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July 29, 2025 - The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters
01:30:12
The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters #1218
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Hello and welcome to podcast of the Lotus Eaters episode 1218 on Tuesday the 29th of July and I'm joined by Carl.
Hello.
Hello Carl.
Right, what are we going to be talking?
We're going to be talking about how Donald Trump is using his free speech in the UK on Starmer because the rest of us would get arrested if we did that.
How Trump was vindicated on the tariffs and the Democrats are not sending their best.
I don't know too much about that segment.
Well, this is the sort of latest Democrat firebrand that's being pushed up.
Which I think the right really should be like, yeah, no, her, her, we like her.
Okay.
You should definitely have her as the.
Should I like her for the same reasons I like AOC?
No, no, she's far less vivacious.
No, no, no.
Not even that.
She's less tactical than AOC.
Right, okay.
AOC is quite a clever operator.
This lady isn't.
So yeah, this is.
Right, well, I look forward to that then.
But you've got something else for us first, haven't you?
Yeah, so Donald Trump recently went, I think he currently is still in Scotland.
He went on a visit to Scotland, visit the UK.
Played golf, presumably.
And to meet Kierstama.
Oh, okay.
And the whole thing has gone brilliantly.
Before we go into it, go and sign up to Locius.com, £5 a month.
Go and watch Bo's new series about Magellan.
So this is getting to the granular detail of the life of Magellan, another bold traveller who mogged everyone who he saw.
But I'll leave the details to Bo.
So he went to meet Prime Minister in Scotland.
And this is, of course, because he's got a golf course in Turnbury.
So he doubtless is playing a bit of golf.
I can't imagine the weather's holding up, to be honest.
But over the course of the visit, they say on the government website, the leaders are expected to talk one-on-one about advancing implementation of the landmark economic prosperity deal so that Brits and Americans can benefit from boosted trade links between their two countries.
Well, instead, Starmer accidentally got completely mogged by Trump just saying things, just like speaking.
And one of the things, I mean, it was genuinely hilarious, and you'll see Starmer's weasley sort of squirming as we go through.
But one of the important things to remember here is just think about how paper-thin the narratives that Starmer is balancing his entire project on are, right?
Yes.
If Trump can just accidentally ruin everything Starmer's doing by just speaking and making people think something slightly different to what Starmer thinks is true, then really his entire position is pretty fragile.
Well, the whole reason why Starmer gets to hold up many of these positions is because he just speaks from a lectern or goes to a factory where everybody there knows they're going to get fired if they speak out of turn.
Yes.
He never speaks to real people ever.
Exactly.
He never does challenging interviews or he never just answers questions from people on the radio on LBC or something.
No, he's got a very curated narrative around him.
And this has just been repeatedly punctured by Donald Trump.
And he's not even trying to be belligerent.
That's the thing.
Donald Trump is not trying to be confrontational with Starmer.
And that's the thing to note about this whole thing.
Because Starmer has been trying to ingratiate himself with Donald Trump.
You remember a couple of months ago, we went over to America, told Trump some bold-faced lies to his face.
And Trump was like, oh, right, yeah, he seems like a nice enough chap.
Well, I mean, that's a big part of my segment that's coming up.
It's how Stalma has been ingratiating himself to Trump.
Well, there we go.
We'll get into that in a minute.
So anyway, you have the first one where it was originally someone on GB News was asking, well, what's the importance in free speech, Mr. Trump?
We discussed the importance of free speech today.
Well, free speech is very important.
I don't know if you're referring to any place in particular.
Perhaps they are, but we've had free speech for a very, very long time here.
So we're very proud of that.
What you advise is a small boat.
We used to have it, yeah.
But look how afraid Starmer looks.
Like, oh, look at that stress in the face.
Like, he's...
Well, I mean, I'm not.
He's such a substitute geography teacher.
How did he get into this role?
really is.
But the thing is, you can tell that this is Starmer, someone who hates free speech, because free speech is dangerous.
So, I mean, we can just have a quick look at the government's own explainer on the Online Safety Act to see, right?
In fact, look at the first line.
It's a new set of laws that protects children and adults online.
So this is not just about protecting children, and they know it's not about protecting children, really.
It's about, it's a censorship bill.
And they've honestly not been terribly good at concealing this.
But notice the constant, well, we need to make sure that children aren't watching porn online.
It's like, yeah, I agree.
So why don't you specifically target that?
Right.
And in fact, they don't.
So they say the act requires companies to take action against all kinds of illegal things.
And we'll get down to this here, right?
Illegal things.
Illegal things.
And you think, okay, well, fair enough.
I mean, you know, obviously illegal things need to be dealt with.
I mean, we already have laws about this, which is why they're illegal things.
But they say the kind of illegal content that an activity the platforms need to protect users from include child sexual abuse.
Oh, that's good.
Controlling or coercive behavior.
Fair enough.
Extreme sexual violence.
Sure.
Extreme pornography.
Okay.
Fraud, yeah.
Racially or religiously aggravated public order offences.
What does that mean?
Well, that means section 127 of the Communications Act.
So if, well, hang on.
So if there's a video of somebody of one race attacking another person of another race in the street, does that get censored?
Maybe.
I mean, it has been censored by Twitter, as people have been pointing out.
I mean, I've got people all over Europe sending me messages going, why am I getting censored?
Because Twitter is like, well, we just have to do a mass censorship blanket ban.
Because it's easier to over-censor than it is to under-censor.
But the thing is, racially or religiously aggravated public order offences are going to be...
Obviously, you have to be in public to racially or religiously aggravate someone in public.
So what this has to be, I think, referring to is Section 127 of the Communications Act.
But basically, what he's saying is: if you are racist on the internet, we're going to southport you.
That's what this is for.
People are getting onto the illegal immigration and people smuggling bit.
I think that's kind of a miscommunication.
I suspect that's to do with facilitating illegally communicating illegal immigration.
Well, smuggling.
Yeah, but it's also broad enough that it can be used in a sinister way.
It could be anything.
But the thing is, that's already captured in the racially or religiously aggravated public order offences.
So content relating to illegal immigration and people smuggling or public order offences, well, that just means whatever the government wants to do.
I mean, I have seen some relatively mild stuff sent it already.
Yes.
And it happened on the first day.
Yes.
I mean, literally within a few hours.
Yes.
So it's one of those things where, I don't believe you, Mr. Starbury.
You may remember the 24-hour courts that cracked down to the far right after Southport with at least a dozen arrested for social media posts.
It's something like, where is it?
Yeah, there was a bunch that there, more than 30 people found themselves arrested over social media posts in the first day, and 17 of those have been charged according to our favourite dissident.
I'm pretty sure that's massively understating it.
I think just for that incident, it would have been many, many hundreds.
We know because dozens of people are getting arrested every day.
It was definitely in the hundreds.
But this was the sort of immediate aftermath of the thing they're talking about there.
Well, you and I had a segment last week that did quite well and managed to sort of get into people outside of our audience.
And a lot of Americans were watching that and leaving comments, basically saying, like, you two are on the verge of saying something, but you don't say it.
Why don't you say it?
And it's like, yeah, because we live in the UK and we will get arrested.
Because they're literally making it.
Yes, it is literally a crime.
A crime.
Yeah.
I mean, at this point, it's actually not clear what we can and can't say.
Yeah, I know.
And when they come knocking for us, guys, we'll try and let you know, but it might be censored.
But anyway, this led to a man committing suicide in prison because all of the people they arrested and charged were just advised to plead guilty, and then they got the maximum sentence they could get.
I wonder how the...
Yes, 100%.
Because a lot of them just had not had any interaction with the legal system.
I don't understand how the solicitors could have given advice that bad.
Well, I'm sure they were instructed to, to be honest.
But yeah, this was Peter Lynch, a grandfather.
He was serving two years and eight months for a racist, sorry, for shouting racist and provocative remarks.
It's like, look, man, like, the idea that Keir Stalin can be like, we've heard free speech for a long time.
No one thinks that, Keir.
No one thinks that.
And a man's committed suicide over our lack of free speech.
I regularly see new arrivals to this country shouting at the police and nothing ever happens to them.
Well, I mean, sometimes they get paid money to live in a hotel.
Well, either was that, yes.
But anyway, so the next one is Donald Trump talking about immigration and just the whole thing.
Because Trump's been serious on immigration.
He has actually stopped the massive inflow in the border.
And so the uncomfortable look on Kiers Nama's face, just keep an eye.
You know, Europe is a much different place than it was just five years ago, ten years ago.
They've got to get their act together.
If they don't, you're not going to have Europe anymore as you know it.
And you can't do that.
This is a magnificent part of the world, and you cannot ruin it.
You cannot let people come in here illegally.
And what happens is there'll be murderers, there'll be drug dealers, there'll be all sorts of things that other countries don't want.
And they send them to you and they send them to us and you've got to stop them.
A squirming taking place.
You can tell he's just like, Jesus Christ.
This is going to be broadcast all over the country.
With any, I mean, you stopped it there, which is classic squirm, but you could have stopped it anywhere.
It was just intense.
Get me out of here.
Yeah.
Keir Starmer just, you know, if we scroll through, you can see him, he is uncomfortable.
It's like, what the hell?
How can he be saying this?
Oh, God.
But anyway, I mean, Kier Starmer was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm against immigration as well.
In fact, he carries on.
The President makes it look easy dealing with illegal migration.
You must be envious of his record in such a short period of time.
Well, look, I think we've been discussing irregular, illegal migration is a huge issue in both of our countries.
In the United Kingdom, it is a real cause for concern, and that's why we must bear down on it.
I mean, look how uncomfortable he looks about the whole thing.
Like, just like he's everywhere, he's stuttering, he's stumbling, he doesn't have a good answer.
And obviously, he claims that he's returned.
This was back in March, the end of March.
But now they claim they've returned something north of 30,000 people.
The thing is, even the BBC are like, yeah, well, only 6,300 of those were forced returns.
The rest of them were voluntary returns, and these people just left of their own accord.
So it's just like, okay, so you're not actually doing a great job.
Trump...
How much money did Trump pledge to ICE again?
It was something like $1.4 billion.
And these guys are basically chasing them through marijuana fields, trying to arrest them in California and stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mass deportation on a hitherto unknown scale.
And Kirsten's like, oh, yes, we're doing the same thing.
No, you're not.
You're lying.
You're lying to Trump.
Anyway, the next thing he went on to was farmers.
Now, this was, I'm going to play a little bit of an extra clip on this.
This is about two minutes long because it was absolutely brutal.
Because Trump shows his genuine love for his own country and people.
And Keir Starmer is there left like, oh yeah, well, I'm trying to get mine killed, actually.
We have a lot of unhappy people.
We have a lot of unhappy people.
Who are you with?
Because you're asking such a nice question.
GB News.
Beth Turner from GB News.
We have a lot of unhappy farmers of this country at the moment.
And I'm sure the Prime Minister will thank me for raising this.
We've had changes to inheritance tax, which means a lot of farmers feel they're going to lose their farms when they die or their father dies.
How important are farmers to a country?
they're going to lose the farm because of estate taxes.
Correct.
So that when they die, they'll have to pay so much.
They're cash poor, but they have great properties.
Well, they're cash poor.
They're land rich and cash poor.
A lot of people are land rich.
I've had that too.
Sometimes I'm land rich and cash sometimes I'm cash rich and land poor.
I like it both ways, but as they get older, I like the more conservative.
So I did something that I don't know if you can do, but it was great.
I love our farms.
As you know, in our tax bill, we have a clause that's very important.
We were losing a lot of farms to the banks because a loving mother and father would die and left their farm to their children or their children, their family.
And they loved their family, and they thought they were doing them a favor, but they had a 50% tax to pay.
So the land would get valued at a high number, because some of the farms were valuable, but they couldn't quantify it.
And they go out and borrow money to pay the estate tax with the death taxes, it's called extend and they boost the farm.
they commit suicide in many cases.
We've seen that.
No, no, no.
Our level is nowhere near 50%.
They're not 50%, but the dissatisfaction is real.
We've just introduced words paid over many years, an extra 2% a year over 10 years.
So it's not that those levels by any structural imagination.
But the other thing that we've done, as you know, is make sure that we've got a pathway for farmers that actually increases their year-on-year income, which is the most important thing.
And in all of the deals that we do, we ensure that our farmers are the central focus for much of it, particularly agriculture.
Look at the stress in his face.
Well, I mean, it's not 50% income death tax.
No, it's a 20%.
Well, the thing is, Stalma wouldn't even be able to say the first thing that Trump said was, I love farmers.
Yeah.
There's no way Stalma could utter that.
Well, no, he hates the farmers.
He is the Kulax.
Yeah, exactly.
He's persecuting the Kulaks.
I mean, so for us, it's 20%.
So it's nowhere near 50%.
Oh, it's only 20%, even though it was tax exempt right up until this point.
Which the farmers unions say that this is going to affect 70,000 farmers.
So where Trump says, oh, yeah, I got rid of the death tax on our farmers.
I'm sure the farmers really love Trump.
Well, no, the opposite.
Kirst Arm has introduced the death tax.
And then you see the sort of stress on his face where he's trying to establish the BS narrative.
Where he's like, yeah, yeah, no, so this is actually good for the farmers.
And what we're going to do is the government's going to make it so that they earn more money Yeah.
And actually, just on the percentages, I mean, okay, fine, it might not be 50%, but our land values are a lot higher.
So therefore, 20% might lead to the same absolute bill for the same size farm.
Great point, actually.
I hadn't even thought of that.
But you can see the complete...
You can see Trump's racist is like, huh, really?
And Bev Turner is, of course, completely correct.
A man has killed himself over this.
Well, many do.
I mean, this one was a famous example, but many do all the time.
Yeah, but there are at least two people that Kierstahma has driven suicide with his policies, just FYI.
And then you get Trump on Sadiq Khan.
Okay.
Why not?
Will you go to London, or are you worried no longer about London?
About what?
Will you visit London during the state visits?
I will.
I'm not a fan of your mayor.
Why not?
I think he's done a terrible job.
The mayor of London.
But the nasty person.
I think he's a friend of mine.
No, I think he's done a terrible job.
But I would certainly visit London, yeah.
So again, look at Kirstalma's sort of rictus grin.
Yeah.
Like, oh, no, no, he's a friend of mine.
So, yeah, but Trump has a long history of Sadiq Khan, going back and forth.
I remember the blimps and all the rest of it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And he's hammering tongs with him.
And so the fact that Kierstalma's got to sit there and go, okay, you know, I don't know what happens now.
And it's like, look, Kier, you can't serve two masters here.
You are opposed to Donald Trump.
You're opposed to his politics entirely.
I mean, like, there's a great example just of today.
Apparently a whistleblower from the paramedics in London has suggested that there's an unprecedented levels of demand and equipment issues, incidents as serious as stabbings have left ambulance crew members feeling suicidal.
I wonder what that is.
It's going great in London.
It's just going brilliantly in London.
I got out of London years ago and I would never go back.
Oh yeah, God.
Again, when I set this up, people are like, oh, right, you're going to set up in London.
I'm like, no.
I don't want to go to London every day.
I don't want to live near London.
And I don't care if it means that things are difficult for us out here.
I would rather not.
But again, Donald Trump is not wrong to be like, yeah, Sidney Carter's done a terrible job in London.
He has.
It's so bad.
The ambulance crews are feeling suicidal.
But I mean, not that Kier Starmer and the Labour Party care.
They drive people to suicide.
And this is just not something that bothers them.
And the final thing is Trump talking about windmills.
Again, just watch Starmer squirm here.
All I can do is give my way.
Look, wind is the most expensive form of energy, and it destroys the beauty of your fields and your plains and your waterways.
Look out there.
There's no windmills.
But if you look in another direction, you see windmills.
When we go to Aberdeen, you'll see some of the ugliest windmills you've ever seen.
They're the height of a 50-story building.
And you can take 1,000 times more energy out of a hole in the ground this big.
This big.
It's called oil and gas.
And you have it there, the North Sea, this big that nobody would even see.
You can take 1,000 times more power because the wind is intermittent.
It doesn't work.
It's extremely expensive.
All the windmills are made in China.
They used to be Germany in China.
Now they're mostly in China.
They all come out of China.
They say that the blades, which are carbon fiber, you can't bury.
Oh, okay, you can't bury.
What are you going to do?
Dump them in the ocean someplace?
Because they only last a certain period of time.
And remember, a windmill has a life of eight years, especially where they're out in the salty sea and they start to rot and to rust.
You've got to have to replace them.
It's very hard to replace them.
Wind needs massive subsidy, and you are paying in Scotland and in the UK and all over the place where they have them, massive subsidies to have these ugly monsters all over the place.
So I've restricted windmills in the United States.
Now, a couple, we have, you know, the poor stupid people at the beginning, they approve them, so they have their full approvals.
But I've restricted windmills in the United States because they also kill all your birds.
You know, they wipe out, you know, it's interesting.
If you shoot a bald eagle in the United States, they put you in jail for five years.
And yet windmills knock out hundreds of them.
They don't do anything.
You explained that.
So it's a very expensive energy.
It's a very ugly energy.
And we won't allow it in the United States.
God, look at him.
You see, he was just like, oh, God, oh, God.
You could have played that with the sound off.
I know.
The body language, the clenching, the crossed legs earlier on, the shifting in his hand movements.
I mean, he is so clenched.
He's going to need at least a litre of horse laxative after this just to resume normal function.
And you can see he's desperate to jump in afterwards and give, no, no, actually, we love our wind farms over here.
But he doesn't know what to say.
If he had a snappy retort, he could have jumped in at any time.
But he doesn't.
He's got nothing to say on this.
Yeah, and the problem is that Trump is fundamentally right.
I mean, if you look at wind power versus just all of the other powers, wind power is by far the least reliable because obviously it doesn't blow all the time.
And it is high upkeep.
He is right about the carbon fiber blades.
He's just right about all of this.
There are obvious alternatives.
And then it's like, yeah, you need oil and gas from the North Sea.
Instead of just like, oh, this is the complete opposite policy of my government.
Like, everything you're saying is just the opposite policy of my government.
But the thing is, Trump isn't trying to ruin it.
He's just saying, yeah, no, well, this is a good idea.
He's just talking common sense and reality.
And you see how these guys, the globalists, they just break down in the face of even a little bit of common sense.
Yeah, if you're allowed to just explain your position in not in a complex way, in quite a normal, honestly, not very bombastic way at all from Trump.
Just a very mild way, say, well, it's not good for this.
And I think this is better.
And everyone's really enjoying.
I don't want the farmers to have a death tax because it's ruining them.
So I took that off.
I want everyone to have a really beautiful looking land so we're not using windmills and it's much more productive to use this other kind of energy.
And you can see Salma just freaking out.
Oh, God, you know, the narrative, the paper-thin narrative that they're using to hold down everything in this country.
Just pierced, pierced, pierced, fierce, pierced.
And so that's why you can see going back to the beginning, free speech.
And some say, oh, no, we've had free speech for ages.
It's like, no, we don't have free speech.
And even if legally we are able to say certain things, it's still about control of the public discourse.
Because what Trump has is a bully pulpit, a platform that they can't just ignore.
You know, they have to accept, no, right in the heart of the narrative is a person who's just going to say literally everything that sort of the right wing or normal people in this country say.
And it actually has to be heard in the corridors of power.
And so now they've got to sit.
Oh, God, God, what do we do?
Well, we haven't prepared for this moment because we never have someone on the same stage, on the same platform, representing the alternative point of view.
And so Starmer is just panicking.
He looks like he's about to piss himself.
And honestly, I mean, the whole thing, frankly, I did enjoy it.
But what it really reveals is the weakness of Starma's position.
Just one guy comes over and goes, yeah, well, we don't do this like this in America.
And it's not a strong attack or anything.
It's just a very casual chat.
Yeah, I think farmers shouldn't have to commit suicide.
I think people should be able to speak.
And windmills are ugly and they kill birds.
Yeah.
And also, by the way, just don't let them cross your borders.
Immigration is destroying Europe is a bad thing.
And Starmer's just sweating, absolutely sweating out.
And it's like, yeah, like if Trump was going on a mad tirade, I could understand.
Well, the thing is, that would be easier for Starma to deal with.
But this is just relaxed common sense.
And the thing, Trump is advancing all of this in goodwill.
Trump is here to help.
He wants things to go well for us.
He's just like, wow, I just don't know why you're doing literally the opposite of what's good for you.
And Starmer's there panicking going, oh, God, but my training in human rights laws, you know, how is this going to save me from this position?
It's like, look, what this is showing us is that this BS narrative that controls the country from the top down, it's going to come to an end.
Like, all Starma can do is lie repeatedly through his teeth, try and maintain it.
This is not tenable.
And this cannot go on forever.
And he's channeling the NPC meme really hard and all of this.
Yes, he is.
He actually does look like the NPC meme.
It's kind of crazy when you think about it.
But yeah, so I really enjoyed this.
Trump wasn't even deliberately trying to stomp on him and destroy him.
You know, he's worse than he was trying to help him.
Yeah, Trump thought he was doing a good thing for him.
You could tell.
Let's go to the comments.
Wesley says, loving the Starma roast.
It wasn't even meant to be a roast.
Trump likes Starmer.
He thinks he likes Starmer.
And he was trying to be kind to it.
Sometimes I want Trump to be an old school teacher with a cane.
I don't think he needs to be.
Like, that's the thing.
Censorship will surely fix our problems because if your daughter gets gang raped by a couple of expletives, but you can't put it on X, it didn't really happen, did it?
Well, I mean, if a tree falls in a forest and all that, you know, who knows?
Trump goes to Scotland because he owns a golf course there, but also because Trump's mother is from Scotland, and she moved to the US when she was 18.
Oh, there we go.
How do we get the next other tabs, Samsung?
Right, so Trump, Taris.
How are they going?
Rather well, actually.
Oh, really?
That wasn't the message.
Liberation of Day, of course, on 2nd of August, earlier this year.
And I'm sure we all remember The absolute Hurora.
So I just want to lay out: I'm not an economist, right?
I know very little about economics, and I don't pretend to know anything.
And so, all I saw were the professional, high-paying, big-platform economists telling us just how unbelievably done America was from this.
It was going to ruin America.
It's going to ruin everything.
And not being an economist, I was like, oh, God, well, that's America done for then.
Yes, I mean, they all were.
I mean, the entire mainstream media, actually, most of the independents as well, even people in our sphere were against this.
There was one economist at the Lotus Eaters bravely making the argument that actually, no, this makes sense for a number of reasons.
And we'll see who's been vindicated, shall we?
So this is one of the videos that I put out at the time.
You know, there's another one.
Then I did two brokenomics on the subject as well, basically explaining what was going on with this.
But yeah, you're absolutely right.
Everyone was against it.
I mean, from Paul Krugman down, Paul Krugman, of course, is wrong about everything.
Paul Krugman is interesting.
He's somebody that I've always wanted to debate.
Really?
And I've wanted to debate him ever since.
Do you remember when News Night was still a thing?
I don't know if it's still a thing.
It's still a thing now.
Okay, I don't know.
I haven't watched mainstream TV for about 20 years at this point.
But he went on there with, oh, it was that guy they had, Jeremy something.
Jeremy Paxman.
Jeremy Paxman.
And it was this panel thing with a young British minister.
And Paxman just, every time she tried to make a point, he was like, yeah, but he's a Nobel Prize winning economist.
As if that means that he's automatically right.
And from the moment I saw that, I thought, yeah, but his Nobel Prize is in trade theory.
It's not in the business cycle that we're talking about.
I want to debate this guy.
And I've always wanted to debate him.
But I always had it at the back of my mind, well, yeah, but he did win his Nobel Prize for trade theory.
So maybe if we were ever talking about trade theory, I might need to be a bit careful.
Krugman on this said, he's not just that he appears to be imposing much higher tariffs than almost anyone has expected.
He's making false claims about our trading partners, not sure the case, whether they're lies, because he might just be that ignorant.
It will both enrage them and make it harder for them to back down.
So no, his view on this was quite strong.
And like I say, he has got the Nobel Prize in Trade Theory.
But no, he was wrong as well.
He was wrong as well.
So just as an outsider to economics, whenever I see economists acting like economics is a science that has hard predictions, they always seem to be wrong.
Well, the difference with the science is that, I mean, okay, with a science, you can, and I don't agree that it is a science, it's an art, is you can actually run experiments, whereas it's very difficult to do that on economics.
And the other thing is that economics incorporates a whole load of axioms, you know, things that we know to be true, and therefore we're not going to check them.
Right.
And so that might not be true.
Yes.
Yes.
And I just disagree with a whole bunch of the axioms that go into it.
Right.
And therefore I come to very different conclusions.
While we're on the subject of people getting things wrong, I'm going to have to slip this in.
It's not worth a segment on its own, but I just cannot resist mentioning something that popped up on Twitter the other day, which is the Democrats.
They put up this Trump's America, and what they basically showed was a massive spike in inflation, and they're like...
So what happened at November 2020 to November, like 2023?
I mean, this is the Democrats.
This isn't a parody.
I checked.
It's not a parody account.
literally put this up.
And for those of you at home who can't quite make out the Time series at the bottom I don't think I need to scroll down.
Here we go.
Oh, here we go.
Oh, there we go.
Yeah, there we go.
Precisely.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I just thought I'd throw that in as well.
I mean it wasn't even You did, I remember.
Yes.
I don't know how useful that debate was because basically we were talking about different things.
He was coming across about how it was misplayed and it will ruin him at the midterms and inconsistent messaging and stuff.
So he wasn't really going into the economic side of it.
He was going into the sort of messaging side.
And I was talking about three main themes.
One, it's about bringing manufacturing back to the US or importers' pay.
One of those two.
In fact, actually, the first is probably preferable, but the second is equally as good because they end up paying.
The second was military supply chains.
The fundamental principle here is that the US should be able to fire a missile at China if it wants to without the supply chain for that missile being dependent on Chinese component maps.
That's mad.
It's absolutely mad, yeah.
Yes.
So that was the second tenant.
And the third one was just more straightforward economics of we need to bring down the dollar and we need to bring down yields, which just have much, I mean, I won't be able to here, but I mean, I'll do a brokenomics on this soon, I'm sure, to get into that.
So that I will quickly mention.
If you look at, you know, the dollar over the last six months, it was up this level and that was basically just too high.
Some people think that if you've got a currency, you just want it to be as high as possible.
Well, I'm one of those people because I don't know anything about economics.
Explain.
Well, think of it less like high is good because that basically torpedoes your exporters.
It's like the pH level in your pool.
You want it to be around neutral level.
want it to be around about 100, which is something that he's achieved.
The other big thing he wanted...
So if it's too high, it makes it expensive for other people in other countries to purchase your goods.
Yes, you can't export anything.
So your exports go down, and so the money coming into your country actually goes down because the strength of your currency.
Yes.
So think of Japan in the late 80s.
The yen was fantastically high.
Absolutely screwed them over along with a bunch of other things that they're doing.
Like a car engine.
Yeah.
You don't want it revving too high or too low.
Just checking that I'm getting it, because like I said, I'm not an economist.
Well, further down, I do have an explanation of this in terms of Arcadian history.
So yes, I will come to that.
10-year yields not been that's not quite the right one.
I wanted to chart.
Well, they haven't really come down as much as I'd like, but they haven't gone up either.
So that's fine on there.
What's really going on here?
So I've got a Brokenomics coming out at 3pm today on the main site talking about the dollar with Brett Johnson, who's talked about the dollar milkshake theory.
And what we go into in that is that there is a huge and persistent demand for dollars.
Everybody needs them because let's say you're, I don't know, you're Brazil and you're trying to buy oil from Saudi Arabia or something.
You don't do it in the Saudi currency.
You don't do it in Brazilian reals or whatever it is.
You do it in dollars.
This is the petrodollar, right?
Yes.
Well, and actually, it's not just dollars.
It could be anything.
If you're looking to do a large deal from one country to another, you don't do it in the host or the exporter currency.
You do it in dollars because only dollars has the depth of liquidity and the ease of settlement and all the rest of the things that come with it.
So there's a persistent demand for dollars.
Now that means that in order to get these dollars...
It's more that it's universally accepted by everybody for everything.
Right.
I assume there's like the, it's sort of frictionless as well, right?
Because obviously not converting various different kinds of things.
So let's say you're buying something from India and they pay you in rupees.
It's like, okay, well, what are you going to do with the rupees?
Yeah, well, exactly.
You'd have to buy something from India with those rupees.
If you take dollars from a third party, you can then do whatever you want with them.
Everybody accepts them.
And you can use it to make any other transaction.
It's like the English language.
Yes, it is the universal currency.
So it's the English language, but for money.
Yes, right.
Yes.
Yes, that's probably a better way of looking at it.
So yeah, so let's get into the nuts and the bolts of what's happened here.
Sorry, just Financial Times, how the EU succumbed to Trump's tariff steamroller.
I mean, these are rough headlines from people who hate Trump.
Well, bear in mind that the FT, along with The Economist and the BBC, are kind of the tip of the spear of Trump-haiti globalists.
So the fact that they've had to admit is look at that sub-headline.
Relief at avoiding trade war is tinged with regret at not taking a firmer stance from the start.
So relief at not getting beaten to within an inch of your life.
I mean, that's what they're really talking about.
We can maybe scroll through a bit of this, but I've picked out a few bits to mention on this.
So it starts off with relief at avoiding trade war is tinged with regret at not taking a firmer stance.
The sweeping Liberation Day tariffs the US president had inflicted on most of the world earlier that month had sent markets into tailspin as investors dunked US assets over recession fears.
Yeah, everybody believed all the mainstream, most of the commentators, left and right, they all believed that it was going to cause this enormous recession and cripple everything and so stocks sold off.
And I was like, yeah, I don't believe that, so I'm just going to readjust, buy some stocks where I want to.
Under the framework deal struck by the European Commission, President Ursula von Leyen and Trump at his golf resort on Sunday, the EU agreed to swallow a broad-based UF tariff of 15%.
They then add, including crucially for cars, but not for steel, which will be subject to a quota system.
Now, even that bit is interesting because, okay, so they're going to tariff European cars, but not the steel.
Well, yeah, but the US could just use that to make cars and other stuff.
And actually, the steel is the low-end bit that you don't want to do.
Well, it's the raw material.
Yes.
So none of the specialized talent that actually is required to make the car has gone into it.
So who cares about extracting raw goods?
And it's worse than that.
So where is the carbon industry and where is the steel industry?
Well, it's Germany.
The competitive edge that Germany has is in cars.
The dump has undercut this completely.
Steel is important, but it's really expensive to process because you need to dump a shedload of energy into it.
Germany doesn't have any energy.
Because they shut down the nuclear plus.
They shut down their nuclear.
They went all in on cheap Russian gas and then they turned the cheap Russian gas off.
That's crazy.
So it's further down in here.
Maybe I'll mention it.
But the other part of this deal is that the US is going to sell energy back to Europe.
So Germany, having turned off their nuclear, turned off their cheap Russian energy, having declared war on Russia, is now going to tariff their cars, carry on doing the low-value steel bit, and even though they're paying really high energy prices, now going to import the energy from the US in order to do that.
So the US basically skips the awkward bit and just gets the steel and exports of energy and gets tariffs themselves.
My God, it's like the people in charge of Europe want to lose.
But the thing is, I don't think that that's the case.
I just think they're incompetent.
Oh, they've got the wrong mindset.
I'm definitely coming to that.
They've got the wrong mindset.
Sorry, go on then.
Okay.
He's the bully in the schoolyard, and we didn't join with others in standing up to him, said one diplomat.
Those who hang together get hanged separately.
Well, yes, because Trump is in a position of power, and the EU is a longhouse committee talking shop.
Yeah.
That's so totally true.
I mean, Ursula von der Leyen, for example, being the chief matriarch in the Longhouse.
Who voted for her?
You don't get to decide the European policy.
No.
A bunch of Longhouse matriarchs.
No, no, she has to go off and speak to Macron and Maloney and business leaders and all the rest of it.
They need to gather consensus.
Trump's view is that the EU is a parasite feeding off the lucrative American market while closing its own through regulation and standards.
Yes, that's true.
I like that it just says it though.
Yes.
And the EU is not Just a parasite on the US, it's a parasite on its own people as well.
Europe, yeah.
Yeah, it's just an all-round parasite.
It's just a parasite that will feed on anything it can.
Yes.
So, anyway, then there's a whole bunch of waffle about how the EU argued amongst themselves.
And the key bit is, but Trump moves faster than expected.
So, basically, he would propose something.
EU would then start debating amongst themselves.
It's like, oh, can we agree to this?
Or do we push back?
How do we push back?
What do we do?
What line do we take?
Do we do a sanction?
What do we do?
And then Trump would then just pivot to the next thing.
And basically, the EU could just never provide an answer, a stance, or even a line to take.
And here we see the exact and ultimate and immovable problem of decision by committee.
Yes.
Yes.
It also mentions when the UK struck a deal with Washington in May, accepting Trump's 10% baseline tariff would encourage those EU member states seeking a settlement, especially Berlin.
Yes, because we did actually do a deal fairly early on.
I thought that we could do that and the Europeans couldn't.
Well, you sent me a link to that, actually, that I put in.
It's Brexit, isn't it?
Oh, really?
Is it?
I was reliably informed that Brexit was the end of the world.
Well, a bit like Taris.
That's good point.
By the very same economist who warned me about the tariffs.
That's a great point.
Now, on this, I think what's going on here is that for all his faults, Kier Starmer does actually listen to his one-time boss, Tony Blair.
Does he?
Tony Blair actually understands this stuff.
And you can see I did a broken army because there's like a thousand bookmarks in here.
Let me refer you to a bit where, because Tony Blair does actually understand the power dynamic.
Oh, I bet he does.
I'll read you a bit.
So this is Tony Blair speaking.
For example, whatever you may hear to the contrary, Europe will ultimately go with the Americans.
They won't like doing so at time and may play around, but don't get fooled by it.
Yes, Tony.
That's totally true.
Tony understands.
What Tony understands that the EU have not fully grasped yet is that both the UK and the EU are American vassals.
Yes.
And we have been since the Second World War.
Correct.
But you can tell because there are US military bases all over the UK and all over Europe.
There are.
If that wasn't the case, we would have military bases in there, but we don't.
We are a vassal.
And the key difference, I think, this relationship is that the UK, maybe it's because we speak English and we have a similar culture.
We may not like it, but we kind of get on with it.
And we just accept, yeah, we're a US vassal.
Well, we're capable of flattering ourselves because the Americans tend to quite like us.
Oh, yeah, we go with that special relationship.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, so we flatter ourselves that there's some kind of parity there, something like that.
Whereas the Europeans don't like the Americans.
And the thing is, the Americans often don't like the Europeans either.
I mean, fair enough.
I mean, I don't.
Well, it's part of the Anglo-speaking world, isn't it?
Yes.
Yes.
So this is where I was going to wheel in my...
Sure.
So it's a bit like how the Assyrians, they ruled over these various little kingdoms in their orbit.
The Phoenicians basically understood what they were and they used flattery and ingratiation and they basically got a pretty good deal out of the whole situation.
Huge amounts of cash payments.
Yes.
Whereas the Babylonians, what did the Babylonians do?
The Babylonians were haughty.
They said, well, hang on a second, we're a very culturally and religiously important place, don't you know?
And you need to treat us with the respect we deserve.
And the Assyrians flattened Babylon at least three times.
Right.
Yes.
They rebuilt it then afterwards saying, oh, maybe we shouldn't have done that.
Then the Babylonians would get haughty again and the Assyrians would flatten it again.
Right.
Because they didn't understand their situation.
They didn't understand the power dynamics involved, no.
Yes.
For those of you who don't know much about Arcadia and prefer your analogies in Roman, I don't know.
Maybe early Judea and late Judea, early Judea kept on rebelling and kept on getting flattened, whereas late Judea under Herod was flattery.
He would flatter Augustus, and that got him much further.
Yeah, and then under, was it Tiberius?
Yeah, crushed him.
Yes.
Yes.
So understand your place, Europe.
Yeah, as much as you might find Donald Trump morally abhorrent for whatever reason, he is the power.
He's the guy in charge.
Yes, and he makes the decisions.
Anyway, more waffling in the article, and then I'll just read you out the last line.
I have to chuckle at this.
There is no hiding the fact that the EU was rolled over by Trump, by the Trump juggernaut, says one ambassador.
Trump worked out exactly where our pain threshold is.
Yes, decision-making.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Essentially.
Literally making the Longhouse do something.
Yes.
Yes.
That I showed you.
We've got an Axios article here.
I mean, I'll just skim through.
Again, the...
Oh, yes.
Yes.
They would not have liked to have to do this.
And then they've got this thumbnail as well of him looking coquettish as well.
So there is that.
In the Trump-dominated global economy, the US gets plenty but gives nothing in return.
And then it goes off to give a whole bunch of details about how utterly crushing this victory was.
What I'm going to have to get to now, just in case this is one of those videos that goes outside of our normal audience and goes into the wider sphere, I thought I'd pull up some of these sort of typical tweets that you're seeing.
Well, you've been seeing them throughout, which is, yeah, but who actually pays these tariffs?
And I've got loads of these comments at the time.
You don't understand tariffs.
They're paid by the importer.
It's the consumer that's going to have to pay it, and you're just going to get pages and pages of this.
Here we go.
That's the kind of thing you see all the time.
It's like you don't understand who pays the tariffs.
Okay, so yes, tariffs are paid by whoever does the importing.
Okay, so if you know that and then you immediately stop your analysis, that means that Americans are 15% worse off.
Okay.
But the person who's selling it in the first place is trying to sell it to a price point.
Yes.
So they reduce their profit by 15%.
Yes.
So as long as the import level stays the same, including the tariffs, well, that's how it works.
Now, at the time, I was pushing back on a lot of exactly this sentiment, saying, no, actually, a lot of this will be...
It can be absorbed just by the consumer.
It can be absorbed by the retailer taking lower margins.
And it can be absorbed by the exporter in the first place by just lowering their costs.
And I think, and I was saying at the time, I think that the American side of that equation might be maybe 40%, 30%, something like that.
Now, actually, on this one, I was wrong.
It was lower.
It was even lower than that.
So basically, now we've got data on the import prices climbing 0.1%.
Yes, unless you look at it over the year-to-year change, in which case it's actually a decline of 0.2%.
So things got cheaper for Americans?
Very fractionally, yes.
That might be noise, but...
Nothing happened.
Yes, nothing happened.
So basically, the foreign manufacturers have been eating this.
Yeah.
Because otherwise, they just don't sell their goods.
And so if their profit margins, say, 40%, well, okay, it goes down to 25%.
Not ideal.
But if you don't do anything, then it goes down to 0%.
Yes, because you don't sell anything.
So you have no choice.
If you want your business to continue, you're just going to have to eat it.
And they did.
And Trump basically just called their bluff.
Yes.
Literally all of them, the entire world, basically.
And bear in mind, the reason why a lot of these things, I mean, take Knight, for example.
The reason they're not making them in the US is because they can get Vietnamese teenagers to do it for them and pay them a fraction of the wage.
So I mean, there's two ways to win here.
One is that that is shipped back to the US and then Americans are offered those jobs, but that didn't happen.
No, they're just like, okay, no, we're just going to pay the tax.
Because it was so phenomenally profitable to exploit the third world.
It's just like 15% isn't going to break it, actually.
Yes.
Yes.
So, no, they just paid up and they absorbed the cost.
And to all of, just in case, you know, this goes outside our normal audience and there are any leftists watching this and you're thinking of posting this sort of crap about saying, oh, you don't know how Taris works.
Like, well, yeah, but you don't get to think.
In the production costs are the wages of the people doing the work.
And so the profit afterwards is the net profit that comes after all of the things have been taken out.
And so the people actually affected by these tariffs are the multinational corporation billionaire business owners.
Yes.
Trump is actually taxing the rich.
Yes.
And they're still angry at him.
Yes.
Idiots.
Yes.
Yes, quite.
Quite.
Okay.
Oh, and you're exactly right.
I just can't add to it.
It's just so mad.
All they need to tax the rich.
Like, okay, Trump is doing that.
Now what?
I hate him.
Yes.
That's what?
That's the only thing.
It's just blind hatred.
Yes.
Difficult days.
Think for the FT because they also had to publish this.
He's reaped 50 billion in tariff haul.
world chickens out.
He's literally just...
Yes, I've got.
Or maybe, okay, I'm going to have to go to...
It's got paywalled.
Right.
The archive site, I don't think, has the chart.
Oh, maybe it's in the first picture.
Oh, there we go.
Yes.
So, right, so that, actually, they put it on the thumbnail, helpfully.
That is the chart of US customs income.
Right.
Okay, well, that's gone off the chart.
Yes.
Notice the spiky bit at the end.
Yes.
That's done rather well.
So Trump, not being an economist, just went with his guts, right, on all of this.
It seems like it, yeah.
Yeah, I think that basically I can force everyone's hand to just do what I want them to do by increasing some tariffs and then they'll just get over it.
And that seems to have worked.
It seems so.
So the result so far is the dollar has stabilized at an appropriate level.
That's a win.
Yields down only slightly.
Okay, fine, but they haven't gone up and there's more room on that.
Realigning manufacturing.
What's happened there?
Well, we haven't got any hard numbers on this yet.
I can't give you a definitive picture on it, but there are dozens and dozens of anecdotal examples like this.
You know, Roach commits to US manufacturing and R ⁇ D process.
You know, they're going to be investing 50 billion in the US over the next five years, creating 1,000 direct jobs.
It will probably lead to 12,000 indirect jobs in construction and support services and all that kind of stuff.
You see dozens and dozens of these of companies that have announced, yeah, we're returning manufacturing to the US.
So Americans getting jobs?
Yes.
So all of that was a huge win.
What else to measure?
Strategic independence from China?
Too soon to tell, but likely.
Going in the right direction?
I would have thought so.
Tariff revenue up?
Yes.
And consumers protected?
Not only yes, but far more than even I thought they were going to be on this.
I thought there would be at least some cost to the American consumers.
And no, it's just all upside.
And if you're a leftist, billionaires taxed?
Yes.
So let me just give, you know, in the thing before the close, let's just recap what this deal actually looks like.
So he basically had a 75-minute meeting with von der Leyen, and in that was agreed that basically the effect of this is going to be an EU payment to the US of about 1.6 trillion.
Jesus Christ.
EU will buy 750 billion in US energy.
They will invest about 600 billion in America, purchase more US military gear, tariffs on American exports drop to zero, and European imports face 15%.
So total capitulation.
Complete and total capitulation.
I mean, we were talking about the Assyrians the other day.
This is the kind of haul the Assyrians would get.
What they would do is just tell everyone, right, you're under our control now.
And then every year, march the army out to various cities and just say, right, give us some money.
And most cities would just pour gold into their pockets until they went away.
That's literally what's happening here, isn't it?
This is Assyrian-level winning.
It really is.
Let's go to my final link because at least some Democrats are appreciating just how wrong they got it.
Samson, do you want to play this?
I remember I, along with probably most people, was saying at the beginning, oh, you know, by the 4th of July, somebody had to think how the country was, the economy was going to be tanked by then.
And I was kind of like, well, that seems right to me.
But that didn't happen.
Now, it could happen tomorrow.
I'm just saying that's reality.
So let's work first from the reality of that, not from I just hate Donald Trump.
Because that's boring and doesn't get us anywhere and leads you to dishonesty.
Because the truth is, I don't know what his strategy is.
But look, the stock market is at record highs.
I know not everybody lives by the stock market, but I also drive around.
I don't see a country in a depression at all.
I see people out there just living their lives.
And I would have thought, and I got to own it, that these tariffs were going to fucking sink this economy by this time.
And they didn't.
So, you know, how do we deal with that fact?
Because that's the fact.
We cope and seethe.
There is going to be a lot of having to deal with the fact that it looks like this man actually knows what he's doing.
Yeah.
He's got an instinct.
Do we have any of those?
Yeah, I'll go.
The EU is angry they didn't get a nice dinner and some flattery before Trump made them spread their nether parts.
The thing is, the problem with the EU is that they've got such an ego on them that they think, oh, we're morally superior in everything that we do.
And they think this translates to power on the world stage.
Because they are so used to being able to subjugate their own people that they forget that actually there's people outside of their purview.
Yeah, I mean, I bet it's not France that's importing American energy, right?
It's going to be Germany that's importing American energy.
Well, France doesn't need to because they've got nuclear.
Exactly.
France is a net energy exporter.
Why is France in such a good position?
It's because, honestly, they were parochial about their own interests.
Everyone's like, oh, no, we need to go green.
And France's like, we're building nuclear.
Shut up.
You know, we don't care about that.
And in that, you can see why they couldn't get a decision by committee because what Germany needs and what France needs are different things.
If Germany could do the same thing as France, they'd be benefiting.
But anyway, to help them, these people deserve to lose.
The UK and EU trade deals, of course, a lot of Euro and UK globalist molding that Donald Trump took them to the cleaners, all are being forced to praise his savvy through their gritted teeth.
Yeah, that's true.
The details of the tariffs might get complicated, but the underlying principle is simple.
You can have higher wages for blue-collar workers or free trade with Bangladesh, but not both.
Yeah, totally.
Again, if you're an American, I just don't see what your objection to Donald Trump doing all of the things he's doing are.
Like, what are your objections to all of this?
Like, sorry, he's making the billionaires pay.
He's making sure that everything goes well.
He's having to make Bill and the FT say that he was right.
Which they do not do lightly.
Anyway, let's move on.
So the Democrats are struggling in the wake of Trump's continual successes, right?
This is an obvious problem that they have.
And so they're currently searching around because, of course, you remember in the last, say, 10 years, they had Obama, who set the bar quite high as a skillful politician.
And then they had Joe Biden, who was like weekend at Bernie's, who they had to stage manage through his presidency using an auto pen.
But now, since Kamala failed, because I mean, she was hardly a good politician, now they're casting around going, okay, well, who do we actually have?
And the answer is great question.
I mean, it seems that it basically comes down to Pete Buttigieg, who isn't really very likable.
Gavin Newsome.
Yeah, but he's an absolute psychopath, and he gives everybody, including Democrats, their skin crawls when they see him.
Yes.
No one likes to be in Newsom's presence because he looks like he is actually a lizard wearing human skin.
Or AOC.
I mean, that would be funny.
I kind of want that.
I mean, she'll be well past the wall by the time she becomes a president in four years' time.
But she is charismatic.
Yes.
And she is a savvy operator.
Yes.
And actually, I think that, I mean, what we saw with AOC coming up against Nancy Pelosi, Pelosi would be like, oh, I hear all of your leftist ideals, but you're going to do exactly as you're told or else.
And AOC was like, that's right.
I'm a good girl.
I'm going to do exactly as I'm told on absolutely everything.
She never broke ranks with the sort of Democrat cabal that runs the party.
The Chuck Schumers, the Nancy Pelosi's, that little inner Circle.
They're there to have a little speech every now and again.
She would complain on social media, but she would always vote as she was told to vote because she's a savvy politician.
And so I am actually a bit worried about the prospect of a president AOC.
I think that she is smart enough to understand public perceptions and to moderate herself when necessary.
Requires her to actually win, though.
Sure, but the thing is, I mean, she's a charismatic person.
She is likable, right?
The thing about AOC is, you know, I don't agree with any of her politics, but she is a likable person and she gets on well with other people.
And that's half the battle.
That's why one of the reasons that Trump did so well is because he's a likable guy.
People just like hanging out with him.
It's one of the reasons that, you know, Newsome or Bootsjej are not going to go anywhere.
They're not likable.
Nobody really wants to hang out with them.
And so I'm a bit worried about what the Democrats might actually throw up against the Republicans.
And so I think the Democrats really need to choose someone else.
And I think I've found a superb example of this.
Oh, okay.
Right.
Oh, well done.
Well, that's going to be a big problem for them.
So they'll be very grateful.
And before we go on, though, this person is going to be very well endorsed by James O'Brien, who we have done a book club on the final of the James O'Brien trilogy, in which James O'Brien basically has to conduct a personal inquisition on himself, not to become a right-winger, to stay in the left-wing orthodoxy.
As you can see, it's endorsed by the secret barrister there.
So you know it's good.
This was probably my favorite of the James O'Brien trilogy that I had to sit through, Harry inflicted on me.
But go and sign up to the website, watch that, it's good fun.
Anyway, so meet Jasmine Crockett.
Jasmine Crockett is an American lawyer and politician serving as the U.S. Representative for Texas's 30th congressional district since 2023.
So she's got a fresh face, she's got energy, she's got verve, and she's a fighter.
She's here to go at them hammer and tongs.
So a Democrat from Texas.
Yes.
So, I mean, straight away, that's a bit concerning because if you're a Democrat, I mean, I appreciate the big cities in Texas are still, like any other city, Democrat strongholds.
It's still in Texas.
So she's not...
She probably has to face up to reality a lot more than no?
Why would you think that?
Well, because more of the people that she meets in Texas are probably not going to be completely insane.
Well, how about read the caucuses she's a member of?
Black Maternity Health Caucus, Congressional Black Caucus.
Okay, I'm seeing a theme.
Yes.
Congressional Equality Caucus, Congressional Progressive Caucus.
She's as radically left-wing as any AOC.
Right.
So she's exactly as radical as every left-wing Democrat.
And you say, well, surely she has to come up against...
They are very lovely and very sensible people.
They don't feel in any way strange or bizarre or radical or anything like that.
And so I went and looked up her district.
What's interesting is her district is there are 300,000 black people and 137,000 white people and then 98,000 of any other race, basically.
And so black people outnumber any other race by 2.25.
Is this in Dallas or Austin or I can't remember what cities it's in, actually?
But the point is, it's a kind of ethnic enclave.
Right.
And so you're saying, well, doesn't she have to deal with real life?
Not really.
Okay.
It's a very racialized district.
And so her perspective on the world is one of insular to the community from which she comes.
And this is brilliantly revealed by this Atlantic piece, which really, really is just an eye-opening thing.
I'm going to read some extracts from it because it's just brilliant.
Because it shows you just how divorced some of these people end up being from the wider political sphere and perceptions of normal people.
And honestly, on the other side of it, you've got kind of the Marjorie Taylor Greene types, where they're crusaders that are too crusade-y, right?
And so they're convinced of the universal correctness of their position without understanding that politics is all a relational game.
And so actually, you've got to understand your position in relation to other people's.
And this is why I'm more worried about AOC because she's actually far more clever at divining this, the sort of threads that connect everything together and seeing where they come.
But this lady is great.
So she was trying to get the, she was losing the race to serve as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which she thought that she'd be great for.
And this is a theme you'll see over and over.
And she thought that she'd be best for it because she has the largest social media following of any of the people who are running for that position.
It's like, oh, she's got something like 450,000 Twitter followers.
That must seem like not a lot to you.
Well, I've only got 500,000.
All right, we're still one.
So, I mean, I've got more than her, but like, it's still, it's, you know.
Well, that does make you more qualified for the position than her.
Well, exactly.
Why aren't I getting the job, right?
Yes.
But that's the point.
That's not what makes you qualified for any job, especially not the House Oversight Committee.
But to her, she feels that her colleagues haven't learned the obvious.
Democrats need sharper, fiercer communicators.
Aino, I agree.
They need sharper, fiercer communicators.
Okay, fine.
They say in poll after poll since Donald Trump's election, Democrat voters have said they want a fighter.
And Crockett is a former attorney who represents the Dallas area.
Sorry, it's Dallas, 30th congressional districts in.
Spent two and a half years in Congress trying to be one.
So that's great because Democrat voters want someone loud-mouthed and incredibly left-wing.
I think they should get that.
Independent voters don't want that, and Republican voters don't want that.
So, Democrat voters.
Was she a prosecutor as well?
No, she was a defense lawyer, actually.
We'll get into it.
Okay.
And I'll tell you.
That's bold for the Democrats because they tried running a black woman prosecutor last time, and that didn't work.
So why not try a Marla Harris was pretty horrible with her prosecutorial record as well.
This lady, you can guess who this lady was defending as we get into a bit later on.
Right.
Okay.
But anyway, through her hearing room quips and social media insults, she's become known, at least in MSNBC watching households, as a leading general in the battle against Trump.
Right.
So the battle against Trump making America great again, as I think we can agree that he actually is.
She's opposed to this.
Obviously.
Obviously.
And Trump is aware of this, right?
He's called her, quote, a low IQ individual.
And she has dubbed him a buffoon and Putin's hoe.
Perhaps the best known Crockett clapback came last year after a hearing where she insulted Marjorie Taylor Greene, which because she made fun of Crockett's false eyelashes.
Oh, God.
Crockett, seeming to relish the moment, leaned into the mic and blasted Green's, quote, bleach blonde, bad-built, butch body.
So she was body shaming Marjorie Taylor Greene.
And this she sudden, putting on t-shirts and things like that.
So she seems lovely.
She seems like exactly the kind of person the Democrats should run because I want to see Republican mono party rule forever, frankly, under the MAGA rubric.
So anyway, she gave the keynote speech at the DNC and was the national co-chair of Kamal Harris's campaign.
So she is ingratiated with a faction of total losers in the Democrat Party, which is brilliant.
It's the person we want keeping going.
She's testing out a coarser, insult comedy style attacks on the GOP under Trump.
The approach, her supporters say, appeals to people who drifted away from the Democrats in 2024.
If I call Donald Trump an evil man baby, I'm winning them back.
I mean, I love the fact that Democrats have not learned anything at all.
I know.
And they're just doubling down on the most hardcore remaining MSNBC viewers.
Well, this is what Democrat voters have said in poll after poll.
Because there's so few of them.
I know.
And because they're so locked into their echo chamber that they don't understand that that's not actually what people were voting for Trump for.
So her forthrightness is what her supporters love, but it might undermine her relationships with the party.
Some of Crockett's fellow Democrats worry that her rhetoric could alienate the more moderate voters the party needs to win back.
Again.
So we're going to trans your kids and great replace you, but said politely is what the James Carvilles of the world are telling her.
Unsurprisingly, they say that Trump seems to be eager to elevate Crockett.
They say she's the face of the party.
You can see Trump's not a stupid man.
You can see, all right, this person would alienate probably about 80% of Americans.
Oh, clearly.
But the 20% of Democrats who like this kind of thing, well, they'll vote for Andros, which is great because, again...
I don't understand what happened to the Democrats because they used to be able to...
They went from, was it Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton?
They have in the past been able to pivot to...
Yeah, to a lot of Trump supporter.
It was to the right of all of the rhinos, certainly, anyway.
But they used to manage to move within their range, responding to where the electorate was.
And something broke after Obama, like you said, where it's a ratchet now.
They can only ever go left.
Yeah.
They used to produce very, very, very slick politicians.
Yes.
And now they're producing people like this, which is great.
But anyway, so Trump is singling her out to try and make her a star.
He's raising her up.
Exactly.
He's raising her profile, right?
Because he made the mistake of going after AOC a little bit a while ago.
That is a mistake because AOC responded quite well on social media, played to her crowd, because she's smart enough to know how to play to the crowd without offending the other people around.
This lady isn't brilliant.
Anyway, so the author of this, Elaine here, says, I watched Crockett test their theory of politics in a series of public appearances.
She was in very safe, closed environments, and she did very well on social media, pandering to the Democrat base.
So she is a modern social media pugilist.
She says, she monitors social engagement like a day trader checking her portfolio.
It's like, right, so she's completely...
She's completely addicted to social media.
She is, as she says, highly conscious too of her self-preservation.
During many of our conversations, Crockett wore acrylic nails painted with the word resist and a set of heavy eyelashes over her brown eyes.
Oh, no, she's not one of these women that spends all the time in nail bars.
Well, you can see her nails there, yeah.
Yeah, she is.
Oh, god, yeah.
Right.
Please let her be the candidate.
I know, I know.
The lock screen on her phone is a headshot of herself.
To be fair, that's the kind of thing I would do, so I can't.
What?
I don't even know how to change the photo that's the lock screen on my phone.
I've got whatever it came from.
I don't, but if I knew, I would.
Anyway, she spent her years as a public defender, defending Black Lives Matter demonstrators as a lawyer when she was doing that.
Right.
So what a surprise.
Hang on, so she probably thinks she's an amazing lawyer, but she's just had the full force of the state behind her.
She's had the system on her side.
Yeah.
So I bet her record is actually quite good, but it's not because she's good.
Yes.
She doesn't know the difference yet.
Well, it's like her electoral record.
It's like, yes, I'm going to be a left-wing black nationalist in a two-thirds black district.
Yeah.
I'm a brilliant politician because I got elected very easily.
It's like, I mean, I'm sure you did, but, you know, you're pushing an open door, aren't you?
Crockett does not have supporters as much as she has admirers.
Everywhere she goes, young people ask for selfies and groups of her red-clad Delta Sigma Theta sorority sisters pop up to cheer her on.
Well, good.
And I want you to think that that's a really broad constituency among Americans that are huge fans of hers.
It's not actually a super narrow and specific constituency of women.
I'm really warming up to this.
I know, right?
So you get, I'm sorry to bring this up on such a progressive segment.
You get straight white men like James Carville coming and going, I'm not sure about this.
I'm tired of losing again and again and again.
Plenty of other Democrats believe that Crockett's approach comes dangerously close to arson.
Her critics argue that it's easy to be outspoken in a safe Democrat seat.
And they point out that she actually lost votes from the predecessor that she took over from.
But they can't say this too openly or too directly because it is against everything that they have trained Democrats to believe in.
You can't have a white man speaking truth to a woman, let alone a black woman.
Yeah, so the fact that she's in a safe Democrat seat and so pushing at the open door, as they point out, but also the fact in that seat she's losing votes anyway.
So it's like, okay, you've got to safe, but you know, you're on a downward trajectory.
So James Carville says, quote, I don't think we need a Marjorie Taylor Greene.
She's passionate and has an instinct for making headlines, but does that help us at the end of the day?
You're trying to win the election.
That's the overall goal.
It's like, well, I mean, you know, she's got the largest social media following.
She doesn't.
So I don't know.
I mean, James, I would say if you're trying to win the election, that's one thing.
But what are you trying to win the election for?
Like, what is the Democrat Party for at this point?
What are they trying to accomplish?
Whatever Trump is against.
Well, exactly.
It seems that they are just openly advocating now for we want to ruin America.
Yes.
That seems to genuinely be the actual position that we need.
Where he literally ramped up the border crossings and Trump reduces them to zero.
It's like, look, what side are you on?
Because she's obviously not going to be like, yeah, we're going to stop those border crossings.
But yeah, so outside the church in Atlanta, Pastor Bryant triggered a standing ovation when he declared Jasmine Crockett for president.
2028 is coming, y'all.
I think we can all get behind that.
I am so behind that.
Outside in the parking lot, someone shouted at her, first black woman president.
It's her time.
It's her time, guys.
Trump has already defeated two of the first women presidents.
I know.
So this piece, I think, was entirely flattering to James and made her look great.
For some reason, though, she tried to get it shut down when she learned that the woman writing it had actually contacted other Democrats to get their input on it, as in James Carville, frankly.
Oh.
And so she was like, no, no, no, shut it down.
Even that mild criticism in that hugely puffy piece.
Yes.
She tried to get this thing taken down.
She allegedly told The Atlantic, quote, that she was shutting down its profile of her after learning the author had reached out to Democrats without telling her.
My God, can you imagine the ego?
Just the size of the self-appreciation.
I didn't approve that.
Shut it down.
You'll notice it was still published because it's not actually how it works.
So yeah, she expressed frustration that I had reached out to so many house members without telling her first, says the author of that piece.
She told me she was shutting down the profile and revoking all permissions.
But an NBC News reporter pointed out, quote, that's not how any of this works.
As in, they're allowed to publish what they like.
The hubris of that.
I know.
That's why I want her to be their girl.
Loving some Jasmine here.
Yeah, yeah.
And the thing is, she's going to play the race angle as well.
She's like, look, look, the Democrats want the safest white boy for 2028, don't they?
It's like, well, yeah, I mean, if they want to win, they absolutely would do that, you know.
But she's using this, of course, as she says, they have this fear about voting for a woman again after Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton lost.
Well, I mean, it's not a great track record.
No.
So you can kind of see why they would have this fear.
Like I said, I would much rather much rather her.
Another story that is originating out of Texas, and that is the effort we are seeing on the part of state Republicans to engage in redistricting.
It seems pretty clear based on the reporting, if you guys want to pull up the headlines from the New York Times, this is from June 9th, about the fact that the White House is where this is coming from.
They have been pushing Republicans in Texas to redistrict, hoping to blunt Democratic gains.
The four seats that Greg Abbott wants to redraw look like they belong to Al Green, Sylvester Turn, Sylvia Garcia, Mark Veace.
Is this anything other than trying to change the rules of the game halfway through the game so you can win?
Because you can't win on the merits?
You said it real nice.
They cheating.
They're cheating.
Say what it is, okay?
Listen, if your policies are so popular, Mr. President, then trust that the American people are happy.
And so you don't have to worry about the fact that the Democrats actually should have control of the House right now.
The Republicans cheated in the state of North Carolina to make sure that they could get three pickups.
And guess what?
Ultimately.
She goes on to complain about the redistricting.
And it's like, oh, they're changing the rules of the game halfway through the game.
No one's ever done that before.
So we created an office held by men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the idea is that she's now going to occupy that office.
Oh yeah.
Doesn't she seem presidential to you?
She she she strikes me as a bit yas queeny.
She's 38 years old, she can run.
38 born in the United States.
I mean, this would generally be the most amusing outcome possible.
Yas yeah, I know the yas queen presidency.
But I don't, I mean, actually, I don't think she's going to get it.
I think cooler heads will prevail in the Democrat Party and be like, are you mad?
I'm going to do what I can.
Even with my little Twitter profile, I'm going to go and try and boost this person up.
I want this to happen.
So anyway, she's such a humble person that she probably hasn't already announced that she's running.
But I wish her all the best.
Do we have some video comments, Samson?
Baron Von Moorhawk says, keeping porn away from children is not the duty of the state, but the duty of the parent.
Yeah, and the thing is as well, I mean, what they could have always have just done is just made it so that these things are not legal for children to go on, such as social media sites or porn sites or whatever.
I've got a couple of super chats as well.
Scott says, one of the current MEPs here in Cypress is a guy that made YouTube, TikTok, prank videos.
The role of social media in modern politics should not be underestimated.
Yeah, but the thing is, the person has to be not too divisive is something I have also learned.
And, well, this is a little bit divisive.
The habitification says, guys, after a couple of hours, Trump's comments about Khan, there's a mass stabbing event in London.
Two dead, two injured, and the police try to cover it up.
Well, I mean, this is why I just use the ambulance crews to think about killing themselves.
Matt says, has Dan done a brokenomics on the Euro dollar theory that the Federal Reserve lost control of the dollar after World War II when European banks started loaning money to the European Union?
We touch on it on the one that's coming out this afternoon, 3 o'clock.
Is it true?
So many factors.
Right, okay.
Yeah.
Let's go to the video comments.
So to celebrate my wife becoming a US citizen, we decided that we'd come to the Old English pub here in Albany, New York.
Oh, well I'd like to have seen inside.
Yeah, I was going to say, is there not more to that then?
You know, I was about to start making judgments.
Maybe that would be the next video he sends in the interview.
Yeah, I was about to start making some judgments.
Let's go to the next one.
Would this fly in your country?
Is this degrading or is this empowerment?
They have like 30 members of staff dancing and there's like six people here watching it.
She's the midget commander.
She's just yelling commands at the midgets, dude.
One thing?
Talk.
Yeah.
Yeah, little people!
Are you ready?
Oh, hell, this is a big.
What am I watching?
Are they actually midgets?
They look like children.
look like children to me.
I mean, if...
Sam...
Okay.
And there is actually a job called Midget Commander.
I mean, I don't think I want to swap for my current role, but I'm...
Let's go to the next one.
So we are watching a crow with...
The video is titled Crow v.
Wade, and it's a crow that's the coat.
That's a bit dark.
Bit dark.
That is, that one.
That is.
Bit dark.
Yeah.
Let's go to the next one.
Good morning, Lotus Eaters.
I recently started volunteering with the Forest Service, with my last trip being back out in the Alpine Lakes wilderness.
For my overnight trip, I had responsibilities firstly at Surprise Lake, then up to Glacier Lake, and finally over Surprise Gap and down to Deception Lakes.
Carrying around a shovel, along with my other gear, I was given all sorts of jobs to do back in the wilderness.
I'm going to make a few video comments from this trip, but for now, I hope you guys are having a good week so far.
Man, that is gorgeous.
Unbelievable.
Looks a lot like Norway, actually.
But also, I watch a lot of those videos of like the missing people where they just go missing in the wilderness because Bigfoot steals them.
It's implied.
Women who see a bear and think, oh, this is safer than a man.
No, no, no.
A lot of it's just like so-and-so has just disappeared, but here's like his shoes.
So Bigfoot stole them or something.
And so all I'm thinking when I'm watching this is, man, you're going to get stolen by the Bigfoot behind that tree.
I think I'd risk it for that view.
It is lovely, though.
But a lot of people go missing in American national parks and stuff.
It's going weird.
Like, it's actually a really high number.
Is there another video?
Oh, no, that's it.
Based Ape says, I find Starmer's choice of words interesting.
He said it twice now.
We've had free speech for a very long time, had being past tense.
Yeah, we used to have free speech is what we, I mean, I don't even know if we actually did, to be honest.
Omar says, you can tell Starma has never thought about a single position he has, because as soon as it deviates from his script, he has no explanation for how he arrived at it.
Trump can just talk off the cuff for hours and does.
Starmer's rehearsed responses sound even worse through juxtaposition.
Yeah, that's another great point, isn't it?
When Starmer's trying to re-establish the narrative, you can see it's a great deal of effort that he has to go through to do it.
He's like, well, actually, and Trump just says something.
George says, you can put Starmer next to a broom and he'd still get destroyed.
Trump was only upset that his website got hit with censorship.
At least we got our FU response from the government.
Oh, yeah, that was another thing as well.
I forgot to mention.
The petition to repeal the Online Safety Act passed 400,000 signatures.
The government responded saying, no, get stuffed.
Yep.
Yeah, that's how it works in this country.
They crush us and then they allow us a petition to ask, can you please stop doing the awful thing?
And the government just responds, no.
Henry says, I'm not sure if Kier is squirming on immigration because he knows he's done nothing and doesn't want to do anything, or because he's scared the online safety act Stasi he's created will come from him if he says the wrong thing.
Uh, good question, who knows?
But I, it's so obvious that the oh, we're here to protect children is being used as a kind of front-loaded thing to prevent criticism of migrants and you know, whatever racial and religiously aggravated public order offense.
What, you know, as in, you said something about this group of people and we don't, we're not happy with this.
I mean, they came after Nigel Farage earlier.
I didn't really have time to put it in, but Nigel Farage was like, well, this isn't a good idea, is it?
And some Labour MP was like, oh, you're a paedophile who loves Jimmy Savile.
I was like, yeah, go on then.
Bro, no one believes it.
And then the Labour Party have been posting stuff like, Nigel Farage wants to get rid of this vital safety feature.
It's like, you put it in three days ago?
Like, come on, guys.
You're acting like this is settled precedent.
Like, don't give me this nonsense.
Alpha the beta says, Starman meeting Trump is like the pretender to the crown meeting the real king.
It felt a lot more like Wormtongue being forced to hang out with Aragon.
Right.
Like, where the real king's just going to say the truth, and the worm tongue's like, oh no, you know, my lord, you know.
Yes.
So Benny Pack says, I hope these towers end soon.
My British food importer raised the price of my Scottish tea.
This is an outrage given my surname is in the Boston area for the Tea Party.
So what I'm hearing from this is that Americans have a demand for tea.
That's interesting.
you should think about that.
DOG's Nuts says, Yes, I should have said that.
It must be Swedish.
Diogenes Nuts.
Oh, is it?
Okay.
If I had a dollar for every successful stonk investment made using my gut, instead of overthinking economics out of it, I'd probably have enough to offset the dollar amounts listening to economic experts.
Yes, very good.
And North FC Zoomer says, if I explain to people that I generally just followed Dan's advice and doubled my savings, I'll sound like one of those scam YouTube comments trying to get you in a WhatsApp group.
I'll tell you what, I didn't really have much of a position on the tariffs because I don't know.
I was just like, so I tried to keep my mouth shut on the tariffs.
But you did take a lot of fire over your opinion on this.
From our friends as well, they were like, no, this is such a totally wrong head thing.
And you stuck to your guns on this.
Fair enough, you know.
It's proved absolutely correct.
Yeah, you took a lot of heat, man.
I didn't mind because I knew that I was going to be proved right.
I didn't bother being the slightest.
Yeah, no, I know, I know, I know.
But the thing is, there was nothing I could say to like support or criticise because I was just like, okay, well, I guess we'll find out.
Anne says the Democrats DEI'd themselves into mid-wittery.
As all ideas must come from those who fill certain checkboxes, the quality of ideas has diminished.
What I found most crazy is that Crockett is 44 years old.
So she's older than AOC, but not any wiser than AOC.
Is she 44?
God, that means...
Yeah, no, I was...
And I'm slightly older than her, which makes me feel bloody old.
That Texas gal says Crockett isn't from a progressive district.
She's from a very culturally urban district.
Well, that's what I was trying to point out, is that she's a black nationalist, basically.
Right.
She's from a black district.
So, you know, pushing it an open door.
You can say whatever you like, but it's always going to be money for black people.
I mean, another way of looking at this for the Democrats is you've already got the black vote, so maybe do something else.
Well, I don't know.
You say that, but Trump did start slicing that vote off.
Oh, he was still over.
Yeah.
I know, it was still 80%.
You know, the trickle could become a flood, right?
Grant says, AOC is only likable to people she agrees with.
She's an absolute harroid if you don't agree with her on an issue.
Yeah, I know, but the point is, when she's trying to win over people she doesn't already hate or thinks that can be won over, she is actually very, very charming.
And honestly, Republicans should be worried about this because, like, the likability factor is really, I think, the most important thing.
Then this is the same problem they had with Joe Biden, actually.
Joe Biden was likable to a bunch of boomers.
They really liked Joe Biden.
And, you know, he had a good patter with them.
It works like this.
Hillary Clinton was a wine Democrat.
Joe Biden was a beer Democrat.
And then the next one was a wine Democrat as well.
And now they want to try a sugar wine Democrat.
That's not going to work.
Yeah.
But AOC is popular.
Yes.
I bet she was very popular in school, right, before she got political.
I bet she was, you know, because she doesn't seem mean to normal people.
So I bet she just had quite a wide circle of friends and was just nice to a bunch of people.
I do remember that video of her dancing roof of her high school.
I would be worried about AOC if I'm an American.
Roman Observer says, you do not interrupt a black woman while she's speaking.
Indeed, never interrupt an enemy while they're making a mistake.
Arizona Desert Rat, and this is the question.
Is this lady a politician or an influencer?
And that's the thing.
She comes across very much like an influencer.
And Dan is now the lock screen on my phone, says Nicholas Ware.
Based.
Well done, you sir.
I think that's it.
Very good.
All right, okay, excellent.
Right.
So yes, Brokenomics in half an hour.
And loads of other stuff you've got on the site.
Worth checking out.
See you later.
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