in Iran is this moment is about US and China.

This moment is about US and China. And despite the fact that all the headlines are about Iran, this moment is still about the US and China. Now, um you've got Marco Rubio really drawing the lines of the new cold war. And certainly there's a trifecta of China, Iran, and Russia. Um but in terms of who's the big player in those three, it's China by a country mile. And so I mean, I hate that this is true, but it's like people really have to pay attention to Thusidity's trap, what that looks like.

And I think Trump may be the the most likely to be ins snared in Thusidity's trap. Like it just from a personality standpoint, everything that he's been doing since he came back into office is completely in alignment with that. Now the problem with Thusidity's trap is you can't do nothing. And so um you can't just take a backseat, let your country decline. You do have to do something. Um but oo I don't know that this is the something that you have to do. So, it will be um it will be interesting to see how the early moves in this play out with us and China from an economic standpoint because if we lose any ability to sanction China, um which we'll we'll get to in a second, the mechanisms the mechanisms of how China is combating this is very interesting.

Uh we'll talk about that in a second. But yeah, this this is not something that we can just brush off. But I think what's interesting about the Project Freedom spin is that making it a humanitarian effort, he might be able to win the culture war or at least shift the narrative that's happening in Iran right now. right now. right now. I don't think so. I I think the reality is Trump is every day that the war goes on, he becomes more unpopular here at home and here at home is ultimately all that matters.

He's already alienated all of our allies. He's certainly not going to win them back with this. Um his only hope is that China has been doing some head faints that they're interested in Project Freedom, but they're not going to get involved. And at the same time, they're clapping back on us hard on the sanction side. So we certainly can't expect anything coordinated there. And like their official messaging is essentially nil. People are saying like they're signaling openness, but that's going to be pretty vague. It's not going to be anything that will win people over unless they take action and Trump can say, "Listen, armor G.

Here I am. We're having our meeting and it's going swimmingly well. He's totally behind. Operation freedom. We're going to get those ships sailing. It's great." Then yes, that would be a victory. I am certainly not expecting that. We'll see. But ultimately, I would expect China is going back channel to Iran. So, they're going to be coordinating that from that perspective. if if if if China wants to see this all end and they put pressure on Iran to actually give us the um the end of the blockade.

So that they're saying, "Listen, you got to give something up. You've got to let Trump take a victory lap on the nuclear side of things. Uh there's some way for them to um reduce the potency of the um material that they have now." And so that I think is if if I'm China, that's where I'm applying the pressure. I don't care if Iran gets nuclear. If I really want them nuclear armed, I'll give them nuclear weapons. nuclear weapons. nuclear weapons. So I'm going back channel. I'm like, "Hey, you need to chill out on that.

Let him have that win." That gives him what he needs to get the [ __ ] out of there. And then we can talk about what the go forward plan is. Whether that's you guys being able to charge some fee, whether that's um you charge a fee but not to us. like that will be I think where this ends up playing out. So I could see China applying that pressure to Iran. Um which could bring all of this to a close. But right now without knowing what exactly China is thinking I I I don't know that there's enough give on the Iranian side on the negotiations for Trump to get what he needs to be able to signal to the US that I got this done.

Mhm. So we're still in a lot of question marks around the quagmire of actually getting free flowing oil through the straits so that the price of oil can come back down at least in the short term. I think there's plenty of time between now and the midterms. Um, the thing that remains a larger question mark for me is if this reescalates, what does that timeline look like for Congress to put an end to this from a legal perspective where Trump is unable to continue moving forward once the Iranians know that he can't use more military force?

military force? military force? Now, they've got the leverage. Yeah. I want to kind of drill down into the China of it all. Um, let's break down two tweets that we've seen come in over the weekend. And one of them is that China says it does not recognize US's sanction on Iranian oil purchases and will not comply with them. And then the second one and I think this one is a bit more interesting. Um Trump like you said he was tweeting and saying different things. He said at 1300 we will impose sanctions on China for buying Iranian oil.

China at 1310 we do not care about you. We do not recognize US sanctions on Iran oil purchases and we will not comply with them. We have trade agreements with Iran and strongly warned Trump not to interfere in our affairs. So it seems that they are pushing back actively whether it's the mandates, whether it's our approach. So what is what do you think how this like plays out between us and China in the Middle East? Middle East? Middle East? Well well so in the Middle East a great qualifier there at the end that keeps my fractal uh much tighter.

So to understand what's going on, so as Drew was just reading, China just told the United States that uh these sanctions don't apply to us. We're not the country you're looking for. I mean, this is like the ultimate uh Obi-Wan droid move. On May 2nd, Beijing's Ministry of Commerce issued a formal injunction blocking US sanctions against five Chinese oil refineries accused of buying Iranian crude. Okay, this is where this gets really interesting. It's the first time China has ever activated its 2021 blocking rules, as they're known.

It's a legal weapon that Beijing built 5 years ago, but they never used it. Now, obviously, they're going to push this through, but the way that it works is really unexpected, fascinating, and shows that this is going to escalate as a as a proper showdown. So, in plain English, the blocking rules are a legal mechanism designed to neutralize foreign sh sanctions inside China's borders. Okay, so this is China putting pressure on Chinese companies. So, the Ministry of Commerce can issue an injunction declaring specific foreign sanctions are illegal under Chinese law.

So, dear Chinese companies, I get it. The US is going to sanction you. They're going to punish you. They're going to try in every way, shape, or form that they can to cause you pain so that you will acquies so that you don't have those things placed against you. And you will change your pricing or your deal making, whatever it is that the sanction mandates. But once this injunction is in place, the calculus of all that flips for every company operating in China because it basically says you comply with this foreign sanction from the US and you've now broken Chinese law and the penalties have teeth.

Chinese firms harmed by another company's compliance with US sanctions can sue for damages in Chinese courts. So if the US does something to a Chinese company that causes a Chinese company to do something that say increases their prices for a good that another company needs to buy. So energy being a just absolutely obvious example here that company who's like hey because you complied with US sanctions my costs have now go up I can sue you. You can imagine that puts those companies that are caught between they're yes they're Chinese companies or companies operating in China but they're now stuck between who do I fear more China or the US.

So Beijing can hit a non-compliant entity with regulatory fines, asset freezes, uh and an inclusion on what they call the malicious entity list, effectively blacklisting them from the Chinese market. So, everyone's going to have to decide, am I gonna back the US or the CCP? And that I would not want to be caught between those two powers. But this is what this moment is. This is, watch what Trump is saying. Trump now talks almost exclusively about our sphere of influence. So, does he ever say sphere of influence?

Not usually. He just says our hemisphere. But what he's talking about is our sphere of influence. So when you hear either Rubio saying that or Trump saying that directly, what they're saying is we're not the world's policemen anymore that they might as well be shouting the old world order is dead. There is a new world order that we are putting in place right now. We are letting go of much of, not all definitely, but we are letting go of much of the world that is beyond what they're calling the greater North America.

And China, you go do your thing. We're going to do ours. Do not mess with us in our sphere of influence. we will I won't say not mess with you because they certainly try to get their tentacles but they're they're really backing off the posture like for anybody that was around in the 90s and the 2000s even early 2010s like we were the dominant player on the global stage but getting China into the WTO just changed everything those guys have become an economic powerhouse and because of that it's just a different world and I don't if you guys are old enough to have seen how all of this changed.

I get how there's just a blind spot to what's really happening. But if you've been around as long as I have, it's like all of a sudden you start realizing, whoa, this is a massive change in rhetoric. But this is this is not going to be just some smooth walk in that direction. There is this insanely bizarre confluence of things that are all happening, coming together in this moment where it is going to be a very dramatic economic hopefully it stays in the realm of economic showdown between the US and China.

And so all eyes on this. Do not let Iran be a distraction between what is really playing out. Watch how every move reverberates back to the US via uh the Chinese. And dude, this one is fascinating because China is turning its guns inward. That was the thing that I thought was um really fascinating and just saying everybody make a choice. And so, man, this is such a flashback to the 80s where it really became about two economic models, two value sets where it's like, listen, this is a this is if I'm China, this is my pitch.

This is a very chaotic time. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. Uh, and because we China have 5,000 years of history, we can look back and go, every time like this, it you need a strong government. Otherwise, the catastrophe is so big that it is very worth giving up your personal liberties and your freedoms. Just get behind us. We're going to keep stability. We're going to make sure you guys are safe and sound. We're going to focus on economic growth. You're going to be good. And the US is historically leaned into its freedoms, but we're in a and the pitch goes very similar.

Hey, it's a chaotic time. The only way to get through this is the entrepreneurial spirit. Really taking advantage of the unique thing that makes America America is we're, you know, this do or die by your bootstraps uh place where we have blazed a path forward for the last 250 years that has made us the dominant superpower in the world. Now is not the time to abandon those principles. And China's just always copied us. We are meant to be the leaders. Like come on, let's do this thing.

But in the age of social media, that's going to get weird. And so the Chinese have the ability to really clamp down, to keep people silent. James Bernham, James Burnham. And so it's like all those things that I worry about being an uh an outcome of the velocity and volume of information, the confusion, the populism, all of that. China has a mechanism of internal force where they can curb a lot of that. And so we're gonna see these two things collide at at an unprecedented time in the world.

So, um, man, do ask follow-up questions if any of that was unclear because I'm saying this stuff out loud for the first time. But that like swirl of things is going to control the next three years. three years. three years. And but to your point though, would you say China has an advantage in that way? the fact that they do turn inward. They can do one state, one media message, one government type way to push them through the uncertainty where in America we're still infighting and fighting against ourselves and a war and all these other things.

I have a very strong operating assumption that freedom is the only path forward because what ends up happening and I'll talk about this when we get to the male female dynamic later in the show show show when you have a dictator if they're right everything's great the second they're wrong it's more catastrophic than all the infighting and all that and so what's fascinating is China will tell you that they've only had one civil war, but what they won't talk about is how fractured they were for a very, very, very long time, but the most deadly thing that China has ever gone through is Mao.

So that's what happens when one guy has total control of the country and then he's wrong. And this, please trust me when I say this is only one example. It's just the most stark. He was like, "Listen, the way that we cuz he understood what he had to accomplish in international affairs." So he was like, "Everybody's going to plant this set of crops and they're all going to do it at the these exact times." And people tried to tell him that's not how geography and climates work.

China's a gigantic country. What works in one place will not work in the other. And he just had those people killed. And so they ended up doing that. Obviously, people starve on mass. 45 million people. absolutely insane. And so I look at all of that and I say, "Okay, America ran a different test." And that test was, "Okay, we're all fleeing these despotic uh monarchies or dictatorships. We're coming to the shores of America at ultra high risk, but we want that freedom." And then this thing kicks in that is truly the only way forward is innovation.

And the only way to innovate is to break the consensus that we have now. the way that humans think it calcifies into dogma and so you're in your early 20s and basically your worldview solidifies and you get too far out of your like early 30s and you're you're kind of useless. It's utterly fascinating to say that as somebody who's 50, but I'm telling you like this just plays out over and over and over. And so people can't get out of their own way. Genius is a young man's game.

They calcify and so we have a system that just eats those people alive. Now it's getting worse because look at how old our Congress and Senate is. It's crazy. crazy. crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, we have our problems. But it's like, do I want to see us lean more dictatorial knowing that if the dictator gets it right, we'll go fast, but the second they get it wrong, it breaks so bad as to be terrifying. or do we stick with the messier thing where freedom does go down a lot of weird paths and you get a lot of infighting and all that stuff.

But I still bet on that the because the only way to get the dictator through to get their um vision push through is tyranny. Uh, okay. I want to add in another plot line to this, and that's the reports that we're actually withdrawing troops from Germany. So, President Trump yesterday said that he's considering withdrawing more than 5,000 troops from Germany. I think we have a total of 30,000. So, it's not like, you know, there's going to be six guns left, but a significant cut down. Why is the US removing troops from Germany?

Germany? Germany? Uh, we're going to cut way down. and we're cutting a lot further than 5,000. Thank you very much. I mean, he's mad at Europe. That that's the reality. Now, as the spheres of influence change, I get it. The the world order, everybody's being asked, you going to go with China? You going to go with um the US. And right now there is Carney, so Canada's prime minister. Carney is saying, "I think the future is Europe." Now, I don't know if he's being serious, if he's just in Europe.

And so he's popping off because he's also been blowing kissy faces at um Beijing. So I'm not sure what his real strategy is. And to say that you think a new world order is going to be born out of Europe is so [ __ ] stupid. Like of all the if he said, "Look, China's the future." I'd be like, I get it, man. Like that is a real question. China, if China didn't have demographic woes, I'd be like, yeah, China probably is the future. future. future. That was my next conversation because there is talk that their economy is collapsing right now.

There was a mortgage crisis a couple um couple months ago, a couple years ago. I don't know how know how know how it's been going on for years now. Yeah. So, it's one of those things where it's like, are they also on a Jenga board economy and they're two pushes away from falling over and not being able to claim their number one spot in this new cities. Yes. But in the same way that the US is. So, we are both on insanely precarious footing economically. The US, I would say, uh is more of a dumbbell approach.

So we've got more tragedy staring us in the face with the debt than China does. But we also have more opportunity because we are still the world's reserve currency. So there's a lot of abuse that we can push off onto the rest of the world that helps us. That's gross. I know I'm saying it very dead pan, but uh nonetheless, we are in that position. And so we have a tool that they don't have. Um they have been printing like crazy. I this I'm I'm out over my skis on the following statement.

I would need to look this up. But I think that they have been printing at a rate that in terms of uh their I don't know um I don't know the the comparison to the US like on what metric but it was like their their rate of printing is worse than the US. It's not going to be I don't think dollar for dollar worse. It's almost no chance of that. Um, but that was something where I was like, oh, they might be printing more than I thought because my take has always been China is printing.

However, they haven't printed as abusively as we have. So, I think they have more um latitude than we do. So, I I need to do deep dive there to find out what the reality is of their economic situation. But every time I look at it, you sort of deadend at propaganda coming out of China. They lie about everything. They hide as much as they can. People have to start looking at like the amount of luminance coming out of the country. crazy to try to figure out, okay, like what's really going on here, which is wild to think that a we can do that and b that they obfuscate their data so much that you have to look at the amount of light they emit.

Uh so Uh so Uh so it's hard to answer that question. I would say we're both fragile, but we're both so far ahead of everybody else in the world that virtually nobody else matters. matters. matters. Gotcha. So this really is a twoman game. There's no third quarter, fourth quarter buzz beers with Russia coming out on No, it'll be alliances. So, it'll be if China, Russia, and Iran come out of this stronger than ever. Like, imagine Iran, imagine Russia wraps up the war in Ukraine. They get the territory that they have.

they have. they have. Uh they let the world know, do not encroach on our borders. We will take forceful action. Uh but they get out of that war. So now they've got the new technology because Ukraine and Russia really now are at the forefront of military. So those guys have knowledge that nobody else in the world has. So if they can both stop spending money, they're going to be in a much better position. So if Russia can extract itself there, itself there, itself there, then if Iran comes out of this and goes, we now charge a toll on the straight of Hormuz and everybody's like, I just what are we going to do?

like the US is unable like if Trump loses in the midterms and they are still doing their thing, thing, thing, they could be in a position where they can charge a toll on the straight of four moves and if they then spin back up their nuclear ambitions and it's like we faced you down once, we're more than happy to do it again. Now it's like if you see yourself in I mean God, how long would it have taken three to five years to get their program back up on its feet?

Yo, so that becomes very different calculus. This isn't going to happen overnight, but now you're in a position where China has its sphere of influence. The US has sort of formally let go of pursuing that. We've got our sphere of influence, but we got our ass handed to us. Not militarily, but just outcomewise, outcomewise, outcomewise, uh, in Iran, oil's going up. God, it's so this [ __ ] gets so complicated. I'm not going to fractal. I'm just gonna I'm gonna put a thing here so people don't think I'm blind to it.

which drives me crazy. Everybody thinks if I don't say everything out loud every time, uh, uh, uh, if the world turns to the US for oil, that will be great for the US. I'll just set that there economically. So, as we retreat from the world stage, there are some big advantages to us. Okay, this all started based on Europe. Carney's a [ __ ] [ __ ] if he thinks that this is going to rise up out of Europe. Europe has proven one, they have demographic disasters just coming their way because of unchecked immigration.

Two, they are they're still when combined they are economically powerful, but they are really starting to fracture. Germany's AFD party wants out of Europe. Germany's AFD party is rising rapidly in the polls. Maybe they'll never take over, but nonetheless, there's that kind of pressure. And then also, you're never going to lead economically if what you're known for is regulations. And right now, Europe is one big regulatory body in the face of AI. It is so stupid in all capital letters. And listen, I get the fears over AI.

Nobody shares those fears more than me. Like, I understand. I have the same anxiety. The thing I've wanted to do forever with my life, literally since I was 12, is under threat from AI. Right now, I just keep focused on AI can't do it without humans yet. So just keep executing with this incredible tool. incredible tool. incredible tool. Any technology that promises an advantage will get developed. It promises an advantage. Europe is assuing all of that. The only two real players are the US and China.

So one of us is going to win the AI race. If you're not in the AI race, you don't matter. And so you've got the two biggest economies already. the two most important countries on planet Earth are the only two that are anywhere near actually being in control of the race to AGI. And so it's like it is a one-two punch that nobody else can counter. Yeah, it's going to be interesting to see how all the pieces actually fall because I think to our point there's international conflict, there's internal conflict, there's economic conflict and those three pillars are the foundations of killing empires.

those three foundations of Kill Empires in the past before. So, it's interesting to see which one of those actually cause the downfall downfall downfall when all three of them independently can cause a downfall. So, it's interesting. The downfall is so predictable, Drew. So, So, So, yeah, but and downfall is a bit dramatic cuz even if we don't be is it I don't know if we go straight from here to Argentina. I think there's some there's steps that have to happen in the middle before it depends on your steps.

So, I can paint a picture of the different approaches. So, the reason that I say um it's not dramatic to say downfall is if you'll grant me a long enough timeline, these things are just guaranteed. I think the US is on a 10-year clock. If we don't if AI doesn't help us grow our way out of our debt, we really are in trouble. I've got a deep dive on uh Kevin Walsh, who man, I'm so conflicted. I really like the things that he says, but I look at the setup of what he's walking into and the things that he's not saying, and I think it's very strategic what he's not saying.

And I think unfortunately, the world will not rescue him. And by that I mean AI will not grow fast enough. Um the world's not going to rescue him. What he's doing is going to be pro-inflationary and he's going to accelerate the K-shaped economy. economy. economy. Okay. So that's a fractal that's worth going down at some point. But for now to keep this streamlined on a long enough timeline, the US is poised for collapse. They're poised for collapse for the same reason that every empire has fallen over the last 500 years.

Once you realize that debt is magical, Drew, debt is so powerful. But the temptation becomes to abuse debt and so far no sequence of humans because you can get one leader that doesn't abuse it, but you'll never get 200 years of leaders that don't abuse it. Got you. And so something ends up happening that maybe even with the best of intentions, people start printing money and because nothing bad happens right away, they keep printing money until the bad thing happens. And so you as a plea to anybody that can hear me right now, the way that the game plays out is you start printing money, it accelerates, accelerates, accelerates, and then you either get revolution because of the K-shaped economy, which that is what causes the revolution.

So you get the revolution based on the K-shaped economy or you end up defaulting and you're no longer able to access the debt that gave you the power and so you become a backwater. Do you go all the way to Argentina? Argentina went all the way to Argentina. So they were the fourth most powerful economy. Can't remember if it's in the world. Uh but I think it was. So they were massive. And when we were competing in the 1920s for immigrants, they were winning. So more people looked at the world and said,"Okay, we can go anywhere.

We want to go to Argentina because they have the most opportunity." And so they went from the sort of 1946 and on era America to being the backwater that has struggled for a hundred years. So it does happen. The UK has fallen. They ruled the entire world, dude, not that long ago. And they fell. Spain fell. Portugal fell. It's just like somebody somebody in the chat has a interesting counterpoint. Um Andrew Weiss said, "What Tom doesn't realize is there is nowhere else to invest other than the US that keeps us strong." Yeah.

Okay. Stop. So, I think this is a really good point. I'm very glad he makes it up or that he brings it up. What he's not acknowledging is right now that only helps people that invest money. And what I'm saying is you have a dual problem. If you only grow the top of the K, you end up in revolution. And so this is why, remember, not every country falls because they default. We the the playbook that WASH is almost certainly going to run is financial repression.

Financial repression is also known as a soft default. So you just steal and steal and steal people's economic purchasing power until the point that they revolt or that you become England, right? Because when England did it, post World War II, they never defaulted. So they didn't have a revolution, but they still um lost what, like 98% of their purchasing power. So that's in the last hundred years, man. Like this is not stuff where you have to go way back in time. Post World War II, those guys just declined, declined, declined, declined, decline.

declined, decline. declined, decline. But would you compare I think Argentina's decline and the United Kingdom's decline is different. Not really. Not really. Not really. You would put them in the same like category. category. category. Yeah, it's it's economic mismanagement. Got it. So now the cause for England was a more classic thing that happens to an empire. Argentina was never an empire. So um England was obviously wildly exacerbated by two back-to-back World Wars overextending themselves in terms of you know having military bases all over the world trying to be the world's policemen via the seas like the very thing that Yeah.

Right. So, um, all of that, yes, but if you go up high enough, they become the same phenomenon, which is economic mismanagement. So, going back to, um, forgive me for forgetting his name, but the person in the chat who's like, Tom doesn't seem to understand, there's nowhere else for money to go. Again, he's only speaking to the top side of the K. And as every empire before us has proven, eventually there is somewhere else. And so, if he's arguing the 10-year timeline, okay, maybe. But again, I will say when I'm talking about the 10-year timeline, I'm talking about revolt.

I am not expecting us to hard default. We're going to soft default. But we are already on a knife's edge, dude. People are already like flirting with open revolt. Now, what happens after 10 years driving the debt to GDP up over 130%. Like it is a nightmare scenario. So that's where I'm like yes and it will be interesting if as a community we can start differentiating between Tom has not said at this time and the thing Tom does not understand I cannot encapsulate the entire complexity of the economy every single time I talk you can't every single time Tom what do you mean you can't do that believe it or not now also PS by the way full confession there are things about the economy that I don't understand as the island of my knowledge grows so grows the shore of my ignorance So, I'm very glad that people bring things forward because we will inevitably hit that part where I'm like, "What the [ __ ] is that?" And then I have to go research that as well.

So, I eagerly encourage people to bring forward things that they think that I really am missing. That just happens to not be one of them. Uh, all right. There's been some big news over the weekend. Spirit Airlines has officially ceased operations. Luckily for Elizabeth Warren, though, she sold 20,000 shares of Spirit two weeks ago. still took a loss though because those things were bleeding, but at least she didn't get caught holding the bag. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is interesting though that Spirit cited rising fuel costs were one of the reasons that made them go under.

This is a byproduct of this war. The it it spiked fuel prices. So, I think all the all the different airline companies are reporting at least 800 million to a billion in additional fuel costs. just fuel costs, not ticketing and all this other stuff that they have to shuffle around. Now, around. Now, around. Now, um is this something I I know we're a free market and you know, you you need to see certain companies go down, certain companies lose, but is this like something that could have been avoided, you think, or is it just would have kicked the can down the road maybe?

So, ironically, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buddhajed, I think it was at the time, they shut down a merger between JetBlue, if I'm getting the players right, and Spirit Airlines and said that it was antitrust. Now, for me, when I hear somebody's trying to break up something for antitrust reasons, while I wildly distrust the government, uh that is the one area where I'm like, "Oh, maybe I don't need to go look at that. Antitrust, yay, as sort of a default. Probably a good thing." Um, however, I have not done a deep dive, so I don't know if it was warranted for them to do it because you certainly don't want to chill all of mergers and acquisitions, which has been a big problem over the last decade.

So, um, I would have to look deeply into that to know if this could have been avoided. avoided. avoided. So, the question becomes though, why was Spirit Airlines unable to get to the point where they needed to be purchased? So, that would be the bigger question mark for me. I don't have the specifics on their economics, but I will just say that when a company goes out of business if there are no governmental shenanigans that led to it, that's a perfectly acceptable outcome. People try things, some work, some don't.

And that just is what it is. And we should want that like it's uh the burning of the underbrush in the forest. don't want these, you know, that dry kindling to keep lying around so that you get something like 2000 or 2008 or COVID and all of a sudden it's like the government is having to prop up every industry because you had so many economically fragile companies, you know, when you think about the stock price of Amazon fell dramatically, but they came out of it as one of the most powerful companies ever to exist in the history of the world.

And the reason that they were able to weather that storm is they were actually profitable. So profitable, tremendous like once in a generation leadership. So that is what we should be looking for from our companies. And right now it's like slowly slowly this idea that the government should just help everybody at all times has permeated the culture. And so whenever something bad happens it's like well where was the government in all this? It's like that's where you have to have a principle of do I want the government in the game of capital allocation?

And for anybody that just needs the words to say, you do not want the government in capital allocation. They are moronic. They do not know how to allocate capital at all. And they have perverse incentives. So not only are they dumb, but they have the worst incentives in the world because now whatever tiny proportion of companies that they're taking a stake in or they've got some interest in propping up because it's too big to fail or whatever, you create massive distortions for them to help those companies rather than other companies.

This is why if any administration wants to do the right thing and make sure that if we're going to keep running the strategy of printing money that we make sure that Americans own assets, it needs to be a broad basket of assets that are essentially blindly managed. So think index fund. There's just a criteria. Whatever companies meet the criteria are in, whatever ones don't, they're out. And so it becomes harder, I won't say impossible, but it becomes harder to game the system. And that's the kind of position we want to be in.

We want to see more Americans owning assets and we want to keep the government out of deciding what assets are valuable. Yeah. Hopefully we can get some inspiration from uh Argentina because Javier Malay has balanced the budget for the first time in 123 years. Wow. As of January 2025, he did balance the budget with increases into 2026 as well. When I seen this, I was like, "No way." Like, I got to fact check this. But no, Grat kind of definitely broke it down. it um yes Malay achieved a primary budget surplus for the first time in 123 23 years the 24 to 25 season and maintains it in 2026 budget plans one budget plans 1.2% of GDP inflation lowered from over 200% to approximately 33% annually still like higher but smaller 3.4% monthly poverty officially dropped from 52.9% to 28.2% 2% recession overcame growth of 3 to 4% expected peso more stable.

So it seems like when you balance the budget numbers go in the right direction. right direction. right direction. I mean this is the drum that I'm trying to beat like crazy. Now listen, everybody needs to understand Argentina is still in a very fragile position. They are not out of the woods yet. They are definitely trending in the right direction, but there's still a bunch of internal um conflict because this kind of austerity does not come without consequence. However, if you want the entire country to get moving in the right direction, you've got to go through this period of pain so that you can get your balanced budget, so that you can get things growing again, so that there is money actually for the people and you're not in a constant never- ending position for 123 years of having run out of other people's money as um Margaret Thatcher so eloquently put it.

So, this is a necessary thing that they have to go through, but it is not without its turmoil. So this is why Argentina had to come to the US and say, "Listen, we want to be a very strong ally of yours, but we're going to need a little help." And so we did the currency swap, if I remember right, the US ended up making money on it. Uh but nonetheless, we did take a gamble in loaning them money because it's possible that everything imploded. Um so yeah, just I want to be um upfront about the fact that while I'm clapping so hard for this, I get cramps.

At the same time, let's not be delusional about there's no guarantee that it's going to work yet. It's trending in the right direction. I'd love to see it. It's a great example for us to pay attention to because our um budget is like 6.6% that's directionally correct of GDP. That's insanity. Uh which is why we're having to deficit spend in the trillions of dollars a year. So the fact that they were what 1.2 1.3% of GDP is incredible. That's the kind of fiscal discipline that you need.

But the part that people hate about the Malay story is I'm going to see if I can encapsulate this without turning everybody against me. um people when they looked at the slashing that he wanted to do to um programs to the government um people were screaming people are going to die and Malay's answer was people always find a way not to die and there are reports I cannot confirm that this is true this could be pure propaganda but there are reports that people can't afford their own local beef and so they are slaughtering donkeys and eating donkey meat which is going to sound terrible to an American audience.

Uh, and let's assume for the sake of the argument that that's true. That's what MLE was talking about. Hey, if you can't afford the beef, then you're going to get the donkey. And so people do find that way to not die. And it is, God, does it sound horrible. Uh but nonetheless, it is ultimately what you have to do to be in alignment with the fact that economics operate on physics and you can't just socialism your way to the other side of this. You actually, as China demonstrated for the world, you actually have to have a thriving uh entrepreneurial class that is productive, that is making things and kicking off revenue that you can tax.

And if you don't have that, then people struggle to make ends meet for 123 years. I mean, it's really wild how long this stuff goes and the level of prolonged hardship that you have to suffer through. suffer through. suffer through. Yeah, that's real. Let's hope we avoid that. Uh, all right, we got some super chats. Let's jump into those. Super chat. Super chat. Super chat. First, we have Iron Wolf Interactive Games. Tom, big hold on. Iron Wolf Interactive Games. Let's go. Uh, I'm gonna need to explore that.

First of all, $50 super chat. Thank you. That's gangster. And then I am trying to put together some sort of collective of game devs. So, if your name is uh actually real, do hit your boy up in DMs on X, please. Okay, with that, Tom, big fan. AI powered fraud is hitting regular people hard. Kids, seniors, veterans, anyone with a phone. Air Force Vet CISSP here. I built a tool to help people check suspicious text emails. Would love your thoughts. Um, it's amazing. I'm shocked that nobody's done this yet.

This is such an obvious thing that somebody is going to handle. I've always thought that it needed to be handled at the level of the platforms that the platforms need to have um some sort of blockchain enabled thing that says it came from this account. Now, that's about as far as you can go, but you can look at an account and say that account either has trust or it doesn't. Um, and so if you imagine every user on social media basically getting like an Uber driver score where people can say um, good transaction, bad transaction, and then you know it came from this account.

That way if somebody claims that they are Trump or whatever and here's a video rather than everybody having to go research that individually is is really from that person or not you just see ah the originator of that video of that post is actually that person that account uh and there's a lot of credibility in that. So the fact that that hasn't been done certainly is whites space for an entrepreneur. So if you have a great solution it's phenomenal. I totally agree that this is um impacting a lot of people.

Uh you're just going to have to get ubiquity and that's the catch. That's why I've always believed this will be done at the platform level because everybody has to be using it. Nice. And to your point, I'm surprised. I thought when blockchain got adopted, web 3, we came out with so many different technologies on how we can protect the protect the protect the um internet in a fair, transparent, safe way. And it seems like we've done all the innovation on the crypto side, on the gaming side, on the technology side, but we still haven't caught up in like the security and all that.

Yeah. So, I don't know if the fraud just hasn't hurt enough people or if there's some regulatory hurdle. Um I'm not quite sure what people are afraid of. It could be a privacy issue that they don't want people to know that that's their address. I don't know. But, uh people already know your socials. I'm not saying it needs to be tied to you as a person. I'm just saying that each account needs to have a score um so that I know anonymous or not that they've got credibility, that they've got trust like eBay.

eBay. eBay. Um so I I remain shocked that this hasn't happened yet. It is interesting. Um all right, I want to throw up Warren Buffett's message. Um, this is your turn to do a victory lap, Tom, about how the casino the Wall Street is just like a casino and a lot of people are gambling in the markets. You know, I' I've compared it the markets to a church with a casino attached and and people can move between the church and casino and and I always said there are more people in the church and more people in the casino, but the casino's gotten very attractive to people.

you know, if you're buying one day options or selling them, I mean, that is uh that's not investing. It's not speculating, it's gambling, you know, just totally. just totally. just totally. There's nobody that can explain why they're buying an option for one day. So, we've never had people in a more gambling gambling gambling going to make money on it. Yeah. food than now. But that doesn't mean that investing is terrible. It doesn't mean doesn't mean doesn't mean Sorry, I talked over maybe his most important statement.

He said, um, there's never been more people gambling than now. Uh, yeah, we we are in that moment. And getting people to understand that the stock market is gambling at its very foundation. Um, I get he probably would not agree with that statement because he's a value investor and he thinks, well, no, these things are as close to a guarantee as you're going to get. Yes, I understand that. But if there was no riskreward, there would be no reward. So, it only has reward because there is risk.

The risk is the gambling part. You believe that you understand better than anybody else why this thing will go up. And so, you're making it's uh it's a new game at the casino where you actually can beat the house. So, fair enough. you can beat the house. It's one of the the few games where that is true. But nonetheless, you're still betting against other people. And getting people to understand that the reason these things work over time is that there are winners and losers. And for you to make money, somebody somewhere lost money.

Unless you you held the entire time and then you sell once to somebody who's going to hold for 20 years, and then they sell once to somebody who's going to hold for 20 years. And so every yay, thank you. And they just keep going up and up and up. But the market doesn't work like that. So on balance, like yes, if you put your money in and you don't touch it, you're good. But the reality is the markets work the way they work because most people buy high and sell low.

That's just the truth. Very sad. Most people cannot just hold. Um, and that for my money means that the church sort of is a casino. Uh, and that's definitely my mental model. I mean, it definitely doesn't help its reputation when the highest asset class is Pokemon cards. So, cards. So, cards. So, people need to look at the scale. This is wild. I looked this up because I was like, there's no way this is real. Somebody forged this. AI at least believes that this is directionally correct with some nuance and caveats, of course, but yeah, this one is crazy.

Yeah. So, if you would have invested $1,000 5 years ago, S&P 500, your money would be up 31%. Bitcoin, your money will be up 35%. Gold, you will be up 160%. Pokemon cards, you'll be up 1,900%. 1,900%. 1,900%. That's wild. That's wild. That's wild. That is crazy. That's wild. That's wild. That's wild. Yeah. Now, uh I'd be very interested to see if if they're treating the Pokemon cards like a an index where it's all cards across everything. Doubtful because the vast majority of cards are going to be just absolutely worthless.

Even today, they'll be pennies. Mhm. Um, but yeah, it is very fascinating and I'm not entirely sure yet what this says about long-term investing because I have a feeling that whenever you're seeing pop culture become this level of a phenomenon that it is a bad sign that the markets we're just so far out on the risk curve that people are investing in this and that this is going to contract in a very similar way to it. not as bad as um shitcoins basically, but it is in a similar vein.

You have people that treat investing like gambling and oh, I can gamble on this thing that I really like. Um and so there is this natural affinity for this stuff. Um however, when people begin treating something that doesn't really have core fundamentals, it has nostalgia, it has like extreme emotional connection, totally understand. As somebody who collects one piece cards, I get it. Um, but I don't collect them as an investment. I collect the cards. Um, so that's one of those things where man, I would not I would feel very exposed if I were investing in this kind of thing in a major way in the same way that I would feel exposed if I were uh [ __ ] with shitcoin.

So, I would just warn people that man, if you want to long-term invest, there are far safer bets. And this is based on a little bit of knowledge, but think about a baseball card from, you know, whatever uh a hundred years ago. It's just not going to have the popularity that it has now. And so cards for athletes tend to die off over time because the people that grew up with that player, they go through a phase where they get money. So in their 30s, 40s, 50s, like they're really hunting that stuff.

As they start getting older, first of all, they're dying off and second, they're not going to be in high-risisk assets. So that's where those things tend to have a much more aggressive natural curve than something like an index fund in the stock market where the world only operates because of companies. And so you're going to have a lot more long-term viability there. Don't bet on individual horses, but on the fact that that will be the way that the world operates versus that that particular card people are still going to be into.

So I just be a little bit careful about that. Pokemon credit though they do do a good job of getting the next generation just as excited and that's whether you're gen one the first 150 or gen I think they're at like five now where there's like a thousand Pokemon now so it's like they are trying to with every iteration every year keep the younger audience where I see your point sports cars the people who really really love Michael Jordan are now old rocking chair people and everybody's like oh we love LeBron now then in 20 years LeBron is gonna be the rocking chair people and there's gonna be some nude kid who does crazy things So I do see that with time those popularity and culture investments can like decrease but art do you think art decrease over time or is it like as an asset class it's very useful but it's the same thing you've got to be so good at identifying what piece of art is really going to stand the test of time when is something high enough to get out of it um but yeah art has has I don't know for how many hundreds of years been a very meaningful place to put your money um there are people that are going to argue that art is also a great way to scam the system, which is not an unfair statement.

Uh, and so how much of art's value falls in that vein? I don't know. But people, humans really respond to art. There's a real appetite for it. for it. for it. Uh, this weekend I spent real money on cards because I have an affinity. I do not expect to ever sell them. Uh, for me, it's uh, when a piece of IP really impacts me, it's interesting. We're talking about this on May the 4th. when a piece of IP really impacts you, you want to wait to engage with it in a more deep fashion.

Um, and so there's a certain type of person that is a collector. I'm not an investor when it comes to pop culture. I'm a collector. Uh, but there are obviously huge amounts of investors that can invest because there are people like me that collect and whether these things go up in value or down in value is irrelevant to me. I want it today. That's the price of it today. I'm either in or I'm out. Um, so yeah. yeah. yeah. I mean, you brought it up, so we might as well do the May the 4th video.

Do you want to kind of cue us up this video that you made in Kaizen? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I know Kaizen, for those that don't know, Tom's video game very close, near and dear to his heart. Thank everybody everybody everybody who watched the deep dive that's over a million with Did it cross? It crossed a million. Whoa. Yes. And we also had a Kaizen shout out in that as well. Easter egg. In fact, shout out to Brian who if you watch that video, uh, video, uh, video, uh, yes, yes, yes, without me knowing that it was going to happen, he spliced back and forth between one of the lead characters in Kaizen and me, which is, uh, really cool visually.

So, shout out to him. But, yeah, so, um, I I am of the generation that was raised on the original Star Wars trilogy. And so, uh, for May the 4th, uh, a couple years ago, we made this promotional video for Kaizen. So, if you're in front of a a TV or you've got your phone, now is the time to pull it out. The interesting thing about this is the sound design on this was done by a kid that I went to, not a kid anymore, but a guy that I went to film school with who was extraordinary in film school.

It was like, yo, this guy is special. special. special. And he's gone on to be uh I don't know if he's won, but he's been nominated for multiple Academy Awards for sound design. design. design. Uh did the sound design for Transformers. Transformers. Transformers. Nice. is basically credited with giving birth to Dubstep because they were using all of his sounds from the movie, which is interesting. Uh, and most recently did Project Hail Mary. So, the the guy that I was able to get to do the sound design for this is an absolute gangster.

His name's Eric Ad Doll. Uh, Eric, congrats, man. Your career is incredible. Uh, may we work together again on Kaizen. Uh, that would be amazing. But here we go with that. Take it away. So this is one of those. All right. It was a lot of fun to make. So this was part of the the period of time where we were make I thought story was going to be the thing that set us apart. apart. apart. Uh that was going to be our claim to fame.

And what we ended up realizing is it is so expensive to do things like that. We've got a few more videos that we did and I was just like, "Okay, A, this is extraordinarily expensive and B, it takes so much time." So now we actually do very little with the video stuff and it's all gameplay, gameplay, gameplay. Um, but it is fun to see those. Oh god, doing those is very, very fun. fun. fun. Has the economics just flipped now? So now was like I mean with AI, yes, but AI is still at a point where you can tell it's AI.

So the gaming community will eviscerate you. Um you. Um you. Um I'm hopeful that by the time So we have 19 months and counting, which is crazy that we're now down in the teens before we go into early access. Um by then I'm hoping that AI's gotten to the point where it's like, okay, it's AI and it frustrates people that it's not humans. But for a small developer like us, like us, like us, it it's either that or we don't do videos. Um, so yeah, that's my hope.

Fingers crossed we keep a very close eye on that. But the game itself, um, I think people are going to be pretty into. into. into. Nice. All right. And let's jump over to Marjorie Taylor Green who's been on a tear. Shout out to the Dogggers. I don't know if everybody seen it, if everybody can hear. Um, yeah. But MTG has been on a tear really going anti-Trump, saying that he is the reason they don't have the full Epstein files. Speaker Johnson has been there trying to protect them.

This is a five minute video, so we won't jump into the whole thing, but just to kind of set us up. Do you do you see where she's coming from or do you put her kind of in the same category as like Tucker, Candace, she just kind of avoid Okay, I'll I'll give my naked read on MTG and I will say that uh I have not gone super deep on this. I could be getting completely bamboozled. When she first made my radar, it was at the State of the Union.

Um, I can't I think it was Trump's first, maybe it was Biden's last, I don't remember, but it was the one where she was like screaming and yelling and smacking things together and just acting a complete fool. And so I was like, this woman is unhinged and completely wrote her off as somebody not worth paying attention to. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And then when this all happened with the Epstein files and she actually left Congress. Now she might be on a run for something else and so maybe this is a grand political strategy and and I'll eat my words.

But when she left, I was like, "Wait a second. Is this somebody who's actually standing on principles and was willing to act a fool because she so believed that she was right and she understands social media and so she was just like, "I know how to get attention. I'm right. I really believe what I'm saying and so I will make a spectacle of myself simply to get people's attention so that they hear my real message. Now that she is toned down and she's not like yelling and screaming and banging things in a place that I consider just completely inappropriate to do that and she's just laying out her message.

She's like, "Listen, I was in the room. This is exactly what was being said. Um, I completely extended myself to Trump partly because I really thought he was a guy that was gonna fight for these women these women these women and that he has not done that and he has said to my face and to other people that, you know, there are good people that are going to be hurt by this and she's like, "What the fuck?" Like, there are good people that were already hurt by this and you're now silencing their voice.

And so my mental map of her has updated to somebody that behaves in a manner that I don't find interesting most of the time previous to this. However, is really somebody that's standing on principle. Now, we'll get to the emotional reactivity of it all when we talk about the growing divide between men and women politically uh and what um from a neurological standpoint I think is driving that. So, she's got a behavioral affectation that I don't respond to, but I'm now mapping her somebody is who is deeply sincere about a set of principles that she really believes in.

And woe be the man that violates those. violates those. violates those. Um, I want to tag this on with this kind of anti-war of anti-war of anti-war coalition that's happening right now. Somebody in the chat just said something like, "What? Tucker and Candace aren't in the same category? How can you compare them two?" Interesting. But there is this category of we might have difference in ideologies politically, but we're both aligned that we want to be an America first anti-war coalition of people just until midterm, just until the next I say values matter.

Values matter, dude. Race and political party. Same same values. You suddenly see like, oh, it's not about being on the left or the right because that's a tribe at this point. It's about what do you actually believe? And so now all of a sudden there's this common ground being found between people on the like hard left and people on the hard right who are like on this issue we share a value set. And so now all of a sudden it feels good like you see this thing that I really care about the same way that I do.

Hm. And they are discovering an age-old reality about being a human which is values are the only thing you care about. Everything else is an affectation layer. It's a presentation layer. It's not like it's not the real thing. You don't give a [ __ ] about that. Like that's all just like do you like blondes or brunettes? The reality is h it doesn't really matter and you could end up marrying somebody that is completely different than you ever thought because it's how does this person make me feel?

So that's fascinating. Yeah. Do you think that it takes that much? Because I think right now I have been feeling frustrated politically because I see all the things real. real. real. Yes. Yes. Yeah. I have I've been seeing all the things that are wrong but I don't know understand necessarily how to combat that. what where to start, how to move. And even in this exchange, I'll jump right to it. Medi Hassan kind of retweeted Tucker Carlson's uh New York Times interview and says, "Hey, Chank and all the other um fellow anti-war leftists.

I get the desire to ally with anti-war writers in this movement." Anti-left anti-war leftist, anti-war writers, that's the coalition. But this is one of the many, many reasons I still have issues with Carlson. He lies so easily and casually and demonstrabably. It's a trust issue with him. And then Chank replied, I genuinely don't understand why you think it think in this binary way that in order to be allies with someone on an issue, you have to vouch for that person in their entirety or every policy position they have.

No, you just have to have to be their ally on that issue. Do you agree with that? That you can make allies as long as you guys have one principle that you can stand on or does it matter the totality of their character before you get into a partnership with somebody? I think the the politically expedient thing and this is where I go into tom bill mode which is oh man does it drive people crazy but uh the way that I look at it is I'm just going to tell you what is it is politically expedient to partner with somebody that can help you get a thing that you really care about done knowing that you disdain them in a thousand other ways.

And so politicians will do this all the time. They'll become bedfellows for a minute and then they completely jettison each other, talk [ __ ] on each other again once that thank you. You did what I needed you to do and now I don't care about you anymore. anymore. anymore. This [clears throat] is precisely why um I hate politics. So then there is the um the flip side of that coin which is it's a very costic strategy. And so it makes you look like a slick politician who doesn't actually care about people.

And so for anybody that reads the situation of well but hold on this is a this person is a whole character. I cannot look past these other things. And anybody that can like you're faking you're manipulating me. And so you'll get that reputation over time. So that's what is now I don't think that um people are going to be able to politically get things done that they want to get done if they're not able to partner with somebody that they don't agree with um across a whole bunch of things but do agree with on one.

I think you have to take again for political expedience. You have to take the partnerships where you can get them knowing that you're going to um ditch them. The classic example of this is one of the biggest monsters of the 20th century. One of the biggest monsters in all of human history uh was Joseph Stalin. And the US, the UK, the allies partnered with Joseph Stalin to get rid of Hitler. And it's not that they didn't know what Stalin was up to. They knew perfectly well.

The reason that they partnered was that it was expedient. We both hate Hitler and Hitler is an acute threat right now. You're a long-term threat, but he's an acute threat. So cool. You help us out, we'll get this and then we can fight our war, which we then ended up fighting all the way up until like 99. So it's or ' 92, sorry, 91. Anyway, uh so that's the thing that I think we need to look at. So, if I were advising the country, I would say yes, partner with somebody if they can help you get this thing done.

Like, if we needed to partner with China to get what we want out of Iran, do it. Um, but knowing we're still in Thusidity's trap with China, like nothing is going to change that. So, that's how I would play it. This reminded me of like a quick fractal. It doesn't have to be big, but like are you one of those people that can separate the art from the artist? Like that whole argument? I can, but it it does uh tarnish it. Even Star Wars has been damaged for me by the most recent stuff.

Star Wars is about um training, using the force to improve yourself. George Lucas started taking it down a bad path with mediclorines. That was just a crazy mistake on his part. And then modern Disney just absolutely ruined it by saying, "Well, as long as you're a woman, you're already powerful." That's just stupid. um showing a woman earn her stripes is dope. So that's why like take a movie like um Kill Bill, female protagonist. Nobody had beef. In fact, she's dope as the day is long, but you watch her train and become a badass.

She's not just badass by dent of being female. Um so period to keep it from being a No, I got you. It it's it's No, I got you. It it's it's interesting though. We'll see how this coalition kind of happens because I think that while everybody's friends when everybody has a need, but as soon as one person gets a need and then the opportunity arises, I'll be interesting to see who jumps ships and backtracks and who says, "Okay, cool. Done. On to this." And now they're attacking again.

So, we'll kind of see. But it seems like this war has united different factions of people in ways that I didn't see coming in. coming in. coming in. Um, and we'll see when we get to um the midterms. All right, we have to talk about Snap and the people that were scamming this system. Um, these are some Hall of Fame scammers. Um, but apparently according to Fox News, it will be will be will be 186,000 people have been found dead on SNAP. Hundreds of thousands of double dippers.

So, there is a thought now that you will be forced to reapply to the program and have to kind of clean up the roles. Um, I know this is in the midst of JD Vance going through Minnesota and California. I think they found over 400 businesses and fraudulent hospices and all these other things. So, there is a purge kind of happening. Um, what was your opinion on the snap news? Yeah, in addition to the dead people and the double dippers, 14,000 people that are on food stamps were caught driving Bentleys, Ferraris, Lamborghinis.

Fraud much? And that, by the way, was what was found in just one state. So, the USDA is calling out that there is massive systemic fraud in the SNAP program. Because of that, the agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, is forcing every single SNAP recipient in the country to reapply, all 42 million of them. This is coming after the 43-day government shutdown. The USDA dug into the recipient data from 29 states, and what they found just set off a ton of alarm bells. 186,000 dead Americans collecting benefits.

Half a million people enrolled in two states at the same time, double dipping on taxpayer dollars. 226,000 fraudulent claims have been approved. EBT cards sitting on balances of over $10,000. $10,000. $10,000. Cards issued to people who just don't exist. And again, that's just from the 29 mostly Republican le states that actually complied with sending in the data. 21 Democraticled states refuse to hand over their data and are suing the USDA to keep it locked up. This kind of thing drives me nuts. I don't know how as a society we stand for that.

That is crazy. Turn over your data. We can foyer request people in the government for a reason. There's supposed to be transparency. Unless it is a national security issue, this data should be public. We should be able to figure out exactly what is going on. Now, Rollins says the administration has already moved 4.3 million people off of SNAP since Trump took office. There's been 118 arrests, and she's saying that there's going to be more. So, the mandate becomes very simple. If you want to keep collecting, you've got to prove that you actually qualify.

You have to reverify your income. You have to reverify your household. You have to reverify that you're alive. Yikes. That we have to do that is crazy. For decades, SNAP enrollment exploded with almost no scrutiny whatsoever, which has been a huge mistake. Improper payments hit nearly 11% of the program last year. Roughly $10 billion in waste, error, and outright theft. So Rollins is saying that that that game is over. We're not doing that anymore. We'll see. But I you have to means test this stuff. This one is crazy to me.

At this point now, I feel like you have to go just across the board. every government program just needs to get audited because we're seeing it in Medicare, SNAP, Medicare, SNAP, Medicare, SNAP, uh, housing, um, health insurance. So, it's like it's like it's like they haven't done it yet. Education. In this day and age, Drew, there is no excuse for every dollar that the federal government spends not to be tracked down to exactly who originated it, why they originated it, and where it went. Period. Full stop.

End of story. Uh they were talking about this in the beginning of Trump's second term with Doge that one of the things Musk said that they put in place was they just made it mandatory the field for why is this money going out which was not mandatory in the first place which is pure insanity. We allow our government to get away with absolute outright theft fraud all while racking up $2 trillion a year in deficit spending that is driving the K-shaped economy. The very thing that people are furiously angry about that they keep saying is because of greedy business people or wealthy people that won't pay their fair share.

Instead of going, why the [ __ ] are we spending $2 trillion more than we need to be spending, we need to balance the budget. And when we're allowing for this level of fraud and we're making people poor every day, it is so maddening. You want to talk about getting disheartened because you see the problems and you don't know what to do about them. I see this problem. I know exactly what to do and we're not doing it. And that is the wild thing. And by the way, not only are we not doing it, people are lying about it as fast as they can.

They're lying about the cause of the problem. The politicians that are banging on are either, as always, there are two options. Dumb as [ __ ] or they're lying. Either one of those is terrible. So, anybody that's not saying that we need to have a balanced budget, and that includes basically everybody other than Thomas Massie, Rand Paul, uh, you got a problem. problem. problem. Uh, and then so this story is kind of funny, too. I'm sorry. I'm I'm throwing a lot at you today because I just feel like there a lot happened this week.

This one doesn't make you sad. This one makes me so sad. It does. But I'm proud of her. So, it's like like like cuz this took balls, but it just depends what her relationship is like with her. All right. Set it up so that people know what we're talking about. Breaking news. The daughter of US Republican Senator Jay Block said, "Israel pays money to my father and he spreads propaganda. I am deeply ashamed of this situation. I believe my father has sold his soul to the devil.

I hope his career ends. So, my dad, a Republican state senator in New Mexico, just got back from his trip to Israel. Um, which was not like a personal vacation, by the way. It was him and a bunch of his other Republican cronies who got invited to Israel for what I can only assume was just like a a propaganda trip. So yeah, it looks like my dad and a bunch of other just like loser politicians from New Mexico went to politics. Man, th this is heartbreaking.

I'm surprised you and I are far apart in this discuss. I mean, so I think we get it. Um, so Um, so Um, so value system. My value system is there has to be some integrity to the um units that you build in your life. Mh. Mh. Mh. And your the units you build at work are always going to be a little bit sus. Um the family unit though needs to be strong. strong. strong. Now her father could be a parent that is so bad that this is justified.

And maybe as I look closer, I'll be like, "Okay, I get it. Given the things that he's done to her, there's no safety there. There's no unity in the house. It is what it is." But when I see just the trend where people feel a deeper allegiance to their followers than they feel to their family, that that is really distressing to me. And if she wants to uh herang her dad and go after him privately, if she wants to say publicly, listen, I'm not going to comment on my dad, but needless to say, we don't see everything the same.

Got it. Understood. But to put your family on blast is really gross. I would be very curious to know if Dante, as in Dante's Inferno, um ever commented on this. I would be a little surprised if he didn't. If this doesn't fall into like his betrayal uh bucket, I I just really hate to see this. Um I wouldn't want to see parents putting their kids on blast. 50 Cent, I'm looking at you. Uh I think the way that 50 has handled his son, it's like that's your son, man.

If you [ __ ] up when he was a kid, that's on you. And so, um as far as I can tell, the whole like Brad Pitt thing, like his kids completely distancing themsel from him, I'm going to guess he really [ __ ] something up. Um, but at least he doesn't exacerbate it by throwing his kids under the bus and he's just like, I'm here as their dad if they ever need me. Like that kind of thing. Like, yeah, I just I don't dig it. I don't dig it, man.

And um it's becoming like a bigger thing. thing. thing. Yeah. I I I get not airing out dirty laundry. I get some things have to stay in the family. Um like I I I understand that. I think here I don't know their um relationship so I'm projecting 100% me and Lynn's relationship onto this situation and I'm like if Lynn had to get on Tik Tok and say I'm disappointed in my father for A B C D and E I know in my life there would have been so many other steps that failed that the fact that she's doing that now it's big enough deal that I need to kind of take a step back.

get that. And listen, maybe as a parent, you're going to help me see something. But here's what I would say to that. Um, Um, Um, she looks very young. I'm going to guess she's somewhere between mid- teens to early 20s. I just really can't tell, but let's say she's 15, 16. I don't know if it says anywhere there, but um the odds that in 10 years or 15 years that she feels the same about things in life as she does at this point is effectively zero.

True. the world is going to open itself up to her. She's going to realize that things are far more complicated. Kids tend to go on a pretty knowable journey with their parents. Some parents are truly bad and maybe he is. But it goes from my parents are morons. They know nothing. And then in your early 20s, you start realizing, uhoh, that thing they warned me about is actually coming to fruition. My parents are a lot smarter than I thought. And I remember going on that journey.

Now, in the end, I've taken a leadership role in my family. I did that quite young. And so even more than most I would say I was probably on to a lot of things early that my parents never quite understood and because of that my life has been as successful as it is. And so I can point to a lot of things I said as a kid and be like well those actually ended up being true. Uh, and still I point at my youth and go, "Thank God there was no video evidence." And thank God I was not able to, you know, say something stupid about my parents in a public forum because I'm sure that the temptation would have been there because I really felt that I was right.

Vindicated on some things, an absolute [ __ ] on others. And so that kind of thing is just like just like just like I don't like to see it, man. And from a a parenting perspective, I'm not sure how much you can stop it other than you do your best to say, "Listen, we there is a this is exactly what I would try to do if I had kids, which I do not, but if I did, I would say, listen, the thing that does the most psychological damage is a friend.

Somebody who you should be able to be close to, somebody that's in your life, somebody that you're doing something with, but they're actually your enemy. And I never want you guys to see me as your enemy. And I never want to see you as my enemy. And so I don't want to have to um pretend to be something that I'm not with you. It is inevitable that you will will will push back against me at some point. That that is how this all works. And part of that is you're going to think that I'm really stupid for a period of time.

What I'm saying is in the Billou household, we do not light each other up on social media. We keep that here. If there's something you've got to say, you can say anything to me. You can tell me how wrong you think I am. All of that. Um, but we don't put each other on blast in a public forum. And you can go argue for your ideas. They can be diametrically opposed to mine. Just don't be pointing at me. Don't say anything behind the scenes. You know what I mean?

Like, if she were out there and just lighting up all the causes and saying, "Israel is a mess while dad is campaigning for Israel." Cool. Love it. Not saying she needs to be silent. She needs to say what she believes. I'm all for it. But putting each other on blast, you become frenemies. And it really is psychologically destructive. One of the things that I look at, I hate to say it, but Lisa and I have commented about this. When we see stuff like this, we are like, "Yeah, glad I don't have kids.

Dodge that bully." Yeah. Like I don't want to have to think about because I have to think about that with employees, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Where it's like, oh, somebody gets disgruntled disgruntled disgruntled obviously. obviously. obviously. uh they then can run out and tell whatever narrative they want to tell. When you've had thousands of employees, like that becomes pretty real pretty fast. fast. fast. And so that's already an uncomfortable feeling where you have to be vulnerable and real if you want to actually lead people. people.

people. But to have it with your own kids, yikes. That is a thing happening right now that I do not envy parents. Okay. And then cuz I want to just make some clarifying points to see if we kind of end up in the same place. I'm assum like the uh who was it? Beckham, the Beckham kids. Yes, that completely out of line. That's a money thing. I deserve entitlement, like all that stuff. Yes, I put that in a separate category. So, even some of the examples you pulled.

Specifically, if there is something that he did maliciously, not just he went to Israel, came back, you went to Israel, you kissed the ring, now you're aside agent. Let's assume all those things are if she legitimately has a grievance. Hey, dad, you did this thing. He passed a law that's going to pollute all the water in New Mexico. I'm making this up. Allegedly, all that stuff, but hypothetically speaking, he has influence over a law that would actually hurt the environment at a grave cost. Certain people at a grave cost.

Kick 2,000 people off their medical insurance. Something like that. Something measurable. She can see it like that. She brings it up to her dad. Her dad says, "You don't understand this. In 10 years, it'll make sense to you." In her frustration, she then goes on social media. At that point, I'm not like betrayal. You're the wor. It's like that would make me pause and have that self-reflection and then to that point we'll have that conversation and that's where it's like I wouldn't just start with anger at her.

I would try to kind of mend that bridge. I think that's very smart. I think that's exactly how the father should play this. The way that I would look at this is okay let's say that I am a very political person. I'm raising a daughter who's going to be very political. Uh first of all she's female so she's likely to skew liberal. Second she's young so she's likely to skew liberal. So, as a dad, I'm like, "Okay, I'm a conservative guy. My daughter's likely to be doubly sort of not conservative." Um, and also maybe third, kids push back.

They're whatever their parents aren't. aren't. aren't. And so, um, three strikes against me, she's likely to be liberal. So, cool. Now, what I would say, let's have some ground rules as you find your footing as a political commentator or just a voice to your generation, whatever. Let's do this. Let's imagine that we have two competing um press conferences held at the same time. I am from your opinion toxic waste dumping uh over here and you're going to fight for the environment. And now you're saying all the things, stats, figures, beliefs, ideology, all of that.

And a reporter is inevitably going to ask you, well, your dad is over here. Isn't he the one that's driving all of this? Um if your messaging is something along the lines of, um I love my dad. We do not see eye to eye on this issue. I am eternally grateful for um what my parents have given me. They've raised me. Obviously, this assumes that this is not a completely dysfunctional, sinister person. person. person. Um and at the same time, we all need to fight for what we believe in.

And so, um my dad needs to put the vision for America that he believes in forward. And I'm going to do the same thing. And so you're never going to find me speaking ill of my father, but you'll find me saying that I don't like certain policies that he has. I would look at that and go, "Yeah, this is how people should handle this." The father should be doing something very similar. Uh my daughter's an incredible young woman. I cannot wait to see what she becomes.

I think over time, life is going to teach her different lessons, but everybody needs to fight for what they believe in. We trust the youth to come in and shake things up, which is exactly what my daughter's doing. I'm not going to abandon my principles. I always look at the arguments that my daughter puts forward. I'm very grateful to have somebody in my life that challenges me. I have nothing but love and respect for her for the political process. Now, look, I get we're not in that moment, but I do hold myself accountable to modeling those behaviors.

Um because I think that they are so high utility. This is exactly what my wife and I do in our marriage. There are times where the things that I believe my wife thinks are crazy and the things that she believes I think are crazy. Um but nonetheless, I'm not going to get up and talk [ __ ] on my wife. My wife is the most extraordinary person that I know. So it's like so I think that's what I'm hearing like the subcontext is not necessarily that you have a differing opinion.

It's not necessarily that you're quote unquote calling out my stance is you're talking about me like you're you're talking bad about your dad. You're talking bad she's like he sold his soul. These guys are stupid. Like that's where I'm like god damn. I don't have beef with her publicly disagreeing with her father in the same way I don't have a problem with my wife publicly disagreeing with me. Mhm. Um, it was a absolute mistake for her YouTube channel to interview me, but uh it was an awesome time as husband and wife to be able to discuss the most contentious issues in our marriage.

Um, so those kinds of things. Yeah, if you can do it with respect, but that is not this. this. this. And then last thing, uh, April is like, how we're assuming that he cares about his daughter. What if he's just like a POS? My easy go-to like if he's a piece of [ __ ] that's what you get. If you would have been a better dad, you would have had a better daughter. So I to me all of this is void. If he's not in her life, if he's abusive, if he did anything that's and not just triggering, he makes me feel a type way, but like pathologically wasn't there.

Abuse is not did like, you know, I mean, if there's anything measurable, actionable that we seen that he did that was wrong as a father, then by all means, you are now sewing those seeds that you planted. So you can't get mad at anybody but your Yeah. if they if they are a true enemy and it's not a friend of me and there there are certainly scenarios you could paint where I'd be like, "Yep, like you reap what you sew. I totally get it. I still don't love it." Uh as I would much rather see them handle this handle this handle this quietly in whatever way they need to handle that.

Um but yeah, on that one I'd be like, "All right, listen. I get it." if if he was neglectful in like a true pathological, not just like my dad wasn't at my games um kind of way, but still it's not my favorite Yeah. thing to see. Um quick fact though, I have a family member who didn't grow up with a father and he's now in his 20s. He has a relationship with his sisters on his father's side. like he has other interactions in the family, but like his actual dad has a wife, like three or four kids, lives in a different state and they're like happy housewife and then all his like bastard children are now like a coalition together and all this other stuff.

Long story short, we were talking on the phone and I was like, "Yeah, have you talked to him?" Cuz he was talking about him and his sisters are getting together about to do something. I was like, "Yeah, well, have you talked to him?" And he was like, "Nah, like whatever. He hates me." And I was like, "What do you mean?" He's like, "He doesn't talk to me. He hates me." And I was like I was about to like he doesn't hate you or he doesn't. And I was like, well, he's not here to give his argument in court, so that's like the default judgment.

It's like if you get a ticket and don't show up, the court's going to be like, all right, well, I guess you were speeding next on the docket, right? So, I'm like, as much as I hate that that's his takeaway that he thinks he hates him, it's like, well, you weren't there to then disprove that notion. So, you can't get mad at what takeaway that person comes down to. So, that's kind of what I'm saying with this. Like if her dad did do something that as a dad you let like you let her down, you were absent.

You weren't there. You can't get mad at how they respond to that trauma and how they work on themselves in order to live through it. It might be it might be bad. It might not be the way you want it to be, but you can't judge somebody else's healing when you cause that like wound. Does that make sense? It does. It does. It does. But no, give me give it back to me. Let me see how you I think right now we're in a very weird place as a society, as an American society, very specifically.

I think that I don't know these people. So, your presentation could be precisely correct. But I do worry that we're becoming like a society that does not expect any resilience from themselves, that does not give any leeway. Um, listen, my dad was very busy when I was a kid. I will put that uh very gently. But when I speak to my dad, my actual overwhelming sense is one of gratitude. gratitude. gratitude. So my dad worked his ass off and obviously I see in myself that same drive, that same ambition.

So I get why my dad poured himself into work. There were consequences. My mom and dad also had a bad marriage. And so to some extent, I think my dad did hide in his and my dad listens to the show, so he's probably going to hear this. I think that my dad did hide in his hobbies and I unfortunately he did invite me in. I absolutely hated every one of his hobbies uh barring movies which may explain a lot. And um so because of that my dad and I didn't spend a lot of time together when I was growing up but my dad did provide put food on the table.

Um certainly made me feel loved like he wasn't there in the way that my mom was. So a lot of my memories from my childhood are of my mom like just coring my insane energy. Uh and so have huge gratitude towards my mom for that. Um so I could see somebody with a different wiring with a different mindset putting my dad on blast. And to me, especially now as I'm older, that seems very unfair. And I I don't think people all see this the same, but my dad stayed until literally 3 weeks after I as the youngest left for college that my dad bounced.

Uh but for me, I had what I saw as a normal childhood. So I'm so grateful to my dad for doing that. So anyway, even in an imperfect situation where I think some people could read that and be like, "Hey, I'm putting dad on blast because he works so much." I'm just like that still I would take that up with dad figure out what's going on there. I'd give a lot more leeway. So that's me saying we're having a cultural moment where it's like male ambition is read in a really stupid way in my opinion where people are expecting men to take on a very feminine role of caretaking, looking after.

I don't think men are wired for that. So the classic men are more into things than people. My dad was just more into cars and work and so he spent more time with cars and work, right? And so, um, I think that this moment in time is brought to you by an aberration that does not line up with our actual evolved psychology. And so, we're asking men to be something that on average they really aren't. and seeing the sort of I'm not even sure what to label the way that people speak, but when you sound like a psychotherapist and you're talking in those terms, which I know I can do 100%.

Um, but I'm always like a little careful. We still are people that have foibless and so we need to be able to fall back on, have some resilience, give people some grace, like accept nobody's going to be perfect. I think it was Aristotle that said the only impossible job is raising a child. And I think that that is accurate. And for kids to just reinforce their own trauma from the way that they were raised is not a wise idea. There's plenty of data coming out that shows if you ruminate on your traumas, they become worse, not better.

And so I think people would be a lot better off even if you have to say, "My parents were so toxic. I'm never going to talk to them again." But like it is what it is. whether you want to take the um I'm sad that that's how their psychology ended up and that they couldn't get out from under that long enough to take care of a kid, but I've got you know some empathy for that some people just get wired in a gnarly way or right like it's listen I don't know if other people just don't make mistakes in their life.

I make enough mistakes in my life that I'm like, "God damn, I think I'm high level at navigating myself." And if I really am high level and I make mistakes, like everybody that isn't hasn't been, you know, given by the coder of the matrix these skills of navigating their own emotions, they're going to be in a much worse position. Uh, so giving grace seems we got some spiciness in the chat after the men aren't caretakers thing. Here we go. go. go. Do you think that it's just a different expectation?

Because I also had alpha dad. Same thing. Like my dad has taught me so much about my car. He taught me so much about like work ethic. I've never heard my dad complain. And he used to work 12-hour days every day my entire child like childhood. Like literally like 5 to 5 every day. I don't think I've seen my dad take a sick day before. But he we weren't going out in the back throwing the ball and playing catch. But it's like I can't I don't judge him for that because I think in the 40s like when he was like his had his comeuppets it wasn't about how good of a caretaker you are.

It's like my job is to make sure you have guys have everything you need and you get further than I am. My dad's highest education equivalent is eighth grade. The fact that I graduated high school it's like like you you won you did more than me. Like you know what I mean? So it's like I don't judge them for that. And I think now in 2026 with now we're having more access to information more naturally more emotionally intelligent now men have realizing okay not every guy just wants to turn a wrench some guys are like okay I understand the deficits I can now become a better caretaker stuff like that or do you still think it's just innativeness caretaking is not something that men do in mass I think the the right way to say it is we have a nature that requires nurture so our brains are developed in such a way that we are uh we have a nature so we are a certain way.

Men are different than women and then you layer on top of that the social reinforcements and you get something very specific. But they've done so many countless studies on this and when kids are way too young to have already been inculturated. Boys show a preference for different type of toys than girls. And it just the the blank slate hypothesis has no data backing it up whatsoever. It is a fool's errand. Anybody that says that is a [ __ ] and you can ignore them categorically. So now anybody that tells you that all men are the same and all women are the same, they are also a fool and you can ignore them.

But once you realize roughly we're 50% hardwired, so we have that nature and there's obviously variation within that. But when you layer on top of that cultural reinforcement, it won't take if it's not in alignment with the wiring that's already there. But there is a high degree of flexibility. Now, ironically, the flexibility exists on different dimensions across men and women, which I find utterly fascinating, and we could really fractal for a very long time about um the the flexibility that adult women show in their sexuality, which men don't.

Men get locked in. It's like at 14, it's like whatever a guy finds interesting at 14, that's it. Game over. Uh and women show a little bit more flexibility. Utterly fascinating. Um, so anyway, there's a bunch of conversations that we could be had there, but it is a very complicated uh interplay of okay, male, female, where are you at then on you're a guy, but now on the spectrum of masculine to feminine, where do you fall? Like I am very much on a masculine um scale, but I fall more towards a feminine temperament for a guy.

So I have uh I'm in touch with my emotions but at the same time demand that I never uh dance to the tune of my emotions. So it is everybody has to figure out sort of where they are on that spectrum. But to act like we don't have a nature that there is no difference between men and women is silly. And I'm happy like if the chat wants to keep fighting uh I'm happy to do it. do it. do it. I I think this is the perfect segue to how men and women see their political uh views.

how and how it has changed through time. So, interesting chart. Young women have become more liberal. Young men, not so much. Yeah, you're going to want to look at your phone or your screen if you can right now because when you look at the graph and you see that men rock in this really tight band uh and then women have just been on this escalatory path over the last 10 years. It's pretty wild. Yeah, it the gender ideology gap has more than doubled from 12 points in 1999 to 23 points in 2023.

Yes, young American women are now five times more ideologically separated from young American men than they were roughly 25 years ago. Now, you guys have heard me talk about this before. Dynamic tension between the sexes is good. It's great. We must want it. But we have reached something that is truly unbalanced in a way that is not healthy. Women are racing away from men ideologically and the data that we're talking about here shows that men have stayed almost perfectly consistent. We've got a total net swing of one point whereas women are racing to the left.

That's according to new Gallup data from the poll social series that tracks political identity from 1999 through 2023. In 99, the net ideology gap between 18 to 29year-old women and men was 12 points. Okay, that's manageable. Today it's 23 points. It's almost double. But men are just holding steady. In 99, 24% of young men called themselves liberal. By 2023, that number was a nearly static 25%. So only one percentage point move in 24 years. The trend though breaks open in 2027. The year Trump took office obviously in 2026.

And you've got the Me Too moment going viral. The gap crossed 10 points and has not stopped widening since. The fall of Roie Wade, by the way, in 2022 accelerated it. In a 2021 survey, 71% of Democrat uh Democratic college students said they wouldn't date someone who voted the other way. Brookings reports that nearly half of men, 18 to 29, now say they face discrimination. That's the highest of any male age group. Now, I would hope that you guys would expect all of this in a populist moment, but right now, young Americans are just sorting by tribe.

They date, marry, and befriend by ideology. And at a time where we're all so divided, this is a recipe for disaster as it shoves everyone down an echochamber pipeline and limits everyone's pool of options down to just those who think the same as they do. And that to me is extraordinarily dangerous as we look at some of the demographic challenges that we have as America and also just your well-being. Your well-being is going to be so much better if you're sharing this life with somebody. Not the least of which because left to their own devices, you've got men are going to do just men things and women are going to do just women things.

Whereas when we put them together, there's this dynamic tension of men trying to gain sexual access to women. It's not just this like evolutionarily or at least the experience layer isn't, but it's I think an important way to talk about it. Men in trying to gain sexual access to women are forced to raise the bar. And so it is very interesting what happens when women have raised the bar for themselves so much that it's no longer a question of can I partner with a man and get him to raise his bar up up up.

Instead, I'm just going to do it myself. And now, because women have a tendency towards hypergamy to date over a peer or up, somebody who's achieved more than they have, have, have, if they're super high on that scale, now there's nobody for them to peer with or go up. It becomes a very, very, very small pool of people. And so, it's creating wild distortions in the psyche of people in the West. It's pretty crazy. There are consequences to choices that we make as a society whether people want or not.

Isn't this correlated to education because like women are more educated and higher education tend to be more like well if you want them to stop having kids get them educated correlation but it it really is true. But I think the one of the biggest things that can't be overlooked is the pill because now women can have sex without getting pregnant and so you don't have to be as thoughtful. You be like, "No, this guy will be fun for a minute." And then you put yourself in that situation where you're no longer a sexual gatekeeper.

And without if men either can get easy access to women sexually or no access at all, then they just eject out of the system. And I think from an evolutionary perspective, because people don't like to talk about it, women being the sexual gatekeepers and going, "Oh, if you want to have sex with me, you got to jump over this bar." Um, men start working on their vertical jump pretty fast. And so that dynamic has worked for hundreds of thousands, millions of years of evolution. [clears throat] So it's um it's a dynamic that we have broken and we are paying a cost.

Now we may go that cost is well worth paying. Great. But we're paying a cost. There's a couple things on the table right now. Um whether it's women had act didn't get access to their own bank accounts till like the 80s. There's the women are out educating men. I think like 6040 at this point or something like that. U there's the pill. Is it Is it Is it the summation of all these things? Is there one thing I don't want to say that if we take away quote unquote that it might balance the scales a little bit?

It's just all a trade-off. So I if I were uh in back in the dating pool, if I were a guy, I would say, "Okay, listen. Whether or not you decide to pursue a woman, that's totally on you. I'll make my argument for why I think your life would be better if you do. But even if you're not going to, you can have control of your own life. And I'm going to try to teach them all the same lessons over here about self-improvement, about how skills have utility, that you can grow more powerful, and try to bring out all the competitive instincts, even if it's not aimed at um impressing a woman.

Cool. Your life will be better. Even if you end up being single, if you're on that path, there's an algorithm that runs in your brain that wants to see you make progress. Tony Robbins has said, and I think he's right, that um progress is a foundational pillar to human happiness. That if you're not making progress, no matter what, even if you're already wealthy, there will be a sense of unease. Like you want to be getting better at something. I think about that in my own life.

I game development, like what? Like we're this tiny ass developer, but I'm getting better at it, and the game is making progress, and I'm getting better at doing that thing. And so I have this incredible outlet uh for that algorithm in my brain saying, "You need to be improving." Mhm. improving." Mhm. improving." Mhm. Um, so I think people need to account for that. Women on the other hand, I would be saying something very similar like you need to have the life that you want. You just need to be very careful to make sure that you're playing the game you want and not allowing a masculine frame of reference to be pulled over your eyes.

So figure out what are the things that light you up. Don't feel like that you need to um make career your number one focus. It can be and there's a really beautiful outcome that can come from that, but you need to be very thoughtful. And this goes back into um how I meme'd over what I'm about to say again, but it really is true. So I'll keep repeating it uh which is that and of course this will get clipped out of context. The context is there are algorithms in your brain that will push you in given directions.

Women are getting pushed in the direction of having a child. And so there's going to be a tremendous evolutionary pressure on you to do that. And if you don't, there will be some weird longing in your life. Now, you can address that weird longing by having a meaningful contribution to the group in some way. Could be philanthropy. It could be tutoring. It could be um like Lisa gets a big part of that out of specifically helping young women. Like, so she's got this algorithm that's clearly pushing her to want to help people.

And there's just something about the siren call of the hard things that she went through as a teenager wanting specifically to help girls in that period. And to make her light up like you need only talk about that, focus on that. Now, that is her dealing with not having a child. She's just not weird about talking about it. She's like, I get it. If I'm not going to have a kid, I better have something that addresses that thing. And my wife is like super career oriented, wants a career, is very clear that she doesn't want kids, but nonetheless understands, oh, this really is a thing.

Like I really do. And maybe she has less of a push than the average woman because uh my wife, though very decidedly female, is has a slightly more masculine temperament. So that has both of us leading towards the middle, which is part of why we get along so well. But in all of that, she understands, "Oh, I can't just go chill on a beach, sip my ties, uh, you know, and say, I'm so glad I can daydream because I don't have kids." She understands that's not the game.

You have to have meaning and purpose. You've got to be focused on that because of those algorithms running in your mind. So again, if you're not going to have kids, you better make sure that you have something in your life that you care enough about that it will deal with the unease, the anxiety, the sense of emptiness that you will feel if you don't have that. So evolution gets its way, man, whether we want it to or not. And it creates these internal intrinsic desires within us.

And we can as a society, we can nudge people like we can give women so many other options that a huge number of them decide not to have kids. But also, there was a study done not too long ago that showed the most unhappy people in America are female partners in a law firm. And now I'm speculating as to why, but my gut instinct is it's a hyper masculine environment because it's all about being argumentative, which women are more consensus driven. So, you're putting them into a hyper masculine field that's run by guys and it's so demanding from a time perspective that the odds that you're able to have kids are low and if you do have kids, you'd be able to spend as much time as you want with them is also low.

And so, at some point, everybody pursuing success will ask themselves the question to what end? end? end? Why am I doing this? And early in my career, it was always just I want to build uh an entertainment company. I didn't think about why I wanted an entertainment company. Now I've gotten to the point in my life where it's only because of the why that I keep pursuing it. And so I'm just saying everybody's going to have to contend with the why. Having kids, instant answer. See this kid forward.

Your brain's like, "Ah, it will give you all kinds of other problems. All kinds. The fear of raising the kid, the amount of time that they suck away from you. you really are passing on your life force to them. I'm not saying that doesn't come without its own anxieties, but that sense of like I know what my mission is. By doing it well, I'm contributing very meaningful to the group. I'm doing something that's beyond myself. I'm getting out of my own head. I'm living for somebody else.

All things that the algorithms want us to do, meaning the internal evolutionary algorithms. Um, and then we have one more in the chat. This is from Mark, I believe his name is. Yes. Big business is more of the issue. The family unit was broken around the industrial revolution when the men left their sons to work in factories instead of teaching them their trade. I understand directly what he's saying. I'm going to put another cherry on top of that. What say you about some of the societal narratives that have caused this fraction in men versus women.

Whether it's feminism to go and have your own things causing two different households to pay the same bills, whether it's the pressure on society and family that as soon as your kid turns 18, you got to kick him out the house. all these other societal pushes that meant that made more independent children which has now led to independent men and women who don't necessarily coales as much as they used to. used to. used to. Well, so I think the the thing that Mark said in the chat I would challenge and I would ask him at what period in society did he think that we were doing it well?

Um because there are some crazy thing like if you want to ruin your day, go do research on why were Romans and Athenians so notorious for men having sex with young men? Like say what? Like how does that become a thing? And I I don't advise doing it, Drew. It is it is a deeply distressing answer. Um, and that's where I'm like, m like you could maybe go all the way back to tribal stuff, but even then like you were just trying to protect your group from being raped by the next group.

I mean, it's just it is a long and sorted history. I I'm going to laugh. Oh, you're headed down. Drew's uh I don't know if he's broadcasting this, but I am. I am. I am. Should I Should I not? I mean, it gets wild, dude. It gets wild. So, uh it is a very um careful thing. the relationships between the sexes to um be done in a way that a modern audience would feel morally justified in doing. Um and at the same time, some of the moral cleanup that we've done has come at a cost of societal cohesion.

And so you would have a very hard time saying that the moral side of this doesn't matter and therefore let's just go back to um you know some mythical period where everything was great. I don't think there ever was. I think it's just it's always tradeoffs and right now I think we're making way better tradeoffs but some of the trade-offs scare me in terms of why this moment will be temporary. Like I'll make a prediction barring AI. AI changes everything. So I'm merely trying to speak to trajectory, not what I actually think will play out.

But purely from a trajectory standpoint, the way that we're going now, you get mouse utopia and you get like this super weird thing where everybody becomes so me focused focused focused that um the colonies completely collapse. And so they'll get replaced by whatever group does not do that. And right now you need only look at successful um population growth. And that comes down to hyperreligious groups that uh basically sequester female opportunity to make sure that they have kids. Now, I'll leave them unnamed. I think everybody knows where we're headed here.

Um, so yeah, I don't know that people want that outcome either. So, but it's all trade-offs, man. I feel like I still don't have an answer about why the Well, you it would take you a while if you want me to speedrun it. God, do I want to speedrun this? Um, okay. The speed run is that in an era where there is no um birth control, modern audiences will have a hard time with this, but when the average life expectancy is 30 years old, you are having a midlife crisis at 15.

At 15, you've probably been married for a year, two or three to a much older man. P.S. I'm sad to report. uh and having babies to a modern audience that's like oh my god. god. god. So what happens in a society where you're like we've got to separate men and women because they just will knock each other up like [ __ ] crazy. And the only way to pass wealth down is to know who is your kid and who's not your kid and to keep these relationships tight.

Remember marriage started largely as an economic way to pass wealth down. And when you start spreading wealth out too much it becomes a problem. So you say all these bastard kids like no no no no just there's one official kid that that kid gets all the money. [snorts] And so you some cultures these two in particular chose to separate men and women when they were young and they would only have them marry say in their for women late teens early 20s for men in their 30s.

But now imagine you're a 16-year-old and you want to have sex. And so their solution was the prison solution was [ __ ] the guys. And so but bro, like okay, we're hardwired. Tom just said that you can only like do so much. So what's the so much? You go after guys that look feminine. And who are the guys that look feminine? Young people. It's so gross, dude. I hate everything about this. But nonetheless, unfortunately, your research will lead you to that conclusion. And so this is Pedarasti and I'm just like god damn like when you start reading about the um this is Sparta the Spartans, okay?

We think of them as the hardest core [ __ ] ever. One of the problems they had was the men would be sleeping with each other so much they'd be like, "Bro, you're 18. You've got to take a wife now. You cannot keep [ __ ] your like war buddies." And so it was like that that becomes a problem. It's it's crazy that like the toughest army was just out here each other ever. They were the most hardcore gangster [ __ ] of all time time time chasing each other booty and they were still like, "Bro, this guy just won't stop [ __ ] the other guys." Like, this is wild.

We've got to get him to take women seriously. 300 was propaganda. They didn't had none of the sex scenes at 300 propaganda. What's happening, dude? It's wild. It's wild. So there there is all of this stuff is the human when viewed as animal is so distressing. So we put a lot of layers on society and we say well this is how we really are and it's like not really. So it's it's all trade-offs. I I don't want to make the trade-offs that this part was made.

I will tell you that right now. Uh so I'm perfectly happy. I think it is wise to give women every opportunity in the known universe. But we do need to educate them in terms of like, hey, here are the tendencies and um in different phases of your life, you're going to feel very differently. So, as you get older, um especially if you don't have a strong partnership with your spouse, your spouse, your spouse, uh you're going to be like, "Where are my kids?" And that impulse will be strong.

So, anyway, just be careful. Also, you said earlier about how like senior year after you graduated, like your parents ended up getting divorced. I remember senior year, like that summer going into college, divorce hit like six of my like friends. Like it was like, "Yep, last one out the house. All right, cool." Like so many people were like, "All right, we're done now. Wrap it up." And then just like dissolve their marriage. It's crazy. I mean, shout out to all the people that stay together for the kids.

Like I really do respect it. Trade-offs. Um, we got one more super chat. Shout out to Tyler Glib Gilb. Um, what do you think will be the consequences of Spirit Airline closing? probably little to nothing at this point. I mean, those people will lose their job and that's never fun. Shareholders will lose their money. That's never fun. Um, but if there's a real opportunity in the market, then we'll innovate our way to the other side of this. I have a bad feeling um that a big part of this is we have needed the airline industry has not innovated almost at all for like 50 years.

And we've got to get the government out. We've got to let people fail. And eventually, I think um AI complicates all of this. So please know when I make prognostications like this for simplicity sake I'm talking trajectory not what will probably actually be confused by AI but um the airlines need to innovate the only way that's going to happen is if they start losing customers because everything becomes too expensive and then they're going to be forced to innovate. So the cost of oil is actually putting a shock on a system that's probably way too fragile.

And so they'll go under and somebody like Elon Musk will go, "This really needed to be a suborbital problem all along. And now that we have reusable rockets, you're going to be able to get to London in I'm not joking, like 45 minutes um from LA." So that's where I think all of this is headed. But if the government keeps propping up these zombie industries, it's just never going to happen. There won't be enough pain. You need the pain for the innovation to be worth the the effort.

effort. effort. Cool. And thank you super chat super chat super chat for that $50 super chat. We appreciate you. you. you. No joke, Tyler. That $50 super chat. Cool. And we got a master class coming up, right? up, right? up, right? Yes, we do. And it's this week. Zero to Founder is where I teach you guys how to build a company largely using AI. Okay. And the master class that we're doing on the 7th at 1 p.m., which is this Thursday, is where for free, no fee whatsoever, for free, I'm going to teach you guys how to build your first five essentially AI employees to launch your company as a solo entrepreneur.

Uh, it is very doable. We have people doing it all the time. So, join me this Thursday, May 7th, at 1 p.m. Pacific for free. I'm going to walk you guys through how to do it. It'll be awesome. And then one more shout out to Kelshi for sponsoring today's episode. We appreciate you guys uh and think that we've got something more long-term uh brewing here with Kelshi. So hopefully excited to bring them back uh as we look at the odds of different things happening. Say last one last one.

Bitcoin price on Friday over under 80K. Super chat Super chat Super chat this Friday. I'm going to go with over over 80K. over 80K. over 80K. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, over 80K. All right, that's a 46% chance. If you hit yes, 46 cents for every dollar that you invest. Shout out to Cali. I might have to transfer some funds. funds. funds. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Let's see if Tom owns me money on Friday. Let's go. All right, everybody. You know, I won't be betting, just for the record.

I I like the data. Give me that data, Kelshi. All right, you guys. Thank you so much as always for joining us, and we will see you on Wednesday. May the fourth be with you later, everybody. Peace.