PBD Podcast Episode 247. In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Adam Sosnick and Tom Ellsworth. Try our sponsor Aura for 14 days free - https://aura.com/pbd to see how many times your personal information was found on the dark web today.
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Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
A lot of things has happened the last 24 hours, even the last 12 hours, a lot of new things formulating to give an update on what's going on with the market, the economy.
Goldman says, Sachs says they're no longer expecting the Fed to hike rates in March.
That's a CNBC story.
Bloomberg came out with another story saying Fed's battle plan for inflation shredded by financial turmoil.
Jeffrey Gunlag, who's been on value tame before with Daniel DeMartino Booth, says Fed will hike funds next week to save credibility.
We'll have to.
Interesting.
Musk is building a tiny village for his workers.
South Korean government proposes increase in work week to 69 hours from 52 hours.
I'm sure California lost their mind.
Remote work is killing Florida as a retirement paradise.
That is an insider story.
I have a video of President Trump saying a few words about Ron DeSantis and Florida, which I found interesting.
Ron DeSantis posed with a handmade snowflake.
It had the word fascist written all over it.
Again, insider story.
Bunch of different things.
But first things first, Tom, last 24 hours, with all this Silicon Valley Bank debacle that everybody's talking about, what's new?
What's been building up?
What are you seeing?
Well, good morning.
I think everybody heard there was a soft landing because the federal government has this facility in place to protect the depositors.
What was really interesting is the stories came out that showed what unfolded behind the scenes.
And apparently, you know, you talked about it yesterday.
You know, Jamie Dimon, who's a banker and a tough entrepreneur, and you look underneath the covers, his folks were rumored to have been working all-nighters on Thursday to Friday, Friday to Saturday.
And a Bloomberg story this morning came out bright and early with the European markets.
Apparently, JP Morgan got a couple billion dollars of new deposits as a result of this, reaching out saying, hey, you need a bank.
JP Morton's here to help you.
And it's 3 a.m.
You're up.
We're up.
We got you covered.
And so that happened.
And then the big four banks apparently circled around like sharks in a feeding presidency.
We're picking up scraps.
It was said that both Citi and B of A were in there, but not nearly at the level that JP Morgan was.
And then the other thing that came out this morning, now that the Fed has a little breathing room, remember they were trying to get the sale done by Sunday so that before the European markets open, they could say, everything's cool.
We got SVB was sold to somebody.
That was the plan.
Now they get a little breathing space.
And apparently, BlackRock and Apollo have both walked into the buffet table and said, you know what?
I'd like the loan book.
So I think it works out better for everybody if a bank buys SVB.
But you've got big private equity firms coming up there now saying, hey, you know what?
We're interested in the loan book.
And what this points out, PBD, is this is we hope means we don't have to use any of that federal money that Janet Illin was talking about.
What works out is that the bank is sold and the depositors are made hold on those sales so that it, I think that's the best for the economy and best for the bank.
Let me ask you.
That's what's been happening.
So let me ask a question here, Tom.
if a lot of the conversation is what do we learn from 2008, right?
To not do the same or to do better, right?
So if right now a 2008 were to happen, would the feds have bailed out AIG?
Now, the numbers now are so big.
I think they would have had to at the end of the day or been forced to, but, you know, I don't know after printing $1.4 trillion and seeing what that did to the economy and inflation of assets, I think it would have been hard.
I think it would have been much harder, but a lot of political pressure would have been on it.
We got to do this.
And TARP 7 would have had to have been implemented.
But I think it would have been a really tough call because, especially with what all this money we just printed and the inflation we caused.
So if they would have taken the same approach as they're taking with Silicon Valley Bank in 08, that's what I want to know.
What do you think would have happened?
So AIG is going out of business.
We're not going to bail them out.
You know, yesterday I put the four economic- Yeah, I love that, by the way.
The freedom to buy, freedom to sell, freedom to try, freedom to fail.
Yeah, and I posted that.
A guy came up who knew I sold a lot of AIG.
We were the number one IUL writer at AIG for many years.
And he says, would you have said the same thing if AIG was in the situation?
Would you have bailed out AIG?
I said, no, the previous CEO made bad decisions forcing the former CEO of MetLife to come out of retirement who had only three years left to live to drive the company.
Bob Ben Moshe's leadership is what saved AIG.
But this was the part about capitalism.
And today, would they have left AIG to go belly up and had other people come and acquire this business?
I'll buy this business.
I'll buy that business.
I'll buy the PNC business.
I'll buy however many planes that AIG had.
You think that would have happened today?
I think that's probably the way you would have had to do it today.
And we have to remember there's a key difference between 08 and what happened yesterday.
Yesterday, who got protected?
The depositors.
And they openly said the shareholders and most of the bondholders, you're screwed.
When I say most of the bondholders, the most senior bondholders, there may be some assets to give them.
But the bottom-level bondholders and all the shareholders, you are wiped out.
Back then, remember, Lehman and Bear went down, but the rest of the banks were saved.
Last time they saved the banks.
This time they've saved the depositors.
Last time they saved the auto industry, the companies, and only Alan Malally went in front of Congress and said, we'll take a loan, but we don't want a grant.
Ford will be fine.
Remember, it was the companies that were saved last time.
Depositors were saved.
That's good.
So we're learning.
We're learning what not to do.
And by the way, I think that's positive.
The comment about the fact that taxpayers are not going to pay this, that's bullshit.
I mean, we're still paying for that.
There's no question about that.
Can you, while you're getting the video prepared, Adam, you have some thoughts?
Go ahead.
But go to my Twitter account with the video.
But go ahead.
Yeah, I was just going to bring up the Lehman Brothers and the Bear Stearns example because when I entered the financial industry, it was 06.
I got into the life insurance life settlement game and I knew nothing about nothing.
I was a nightlife guy and I got into this new career.
But we were doing business with Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns at that time.
And I had a buddy that worked for Lehman.
And it was so interesting how the conversations were going where it's like, we're working on these deals and putting together, they're putting together a life settlement fund and all that.
And all of a sudden he's like, yep, I think we're going to be holding off for a while.
Yep, I don't know if I have a job anymore.
Yep, I just got fired.
Yep, my bank closed.
And to see, we talked about picking winners and losers and this whole concept.
And this is where I wanted to kind of revisit what you said.
And I love the fact that you kind of just simplify what capitalism stands for, the freedom to buy, to sell, to try, to fail.
And I think it's incumbent to understand the failure part is part of the process.
And the whole, you know how they say in the government, we don't want the government picking winners and losers.
And, you know, Chamoff came out, right, during COVID when he, and this was after like the stock buybacks that were happening, all that in 19 and all that after that whole situation.
He goes, let them fail.
Let the airlines fail.
So there needs to be ramifications for poor decisions.
So how do they distinguish, like, how did they distinguish to let AIG to allow them to stay, but layman and bear stearns?
Like, who's picking these situations?
At the end of the day, this whole too big to fail concept, it's sort of the antithesis of what capitalism is, right?
Like if you screw up, you make poor decisions.
Like if an individual does this and they spend all their money, they max out credit card debt, they go on vacation when they should be just saving money and they lose their job and they fail, then it's kind of expected.
But when companies do that, why should they receive these bailouts?
Hey, Pat, and I'm honestly, I'm not setting up a question here.
I'm trying to remember and I don't remember.
But remember the SIFI test, SIFI.
And we had some life insurance carriers that didn't want that designation because it came with a lot of government kind of being in your knickers.
Remember that?
And I think I'm trying to remember, was it the gentleman we know at AIG who has since retired who said that when you get named strategically, was it strategically important financial institution, SIFI, that as soon as you were named that, yeah, systematically important financial institution, that it was actually a bad thing.
So now the government was on your back.
You have to have, by the way, you have to have double reserves there.
Hey, your loan balance is a tenth of a point too high.
And suddenly it's like, wait a minute, I'm no longer, I'm not being reckless.
I'm no longer even running my business.
I got this overlord pushing me.
Can I ask you a question on that?
So this, the overlord concept.
So the whole concept of regulation, over-regulation, under-regulation, you know, Trump came out and said these medium-sized local banks, regional banks, they're going to bump them up to what, 50 million to 250 million, 50 billion?
$20 billion.
$50 billion, up to $250 billion to kind of let the regulation, less regulation do what it do.
Where does this kind of fall into this SIFI thing?
So is that what I was saying?
The U.S. federal regulators determine would pose a serious risk to the economy if it were to collapse.
So this is the SIFI thing.
So who's determining?
Yeah, though.
So why don't you type in SIFI list?
Type in SIFI list.
SIFI list.
Yeah, there you go.
2022.
Okay, there you go.
So Allianz, AIG.
Aegon as well.
Yeah.
Aegon.
Where was that list?
Go back and go back.
There's got to be an easy way to go.
Let's just read some of those right there.
Alianz, AIG, Aegon, two out of the three.
Matter of fact, three out of three we've done business, but of Eva.
You've done business.
All of them.
Peru.
All of them.
So massive carriers, not even necessarily financial institutions, right?
Yep.
But if you think about it, how often do you hear life insurance companies going out of business?
You don't.
No.
You hear banks going out of business.
Why is that?
Because the bank's dollar to reserve ratio, you know, whatever they lend out, isn't as high as the life insurance.
Life insurance companies, like at one point, do you remember you and I flew out to our monk with our old French friend Amur?
And we went to right across the street from IBM, and we had a meeting with credit with Swiss Re, right?
Yep.
I was just going to bring up the reinsurance.
Yeah, exactly.
Just small, humble building without any artwork.
You walk in, there's like multi-million dollar art in the lobby.
Please tell me this was the trip that Tom and Amor roomed together.
No, no, that was way before.
No, no, no.
I had recovered.
Yeah, so we had a friend who liked to walk around naked.
And I try to make the intro of Tom and him.
I said, listen, I think you guys got to win up to get closer to C-Suites.
And they did.
And the next day I said, how was it?
How was it?
He says, well, listen, I had no clue.
This guy likes to walk.
Well, now you guys know each other.
Anyways, but when we went there, if you remember this conversation, we wanted to start an insurance company.
And, you know, we wanted to see, is it better for us to go out there and compete with a, as a carrier and what that responsibility was, how much of the risk that we have to take, et cetera, et cetera, versus just selling it instead of running an insurance company.
Let me tell you, it is practically impossible to start your own insurance company today with 100% of, you know, the dollar amount, the savings you need to have, it's the liability, the responsibility of it was massive.
So I understand what they're doing from the insurance side.
I actually like it because this is why you don't see that many insurance companies going out of business.
But you know, you're talking about all this stuff with FDIC.
Can you pull up the tweet, the video I just posted?
This is the president of Minneapolis Bank, Federal Reserve.
Listen to what he says to 60 Minutes.
This is March of 2020.
Think about the time, March of 2020.
COVID is just getting started.
Look what he says here.
So we're about to have the COVID market spiked out.
Watch this.
To the person who is about to grab their car keys and go to the ATM and take out $3,000, you say what?
You don't need to.
Your ATM is safe.
Your banks are safe.
There's enough cash in the financial system.
And there is an infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve.
We will do whatever we need to do to make sure that there's enough cash in the banking system.
Okay.
Infinite.
Infinite.
So that's exactly the problem.
The problem is infinite.
How?
Where does that money come from?
So you know how sometimes people, you know, when you look at OJ Simpson and what do people say?
You remember when OJ was, whatever the year was, 93, 94?
I don't remember the year, but something like that, right?
The year.
With the trial?
With the trial, yeah.
It could have been 92.
It was, yeah, 93.
I want to say 94.
So what was the thought?
Oh, well, you know what?
He's not going to go to jail.
You know, he's not going to, because celebrities never get, they get away with everything.
What happened?
This guy's walking around and 99% of people, and I don't even want to say 99%, majority of people you talk to, there's a survey.
Did he kill?
The answer is what?
Yes.
And he's free.
The one question he doesn't like to answer, you know what the question is when people ask him?
They try to be sarcastic with him.
Did you find the killer?
You said you were going to walk around and we got to find that guy, guys.
How do you feel about it?
He's still out there.
Yeah, we got to find him.
And you'll see the first thing he does is he moves his eyes.
He doesn't look in.
He says, like, I really don't want to talk about that.
Yeah, because you're in the room, right?
Okay.
Unless Sasha Baron Cohen is interviewing him, then it gets real fun.
So the frustration with that, the frustration with celebrities getting away with things that they do is the same frustration with companies that get away with anything because then there is no discipline and repercussion.
It's necessary to have repercussion and a price for making bad mistakes.
There is nothing wrong with it.
I failed a lot.
Here's the part.
You know what's the unique thing about failing?
Very simple.
A philosopher many years ago said this.
It sucks.
Okay.
There is no way to put it.
It sucks.
It's embarrassing.
It could lead to a divorce.
It could lead to mental anguish, emotional heartache.
It can go through challenging times.
You're going to go through it.
Nothing about it is going to feel good.
Trust me.
Think about it this way.
What happens in boxing when two people fight and one gets knocked out, publicly humiliated in front of tens of millions of people?
Think about the text messages.
Think about how many exes celebrate that loss.
Think about how many friends from high school are like, man, I'm so glad he got his ass whooped.
That felt great.
Think about how it felt for Wilder to lose to Tyson Fury three times, back to back to back.
And he was called the bomber.
Like, think about how it felt when Tyson lost to, you know, Buster Douglas.
Nobody thought that was going to happen.
Every one of us, everybody's going to go through it.
There's enough.
When Foreman lost to Ali, he went into depression for a couple of years.
He didn't even want to show his face because nobody believed the fact that he lost to Ali.
That was not supposed to happen.
It's supposed to hurt, and it also hurts in business.
There was a period in my career where I went through really tough times emotionally running a company.
Here's the thing about the seasons like that.
It's not supposed to feel good.
You know, you're going to be lonely.
You're going to try to, like last night, a weird night last night.
I slept on the floor last night.
One of our kids wasn't doing too well.
He was thrown up all night.
It just wasn't a good situation.
I'm on one hour's sleep today.
You know who cares?
Nobody.
Trust me, nobody cares.
Nobody cares.
I still have to come and do my job today.
No one cares.
No one in the audience cares.
Not saying that you're not sympathetic, but it's not your problem.
It's my problem.
Okay.
I still have to come in and do this.
I got to zoom right after this.
And I got a bunch of today's a long day for me.
I got a lot of stuff that's going on here today.
No one cares.
It's days like this that you got to show up, even though nothing is going your way.
So the fact that the Silicon Valley, the shareholders are paying a price for it, it hurts.
But it happens in business.
The fact that some of the bondholders are not getting the money back, it hurts, but that's part of business.
Can I say one thing about the failure part?
I think you're absolutely right.
I think failure is a part of life.
And I would argue that I think any one of us would say that sometimes failure is the best thing that can possibly happen to you because it sort of makes you who you are.
So whether it's been sports for me, I remember being a great athlete and then getting moved up to varsity and then being put on the bench.
Oh, shit, I got to improve.
When I did stand-up comedy, I was always a funny dude.
I got booed off stage, talk about like tomatoes to the face.
It's like, oh, my God, I actually have to get better at this.
Relationships.
We've all had relationships that we failed at, but you learn from these situations.
I used to do cold calls for a living for years and getting hung up on and hung up on and hung up on, but that's what makes you stronger.
And you bring up the George Foreman situation.
It's funny to see the end of that narrative.
It's like he ended up becoming a multi, multi-millionaire with a Foreman grill because he got back in the ring and he started kicking some ass again.
And I think that's what everyone needs to understand is that failure is going to come with the territory.
If you want to be great at anything, you're going to fail.
But what's the old saying?
You know, fall 10 times, get up 11.
And that's what it comes down to.
Yeah, look, I got two videos.
You can retire or you can get up.
Yep.
I got a couple of videos I want to show you.
And I got a book here I want to show you, which I saw this.
I ordered this.
My assistant came in saying, someone's playing a prank on you and they sent you this book.
I said, no, I bought this book because I just kind of wanted to show it today because, Tom, don't look at it.
I want to see what the reaction is going to be to this book.
I'm getting around.
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Okay.
This book.
The other day, you know, I like books for kids, and there's a lot of different kinds of books.
And then this book pops up.
And I said, this has to be a joke.
No, it's a real book.
What's the title of the book?
This is the title of the book.
If you can zoom in, you can see if you can zoom in, by the way.
Rob, you're laughing.
And you know, part of it could be funny.
The website is called queerbooks.com.
Okay.
And this is a real book.
So I bought it.
I'm like, okay, let me take a look at this.
The gay BCs.
Let's go through it together.
Oh, sorry about that.
Well, let's take a look.
So here's what A.
A is for, is that ally, a friend who is there to stand up for you with strength, love, and care.
I like that.
Yeah.
B is for buy.
You can shout it out loud.
I like boys and girls, and that makes me proud.
What ages is this for?
Does it say it's beginning with a book?
What do you mean what ages is like?
You're not reading this at 18 years old.
This is a kid's book.
This has got to be the author is M. L. Webb.
Who is this?
I actually want to go through this to see.
On Amazon, it says the grade level is preschool through third grade.
Yeah, this is exactly where I was going with this.
So don't say gay build.
Specifically targets people.
Third grade and under.
Do not talk about that.
So basically congressman basically.
C is for coming out.
You're ready to share what you feel deep inside.
It's okay to be scared.
D is for drag.
You can strut.
By the way, this is not a joke.
This is a book.
You can strut and dance in clothes that you have, dresses, heels, and pants.
E is for equality.
We're on the same team.
We all have the right to love, hope, and dream.
F is for family, related or found, they'll stick to by your side, ups and down.
Good.
G is for gay.
It's a word that implies that you're a girl who likes girls or a guy who likes guys.
H is for hope.
Dream up a life you love.
Sky's the limit.
And by the way, intersex is I. J is for joy.
Key is for kiki.
L is for lesbian.
M is for mountain.
N is for non-binary.
O is for orientation.
P is for pan.
Q is for obviously queer.
R is for respect.
S is for sachet.
Cante.
The guys with drag.
T is for.
Shout out to RuPaul there.
T is for trans.
It's a brave step to take to live as the gender you know.
U is for unique.
V is for vogue.
W is for wonder.
X is for.
You can write it down when you have M or from his pronoun.
U is for you.
Y is for you.
Z is Zest.
That's a book.
Okay.
The Gay BCs.
Okay.
So should they have the right to sell this book?
The answer is what?
Of course.
Yes.
Of course you should have the right to sell this book.
The price of free speech is free speech.
Yeah.
There's nothing wrong with selling speech.
By the way, this came out in 2019.
This is before the series of trans culture wars really, really were highlighted.
But now here's the part.
When they say nobody is grooming, that's the part when you see stuff like this.
As a parent, this stuff is getting into schools.
This stuff is getting into kids reading this.
What does a five-year-old think about when they read something like this?
The eight-year-old, a 10-year-old.
If I were to tell you right now, as a kid, what phrase do you remember your mother or your father telling you that you believe till today?
Positive.
What phrase?
What did your mom or dad tell you that till today you remember?
My mom would always tell me you can be anything you want to be just as long as you give it your best.
Okay, Tom.
My parents are big on honesty.
Okay.
Always tell me the truth.
Even if you've done something, tell me the truth.
How many times did they say that to you?
How many times did they say that?
It was constant.
It was constant.
My brother and I were only about less than two years apart.
We would get into mischief.
Things would happen.
I remember six, seven years old.
We'd break something.
And so it was always, or somebody gets hurt, somebody's crying.
And it's like, tell us the truth.
Tell me the truth.
And I can remember the punishment was always slightly moderated if you told the truth.
If they had to dig it out of us or one of us was lying, it was always the punishment was a little heavier.
No, for what you did or for and for the lie.
It was like a compounding effect.
But if we told the truth, but that was always what my parents say, just tell me the truth.
What was it?
What was it that was over and over again for you?
Rob, what was it for you?
Over and over, like you heard over and over again.
I don't even know why to this day, but it just sticks in my head.
My dad used to say, no matter where you go, there you are.
I have no idea what that means.
If you're lost, you're somewhere.
That's a quote from Buckaroo Bonsai.
I thought that was Austin Powers.
Hey, there you are.
Do I know you?
No, but there you are.
Adam, how about yourself?
My mom, I mean, again, she'd always tell me that trying to ask us, but my mom is like the most loving, caring person.
She would always say, I don't care who it is.
It could be the CEO or the janitor.
You have to treat them the same.
Like you have to treat people the same way.
You have to do this.
You have to treat people right.
Treat people right.
Treat people that you want to be treated.
The golden rule, treat people right.
Treat people right.
And that served me.
So here's a question for you.
I want to flip it on you.
You ready?
Some of you already know where I'm going with this.
What if, Adam, your mom said, Adam, if you're gay, it's okay.
What if your mom said, Adam, if you like boys, it's okay.
What if you're, actually, I want you to think about Adam, if you're gay, just tell me.
Yeah, well, what if she told you that a thousand times, over and over and over again?
Now, you may say, I would still be straight because I love women, right?
But let me tell you something.
That's a thousand times that thought is in your head as a six-year-old, eight-year-old, 10-year-old.
Information.
If your mom and dad told you, Tom, if you like boys, you can tell me, son.
Like, can you imagine even that phrase?
Like, preemptively, before you've even said it.
Preemptively, even the kid giving a sign, like they're saying anything.
Like, here's a question.
What is the advantage of a kid reading this book?
What is the advantage of a kid reading this book?
That's what I want to know.
What is the advantage?
If somebody is in a climate like this of where we are today, you think people feel uncomfortable being gay today versus what it was 30 years ago?
No.
So this is the part where you get a Bill Maher that comes out saying, why are you trying to, you know, increase?
So there's a video.
I'm going to send it to you, Rob, if you can share this, where a child exposes his mom.
Okay, it's a very, I don't know if you guys have seen this video or not, where there are parents now where they're proud to have this and talk about this and say, look, my kids are gay.
It's a bragging right.
If the Asian father says, you know, my son said, did we play this clip before or no?
I want to show this to you as well.
Rob, if you can see this clip I just sent to you, look how the kid is like, and a mom gets a little bit upset.
Just look at this reaction.
I think this is the same video.
Volume.
Yeah, let's see if this is the one or not.
Watch this.
People that aren't like serial killers like Chet Buck.
Does your mom say you have to be LGBT?
I'm not lying.
She's what I want to be, but something.
But go ahead, Lex.
My mom doesn't matter if I am gay or lesbian or any of that.
She doesn't care.
All she cares about is that I'm a part of it.
And if I'm not a part of it, she'll try to convince me to join it.
Because I. What?
Are you signing right now?
Facts that I would convince you to join what?
Tells you about the QIA plus?
Can we?
That's crazy.
You saw the mom's reaction?
A kid is not going to say something like that just because he thinks about that.
Even a kid is sitting there saying, dude, my mom just wants to be a part of this organization, right?
There's a problem here.
There's this parent.
I don't know if you've seen this one.
Let me see this one if I can find.
You have to see this one.
I'll find a clip to show it to you.
But you see a book like this.
You see what happens.
It gives credibility to parents.
Tom, what are your thoughts when you see something like this?
Look, the price of free speech is free speech.
That's my first thought.
And my second thought is each organization, each group is going to publish books that it wants to read.
And LGBTQ, they're going to publish books they want to read and books for their kids.
And that's the long and short of it.
I feel, you know, like that.
Does it make you feel uncomfortable?
I'm curious about that.
It does.
Even right now, Tom, even in the video, to kind of expose the feeling.
His mom is telling him one thing, but he's feeling a different thing.
And there's some conflict in that kid.
But just thinking about even giving your thoughts on it, do you feel uncomfortable?
Well, yeah, because, you know, nowadays, you know, I am the unprotected enemy, a white male.
Canadian descent, though, may I be, you know, I'm, you know, if I say anything too much, I will catch the most heat.
So I never moderate or lie about my positions, but I'm very careful about expressing them.
I'll just say one thing.
You know, A, you know, to use the alphabet analogy, there's nothing wrong with being gay.
And like before we go down this rabbit hole of like, these guys are anti-gay.
If that's who you are as an adult, God bless you.
We have gay friends, lesbian friends, all good.
Like very vocal.
I go out in South Beach.
I know all, they're all out there.
Roberts decision says you can marry.
Do what you got to do.
But I think the resounding effort from at least our narrative is like, leave the goddamn kids alone with this kind of stuff.
Specifically, the fact that Rob pointed out that this book is aimed at third grade and under.
So what is that?
Eight years and under?
So what are you talking?
Five, six, seven, eight-year-olds?
Why is sex and gender and identity and all this even a thing at this age?
Now, we can have the argument or conversation of, well, when do you start teaching these kind of things?
Is it middle school?
Is it high school?
Do the kids talk amongst themselves?
Should it be a class?
Should it be books?
Should it be the free market?
But I think we're all in agreement that kindergartners should not be figuring it out if they're bi or not.
That's not a thing that they should be developing at that age.
Like, for instance, when I was in kindergarten, I wanted to be a dinosaur.
Okay.
So if someone was like, it's okay to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex, that's who you are on the inside.
It's like, okay, at what point does it go to, all right, I want to be Peter Pan.
I want to be a cowboy in Indian.
I want to be an athlete.
I want to be a princess.
When does reality and fantasy kind of take over, especially when you're a kid?
Because you have wild imaginations.
And I think it's just leave the kids alone.
Play this clip.
This is the problem, though.
This is the problem right here.
Play this clip.
Are here today because we have a trans trans child.
Asher is six years old.
At three, she was not sleeping very well.
She was waking up every single night.
It was a lot more than just a toddler waking up.
And one day I picked her up from daycare.
All the teachers had said, Asher told us that she's a chief.
And Ashford comes around the corner and I said, hey, there's my beautiful daughter.
What?
Oh, my God.
A few sleepless nights.
A random thing.
You can pause it.
You can pause it.
Matt does a great job talking about this stuff.
Your son, did you hear, like, this guy sounds like an educated guy?
Three years old.
What are you talking about, bro?
And he's getting the mic.
The mic.
He's getting, you know, what?
You know what is a form of giving the mic to speak at an event?
That is a recognition.
If somebody gives you their audience, their mic, that is a form of a recognition.
I recognize you that you have a credible message to give.
Come give your message.
We're giving the mic to that message.
That father can believe that.
But if he's doing that because he wants to be invited to certain parties or he wants to be accepted by a certain community or he wants to be known as a sensible, you know, whatever, whatever.
Well, then you're using your kid as a prop.
Like, you know how the joke about uncles are like, hey, let me borrow your two-year-old kid, man, to go to the mall.
And it's like, you take the kid like, hey, oh, you have such a beautiful, oh, thank you.
Oh, so what's your name?
Oh, my God.
You use it as a kid.
I do that with puppies.
You do it with cats, though.
You do it with cats.
But you know, it's kind of like a prop that you use.
You're using your kid as a prop for some like this.
Give it a break.
You know, who's going to trending right now on Twitter?
Drew Barrymore.
You know why she's trending right now on Twitter?
Because of this TikTok guy, Dylan Mulvaney.
I don't know if you've seen what happened with this Dylan Mulvaney, where a bunch of people are posting this, you know, sharing how, you know, her story of trans and all this stuff.
And then eventually Drew Barrymore apparently gets on her knees.
I don't know if you've seen this or not.
That's the picture that's going viral.
Right there.
That's the knee picture.
So she gets on her knees.
That's a guy.
That's the guy in the dress.
Drew's definitely not a guy, but that's a guy.
And why is she on her knees, what's going on?
It's like, man, thank you so much for being so brave and doing this.
This is what we're highlighting.
This is what's being turned into heroes.
Okay.
That is the problem.
You know, and by the way, the same exact when I watch Tom Being Uncomfortable with this, you know what the average parent is thinking about right now?
Here's what the average parent's thinking about right now.
Tom and I were talking yesterday.
We're talking about a couple big deals that we're doing.
And we're in my room upstairs and I'm getting Tom's counsel, like I always do.
I'm always asking Tom, hey, Tom, what do you think about this town?
What do you think about them?
We're processing issues together.
And one of the deals that we're going through, Tom says, I worry if we're going to be able to close that deal.
I said, why is that?
And if it happens, you'll hear about it.
It's very big.
If it doesn't happen, you'll never hear about it.
Maybe I'll write about it in a book five years from now, 10 years from now, but you're not going to hear about it anytime soon.
And he says, I worry if that deal is going to close.
I said, tell me why.
He says, because of the opinions and the stuff we talk about.
I worry if that community will accept the voice and what we talk about on the podcast.
You know what that is?
That fear shouldn't exist.
When you have kids like, here's the part with me as a parent.
So I'll go to schools, okay?
And I'll go to the school and I'll see some of the parents and you'll talk to some of the parents or you'll see some of the teachers and some of them will fully, you'll know if they're with you and they'll say, oh my God, hey, what's up, Patrick?
How you doing?
Oh my God, da-da-da-da.
It's a great last podcast.
I loved it.
And then you'll also see some of them that are kind of like, I know who you are.
I can't stand what you stand for.
Totally cool.
But now watch this.
As this gets bigger, what's going to happen to their last name?
It's not like their last name is Aguilar or Jones or Jackson, where there's a billion, you know, not a billion, but there's a lot of Aguilars, Jones, and Jacksons out there, right?
The last name is what?
Bed David.
How many Sauce Nicks are there?
How many Ellswords have you met in your life?
Okay.
But the point I'm trying to make to you is that fear shouldn't be there.
As a kid, when I lived in Iran and people would ask me about my religion and my parents would say, don't say it.
Never liked it.
Like my parents are Christians.
We're Christians.
I never liked the fear where you can't talk about it because you're going to be judged.
You know, yesterday I posted a job post and we're hiring right now aggressively.
We've got 18 job openings.
And I posted a video.
If you can go to the video I posted yesterday, one of the guys comments and he says something.
And we got hundreds of applications being submitted last night.
This guy says something.
I hope the comment comes all the way at the top so I can read this comment because this is kind of where we need to go where keep going, keep going, keep going.
It's a video right there.
Go to the comment, click on it, and let's go to the comment section.
Go the lower, go look.
Okay, right there.
Fantastic.
It's there.
Zoom in.
He says, Patrick, so I'm asking for somebody to be our managing director of our consulting firm, right?
Bedevi Consulting.
And I said, to be able to be the managing director of Bedevic Consulting, this is a multi-multi-six-figure job that's going to pay very well to whoever it's going to be, okay?
With the potential of making seven figures within a three to a five-year period.
It's a high-paying job.
This guy says, Patrick, I don't like your criteria.
When you started PHP, you weren't an ex-McKinsey consultant, but you still had the chops to do the job well, and you did it.
There's talented folks out there who don't care about your prestige.
You're overlooking bias for MD.
Okay.
This is not an easy job for an average guy off the streets to come and do.
And by the way, when I was starting PHP, I was a 30-year-old running a multi-million dollar year business in my 20s.
I wasn't just a guy off the street.
Look at my response, what I said to him on the bottom.
I said, my criterias were never intended to be liked.
It's not for everyone.
All the best.
You know what I like his response?
Fair.
I respect it.
Good luck with the search.
I actually like the way he handled it as well.
My goal with this podcast and where we're going and what the climate is, is for us to be able to say, this Dylan Mulvaney guy, this is weird stuff what you're doing.
This is a weird book.
It's weird.
You can sell it.
It's capitalism, but it's weird.
It's weird for parents to feel a little scared that, God forbid, if a parent has a position, a university that his daughter or son wants to go into may say no because we found this clip of you saying this.
That should not be the case.
That is the only part about this right now with parents where they're afraid to talk about how they feel about certain situations.
Where you go into school in orientation, the first person you hear in orientation is, I am part of the LGBTQ community.
I see myself as a they, them or whatever.
And I'm this, this, this, this, that.
And at our school, we do this, this, this, this, that.
That's kind of weird to do that.
If the population is a small population and that's what you're trying to market to.
But anyways, you know, you see some of this stuff happening.
A little awkward, a little weird.
I wanted to kind of share this book when I saw it.
I thought other people would probably relate to the concerns some parents are going through.
You know how they say back in the day when it comes to TV and media that you got to win the central time zone.
You ever heard that before?
Yes.
It's not about the LAs of the world or the New York cities of the world.
Win the central time zone.
Win Iowa, right?
Win Michigan.
Win Ohio.
And that's where your audience is.
And I feel like there's a metaphor here to what's going on here.
You know what should be mainstream in America and shouldn't be contentious or a bad thing to say is just normal traditional family values, father, mother, kids, happy families.
That should be normal.
And the problem to all the allies, to use the word A over there, is that you're trying to basically make this type of stuff mainstream.
And you can make that argument about why this shouldn't be mainstream, but also respect the fact that you can be who you want to be, but stop indoctrinating kids.
And that's what I think essentially your biggest argument is.
I have.
Bro, again, one day this stuff is going to come out.
That when I, I mean, it's going to come out with some places I partied at and what I did.
I'm not sitting here telling you I walk on water.
I'm not sitting here.
If people partied with me and they asked, what was Pat like to party with?
Some of the stories you're not going to believe to say Pat really did that with, yes, I've had a lot of fun, you know, prior to choosing to change my life.
I did a lot of stuff in partying in the military, in Tennessee, in Kentucky, in Vegas, all over the place.
I had a lot of fun.
I've always loved women and I've had a great time with it, but I've always gotten along with anybody, straight, gay, whatever.
I had nicknames, the Greek God, because every time I told them I'm a Syrian, they said, you're Sicilian.
I said, forget about it.
I am Sicilian.
I am Greek.
I can't explain to you what Assyrian is because it was so, oh, you're Syrian.
No, Assyrian.
That four-minute explanation of what Assyrian is, I got tired of it.
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
I am Sicilian.
You're right.
I've got the nose.
I've got ears.
I've got to look.
I'm Sicilian.
Let's just finalize this.
Right there in the bottom of the booth.
So this is not about judgment.
This is about leave the kids alone, man.
Let the kids figure out for themselves.
I had no idea what I was going to do until many, many years later on in life while I had a brain to really think.
And that didn't happen till many years later.
This kid, if you were to judge me on what I'm going to do my life in high school, I had a 1.8 GPA, I was a lost cause.
But it took me a minute to figure myself out at 25.
If a person wants to do that later on in life, let them do it.
Don't put these things in their mind early.
You confuse the hell out of a kid when you do that.
I got a couple clips I sent you.
Did you guys see what Trump said about DeSantis and Florida yesterday?
Okay, Rob, if you can play that clip, I want to get your reaction on this video here.
Go ahead.
For those of you that didn't notice, Florida was doing great long before Ron DeSanctis got there.
People are fleeing from New York to Florida and other places because of high taxes and out-of-control crime.
It's really bad.
Not because of the governor.
Thank you, Mr. President, for doing that.
But it's not because of the governor.
Florida was doing fantastically.
You had a governor named Rick Scott who did a very good job.
Even Charlie Christ, the Democrat, did a good job, and he had very good numbers.
Sunshine and ocean are very alluring.
It's not too hard to work with those factors.
So just remember, Florida was doing really well long before Ron DeSanctus got there.
Oh, my God.
Okay, I'm going to go to you.
I'm going to go to you first, Tom.
It's, you know, at a time where we need leadership to rise up versus the leadership we have in Washington, I'm this, I've said it before, this is going to be a street fight.
And this is a guy that understands media, that understands his base.
And this is going to be a street fight.
And this is just the beginning.
That's what I think.
I've expected this.
Adam, what are your thoughts?
Yeah, Tom's right.
This is expected.
Look, Trump is who Trump is.
He's not changing at this point.
There's still people out there that think, well, you know, this time around, it's going to be different.
And Trump, keep doing what you do and don't change.
Keep with the nicknames.
Keep with the name calling.
It worked for you in 2016.
It may work for you again in 2024.
But watching that, I can only tell you what I felt.
It is cringy and it is childish.
Just the name calling.
Now, as someone born and raised in Miami, I get it.
The cat's out the bag.
Florida's amazing.
But to say that Ron DeSantis had nothing to do with how well Florida is doing currently and during COVID would be just disingenuous and inaccurate.
DeSantis rose to the occasion and like him or not, he kept quote unquote Florida free.
And it's one of those situations where, yeah, Florida was doing just fine for years.
And, you know, no tax, no income tax state and sunshine and weather.
But we do have issues here.
We've had hurricanes.
We have immigration issues.
We've got all sorts of environmental issues that happen from time to time.
But it's one of those things where is what he did in 2016 going to work again in 2024?
And I've been very clear.
I don't think it's going to work this time around.
Yeah.
So go ahead, Tom.
You can say Florida was doing well before, but to DeSantis' credit, he was the guy in the chair when there was some crisis and he managed them very, very well.
And I set COVID aside on the political side.
And I just take a look how he reacted to the hurricane on the Gulf Coast.
And I think he did an amazing job.
He pushed people hard.
He got that bridge to the island rebuilt.
I mean, there's a lot of things.
It was just pure leadership of the crisis team.
And he deserves credit for that.
Let me say just one more thing.
You know, the whole Trump derangement syndrome, it's a real thing.
I know people that, I mean, they would not vote for Trump if I'm like, who would you vote for?
Stalin or Trump?
They're like, oh, sign me up for Joseph Stalin.
They're not going to pick him.
And I swear, I promise you on my life, I'm trying to give Trump a chance genuinely, because we all know that I haven't been a Trump fan.
I'm genuinely, genuinely, let me just keep an open mind.
Let me see if Trump can win me over.
And I think the world has changed so dramatically pre-COVID to post-COVID.
And Tom's absolutely right.
We are in desperate need of leadership of a grown-up in the White House.
And I've said my number one goal in America right now is to get to a president who can get to a 60% approval rating.
This race to somehow scrape out 50% is a race to nowhere.
And if it's DeSantis, if it's Nikki Haley, if it's freaking Gavin Newsom, not a fan, whoever can get us there is who I'm leaning towards.
And I think as of right now, if you look at the top five people in the polls right now, Trump, Biden's still up there, Ron DeSantis, I think Ron DeSantis gives America the best chance for some less divisiveness.
So this is all I think.
I'm going to come from a place of strategy.
I'm not going to come from any other place, but just a place of strategy.
Joe Rogan said the other day, if he has to choose between Trump and Biden, it's Trump.
It's not even a question.
Okay, so that's out there.
You can go watch the clip.
And people lost their minds when he was saying that he's not choosing Biden over Trump.
Okay.
That position has changed with him over the last however many years.
Is that the one?
Okay, yeah.
Play that one so the audience can see it.
Yeah, play that one.
Just from the, there you go.
Do you have the audio?
Go for it.
Press play.
And I go, I would vote for Trump before I'd vote for Biden.
Just because I think with Biden, like he's no, he's gone.
Like, you know, he's gone.
You're going to be relying on his cabinet.
And I knew his cabinet would be this fucking sideshow of diversity, which is exactly what it is.
I mean, that one person who stole all the women's clothes, that Sam Brinton we highlighted on the podcast yesterday.
I mean, okay.
So just real quick note, that's someone who would vocally loudly vote for Bernie Sanders in 2016.
And he is, and I think he voted for Joe Jorgensen in 2020, which is absurd.
A goat, yes.
But now he's back on the Trump trade.
Not on the train, but he's willing to go.
Oh, no, no, he's not on the train.
You know what I mean?
He's willing to vote.
But Biden is what he's saying, right?
Which is functional.
Let me go back to what Trump is saying.
So, okay.
All I ever think about, I got my sales leaders, okay?
And if you've ever been to one of our sales leadership meetings, we have a meeting called the Directors and Up Meeting or President's Club.
You have to find a way to get in there.
If you're in there, it's a spectacle.
Let me put it to you this way.
Anytime we had our investors or somebody that wanted to look at purchasing the company or we're talking about raising capital, that was a meeting they were not allowed to go into.
Because if they went into that meeting, they're like, what the hell is going on?
You've been to one of those meetings before.
You've been to a couple of them.
It's amazing.
They're insane.
It's competitive.
Shout out to Richard.
It's insanity.
It's like it's WWE, UFC, minus any of the fights, but it's raw.
I wouldn't even say minus any of the fights because it got pretty heated in there.
I'm trying to keep it, PG.
It's WWE meets insurance.
Anyway, you got people strutting down the aisle right flair coming through the UE meetings.
It's epic.
It's great.
And as someone who's been in the insurance industry for 17 years, it's my ever seen anything like that before.
Never in my life.
It's epic.
It's competitive.
It's awesome.
Now, here's the thing.
And I'll sit there and I'll watch the call outs.
This person calls the other person out.
That person calls this person out.
It's call, I call, I call, I call, I call out.
And then I'll sit there and I say, yeah, that was not a good call out.
Like, what angle did you take strategically?
What did you just take with that angle?
You went personal.
Okay, that guy is going to destroy you with what you just did.
Or this person, I'm like, that call out was weak.
Your team, you looked weak in front of your team.
The worst type of call outs are when you seem weak in front of your team.
For example, a call out is you'll say, well, let me tell you something.
You guys may be beating us on the leaders bulletin, but at least we love each other and we're united.
You guys are not united.
That is a weak ass call out, okay?
Because you don't want to compete.
And your way of hiding it is what?
Be mommy and your people that you're working with, right?
Here's another one.
Unliterable.
Yeah, when you do a call out and your team's like, oh my God, my leader's an asshole.
Dude, what was that all about?
You acted like an asshole, bro.
You had an asshole moment.
That's also not a good call out.
A callout is to say, let me tell you, we fell because of me.
I screwed up.
At the end of the day, it saw me as the leader.
But I'm going to tell you, I know what guys we got, and I know our guys are killers, competitors.
The next 90 days, good luck working, outworking us, out strategy.
Good luck.
We're going to compete like never before.
And we're going to have one of the best stories of redemption.
We're going to beat you.
And you're going to have to eat your words for what you just said because our guy's going to rise up.
That's a call out where somebody's going to say, I freaking, you know what?
Let's go kick those guys' ass, right?
This is a bitter call out.
You sound bitter.
There's no strategy behind this to say Florida.
All he has to do is to say 34,000 when you help me.
And I gave you a shout out in the book that your two tweets and the endorsement helped me.
Yes, you're right.
But I took it from 34 to 1.5 million votes, not you.
That's what I did, right?
And nobody can dispute that.
I won Miami Dade.
Nobody can dispute that argument there.
Here's the other part.
You know, with Trump and DeSantis, if you read the art of war, Sun Tzu, and you read any of the war books, it's very, there's like five of them, must read.
You have to read.
If you're a businessman, if you're a businesswoman, if you're somebody that's in a competitive environment, you have to read these books because if you're not, they're reading it, just so you know.
And I learned this to heart.
I'm like, okay, no problem.
You know, for two years, I had the same audio book playing in my car on repeat, the same exact book.
Every single day for two years, people would get in my car and my audio was that same, like, this is all you listen to.
I said, this is all I'm listening to.
What was the book?
It's a very good book.
And I read it over and over and over again, two years straight in my car on repeat because I understood it was war and I saw what my enemy was doing.
I said, I'm not going to forget what you did for the rest of my life.
This is no longer about money.
Good luck seeing what you just gave birth to somebody you're going to face for the rest of your life.
It was officially personal and was going to get fun.
Let's go play ball.
At first, it was just about dad retiring.
At first, it was just about having dreams become a reality.
You officially pissed me off.
It's war now.
Let's go play ball.
And I'm going to have so much fun doing it for 50 freaking years.
That was my mindset.
I'll never forget this, by the way.
Fully committed to war to this one handful of guys that in the marketplace that were going up saying certain things.
What DeSantis is doing right now, the book Art of War, you know, if your enemy is screwing up, get out of his way.
And that's exactly what DeSantis is doing.
He's not even getting in Trump's way.
It's like, let him keep saying stuff.
Let him keep saying this stuff.
His own camp was going to turn against him.
His own camp's going to turn against him.
Because what Trump forgot, what Trump forgot to do is what helped him win is he talked policies.
He talked about make America great again.
He talked about the wall.
He talked about issues that resonated with people.
He talked about that.
You can easily say Florida's done a great job with endorsement because there are policies that I would have used myself that DeSantis.
You can say that.
And the American people will say, I agree with that.
DeSantis use a lot of Trump's policies.
Let's just say if the voter is going to say that's, but when you do something like this, it's showing you're bitter.
It's showing insecurity.
It's showing you fear somebody that's below you.
You're competing with.
You got to compete up.
He's competing down.
DeSantis, as of right now with the Pulse, is below you.
He's not above you.
So it's a different strategy on the way you compete when he was coming up as an underdog.
The way you compete as an underdog can never be the way you compete as a favorite.
I don't know if that makes sense or not.
You cannot take the same strategy as an underdog to compete as a favorite.
That's not going to work as a favorite.
So, and right now, in what's the CPAC poll, it was what?
Yeah, Cedar 20.
Cedar 20s.
Yeah, it's not even close.
And some people say, who cares about CPAC?
All I'm telling you is there's a different strategy to compete as an underdog versus a favorite.
I don't necessarily know if this is an effective strategy he's using.
Again, we may be wrong.
I may be wrong, but I just don't think it's effective.
Can I ask you one very specific question?
Because to me, it wasn't the calling out the Florida thing.
And that's all fair game.
My specific thing is the name calling.
We all remember 2016.
It was Lil Marco Rubio or Slow Energy Jet or that was 2020, Sleepy Joe or Crooked Hillary.
Everyone had a little nickname.
And it was funny.
It was weird.
It was quirky.
All that and above, right?
Wacky Bernie, all that.
The fact that he doesn't even call him Ron DeSantis and it's just Ron DeSancta, Ron De Sancta, Ron does meatball Ron.
Tom, for you, I would classify you as just like a level-headed, normal, just good father family man.
Does the name calling do anything for you?
Is it a turnoff?
You don't, like, this is something you don't practice in real life.
How do you deal with it when the president is doing this?
It does zero for me.
And I have seen moments where I thought Trump played so beautifully.
The debate with Hillary.
Hillary was being very sarcastic and then made a comment.
And remember, he turned his back on her.
And actually, she walked behind him.
He didn't turn his back on her.
He was not disrespectful.
But as she rotated the stage, he turned around and pointed at her.
And rather than call name, he said, because you'd be in jail.
And basically pulled the rug right out from under her thing.
And that was all what America was thinking.
We were all at home going, there you go.
You're going to play the sarcasm game and you're going to do that in a debate, Hillary.
You just had an adult turn around and kind of call you out on that.
That I appreciate because in the public square, in politics, you have to be prepared to debate, to set your tone, and you need to have your comeback.
But just sitting there sounding bitter and calling a name doesn't do anything for me.
It doesn't get me.
It doesn't pull me in your direction to what I knew you stood for.
Yeah, listen, we can act very, what's the word, noble and say, oh my God, dude, they've been calling this guy a Russian spy.
They've called him a racist, a bigot, a misogynist.
Give me one label this guy hasn't gotten the last seven years.
Think about every single day they've gone after this guy.
So don't get it twisted.
I don't like what he said about the comments on Florida and the fact that he didn't do anything.
When you go give credit to Charlie, what are you doing?
He's giving credit to Charlie Chris.
What are you biggest flip-floppers again?
Out of anybody you give credit to to give it to Charlie.
Like to me, it's purely that.
When he says Ron de Sancta, whatever the sanctimonious meatball, that's his game plan.
It's totally fine because the whole thing is if your opponent gets irritated by a comment, keep irritating him, right?
That's what he's doing.
He's very good at it.
He finds a way to irritate you and he'll keep doing it.
And if you show you're not irritated and eventually has to go to a different nickname or whatever, my concern isn't the name calling.
My concern is you can't question someone's resume.
That's a real resume.
It's the same way when clowns say, Trump's not a real billionaire.
Okay, you are, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
You were able to go into those, you know, heavy duty, you know, rooms in New York and negotiate with all these other guys, Manhattan, to buy air.
Yeah, you're definitely a better businessman than Trump was.
Yeah, yeah, you, you're the one that carried a show on NBC for 15 years called, what was the show's name?
Called Apprentice, one the greatest, and then Shark Tank tried to duplicate that model and the kind of eyeballs they got.
Arnold tried to do it for a season.
It flopped so bad it was embarrassing.
Some would say that kind of finished up his career because you can't carry a show like that for 15 years.
No, you can't be Trump.
Trump is not duplicatable.
He is very good at what he does.
You can't question someone's resume if it's got true credibility behind it.
You make yourself look like a fool.
And here, he's trying to question DeSantis' resume.
Who did it better?
I don't know.
I don't know if anybody did it better.
He did it better.
DeSantis did it.
Yeah, I mean, it's not even a question on who did it better.
He did it better.
And, you know, this is a chance to come from a place of, I'm glad he used my policies.
I'm glad he implemented some of the things that we were doing.
And I'm glad he had the success that he had because he followed our lead versus showing signs of, I don't see, and by the way, in any business book or strategy book, I don't see everything he's done up until this point, like in 2016 when he won, everything was like, brilliant, interesting, wow, crazy, risky.
Look at this guy.
Boom, he's president.
Holy shit, he pulled it off.
And beating who?
The person that's supposed to be a president since she was 10 years old, 12 years old.
She was supposed to be the first female.
You beat that heavyweight whose husband is a president?
Damn.
Okay, cool.
This guy knows what he's doing.
But the biggest feedback is you, your strategy as an underdog will not work as a favorite.
It just now.
When Michael was coming up when he wanted to beat the Lakers for the first time to get the first ring and he was talking a lot of shit, yeah, that's a different game.
When you're coming back and you lose to the Orlando Magic because of Nick Anderson, whatever he passes away from Scottie Pippen and everybody's like he's lost it when Michael was playing with the number 45.
You remember that?
Of course.
When you're Michael coming back after three Pete, everybody's coming for your throat.
When you're Michael being beat by Detroit Pistons and they're bullying you, you're going for everyone's throat.
You have a statement to make.
Everybody else has a statement to make.
I don't see the position here.
Anyways, let me go to the next thing.
Did you guys see a, you know, if I were to ask you right now as a president, if I were to ask you right now and I was to say, Tom, you're going to be the president of the United States.
Adam, you're coming.
We're sitting down.
We're having a conversation.
Pat, I'm thinking about being the president of the United States.
Perfect.
Phenomenal.
What do you think your schedule is going to look like?
And at what time do you think it starts if you're the president of the United States?
What do you think your schedule?
You're in Eastern Standard Time, which means California, 6.30, 9.30, okay, 6 o'clock, 9, 3-hour difference.
You know, Europe, you got seven hour, six-hour difference.
Middle East, Asia, you have a very strange schedule.
What time do you think a president should be running his first meeting?
There's the answer I think everybody probably wants to hear, but then there's the real answer.
If you're going to be president of the United States, you get to run a four-hour sleep.
And that's the end of it.
And actually, Bill Clinton talked a little bit about this, about how he completely modified his sleep.
But my first meeting, my first meeting, honestly, is going to be 5, 6 a.m.
And my cabinet may not like it, but I'm going to get my, you know, you've got your threat report that you get every morning from the CIA.
You know, threats don't wait.
They don't wait till you wake up.
So you got to go through that.
That's always the first thing.
There's a folder they give him called, I think it's called the threat matrix or something.
But anyway, you get that from the CIA.
It's two to three pages max about, you know, what's moving around in terms of big threats.
And then, man, the European markets are open.
You know, the Asian markets are cruising.
And so it's time to be up and digest that and then see what the impact's going to be on this barometer of the U.S. economy, our markets.
And so my first meeting is 5 a.m.
What do you think?
I'm going to get one extra hour of sleep regardless.
I'm the president of the United States here.
I'm going to sleep more than four hours.
But look, at what point, Ariana Huffington did a great expose on the need for sleep.
Okay?
And you might.
You're the president of the United States.
Okay.
Even the president should get more than four hours of sleep every single night.
I mean, let's not be foolish here.
Now, do they get that much sleep?
I don't know.
But I would say, yeah, there it is, this sleep revolution.
And she sort of called out Trump that she thought he wasn't sleeping.
Let me put it.
If the president is reading her book, I am worried.
No, he's not.
Let me tell you.
My first meeting would be at 6 a.m.
Okay.
I'd be up at 5 a.m.
And that's how I would start my day.
Now, all I'm doing is giving one extra hour more than two of you.
Okay, now here's the part.
Who's going to know your schedule better than the press secretary?
Who's going to know your schedule better than the press secretary?
Your wife.
Okay.
Well, your wife.
Yeah.
The butler that brings you the coffee.
Unless if you're a guy named Bill, maybe it's a girl named Monica.
But for the most part, it's your press secretary.
Right to go there.
But I want you to see this clip.
The way she says it, she's so proud when she says this.
Is this Jen Saki right now?
You got to see this.
Can you play this clip?
And that's what people need to hear from him.
Now, it's important to note, President Biden does nothing at 9 a.m.
He is a night owl.
So the fact that he is doing this at 9 a.m. anyway speaks to how vital the White House recognizes it is for him to have his voice welfare conveying that to the American public.
All right, Stevie Bratner, thank you very much.
He's so committed.
You know, our president is so committed because he took a 9 a.m. meeting, Tom.
He took a 9 a.m. meeting.
American people should be thankful for the press.
There's only one position.
You set us up with that one, Pat.
9 a.m.
And by the way, the way she's, can you play that?
She's so proud when she said, I think we need to listen to this one more time.
Watch this.
Just one more time.
Look how proud she is.
Now, it's important to note, President Biden does nothing at 9 a.m.
He is a night owl.
I don't think he's doing this at 9 a.m.
By the way, if you're Trump or DeSantis, that's how the ad has got to start.
Go to exactly President Biden does nothing at 9 a.m.
You know what I would have to do a list of things that happened at 9 a.m. that were bad.
Press play?
We'll need to hear from him.
Now, it's important to know President Biden.
Okay, start from right there.
Go to exactly where you think he says it, yeah, and try to find a time.
It's important to know.
I think it's a little bit further back.
Let's go back right there.
Let's try this.
He does nothing at 9 a.m.
He is a night owl.
So the fact that he's doing this at 9 a.m. anyway speaks to I don't know any old man that sleeps until 9 a.m. though.
Most people, old people are up at the crack of dawn anyway.
That's actually because your body's kind of programmed.
And I would like to know, man, Ariana Huffington, I'm telling you, I don't care.
I don't know how you brought her up.
If she was my wife.
She wrote a great book on sleep.
No, no, no, no.
If she was my wife, I guarantee I'd get an extra five minutes of sleep a night.
I'm telling you.
And Biden, 9 a.m., come on.
That was supposed to be a joke.
I guess my joke for a while.
Okay, there you go.
Like you're hitting Huffington right there?
What just happened?
No, no, no.
My question is, he's a night owl.
What time is he going to bed?
I don't see Biden up till 4 a.m. just getting it in.
Or maybe they couldn't find a way to wandered off.
Do you really put Biden as somebody that goes to sleep at 2 a.m.?
No.
That's what I'm saying.
I don't know what's going on.
I will say this.
If you're the enemy, if you're China, if you're European.
If you're Russia, by the way, if you see that, what are you thinking if your enemy, his press secretary, says, if the president does a, you know, this is an important meeting because president doesn't do anything at 9 a.m.
Not a good look for Joe Biden.
By the way, not to get all somewhere sad here.
Biden is like, we will move the submarines at 8 a.m.
No problem.
This is an article from the Independent from 2021 that says that the president begins his short walk home at 7 p.m.
Unlike Mr. Obama and Mr. Trump, who sat up late into the night reading briefing documents and watching right-wing cable news, respectively, Mr. Biden goes to bed relatively early.
This is right.
So he's not a night owl.
Prop.
You just rocked her with what you just said.
Well, and it also says up here that in the mornings, his day starts at 9 a.m. when he has coffee with his wife before he sits down and takes calls and he sleeps for 13 hours.
That's insane.
I mean, dude, like he's got to write a book.
Sleep 50% of your day.
Sleep when you're dead.
You know what's weird?
Do you remember what time the first plane hit the World Trade Center?
9-11?
6.30.
Was it?
6.30, 6.30 Pacific Standard Time, 9.30 Eastern.
I thought it was 8-something.
No?
Anyway.
I was at the office.
Anyway, things happened very early in the morning.
The first plane hit the tower at 8.46 a.m.
Okay.
And then the second tower.
8.46 Eastern.
9.03.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, yeah.
So point is, it was right before 9 a.m. and then right at 9 a.m.
And that's where I was going with this.
Well, that's too much because it's 14 minutes too early.
So he's got to tell the next time somebody wants to attack, listen, moving forward, you can't attack us pre 9 a.m.
That's fucked up.
Because that's a guideline.
That's the president's guideline.
And he dictates the terms of war.
Okay.
We cannot go to war from 9 p.m. to 9 a.m.
Off limits.
Right?
By the way, this is a joke.
But this is the funny part.
This is not a joke.
This is.
Are you saying that he's literally sleeping on the job?
Now, here's what I want to know.
Do you think when she made that comment, her phone blew up afterwards saying, you're the freaking press secretary?
Former.
What the hell are you saying?
Why would you say something like that?
That is going to be the perfect ad for anyone to use against Biden for 2024.
She just gave one of the best ads out there.
She got a bunch of text.
Thanks for the help.
Yeah.
This is sort of counterintuitive because all we hear is that it's Sleepy Joe.
So it's maybe there's some validation that's going on here.
And he can say actually Sleepy Joe.
By the way, I'm telling you, if there's any stuff that somebody could say that could finish your campaign, statements like this, that this could cause you to not have a chance at nobody can have a reputation like this in a marketplace.
No one.
Nobody can have a reputation like this in a marketplace.
There's nothing about this that benefits and strengthens your country going up against the real bullies in the world.
By the way, let's say it's Trump Biden.
I'm already anticipating, because they all have canned lines.
I'm already anticipating Trump being like, you're sleeping on the job type of thing.
You know what he's going to say?
He's going to say, you know how he said to Bloomerick, he said, when he said, I don't know why.
Apparently Bloomberg's been asking about a stool to make him look taller.
Feeling that I need it too.
I don't know why he's asking for what I'm hearing.
He's going to say something like, look, I'm hearing Biden's talking about the fact that 6 p.m. debate is a little too late because he's got to go to sleep.
That's what I'm hearing in the marketplace because he got to go to sleep and he doesn't do anything before 9 a.m.
So, I mean, this just gives an opening for easy shots to be taken up.
But then again, Biden can be like, listen, Trump, I can beat you in my sleep, buddy.
So don't worry about that.
So he might have a canned line too.
That's a pretty bad one, though.
That is a pretty bad one.
Let's talk about South Korean government proposes increasing work week to 69 hours from 52.
I'm sure a lot of Americans are wanting America to potentially take this idea.
Here we go.
This is business life.
South Korean government plans to increase the maximum working hours to 69 and allow for banking overtime in exchange for time off, replacing the 52-hour workweek law introduced in 2018.
The new proposal aims to provide more flexibility in the labor market, promoting family growth and improving the fertility rate projected to hit a global low of 0.7 in 2024.
Employers and workers would agree on whether to count overtime by the week, month, quarter, half year, full year, up to 29 hours a week of overtime allowed for periods a month or longer.
Over 29 hours of overtime can be exchanged later for time off of unspecified rate.
While the government argues that allowing workers to spend accrued overtime on vacations will enable people who want to work less, such as parents or caregivers, to do more to do so.
Some experts are skeptical about the proposal's ability to reduce working hours.
Tom, what do you think about this article?
If they're trying to get people to work longer and solve the fertility rate, I think they're trying to burn that candle at both ends.
I don't think that works.
I think somewhere, someplace in government, the maximum work week is 69 hours.
So that would be, if you looked at an American 40-hour week, that's 29 hours of overtime.
So maybe that's working eight on Saturday, extra five hours every day.
That's a lot of overtime.
So I, you know, I don't know.
Proposed more flexibility in the labor market.
It sounds like it's less flexibility because you're working more and improve the fertility rate because you're never home.
I don't know how that works.
Yeah, I agree with Tom on this.
I'm doing the math on this.
By the way, 69, but this seems like a number Elon Musk would make his employers work.
Like, yeah, I want you clocking in at 4:20 and you work 69 hours a week, wink, wink.
It seems very Elon Muskish, but 69 hours divided by five days, if that's how often you choose to work, that's 14 hours a day.
Okay.
And we all know that you only get four hours of sleep these days.
So that's the number right there.
So you only have a certain amount of time to do your thing.
69 divided by six days is 11 and a half hours.
If you do the 52 hours a week divided by five, that's 10 hours a day.
I think this is an ongoing conversation that we continue to have.
You know, the work-life balance, the four-day work week, which you just did a great episode on that, on value attainment.
And then, you know, the bigger question: do you live to work or work to live?
And have you seen the trending topic on TikTok these days about this?
It's like moody Mondays or something like that.
I'll find the story, but it's basically like how young people don't necessarily have to work on Mondays.
Have you seen that?
No.
I'll find you this thing.
But pull up the fertility rate I sent you right now, countries.
Take a look at this, Tom.
Lowest in the world is Taiwan.
Then South Korea, Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong.
I mean, top five all in Asia, right?
Oh, bare minimum Monday is what it's called, by the way.
Bare minimum Monday, which is what?
That's the trending thing on TikTok right now.
Let me show you this one.
Yeah, go ahead.
Go to that.
Puerto Rico.
I mean, how is Puerto Rico so low?
The people in Puerto Rico are beautiful.
Like, that should be like 4.8, right?
British Virgin Land of Bosnia, Romania, Japan, Greece.
Greece, they don't even work.
You have all the time to make babies.
Poland, Portugal, Croatia.
Bosnia, one of the most beautiful cities on earth there.
What were the stats that we did the other day?
Are you talking about?
You said, where's the most beautiful women in the world?
And you said, wasn't it a city you went to?
Oh, Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Yeah, yeah.
There's no way Croatia's on that list, 1.44.
Well, listen, you know, when I wasn't married and I was single, my favorite place to go read books was Croatia.
Incredible libraries.
Okay, so Andorra, Slovakia, Hungary.
These are some low numbers.
You know, by the way, put the highest fertility rate.
Flip it.
Let's see what the highest fertility rates are.
These are for the lowest fertility rate.
Lowest.
Not having kids.
Not having kids.
All right.
Not having kids.
Is it in Mexico?
Highest fertility rate by country is what?
Wow, 6.9.
Well, that makes sense.
A lot of it's in Africa.
Zoom in.
Yeah, Somalia, 6.0.
All Africa.
Yeah, it's all Africa.
Well, when you have no economy, you have time on your hand.
Look at this.
South Korea, the lowest fertility rates.
There it is.
That's why they're implementing this.
So can you go back to see if the list goes even higher?
I don't understand the correlation with the amount of hours you work.
Do you know why?
I mean, dude, I don't know how many people work.
I work.
I got four kids.
You mean to tell me you don't have time to make babies?
Well, the more you work, the less time for leisure.
That doesn't make any sense.
You know why that doesn't make any sense?
Okay, Greece is known as the lowest working hours, one of the lowest working hours in the country.
They don't work that many hours.
They're not even making kids.
So the correlation to me doesn't make any sense.
Well, go back to that thing about South Korea.
They're the lowest in fertility, yet they want to increase the working, right?
They want to increase the amount of value.
I just pulled up this article, Psychology Today.
Why does South Korea have the lowest fertility rate in the world?
It says the vast majority of young couples in South Korea end up having one child because of high child care costs.
Young couples also have delay having children because of expensive housing to increase fertility rates.
South Korean government should implement long-term plans to reduce child care and housing costs.
Okay, so that's the reason why.
Make it more affordable to have a family.
There's no way it's because you don't have time.
There's no way you don't have time.
I mean, how many, go to the Fortune 500 company CEOs.
How do they have all these kids?
Well, they got money.
Housing and it's, it's, yeah, exactly.
So it's got nothing to do with the number of hours you work.
Why do soldiers have so many kids?
It has to do with money.
It has to do with other than, it's not just about you don't have time.
It doesn't take 22 hours to have sex.
You mean it, it's it's a if you do, I mean, it's respect if you're not.
You're the goat.
Good job, Will.
Can you imagine like the no, he definitely wasn't a 22-hour guy who hit his 20,000 numbers.
He was more like a two-minute guy.
Yeah, hit it and quit a lot.
20,000 is a tough number to get to.
Connel's drive-through, man.
Interesting.
I like where you went with this, Pat, by the way.
I'm focusing more on the work component.
You're more focused on the fertility.
It comes down to money.
FTM, follow the money.
That's what it comes down to, huh?
It comes down to money and culturally, what you're saying, okay?
Religion, culture.
Like, I don't know the philosophies of what they're teaching from the top.
Whatever the influence at the top is saying they're going to do, okay?
Whatever.
You know how we looked at the Muslim church, Muslim denomination, how many kids they're having versus Christians.
Yeah, they're Christians.
It's not even close.
It comes from the top.
Whatever they're saying at the top, they're doing.
Mormons.
What are Mormons known for?
What's the joke about Mormons?
They got 20 wives.
Yeah, and not the wives part, but that's the first place you go to.
Oh, yeah, I don't know.
Where were you going?
It's like a fantasy for you.
No, if somebody has six kids, what do they say?
You must be a Mormon.
Oh, you got you.
Right?
Because they, from the top, they're having a lot of kids.
This has got nothing to do, my opinion.
I don't think the primary factor is I think it's other things, not the number of hours they're working per week.
But it's a good way to spin it if people want to spin it.
Let's go to the next story.
Iran and Saudi Arabia signal the start of a new era with China front and center.
This title just doesn't sound good, period, for America.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations, marking a major shift in their decade-long rivalry that has defined the Middle East region.
The two countries had been in talks for nearly two years, and their diplomatic breakthrough was unexpected, yet not surprising.
China played a key role in the negotiations, highlighting its growing influence in the oil-rich region, which may have repercussions for U.S. influence in the region.
The announcement could herald the end of a long-standing era of conflict in the Middle East.
The detony goes far beyond the resumption of diplomatic relations, and Saudi Iranian officials will work to revive old security cooperations and technology and trade agreements.
Tom, thoughts on this one here?
This is a CNN story, by the way.
There is one thing that China needs more than anything else long term, and that is energy.
We all know that's the one thing that they don't have natural resources to support.
And so they need energy deals, and they've been out cutting energy deals.
That's point one.
Point two is China always plays the long, long game, not just the long game, the long, long game.
And they're looking at strategic, they've been looking at, you know, the whole Silk Road initiative and a path to the Middle East, you know, originally through Afghanistan.
And this is them making friendships in a region, getting their hands on long-term energy contracts and extending their influence on a world stage with people who, you know, in one way, you know, Iran is a bit of an orphan who needs some friends.
Saudi Arabia isn't really.
They're more of opportunists.
But this is China playing a long game and getting energy in their pocket.
Yeah, I got to tell you, I did not see this coming whatsoever.
I mean, if you know anything about the Arab world, it essentially breaks down to Sunni and Shia, right?
And Iran is the number one Shiite country in the world, I want to say.
And Saudi Arabia is the mecca, literally, of Sunni Muslims.
And I thought I was under the impression that they were mortal enemies.
That was my assumption.
And to see that China is at the center of diplomatic relations between Sunni and Shiite Muslims is wild to me.
And I'm wondering, where's the U.S. in this?
What role is Israel playing in this?
We've seen that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not so subtly referenced the fact that he's been working with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries.
And he's kind of said he's making peace with the 99% of the Muslim world before he gets to the 1%, which is the Palestinian situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
And I'm wondering what this type of relationship with Saudi Arabia and Iran even looks like.
What type of diplomatic relations will come from this?
What China's actual role will be?
And again, where's the United States in this situation?
Because, I mean, you grew up in Iran.
You know, the government is constantly saying death to United States, death to the United States.
But the people tell a different story there.
And Saudi Arabia is, quote unquote, wink-wink, our ally.
And, I mean, I think we provide them with a vast majority of their weaponry.
And I don't know.
Is this a good thing for the world that Saudi Arabia and Iran are resuming diplomatic relations?
A good thing?
A good thing?
Rob, go on Google.
If the average person wanted to search the following, Iran's number one enemy.
Like if you want to find out Iran's worst enemies in the Middle East, how would you search it?
What would you type?
Iran's enemies, yeah.
Okay, worst enemies.
Okay, go on that.
Let's see what comes up.
Okay.
Israel, Saudi Arabia.
If you go.
Right there.
Which country you see?
The enemies of Iran?
Yeah, if you go, you'll see Saudi Arabia is like at the top of the list.
In the middle of the picture.
Correct.
It's at the top of the list, right?
So here's the point.
These guys.
Until now.
Okay.
Until now, with the help of China.
So if during your reign, your enemies unify together, you officially became the worst enemy America's ever had.
So let me unpack that right there.
If a leader, if a leader, you know, when years ago we had just started an insurance company and competitors of ours, eventually word got out, which was awesome, because they would call me and tell me this, and they would say the following.
A guy wanted to leave one of our competitors.
And in that company, they would say, we will leave you alone and not sue you if you go to any company except for one company.
And you cannot go to PHP with Pat.
You can go anywhere, but you can't go there.
Okay.
So those people would call me and they would say, can I have a call with you?
Can I ask you why they're saying this?
They said to me, I can go anywhere, but I cannot join you.
Why is that?
I said, why do you think?
I don't need to tell you.
Why do you think?
Well, I don't know.
Now everybody is asking, why do they want us to go anywhere?
They won't do anything to us.
But if we go to you, we're going to sue you.
Okay.
So guess what?
What do you say to that?
Is that a good strategy?
Is that a bad strategy?
You got to give credit.
They're better off not me, you know, them unifying with me as an enemy.
Okay.
Because your opponent is getting what?
Stronger and stronger and stronger.
They were taking the right position.
Credit to them as a competitor.
But think about it if all of a sudden all your enemies that are leaving you under your reign, they all choose to unite.
They hated each other a year ago.
They hated each other five years ago.
Not their best friends?
How does that happen?
In life, there's cause and effect.
What caused it?
This is the effect.
What's the cause?
Is it the cause of the way a president handled Ukraine and Russia conflict?
Is it the cause of how Biden handled his foreign affairs?
Is that the cause?
When is the last time you've heard China, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia now being best friends?
Yeah, certainly not Saudi.
The rest of them, yes.
You add that to the list.
What kind of power now do they have?
The amount of power they have now is multi-dimensional.
They got oil scored away.
They got manufacturing scored away.
They got nuclear bombs scored away.
They got a lot of things scored away.
They definitely got land squared away.
And so now it's going to be what?
It's not going to be EU and U.S.
And then you have China, Russia, Iran, Saudi.
And then they're going into Africa, China is, because they're going out there and buying all those, you know, the land to help them with their, you know, batteries and lithium and all cobalt and all the stuff that they're doing.
The Silk Road initiative.
They're being so strategic themselves.
Okay.
You got to give them credit.
Strategically, China's out-strategizing U.S. today, and U.S. keeps sending more and more money to Zelensky.
And Zelensky has so much control now over the U.S. where he has the audacity to say, if the war gets worse, American parents will be losing their sons in war because they're going to have to send their sons.
I'm prefacing what he said.
He's saying that American kids are going to have to go to war?
Who the hell are you to make a comment like that?
But here's the part.
What did the U.S. president say?
Nothing.
If Zelensky makes a comment like that and the U.S. government doesn't say anything about it, have you seen this video or no when he says this?
U.S. will have to send troops to fight in Ukraine.
Who the hell are you to say U.S. will have to send troops to fight the war in Ukraine?
Like, I'm sorry, are you officially the president of the United States or are you the president of Ukraine?
You're not responsible for our kids and what they're going to be doing.
But the fear tactic works on what he's doing.
So this is all it.
That's the one I think right there.
Zoom in a little bit to see if this is the one.
Does he say it in English or is it translated?
Play it.
See if what the U.S. will have to send their sons and daughters exactly the same way as we are sending their sons and daughters to war.
And they will have to fight because they will be dying.
God forbid.
What a terrible thing.
Do you realize what this, like, you're speaking on behalf of our kids?
Who the hell are you to even have the audacity to talk like that?
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Do you understand like the rage to have a guy we're sending you money?
You're talking like you are like our president reports to you?
The other day, ESPN came out and apologized yesterday for comments made by Kendrick Perkins.
And the girl from First Take, what's her name, Molly?
Molly comes out and Molly says there were certain comments made here about the fact that 80% of NBA voters who vote for MVP are white.
Those stats are not true and not only not true, they're drastically wrong.
And we just wanted to correct that.
Her words, okay, to check who?
ESPN has to sit down as Kendrick.
You can't say stuff like that.
You were wrong, right?
You were wrong.
You know, if somebody like that says it under your administration, you and I are talking and this guy says something like this, guess what you have to say the next day?
You have to say, we understand the pressure President Zelensky is under, but with all due respect, President Zelensky, we decide when we send our sons and daughters to war, not you.
We.
That is our responsibility.
I understand you're losing a lot of loved ones and a lot of kids.
You don't get to make a comment like that.
That guy's going to get a phone call from me five minutes after he makes a comment like that.
I totally agree.
That's if you're the president.
I agree with you, and I'm very incensed by the comment.
But what I was asking myself when I heard it was, why does that guy think it's okay to say that?
Who is giving him the impression in any way at any time that it's okay to say that?
Is he just outside of his mind?
Does he just have big cojones?
Why would he think it's okay to say that?
Who's giving him that impression that it's okay to say that?
Because if you're the leader, he doesn't even say that, I don't think.
But also, by the way, if you saw at the end of the clip, he said, because NATO would have to step in.
And one would say, all right, there is an agreement with NATO.
We're NATO.
But they're not part of NATO even.
That's correct.
Ukraine is not part of NATO.
It's one of the seven excuses that started this thing.
Exactly.
So that's the whole justification for this invasion.
So if a NATO country says something like that, what is that called?
Like Amendment 2 or whatever the number it is within the NATO clause, would you attack one country?
We all must defend ourselves, whatever number it is.
Right.
If a NATO country says that, okay, that's part of the agreement.
But you're not part of NATO.
Correct.
So there's sort of an entitlement situation that I think is happening with it.
It's one of us, it's all of us.
Right.
What is that NATO provision right there, Rob?
I don't know if you want to go with that real quick.
But back to the China, Saudi, Iran situation.
You know how they say what the enemy of the enemy is my friend?
There just seems to be that situation going on here.
All of that happened under his reign.
All of that happened under Biden.
Article 5 of NATO.
All of that happened under Biden.
Unifying the enemies.
You get to take that with your legacy with you.
You strengthened our enemies and brought them together.
Congratulations.
Congratulations.
My buddy is concerned.
Saudi.
Under his watch, watch what's happened under his watch.
You unified the enemies.
We lost our weapons in Afghanistan.
Okay.
A bank or two went out, went under.
Okay.
This is all under your watch is what's going on.
This is all under your watch.
And if you go to prior administrations, no banks under Trump.
These issues weren't happening in China, Iran, any of that stuff.
And you were not having those issues with Afghanistan.
And that comes down to management.
It comes down to leadership.
I know nobody wants to hear this, but you have to be able to set it aside and realize these are not good things.
Those guys, those four getting together doesn't help America.
And if you're watching this right now yourself and you're saying, wow, can't believe you're saying this.
You're only like a spokesperson for, you know, such and such.
And this is what you are.
I can't believe you're saying this, Pat.
No, no.
Think about your kids.
Don't think about your arguments that you've had to defend because of your mom, dad, or professor or teacher or whoever.
Actually think about it.
What happens if you're a gang in the streets and four other of the biggest gangs who hated each other and killed each other, they joined forces?
What happened to your community?
Did you get safer?
Is it safer for your kids?
If you can still sit there and say, I'm going to be okay, no problem.
But if you sit there and say, this is not good, yeah, then next time around, think before sitting there and saying, I just don't want to get that guy out there because I don't like the way DeSantis or Trump or this guy, the way they talk.
They don't seem like they're gentle leaders.
Yeah, you definitely don't want your leaders to be gentle towards the enemy.
Yeah.
I look at it this way.
There are players in every major sport that would rather work for a soft coach and cash the check.
They don't have a burning desire to go win championships.
They'd like to win a championship, but they'd really rather have the easy check, the soft coach, and a good city.
And then you have people that want to work for an easy boss, a soft boss, and work from home and have it easy.
Well, let me tell you, when it comes to your country and it comes to world stage, you don't have that option.
That is not an option that's available.
And I will forever remember Trump's handshake with Putin.
Remember what I'm talking about, Pat, where he pulls him in tight.
It's like, what are you doing, dude?
And I will remember how he made the Chinese nervous on trade.
I remember how he sat there and told the German representatives in NATO, you got to pay your fair share.
Let me tell you, you may not like it, and it may not be the guy you want to work for or a coach you want to play for, but that's not the way this works when it's your country.
And that's not the world stage that we live on now.
And that's not the reality of life we have.
You have to have solid leadership.
And under Biden's watch, these things have happened and they're not good.
Here it is.
love this you see a little tug there pat You know what that means.
That's his move.
Pompeo Kushner.
It's, it's...
There are messages in there.
No, of course there's a message in there.
I'm just saying, for me, in every situation like this, you have to draw the line and not let people do certain things.
And that's unfortunately happening.
Let me go to what Goldman Sachs just said yesterday, Tom.
Goldman Sachs says no longer expects the Fed to hike rates in March.
City stress on banking system.
This is a CNBC story that just came out.
This comes out after regulations announces measures to prevent the spread of contagion following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the closure of signature banks, citing systemic risk.
In light of the stress in a banking system, we no longer expect the FOMC to deliver a rate hike as its next meeting on March 22nd, said Goldman economist John Hatsuce on a Sunday note.
Goldman has previously anticipated a 25 basis point hike.
Last month, the rate Federal Reserve opened Federal Open Market Committee increased the federal funds rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a target range of 4.5 to 4.75, its highest since 2007.
The bank still expects to see a 25 basis point hike in May, June, and July, with a terminal rate expecting to be at 5.25 to 5.5.
What do you think Tom?
Is he going to increase it or is he going to stay flat and not do anything for a minute?
First of all, you got to remember who's talking here.
Goldman Sachs is talking, who hasn't had the best of quarters, has been laying off people.
And there's even been some very carefully written articles talking about David Solomon.
But Goldman said this on Sunday.
Goldman is lobbying to go back lower because it helps the banking industry.
It helps him get cheaper money.
That's what they're begging for.
And by the way, Goldman is the same guys that worked with Silicon Valley Bank from two weeks ago and couldn't get the deals done and couldn't get all that put together.
So this is Goldman, I think, just kind of out there, conerfing for moisture, just trying to grab a little bit and lobby.
The other banks that are out there saying, hey, given a little uncertainty, we think 50 basis points off the table, probably just be 25.
I think that's what we're going to see.
But this was Goldman on Sunday lobbying and hoping, in my opinion.
And they're in a weak position.
They haven't had a good couple quarters, as you've seen.
I guess my question is: you know, you got Goldman saying some things.
You got Barkley saying some things.
You got the bond king, Jeffrey Gunlack, saying some things.
Everyone's going to give their opinion on this.
Is Jerome Powell going to be swayed by anybody?
Jerome Powell is on a mission right now to bring down inflation.
He's fighting that with the interest rates.
Obviously, unemployment is also a factor.
Jerome Powell, he's been battle-tested.
He's been through multiple administrations at this point.
Is he going to continue the course with these rate increases?
Is he going to stand pat, as the bond king Jeffrey Gunlack kind of pointed out?
That remains to be seen.
Is a bank failure or multiple bank failures like this enough to diverge his expedition of increasing rates?
He's done a pretty good job of saying sort of agnostic to what the presidents have to say and what banks have to say.
You saw that his interaction with, what was that, Senator Kennedy the other day?
Louisiana.
Yeah, Louisiana.
When he gave him a little breakdown right there of all the interest rate situations.
I'm not picking on you.
I just want an answer.
I'm cutting pick an answer.
So these.
Listen, Gunlike, the bond kick said the following.
He says, to save the central bank's credibility, they will probably raise rates 25 basis points.
I would think that that would be the last increase.
He, Gunlack, does not think that the Federal Reserve is going to slow down because of this.
There's a lot of different perspectives here.
There's Goldman saying one thing.
There's Gunlack saying one thing.
There's Bloomberg saying one thing.
Bloomberg says, Federal Reserve of Jerome Powell plans to raise interest rates at a faster pace to curb inflation has been disrupted by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature, which has caused financial instability.
Meaning, they're saying that he may not.
Now, is this an indirect way of Bloomberg and Goldman trying to talk to Powell to get him to say, don't do it by putting fear in there?
Who knows?
Yesterday, Megan Kelly hosted a debate.
I don't know if you saw this or not.
Vivek Ramaswani was on there with David Sachs.
It was a 90-minute.
Vivek's everywhere, right?
It was a very, very good debate.
And Vivek didn't back down about his argument.
And they actually went at it.
It was a very good position.
Both of them presented a very good argument.
Vivek said, you went out there and you put so much fear that they finally said, fine, here's what we're going to be doing.
We're going to do a backstop and bail out the customers.
And he's saying that is still the wrong move.
And David is saying, you're being irresponsible to think what you're thinking.
I'm thinking about more the people.
And then Vivek said, these are people that, you know, they have, they're not the small-time business owners.
They're the bigger ones.
It's not just the small and middle-income guys that are being hit.
The point is, we don't really know what Powell's going to be doing.
I don't know if Powell is the type of guy that is super predictable, where he's going to, I think he is a sensible guy that he can be convinced, but he also has a backbone, meaning, which is exactly place to be.
I put him a high score for being able to reason in this specific context.
I see him hearing out from everybody that calls him and saying, hey, they probably have a list.
You know, they probably have a list of banks that are next.
Can you pull up the list of banks that are next?
Just put like the next Silicon Valley banks.
Who's on the list of the next Silicon Valley Bank?
Whatever.
If you search it, it'll come up.
They have a list of banks that they're looking at.
And they know where they're at because many of these guys have to report their names.
And the more these lists become public lists, okay?
Meaning, if there's new names that pop up, think about what you're thinking if you have your money in that bank.
You do not want to be on any list right now by any credible source.
You understand what I'm saying?
So isn't the list to be on?
No.
So imagine the call being made to Jerome to say, hey, Jerome, here's what you need to know.
If you increase the rates, you will officially be the first Federal Reserve chair to have seven banks go under.
Do you want that part of your legacy?
Let me say this one more time, Jerome Powell.
If you raise rates quickly like you've been doing, there's another seven banks that are like Silicon Valley Bank that are going to get hit.
And they're in the top 38 and they're $100 billion banks.
Do you want that part of your legacy?
And Jerome has to really think about that.
He really has to think about that, especially when you look at FDIC and FDIC has got how much money?
$125 billion.
Can you look at how much FDIC has right now?
If you go look at how much FDIC is right now, I saw a number the other day, 35 billion as of yesterday or something like that.
How much does what do they have?
Okay, this as of 2022, but do they have the number as of 2023?
Okay.
So they have $128 billion, give or take, to cover 1.26% of a total 9.9 trillion.
It's not billion, trillion, right?
So I do think Jerome has to think about his next move and how quickly he increases rates.
I do think he has to think about that because he will could potentially, the fear that the opposing side could put on him is you will be known as the chair where the most banks went under under your leadership.
I don't know if he wants that.
And I don't even know if that even does anything to his decision-making process.
Well, we talked about yesterday.
We had a guest on yesterday who talked about that he thought with the new depositor protective in place that protects against the bank run because everybody can calm down there and say, you don't have to run the bank.
If something ever happened to your bank, you know, there's going to be a backstop from the federal government and this $25 billion fund that's been set up.
And I said I thought there was a 25% chance of it happening.
And specifically, I meant, you know, First Republic because they're, and I characterized them yesterday as I do now as they're kind of hopping on one leg.
And that's where it's going to go.
So and I'm not changed from yesterday, even though I read a ton of stuff early this morning, PBD.
If there's ongoing jitters, which really seem to be calming pretty quick in banking, I think he backs off the 50 because he doesn't want to jitter the system, but he's going to keep going after inflation.
And I don't think it has to do, it's really interesting, the central bank's credibility.
What do you mean credibility?
This is not a thing where you say, I did what I said I was going to do.
No, things happen.
The economy moves around.
We just saw over the weekend.
A lot of things happen, sometimes pretty damn quick.
And so I think he looks at it and says, is everything calmed down enough?
Are we going to spook the system?
No?
Okay.
Well, then I'm continuing with 0.25 because we've got to continue this march against inflation.
And I think he's got a backbone.
I thought he looked pretty impressive.
We were making fun of Kennedy, and I'm sorry that anybody was offended by me using that voice, but I thought Jerome Powell handled himself pretty well and pretty stable at that hearing.
By the way, I just, Paul, Rob just did a quick poll.
97% of the audience was offended by the way you made fun of Kennedy.
So I just want to make sure you are pleased to work on your condescending approach towards the candidate.
Red flesh.
Let me read a super chat here by Paul, which is kind of interesting.
So shout out to Paul.
Powell will continue to raise rates, stress testing the vulnerable ones, then bail them out.
I mean backstops, shore up the bank, making them even more powerful as Americans get crushed and lose.
Okay.
Paul McCain.
Powerful or powerful?
Well, there's a play on words right now.
I like that.
Powerful.
But, you know, he's saying powerful.
By the way, there's a part of what he's saying that he's got a very good point because think about it this way.
If the establishment and if these guys truly want to eliminate smaller banks and to make this thing even more nationalized, centralized banking, if that is truly the agenda, hey, Jerome Powell, if you really want to do that, don't raise it by a quarter.
Don't do half.
Go three quarters of a basis point.
If this guy goes half or 100 basis points, if he goes half or higher, then there's a community of people that will say, I think they kind of do want to get rid of the smaller banks and bring them together.
I don't know, Paul, if I'm there where you are right now, but if it does happen, there's an argument for that for sure because it is strengthening the top four or five banks that they would sit there and say big thank you.
I'm sure if Powell raised the rates anything half or higher, he may get a nice bottle of wine and some nice cigars from the top five banks in America saying, hey, you're amazing.
Well, I just got a text from Jamie Dimon.
We're up for three quarters of a point.
My boy's ready.
Hell for a half a point.
Oh, my God.
I just got a text from Senator Kennedy in Louisiana.
He's got his eye on you there, Biz Doc.
Oh, no.
Not happy with your impersonation.
We'll go out for, I'll buy my nice redfish dinner down there.
It's delicious.
Oh, that's appropriating Cajun culture.
No.
So if you're down there in Louisiana, you can get it fresh and it's delicious.
It's fantastic.
Let's talk about building a community.
Green beans and rice.
Let's talk about building a community, which is what Elon Musk is doing.
Elon Musk bought us out to make a tiny village for his workers.
Elon Musk has spent millions purchasing land in a small Texas neighborhood in Bassrop, outside of Austin City limits to build his own little village near Tesla SpaceX and boring companies.
Musk's vision is to create his own utopia where his employees can live and work.
Some of the locals have already sold their land to Musk, but while they were initially told it would be used for workers' housing, they learned later that Musk planned to build a town.
However, Musk called the Wall Street Journal report that he is building a town false on Friday.
The idea of living in an unregulated private town or city has risen in popularity in recent years.
And Praxis is one of the newer projects funded partially by Peter Thiel.
The goal is to build a city outside of the United States and free of government control.
There's interest for that.
I have a question for you.
Go ahead.
Anytime you use that sarcastic, slow voice, you have a strong opinion on something like that.
So tell me, Patrick, why did you read it in that tone?
What are you feeling like this?
You know, I just like that he's toying with people.
I love it.
I love the fact that he's toying with people and messing with people and just getting them to constantly talk about what he's up to.
But by the way, if he's doing this, what's wrong with it?
Say he is doing this and say you work for Tesla and say you ask for it.
You know, we have some guys here that, you know, we were about to make that offer on that 11-acre land that we were looking at.
You know what a lot of people ask for?
Can we build some boxable homes there?
Can we get five or ten boxable homes where we can rent?
The idea of wanting to build a community is not far-fetched or anything.
There's a lot of other people that wish, that wish they had the kind of a culture where the people would want to build a community.
That's called you're making great culture.
It's not by force.
It's by choice.
You don't have to live there.
It's purely a choice and a benefit and an add-on.
So whether he's doing this or whether he's not doing this, there's no difference between what he is doing or what Disney World did in Orlando when Walt Disney was using other people's names to buy up land because they didn't want to sell it to him directly.
And then all of a sudden they're like, holy shit, this guy bought up all the land and he built his own zip code or two or three called Disney World.
Elon's just building his own Disney World.
Shout out to him.
By the way, I'm all about the company culture.
And when you were going to maybe make that $13 million offer on that $40 million condo in downtown Miami at the Thousand Biscayne Museum in the Hadid building, I was willing to sacrifice my lifestyle to live in that ridiculous penthouse unit in Miami.
That's very noble and patriotic from your end.
So if that's what you want to build, if you want to build that community, that small village in downtown Miami and you need a team leader, just sign me up, Pat.
You're like a great war buddy willing to go above and beyond and sacrifice yourself.
I was just going to say it comes down to sacrifice, Pat.
And I'm willing to sacrifice what I'm doing right now to live in the penthouse.
I'm going to try to hold it in Miami.
I'm just going to try to hold it together right now.
I think it comes down to chapstick, and you are kissing some major butt at the moment.
No, by the way, he knows how much I love Heights and the balcony.
Like what I would do is every night we'd have dinner in the balcony.
That's what we would be doing every night.
So let's go to this Colin Kaepernick story here.
Colin Kaepernick accuses white adoptive parents of problematic upbringing, perpetuating racism.
This is not a joke, by the way.
This is actually what he said.
Okay.
So Colin Kaepernick, former L NFL star and activist, used his white adoptive parents of perpetuating racism in a new interview in his upcoming graphic novel, Change the Game.
Kaepernick spoke about growing up in a problematic household and how his parents tried to steer him in a direction they thought was best, which led to several fights between them and their adopted son.
One of those disagreements illustrated in the novel was a fight over his hairstyle.
Kaepernick wanted to wear cornrows, but his mother pushed back, alleging saying, oh, your hair is not professional.
Oh, you look like a little thug.
The lack of racial harmony in his home, own home, encouraged Kaepernick to find community elsewhere, and he chose to pursue a football career instead of a professional baseball career because there were significantly more blacks in the NFL and MLB.
Kaepernick still hopes to return to the NFL and has worked as an activist and advocate for social justice issues.
I have like so many different issues with this article here, but I'll go to you first, man.
Go ahead.
I just so if you're Colin Kaepernick, you're adopted by what is, were his parents white?
What were they?
Yeah, if you can pull up Colin Kaepernick's hair.
If someone adopts you, I assume they take you out of a foster care or of a situation that you probably don't want to be in.
So this family adopts Colin Kaepernick, and now he resents the fact that they adopted him because they're saying, hey, if you do certain things, people are going to judge you.
You know what's crazy?
I actually had a conversation yesterday randomly with our friend Jerry who works upstairs in the sales department.
Black guy, right?
And he's sitting there with April, another black woman.
Great, great duo.
If they're watching, shout out to them.
And he literally just put cornrows in his hair.
Did you see it?
I go, oh, hey, nice new hairdo.
He goes, yeah, man, I've been wanting to do this like for years.
But my family were, I believe their seventh day at Venice.
At Venice.
And he goes, this is very much frowned upon.
I said, oh, okay, tell me why.
He goes, yeah, you know, cornrows, tattoos, this is something you just can't do.
And he's a black guy.
I go, all right, explain to me.
He's like, it's just frowned upon.
He's explaining to me why.
I go, all right, cool.
Got it.
So this isn't a race thing.
This is a culture thing, right?
And so, for instance, it'd be the equivalent of a white guy just growing his long hair out and listening to heavy metal and his parents saying, hey, if you actually want to be taken seriously, you probably can't just, you know, look like Axel Rose out there, a slash, just with hair flowing if you want to actually be taken seriously like that.
So wouldn't you agree that your parents probably, your adoptive parents, want the best for you?
It would just seem that Colin Kaepernick has sort of lost common sense.
Tom.
I would feel different than I do right now if over the course of the last 10 years you've been hearing him say, I only played football because I thought there was more racial diversity in the sport.
I didn't hear that.
I didn't hear that.
And no, we heard a lot about Colin.
Kim and I saw him in the airport by himself, not very famous.
And he was very chill.
And I don't remember comments made like that.
And maybe he can say he's repressed and all that.
But to suddenly come out and I also didn't remember him saying, you know, I've lived in a repressed household.
I just feel like, you know, each step, he has to appropriate some other offense to continue to, you know, press his relevance.
And he is relevance.
He brought attention to some things.
Some in the right way, some in the wrong way.
And some positive, some not.
I'm just kind of shocked now that now it's time to, you know, go attack a bunch of other things.
And I haven't heard that his parents were these tough people.
They adopted him.
You know, adoption is an act of charity.
You know, they owe him respect as he grows up, just as he owes them respect.
It's called family.
Let me tell you, man, I have so many problems with this.
First of all, his biological mother, Heidi, I believe Russo, gave him up at five weeks.
Okay.
Until today, the biological father, they don't know who it is.
It's unknown.
Okay.
So if it's unknown, I mean, I don't want to get graphic, but you understand what that means.
The only way somebody's unknown, it's because, you know, you had a lot of different partners.
She was very friendly, let's just say that.
Yeah.
So, okay, so let's put the perspective.
Then there's the adopted parent, the parents that adopted you.
So there's four people in this situation here for you to recognize and not recognize.
Till 2021, he didn't want to meet his mother, his biological mother, for giving up for adoption.
You have your father, who you don't know who he is.
You have your biological mother who you don't want to meet.
Then you have the parents that adopted you.
And you think you made it into the NFL?
Let me get this straight.
You think you made it to the NFL all on your own?
Seriously?
Do you think you did that?
I'm sorry.
You know, the role that parents play to buy the uniforms, to take you to practice, to be part of leagues and drive you an hour or fly you out and bring coaches.
And do you know how many thousands of hours his parents or mother sacrificed?
And this is what you say, just to sell a story in a documentary to slap in the face to parents?
Do you know what this does to people that are considering to adopt?
This is the fear of parents that are afraid to adopt.
You mean you want parents to put 15, 20 years of their lives into adopting a kid and 20 years later they get something like this because now you have money and you don't need them anymore?
It's the ultimate insult.
It's disgusting if you ask me.
There's no parent that is perfect, but anybody that chooses to adopt you, give you a home, take care of you, and now you have this kind of a life because of what they did to sacrifice thousands of hours.
There's nobody in the world.
There's two people in the list of your life that you should never be able to criticize.
And it's the two parents that adopted you.
Those two people you need to lift up and turn them into heroes forever.
You cannot say anything about those two specifically in an embarrassing way like this.
Adoption is a choice.
Anyways.
And those parents did not care what color you were.
And they adopted you.
Respect to his parents for what they did.
And it is what it is.
I remember watching the Super Bowl with this guy in the game.
I couldn't believe the stuff he was doing.
I really enjoyed watching the Super Bowl 7.
Oh, the power game.
It's a great game.
Anyway, we're at the end of the podcast.
We're a minute over.
We got some stuff to do.
I do want to say a couple of things here, guys.
We're getting a lot of requests from different people, when entrepreneurs that we're having conversations with about anxiety, about mental and emotional challenges, some people that are going through right now with businesses.
So I am hosting a webinar specifically for that topic on March 28th at 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
We're going to talk about hardship currently going on, dealing with pressures and how to thrive during turbulent times.
This is if you're trying to figure out a way on how to be mentally and emotionally tougher in a strange time like this, this is the webinar for you, specifically for those who are in competitive environments.
You're running a business, you're an entrepreneur, you're a thriving person that's moving up, and you got a lot of different pressures.
You're a parent, your father, your mother, you're trying to do a lot at the same time and get the finances in order.
This webinar is for you.
The link will be in the description below.
Again, March 28th, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Go and register for it and put it in your calendar so we can spend an hour together on March 28th, 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Rob, do you have the link or have they sent the link to you?
Not yet, but I'll get it and put it in.
Let's get the link.
Let's put it in the chat.
Mario Kai, if you're listening to this, send it to Rob.
So Rob has it to put in the description.
Gang, have a great day.
We will do this again, I think, Thursday with a guest.
So we will see you Thursday with a guest this week.
