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0:01:57 welcome raging moderates i’m scott galloway and i’m jess guitar live uh how are you jess
0:02:02 i love that you paused a little you’re like what does one say now in the banter section how are you
0:02:08 i am good how are you i’m good yeah i’m alone in my place in london it feels strange it’s very it’s
0:02:14 kind of weirder i mean you you don’t become single when your partner is away but do you have like
0:02:19 sexist city called it secret single behavior like how you live when you’re on your own versus
0:02:27 how you live when your partner and family’s at home um if it’s illegal in any way don’t tell me
0:02:33 i mean my life is pretty much a constant exercise and arrested adolescence so i’m not sure it’s any
0:02:37 different when the kids are gone but it’s it’s actually it’s a little bit depressing i mean the of
0:02:43 course the weather turned very gray and very cold and being here alone i have the dogs which is nice but
0:02:48 i’m trying to get out every night such that i’m just not you know pondering around a house but
0:02:52 i can’t stand my family when they’re here and then i miss them the moment they leave i’m just sort of
0:02:58 generally pissed off at all times but yeah this feels especially lonely uh to be kind of clanging
0:03:04 around the house especially with the boys not here um i was expecting like yeah i you know i don’t pick
0:03:10 up my clothes and i go to the bathroom with the door open but that’s sad that you’re unhappy all the
0:03:15 time yeah generally a little bit a little bit down but um anyways enough of that how are you
0:03:23 i i’m fine i’m yeah good good we had a trip planned to london actually because i lived over there for a
0:03:31 long time and so lots of friends there and my goddaughter was getting baptized and she ended up
0:03:40 getting this horrible staph infection have you heard of scalded skin staph i have not it looks as bad as it
0:03:45 sounds basically like it’s terrible the whole baby she’s just like her whole body blistered and she was
0:03:51 in the hospital for six days so the trip got canceled which is not a big deal um and the good news is that
0:03:59 she’s fine but we have talked about uh pediatric er’s as being the most depressing and also the most
0:04:06 uplifting place because you see these nurses and doctors and physicians assistants who are they just do
0:04:14 god’s work and so we are indebted to them for always and that’s kind of been what my week was like
0:04:21 so god we’re just a bag of sunshine sorry i know get us out of here get us out yeah i didn’t mean to do
0:04:27 that everything else let’s talk about the ceasefire and then government shutdown um all right in today’s
0:04:32 episode of raging moderates we’re discussing two weeks in the shutdown starts hurting everyday
0:04:38 americans how trump has completed about half of the project 2025 agenda and what to expect from the no
0:04:45 kings protests uh 2.0 uh if you will all right let’s get into it the government shutdown is really
0:04:50 starting to sting museums are closed federal workers are missing paychecks and small businesses that rely
0:04:54 on government activity are feeling the crunch trump meanwhile is trying to blunt some of the backlash by
0:04:59 using leftover pentagon funds to keep paying the troops a move that takes one major pressure point off
0:05:05 the table but leaves hundreds of thousands of other workers stuck in limbo democrats and republicans are
0:05:09 still blaming each other for the standoff with no deal in sight jess what are your thoughts on the
0:05:17 shutdown where it is now and any thoughts on where it goes from here so i saw at the beginning that it
0:05:23 would be kind of short-lived honestly i mean donald trump had the longest shutdown and his first administration
0:05:30 went 35 days and i thought like we’re definitely not getting anywhere close to that i frankly didn’t give
0:05:36 democrats i guess enough credit for backbone and i thought that they would find some way to yes
0:05:42 relatively quickly um because republican pressure and pressure at home as well because you know
0:05:49 there are people who vote for democrats certainly in their districts who might be saying like hey i need my
0:05:54 paycheck or i need the country to work like we had a vacation plan to this national park museums etc
0:06:03 but it feels to me like this is going to go for a long time at this point and you see both sides
0:06:09 really kind of hunkering down big change in dynamics i think this shift away from are the democrats going
0:06:16 and a cave and hat tip to chuck schumer um who i think has kept the senate caucus in line and angus
0:06:23 king who was one of the three democrats that had voted to keep the government open now has changed his
0:06:29 mind and now he is siding with the majority of democrats and there’s real pressure on mike johnson we
0:06:34 know the public opinion is against the republicans on this between 10 and 15 points they blame the
0:06:40 republicans more but you’re also seeing individual republican representatives even do things like go
0:06:47 on tv and talk about how poor johnson’s leadership has been especially that he has the caucus at home
0:06:53 on recess and they’re like we should be working like kevin kiley in california marjorie taylor green
0:07:00 has been making the rounds um to complain about mike johnson and the health care system in general which we
0:07:05 should talk about because it’s not as if you know just extending the subsidies solves the problem we
0:07:13 still have the most expensive health care um in the world and it’s burdensome no matter what um there
0:07:21 was a private republican lawmaker call and apparently uh three more republicans on that call raised concerns
0:07:29 about the house being out of session stephanie bice of oklahoma jay obernolte of california and julie
0:07:34 fetter check of north dakota so that’s a pretty wide range of representatives from you know all over
0:07:40 the country and places that you would expect to be pretty diehard in support of the republicans and
0:07:46 like what trump wants and they’re saying you can’t just tell us to sit at home while this is going on
0:07:51 like this is a legitimate state of emergency and this is why people elect us right to make sure that the
0:07:57 government is running so those are kind of my top line thoughts um well you you you’re the pollster here and
0:08:02 what i’ve seen or what’s in the data here is that 41 percent of americans hold the gop accountable
0:08:11 versus 30 for democrats so it feels as if democrats you know they all lose but republicans lose more so
0:08:16 i don’t see the incentive for democrats to give an inch and it feels like they’ve been very pointed
0:08:22 and strategic on focusing on health care and yesterday i was on a radio show here in the uk and
0:08:26 they asked me who was leader of the democratic party and i said it’s marjorie taylor green right
0:08:33 now that essentially she’s the most articulate she’s personalized the issue saying my kids premiums
0:08:38 are going to double i think we need to come together i don’t think i mean she’s quite frankly just been
0:08:44 a everyone loves what they perceive as a turncoat if you want to get the cameras going just recite the
0:08:49 talking points to the other side right i think she kind of i mean who would have thought that the
0:08:53 sanest person in the republican party would be marjorie taylor green i think everyone is totally
0:09:01 flummoxed here but it feels to me that in calci the the betting market or the speculation market
0:09:08 is forecasting that it’ll be shut 37 days i think that what’s happened in the middle east has probably
0:09:14 taken their eye off the ball or taken some of their sense of urgency away and i i think the democrats
0:09:20 are going to get most or all of what they want here because my sense is every again every day
0:09:28 this goes on it seeds advantage from the republicans to the democrats uh so uh this feels like at some
0:09:35 point mike johnson gets democrats in a room and says all right how do i declare victory and get this done
0:09:40 by giving you some or not all of what you want but i would imagine that leader jeffries and senator
0:09:46 schumer for the first time in a while actually feel some mojo and some juju here like oh my gosh we’re
0:09:52 actually winning for once and we’re actually seen as leaders what is this strange feeling that i have
0:09:58 what is this feel i don’t recognize this sensation so i think it really comes down to to what extent
0:10:05 is speaker johnson willing to rally some republicans to give on these um extensions of subsidies for
0:10:12 obamacare uh so i know my sense is the democrats are winning here your thoughts yeah i i think a
0:10:18 little bit i mean listen winning a political battle when the government is shut down and that’s affecting
0:10:25 everyday americans isn’t the same kind of win fair enough good point there are people who are out there
0:10:30 losing that they’re trying to protect but yes i think that they have been able to clearly and
0:10:35 unarticulately advocate for their position which is this is about protecting americans health care
0:10:41 and i think that if a deal is done it will be about the aca subsidies i don’t think that they’re going
0:10:47 to get a rollback of the medicaid cuts from the big beautiful bill which is also part of what they want
0:10:51 i think that that is kind of the prized possession of the administration and no one’s going to be touching
0:10:57 that um you saw trump come out and say well we’ll find a way to pay our troops and law enforcement
0:11:03 um an omb spokesperson said uh omb is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out
0:11:09 the democrats intransigence pay the troops pay law enforcement continue the reductions in force and
0:11:17 wait so that’s the key part of this for russ vote he is having a field day with the amount of layoffs that
0:11:22 they can do and they had another one of those did you see they fired like a thousand cdc scientists on
0:11:27 friday night and then of course had to rehire most of them back because whoops uh we got rid of the
0:11:34 wrong guys again um makes me think of the early days when they were getting rid of uh all the weather
0:11:37 people and then they’re like oh my god what are we supposed to do here you know we don’t have air
0:11:43 traffic control nashville airport has to shut down for five hours a couple days ago i mean they
0:11:49 it’s having a very real impact but it’s exactly what russ vote wants out of it and i think that trump
0:11:56 in his constant quest to be able to declare victory about something if they find a way to move
0:12:01 the pay for troops and law enforcement and maybe some nutritional assistance for women and children
0:12:07 which has also been a conversation point and get that kind of carved out then he can say everything
0:12:13 else that’s bad that’s happening to you is the democrats fault and i’m out here protecting our troops
0:12:19 and our police officers um should say that leader jeffries wants a standalone bill to make sure that
0:12:23 the troops get paid maybe they make a compromise or maybe trump just wants to take it as kind of an
0:12:29 executive action he loves to take from his tariff pot of money which he says is what 17 trillion and
0:12:36 there’s no accounting of that actually having happened at that level um but at least that’s what he’s
0:12:44 kind of posing could happen i want to double tap is that the phrase double tap on the democrats winning
0:12:52 part at least in this microcosm of the fight because it’s been interesting for me to see how you know
0:12:57 democrats can be up on the generic ballot they’re winning you know on who’s to blame for this and
0:13:03 they’re most favored on who’s best to handle health care but the other main issues that matter to voters
0:13:09 like the economy like immigration they still prefer the republican party like trump is underwater on it
0:13:16 but i’ve been thinking about you know if the election were held today kind of examples and
0:13:24 i still don’t think that it would be a slam dunk that democrats uh would come away with anything close to
0:13:30 a big majority and that’s kind of it’s not kind of concerning to me that is concerning i think that we would
0:13:38 win the house but maybe buy a couple seats and you want it to be a really definitive win so that you
0:13:43 can actually manage to get things done because you’re going to lose a few people in every vote so
0:13:49 what do you make of that situation with republicans still being favored on who’s best to handle the
0:13:54 economy etc i think the unfortunate reality is that america would rather have an autocrat who’s perceived
0:14:03 as strong than democrats were perceived as weak and i think the basic axiom of american politics can best
0:14:09 be described by what david from said and that is if liberals won’t enforce borders fascists will
0:14:17 and america wants that america would rather see an overreaction coarseness and cruelty to weakness
0:14:21 and by the way i’m not advocating for that i’m not sure it’s i’m not sure i don’t think it’s the
0:14:29 right thing to do but america is is voting america seems more outraged by jimmy kimmel being taken off
0:14:36 the air than they are about a mass secret police force um terrorizing neighborhoods so the democratic
0:14:41 party right now is pretty much leaderless there are some governors who are getting some interesting
0:14:48 attention you know governors newsom pritzker moore and i find everyone’s talking about beshear because
0:14:52 nobody knows who he is so everyone’s looking for an empty vessel that’ll be the great kind of the great
0:15:01 hope here but yeah i think democrats are as everyone says is lacking a north star here and it feels like
0:15:08 there’s an incredible vacuum or or or void if you will um uh so yeah it’s it feels like politically
0:15:14 we’re we have a choice between coarseness and cruelty and weakness that’s kind of what’s on the menu
0:15:19 anyways with that with that wait before we go i want to talk to you about your interview with dan
0:15:25 senor who was exactly the person i wanted to hear from that’s the first of all i i think the world of
0:15:30 dan senor he was actually my sister’s roommate when they were in dc right out of college and i met him
0:15:34 he was this young nice kid and i didn’t like him because he was republican and that’s the kind of
0:15:41 judgmental person i am and then 30 years later we reconnected over israel and or over the topic i went
0:15:47 on his podcast and i’ve become um you know real friends with him which isn’t easy at my age jess
0:15:53 it’s not easy but anyways we’ve been going back and forth on each other’s pods i thought one of the
0:15:58 more interesting things he said he kind of broke down why now why did all of a sudden everything come
0:16:03 together for the peace plan and he kind of outlined five different things which really struck me and
0:16:08 three of them i’d never even considered before anyways let’s listen to a brief clip of our discussion
0:16:17 with dan senor so what exists of of hamas now is basically a political organization in gaza that has a
0:16:22 sort of ragtag militia which is different from what it had before october 7th which was a political
0:16:28 organization in gaza and a very sophisticated military now that political organization will
0:16:35 still try to stay in power and still try to terrorize let’s take a quick break stay with us
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0:19:59 welcome back just remember project 2025 the far-right governing blueprint trump claimed to know nothing
0:20:05 about during his 2024 campaign yeah i remember that remember that well yeah he and his budget director
0:20:11 one of the plan’s main architects have already put nearly half of it into action the roadmap is dismantling
0:20:18 checks and balances and handing sweeping power to the presidency project 2025 did move voters in 2024
0:20:25 2024 so how should democrats talk about it heading into 2026 and 2028 what do you make a project 2025
0:20:31 uh in terms of a how to position it’s bad it was bad when we found out about it it was bad when you
0:20:40 could print all 900 pages out and it’s bad seeing it come to fruition i try not to dwell on the mistakes
0:20:45 of the past so much like i want to learn from them but i’ve been sad already for a long time so i don’t
0:20:52 want to go back to you know the highs of brat summer to the lows of election night or the lows of many
0:20:58 points actually between august and election night where i thought oh we’re gonna lose but one thing in
0:21:06 particular always sticks out to me and that is the fact that project 2025 was being used as a talking
0:21:12 point by kamala harris and top surrogates all over the country and it was being hugely effective
0:21:20 so much so that tony fabrizio who’s donald trump’s pollster talked about how salient it was and that it
0:21:25 was concerning even republican voters and they’re like well what’s this thing and they weren’t necessarily
0:21:29 believing trump which they shouldn’t when he says i know nothing about this well of course my
0:21:35 administration is stocked with people that wrote the thing and they’re my advisors and they came from
0:21:41 you know my first term and basically my whole inner circle has their name on this thing but i i know
0:21:47 nothing about it and then we inexplicably stopped talking about it and i know that there’s always this
0:21:53 push and pull between should you be talking about democracy issues or should you be talking about bread and
0:22:02 butter issues um but the beauty of project 2025 is encapsulated in its evilness actually in that it’s
0:22:10 all of it at once so it is a democracy issue but it is also a bunch of economic issues tied together
0:22:19 and we are seeing that playing out right now i mean the dismantling of our system of checks and balances
0:22:26 has been so swift that you see you know judges even with cases of whiplash at this point right like that
0:22:32 they can’t get into courtrooms fast enough to stop some of what they are doing you know consolidating all
0:22:38 the power in the presidency you know check check check check check that’s what we’re seeing and you have
0:22:46 a neutered congress and mike johnson has taken that willingly um there was a big piece about that uh this
0:22:54 weekend you know that’s mike johnson basically you know sign me up to be uh emasculated in every way
0:22:59 possible that you need these willing foot soldiers to be able to execute something like this and mike
0:23:06 johnson is the star pupil to say the least and so i think that in talking about project 2025 i know that
0:23:13 the title itself does mean something to people but i think that we should be talking about it piece
0:23:21 and how it is affecting individual americans lives like this is what project 2025 looks like for you
0:23:28 so it looks like the firing of thousands of you know cdc scientists who are there to keep you safe
0:23:35 it’s raising tariffs unilaterally that are breaking the bank for you it is a president indicting his
0:23:40 political enemies striking boats in international waters that you say are carrying narco traffickers did
0:23:45 you see this that columbia is now saying it wasn’t a venezuelan boat it was a columbian boat and there
0:23:53 were columbians on it it’s also and this story it doesn’t surprise me but scary scary stuff that now
0:23:59 the pentagon wants to essentially bar free press access they’re threatening retaliation against reporters
0:24:04 that seek out information that hasn’t been pre-approved for release so they’re so they’re basically saying
0:24:09 it’s not just about you roaming the halls you can’t even be collecting information which is the
0:24:16 whole point of being a reporter and to the credit of almost every single outlet except one american news
0:24:23 like even newsmax said we’re not signing on to this like this is unacceptable it completely flies in the face
0:24:30 of a free press um but that’s how project 2025 lives and i think that we need to be talking about
0:24:35 what we’re going to talk about militarizing our streets like that’s project 2025 as well so let’s
0:24:40 let’s unpack it specifically so project 2025 was created by the heritage foundation which is a
0:24:47 very prominent right-wing think tank and many of project 2025’s authors despite trump supposedly not
0:24:51 knowing anything about it have been nominated to work in the trump administration including russell vott
0:24:56 who leads the office of budget management cia director john radcliffe brendan carr chairman of the
0:25:02 federal communications commission tom homan the border czar uh paul atkins chairman of the u.s securities
0:25:07 exchange commission peter navarro counselor to the president of the united states and that document
0:25:15 essentially project 2025 could be broken down into sort of four basic policy aims uh one restore the family
0:25:20 as the centerpiece of american life what would be interesting there is for them to define family
0:25:27 i think you know how they define family effectively aussie and harriet um dismantle the administrative
0:25:32 state i think that means get rid of governments well anyways i don’t know what they mean defend the
0:25:38 nation’s sovereignty fire everybody pretty much defend the nation’s sovereignty and borders okay secure
0:25:45 god-given individual rights to live freely again big questions around what god are we talking about
0:25:49 in what individual rights i don’t think those individual rights include things like bodily autonomy
0:25:56 but anyway if you dig deeper there are some more alarming stances in the document it labels the
0:26:03 fbi as a bloated arrogant increasingly lawless organization i think a lot of us would argue that
0:26:08 the fbi is the premier agency upholding the law suggests that the health and human services should
0:26:16 open quote maintain a biblically based social science reinforced definition of marriage and family
0:26:23 uh huh i find that very troubling proposes slashing federal money for research and investment in
0:26:30 renewable energy suggests banning pornography and shutting out tech and telco companies that allow access to
0:26:39 adult material uh okay so this is it sounds to me like this is pretty much a slow creep and it’s
0:26:45 happening or that it’s a kind of a creeping takeover and if i’d read these things nine months ago i would
0:26:50 have thought oh the american public will never put up with this and it feels like uh bannon called it
0:26:54 flood the zone i would argue that what’s taking place here a better term for it would be blitzkrieg
0:27:01 and that is there’s just so much going on and and progressive kind of liberal democratic values are
0:27:07 being attacked on so many fronts that they’re a bit flummoxed and flat-footed as to where to respond
0:27:13 and if you look at project 2025 it feels as if they’ve made real progress against many of these
0:27:19 objectives your thoughts yeah they’re feeling really good um and i’ve spoken to people
0:27:24 who work in the administration obviously i work with a lot of conservatives that are
0:27:29 close to the administration they’re riding pretty high on this even if trump’s approval ratings
0:27:36 in key areas are down from where he started and substantially even you know down minus 15 on
0:27:42 the economy republicans still leading on who the american public would rather manage the economy but
0:27:48 you know that’s a big fall minus 16 on trade minus 27 on inflation you know those are all really bad
0:27:58 things um but i feel like there has to be a real focus on the tangible issues that americans can see and
0:28:05 feel in order to explain what’s going on and i do think that immigration is a linchpin of that um you know
0:28:12 the tariffs and what’s going on with the economy as well but the visuals of the troops going through our
0:28:19 cities peaceful protests in the face of you know being pepper sprayed by a cpb officer who has certainly
0:28:25 no business um being in chicago which is very very very far from the border as governor pritzker pointed
0:28:31 out to us last week when he joined um i think is meaningful and also these stories of americans that
0:28:39 are getting detained are coming fast and furiously uh tim miller our pal over at the bulwark did a great
0:28:46 interview uh with a u.s citizen george redis who’s a veteran and was held for three days in detention
0:28:51 he said they put me on suicide watch and they put me in a cell i’m naked in like a hospital dress with
0:28:58 just a concrete bed the mattress a thin mattress and they leave the light on 24 7 there’s a glass door
0:29:03 an officer’s just always standing psychiatric nurse comes and checks on me once a day and so from friday
0:29:08 morning to sunday afternoon when i’m released i’m literally in that cell naked just in that room with
0:29:14 the light on like this is a nightmare this is an american who served our country we have a 39 year old
0:29:21 DACA recipient who was detained and died in ICE custody and then you have the judges all over the country a lot
0:29:26 of them republican appointees that are calling bullshit on the administration’s claims that cities like
0:29:32 portland and chicago are lawless messes portrayal of portland uh from the administration is quote
0:29:37 untethered to the facts the judge that ruled against the deployment of troops to chicago said that the
0:29:42 department of homeland security’s version of events was simply unreliable and suffered from a lack of
0:29:48 credibility and also noted that the deployment itself could fuel the civil unrest which is the point
0:29:53 right they’re like if there isn’t a problem i’m going to go and make one and you’re seeing you know
0:29:59 the visuals of christy noem standing on the roof of the ICE facility with all of the animals the dress up
0:30:05 that they’re playing in portland the dinosaurs yeah you know and then the naked bike ride uh they’re
0:30:11 calling it nude to fa i think maybe nudity to fa or something like that portland just keep being portland
0:30:19 um but you know we were skeptical of the idea that focusing on the kilmar abrigo garcia case
0:30:28 was going to move the needle and senator van holland basically just said eff it like i’m going to secot
0:30:35 and i’m going to check on my constituent and it ended up being the first time that there was a real dent
0:30:42 in donald trump’s approval rating on immigration and i’m not saying it turned into a free fall
0:30:47 moment but it certainly was a bit of a dam breaking and right now a maryland judge is actually on the
0:30:52 verge of telling the government that they can’t detain abrigo garcia any longer um because they
0:30:57 haven’t shown a compelling reason for him to continue to be and also three african nations have told the
0:31:03 trump administration we’re not taking him like this idea that you can just send people wherever you want
0:31:09 or pay them off for it isn’t going to fly and i think the fact that that case is still percolating
0:31:17 and it was such a symbol for the overreach and the cruelty of this administration and it remains salient
0:31:24 is an indication that we really need to be leaning into what kind of lawless behavior they’re engaging in
0:31:31 but also what kind of cruel behavior an american citizen who served the country spending three days
0:31:36 in detention i’m glad you brought it up i think like the most influential person in america right now is
0:31:43 is the president and globally i would argue i think tied for second is jeffrey epstein and jensen huang
0:31:49 i think that essentially an attempt to keep jeffrey epstein’s name out of the news has resulted in the trump
0:31:58 administration lobbying every 48 or 72 hours a series of actions and stories that just push i mean we saw it
0:32:03 again with these ridiculous china tariffs which he had no there was massive market manipulation a dramatic
0:32:11 uptick in options activity just a few minutes before he announced these tariffs a few people cashed out with
0:32:17 multi-million dollars sometimes over 100 million dollar gains and then he walks it back i think that
0:32:24 again my thesis is there’s a group of people armed with ai that know every 71 to 74 hours as soon as
0:32:29 epstein starts to creep back into the new cycle come up with a series of ridiculous actions that will take
0:32:35 the media’s gaze off of epstein and then number two jensen huang essentially america is a giant bet on ai
0:32:41 right now and i continue to believe that the most dangerous metric ever invented was the nasdaq and the
0:32:48 dow and the s p index because the s p being up 14 i believe has provided cloud cover for trump’s actions and
0:32:54 that is america has become so much about stuff specifically your ability to acquire stuff
0:33:01 versus character versus family versus patriotism that as long as the markets continue to go up and
0:33:07 people under the impression that they’re going to have more money and access to cheap calories and access
0:33:13 to netflix that if the market is up 14 that must mean the president on the whole is doing something right
0:33:21 and essentially the reason the market is up 14 is 75 plus of the market’s gains come from 10 companies led
0:33:29 by nvidia and if jensen huang wasn’t and now jensen is implementing a series of circular kind of incestuous
0:33:37 deals that feel very like late stage 99 to me that if the market had been down 14 i believe that trump
0:33:41 wouldn’t have the cloud cover to go into portland and somebody would argue well we would have been more
0:33:47 likely to do it to create a distraction but the most powerful men outside of trump right now
0:33:53 are epstein trying to keep anything trying to keep him out of the new cyclist dictating whether it’s
0:33:59 mike johnson dismissing congress early or not swearing in an elected congressperson because he’s worried
0:34:04 about the number of votes to release the epstein file this guy is having a ton of power from the grave
0:34:09 and also america is essentially a bet on ai right now and if ai doesn’t continue to
0:34:15 garner and register the type of outrageous valuations it’s garnered today you’re just going to see the
0:34:25 cloud cover disappear for trump’s activities here so it’s strange i think that a dead man is influencing
0:34:34 america and jensen huang sam altman such an adela in the continued march of the magnificent 10 is the
0:34:41 cloud cover for this administration any thoughts well i had um atelita grijalva the congresswoman that you
0:34:46 mentioned who’s not getting sworn in i interviewed her yesterday for the youtube channel and i said well
0:34:51 why do you think you’re not getting sworn in and she said well i’m the 218th vote yeah i mean the the
0:34:56 difference between myself and the three other members of congress that have been sworn in since
0:35:02 the special they were all sworn in within 24 hours and aside from them being three caucasian men and i
0:35:09 am a chicana from arizona the only other issue is i am the 218th signer to the discharge petitions to
0:35:15 release the epstein files and they have shown a willingness to do absolutely anything in their power
0:35:21 and sometimes things not in their power um to avoid doing that and uh i’d recommend everyone
0:35:27 check it out she is uh she seems great and has a lot that she wants to accomplish and she also
0:35:34 is a representative of a border constituency she has 700 000 constituents 60 latino and the stories that
0:35:41 she is telling about what it’s like with customs and border patrol officers and ice there and she saw
0:35:47 someone just get pulled into a car she was just pumping gas with her son you know out of an unmarked vehicle
0:35:54 they don’t even have the resources if they did want to be in properly marked vehicles they couldn’t
0:36:00 because they are moving so fast and furiously that they haven’t even you know waited for the right kind
0:36:06 of gear though it does suit their purposes for them to just look like scary men to carry out these kind
0:36:12 of pickups and that’s really interesting about you know we’re all just a big bet on ai because
0:36:18 i know andrew ross sorghan was interviewed and asked about will there be a crash you know it feels like
0:36:23 the stock market is just completely impervious to what’s going on on the ground or what people are
0:36:30 feeling about their lives and if it is being propped up by these 10 companies do you think that a crash
0:36:37 does come ever or will just continue on this kind of you know fast food diet or whatever you know the
0:36:44 fake calories of it all and manage to keep going like this um i mean i’m i’m enjoying it in terms of the
0:36:52 returns but it does feel fake well first off just just to lighten the mood a little bit if you want to enjoy
0:37:00 yourself take an edible and watch a very talented um andrew ross sorkhan explain to an 83 year old
0:37:06 leslie stahl the stock market and ask yourself oh it’s really surprising that broadcast news or cable
0:37:14 news is dying we’re always being undone by bubbles there was the internet bubble in 2000 housing in 2008
0:37:21 are we in another bubble an ai bubble or something like that i think it’s hard to say we’re not in a
0:37:28 bubble of some sort the question is always when is the bubble going to pop one symptom of a bubble
0:37:37 is when the market goes up and up but the underlying economy the real economy goes soft and that appears
0:37:44 to be happening right now all this hullabaloo about cbs and who’s going to run it folks regarding cbs
0:37:52 nobody fucking cares cbs is irrelevant like margaret brennan and face the nation has some relevance within
0:37:58 the beltway 60 minutes continues to get a lot of clips they continue to do a great job cbs sunday morning
0:38:04 is really nice to see two squirrels who come back and ride a bear to go see some old lady in alaska who feeds
0:38:10 some hamburger helper i like that show but it’s just so hilarious that we think cbs has any fucking
0:38:18 meaning in this economy in this society anyways uh the question around ai there’s this notion of
0:38:23 fragility or what makes a robust economy and essentially it comes back to diversification so
0:38:28 the fast food industry is a robust industry if mcdonald’s goes out of business the biggest player
0:38:33 you’re gonna have no problem getting a lot of calories for a fairly low price it is a robust
0:38:39 and the banking industry in the united states is not robust if jp morgan has some rogue trader in
0:38:44 singapore who figures out a way to bypass all compliance in their pursuit for returns and
0:38:49 jamie diamond calls trump and says oh gosh you’re not going to believe this some rogue 28 year old
0:38:54 has put us under and we need a bailout they’re too big to fail at this point that means the u.s
0:38:59 banking sector is probably not that robust some people would argue it is looking at silicon valley
0:39:05 bank going out of business and the market was fine it was pretty resilient i would argue that it’s probably
0:39:12 not that robust and what we have now is an economy that is looking increasingly fragile because you
0:39:20 have 10 companies representing 40 of the smp by value the smp represents 50 of total market capitalization
0:39:26 and i’m writing about it this week for my no mercy no malice newsletter and i think the kind of
0:39:33 how the end begins is the following and that is all of these circular deals so nvidia invests a hundred
0:39:37 billion in open ai with the agreement they’re going to take that hundred billion and invest it back
0:39:45 in uh nvidia chips a hundred billion in incremental business to nvidia creates 55 billion in operating
0:39:52 margin they have 55 points of operating margin or 55 billion in earnings times a pe of 50 that’s like
0:39:57 a one and a quarter trillion dollar technical increase in notional valuation off of a hundred billion
0:40:03 dollar investment so aol was pulling this sleight of hand back in the late 90s investing in e-commerce
0:40:09 companies in exchange for them spending all that money on aol such that they could continue to report
0:40:15 growth that justified what was an exceptional artificially inflated valuation this is late stage 99
0:40:20 circular deals there’s an amazing graph pulled together by bloomberg showing that these deals have
0:40:26 now become very very popular so what happens here the string or the rope that gets pulled
0:40:33 is there’s more reports from big companies saying the adoption layer if you will is not taking off the
0:40:37 way we thought and that is companies have signed up for ai made huge investments but they’re not seeing the
0:40:45 roi they had expected they announced a pullback in spending nvidia gets cut in half and effectively if you
0:40:49 have the magnificent 10 get cut in half the magnificent 10 could get cut in half and they
0:40:57 still wouldn’t look cheap that would be a 20 decline in the value of the s p a 10 decline in the total
0:41:02 market cap of all stocks globally and then it would disproportionately i don’t want to say hurt because
0:41:07 they’re pretty resilient but it would disproportionately affect the top 10 percent who are now responsible for
0:41:14 50 percent of consumer spending which again see above uh fragile economy or anti-resilient and the thing
0:41:19 about rich people is that when they make money it’s great because they can spend a lot more because they
0:41:24 feel wealthy because of the effect of the stock market but the downside is that wealthy people can
0:41:29 take their spending down 20 30 40 percent middle-class homes can’t take their spending down that much
0:41:34 because they’re spending money on essentials but if the wealthy all of a sudden feel less wealthy
0:41:38 because the stock market they wake up and the market is down 20 and some of the tech they’re in is down
0:41:46 40 they can take their spending down 30 40 which would immediately take us into a recession or a global
0:41:53 recession so i think that we have what is becoming an increasingly concentrated economy an increasingly
0:42:01 fragile or anti-resilient economy and again i come back to the statement america has become a gigantic
0:42:09 bet on ai and it is fueling everything it’s fueling the markets it’s fueling uh cloud cover for trump
0:42:13 but i do believe and i want to be clear when guys like me are saying that we’re on the precipice of
0:42:17 the bubble popping that usually means the market’s going to go up another 20 or 30 percent the next two
0:42:23 years but i am and i this is not financial advice because it’s a political show but what i am actually
0:42:28 doing with my own personal finances is i’m rotating out of u.s and tech stocks into european and latin
0:42:31 american stocks so you always want to be in the market you want to be in low-cost funds but
0:42:36 america the largest economy in the world right now i think it’s accurate to say it’s a bet on ai and
0:42:42 the sustained crazy frothy market valuations i definitely think we could see a significant
0:42:48 drawdown here that would have global uh implications anyways with that let’s take one more quick break
0:42:59 hit pause on whatever you’re listening to and hit play on your next adventure this fall get double
0:43:05 points on every qualified stay life’s a trip make the most of it at best western visit bestwestern.com
0:43:10 for complete terms and conditions tim’s new craveable wraps are made for the times your boss said the
0:43:16 what now or your teacher mentions that thingamabob need to pick me up snack back to reality with tim’s
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0:43:27 limited time this week on version history the verge’s new chat show about old technology i need you to go
0:43:34 back in your minds to a time when text messages cost 10 cents each and remember how big a deal it was when
0:43:40 blackberry came out with a way to message all of your friends in real time for free i refer of course
0:43:45 to bbm maybe the greatest messaging app of all time okay probably not the greatest messaging app
0:43:50 but a very important messaging app nonetheless on this episode we talk about where it came from
0:43:56 where it went and why without bbm the world might look really different all that on version history
0:43:59 on youtube and wherever you get podcasts
0:44:05 okay welcome back before we go the no kings protests are back and the gop is already sounding
0:44:11 the alarm speaker mike johnson described the upcoming rallies as hate america and pro hamas
0:44:17 the organizers just dismissed this as fear-mongering backed by labor unions and progressive groups the
0:44:21 movement says it’s a peaceful protest against authoritarianism and a government shutdown jess
0:44:26 are you going to participate in the no kings movement what do you think of these protests
0:44:34 i think it’s a very good thing and i am thinking about going on saturday i was talking to one of
0:44:42 the organizers about whether he thought that it would be peaceful first of all and then also good for
0:44:49 kids um you know you do always see the cutest posters right with a little kid holding up you know a sign
0:44:54 that’s either funny or saying like what about my rights right like i’m going to be here for a long time
0:45:01 um you guys are are aging out of the process uh but we are the ones that are left behind with the messes
0:45:08 that are created um so i would put it above 50 odds that i will be there on saturday um and the main one
0:45:15 in manhattan so scheduled already over two thousand of these protests um something that is very different
0:45:21 though from the first time this happened during the summer is that there will be a dc protest and remember
0:45:27 how it was like the counter programming to trump’s military parade so they didn’t have a dc version um
0:45:33 that won’t be the case and we do know how aggravated trump gets when something is going on in his
0:45:39 backyard so i’m sure that that will make an impact on him it seems like the administration is very scared
0:45:44 about this listening to mike johnson and secretary duffy was also talking about it you know already
0:45:49 telling you like these are paid protesters or they’re antifa or you know whatever excuse they
0:45:55 can come up with it’s been long enough that we know that the people who show up at these town halls
0:46:00 are not partisan plants and we know that people that are going to come out for no kings protests are real
0:46:07 americans that are concerned about the direction of the country and this authoritarian overreach
0:46:12 i don’t know how many millions it was estimated between four and six million participated over
0:46:19 the summer we’ll see where that kind of comes out i would imagine that it would be more and hopefully
0:46:25 much more and i think to our ongoing conversation about not seeing as much outrage as you would expect
0:46:31 especially considering how mad people were about jimmy kimmel versus right like an american army ranger
0:46:39 that’s held in a cell for three days that if we don’t see a really massive turnout that it portends
0:46:44 something very bad for what’s going to go on over the course of the next three years i’m not talking
0:46:52 about violence i would never condone any sort of violence but if the american populace isn’t moved to
0:46:59 participate in their first amendment right to peacefully protest and to make their voices heard i think
0:47:05 that we have an even bigger uphill battle than we thought and it will further embolden the
0:47:12 administration to carry down the path that they’re on as i’ve been talking i psych myself up i’m going
0:47:17 i’ll be at the no kings protest on saturday i don’t know if i’ll have any children with me
0:47:26 or if i’ll have a good sign yeah it is just so hypocritical oxymoronic stupid to somehow justify
0:47:30 sending national sending troops into american cities but somehow finding a way to disparage
0:47:36 peaceful protests and these protests are just i mean i can tell you there’s gonna be a lot of music
0:47:40 a lot of people handing out food i think these protests are going to be some of the safest places
0:47:47 in america you’re around a group of people who are generally speaking politically engaged care about america
0:47:53 out with their kids out with their loved ones they’re just not in a mood to like you know commit
0:48:01 violence it just don’t any violence here will be a confrontation that is inspired by quite frankly
0:48:08 the administration i just don’t and also this is a semi-serious question i understand what the heritage
0:48:12 foundation is we mentioned them i understand what hamas is i understand what the idf is i literally have
0:48:19 no idea what antifa is like who is it is there an office is there a leadership is it it feels like a
0:48:26 poltergeist or like a a total yeah snuffleupagus meant to scare people or does antifa even really
0:48:34 exist as an organization so this is difficult this has been going on for years and he just had a box
0:48:40 somewhere like if i wanted to write a letter to the king of antifa if we wanted to invite someone
0:48:46 to interview them about antifa who would we even reach out to i don’t know about their organizing
0:48:51 office there are definitely people who are members or kind of associate with it but it’s such a broad
0:48:56 thing you know antifa is just anti-fascist and we know that there are a lot of reasons marines
0:49:03 that’s the united states marines that’s antifa it’s a bit of where the wind blows right but republicans
0:49:11 have been hot and bothered about antifa for years and is this like the basement in that pizza place
0:49:17 it just doesn’t exist yeah where hillary is uh slinging pizzas and holding children hostage yeah
0:49:24 um she has been looking fabulous um she does someone’s on the glp one someone’s no someone’s
0:49:28 single and ready to mingle don’t do that oh my god she’s so glp wanting and i’m here for it she looks
0:49:32 great i didn’t really think that she looks great they just had their 50th wedding anniversary
0:49:38 i know i saw those single and ready i know um there is actually a very funny i don’t even know
0:49:46 if it counts as a meme but there’s a side-by-side of her when she’s young and sydney sweeney and they
0:49:53 look a lot alike and it’s driving the right crazy i am not going to even comment on that okay you don’t
0:49:58 want to comment on that you comment on everything else dangerous territory even for me okay yeah
0:50:02 let’s put let’s put secretary clinton in an american eagle commercial and see what happens to the stock
0:50:12 she has good genes she does smart impressive woman so you’re not weird for not knowing what antifa is and
0:50:18 i’m someone who even has to follow this and really struggles um to talk about it definitively but donald trump
0:50:24 did just host a round table with journalists that cover antifa and have had confrontations with them
0:50:32 and it basically comes down to like anyone uh that they don’t like at the moment and you see how it’s
0:50:38 thrown around you know mike johnson it’ll be antifa secretary duffy it’ll be antifa you know tyler robinson
0:50:46 the guy who allegedly killed charlie kirk antifa so it’s broad and unspecific and is used to scare
0:50:51 people which is the administration’s absolute favorite thing and it takes the heat off the
0:50:58 fact that there are actually very organized groups with ideologies that you can point to
0:51:02 that are committing terrible acts of violence and we don’t want to talk about those kinds of things we
0:51:09 want to talk about rando leftists that don’t like elon musk and molotov cocktailed some teslas
0:51:17 or are trying to you know get the ice facility in portland closed down so ask me what my favorite
0:51:22 horror film is what’s your favorite horror film well i’m glad yes yes it’s actually a toss-up uh aliens
0:51:27 which is probably my favorite sci-fi and the best sequel ever made james cameron took the reins
0:51:34 elegantly and deftly from ridley scott of the original alien uh but my favorite horror film ever is the sixth
0:51:39 sense and calls on all these emotions being raised by a single mother i just think the thing is
0:51:43 genius and it was supposed to it supposedly crowned the new steven spielberg a guy named m night
0:51:51 shemalian i see dead people and he went on to make a series of really mediocre films signs was a good
0:51:56 film but he made a film called the village and the village is a story of this group of people who decide
0:52:01 they want to sequester from society and live a more traditional family values life and they swear off all
0:52:07 medicine and modern technology and the way they keep anyone from wanting to leave especially the
0:52:13 young people this little village or this area is they create these monsters and they have essentially
0:52:17 they find out that the monsters are just you know villagers dressed up to scare the shit out of everyone
0:52:23 and keep them in line and i feel like antifa is the monsters in the village and that is it’s a total
0:52:30 fake illusory thing propped up i think the administration is literally hoping that antifa shows up somewhere and
0:52:35 does something mean or you know non-patriotic or violent because they need something to scare people
0:52:41 to keep them to keep them thinking backward and to keep them in sort of a primitive society or to say
0:52:47 you need me yeah that’s what they’re hoping like what happened with dc frankly that’s again yeah
0:52:53 socialism is this notion of equality liberalism this notion that everyone should have the right to pursue
0:53:01 liberty and the juice of fascism is trying to convince people that the enemy is within that oh it’s it’s your
0:53:08 neighbor who’s a secret member of antifa and like senator warren you know that that’s the threat and which
0:53:11 is what he told the generals right get ready yeah
0:53:14 you got to help us out with the enemy within that’s there you go which makes
0:53:18 i texted you the picture of hillary clinton and sydney sweeney can you look at it
0:53:24 oh really yeah i just have a lot of mixed emotions here i’m gonna have a lot i’m pulling it up i don’t
0:53:31 i don’t want to make you uncomfortable and you are still on camera but i see it yeah look like uh
0:53:36 secretary clinton looked look looks great beautiful yeah she does yeah she looks beautiful um
0:53:43 all right i’m not sure how to respond to this we got to go anyway there you go all right that’s all for
0:53:49 this episode thank you for listening to raging moderates this is a production of prop g media
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0:01:57 welcome raging moderates i’m scott galloway and i’m jess guitar live uh how are you jess
0:02:02 i love that you paused a little you’re like what does one say now in the banter section how are you
0:02:08 i am good how are you i’m good yeah i’m alone in my place in london it feels strange it’s very it’s
0:02:14 kind of weirder i mean you you don’t become single when your partner is away but do you have like
0:02:19 sexist city called it secret single behavior like how you live when you’re on your own versus
0:02:27 how you live when your partner and family’s at home um if it’s illegal in any way don’t tell me
0:02:33 i mean my life is pretty much a constant exercise and arrested adolescence so i’m not sure it’s any
0:02:37 different when the kids are gone but it’s it’s actually it’s a little bit depressing i mean the of
0:02:43 course the weather turned very gray and very cold and being here alone i have the dogs which is nice but
0:02:48 i’m trying to get out every night such that i’m just not you know pondering around a house but
0:02:52 i can’t stand my family when they’re here and then i miss them the moment they leave i’m just sort of
0:02:58 generally pissed off at all times but yeah this feels especially lonely uh to be kind of clanging
0:03:04 around the house especially with the boys not here um i was expecting like yeah i you know i don’t pick
0:03:10 up my clothes and i go to the bathroom with the door open but that’s sad that you’re unhappy all the
0:03:15 time yeah generally a little bit a little bit down but um anyways enough of that how are you
0:03:23 i i’m fine i’m yeah good good we had a trip planned to london actually because i lived over there for a
0:03:31 long time and so lots of friends there and my goddaughter was getting baptized and she ended up
0:03:40 getting this horrible staph infection have you heard of scalded skin staph i have not it looks as bad as it
0:03:45 sounds basically like it’s terrible the whole baby she’s just like her whole body blistered and she was
0:03:51 in the hospital for six days so the trip got canceled which is not a big deal um and the good news is that
0:03:59 she’s fine but we have talked about uh pediatric er’s as being the most depressing and also the most
0:04:06 uplifting place because you see these nurses and doctors and physicians assistants who are they just do
0:04:14 god’s work and so we are indebted to them for always and that’s kind of been what my week was like
0:04:21 so god we’re just a bag of sunshine sorry i know get us out of here get us out yeah i didn’t mean to do
0:04:27 that everything else let’s talk about the ceasefire and then government shutdown um all right in today’s
0:04:32 episode of raging moderates we’re discussing two weeks in the shutdown starts hurting everyday
0:04:38 americans how trump has completed about half of the project 2025 agenda and what to expect from the no
0:04:45 kings protests uh 2.0 uh if you will all right let’s get into it the government shutdown is really
0:04:50 starting to sting museums are closed federal workers are missing paychecks and small businesses that rely
0:04:54 on government activity are feeling the crunch trump meanwhile is trying to blunt some of the backlash by
0:04:59 using leftover pentagon funds to keep paying the troops a move that takes one major pressure point off
0:05:05 the table but leaves hundreds of thousands of other workers stuck in limbo democrats and republicans are
0:05:09 still blaming each other for the standoff with no deal in sight jess what are your thoughts on the
0:05:17 shutdown where it is now and any thoughts on where it goes from here so i saw at the beginning that it
0:05:23 would be kind of short-lived honestly i mean donald trump had the longest shutdown and his first administration
0:05:30 went 35 days and i thought like we’re definitely not getting anywhere close to that i frankly didn’t give
0:05:36 democrats i guess enough credit for backbone and i thought that they would find some way to yes
0:05:42 relatively quickly um because republican pressure and pressure at home as well because you know
0:05:49 there are people who vote for democrats certainly in their districts who might be saying like hey i need my
0:05:54 paycheck or i need the country to work like we had a vacation plan to this national park museums etc
0:06:03 but it feels to me like this is going to go for a long time at this point and you see both sides
0:06:09 really kind of hunkering down big change in dynamics i think this shift away from are the democrats going
0:06:16 and a cave and hat tip to chuck schumer um who i think has kept the senate caucus in line and angus
0:06:23 king who was one of the three democrats that had voted to keep the government open now has changed his
0:06:29 mind and now he is siding with the majority of democrats and there’s real pressure on mike johnson we
0:06:34 know the public opinion is against the republicans on this between 10 and 15 points they blame the
0:06:40 republicans more but you’re also seeing individual republican representatives even do things like go
0:06:47 on tv and talk about how poor johnson’s leadership has been especially that he has the caucus at home
0:06:53 on recess and they’re like we should be working like kevin kiley in california marjorie taylor green
0:07:00 has been making the rounds um to complain about mike johnson and the health care system in general which we
0:07:05 should talk about because it’s not as if you know just extending the subsidies solves the problem we
0:07:13 still have the most expensive health care um in the world and it’s burdensome no matter what um there
0:07:21 was a private republican lawmaker call and apparently uh three more republicans on that call raised concerns
0:07:29 about the house being out of session stephanie bice of oklahoma jay obernolte of california and julie
0:07:34 fetter check of north dakota so that’s a pretty wide range of representatives from you know all over
0:07:40 the country and places that you would expect to be pretty diehard in support of the republicans and
0:07:46 like what trump wants and they’re saying you can’t just tell us to sit at home while this is going on
0:07:51 like this is a legitimate state of emergency and this is why people elect us right to make sure that the
0:07:57 government is running so those are kind of my top line thoughts um well you you you’re the pollster here and
0:08:02 what i’ve seen or what’s in the data here is that 41 percent of americans hold the gop accountable
0:08:11 versus 30 for democrats so it feels as if democrats you know they all lose but republicans lose more so
0:08:16 i don’t see the incentive for democrats to give an inch and it feels like they’ve been very pointed
0:08:22 and strategic on focusing on health care and yesterday i was on a radio show here in the uk and
0:08:26 they asked me who was leader of the democratic party and i said it’s marjorie taylor green right
0:08:33 now that essentially she’s the most articulate she’s personalized the issue saying my kids premiums
0:08:38 are going to double i think we need to come together i don’t think i mean she’s quite frankly just been
0:08:44 a everyone loves what they perceive as a turncoat if you want to get the cameras going just recite the
0:08:49 talking points to the other side right i think she kind of i mean who would have thought that the
0:08:53 sanest person in the republican party would be marjorie taylor green i think everyone is totally
0:09:01 flummoxed here but it feels to me that in calci the the betting market or the speculation market
0:09:08 is forecasting that it’ll be shut 37 days i think that what’s happened in the middle east has probably
0:09:14 taken their eye off the ball or taken some of their sense of urgency away and i i think the democrats
0:09:20 are going to get most or all of what they want here because my sense is every again every day
0:09:28 this goes on it seeds advantage from the republicans to the democrats uh so uh this feels like at some
0:09:35 point mike johnson gets democrats in a room and says all right how do i declare victory and get this done
0:09:40 by giving you some or not all of what you want but i would imagine that leader jeffries and senator
0:09:46 schumer for the first time in a while actually feel some mojo and some juju here like oh my gosh we’re
0:09:52 actually winning for once and we’re actually seen as leaders what is this strange feeling that i have
0:09:58 what is this feel i don’t recognize this sensation so i think it really comes down to to what extent
0:10:05 is speaker johnson willing to rally some republicans to give on these um extensions of subsidies for
0:10:12 obamacare uh so i know my sense is the democrats are winning here your thoughts yeah i i think a
0:10:18 little bit i mean listen winning a political battle when the government is shut down and that’s affecting
0:10:25 everyday americans isn’t the same kind of win fair enough good point there are people who are out there
0:10:30 losing that they’re trying to protect but yes i think that they have been able to clearly and
0:10:35 unarticulately advocate for their position which is this is about protecting americans health care
0:10:41 and i think that if a deal is done it will be about the aca subsidies i don’t think that they’re going
0:10:47 to get a rollback of the medicaid cuts from the big beautiful bill which is also part of what they want
0:10:51 i think that that is kind of the prized possession of the administration and no one’s going to be touching
0:10:57 that um you saw trump come out and say well we’ll find a way to pay our troops and law enforcement
0:11:03 um an omb spokesperson said uh omb is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out
0:11:09 the democrats intransigence pay the troops pay law enforcement continue the reductions in force and
0:11:17 wait so that’s the key part of this for russ vote he is having a field day with the amount of layoffs that
0:11:22 they can do and they had another one of those did you see they fired like a thousand cdc scientists on
0:11:27 friday night and then of course had to rehire most of them back because whoops uh we got rid of the
0:11:34 wrong guys again um makes me think of the early days when they were getting rid of uh all the weather
0:11:37 people and then they’re like oh my god what are we supposed to do here you know we don’t have air
0:11:43 traffic control nashville airport has to shut down for five hours a couple days ago i mean they
0:11:49 it’s having a very real impact but it’s exactly what russ vote wants out of it and i think that trump
0:11:56 in his constant quest to be able to declare victory about something if they find a way to move
0:12:01 the pay for troops and law enforcement and maybe some nutritional assistance for women and children
0:12:07 which has also been a conversation point and get that kind of carved out then he can say everything
0:12:13 else that’s bad that’s happening to you is the democrats fault and i’m out here protecting our troops
0:12:19 and our police officers um should say that leader jeffries wants a standalone bill to make sure that
0:12:23 the troops get paid maybe they make a compromise or maybe trump just wants to take it as kind of an
0:12:29 executive action he loves to take from his tariff pot of money which he says is what 17 trillion and
0:12:36 there’s no accounting of that actually having happened at that level um but at least that’s what he’s
0:12:44 kind of posing could happen i want to double tap is that the phrase double tap on the democrats winning
0:12:52 part at least in this microcosm of the fight because it’s been interesting for me to see how you know
0:12:57 democrats can be up on the generic ballot they’re winning you know on who’s to blame for this and
0:13:03 they’re most favored on who’s best to handle health care but the other main issues that matter to voters
0:13:09 like the economy like immigration they still prefer the republican party like trump is underwater on it
0:13:16 but i’ve been thinking about you know if the election were held today kind of examples and
0:13:24 i still don’t think that it would be a slam dunk that democrats uh would come away with anything close to
0:13:30 a big majority and that’s kind of it’s not kind of concerning to me that is concerning i think that we would
0:13:38 win the house but maybe buy a couple seats and you want it to be a really definitive win so that you
0:13:43 can actually manage to get things done because you’re going to lose a few people in every vote so
0:13:49 what do you make of that situation with republicans still being favored on who’s best to handle the
0:13:54 economy etc i think the unfortunate reality is that america would rather have an autocrat who’s perceived
0:14:03 as strong than democrats were perceived as weak and i think the basic axiom of american politics can best
0:14:09 be described by what david from said and that is if liberals won’t enforce borders fascists will
0:14:17 and america wants that america would rather see an overreaction coarseness and cruelty to weakness
0:14:21 and by the way i’m not advocating for that i’m not sure it’s i’m not sure i don’t think it’s the
0:14:29 right thing to do but america is is voting america seems more outraged by jimmy kimmel being taken off
0:14:36 the air than they are about a mass secret police force um terrorizing neighborhoods so the democratic
0:14:41 party right now is pretty much leaderless there are some governors who are getting some interesting
0:14:48 attention you know governors newsom pritzker moore and i find everyone’s talking about beshear because
0:14:52 nobody knows who he is so everyone’s looking for an empty vessel that’ll be the great kind of the great
0:15:01 hope here but yeah i think democrats are as everyone says is lacking a north star here and it feels like
0:15:08 there’s an incredible vacuum or or or void if you will um uh so yeah it’s it feels like politically
0:15:14 we’re we have a choice between coarseness and cruelty and weakness that’s kind of what’s on the menu
0:15:19 anyways with that with that wait before we go i want to talk to you about your interview with dan
0:15:25 senor who was exactly the person i wanted to hear from that’s the first of all i i think the world of
0:15:30 dan senor he was actually my sister’s roommate when they were in dc right out of college and i met him
0:15:34 he was this young nice kid and i didn’t like him because he was republican and that’s the kind of
0:15:41 judgmental person i am and then 30 years later we reconnected over israel and or over the topic i went
0:15:47 on his podcast and i’ve become um you know real friends with him which isn’t easy at my age jess
0:15:53 it’s not easy but anyways we’ve been going back and forth on each other’s pods i thought one of the
0:15:58 more interesting things he said he kind of broke down why now why did all of a sudden everything come
0:16:03 together for the peace plan and he kind of outlined five different things which really struck me and
0:16:08 three of them i’d never even considered before anyways let’s listen to a brief clip of our discussion
0:16:17 with dan senor so what exists of of hamas now is basically a political organization in gaza that has a
0:16:22 sort of ragtag militia which is different from what it had before october 7th which was a political
0:16:28 organization in gaza and a very sophisticated military now that political organization will
0:16:35 still try to stay in power and still try to terrorize let’s take a quick break stay with us
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0:19:59 welcome back just remember project 2025 the far-right governing blueprint trump claimed to know nothing
0:20:05 about during his 2024 campaign yeah i remember that remember that well yeah he and his budget director
0:20:11 one of the plan’s main architects have already put nearly half of it into action the roadmap is dismantling
0:20:18 checks and balances and handing sweeping power to the presidency project 2025 did move voters in 2024
0:20:25 2024 so how should democrats talk about it heading into 2026 and 2028 what do you make a project 2025
0:20:31 uh in terms of a how to position it’s bad it was bad when we found out about it it was bad when you
0:20:40 could print all 900 pages out and it’s bad seeing it come to fruition i try not to dwell on the mistakes
0:20:45 of the past so much like i want to learn from them but i’ve been sad already for a long time so i don’t
0:20:52 want to go back to you know the highs of brat summer to the lows of election night or the lows of many
0:20:58 points actually between august and election night where i thought oh we’re gonna lose but one thing in
0:21:06 particular always sticks out to me and that is the fact that project 2025 was being used as a talking
0:21:12 point by kamala harris and top surrogates all over the country and it was being hugely effective
0:21:20 so much so that tony fabrizio who’s donald trump’s pollster talked about how salient it was and that it
0:21:25 was concerning even republican voters and they’re like well what’s this thing and they weren’t necessarily
0:21:29 believing trump which they shouldn’t when he says i know nothing about this well of course my
0:21:35 administration is stocked with people that wrote the thing and they’re my advisors and they came from
0:21:41 you know my first term and basically my whole inner circle has their name on this thing but i i know
0:21:47 nothing about it and then we inexplicably stopped talking about it and i know that there’s always this
0:21:53 push and pull between should you be talking about democracy issues or should you be talking about bread and
0:22:02 butter issues um but the beauty of project 2025 is encapsulated in its evilness actually in that it’s
0:22:10 all of it at once so it is a democracy issue but it is also a bunch of economic issues tied together
0:22:19 and we are seeing that playing out right now i mean the dismantling of our system of checks and balances
0:22:26 has been so swift that you see you know judges even with cases of whiplash at this point right like that
0:22:32 they can’t get into courtrooms fast enough to stop some of what they are doing you know consolidating all
0:22:38 the power in the presidency you know check check check check check that’s what we’re seeing and you have
0:22:46 a neutered congress and mike johnson has taken that willingly um there was a big piece about that uh this
0:22:54 weekend you know that’s mike johnson basically you know sign me up to be uh emasculated in every way
0:22:59 possible that you need these willing foot soldiers to be able to execute something like this and mike
0:23:06 johnson is the star pupil to say the least and so i think that in talking about project 2025 i know that
0:23:13 the title itself does mean something to people but i think that we should be talking about it piece
0:23:21 and how it is affecting individual americans lives like this is what project 2025 looks like for you
0:23:28 so it looks like the firing of thousands of you know cdc scientists who are there to keep you safe
0:23:35 it’s raising tariffs unilaterally that are breaking the bank for you it is a president indicting his
0:23:40 political enemies striking boats in international waters that you say are carrying narco traffickers did
0:23:45 you see this that columbia is now saying it wasn’t a venezuelan boat it was a columbian boat and there
0:23:53 were columbians on it it’s also and this story it doesn’t surprise me but scary scary stuff that now
0:23:59 the pentagon wants to essentially bar free press access they’re threatening retaliation against reporters
0:24:04 that seek out information that hasn’t been pre-approved for release so they’re so they’re basically saying
0:24:09 it’s not just about you roaming the halls you can’t even be collecting information which is the
0:24:16 whole point of being a reporter and to the credit of almost every single outlet except one american news
0:24:23 like even newsmax said we’re not signing on to this like this is unacceptable it completely flies in the face
0:24:30 of a free press um but that’s how project 2025 lives and i think that we need to be talking about
0:24:35 what we’re going to talk about militarizing our streets like that’s project 2025 as well so let’s
0:24:40 let’s unpack it specifically so project 2025 was created by the heritage foundation which is a
0:24:47 very prominent right-wing think tank and many of project 2025’s authors despite trump supposedly not
0:24:51 knowing anything about it have been nominated to work in the trump administration including russell vott
0:24:56 who leads the office of budget management cia director john radcliffe brendan carr chairman of the
0:25:02 federal communications commission tom homan the border czar uh paul atkins chairman of the u.s securities
0:25:07 exchange commission peter navarro counselor to the president of the united states and that document
0:25:15 essentially project 2025 could be broken down into sort of four basic policy aims uh one restore the family
0:25:20 as the centerpiece of american life what would be interesting there is for them to define family
0:25:27 i think you know how they define family effectively aussie and harriet um dismantle the administrative
0:25:32 state i think that means get rid of governments well anyways i don’t know what they mean defend the
0:25:38 nation’s sovereignty fire everybody pretty much defend the nation’s sovereignty and borders okay secure
0:25:45 god-given individual rights to live freely again big questions around what god are we talking about
0:25:49 in what individual rights i don’t think those individual rights include things like bodily autonomy
0:25:56 but anyway if you dig deeper there are some more alarming stances in the document it labels the
0:26:03 fbi as a bloated arrogant increasingly lawless organization i think a lot of us would argue that
0:26:08 the fbi is the premier agency upholding the law suggests that the health and human services should
0:26:16 open quote maintain a biblically based social science reinforced definition of marriage and family
0:26:23 uh huh i find that very troubling proposes slashing federal money for research and investment in
0:26:30 renewable energy suggests banning pornography and shutting out tech and telco companies that allow access to
0:26:39 adult material uh okay so this is it sounds to me like this is pretty much a slow creep and it’s
0:26:45 happening or that it’s a kind of a creeping takeover and if i’d read these things nine months ago i would
0:26:50 have thought oh the american public will never put up with this and it feels like uh bannon called it
0:26:54 flood the zone i would argue that what’s taking place here a better term for it would be blitzkrieg
0:27:01 and that is there’s just so much going on and and progressive kind of liberal democratic values are
0:27:07 being attacked on so many fronts that they’re a bit flummoxed and flat-footed as to where to respond
0:27:13 and if you look at project 2025 it feels as if they’ve made real progress against many of these
0:27:19 objectives your thoughts yeah they’re feeling really good um and i’ve spoken to people
0:27:24 who work in the administration obviously i work with a lot of conservatives that are
0:27:29 close to the administration they’re riding pretty high on this even if trump’s approval ratings
0:27:36 in key areas are down from where he started and substantially even you know down minus 15 on
0:27:42 the economy republicans still leading on who the american public would rather manage the economy but
0:27:48 you know that’s a big fall minus 16 on trade minus 27 on inflation you know those are all really bad
0:27:58 things um but i feel like there has to be a real focus on the tangible issues that americans can see and
0:28:05 feel in order to explain what’s going on and i do think that immigration is a linchpin of that um you know
0:28:12 the tariffs and what’s going on with the economy as well but the visuals of the troops going through our
0:28:19 cities peaceful protests in the face of you know being pepper sprayed by a cpb officer who has certainly
0:28:25 no business um being in chicago which is very very very far from the border as governor pritzker pointed
0:28:31 out to us last week when he joined um i think is meaningful and also these stories of americans that
0:28:39 are getting detained are coming fast and furiously uh tim miller our pal over at the bulwark did a great
0:28:46 interview uh with a u.s citizen george redis who’s a veteran and was held for three days in detention
0:28:51 he said they put me on suicide watch and they put me in a cell i’m naked in like a hospital dress with
0:28:58 just a concrete bed the mattress a thin mattress and they leave the light on 24 7 there’s a glass door
0:29:03 an officer’s just always standing psychiatric nurse comes and checks on me once a day and so from friday
0:29:08 morning to sunday afternoon when i’m released i’m literally in that cell naked just in that room with
0:29:14 the light on like this is a nightmare this is an american who served our country we have a 39 year old
0:29:21 DACA recipient who was detained and died in ICE custody and then you have the judges all over the country a lot
0:29:26 of them republican appointees that are calling bullshit on the administration’s claims that cities like
0:29:32 portland and chicago are lawless messes portrayal of portland uh from the administration is quote
0:29:37 untethered to the facts the judge that ruled against the deployment of troops to chicago said that the
0:29:42 department of homeland security’s version of events was simply unreliable and suffered from a lack of
0:29:48 credibility and also noted that the deployment itself could fuel the civil unrest which is the point
0:29:53 right they’re like if there isn’t a problem i’m going to go and make one and you’re seeing you know
0:29:59 the visuals of christy noem standing on the roof of the ICE facility with all of the animals the dress up
0:30:05 that they’re playing in portland the dinosaurs yeah you know and then the naked bike ride uh they’re
0:30:11 calling it nude to fa i think maybe nudity to fa or something like that portland just keep being portland
0:30:19 um but you know we were skeptical of the idea that focusing on the kilmar abrigo garcia case
0:30:28 was going to move the needle and senator van holland basically just said eff it like i’m going to secot
0:30:35 and i’m going to check on my constituent and it ended up being the first time that there was a real dent
0:30:42 in donald trump’s approval rating on immigration and i’m not saying it turned into a free fall
0:30:47 moment but it certainly was a bit of a dam breaking and right now a maryland judge is actually on the
0:30:52 verge of telling the government that they can’t detain abrigo garcia any longer um because they
0:30:57 haven’t shown a compelling reason for him to continue to be and also three african nations have told the
0:31:03 trump administration we’re not taking him like this idea that you can just send people wherever you want
0:31:09 or pay them off for it isn’t going to fly and i think the fact that that case is still percolating
0:31:17 and it was such a symbol for the overreach and the cruelty of this administration and it remains salient
0:31:24 is an indication that we really need to be leaning into what kind of lawless behavior they’re engaging in
0:31:31 but also what kind of cruel behavior an american citizen who served the country spending three days
0:31:36 in detention i’m glad you brought it up i think like the most influential person in america right now is
0:31:43 is the president and globally i would argue i think tied for second is jeffrey epstein and jensen huang
0:31:49 i think that essentially an attempt to keep jeffrey epstein’s name out of the news has resulted in the trump
0:31:58 administration lobbying every 48 or 72 hours a series of actions and stories that just push i mean we saw it
0:32:03 again with these ridiculous china tariffs which he had no there was massive market manipulation a dramatic
0:32:11 uptick in options activity just a few minutes before he announced these tariffs a few people cashed out with
0:32:17 multi-million dollars sometimes over 100 million dollar gains and then he walks it back i think that
0:32:24 again my thesis is there’s a group of people armed with ai that know every 71 to 74 hours as soon as
0:32:29 epstein starts to creep back into the new cycle come up with a series of ridiculous actions that will take
0:32:35 the media’s gaze off of epstein and then number two jensen huang essentially america is a giant bet on ai
0:32:41 right now and i continue to believe that the most dangerous metric ever invented was the nasdaq and the
0:32:48 dow and the s p index because the s p being up 14 i believe has provided cloud cover for trump’s actions and
0:32:54 that is america has become so much about stuff specifically your ability to acquire stuff
0:33:01 versus character versus family versus patriotism that as long as the markets continue to go up and
0:33:07 people under the impression that they’re going to have more money and access to cheap calories and access
0:33:13 to netflix that if the market is up 14 that must mean the president on the whole is doing something right
0:33:21 and essentially the reason the market is up 14 is 75 plus of the market’s gains come from 10 companies led
0:33:29 by nvidia and if jensen huang wasn’t and now jensen is implementing a series of circular kind of incestuous
0:33:37 deals that feel very like late stage 99 to me that if the market had been down 14 i believe that trump
0:33:41 wouldn’t have the cloud cover to go into portland and somebody would argue well we would have been more
0:33:47 likely to do it to create a distraction but the most powerful men outside of trump right now
0:33:53 are epstein trying to keep anything trying to keep him out of the new cyclist dictating whether it’s
0:33:59 mike johnson dismissing congress early or not swearing in an elected congressperson because he’s worried
0:34:04 about the number of votes to release the epstein file this guy is having a ton of power from the grave
0:34:09 and also america is essentially a bet on ai right now and if ai doesn’t continue to
0:34:15 garner and register the type of outrageous valuations it’s garnered today you’re just going to see the
0:34:25 cloud cover disappear for trump’s activities here so it’s strange i think that a dead man is influencing
0:34:34 america and jensen huang sam altman such an adela in the continued march of the magnificent 10 is the
0:34:41 cloud cover for this administration any thoughts well i had um atelita grijalva the congresswoman that you
0:34:46 mentioned who’s not getting sworn in i interviewed her yesterday for the youtube channel and i said well
0:34:51 why do you think you’re not getting sworn in and she said well i’m the 218th vote yeah i mean the the
0:34:56 difference between myself and the three other members of congress that have been sworn in since
0:35:02 the special they were all sworn in within 24 hours and aside from them being three caucasian men and i
0:35:09 am a chicana from arizona the only other issue is i am the 218th signer to the discharge petitions to
0:35:15 release the epstein files and they have shown a willingness to do absolutely anything in their power
0:35:21 and sometimes things not in their power um to avoid doing that and uh i’d recommend everyone
0:35:27 check it out she is uh she seems great and has a lot that she wants to accomplish and she also
0:35:34 is a representative of a border constituency she has 700 000 constituents 60 latino and the stories that
0:35:41 she is telling about what it’s like with customs and border patrol officers and ice there and she saw
0:35:47 someone just get pulled into a car she was just pumping gas with her son you know out of an unmarked vehicle
0:35:54 they don’t even have the resources if they did want to be in properly marked vehicles they couldn’t
0:36:00 because they are moving so fast and furiously that they haven’t even you know waited for the right kind
0:36:06 of gear though it does suit their purposes for them to just look like scary men to carry out these kind
0:36:12 of pickups and that’s really interesting about you know we’re all just a big bet on ai because
0:36:18 i know andrew ross sorghan was interviewed and asked about will there be a crash you know it feels like
0:36:23 the stock market is just completely impervious to what’s going on on the ground or what people are
0:36:30 feeling about their lives and if it is being propped up by these 10 companies do you think that a crash
0:36:37 does come ever or will just continue on this kind of you know fast food diet or whatever you know the
0:36:44 fake calories of it all and manage to keep going like this um i mean i’m i’m enjoying it in terms of the
0:36:52 returns but it does feel fake well first off just just to lighten the mood a little bit if you want to enjoy
0:37:00 yourself take an edible and watch a very talented um andrew ross sorkhan explain to an 83 year old
0:37:06 leslie stahl the stock market and ask yourself oh it’s really surprising that broadcast news or cable
0:37:14 news is dying we’re always being undone by bubbles there was the internet bubble in 2000 housing in 2008
0:37:21 are we in another bubble an ai bubble or something like that i think it’s hard to say we’re not in a
0:37:28 bubble of some sort the question is always when is the bubble going to pop one symptom of a bubble
0:37:37 is when the market goes up and up but the underlying economy the real economy goes soft and that appears
0:37:44 to be happening right now all this hullabaloo about cbs and who’s going to run it folks regarding cbs
0:37:52 nobody fucking cares cbs is irrelevant like margaret brennan and face the nation has some relevance within
0:37:58 the beltway 60 minutes continues to get a lot of clips they continue to do a great job cbs sunday morning
0:38:04 is really nice to see two squirrels who come back and ride a bear to go see some old lady in alaska who feeds
0:38:10 some hamburger helper i like that show but it’s just so hilarious that we think cbs has any fucking
0:38:18 meaning in this economy in this society anyways uh the question around ai there’s this notion of
0:38:23 fragility or what makes a robust economy and essentially it comes back to diversification so
0:38:28 the fast food industry is a robust industry if mcdonald’s goes out of business the biggest player
0:38:33 you’re gonna have no problem getting a lot of calories for a fairly low price it is a robust
0:38:39 and the banking industry in the united states is not robust if jp morgan has some rogue trader in
0:38:44 singapore who figures out a way to bypass all compliance in their pursuit for returns and
0:38:49 jamie diamond calls trump and says oh gosh you’re not going to believe this some rogue 28 year old
0:38:54 has put us under and we need a bailout they’re too big to fail at this point that means the u.s
0:38:59 banking sector is probably not that robust some people would argue it is looking at silicon valley
0:39:05 bank going out of business and the market was fine it was pretty resilient i would argue that it’s probably
0:39:12 not that robust and what we have now is an economy that is looking increasingly fragile because you
0:39:20 have 10 companies representing 40 of the smp by value the smp represents 50 of total market capitalization
0:39:26 and i’m writing about it this week for my no mercy no malice newsletter and i think the kind of
0:39:33 how the end begins is the following and that is all of these circular deals so nvidia invests a hundred
0:39:37 billion in open ai with the agreement they’re going to take that hundred billion and invest it back
0:39:45 in uh nvidia chips a hundred billion in incremental business to nvidia creates 55 billion in operating
0:39:52 margin they have 55 points of operating margin or 55 billion in earnings times a pe of 50 that’s like
0:39:57 a one and a quarter trillion dollar technical increase in notional valuation off of a hundred billion
0:40:03 dollar investment so aol was pulling this sleight of hand back in the late 90s investing in e-commerce
0:40:09 companies in exchange for them spending all that money on aol such that they could continue to report
0:40:15 growth that justified what was an exceptional artificially inflated valuation this is late stage 99
0:40:20 circular deals there’s an amazing graph pulled together by bloomberg showing that these deals have
0:40:26 now become very very popular so what happens here the string or the rope that gets pulled
0:40:33 is there’s more reports from big companies saying the adoption layer if you will is not taking off the
0:40:37 way we thought and that is companies have signed up for ai made huge investments but they’re not seeing the
0:40:45 roi they had expected they announced a pullback in spending nvidia gets cut in half and effectively if you
0:40:49 have the magnificent 10 get cut in half the magnificent 10 could get cut in half and they
0:40:57 still wouldn’t look cheap that would be a 20 decline in the value of the s p a 10 decline in the total
0:41:02 market cap of all stocks globally and then it would disproportionately i don’t want to say hurt because
0:41:07 they’re pretty resilient but it would disproportionately affect the top 10 percent who are now responsible for
0:41:14 50 percent of consumer spending which again see above uh fragile economy or anti-resilient and the thing
0:41:19 about rich people is that when they make money it’s great because they can spend a lot more because they
0:41:24 feel wealthy because of the effect of the stock market but the downside is that wealthy people can
0:41:29 take their spending down 20 30 40 percent middle-class homes can’t take their spending down that much
0:41:34 because they’re spending money on essentials but if the wealthy all of a sudden feel less wealthy
0:41:38 because the stock market they wake up and the market is down 20 and some of the tech they’re in is down
0:41:46 40 they can take their spending down 30 40 which would immediately take us into a recession or a global
0:41:53 recession so i think that we have what is becoming an increasingly concentrated economy an increasingly
0:42:01 fragile or anti-resilient economy and again i come back to the statement america has become a gigantic
0:42:09 bet on ai and it is fueling everything it’s fueling the markets it’s fueling uh cloud cover for trump
0:42:13 but i do believe and i want to be clear when guys like me are saying that we’re on the precipice of
0:42:17 the bubble popping that usually means the market’s going to go up another 20 or 30 percent the next two
0:42:23 years but i am and i this is not financial advice because it’s a political show but what i am actually
0:42:28 doing with my own personal finances is i’m rotating out of u.s and tech stocks into european and latin
0:42:31 american stocks so you always want to be in the market you want to be in low-cost funds but
0:42:36 america the largest economy in the world right now i think it’s accurate to say it’s a bet on ai and
0:42:42 the sustained crazy frothy market valuations i definitely think we could see a significant
0:42:48 drawdown here that would have global uh implications anyways with that let’s take one more quick break
0:42:59 hit pause on whatever you’re listening to and hit play on your next adventure this fall get double
0:43:05 points on every qualified stay life’s a trip make the most of it at best western visit bestwestern.com
0:43:10 for complete terms and conditions tim’s new craveable wraps are made for the times your boss said the
0:43:16 what now or your teacher mentions that thingamabob need to pick me up snack back to reality with tim’s
0:43:21 new craveable wraps available in chipotle or ranch plus tax at participating restaurants in canada for a
0:43:27 limited time this week on version history the verge’s new chat show about old technology i need you to go
0:43:34 back in your minds to a time when text messages cost 10 cents each and remember how big a deal it was when
0:43:40 blackberry came out with a way to message all of your friends in real time for free i refer of course
0:43:45 to bbm maybe the greatest messaging app of all time okay probably not the greatest messaging app
0:43:50 but a very important messaging app nonetheless on this episode we talk about where it came from
0:43:56 where it went and why without bbm the world might look really different all that on version history
0:43:59 on youtube and wherever you get podcasts
0:44:05 okay welcome back before we go the no kings protests are back and the gop is already sounding
0:44:11 the alarm speaker mike johnson described the upcoming rallies as hate america and pro hamas
0:44:17 the organizers just dismissed this as fear-mongering backed by labor unions and progressive groups the
0:44:21 movement says it’s a peaceful protest against authoritarianism and a government shutdown jess
0:44:26 are you going to participate in the no kings movement what do you think of these protests
0:44:34 i think it’s a very good thing and i am thinking about going on saturday i was talking to one of
0:44:42 the organizers about whether he thought that it would be peaceful first of all and then also good for
0:44:49 kids um you know you do always see the cutest posters right with a little kid holding up you know a sign
0:44:54 that’s either funny or saying like what about my rights right like i’m going to be here for a long time
0:45:01 um you guys are are aging out of the process uh but we are the ones that are left behind with the messes
0:45:08 that are created um so i would put it above 50 odds that i will be there on saturday um and the main one
0:45:15 in manhattan so scheduled already over two thousand of these protests um something that is very different
0:45:21 though from the first time this happened during the summer is that there will be a dc protest and remember
0:45:27 how it was like the counter programming to trump’s military parade so they didn’t have a dc version um
0:45:33 that won’t be the case and we do know how aggravated trump gets when something is going on in his
0:45:39 backyard so i’m sure that that will make an impact on him it seems like the administration is very scared
0:45:44 about this listening to mike johnson and secretary duffy was also talking about it you know already
0:45:49 telling you like these are paid protesters or they’re antifa or you know whatever excuse they
0:45:55 can come up with it’s been long enough that we know that the people who show up at these town halls
0:46:00 are not partisan plants and we know that people that are going to come out for no kings protests are real
0:46:07 americans that are concerned about the direction of the country and this authoritarian overreach
0:46:12 i don’t know how many millions it was estimated between four and six million participated over
0:46:19 the summer we’ll see where that kind of comes out i would imagine that it would be more and hopefully
0:46:25 much more and i think to our ongoing conversation about not seeing as much outrage as you would expect
0:46:31 especially considering how mad people were about jimmy kimmel versus right like an american army ranger
0:46:39 that’s held in a cell for three days that if we don’t see a really massive turnout that it portends
0:46:44 something very bad for what’s going to go on over the course of the next three years i’m not talking
0:46:52 about violence i would never condone any sort of violence but if the american populace isn’t moved to
0:46:59 participate in their first amendment right to peacefully protest and to make their voices heard i think
0:47:05 that we have an even bigger uphill battle than we thought and it will further embolden the
0:47:12 administration to carry down the path that they’re on as i’ve been talking i psych myself up i’m going
0:47:17 i’ll be at the no kings protest on saturday i don’t know if i’ll have any children with me
0:47:26 or if i’ll have a good sign yeah it is just so hypocritical oxymoronic stupid to somehow justify
0:47:30 sending national sending troops into american cities but somehow finding a way to disparage
0:47:36 peaceful protests and these protests are just i mean i can tell you there’s gonna be a lot of music
0:47:40 a lot of people handing out food i think these protests are going to be some of the safest places
0:47:47 in america you’re around a group of people who are generally speaking politically engaged care about america
0:47:53 out with their kids out with their loved ones they’re just not in a mood to like you know commit
0:48:01 violence it just don’t any violence here will be a confrontation that is inspired by quite frankly
0:48:08 the administration i just don’t and also this is a semi-serious question i understand what the heritage
0:48:12 foundation is we mentioned them i understand what hamas is i understand what the idf is i literally have
0:48:19 no idea what antifa is like who is it is there an office is there a leadership is it it feels like a
0:48:26 poltergeist or like a a total yeah snuffleupagus meant to scare people or does antifa even really
0:48:34 exist as an organization so this is difficult this has been going on for years and he just had a box
0:48:40 somewhere like if i wanted to write a letter to the king of antifa if we wanted to invite someone
0:48:46 to interview them about antifa who would we even reach out to i don’t know about their organizing
0:48:51 office there are definitely people who are members or kind of associate with it but it’s such a broad
0:48:56 thing you know antifa is just anti-fascist and we know that there are a lot of reasons marines
0:49:03 that’s the united states marines that’s antifa it’s a bit of where the wind blows right but republicans
0:49:11 have been hot and bothered about antifa for years and is this like the basement in that pizza place
0:49:17 it just doesn’t exist yeah where hillary is uh slinging pizzas and holding children hostage yeah
0:49:24 um she has been looking fabulous um she does someone’s on the glp one someone’s no someone’s
0:49:28 single and ready to mingle don’t do that oh my god she’s so glp wanting and i’m here for it she looks
0:49:32 great i didn’t really think that she looks great they just had their 50th wedding anniversary
0:49:38 i know i saw those single and ready i know um there is actually a very funny i don’t even know
0:49:46 if it counts as a meme but there’s a side-by-side of her when she’s young and sydney sweeney and they
0:49:53 look a lot alike and it’s driving the right crazy i am not going to even comment on that okay you don’t
0:49:58 want to comment on that you comment on everything else dangerous territory even for me okay yeah
0:50:02 let’s put let’s put secretary clinton in an american eagle commercial and see what happens to the stock
0:50:12 she has good genes she does smart impressive woman so you’re not weird for not knowing what antifa is and
0:50:18 i’m someone who even has to follow this and really struggles um to talk about it definitively but donald trump
0:50:24 did just host a round table with journalists that cover antifa and have had confrontations with them
0:50:32 and it basically comes down to like anyone uh that they don’t like at the moment and you see how it’s
0:50:38 thrown around you know mike johnson it’ll be antifa secretary duffy it’ll be antifa you know tyler robinson
0:50:46 the guy who allegedly killed charlie kirk antifa so it’s broad and unspecific and is used to scare
0:50:51 people which is the administration’s absolute favorite thing and it takes the heat off the
0:50:58 fact that there are actually very organized groups with ideologies that you can point to
0:51:02 that are committing terrible acts of violence and we don’t want to talk about those kinds of things we
0:51:09 want to talk about rando leftists that don’t like elon musk and molotov cocktailed some teslas
0:51:17 or are trying to you know get the ice facility in portland closed down so ask me what my favorite
0:51:22 horror film is what’s your favorite horror film well i’m glad yes yes it’s actually a toss-up uh aliens
0:51:27 which is probably my favorite sci-fi and the best sequel ever made james cameron took the reins
0:51:34 elegantly and deftly from ridley scott of the original alien uh but my favorite horror film ever is the sixth
0:51:39 sense and calls on all these emotions being raised by a single mother i just think the thing is
0:51:43 genius and it was supposed to it supposedly crowned the new steven spielberg a guy named m night
0:51:51 shemalian i see dead people and he went on to make a series of really mediocre films signs was a good
0:51:56 film but he made a film called the village and the village is a story of this group of people who decide
0:52:01 they want to sequester from society and live a more traditional family values life and they swear off all
0:52:07 medicine and modern technology and the way they keep anyone from wanting to leave especially the
0:52:13 young people this little village or this area is they create these monsters and they have essentially
0:52:17 they find out that the monsters are just you know villagers dressed up to scare the shit out of everyone
0:52:23 and keep them in line and i feel like antifa is the monsters in the village and that is it’s a total
0:52:30 fake illusory thing propped up i think the administration is literally hoping that antifa shows up somewhere and
0:52:35 does something mean or you know non-patriotic or violent because they need something to scare people
0:52:41 to keep them to keep them thinking backward and to keep them in sort of a primitive society or to say
0:52:47 you need me yeah that’s what they’re hoping like what happened with dc frankly that’s again yeah
0:52:53 socialism is this notion of equality liberalism this notion that everyone should have the right to pursue
0:53:01 liberty and the juice of fascism is trying to convince people that the enemy is within that oh it’s it’s your
0:53:08 neighbor who’s a secret member of antifa and like senator warren you know that that’s the threat and which
0:53:11 is what he told the generals right get ready yeah
0:53:14 you got to help us out with the enemy within that’s there you go which makes
0:53:18 i texted you the picture of hillary clinton and sydney sweeney can you look at it
0:53:24 oh really yeah i just have a lot of mixed emotions here i’m gonna have a lot i’m pulling it up i don’t
0:53:31 i don’t want to make you uncomfortable and you are still on camera but i see it yeah look like uh
0:53:36 secretary clinton looked look looks great beautiful yeah she does yeah she looks beautiful um
0:53:43 all right i’m not sure how to respond to this we got to go anyway there you go all right that’s all for
0:53:49 this episode thank you for listening to raging moderates this is a production of prop g media
0:53:55 our producer is david toledo our associate producer is eric jenicus our technical director is drew burrows
0:54:01 our engineer is william flynn and our executive producer is katherine dillon make sure to follow
0:54:06 us wherever you get your podcasts so you don’t miss an episode just have a great rest of the week you too
0:54:14 you
Two weeks into the government shutdown, the pain is starting to show — from closed museums to unpaid workers. Scott and Jessica break down who’s getting blamed, how long it could drag on, and Trump’s move to keep troops funded. Then, they dig into Project 2025 — the far-right blueprint that’s already halfway implemented — and what it means for democracy and Democrats heading into 2026. Plus, the No Kings protests return as millions gear up to march against authoritarianism.
Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.
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