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just so you know everything is archived by the White House right now so everything we say is recorded David
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freeberg is a jam stop you're being recorded good I I hope this is discoverable there white house I just
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want you to know that stupid also he did not pay his taxes in 2016 don't you really want me to start
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with you you want me to start you want me to put some sh the archives oh my God here let me put some sh archives for you
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going to be my pets I think you need to shut the up is what you need to do sorry
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White House I'm going to be my pants he did he also has some unpaid parking tickets from
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2021 you want me to start with you let your winners [Music] ride David and instead we open source it to
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the fans and they've just gone [Music] crazy all right everybody welcome back to the number one podcast in the world
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with me again today Jam paaa your chairman dictator David freeberg our sulan of Science and two guests uh
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obviously Ben Shapiro very famous for having the number two podcast in the world how are you Ben uh I'm I'm doing
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I'm doing great I'm just honored to be here you know yes more work to do you could exceed all in in the rankings no
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we we we always judge ourselves Ben on three things in the rankings when we look at how we're doing what we see is
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Ben Shapiro prayer from the Bible okay the New Testament I don't think you've got
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it yet you you have the Old Testament but you haven't gotten the new you haven't gotten the sequel and then
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number three murder also with us from the White House yeah welcome to Allin where we
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have a live feed into the White House today my good friend Antonio graas is here he uh is taking I guess you're
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taking would it be safe to say a Hiatus or you're from Valor to do a little Tour
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of Duty uh in our government working on doge is is that the way to say it I'm still doing my day job too man this is
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this is this is a 7-Day a week 68 hour day job because I'm uh I'm trying to do both I've got some great partners are
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covering for me and that my firm has been tremendous and in um in allowing me to do this but no I'm still trying to do
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both was it public prior to this week Antonio that you were doing this role did you announce it anywhere was I
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didn't announce it were no that the New York Times had read a story about um me going to say you know which is s New
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York time style not not right but I was I had been there yeah I was out Woodland
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Maryland 40% correct yeah close enough close enough for hand grenades close enough I'm sure they had no agenda
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Antonio how does it how does it work so when you volunteered do is it that you and Elon
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and Steve just kind of figure out let's put a senior person at every part of the
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administration where there's real opportunity why did you end up at SSA versus someplace else interesting
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question and by the way it's great to see you guys man thanks for having me on I can use your last you're like you're
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really making me laugh thank you good to see thank you um suit looks great by the
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way yeah oh thank Youk when do you have to return it the rental is to at the end
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of the week okay um so yeah know what happened was I had actually volunteered to go to the VA because that's kind of
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as you guys know close to my heart and um Elon said to me look great you can do that next but we go to essay first and
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and see what's going on there because it's you know the biggest we have and and see what you find in fraud Wass and
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abuse and so of course I said sure I'll do that and I ended up out in Woodland Maryland with the good people at the SSA
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the soci administration and that that's where I started that's how that's how all this started for me and so do you
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Antonio go in there with a doge engineer as your kind of sidekick per se or you just go there solo and you show up and
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like like what happens day one when you walk in into the place what do you do so
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I brought with me um two great professionals uh you know John and and pton from uh from Valor um one of them
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an engineer the other one I'd say a finance ninja both these guys are ninjas and there was already a team there
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actually that was working with some great engineers and one senior person uh Scott cter who's from actually worked at
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Lone p and start his own fund and then had come here as a volunteer as well so they were already doing some work
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actually particularly on on the enumeration part of the part of the system so that the system that you have
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numbers the whole cleaning up the database the numbers they had already started that project when I got there
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and what is the mandate as given to you you know as part of Doge fraad waste and
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abuse I mean exactly what you know what the what Bill Clinton talked about what Barack Obama talked about what all
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presidents but maybe President Biden talked about uh going back in time it was go figure out how to save some money
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man the system is going bankrupt it's going to be bankrupt 2037 the country overall as you guys know and talked
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about many times is on its way toward bankruptcy want do something and go go figure out we can save money and go find
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the fraud and that's what we did you know let's get to it you uh spoke at a rally uh I think it was on
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Sunday and you pulled up a chart here is that chart maybe you could explain to the American people here what this chart
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shows yeah so if if I might just step back and tell you how I got it because I think it's important you know we map the
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way we work you guys know we're very operational Balor I've worked with all you guys various times and what we do is
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we map the entire system from beginning to end so we we map the system from enumeration so I get your number all the
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way to the end went to the offices and saw the office offices operate and in that process um one of our Engineers Pon
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I mentioned he found U the data so we're looking at all the data numeration how it works what you know what's going on
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the typical stuff you'd look at and he found this data uh called enumeration Beyond entry right so that is the that's
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and it it had this giant Ram to it you can see their Baseline was kind of you know 3 400,000 people all the way up 2.1
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million people and that just jumped out at us and we're like what's that and so we dug into it and that's how this
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started and so what that's showing is social security numbers that were issued to non-american Citizens or non-citizens
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am I correct that that's the number we're looking at so these are noncitizens getting Security numbers and
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for people who don't know just like a little bit of background on the Social Security
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System we do this this is not abnormal for us to give Social Security numbers this is part of the process uh that the
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government does the Social Security number was created in 1936 for citizens to track their earnings and in the '90s
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we started giving them to non-citizens who were authorized to work in the US so that we could collect taxes from them
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and so if you're not a citizen and you're a green card holder which some people in this program I think have been
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you have to have a Social Security number in order to work and you pay into Social Security and Medicare uh just
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like you as Citizens and then eventually I think you would qualify for those over
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some period of time you can also get a Social Security number if you're a legal immigrant into the United States on a
00:06:57
Visa so for example when I first came to the United States 25 years ago on a TN Visa I was able to get my Social
00:07:05
Security number because I had a valid visa to be in the United States okay yeah so we have social security numbers
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being given to non-citizens that is not controversial but there's something controversial about this chart Antonio
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tell us what that is so I I think you look at the chart you'll see there's it starts to like called 300,000 or so this
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is during the covid period yeah coming right out of it so we the 21 coming right out of Co right so if you go back
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even a couple years in 19 you'll see that um it's about 400,000 yeah exactly right there so um what happened was this
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program was designed for so people you're talking about you know people that got visas this is at numeration
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Beyond entries this after you're in um there are some people in here that have h-1bs screen cards Etc and the way we
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thought about this was that's the Baseline number that's the 3 to 400,000 a year you see and that should be
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happened that's like you know there are programs for Afghans example the translators that came in after the war
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right the people who brought it they would be in these kinds of programs and so the Baseline number and by the
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program goes back this particular program goes back all the way to 17 and had legitimate use which was the kind of
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people we talking about people that we want to let in um like The CARE program I'll make an example which are the
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Afghans they would be in this number and so what what jumped out of this wasn't that this is here because it has
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legitimate use it's that it's the growth why did it grow this fast and what happened that that's what we dug into
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have you figured that out yet is it because of like a covid overhang the the one criticism I did see of the chart
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that I wanted to bring up with you is hey people want to see the 10 years 20 years before this what would we see if
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we we were Look Backwards a little bit and do you have some theories and is the covid overhang Theory valid or is this
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just Biden opened the Border as we saw you know especially like in maybe it was that third year of his term the 2023
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year and this is the overhang of the 2023 surge what are your theories well the answer is no categor no because the
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program really started it it started in 2017 so they probably worked on it before that right a few takes a few
00:09:03
years to put these things into place they worked at it my guess is you know back during the B Administration it
00:09:08
actually became active in 17 you see a few numbers in 18 and it starts to get a little bigger in 19 and 20 right so that
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that's how we get this Baseline number of 1920 that's where we're using that data here um so you there isn't I can't
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go back 20 years it doesn't exist and then when we dug into it what we found was the vast majority of the growth uh
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was related to Asylum programs and PE Le and people that came in on on ntas this
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noticed to appear into the country either at the border at the airports mostly at the border and then we dug
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further into it excuse me dug further into it we found that there were this is about 5.4 million people
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total there were about 1.2 million people that the status was marked as unknown and about 1.2 million people
00:09:51
that were marked as general parole and they should have markings of you know what the program is they're under
00:09:56
because if you if you claim Asylum you're supposed to claim like a real fear I'm going to be tortured by my
00:10:00
country you know something's bad is going to happen me so why I can't go home what we find here is that a
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legitimate program was in the word I use abused it the the the requirements were
00:10:10
like super opened so that more people come through and the example I'll give you you know I have here actually the
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form this the form used to be going back in time a four-page form that the officer have to fill out in the field
00:10:24
and the person that was claiming Sol had to actually prove that they were had a really credible fear of being you know
00:10:28
murdered tortured by their government that's something B them that's that's what SS for it turned into a form which
00:10:34
I can't give you but I'm going to show you here you can if you zoom in on it it has four questions that's it and the
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four questions are super leading I'll just read the um you know the like one of the important ones here right so do
00:10:46
you have any reason for a concern about being returned to your home country or being removed from the United States I
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mean could that be more leading right what they did is they open they just open the aperture on these
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programs dramatically so they allowed people that were illegal to the border to come in Legally and as we've dug
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further into it we found this took us so you guys know me man I do like I'm a very methodical lean business process
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mapper and we went all the way to the Border literally to Brownsville and Laredo to ask what happened we couldn't
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find the data on what these these unknown categories were and it turns out that when the the the folks the Border
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who were great by the way um they they really tried hard and they suffered a lot in this this is a bit of this is a
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human strategy I we talked about they were were giving people at times notices to appear this is the the NTA and what
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that allows you to do is come in the country and then you're you're schedule a court date which is like six years out
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so now you're in the country with some quasi legal status you're waiting for your court date and while you're waiting
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for your court date which could be six six years out is the average by the way could be longer than that you're waiting
00:11:53
for your court date they uh you could fill out a Sil application so without even interview just an application by
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filing a form once application's in you can um file another form 765 to get a work authorization once you get that you
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get a 766 which is the authorization and we automatically send you a soci card in
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the mail no interview at all that that's that's the that is the majority of the growth you see in these numbers is there
00:12:19
any ID verification along the way Antonio like do we know that there are no duplications Happening by validating
00:12:27
that one individual is getting one social security number at any point in this process so it's a great question um
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no the answer is there's no real verification so you can you one of the things we found we looked at this was
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the the people that that some people showed IDs some people didn't and one of the things these would be IDs Antonio
00:12:44
from their home country this would be a Venezuelan driver's license or something
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yeah I mean it could be a passport a driver's license but here's what really sort of tipped us off and disturbed us
00:12:54
when we looked at the the birth cific data that was present at the border the number one birth date was was 1 and it
00:13:00
was four times more likely to be born on 1 one than any other uh day of the year
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now we all know this is so they just hit enter on that part the or they had they
00:13:08
could come they Al could come with nothing we take Biometrics of people at the border do we take like an iris scan
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fingerprints and all that stuff this is one of the issues I mean we do have photos of of people uh we found that 23%
00:13:19
of the records looked at did not have fingerprints and look the the folks at the border were um overwhelmed and we're
00:13:26
not sure why this happened I will tell you guys just to understand I went down there both border patrol and Border
00:13:32
Protection told me they had the highest suicide rates of all time during the surge okay over 70 over 70 of these
00:13:39
agents committed suicide in this period it's truly tragic because they knew it was going on given the fact that that
00:13:46
all this has happened is the Trump Administration going to try to claim the social
00:13:53
security numbers back invalidate them what would be the proper action or is it too late are they already sort of in the
00:13:58
system and now you can't anything about it so Ben it's a great question right and the the the first question was what
00:14:04
are they doing I mean you know like where are these people where are they how are they and we've gone through a
00:14:09
whole process of mapping this so we mapped it through to the benefit programs we found uh in the benefit
00:14:14
programs that every benefit we looked at was being accessed by these people you know 1.3 million of them are on Medicaid
00:14:21
right now today and by the way it's just ramping just starting just to give you a
00:14:24
point and then out of curiosity I woke up at night like 2: in the morning I I couldn't sleep mind was R on this I sent
00:14:30
the Andre a notes saying hey guys let's just look at the the public voter roles who we find in some in some friendly
00:14:34
States and we looked at the voter roles and we found that thousands of them registered to vote in a handful of
00:14:39
states and then we went further with those friendly States and found that the many of those people had actually voted
00:14:44
it was shocking to us and if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't believed it and so now the question
00:14:49
we're asking ourselves is what do we do we've referred some to prosecution that's ongoing right now you know we're
00:14:54
thinking through how to do it and the reality is they have various kinds of status and it's a very detailed analysis
00:15:00
legally they working through right now about how to deal with it so thousands of those people registered to vote Yes
00:15:08
in the election which is a federal crime by the way well yeah I mean the interesting thing is like the Heritage
00:15:13
Foundation has a very good project you know it's obviously right leaning where they're studying all cases of fraud I
00:15:18
looked at it before we're here there's only been 24 cases since 2003 of somebody who's a non-citizen trying to
00:15:25
vote now those are people caught so this would be incredibly dramatic if it was even a thousand people oh no Jason it's
00:15:32
more than a thousand I've I've seen it um I've seen the data myself and it's more than a thousand in just a couple of
00:15:37
States I mean it is shockingly bad and this is the tip of the iceberg guys it's the tip of the iceberg this doesn't
00:15:43
include the 7.8 million people that ice has that have come in illegally and know
00:15:47
are here and all the people that came illegally we don't know are here I mean this is not a political issue I want to
00:15:51
be really clear about this about America let's just take one step back because I
00:15:55
just want you to repeat this so because I think it's important and we may have just run over it a little too quickly
00:16:02
when you get a Social Security number what you're saying is there's all of these important Downstream consequences
00:16:10
one of the downstream consequences is you could show up register to vote and that's an illegitimate action that's
00:16:17
breaking federal law that's one but the second is that without knowing who this person is they can start to absorb
00:16:26
resources that could have otherwise gone to an American I guess that's like a fundamental part of
00:16:34
this so how do you how do you quantify that can you just maybe explain it a little bit more about all of the
00:16:40
different ways in which you think now you know the United States ends up leaking services to these folks and also
00:16:48
they could be contributing too right they could be paying taxes into the system and so I guess there's both of
00:16:52
those possibilities and both of those have fingerprints to off so yeah good question you know look we need to figure
00:16:58
this out this this is a a very it's massively complex you can see the map I have on the Whiteboard and our office
00:17:04
it's huge and we're figuring it out right now but let me just tell you this and every benefit program we looked at
00:17:10
and this is just a handful of States we found people on all the benefit programs
00:17:13
and we found them on unemployment we found them on Medicaid so adjacent to your point the people on Medicaid
00:17:18
unemployment they're not contributing they're taking out they're moing right there are criminals I mean look we sent
00:17:24
this data list to the National targeting Center they and I I don't want to get too far into the data but I can tell you
00:17:28
they found hardheads in the Target Center um of very bad people criminals and people on ter watch list that are in
00:17:35
this group and so yeah I mean it's it's a problem we got to figure out how to deal with it and the of course there are
00:17:42
people that are also you know have jobs and paying in the system that's you know
00:17:46
that's that's also true all these things are true and we're trying to surf the data and figure out how to actually deal
00:17:51
with it now Antonio one of the things about the data that you triggered which because the data is so important
00:18:00
frankly is a lot of people started to try to find a way to nitpick and say Antonio you're cherry picking or Antonio
00:18:10
this is not really representative and you had some pretty big names right people that have credibility Jim chos
00:18:16
probably being one of the more prolific people a very well-known hedge fund manager but I think you try
00:18:23
to articulate why their objections didn't make any sense I think it's important to maybe give you a few
00:18:30
moments here to identify what they said and maybe debunk it so the the chart that they're using and you can see this
00:18:39
I posted something on X about this it was Apples to oranges you can you could see here they
00:18:45
took a chart that included all enumerations not the EB program the enumeration B entry program all
00:18:52
enumerations they compared to our chart they put this so just to be clear this would have included somebody like me
00:18:57
coming in on a tnv or somebody on an eb1 Visa yeah the so those people being our
00:19:04
data too but just enumerated Beyond entry the data on the left uh of 2020 the big bars that includes people in the
00:19:11
offices that includes people that got they got uh C numbers because they went to a consulate and like you probably did
00:19:16
applied ahead of time before they came in you know those kinds of people so we need a stacked bar chart so there's some
00:19:21
fun with numbers going on can you flip back again so your number for 24 was how much 2.1 million right yeah
00:19:30
yeah what they did is took they took our data so this was you know look I don't want to impute Negative motiv they just
00:19:36
maybe were confused they took our data and they comp they added the total data right this is just subsection this is EB
00:19:45
and I'm just going to use AC okay guys this is EB only in numeration Beyond entry which is a program as I said
00:19:51
started in 2017 and then it kind of ramped up into 19 they took our data and then they added the total Data before
00:19:57
that right that is apples to oranges that's why it doesn't work and I I went through a whole analysis of this on X
00:20:06
and you know the person the first person that posted the chart actually deleted it and sent me a post saying hey you
00:20:11
know I'm deleting it because I get it you're right and apologized and ask me some questions I don't want to get into
00:20:16
you know you guys know I don't post a lot on X I don't want to get into basic people it's not worth it the data speaks
00:20:21
for itself there's it basically it basically became like a roar shock test where people that did not want to
00:20:26
believe the points you were making latched on to that chart that was shown even though it was disproven and that
00:20:33
became the narrative for a good chunk of the internet and a good chunk of for media respons yeah I mean look you guys
00:20:38
know me you know me for a long time this is not political man this is this tell about your political background again we
00:20:43
haven't talked about this on the show Antonio but I think it's worth letting everyone hear about your background a
00:20:47
little bit just so folks understand where you're coming from I was a Democrat for 20 years I mean I I I you
00:20:53
know I knocked on doors for really Clinton Iowa I was uh you know from from Illinois and look I've got lots of good
00:21:00
friends are Democrats and when I explain this sta to them they're as shocked as I
00:21:03
am I don't believe this I mean to say you're a Democrat is an under you were a Democrat is an understatement you were a
00:21:08
major donor and majorly involved with the Democratic party yes Ben you you tend to call balls and Strikes on the
00:21:15
program what are your thoughts on immigration generally and how it should work here in the US and how maybe
00:21:22
we can resolve this and get to and Anton I want your answer to that question as well maybe some reconciliation here
00:21:29
between the moderates Maga original you know classic GOP Democrats and and the woke lunatics like is there any way out
00:21:38
of this and and maybe perhaps what we're seeing here with somebody like Antonio who's a lifelong Democrat who now is you
00:21:45
know helping the government maybe there's some way with data and logic we can get through this I mean I I think
00:21:51
that what Antonio is doing here is is so important specifically for that because
00:21:55
it seems to me there's actually been a fairly wide consensus among the American population for a very long time what to
00:22:00
do about immigration particularly the southern border which is number one just sto the illegal immigration at the
00:22:04
southern border after Biden blew that out a lot of Democrats turned to president Trump specifically because of
00:22:09
that issue and that has been the signal success of the Trump Administration among all the other successes the the
00:22:14
numbers of the Border have just plummeted to almost zero I mean the lowest numbers in recorded history and
00:22:18
that is an unmitigated success and then I think everybody knows that we have to sort of figure out who gets to stay and
00:22:23
who gets to go who's already in the country and what Antonio is doing by being able to discern who is here and is
00:22:28
net draw on the resources of the American people versus maybe who is a net taxpayer or who's actually
00:22:33
contributing who's a criminal right there's always been this bizarre supposition in the in the political
00:22:38
realm that there's no way on a onetoone level to figure out who is who you have to treat everybody as a class either
00:22:43
everybody stays everybody goes and the reality is that even the way the Trump Administration is doing this by first
00:22:48
targeting say criminal illegal aliens for for removal and then maybe moving on to people who are net drawn resources
00:22:54
who came in falsely under claims of Asylum and now are receiving Medicaid or disability this I've made the argument
00:23:00
for for I think my entire career actually on this that that we should be treating immigrants illegal immigrants
00:23:04
who are in the country the same way we would treat people who are trying to get into the country which is to say are you
00:23:09
going to benefit the United States or are you not going to benefit the United States and the counter argument was
00:23:12
always well how exactly are you going to determine who is who and the answer I always gave was well the IRS does it
00:23:18
with our tax returns literally every single year so why should we not be able to do that and so the kind of work
00:23:23
Antonio is doing showing you actually can do that by tracking the social security numbers of people who came in
00:23:27
illegally because the truth of the number of unknown getaways is actually really really compared to this it's it's
00:23:34
a small number most of the people who are coming across the border at least during the Biden term I went down to the
00:23:38
Border last year and and visited uh a Native American reservation that's right along the border where where the border
00:23:44
patrol basically was not uh and and they said that what was happening is people were arriving at the border they were
00:23:48
doing exactly what Antonio was talking about they would literally say I fear to go back to my home country they' be
00:23:53
processed they'd be led into the country with a with a a future date to come back
00:23:57
and that was all happening with 72 hours so being able to track those people and
00:24:00
find out who who who should be in who shouldn't be that that's that's huge and I think that's the
00:24:06
consensus so uh should we are you in the camp we should Deport everybody this sort of Stephen Miller Miller Deport 20
00:24:13
million people Ben or you and the hey let's get rid of the criminals and you know that will get us to where we need
00:24:19
to be well I don't think it's just the criminals I mean I think you also need to go after the folks who are are here
00:24:23
to take advantage of the welfare benefits for example who are just draw on the system um but I don't think that
00:24:28
the number is 20 million I don't think president Trump actually thinks the number is is 20 million I don't think
00:24:33
anybody realistically thinks the number is 20 million got it okay but they they said it over and over again all 20
00:24:37
million are going and it's right but they say a lot of things it's AIT it's a yes it's a political campaign and people
00:24:42
say that sort of stuff all the time Antonio let's talk maybe about reconciliation here you spent your life
00:24:49
as a Democrat and now you've spent I don't know six months as a republican here and helping this Administration how
00:24:55
do we get the country to sort of get back together here and maybe reconcile on this issue because it seems like an
00:25:02
unnecessary to Ben's point I I think the number is 80% of people believe the Border should be just shut period full
00:25:09
stop and everything should be legal and I don't know the other 20 if they're just don't know how to take a survey
00:25:14
I've never met anybody who said there should be an open border at at the southern border so what are your
00:25:18
thoughts on given your inside knowledge uh and I would describe you as a Clinton
00:25:23
Democrat fiscally conservative socially liberal correct me if I'm wrong there what are your thoughts on reconciliation
00:25:29
here because you really do care about that your parents both immigrants my Bes is here three of the four people who
00:25:36
host this program immigrants this is an immigrant country built by immigrants for immigrants has always been so how do
00:25:43
we reconcile this issue and put it behind us and Jason I have asked myself this question and I I think we got to follow
00:25:50
the truth and that's that's the point follow the truth and the truth is in the data and as as Ben said the numbers
00:25:55
don't lie right and so people are productive we got find a way to to allow them to be productive and stay people
00:26:01
that are are taking the system should not be allowed to stay and you know I think we I don't want to get into the
00:26:05
policy at all because it's above my pay grade I mean the reality is for me my remit is as as Ben said it's criminals
00:26:11
terrorists and then people mooching off the system and then you know a political
00:26:14
question needs to be answered about what happens to the rest of those people I I
00:26:17
don't I don't know I don't it's not my remit free I I will say this yeah I think that all my friends who are still
00:26:25
Democrats that I have explain this data to they all say the same thing you guys are saying
00:26:28
man this is a problem we got to figure this out and let me tell you why the bigger problem the biggest problem here
00:26:33
and it's it's definitely is taking off the system but you got to realize we gave 13 to 15 billion a year to human
00:26:40
traffickers that's what this system did and the money magnet that attracted these people here it wasn't like it was
00:26:46
some crisis that you know environmental crisis the money magnet attracted these people and many of them died on the way
00:26:51
up I mean think about what that's like think about the this a human suffering a human rights tragedy you have people who
00:26:59
are getting sold into slavery and being abused at the border at a at a minimum every American should be against that
00:27:05
everyone is every American is man this turned my stomach when I went to the board and I heard the stories it turned
00:27:09
my stomach man this we are America okay we protect people like this we don't give incentives to people to pay
00:27:16
traffickers if you pay 20,000 I heard 20,000 to 500 bucks just across the border $20,000 I mean where do someone
00:27:23
who's coming from Central America or Africa get 20 grand to pay the pay the traffickers that are walking them across
00:27:28
the border it's not free to walk up Mexico okay it's controlled by the cartels what happens I mean they got to
00:27:33
pay that back how do they pay it back they're basically DED servants this is terrible this isn't what we do in this
00:27:38
country right this country is about freedom and we are here to protect it we protect it around the world protected
00:27:43
our home country and I don't think any American that I know none of them Democrats Republicans or anyone thinks
00:27:49
this is good it's not good it's bad for America and it's evil Behavior we shouldn't send it we shouldn't we
00:27:54
shouldn't give people a reason to do it we should find legal ways people come in
00:27:57
the country and do you believe that there is a Democratic party motive to increase
00:28:03
voter base for the Democrats behind all of this as has been proclaimed by some look as I go through the data and I see
00:28:11
it's all about the data okay David and I know you you you you you love the data when you just in a handful of States man
00:28:18
I'm talking about four states we looked at the voter roles we found these people
00:28:22
thousands of them on the voter roles and we found uh many of those people had voted right in one state in particular
00:28:27
well over a thousand voted yeah I think this was a a move to import voters but really importantly I just want to make
00:28:33
sure because when when I talk to politicians from the Democratic party about this they say there's aspects of
00:28:40
Human Rights doing the right thing for people in need that is motivating some of this behavior is that a lie and they
00:28:50
actually have a different motive or do some in the party think that way but there are real kind of kind of call it a
00:28:57
small group of Highly influential Folks at the top of the democratic party that recognize that this is going to grow the
00:29:04
voter base and they're kind of motivating this what do you think is the construction of what sounds to some to
00:29:09
be a conspiracy and how much of this is really like widely understood look Ben here I'll tell you
00:29:16
what I have seen I've tell you the actual information if you look at C Administration we set all the defaults
00:29:22
to kind of Max open no idea requirements right you get a soci scen number uh before we got here by walking in office
00:29:30
answering you know with with with a medical record and a school ID that had your name and your date date of birth on
00:29:37
it that's it okay we opened up we set the defaults to open on Social Security we set the defaults to open on pay
00:29:44
paying people out and we set the collection defaults basically to zero so that's how the system looks that's I'm
00:29:50
just reporting reporting the facts um do I think that the the average person is a
00:29:55
democrat in the in in Illinois or you know the guys I knew I to Chicago they know this they don't know this they
00:30:02
don't know this so were there people at the top of the system did this yeah people created this policy the former
00:30:07
administrators of the of these agencies created these policies I've seen them I've read them myself I've gone to the
00:30:13
data myself they've seen them now this isn't everybody if you're the average person out there who's a Democrat and
00:30:18
you see what I've seen you I believe you will you conclude what I concluded which
00:30:23
is this isn't right these policies are wrong they're evil they're wrong we gave an incentive for people to get
00:30:29
trafficked that's terrible I just don't I just don't think people know the reason I'm even willing to do all you
00:30:34
guys know me I'm pretty private I'm come to your podcast because we're buddies but like man the reason I'm talking
00:30:38
about this is is not political it's because it's a human rights issue and the human rights issue is being confused
00:30:43
it's not it's we are incenting people to pay traffickers to come to America we were doing this right we got to find
00:30:50
better ways to do that and I just I don't believe any American the 80% of people Jason's talking about that would
00:30:55
say close the border that's the 80% people come together this issue man we got to take care of people Antonio can
00:31:01
you talk about what the next big push of effort from you and your team will be is
00:31:06
there good question some next chart I'm not trying to be reductive but is there something that you can demonstrate that
00:31:12
is going to be equivalently as powerful as this first chart which then helps us start to move
00:31:20
these gears towards doing the logical and right thing I think the right thing is to figure out who's who right who are
00:31:26
the criminals who are the terrorists yeah number one and number two who's mooching off the system and then number
00:31:33
three the people that are working that Jason's talking about U you know what we do with them that's the right answer I
00:31:39
would add a fourth because I think that there's probably no more electric issue than this idea of
00:31:49
voting impropriety and I think it is become so brazenly partisan that everybody has
00:31:55
suspended logic if it turned out if it turns out that there was a manipulated effort in 2020 and there is even a
00:32:02
thread of legitimacy to Trump's claims you would never be able to see the light of day because so many Americans just
00:32:09
turn their turn off right and that's because of the rhetoric that they've been fed this is a really important
00:32:15
thing that I would just offer to you is that if it is true that these people illegally voted I think it's a
00:32:23
Thunderclap and I think it opens wide the aperture on voting illegality and voting reform and I think that
00:32:30
irrespective of who you are you should want to make sure that people who are not allowed to vote are not voting just
00:32:40
to put it simply yeah wow what an incredible I mean it's amazing I can't I I can't uh I can't get an airplane in
00:32:46
America without ID but I can go vote in some states without ID I think that's crazy I totally crazy that is and we're
00:32:53
down to like Ben you know the number it's 15 states now are the ones that don't have voter idas so this is
00:32:58
becoming like a very obvious issue and a loopover for us to close I think the best next thing for you to do is
00:33:02
actually publish this list of people who voted get it to the Heritage Foundation
00:33:06
and put sunlight on it the truth shall make you free and sunlight is the best disinfectant because I think the whole
00:33:12
issue is absurd because if you look at the votes in the swing States it would take a 100
00:33:18
thousand it would take tens of thousands and it's illegal I I've spoken to the person at the Heritage Foundation who
00:33:24
does this they found like 2400 cases over 40 or 50 years the number of people voting illegally is minuscule in order
00:33:33
to swing even but one state you would need coordin hold on let me finish you would need a coordinated effort I'm just
00:33:40
giving you data chamama I am not partis there are tens of thousands of vot that would need to be manipulated in each of
00:33:46
these markets it's impossible here well there's the keyw here's what I would ask
00:33:52
you to consider sure your results are only as good as your prompts your results are only as good as your
00:34:01
prompts say it in plain English what do you mean I suspect that if you put three
00:34:06
or four of the smartest data scientists in the world they would get to a very different answer than the answer that
00:34:13
has been arrived to I don't know whether that'll validate or invalidate the claim
00:34:17
yeah but the quality of the people that are able to interrogate this data is directly correlated to the output that
00:34:24
is created well listen we all want the data clean Ben I'll maybe I'll let you you kind of answer the question from
00:34:29
your perspective do you think there is any chance that a swing state could be swung by you know this strategy and in
00:34:38
addition to that Trump is a populist all these people and his biggest gains were
00:34:43
with people from South America Mexicans Etc in this last election so and noncollege educated so if you were going
00:34:51
to plot this incredible strategy it seems like the Democratic strategy of importing a bunch of Voters is the
00:34:55
stupidest possible strategy because the Republican party has won those people well I don't think that it would be a
00:35:01
great short-term strategy because of the the problems that you mentioned in terms
00:35:04
of the the size of the voting gaps even in close swing States although obviously
00:35:07
you have outlier cases like Florida in 2000 where the entire state is being decided by hundreds of votes and there
00:35:13
you actually could see a state actually shift on that basis it's a rarity but it
00:35:17
does happen and and in some cases decides a presidential election uh when when you're talking however about the
00:35:22
long-term play I think the question that needs to be asked is if you are importing a bunch of people who are more
00:35:27
dependent than average on the American government for example or who are not interested in assimilating to free
00:35:33
market values for example or Free Speech values uh or or who come in and then many of these people are going to get
00:35:39
married many of these people are going to have kids they're going to marry American citizens they're going to have
00:35:42
children who are American and then they stay now you're talking about actually generating a change in the voting
00:35:47
population and that isn't a right-wing Point that's a point that was made by Roy toera all the way back in 2004 when
00:35:51
he was a Democrat and he was making the case essentially there was a demographic
00:35:55
wave that was going to shift the electorate in the United States in the direction of Democrats permanently now
00:36:00
the point that you're making is that even as a long-term strategy that might be a bad play because it may be that
00:36:04
these populations shift over time that doesn't mean that that's not the intent in the moment meaning wrong could could
00:36:10
have gotten it wrong they could made a very bad strategic decision Antonio I think we have to drop you off here any
00:36:16
closing comments you want to make and I just want to thank you I know you've got
00:36:20
other things you could be doing in your life but just on behalf of the American people who I speak for here on the
00:36:26
program we want to thank you all Americans for your service to this country and I know that you are balls
00:36:31
and Strikes and you're going to let the data speak so I just want to thank you I would close this on this
00:36:38
conversation which is go look at California Look at California okay Richard Nixon Ronald Reagan came
00:36:46
California Ronald Reagan signed amnesty and you know some 40 years later it is now of solidly blue State and I think U
00:36:54
some us on this program I know you Jason are Refugee from California because of that because of some of those policies
00:37:00
and I want to be I want you to be careful about this because it is it is actually the tip of the iceberg man we
00:37:05
we have a very small sample of data in a couple of States it's the tip of the iceberg and so I don't know what the
00:37:12
unintended conse will be long term but I can tell you what already happened in America where an amnesty program
00:37:17
actually turned a very large State you know from one one party another and I want to leave you guys this thought this
00:37:24
is not political I'm not doing it there's no political motivation in my my mind this is about America it's about
00:37:29
securing the American democracy and we will shine light onto the data when we can we prefer these people to
00:37:36
prosecution and we're going to keep looking we'll keep going and the data will lead us and the truth will lead us
00:37:42
and it'll eventually come out in the sunlight you're right but we're going to follow the truth that's our primary
00:37:46
motive that that is that is our operating parameter and what we're going to do right on all right thank you
00:37:53
Antonio gra and Contin success and love to talk to you in 30 days when you have your next
00:38:00
findings you're a you're a refugee from California too aren't you yes yeah we took off in 2020 during during covid we
00:38:07
took off my company took off we we all got the hell out I I was born in California so I spent 30 uh 36 years
00:38:12
there before before I moved uh and yeah they they certainly did a good job of wrecking that state I mean I did the
00:38:18
same thing you went to oh I don't know where you I'm in Florida yeah my company's in Tennessee I'm in Florida
00:38:24
yeah got it yeah I mean it's just you can't rais kids in California and you just think about the crime and taxes and
00:38:31
what you're getting for your dollar it doesn't make any sense I mean I don't White House is off the zoom boys now we
00:38:36
can start to really open it up okay now we can open up the okay what do you guys think about
00:38:44
what you just saw B I'll let you go first as our guest yeah I I I wish the entire Trump
00:38:49
administration were rolled out as well as Antonio just rolled that out is is what I would say totally you know I
00:38:53
think that that is high levels of competence and expertise and a meticulous message that that is data
00:39:00
first and difficult for anybody to deny I think that the success of the Trump administrations the success that they've
00:39:05
had are taking the 80 side of 8020 issues and I think that the success of President Trump in 2024 was that he
00:39:11
oddly became the Normy candidate he was the guy who was returns normaly candidacy and in the face of of Biden
00:39:16
and the bizarreness of of herness of Harris and you know I think that as we see many of Trump's policies rolled out
00:39:22
the ones that are rolled out the way that Antonio is rolling it out are incredibly well received by the American
00:39:27
population because they're seeing serious people doing serious work that needs to be done and the ones that are
00:39:31
not rolled out that way I think are going to be a little more unpopular with the American people and that that's kind
00:39:36
of I want president Trump to succeed at a lot of these agenda items and I don't want his his good agenda items getting
00:39:41
essentially railroaded and and Run Over By by the by the bad rolled out of other
00:39:46
agenda items so you think thoughtful is good and well thought out constructed and communicated what what um when you
00:39:55
talk about this being done right what do you think being done wrong it could be done better I guess would be a generous
00:40:00
way of saying it what what could they communicate better I mean not to jump into the the pile of rakes that is the
00:40:05
the tariff plan but I think that the I think that the way that the tariff plan was rolled out is about as bad a roll
00:40:10
out as you could do um you know the reason I say that is not just because of my disagreements on the actual policy
00:40:16
I'll either be right or I'll be wrong on that but the way that it was rolled out
00:40:19
with with very with with essentially kind of a surprise announcement um I don't mind a surprise announcement if
00:40:25
what is then rolled out is not replete with with with sort of contradictory justifications um you know
00:40:31
statistics that that are labeled one thing but really are not that thing uh and and so it just it opens itself up to
00:40:37
all sorts of critiques from every possible side of the if you want to make the argument make the full make the full
00:40:42
scale wellth thought aru argument and then we can argue over whether it's true or not but there's there's four or five
00:40:48
different claims that are being simultaneously made about the tariffs one they're going to raise revenue two
00:40:52
they're going to reshore three that you are going to somehow retrigger the world
00:40:56
trading system some of these are mutually exclusive if you're going to if you're going to
00:41:00
reshore you're not going to raise as much revenue for example right those two things are are mutually exclusive and
00:41:05
they're both being trotted out at the same exact time if you're going to put out a giant chart that the president
00:41:09
holds up that shows tariff rates plus unspecified you know variable uh then what I'd like to know is what the actual
00:41:16
tariff rate is a as opposed to what the calculation seems to be which was the trade deficit with a country divided
00:41:24
into the Imports to that Country and that that has nothing to do with the Tariff rate I mean just technically
00:41:29
speaking it has literally nothing to do with the Tariff rate and so what that means is now you're boxed in logically
00:41:34
if president Trump wants to do a reciprocal tariff reduction for example how do you do that because he actually
00:41:39
has used a stat a statistic for the tariffs that have nothing to do with the Tariff rate and are actually just trade
00:41:45
deficits so the only way to actually Rectify that statistic is to have Madagascar buy a bunch of American
00:41:50
product for example in order to get their their quote unquote tariff rate down you know that that sort of stuff
00:41:54
seems badly calibrated even if you like the policy for example all right yeah unless unless from a poker point of view
00:42:01
they spent many months declaring they're going to do tariffs and everyone thought
00:42:05
they were bluffing and said everyone said there's no way you're going to do tariffs it's like someone in poker is
00:42:09
saying I'm gonna play every hand I get I'm going to be crazy you don't believe them and they actually have to do it in
00:42:15
order to get the negotiating leverage that they need to be able to negotiate trade deals ultimately and they have to
00:42:21
look a little crazy maybe I mean that so you're that's your position freeberg in
00:42:25
the 4D chess or trying to rationalize one kind of rational reason for why a lot of smart people would end up putting
00:42:32
that board up that poster board up where to your point Ben they said that these are kind of the the tariffs that are
00:42:38
being levied Upon Our Country when in fact it is simply the math of imports minus exports divided by Imports that's
00:42:46
what the number was and and and it was and it was maxed out at that number or 10% and that's what they did so they did
00:42:53
that basically as a way in my opinion it looks like and I'm just trying to take a
00:42:56
read on this that um they're using this as a way to anchor for negotiations going forward to
00:43:02
make the case we are declaratively crazily off the fraking ship going to do whatever the heck we want to do here in
00:43:09
this Administration now everyone takes them seriously now everyone shows up to the negotiating table and now they can
00:43:15
actually negotiate and then announce a series of win after win after win and say we got this set of countries to
00:43:21
capitulate today this is the deal we worked out it's a totally unique deal this set of deals we worked out today
00:43:26
this set of deals we worked out today and basically getting all the trade representatives to the table by making
00:43:31
the case that they're actually willing to go all the way to the wall on stuff so I that's the only way I can kind of
00:43:36
rationalize this roll out Ben that's what it feels like to me for months they've been very declarative we are
00:43:42
going to do tariffs bessent said it to us on our interview letnik said it to us on our interview and no one took them
00:43:48
seriously I did I did by the way I I will say that I took them totally seriously so much so that I called my
00:43:53
financial adviser after the State of the Union Address and told them to uh [ __ ]
00:43:57
my my stock and bond ratio in my portfolio because I figured that something like this was going to happen
00:44:02
I think you went heavy treasuries yes I I I I went light stocks I'll say that and and and the reason for that is
00:44:09
because again I think that the thing about President Trump is that you he he may not you know be serious in every
00:44:16
single thing that he says but he is very clear that when he says a thing over and
00:44:20
over and over there is no hidden motivation and this is the part that I always have trouble with with sort of
00:44:25
the the 40 chess reads on President Trump there's almost never a hidden motivation he pretty much just says the
00:44:29
thing that he thinks right it's one of the things that makes him so popular and authentic is that there isn't a 40 chest
00:44:35
game being played If he if he says that he wants a thing to happen it's because he actually wants the thing to happen
00:44:39
now the thing about President Trump is he's also a realist so if a bunch of bad headlines hit him he may then change his
00:44:44
mind and decide that he wants to drive a truck directly through the center of the
00:44:47
tariffs because the prices are going up too much on for example semiconductors so one of the big exemptions from these
00:44:52
tariffs is in fact in the area of semiconductors again there you see a sort of couple of different
00:44:57
justifications that are that are mutually exclusive that are fighting each other one of them is the idea we
00:45:01
need to resore semiconductor production because it's a national security asset and the other is it's we need to raise
00:45:07
revenue on semiconductors so he Exempted them which kind of you know kind of Boles up the logic and I I think that
00:45:13
the the there are a couple of tells that that isn't what's it may listen I think
00:45:17
it may end up being the thing you're saying I think the most likely result of these tariffs is that within the next
00:45:21
few weeks the headlines are not good president Trump starts driving trucks through the center of the tariffs and
00:45:26
then he starts getting wins from various parties outside that allow him to find an off-ramp on some of these tariffs you
00:45:33
know a company in in Belgium says they're going to build a factory in the United States he has them to the White
00:45:38
House they have a big ceremony and then he says and as a result of this we're now lowering the tariffs in sort of the
00:45:42
same way he did with with Colombia when he said not the university the the country when he said he was going to hit
00:45:46
them with tariffs unless you accept these these illegal immigrants and and then they did so that very well might be
00:45:51
the offer I don't think that's what's going on right now I think what's going on right now is the strategy that
00:45:55
lutnick has repeated expressed which is that they actually kind of like the tariffs they actually think that this is
00:46:00
good economic policy and that between 1880 and 1910 was an amazing time in American history and and so they do you
00:46:07
agree um I I think that that is a bad read on economic history because there are a lot of confounds there that are
00:46:14
being ignored uh among those confounds would be the fact that actually Industrial Revolution yes so a few just
00:46:21
name a few in the industrial revolution extraordinar high levels of immigration by the way during that period so you had
00:46:26
an incredibly cheap labor base that was actually coming in into the United States at that time massive expansion of
00:46:31
the American population no income tax capital a newly discovered continent right like like like truly like many
00:46:39
many compounds right and by the way less International Trade generally so tariffs
00:46:42
aren't going to have the same sort of impact on Global Supply chains as they would now where every product that you
00:46:47
buy has gone through 10 different countries in 10 different ways and so so no I don't I don't think that that is a
00:46:52
comp um but that doesn't mean that that lutnick doesn't think that it's a comp for example and and I think that the
00:46:58
when when it comes to you know the roll out again a methodical roll out I I I totally get the crazy man Theory and I
00:47:05
think that sometimes president Trump does that I'm hoping that that's what he's doing but a good example of an
00:47:10
off-ramp he could have taken if that's the thing he's trying to do so yesterday in anticipation of this Israel which had
00:47:15
very very low tariffs on United States Goods anyway announced they'd removed all tariffs on American Goods right
00:47:20
there were no tariffs on American Goods anymore and the administration that afternoon listed their tariff rate at
00:47:25
33% and then hit them with a 17% tariff for a country that win and just use them
00:47:32
as an example of a great partner exactly exactly didn't didn't Canada do the same
00:47:37
didn't Canada drop tariffs like the the morning of they were on CNBC and they said we're totally willing to go to zero
00:47:43
and then the anchors correctly on CNBC were like well then why haven't you done that already to Ben's Point Israel did
00:47:49
do that and but I think your theory Ben is like absolutely correct if you make this analogy to what he did with
00:47:56
overturning ro8 it is the same exact thing he told us over and over again I'm going to put two maybe three people on
00:48:02
the Supreme Court I'm going to overturn it and then afterwards he kind of wiped his hands through it and was like listen
00:48:07
it's up to you guys I had nothing to do with it he will tell you what he's going
00:48:10
to do he told you he was going to do these tariffs he's done them uh and I do think there's something embedded in what
00:48:16
you said Ben which is I think he likes everybody to come to Mara Lago or to come to the White House and he loves
00:48:22
doing deals he's addicted to it he wrote a book The Art of the deal he loves people coming to him hanging out and
00:48:29
shth maybe you could give us your perspective crazy man the crazy grandpa uh or this is a negotiating
00:48:37
tactic everybody has to come through him or lutnick believes it as he said very clearly I'm going to add a trillion
00:48:43
dollars in taxes here what what do you think is going on here because if when I went through all the top people on the
00:48:49
internet all our group of friends uh who are deeply in finance I can't find anybody deeply in finance who's not in
00:48:56
the administr who thinks this is well executed or a good idea what's your thought let me start by saying a couple
00:49:02
things to use the Donald rumfelt quote I do agree with Ben tremendously that this
00:49:07
was a known known we mentioned this last episode Donald Trump has been speaking about tariffs for 40 plus years yep so
00:49:16
this is not a new thing and I think that he tried this in Trump one but to your guys's point it didn't really go well
00:49:25
because he didn't have the the team around him that had his back and so it was inevitable that he would have tried
00:49:31
it in Trump to he said it and he's been able to do it so if you weren't planning
00:49:37
for it whoever was vested in this outcome you really needed to be focused on this it was a known known and so
00:49:46
there was a little dereliction of Duty if you were caught off guard I think that's one the second is and I we've
00:49:52
said this all year since January one on this pod we started it even with the with that poly Market bet that I made
00:50:00
which is the Trump Administration does not care about the stock market and by the way this the trade
00:50:08
actually closed out so congrats to all these people that won $650,000 on let me just explain poly Market put a betting
00:50:15
Market suggested by chaai haa they are partners of ours Magnificent Seven shrinks below 30% of S&P 500 in
00:50:23
2025 this was free money this was like the stock Market giving out free money but why did this happen this happened
00:50:31
because it was very clear to me early on that the rhetoric had shifted to say we
00:50:36
care about Maga we care about people that have working class and middleclass jobs none of those folks are deeply
00:50:45
invested in the asset economy the way maybe some of us are and so it was directionally clear and by the way Scott
00:50:53
bessent what a cold ass quote yesterday the equity Market selloff is a MAG seven
00:51:01
problem not a Maga problem so there again putting all of this into the realm of this is a known known so I think it's
00:51:09
pretty clear one Trump has had a 40-year view on tariffs they're going to go through with this and they're going to
00:51:15
see it through I don't think you're going to see this Grand capitulation two they are okay with the volatility in the
00:51:21
equity markets and then three which is the other thing that we've been talking about a lot is where does this move our
00:51:27
practical financing cost what is this right we've talked about this we have trillion dollars we need to finance in
00:51:34
the next 9 months so the singular goal in my opinion of the White House has been move the tenure as aggressively and
00:51:43
as quickly as possible and look what they've done as of yesterday it's unbelievable what's happened in the
00:51:48
tenure you know you were kissing 4% and we talked about this if it had gone in the other direction guys 30 or
00:51:55
40 bases points and it touched 5% you're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars of extra money that would not
00:52:03
have been found that would have had to be printed right and now this is hundreds of billions of dollars that we
00:52:09
will save so if we cut rates If the Fed Cuts rates that's all predicated this doesn't matter anymore no this is this
00:52:17
is fed doesn't control the back end of the curve on the treasury the treasury markets the government sells treasuries
00:52:24
governments will option 10 years the auctions will clear at around 4% it is an enormous like as an American what we
00:52:32
should all be thinking is irrespective of what you think you know or what you think you like about tariffs we should
00:52:38
all have a moment where we exhale because the long end of the curve is giving us a respit in a storm and we
00:52:46
should be incredibly thankful because know what I'm referring to chop is you said yesterday Jerome pal you're on the
00:52:53
clock so maybe you could explain what you meant by that okay so this is that's a different part of the curve I
00:52:59
understand it's a different thing but I'm just trying to put these two things together because those are the two
00:53:02
things were saying this action took will enable now okay so let's play the ball where it lies okay the Wall Street Smart
00:53:10
money thought this was a 250 billion event they were wrong this is part of why the stock market has reacted so
00:53:17
violently today this is a $750 billion to trillion dollar event okay this is a big moment in the market so what does it
00:53:26
create it creates the risk of a recession how do you minimize that risk that is all about how easy it is for the
00:53:35
average person to be able to borrow money where is that dictated that is more dictated by the fed and how they
00:53:42
price the front end of the curve so what we need to have happen now is while Scott is out financing $6 trillion do on
00:53:49
the back end we now need to get Jerome pow to cut the front end and if you do it aggressively enough you can introd
00:53:56
produce liquidity in a moment where small and mediumsized businesses can go and get financed to weather the storm
00:54:04
Jam I want to add on to your point just so you guys know there's roughly 12 to6 trillion dollars of
00:54:12
private corporate debt in America so this is debt held by small businesses medium businesses Partnerships that have
00:54:20
on average call it a 15% operating margin so they're going to be under pressure if there is some recessionary
00:54:28
risk to make sure they have access to Capital and if you remember the interview that bessent gave to us a
00:54:32
couple weeks ago he was very clear that one of his mandates is to enable the Rel
00:54:38
leveraging of the financial system meaning he wants to give Banks the ability to issue more debt to introduce
00:54:45
more capital and more liquidity into the markets by taking away some of the regulatory restrictions that have made
00:54:52
it more difficult for the banks to issue credit to business owners to individuals
00:54:57
so if they are successful in their deregulatory efforts it will introduce more liquidity into the market coupled
00:55:04
with deregulatory work that they're making in the other parts of the administration as this is their
00:55:09
declaration not mine their intention is to make sure that that Capital flows into building businesses building new
00:55:15
businesses underwriting new jobs creating more employment that's the theory that they're trying to execute
00:55:21
obviously it's part of this three-legged stool but if it doesn't all work the stool Falls over okay chamath give us an
00:55:27
example here and I'm trying to get you to paint the entire picture here because the Tariff cudgel is not making sense
00:55:35
it's not all good news right so let's let's paint the let's so I'll give a very specific example A friend of
00:55:42
ours runs a 100 plus year company I'm just going to say it in generic terms so that I don't betray his confidence but
00:55:50
problem and this is a business that's been built over 100 years owned by an American family in Incredible family and
00:55:57
they make products that we all know and love and what did this action do so in their example they're in a very
00:56:04
difficult position because they have as David said a very tight operating margin
00:56:10
because they have to compete ferociously against China and they've done everything possible to maintain their
00:56:17
capabilities in America hire American workers in the Heartland but still compete against China it's tough and
00:56:25
this action today swings them from profitability to a potential yearly loss in a meaningful order of magnitude like
00:56:34
hundreds of millions of dollars so Jason that's the other side of this tariff coin so we have to find a way of finding
00:56:42
those examples and as Ben said excluding them somehow or giving them reprieve because that wasn't the intention I
00:56:49
think of what Trump was trying to do yesterday that's an example of a company that should be winning and should
00:56:54
continue to win and fight the good fight against China and try to continue to employ thousands of Americans but this
00:57:02
thing because they had some capacity in some other countries not China by the way got it blows the thing up and so now
00:57:08
you have to fix those things all right Ben let me get you involved here I'm going to play you a quick clip from Rand
00:57:13
Paul and I want to get your feedback on executive power and then on terrorists themselves and if it's a good idea or a
00:57:22
bad idea play the clip what's the rationale for getting behind this well one we should not live under
00:57:28
emergency rule the Constitution said taxes are raised by Congress most specifically taxes originate in the
00:57:33
house and come to the Senate so I'm against emergency rule we are richer because of trade with Canada and so is
00:57:40
Canada whenever you trade with somebody when an individual buys somebody else's product it's mutually beneficial or you
00:57:47
wouldn't buy it if the trade is voluntary it's always beneficial there is no Canada versus the US the consumer
00:57:54
wins when the price is the lowest price tariffs raise prices and they're a bad idea for the economy Ben your thoughts
00:58:00
on the two issues is trade good for consumers this is what you know I think is on top of everybody's mind that yeah
00:58:07
the whole Trump presidency and he won in large part due to inflation and Biden economics and that he was going to
00:58:15
reduce inflation and I think a lot of people believe inflation's about to come roaring back your thoughts on the two
00:58:22
issues well I mean obviously on a macroeconomic level I totally agree with senator Paul when it comes to the powers
00:58:25
of of the presidency I think that it's pretty extraordinary that we should be able to use the trade deficit as a
00:58:32
National Emergency sufficient to put down what effectively amounts to a $700 billion tax increase on the American
00:58:39
people if you're talking about them paying the price of of the tariffs on on the other end and Congress you know I
00:58:45
think that if things get bad enough there a bunch of you know streams obviously here that cross one of the big
00:58:50
things here is that Congress is up for re-elect in a year and a half and if the Republicans lose Congress in year and a
00:58:56
half then whatever tricks president Trump is is trying to pull in terms of being able to rejigger the rate at which
00:59:01
we are paying back our our national debt all that stuff goes by the wayside because if Democrats win Congress pretty
00:59:06
much everything comes to a crashing Hall and there are a lot of Republicans who are in swing districts or in say R plus
00:59:12
five R plus 10 districts who are suddenly going to feel feel pretty vulnerable a recession takes everybody
00:59:17
with it it takes secretary bessent it takes the president it takes J Vance takes everybody with it recessions tend
00:59:22
to crush the president who is in power at the time regardless what their long-term plan is when they say
00:59:27
short-term pay for long-term gain again I think that there are a few factors here that I would like to see played out
00:59:34
for example if there is an inflationary effect to the tariffs in terms in terms of price does that mean that Jerome pal
00:59:40
is going to eject additional liquidity into the markets by by decreasing interest rates it's hard to see how I
00:59:44
mean he's holding the interest rates steady right now without decreasing the interest rates despite president Trump
00:59:49
basically blasting him publicly since before he was even the president formally he just the president President
00:59:56
elect that time so again it's hard for me to see how all of this squares into what looks like a a really
01:00:02
well-calibrated policy and and then beyond that in the long term tricks that we play with regard to the rate of
01:00:09
interest paying back our national debt are not going to be sufficient to pay back our national debt unless we have
01:00:14
robust economic growth and so a lot has to be bet on the robust economic growth out out earning essentially the the
01:00:20
levels of debt that we are are currently racking up and while I love what doge is
01:00:24
doing the systemic drivers of our national debt are not actually being touched at this point by Doge I mean
01:00:28
it's it's the it's the means tested welfare programs that are really the systemic long-term drivers of our
01:00:32
national debt and Military I think would be number two yeah milit milit military
01:00:36
as a percentage of of the of the GDP or as a percentage of the budget has been you know relatively stable and in some
01:00:41
cases decreasing since since the end of the Iraq War true but that but that that
01:00:46
when when it comes to the means tested welfare programs those continue to grow as a percentage of the budget and over
01:00:50
time are increasingly unfunded yeah as our population ages and the population grows
01:00:56
freeberg putting aside executive power in the midterms which yeah that that would change everything what are your
01:01:03
thoughts on just inflation and tariffs and the chance that this comes back and explodes in the administration's lab
01:01:11
well I think there are three consequences not necessarily related to inflation that are just worth spending
01:01:16
time on one of which I don't think gets talked about enough the first is just the challenge of tariffs in general and
01:01:24
I shared this clip with you guys over the group chat yesterday from Ronald Reagan talking oh it's so funny I have
01:01:29
it chewed up I actually edit it let's do that let's play this clip and get your reaction and today many economic
01:01:34
analysts and historians argue that high tariff legislation passed back in that period called the smooth Holly tariff
01:01:42
greatly deepened the depression and prevented economic recovery you see at first when someone says let's impose
01:01:48
tariffs on Foreign imports it looks like they're doing the Patriotic Thing by protecting American products and jobs
01:01:55
and sometimes for a short while it works but only for a short time what eventually occurs is first homegrown
01:02:02
Industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs they stop competing and stop making the
01:02:09
Innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets and then while all this is going
01:02:16
on something even worse occurs people stop buying then the worst happens markets shrink and collapse businesses
01:02:24
and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs the memory of all
01:02:29
this occurring back in the 30s made me determined when I came to Washington to spare the American people the
01:02:35
protectionist legislation that destroys Prosperity so let me just say three things that I think are going to be
01:02:40
important consequences one of which doesn't get talked about much at all the first is the important point about the
01:02:46
decline in competitiveness that arises when you use protectionist tactics like import tariffs so ultimately in order to
01:02:53
be competitive in the market you need to have a free market to test how good you
01:02:57
are relative to your competitors and if you use tariffs or other taxes or other government intervening systems to
01:03:05
distort the natural forces of markets meaning there's a buyer and a seller there may be multiple Sellers and
01:03:11
ultimately the buyer will choose the best seller then you're creating a disincentive for American Enterprise to
01:03:19
be more competitive we lost manufacturing because we weren't competitive in manufacturing putting a
01:03:24
tariff on other manufactur ing countries does not make Americans more competitive
01:03:29
it basically gives American businesses a crutch David so let's talk about manufacturing so if I'm using a
01:03:36
traditional assembly line with low efficiency systems I'm going to be more expensive to make a device than a
01:03:42
Chinese Factory that's built with a lot of automation high efficiency systems Etc and so if I'm saying well to buy the
01:03:48
Chinese product you got to pay twice as much because there's a tariff now the American company does not have an
01:03:53
incentive to invest in autom or building better technology or adopting new technology to make
01:04:00
themselves competitive in the marketplace so that's the challenge with tariffs long term is that they distort
01:04:05
Economic Consequences that arise in a traditional free market system the second consequence I think is important
01:04:12
is under this gu and in the near term the effect of some of these tariffs is going to be the loss of revenue for a
01:04:17
significant chunk of the American businesses in particular I'll use one example people may not remember this
01:04:24
because it wasn't that big of a thing but between 2016 and 2020 during the last Trump Administration there was a
01:04:30
continued kind of tariff and trade escalation between Trump and China and during that time China stopped buying
01:04:36
American a exports and China is the biggest buyer of American agricultural products as a result the Trump
01:04:42
administration had to issue two support payment checks to Farmers that totaled $28 billion in 2018 and 2019 just
01:04:52
because of that China stepping out of the buying Market American farmers represent a large amount of the voting
01:04:59
block for the Republican party and so my I think that the second consequence is going to be that there is going to need
01:05:04
to be financial support which means increased government spending if we intend to keep the tariffs in place and
01:05:11
the global market stops buying American exports that's the second Consequence the third consequence which is the one I
01:05:16
am most worried about which I think about a lot is China had the state council meeting a couple days ago and in
01:05:25
that state council meeting they announced a series of measures and a series of steps that they would be
01:05:30
willing to take an IP infringement in the case of retaliatory tariff escalation in a trade War what that
01:05:39
means is that China May step up and say you know what we are disregarding all of
01:05:44
the IP rights held by IP rights holders around the world and they could steal IP
01:05:49
more openly more brazenly and because they have a lower cost of manufacturing they have a larger manufacturing base a
01:05:54
lower cost of power they could basically take the only thing that much of American Enterprise relies
01:06:00
on which is our IP rights and say we're just going to well people might say oh they already do that they already do
01:06:05
that they do it to an extent but imagine if China just made copies of Microsoft Word and started selling it around the
01:06:11
world for $5 yeah I mean they did that internally for some period of time then they started to respect it internally
01:06:17
but they've never done it great point and shipping Disney films overseas that's right and so now imagine if they
01:06:22
started taking all of American manufacturing drawings blueprints designs and they have all this
01:06:27
manufacturing capacity and they sold everything at 10 cents on the dollar to all of the global markets that the US is
01:06:32
now cutting trade ties with because of the the Tariff escalation and China says we don't care about your IP rights
01:06:38
anymore we don't care because you've cut us off the rest of the world needs someone that will sell to them I will
01:06:42
also say China One thing that's not talked about which I'll add in seems to have developed three
01:06:48
nanometer semiconductor manufacturing technology which is going to go into production in Q3 of 2025 and will end up
01:06:54
being in full production 2026 this will move the base from Taiwan potentially into China they are developing
01:07:01
lithography systems they are developing Advanced semiconduct Manufacturing Systems and they will effectively have
01:07:06
everything from energy to the minerals to the manufacturing capacity to support and service all and the software now all
01:07:13
of technology and so we are in a really disadvantaged position if China does choose in this moment to disregard the
01:07:19
IP rights of American businesses so they they have the ability to to swing back at us chamat you who wrap us up here and
01:07:27
yeah I'll take the other side of all of this yeah I'll start with again there's no point prognosticating when they're
01:07:35
just telling you what they intend to do Nick you want to play the clip I could see in the next
01:07:41
few years that we are going to have to have some kind of a grand e global economic reordering is something on on
01:07:50
the equivalent of a new Bretton Woods or if you want to go back like a a treat something back to the steel agreements
01:07:58
or the Treaty of Versailles I mean what what is that just a kind of like refresher what are we talking about
01:08:03
we're talking about commercial relations between at the time 44 countries right this is a big statement I don't think
01:08:10
that these kinds of things are said casually at a Manhattan Institute cocktail hour and I think that people understand
01:08:19
if you're kind of like steeped in the history of it how important these kinds of statements are so I think take this
01:08:26
similarly to how I take Trump's rhetoric on tariffs and I'm spending some time trying to Now
01:08:34
understand how are the scenarios that could play out because I think David is right if you assume the status quo
01:08:41
meaning what are the risks but what they're saying is we're going to question this we're actually going to go
01:08:47
here and just totally rewrite that if that happens as part of this all bets are off in my opinion I don't think any
01:08:55
of us know with any certainty what a new economic framework would look like and if Scott is basically prepping himself
01:09:03
to say hey put me in coach I'm ready I would take that seriously Ben what should be let's talk
01:09:12
about onshoring and bringing these jobs bringing these factories back to America
01:09:18
it seems to me a bit crazy that we're going to make fast fashion and people's Coachella aware and their anchor you
01:09:27
know USBC cables here pharmaceutical sure we need that for strategic purposes we obviously need military and chips but
01:09:34
outside of that is there some rationale here when we have the lowest unemployment of our lifetime and
01:09:40
everybody wants to come here you know to immigrate to this country to doing these
01:09:45
tariffs and trying to create jobs here that we don't necessarily need we have too much employment right now in the
01:09:53
market and not enough bodies to fill all the open job wrecks what are your thought I mean I think one of the things
01:09:58
that's really fascinating is the the kind of difference in messaging that you hear between the treasury secretary
01:10:03
Howard lutnick and the Commerce Secretary and the president I mean they're all messaging kind of different
01:10:07
things I think secretary bent is making the strongest case for for what's being done with this sort of long-term what's
01:10:13
what is reordering look like and and even there I'm I'm still lacking Clarity on what a reordered World Trade
01:10:19
relationship actually what is the end of the rainbow there what does that actually look like when all is said and
01:10:23
done so that I can kind of grasp exactly what that what he wants that to look like um I think that you know secretary
01:10:29
letnik seems to actually just like tariffs and president Trump seems to have a picture in his head when it comes
01:10:33
to factories that that we're going to you know Revitalize the steel mills that we're going to be we we're going to be
01:10:38
doing the kinds of jobs that we did back in the 1950s there sort of a Nostalgia that that that President Trump has in
01:10:44
sort of his own mind about these sorts of jobs that by the way nobody in Modern Life actually wants to work at if if you
01:10:50
were to work at a Ford factory in 1953 in an non-air conditioned Factory riveting for a living you would should
01:10:55
be quite unhappy and and you should be very happy that actually there are machines that do that now and and you
01:10:59
hear this kind of talk sometimes bandied about not just with regard to offshoring
01:11:03
both with regards to technology and machines I mean I I've talked to I remember a few years back in 2018 I
01:11:08
talked with Tucker Carlson on my program and he literally said that he would outlaw self-driving cars because it
01:11:12
would it would get rid of white trucker jobs you know Blue Collar trucker jobs in in Ohio and Michigan and when I said
01:11:19
well that sounds kind of Lte he said well the Lites had a point and and you know then suggested that on the basis
01:11:25
safety he would ban it and I remember asking him but those those self-driving cars will presumably be more safe than
01:11:31
than humans driving said safer yeah yeah and what he actually said was well you know I you asked me on what grounds I
01:11:36
would ban it not not whether that was true or not but yeah you know I I think that that that is I think I think this
01:11:42
is the danger that particularly Tech runs when we're talking about these sorts of things is is to believe that
01:11:47
the the Animus for trade relationships around the world or the the anti-competitive nature of many of the
01:11:55
the activities that are being taken are relegated solely to sort of the foreign sphere I think that you could easily see
01:12:00
that turn on quote unquote job loss that is caused by AI or job loss that is caused by technological gain I mean the
01:12:07
truth is that if you're talking about job loss in the manufacturing sector in the United States the vast majority of
01:12:11
job loss in the manufacturing sector is not due to offshoring it's due to technological advancements manufacturing
01:12:16
productivity in the United States is actually dramatically risen since the since the 1980 okay so let's play
01:12:21
conspiracy theorists for a second because okay you're right Ben like you want that Clarity I want want that
01:12:25
Clarity freeberg wants it jcal everybody wants it but if this moment if it's a catalyst to your point where everybody
01:12:32
is forced into the room and Trump leads a a grand bargain across the 50 or 60 most important trading partners in the
01:12:41
world what does that look like like it's it's almost like okay we're reestablishing something that's akin to
01:12:49
the United Nations and what the United Nations was meant to be post World War II but that institution has to failed so
01:12:56
this new thing exists purely on economic lines and cooperation I don't know I I struggle actually to your point to kind
01:13:03
of imagine what are the outcomes but there's so many unbelievable outcomes in that scenario if they were able to get
01:13:10
the top 50 commercial mertile countries together in a room and say let's Hammer something up I mean I totally agree with
01:13:16
that I think one of my questions however is the if you take a look at at some of
01:13:19
the the examples that that Scott is using there when he talks about the Bretton Woods agreement if you're going
01:13:23
to talk about you know what ni did in debasing the dollar Versa if you're talking I mean Versa at least would be a
01:13:29
better example in the sense that you didn't have a global Hedon at the time if you're talking about the BR wood
01:13:34
system literally the rest of the world effectively did not exist in the post World War II era so what is everybody
01:13:38
going to bet on they have to bet on the American dollar there's no other choice by the time that Nixon decides to go off
01:13:42
the gold standard essentially he has to rely on the organization of the Petro Dollar in order to make sure that people
01:13:48
don't dissociate from the United States what is the thing that's going to draw people to the United States as opposed
01:13:53
to looking to a comp in competitor like a that's a great question so what is that thing what do you think that that's
01:13:59
a great to mind yeah I mean AI is the only possibility which is why I think the AI regime inside the Trump
01:14:05
Administration is so deeply important I also think this is why I'm warning about
01:14:09
you know the possibility that the sort of anti-free Market forces that that are related to tariffs aren't just related
01:14:14
to tariffs in some quarters this is where populism can kind of run out of control and start to actually turn
01:14:19
against some of its Tech masters in some of these cases and so one one of the things that I'm very concerned about is
01:14:24
if I was talking Danielle Smith who's the premier of Alberta the other day and she was talking about the fact that
01:14:29
Canada like she's she's very conservative Alberta tends to be a more conservative area of Canada and she was
01:14:33
talking about how if Mark Carney were to become Prime Minister of Canada instead
01:14:38
of Pierre POV that he actually is eager for the Terra War because it allows him to reorient toward China and away from
01:14:44
the United States and and there are countries that absolutely would love to do that I mean there there's a case to
01:14:48
be made that the EU would love an easy offramp with Russia and China and use this as an excuse as as a way of
01:14:54
reorienting back toward Russian oil for example and then Chinese markets because that
01:14:58
Chinese market inputs right I mean you have lower input costs which makes life better for Citizens and citizens like
01:15:06
cheap things they like cheap oil in their cars and they like cheap cars they'll be bringing by cars into Europe
01:15:13
and and the thing that I'm worried about is when when I look at the for forget about Europe and forget about Canada for
01:15:17
a second the the the tariffs that that kind of shocked me when I looked at that list were all the tariffs on the
01:15:21
Southeast Asian countries right all of those countries where where where production has been shifting out of
01:15:26
China to places like for example Vietnam or Cambodia the the production has been
01:15:30
shifting to those places specifically because companies know the United States yeah because the United States is going
01:15:35
after China well now why exactly would you manufacture in Vietnam when Vietnam is going to be with a 46% tariff rate on
01:15:42
the basis that we have a 90 it's more than that Ben it's like they've made those Investments over the last five or
01:15:48
six years and so you have tens and hundreds of you know millions of dollars billions of dollars of sunk cost now
01:15:54
what do you do in that moment these were specifically designed Ben to be a diversification strategy Japan was
01:16:00
paying their companies to build factories outside of China and apple was doing India Vietnam to build airpods and
01:16:08
laptops and even the iPhone being made outside of China that diversification strategy did you did you watch the did
01:16:15
you watch the presser yesterday the the worst part for me I only had one moment where I was like oh gosh he stopped on
01:16:22
Sri Lanka and he goes Sri Lanka good old Sri Lanka 88% amazing Sri Lankan but Sri Lanka
01:16:32
very tough on us very was like acting go ahead Ben you can do yours you can do your dueling
01:16:38
about a great Trump okay and that's the reason why Ben Shapiro's podcast number two to all in now because of the Ben
01:16:46
Shapiro Trump impersonation Ben Shapiro Great American have you been to the white house uh I
01:16:52
have actually yeah invited in this or are you still Trump or Trumper it was a nasty never Trump now
01:17:03
he's Pro Trump exactly I had the same exact trajectory as JD Vans except I didn't end up Vice President of the
01:17:09
United States um but you know the I think that you know the again one when we talk about the roll out the the fact
01:17:15
that for example the meme online right now and I know we all kind of live in me moral that the meme is the president and
01:17:20
JD Vance lecturing a penguin because on that chart is the herd Islands have you even apologized for eating all that
01:17:27
mackerel no no wait what are you guys talking about there's an island there's an island that got a 10% tariff but
01:17:34
there's nothing on the island except Penguins yeah it's a St this is where I start come on then have you even
01:17:42
apologized okay you got no cards there no cards this penguin has no cards it's just you
01:17:49
have no cards to play okay stop stop you've got a great tuxedo at least you show in a okay good stuff um oh my
01:18:00
God by the way I think that Ben's framing of this thank you for that because that was really helpful to me
01:18:05
you're right like if if we try to reconvene a new Bret and woods we have to have an anchor
01:18:13
asset so it's a really great question what is that anchor asset it has to be AI but then you know underneath that AI
01:18:20
thing we have these two very complicated problems one is a meaningful energy problem I've been talking about this now
01:18:26
incessantly we don't have enough electrons we just don't and then the second is what freeberg mentioned before
01:18:33
which is that we have a very delicate technological supply chain to make the underlying silicon we need for these
01:18:39
things neither are trivial these are not things that can be easily solved yeah the AI supply chain is electricity we're
01:18:47
going from one terawatt to two China's going from three to eight over the same time period just to be clear so they're
01:18:53
accelerating the second is rare earth materials that we don't mine for we've outsourced Mining and Doug bergham told
01:19:02
me an interesting stat he's our Secretary of the Interior he said we only graduate 200 people a year in the
01:19:08
United States with degrees in mining oh God beginning in the 90s when globalization took off we basically
01:19:13
stopped mining in this country and moved everything to all the places because we
01:19:17
had this nimbyism we didn't want to have mining in our backyard the third obviously is the manufacturing of
01:19:23
semiconductors which we don't do the components to do the manufacturing so there's a company called asml which
01:19:29
everyone that works in Tech knows about they have these Advanced lithography systems to make the semiconductors they
01:19:35
don't sell to China so now China's got their own homegrown systems the worst thing we
01:19:40
don't yeah we don't make any of that in house so we we don't mine we don't have enough power we don't have the materials
01:19:46
and we don't make lithography and we don't have any Fabs I said this before but one of the biggest National Security
01:19:51
threats that we created out of nowhere was when the Wall Street Journal was allowed to do a detailed article on asml
01:19:59
and one of the craziest and scariest stats is that there is a person literally one person that can operate
01:20:07
these machines that are trained by asml and then forward deployed and there was a woman that was profiled and I thought
01:20:14
this is a national security risk you should not be Ting who this woman is she's going to be kidnapped ran Hall
01:20:21
exactly at the end of the day what the US has is the way we've got 70 billion parameters and we
01:20:27
call that an AI model that 70 billion parameters if someone gets a copy of it they've got an AI model so how much of
01:20:34
an advantage do we really have and the other thing that we had meanwhile China's got the whole supply chain and
01:20:39
now they're making their own models and the thing that we had was our trade relationships with all the places that
01:20:43
had all of these things that we actually needed right this is super high functioning yes it was it was quite high
01:20:49
functioning and and then and then beyond that you also have the problem of what happens if there's just less demand for
01:20:54
for dollars on the world stage I mean the exit of the dollar as the world's Global Reserve currency is going to have
01:21:00
some pretty nasty spillover effects and and it's going to require the government
01:21:04
to start sucking in more dollars from the American population in order to pay off all of these these debts that we
01:21:08
racking up so I mean all these things T like you could see a world where we magic our way out of this but this is
01:21:14
what I've been saying to jcal dollarization is what ends up happening I mean this is what the stable coins I
01:21:19
think is set up to counter people are now saying hey we're going to have there's two stable coins acts that are
01:21:25
going around here one of them doesn't require like know your customer anti-money laundering terrorism stuff
01:21:31
which is you know tethers according to many reports bread and butter and then the other one is to domesticate all this
01:21:39
business give it to Circle give it to stripe give it to American companies and force them to buy a certain percentage
01:21:46
of treasuries and allow them to give interest which the stable coin bills are now debating if they should give that so
01:21:54
I don't know if you guys are watching that but that would be way to keep a buyer for you know our currency there's
01:22:00
an analog to this that I think is important like when you look at the debt to GDP of Japan one of the critical
01:22:07
questions is how can you have a functioning economy at 250 260% debt to GDP right and we're at sort of like
01:22:16
teens right 120 something whatever and one of the critical advantages that they have is that they export a lot of
01:22:24
incredible Goods abroad but they have an incredibly deep domestic pool of buyers
01:22:28
for their own Japanese bonds and so there's this permanent bid that exists because the net buyer can be a Japanese
01:22:37
person on the margins and they're always there and it's not necessarily a person
01:22:41
it's an insurance company it's a pension fund Etc the thing that US dollar stable
01:22:47
coins does is it starts to replicate one of those advantages which again if you think about having a release valve for
01:22:54
the US economy and if we needed to all of a sudden scream to 200% debt to GDP the real question is where's the
01:23:01
incremental net buyer of the US Bond and it could be the person that has to back
01:23:08
the stable coin which would then say the people in charge of the crypto strategy
01:23:12
we won't name names no if anybody knows anybody that legislation needs to be incredibly permissive because to your
01:23:19
guys's point we would want the bid to us treasuries to exist and be as ferocious
01:23:25
as possible right yeah but I don't think you should give let tether do it until they do anest until they do a proper
01:23:30
audit and they stop doing money laundering terrorism and all the crazy stuff I'm not going all the way there
01:23:36
but what Circle does is I think quite structured and you know Circle that's I mean I think that's
01:23:42
circles usdc that's their pitch and I think the Trump family now just launched their own stable coin this week so
01:23:48
you're going to see 10 stable coins that is a great way to you know create competition and um I still think it's a
01:23:55
really it's it's it's the right question that this Administration has a responsibility to articulate what is it
01:24:03
that makes America the Lynch pin of the global economy of the western democracy of the world is we enter this
01:24:13
new era with this Rising power in China and I'm not sure that there's Clarity today what do you think it is I'll do
01:24:21
you think it's both of you guys what do you guys think I mean it's pretty clear what it is the reason we keep winning
01:24:26
and the reason China keeps stumbling is because we have rabid entrepreneurship and an investment and crazy investment
01:24:32
infrastructure the fact that we will bet on entrepreneurs and allow them to become billionaires or allow them to
01:24:38
flame out and start again tomorrow that entrepreneurial Spirit of America is what needs to be preserved that's what
01:24:44
created SpaceX that's what created Circle we just talked about stripe we need the American exceptionalism and it
01:24:50
has to be backed by recruiting AKA immigration of brilliant people like Sachs like freeberg like chamath who
01:24:59
were not born in this country you can't do it just based on Ben chapiro and jcal
01:25:03
you need to be looking around the world for the smartest people and then plugging them into the entrepreneurial
01:25:08
system here that's the magic that's the golden America David what do you think it is that's a very good I mean I think
01:25:14
that's credible I honestly don't know if I can be dismissive of China like jcal says they keep stumbling and blah blah
01:25:21
blah I I think that's absolutely wrong there's a very good interview um what are those guys names from the Brookings
01:25:27
institution that do that podcast then you might know these guys the three guys might is touch is that who you're
01:25:33
talking about or that's a different podcast I'm not sure it's not in the top 100 I don't know yeah it's not in the
01:25:39
top they talked about China and they talked about actually the rise in China where they 30X GDP per capita and call
01:25:46
it 30 years because they allowed entrepreneurs are you talking about Good Fellas Good Fellas sounds right yeah St
01:25:53
that's right Good Fellows Good Fellows yeah I think that was it they had good talk on a good talk no no it's Waldorf
01:26:00
and Statler I think that's their Nam waldor and styler those the ho in Good Fellows MCM Ferguson Nick find a picture
01:26:10
of Waldorf and styler for freedberg to Jo oh they're so great they're so great so anyway they made the point that
01:26:16
because China allowed the entrepreneurism of the individuals to let the market Run free and have this
01:26:24
throttle when they let the people run free they let entrepreneurism Thrive and then sometimes they pull the throttle
01:26:29
back jcal and did that and they crash the whole thing now they've pushed it Forward again and that's what drives the
01:26:36
growth and the Improvement in productivity and this extraordinary abundance in energy in mining and now in
01:26:43
manufacturing and it's I think going to lead to a Great era of prosperity for China it's pretty clear with or without
01:26:48
the conflict with the US they've dramatically improved the conditions in that country over the last 30 years in a
01:26:54
really profound historic way so I I don't I'm not going to be dismissive and say that they're stumbling let's give it
01:26:59
to B and then I'll tell you what I'm dismissive so so first of all I think that China does face some serious real
01:27:04
serious structural problems ranging from demographics to debt um and and I also think that yeah and I also think that if
01:27:10
you take a look at sort of the history of economic fascism which is what they're attempting to do which is sort
01:27:14
of cap you know using capitalist methodologies in order to prop up a a very tyrannical government that will in
01:27:21
a c exactly and and so for a short per period of time that seems like that will work and then and then the problem is
01:27:27
you can find yourself in a blind alley fairly quickly and right now ai is not a blind alley but we also don't know
01:27:32
exactly Which Way AI is going to develop in the most profitable way I mean the amount of money that's been poured into
01:27:36
AI has not yet been justified by the amount of of complet net on the on return on the on the actual investment
01:27:43
obviously and so if you don't this this is the benefit of the American Market is
01:27:47
that you have everybody chasing everything all the time and one of those things is going to hit the the benefit
01:27:51
of the Chinese market is you have everyone chasing one thing all the time if that's the thing that actually hits
01:27:56
they'll do amazing but it's possible that they completely miss it but the problem is I think and this is where you
01:28:01
get back to the political in the United States and the and the necessity of avoiding a recession is that to me the
01:28:07
scariest thing that that is happening in inside the Trump Administration is not something that's bad when President
01:28:12
Trump was inaugurated there was one picture that spoke of the in that that that kind of summed up the inauguration
01:28:16
was President Trump there with Tim Cook and with the and with um and with Zuck and with Elon and with all the
01:28:22
billionaires behind him all the all the tech Bros right behind him if there is a
01:28:25
recession what comes next is not going to be salutory to Innovation to investment to technology to anything
01:28:32
remotely like that and so the idea of short-term pain it better be really really shortterm the American people do
01:28:37
not have patience for this and if the and if if if it goes sideways then what you're going to get is a populist revolt
01:28:42
on the left and a populist revolt on the right that is going to take down everybody who is even remotely connected
01:28:49
with this idea of free market capitalism and so I I think that one of the dangers
01:28:53
in in sort of attempting to manipulate the economy this way is that we're saying okay we're going to we're going
01:28:57
to try these kind of methodologies of government control in which we rejigger the world economy in this way and that
01:29:02
way and then we'll magic our way out of it with with stable coin and AI maybe or
01:29:07
maybe the best way to do this would actually be to allow the thing to thrive that has always thrived In America which
01:29:12
is lower the regulations let people innovate let people fail let people succeed get the hell out of the way and
01:29:17
yes actually do the things that you need to do in cutting government debt by doing the hard things and and the only
01:29:23
way you're going to able to do all those things is through continued succcess not
01:29:26
paying to get to some long-term gain it's got to be entrepreneurship and there are some subfactors of it in order
01:29:32
to have a vibrant entrepreneurial Community you need to have immigration that's why I asked Trump on this thing
01:29:37
on this program can we get green cards can we get people who have degrees here especially coming out of Stanford to
01:29:43
stay in the country he said yes he'd staple them on the degrees great the next thing is getting leaan out and
01:29:49
ending the wrath of Lina Khan we need m&a because when you have m&a the the companies get bigger the fact that
01:29:56
YouTube and Android and AdSense were purchased by Google made it into the massive success it is on a global basis
01:30:04
today and the fact that meta was able to buy things she may not like it when these companies get too powerful but
01:30:09
what Jack ma what happened to Jack ma is the reason freeberg that I don't believe
01:30:14
a dictator will ever compete with our C country if we stay entrepreneurial and not socialist socialism is a culde sec
01:30:22
as you're saying Ben and it might work for a short period of time but then someone like Xi Jinping is going to do
01:30:27
what dictators do which is implode he saw Jack ma get popular he sent them to get re-educated and do some painting and
01:30:35
he took up oil painting he got rid of every educational company and pull up the chart of Chinese investment Nick if
01:30:41
you have it boom it just got smashed and this is what dictators do they do what Putin did he invades Ukraine his economy
01:30:49
goes off the rails and this is what xiin Ping do always imp me a step ladder to get off your soap box so I can ask Ben a
01:30:56
question Ben when you said that in a recession definitely not that's exactly right how come I have a passion for
01:31:05
something you guys have to give me a hard time you go on your passionate rantt signaling eightball what do you do
01:31:12
you just shake it and some stupid some stupid statement Ben AG American exceptionalism
01:31:20
M Ben and I that's it I'm leaving the the program Ben and I are let me rant against dictators for a
01:31:25
minute my Kudos go ahead Ben okay you should just go rant about the Trump Administration and get your cabinet
01:31:32
position go ahead Ben when you talk about in a recession they go after tech companies what can you just explain that
01:31:39
more just explain that I'm not sure I understood that totally okay so so there there there's a recession and president
01:31:44
Trump just the way that people tend to think of politics is is not on a granular level they tend to see it on
01:31:49
sort of a pixelated level because most people don't engage with politics on a granular level they see a s painting
01:31:54
they don't see all the dots they just see Sunday in the park with George right and so when it comes to a recession the
01:31:59
image that's going to come to mind for the Trump Administration is that this is an Administration that is extremely
01:32:03
friendly to business particularly when it comes to Tech and so whoever is standing next to president Trump if
01:32:09
there if there is a serious recession gets nuked gets caught in the Fallout and if that happens then you will see a
01:32:14
resurgent left led by a Bernie Sanders wing of the democratic party not a sort of technocratic Obama esque you know as
01:32:20
recline abundance liberalism wi you're going to get a a urgent Bernie Bernie ISM on the left that basically says
01:32:27
these rich people screwed you in order to get ahead you can feel it because you're feeling the recession they're
01:32:33
still Rich you're still poor and and so what you really need is a complete rejiggering of the American economy
01:32:38
along the lines of fairness and you're going to see something similar happen on the right by the way so my friend man
01:32:43
ketti who is the the former editor of the the Washington Free Beacon I believe he he has a great point about
01:32:50
presidential elections he makes the point that candidates don't become president unless they they run against
01:32:54
their own party uh that that it is in order to actually capture the imagination of the American people you
01:33:00
almost always have to run inside your own party against your own parties you saw this most obviously with President
01:33:04
Trump but this was clearly true with Barack Obama it it was true to a certain extent uh with with George W bush even
01:33:10
who ran a compassionate conservative campaign against the sort of hard-hearted Gingrich Dole Republicans
01:33:15
it's Clinton Clint Clinton for sure did this so I I think it's a great point because then you have to start thinking
01:33:20
okay look at the we're turning the right side of the aisle now let's say that you
01:33:23
have a politician on the right side of the aisle what does he run against in the TR because Trump has obviously taken
01:33:27
command tremendous command of the Republican base and the Republican party what is there to run against well if
01:33:31
there's an economic downturn do you think that they're going to run against Trump being not capitalist enough or do
01:33:36
they think they're going to run against Trump being too capitalist too friendly exactly and that's how you get a
01:33:41
populist Uprising on the right and what you end up with is a horseshoe Theory politics where both parties are in favor
01:33:46
of right both parties are in favor of Lena Khan and by the way this is not a rarity I mean I I think I think I think
01:33:53
that president is is an amazingly brilliant guy he has also expressed kind of public support for Lena Khan from
01:33:58
time to time right and that's inside the Republican party and on the left obviously there's tremendous support for
01:34:02
Lena Khan so if what we're saying here is one of the things we need is not Lena Khan we should be very careful not to
01:34:07
step on the rake and and then the thing that hits you in the face is Lena Khan right yeah right and this is why I said
01:34:13
my contrarian bet for this year was this rise in uh socialist policy and the response to some of the actions the
01:34:20
administration might take but how do we avoid making the bottom half of society feel included in all this wealth
01:34:29
generation Etc like what what is the plan here is it Universal Health Care is it lowering their taxes I mean the
01:34:36
administration says no taxes for people under 150k we have to give something to the working man and woman of this
01:34:43
country the people who feel that they can't get rich who can't get to the middle class does anybody here have a
01:34:48
suggestion for that I mean I do I actually do have a suggestion and it's it's actually shockingly easy president
01:34:53
Trump has a has a visceral connection to blue collar workers in this country clearly has a visceral connection he
01:34:59
should stop preaching that blue collar workers are getting screwed and start preaching that they're succeeding
01:35:04
because it's actually true truth okay yes yes I mean I think that the the the FIB the politicians always make Bank on
01:35:10
is the idea that for example the middle class in America is completely dissolved
01:35:13
that is not statistically true the middle class has turned into the upper middle class okay and and actually all
01:35:19
Americans I say this on my show all the time people have this again this sort of
01:35:24
eyed view of the 1950s which again was a historical outlier because the rest of the world didn't exist it been destroyed
01:35:28
but they also have this bizarre idea that that you were better off to be 30 years old in 1980 than you are to be 30
01:35:34
years old in 2025 and all I can say is in 1980 the only dude with a cell phone was Gordon Gecko and he was a shoe box
01:35:39
and he was holding it to his head okay the reality is that everything in your life is better in 2025 on a material
01:35:45
economic level than it was in 1980 and the the lie that politicians tell in order to gain power is they say you're
01:35:52
you're getting screwed somebody is screwing you I can unscrew the screwing and and so there's there's this constant
01:35:58
sort of Race To The Bottom in terms of this rhetoric and what you end up with is in the end what can I promise you
01:36:04
that that I can then blame somebody else for not having fulfilled the promise president Trump I think could avoid that
01:36:09
because of this unique connection that he has with bluecollar people where he could say listen we're all on the same
01:36:13
side here right what we're doing here is innovation I thought the most important
01:36:16
line that I heard from president Trump during his his victory speech the night that he won was he when he said to Elon
01:36:21
and it was kind of a throw line when he said we love our Geniuses he said we love our Geniuses and I thought yes
01:36:26
that's the thing we need celebrate success celebrate entrepreneur and this could be you and
01:36:32
and not and we're going to have hiring programs you as Mark andreon has talked about we need to have hiring programs
01:36:36
that are that are specifically designed to find the best people not just abroad but also in the United States who might
01:36:41
be under service in in rural areas of the country or in Blue Collar areas of the country find the next JD Vans find
01:36:47
the next guy who really needs you know that that hand up like all those things can be done a rising tide will lift all
01:36:53
[ __ ] but this is the problem with the short-term pain plan Americans have a long memory and when it comes to
01:37:00
politics I think this happened with the Biden Administration uh poit people their relationship with politicians is
01:37:05
sort of like a married couple and and Good married couples you know they kind of talk through the the minor problems
01:37:10
that they're having in their marriage and then and then things you know continue to maintain and grow and get
01:37:14
better bad married couples what happens is that they sort of ignore that the kind of minor annoyances for years at a
01:37:19
time and then something bad happens and the bottom just goes right out and the this is the thing that I'm afraid of for
01:37:24
the Trump Administration everybody's willing to ignore the things that are kind of mildly annoying like penguins at
01:37:28
the White House or whatever uh up until the point where there's a serious recession at that point everybody kind
01:37:33
of looks around and goes why are we even doing this I think that's exactly what happened with Biden with the Afghanistan
01:37:37
withdrawal for example making a mistep is the is the it's why I'm being critical of the tariffs it's not because
01:37:42
I want Trump to lose it's because I want Trump to win right I think he's doing too many important things like the stuff
01:37:47
that Antonio there too many important things happening to to take to roll the dice on a strategy isn't even being
01:37:54
articulated if you're going to make the case for a long-term gain I need to know
01:37:58
what the long-term gain is so I can make the case to the American public as to why they should endure the short-term
01:38:02
pain you know you're having surgery because after the surgery you're going to feel better but if I say you're
01:38:05
having surgery it's going to be some short-term pain you say okay how am I going to feel after the surgery and say
01:38:09
well I don't know you know maybe could maybe who knows then why am I having surgery we have so many job openings we
01:38:16
have the lowest unemployment of our lifetime as you said consumers today can get and live an incredible lifestyle
01:38:23
that the rich didn't have in 1980 the car you can buy today can drive itself for 20 30 40K you can buy use Tesla and
01:38:31
have this car that's better than any car made in the last 50 years so you got keep a positive then think about
01:38:35
generation tool belt you've got all these you know plumbing jobs electrician jobs construction jobs that pay
01:38:42
massively hourly wages that are available for people today we have too many job openings today and you never
01:38:49
hear Trump say that to your point it's always this like everything's a disaster I'll save you when in fact you don't
01:38:55
need saving go ahead free bir I'll answer joff's earlier question about what America can anchor to to attract
01:39:02
the rest of the world and I think it's what's been the American story from the beginning which is ambition we pioneered
01:39:10
the West we launched the Industrial Revolution we went to space we landed on the moon we had the Manhattan Project we
01:39:20
unleashed the information technology Revolution with the development of the transistor the ambition is what's been
01:39:29
kind of consumed by China in the last 20 years they've built 30,000 miles of highspeed rail in the next 15 years
01:39:37
they're going to add more electricity production capacity than the United States times two has
01:39:45
today there's nothing short of ambition coming out of China and it's what we're lacking all of our political gambits all
01:39:54
of our debates are all centered around what we're trying to fix that went wrong in the past what we did wrong and what
01:40:01
we got to do to make it right and we don't talk at all about the ambition of where we can lead the world to next
01:40:06
China's the only one that's doing that and I think that's where we need to kind of have a bit of a important pivot on
01:40:12
the global stage if we want to be able to kind of attract partners and also to have Americans think outside of this
01:40:19
week where are we headed and I just I don't know I mean I don't know if you guys agree but I just feel like that's
01:40:23
one of the the key things that we've kind of lost track of nerk put out a a study just like this is very tactical
01:40:29
but it's part and partial of what you and Jason are talking about do you guys know that about 25% of all of our
01:40:37
utility workers in America became eligible for retirement between 2017 and 2022 I did not no so most of the people
01:40:45
56% of all utility workers now have less than a decade of experience you know what that's resulted in in 2021 the
01:40:52
average Us customer of of an electric utility experiened seven and a half hours of service interruptions and it's
01:40:59
just growing uh I think the average plumers age 50 something we can't get people to
01:41:06
become plumbers nurk says that 19 States now in the United States can face rolling blackouts during normal Peak
01:41:12
conditions if these issues aren't addressed and by the way this is that's a human capital problem but if you
01:41:17
multiply that by 10 and 20 and 30 times there was a different tweet I don't know
01:41:22
Nick if you could find it that talked about an organization trying to find people to help build nuclear
01:41:27
submarines did you guys see this quote where they needed 100,000 people to build nuclear subs in the United States
01:41:35
and they could barely find like a few hundred yeah we we need to get better at this stuff I mean the good news is we're
01:41:42
we're going to have robots to do this Ben uh you know if I run for president I'm one of the few people here on the
01:41:47
Pod who can uh my position is going to be build three new cities with five million homes in each because you
01:41:55
know starter homes families can't buy starter homes you ever consider running for office and if you did what would be
01:41:59
your platform I mean it would be pretty horrifying to run for office it seems like a terrible job and I think the root
01:42:04
age to run for presidents is now in your 70s so I have like three decades to consider it but you know if if I were
01:42:11
going to run I I would be running on the basic idea that in this country the only
01:42:16
thing that you are promised is is the adventure and and I'm not going to make you promises that I'm not going to lie
01:42:23
to you I'm not going to make you promises that I can't keep about how I'm going to fix your life because the truth
01:42:27
is I really can't all I can do is help get the obstacles out of the way so you can fix your life and you can make your
01:42:32
life better and I can help break the institutions that have a strangle hold on on your future and and there when
01:42:37
you're talking about electricians and plumbers the truth is that we have set up an enormous con game that is our
01:42:42
higher education system particularly in the liberal arts subsidized by the taxpayer when most jobs that that we're
01:42:48
talking about right here do not require a college degree there's so many things that that the Trump Administration
01:42:52
should be doing and is doing that again that are great that they could break the
01:42:56
strangle hold on some of these things that allow for more opportunity but I think the thing that people really you
01:43:01
know the thing that I would say that I I really think that maybe no other politician would say and I can say
01:43:05
because I'm not a politician is your future is re in America your future is in your hands it is not in somebody
01:43:11
else's hands it is your responsibility it is your responsibility to go out and strive it is your responsibility to go
01:43:17
and succeed we want you to be able to to try again if you fail but we want you to
01:43:22
go and we want you to try ruged individualism and also and also the you know the the kind of case that that that
01:43:29
was being made a little bit earlier about China that that basically China is saying that it can do things the one of
01:43:35
the things that that drives me up a wall is when politicians say I created X jobs
01:43:39
or or we created X jobs you didn't create a job okay the government does not create jobs the government can take
01:43:45
money from people and then give it to other people but it is only entrepreneurs who can create jobs and so
01:43:50
the the way that you fight China off is not by the power of a centralized government directing people in a
01:43:55
particular direction the way that you fight off China is by unleashing the collective knowledge wisdom and ambition
01:44:01
of the American people on an individual level to go out and do all of these unbelievable things and that that would
01:44:06
be the promise that I'd make to the American people is I'll get everybody the hell out of your way so you can
01:44:09
succeed that that would be the only thing I I promise guys we got um breaking news here it turns out the T
01:44:15
more reciprocal tariffs have dropped look at this complaining about the docket jcal has put a 500% reciprocal to
01:44:23
on that tariff on that purchasing dogs from a breeders is now 100% tariff freedberg oh that's pretty that's pretty
01:44:30
stiff and chamath has put one on Laura Piana slippers yeah too many people have them 200% tariff and uh oh looks like
01:44:38
Ben shapira got in on it having Candace Owens on your podcast is now at 200% Ben what are you doing here guys
01:44:46
unkind wait what's the Palmer lucky one can you can you read that lucky has put a thousand this is the biggest one that
01:44:52
just dropped th% tariff I'm working with jcal for chamath poopa chairman dictator wait
01:45:00
I have to do you want to hear about oh would you like to do a little memory L we got so much show here I'm trying to
01:45:04
get this out but okay by way I created a a poly Market on GDP oh annualized GDP growth in Q3 of
01:45:12
this year being below five negative five per. negative five% yeah that's brutal check it out on Market what's the
01:45:21
probability of that happening make your bets oh make your Bets with our partner poly
01:45:26
Market chamath do you want to do Victory lab we're to wrap here what do you want
01:45:29
to do well I actually think it's fun because we're going to kick off a different poly market around this
01:45:34
because I think it's interesting so the thing that we haven't talked about is with all of the
01:45:40
tariffs with all of the financing questions with all of the recession questions shortterm rates
01:45:47
long-term rates the one thing that we haven't sufficiently talked about it's not really in the Press but needs to be
01:45:53
talked about is there is a tremendous amount of corporate debt that supports these businesses
01:45:59
today and you would say well if long-term rates go down there's no real risk but the Tariff
01:46:08
picture actually impacts revenues right and the problem with that is that there's a lot of companies that have
01:46:14
debt covenants tied to revenue and iida and so this is what I spoke about at the beginning of January which is
01:46:23
the one risk that is uncontrollable is what happens to corporate debt and could we see a wave
01:46:32
of defaults and a wave of action Nick you may want to just play the clip and we can talk about what we can do about
01:46:38
this this was my pick for the best investment idea oh go all right here we go from what do you got let me preface
01:46:45
this by saying that this is a pick that 92 times out of a 100 goes to absolute zero and six out of the remaining eight
01:46:56
times you make 10 extra money and then the final two times you make anywhere between a 100 to a th extra money this
01:47:03
is a loser trade but I would be long CDs so what am I buying I am buying insurance I'm buying Insurance using
01:47:14
credit default swaps I'm buying what's called protection that there is no default event in 2025 I would like a
01:47:23
little bit of an insurance policy in 2025 so that the men and the women that we have voted in have the chance to do
01:47:30
their work in peace I think that there is a small chance of some volatility next year I hope it doesn't happen I
01:47:38
hope that this trade loses money but if it hits it will be the best performing asset of 2025 and I just want to be
01:47:44
clear this is not something I think will happen it's not something I want to happen but I do think that if you look
01:47:50
back in terms of just the tonnage of dollarars you can can make and the massive risk asymmetry that it presents
01:47:55
to you when you look at the concentration of the S&P when you look at just the total gross amount of debt
01:48:00
that we have when you look at rate spiking all of these things say having a little Insurance may not be a bad thing
01:48:07
it has hit Nick you can show the CDs graph so this thing for every billion dollars of risk you would have put on
01:48:16
every billion dollars that you put on would have cost you about a million dollar and that million dollars would
01:48:22
have made you about $7 million in about three months did you put it on I'm not going to comment on my my trades Jason
01:48:30
oh okay but weal we talked about it off air already but if you did put it on does that mean you're taking us all to
01:48:35
Italy this summer no what's happening here are you getting a boat for us to record from the Allin yacht no but there
01:48:41
may be some boats for sale if this trade keeps going this way oh why is this important the CDs actually represents
01:48:48
the structural risk in the United States private economy in the corporate economy
01:48:52
so Nick if you just put it back on so when you see these spreads blowing out this is actually a very important
01:48:58
warning sign and this is actually a thing that I think Scott understands well Howard understands well I think
01:49:04
they'll translate this to the president if I have an opportunity to explain it I will but this is a really
01:49:11
important Market to pay attention to this is what was the canary and the coal mine for the great financial crisis this
01:49:20
was the stuff that showed us that there was a big default event happening in the
01:49:24
mortgage side of the market but then that spilled over to the broader economy and so the Tariff picture and the
01:49:31
recession picture will get played out in this chart and I think it's something that folks can and should probably pay
01:49:38
tremendous attention to because I think now that this trade is in the money the question is I don't think we want this
01:49:44
to happen that one Sigma two Sigma event where all of a sudden this trade returns
01:49:49
a THX is really bad well you know let's keep our eye on the markets and uh as of
01:49:56
the taping here we're down about 5% across the boards and Ben you're excellent you should come back yeah well
01:50:03
done Ben you fit right we're in we're in Florida are you we're doing an event in
01:50:07
Miami at the end of the month should yeah that'd be fun let's do it you want to come to Miami and hang
01:50:12
out we've got like this nightclub we're doing a stage we got the track side of Formula One Ben's got a Ben's got a
01:50:19
table out 11 it's got his name on Ben Shapiro to live we're going to live stop okay
01:50:25
sorry sorry I don't know I don't know which strip club is sponsoring all in this trip but we'll figure it out that
01:50:30
was awesome Ben thanks for doing that thanks guys that's a blast wa jcal take us out take us out this is my favorite
01:50:36
with Ben Ben's like and you know there's security issues in Ukraine and you have
01:50:42
security issues as well that's why you should use Lifeline man you are the master of the fcking segue I have never
01:50:48
I thought I was good ped chapiro was like and of course we have the tariffs and that's going down but you know what
01:50:54
won't go down if you buy gold buy your gold bullion at goldb on.org you are [ __ ] great at this is it true 100
01:51:02
million in revenue for daily wire is that true n figures actually last year was 2 220 oh my God 220 what's going on
01:51:10
I saw some headline you're going bankrupt how you going bankrupt with 220 we're not going bankrupt yeah not going
01:51:15
some restructuring actually Ben now that you saw what's happening with Newsmax I
01:51:19
mean any thoughts to maybe brazing some capital yeah I mean it has it has let's just put
01:51:25
it has crossed our minds yes for sure you're making 50 times the revenue of Truth social congratulations but
01:51:33
actually what do you think when you see the this Newsmax thing trade like this I
01:51:37
mean it's incredible yeah what is it saying do you think I mean I I think it's saying a couple of things I mean
01:51:41
one it's saying obviously look I I think the PE ratios on on the Newsmax trade are are you know ridiculous in in the
01:51:48
sense that it's going to revert back to something closer to normaly I think that
01:51:51
the it was supposed to trade at 10 bucks and it came out at 14 it spoke to like 240 so it's more like GameStop than
01:51:57
anything else there a lot of retail traders who are fans of Newsmax who bought the stock and then it leapt and I
01:52:02
think it was today back down in the 40s something like that it'll end up being you know total market cap will probably
01:52:07
be somewhere when it when it lands in like the two to three Bill range somewhere three to four Bill something
01:52:13
like that um I I think what it says is that you know the the stock market in in the short term is a voting machine and
01:52:19
in the long term it is a weighing machine and I think that uh you know when when you when you look at at stocks
01:52:24
that have name brand recognition uh then you're going to get a lot of voting in the early going and then it's a question
01:52:29
of whether you can keep that up so it turns into weighing right fair enough 39 million in uh quarterly Revenue so
01:52:35
they're at1 150 $160 million a year and their valuation right now I don't have the market cap here but what did it Peak
01:52:43
out at 304 billion or something oh no when it when it peaked it Peak above 20 bill yeah the market cap went to 170
01:52:50
bucks or 200 bucks 240 bucks 245s yesterday yeah or two days ago you know G something weird going on there okay uh
01:52:59
all right well the Allin and um dailywire merger and IPL coming soon the ticker symbol is
01:53:07
all Deli in wire all in Deli in wire the merger is complete and we'll see you all
01:53:13
next time love you all in well done thanks guys let your winners ride Rainman David and instead we open source it to
01:53:27
the fans and they've just gone crazy with it love [Music] youen besties that's my dog taking your
01:53:43
[Music] driveway oh man myit meet me we should all just get a room and just have one
01:53:51
big huge orgy cuz all this useless it's like this like sexual tension that they just need to release
01:53:56
[Music] somehow we need to get [Music] mer going [Music]