UAE exits OPEC to avoid Saudi influence, while Trump's meeting with King Charles sparks debate over executive power limits and NATO gridlock. Hosts analyze Iran's "game of chicken" blockade strategy, Elon Musk's bankruptcy warnings regarding AI versus fiscal sanity, and the U.S. debt trajectory. The episode concludes by critiquing potential authoritarian overreach in FCC actions against Jimmy Kimmel and the normalization of political lawfare, warning that escalating conflicts threaten democratic norms. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Sweet Victory and Handshakes00:08:49
Did you ever think you would make it?
I feel I'm so excited to taste sweet victory.
I know this life meant for me.
Adam, what's your point?
The future looks bright.
That table.
Handshake is better than anything I ever signed.
It's right here.
You are a one on one?
My son's right there.
I don't think I've ever said this before.
It's your time.
We don't want to be a grandpa this early.
Anyways, good morning.
We have some special people here with us.
We have Brandon Aseto.
We have Jeff Snyder, and then we have allegedly, he's called a grumpy economist.
And that was the title of a substack that was given to him by his kids.
So who knows him better?
But we have the great John Cochran here with us.
Thank you for making the time for being here.
Thanks.
Pleasure being here.
Also has four kids.
You know, it's special about having four kids.
Jeff, how many kids do you got?
Three.
Three?
Okay, good.
Three is good because we got to be above 2.1.
Yeah.
Well, we got to be, right?
As long as we're above 2.1, we're good.
But we got a lot of stuff to talk about.
I mean, yesterday, there were shots being taken about the French language that we were supposed to speak French or, you know, because of.
America, Trump made some comments about King Charles.
Then there were some moments where Trump brought the revolutionary.
I mean, you have to see some of the things that there was so much lobbying and gamification and, you know, posturing going on.
It was great for TV.
And then we saw a very, very special, monumental, emotional moment when we saw the House, Congress, Democrats getting up for King.
And it was such a great moment that no King's protest went out very quickly where they stood up for King that quickly.
They were so enamored by King.
Special moment.
Then on top of that, You have this place, John, I don't know if you follow it or not.
This place called UAE.
They're kind of a big deal, okay?
And they sell a lot of oil.
They would like to sell more.
Right now, they sell about 3.5 to 5 million barrels a day.
They don't want the limitations, they want to dictate their own prices.
They decided to leave OPEC.
And I think the day is going to be May 1st, if I'm not mistaken.
So there's a lot of talks.
They're not the first to leave.
It's happened before.
Qatar left in 2019.
I think Ecuador left in 2022.
Angola left in 2024.
Indonesia, I think, left, came back, left.
They're kind of left now on what they're going to be doing.
There's 13 members or something.
And some people are saying, well, wait a minute.
What does this have to do with NATO?
Is this like the season two leave?
Can somebody leave?
You know, is that possible?
Who knows?
We'll talk about that.
What is it going to do to oil prices?
I know you have a lot of strong opinions on that as a senior fellow yourself and at the Hoover Institute at Stanford.
And at the same time, you were a former top professor, finance professor at the University of Chicago booth.
And being in Stanford, the reason why that's important is because.
You're in an area where all these people want to tax these billionaires.
I don't know what they're trying to tax these billionaires, and they got one and a half million signatures yesterday, Snyder.
It's not a tax.
It's not a tax.
That's what they're calling it.
But they're saying it's tax.
They're saying.
Well, they can call it whatever they want.
What did Sergey Brin say?
It's socialism.
But why wouldn't you want to help these poor people out?
Don't you think these politicians can make better decisions than free market?
I should not.
Do you not trust politicians more than free market?
Well, they're lying right now, right?
The whole point of the tax is we can't afford health care unless we tax billionaires.
See, so.
John is supposed to be the grumpy economist, but today it's Snyder.
So Snyder took it over to the Fed.
All right, this is good.
We're already starting off on a good note.
They're working as intended.
They're going to lose money and they're going to get rid of the evil billionaires and purify the state.
How does that make any sense?
I want to hear from you because I want to know what people are saying there.
I want to know what not billionaires are saying, what millionaires and average people are saying where you're at.
And then aside from that Fed meeting today, I think Powell's got a meeting at 2 30.
You know, the whole FOMC, I think it's like 13 members, 11 members, whatever the numbers, they're meeting today to make a decision.
They've made it yesterday and today.
So today's their second meeting.
So I'm curious to know what you guys think is going to happen.
Comey got indicted, I think, for the second time.
This was for the Todd Blanche, the 86 47.
Took about a year, but they went after him.
Who knows what's going to happen?
Some people are saying this could actually turn into something.
You know, but we'll see.
We'll see what's going to happen there.
We will talk about the billionaire tax.
Sam Altman, right?
Elon Musk, the stuff Elon said yesterday.
I don't know if you guys read this.
He flat out said, this guy's a liar.
And so, yeah, we have Brandon.
You said early this morning with your buddy that you never see, but you guys live together, Humberto, that, what's it called?
That you think Chad GPT is going to be gone in five years.
Done.
So, done in five years.
That's a massive statement to say, but I'm curious how you're going to defend your position.
And so, Sam Altman's been having a rough week, although there was a lawsuit that didn't go through with his sister, which kind of maybe that's good news for him a little bit.
Then you have FCC, Brandon Carr, to call in Disney stations for early license review in wake of Kemmel Saga.
Good idea, bad idea?
Are you almost empowering the next administration to come in?
What are those guys going to be doing?
I don't know if this is a good idea.
Short term, long term, maybe it's a short term thing because of what Campbell said.
Even Melania jumped in there and said a few words.
I thought it was a dumb move by Jimmy, but it is what it is.
Today I was watching the 2011 White House Correspondence Dinner with, what was it, Seth Myers, and I was watching Obama's speech.
And it was fun.
It was fun watching the president sitting there and he kept taking shots, taking shots, taking shots.
You know, but, you know, who ends up winning there?
Trump ends up winning because the story was a very good moment.
It was funny.
But to go and talk about, you know, expected widow, it's a little bit crossing the line, but we'll process it with you guys.
Iran made their demands.
They made three asks.
They want the Strait of Hormuz to open back up.
They want the blockade to be permanent, the ceasefire to be done permanently.
I thought Iran controlled the Strait of Hormuz.
Well, that's what they're saying.
What is it?
We want them to open it and we control it at the same time?
Jeff, don't.
You're pissing off some people, man.
I mean, don't talk like that.
You're going to upset some of the people on what they're saying.
But Trump is saying we're not having it.
Like, yeah, why don't we do the lift the cease?
Lift the blockade, and then let's talk nuclear.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
Let's do this, Jeff.
Let's get together and sit down.
Send them some money, too.
Send them some money to the $30 billion that's sitting in that account.
Tariffs.
I do want to go through tariffs because I know Johnny got a lot of thoughts on that.
With U.S. tariff changes, could raise deficit by $1.1 trillion.
CBO chief says, I wonder what you think about that.
And then we got a couple other things if we get into it.
UAE officials warned they may be forced to use WAN or other currencies if they run low.
On dollars amid the Iran war.
And then we got a couple other stories.
Elon Musk said something very interesting.
He says, You don't need to save for retirement.
He says, Don't worry about saving for retirement.
You have no need for it.
We got robots and all these other guys that are going to create so much economy that you'll be getting paid for the rest of your life without needing to work.
So do you trust it?
Musk says, America 1000% will go bankrupt due to debt.
So I'm sure there's some thoughts.
Their pawn shops are seeing something the stock market isn't, and it has economists' concern.
Anytime the business of pawn shops is blowing up, you're in trouble.
Just so you know that.
So, anytime they're doing well, we got some problems and we got a few other stories.
Hopefully, we'll get into that.
Having said that, for those of you guys that are small business owners or your executives, you got big plans for 2026.
We host an event once a year.
It's a Super Bowl of our events.
And it went from a small event that we had to now, you know, expecting 12,000 people this year.
It's a phenomenal event to go to.
Here's why, Rob, go on and play the clip.
23 years old, I've gone to four to 10 business conferences every year.
It doesn't matter if it's a family conference, generational wealth conference, you know, investment conference, where to invest your money, or raising your family, or even a revival church conference.
I wanted to put a business conference together where we can talk money, business, family, faith, politics, and nobody walks on eggshells.
And that's exactly what we did with the Vault Conference.
The first one we hosted, 440 people showed up.
I had no idea how many people were going to show up.
Now, for the first time, we're coming to the MGM Grand Arena.
The Lions right behind me, Leo the Lion.
We're expecting 12,000 people August 31st till September 3rd to cover this manual, 296 pages.
If you've never attended the Vault Conference, do yourself a favor.
Bring your wife, bring your husband, bring your kids, bring your peers, bring your clients and business owners.
I cannot wait to see you here at Las Vegas MGM Grand Arena for the first time at the Vault Conference.
We'll see you here.
We have people that came for the first time and they've never missed it, and now they bring.
50.
We had one company that brought 150 employees of theirs last year to the Vault Conference.
If you're somebody that wants, and we're about to make the announcement with speakers as well here pretty soon, click on a QR code, go on the link below.
UAE Swaps and OPEC Chess00:14:20
Or, Rob, what's the website, by the way?
TheVaultConference.com.
At theVaultConference.com.
If you can go to my screen disappear, Jake, if you can go to theVaultConference.com, get yourself a ticket, your spouse, your business partners, your sales guys, and let's spend four days together in Las Vegas, August 31st through the 3rd of September.
With that being said, Let's get right into it.
The first story I want to get into is UAE and OPEC.
I think that's a top story.
Okay, so we hear the story yesterday.
Everybody's like, wait, is this real?
Yes.
UAE to leave OPEC amid the hormuz oil crisis, a blow to Saudi Arabia.
What do you mean?
Is this really happening?
Yes, in the middle of everything that's going on?
Yes.
So the UAE announced Tuesday that it would exit the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, along with a wider group of partners known as OPEC, effective May 1st.
In what could be a bloke to control over prices by the group long fed in practice by Saudi Arabia?
The move reflects the UAE long-term strategic and economic vision, evolving energy profile.
Read an official statement carried by UAE State News as turmoil in the Strait of Hormuz continue to affect supply dynamics.
Reports that the UAE would leave have circulated for years, and the country has had disagreements with Saudi over oil production quotas.
President Trump has long criticized OPEC for its role in determining global oil prices, calling it a monopoly during his first term in office, addressing the World Economic Forum in 2025.
Trump urged OPEC countries to lower prices.
Rob, do you have a clip on this or no?
Because I see a yellow color here.
It was just a news coverage for Warriors.
Okay, so we're good with that.
Jeff, where do you stand with the story?
Why is this such a big deal?
Well, it's a big deal because we've got to go back to 2022, first of all.
Where this really comes from is when OPEC announced in 2022 as oil prices came down off the top, OPEC decided they wanted $100 per barrel oil.
They wanted that forever into the future, and they thought, well, okay, we'll cut some supply back and get oil prices to firm up, and then the global economy will pick up and we'll be $100 per barrel oil forever.
Forward.
Well, they made a huge mistake there because the economy never really came back and oil prices were soft the entire time.
So the UAE and all the other OPEC members were losing money for years because they were trying to reduce production but maintain price so revenues would largely normalize out and balance out.
But instead, what ended up happening is with oil prices softened and pumping less oil, a lot of these Gulf states are in big trouble.
Saudi Arabia is a big one.
So the UAE is finally saying, look, we need to correct this mistake.
You guys bet on the wrong horse here.
And we don't want to be beholden to the Saudis for continuing to make these decisions, especially if they're going to go in the wrong direction.
So, UAE, which has always had a rivalry with Saudi Arabia to begin with, what they're saying is look, this is it.
This is the last straw.
We're done.
We don't want to be beholden to the OPEC cartel who has all sorts of non economic reasons for whatever decisions they make.
We'd like to just pump more oil.
We want more money flowing into the country.
They say they can get fiber.
You can't blame them.
No, that's what I'm saying.
Not at all.
So, I mean, what they're basically saying is we want to be more of a market based system.
We want to respond to market forces, not the political forces next door.
John, what do you stand with this?
Well, in the short term, Term, the problem is not restricting output.
The problem is getting the output out through the Straits of Hormuz.
So, this isn't going to make a huge difference in the short term.
It's a longer term question.
And I get this 1970s feeling like, you know, get out the bell bottom jeans and the long hair.
Because when does OPEC matter?
We got the U.S. is a huge, we're the biggest oil exporter in the world.
Russia, like them or not, they're a big oil exporter.
Venezuela is coming back online.
Anybody, the North Sea, everybody in the world who has some oil is drilling like crazy right now.
So, it's not clear to me that they have that much pricing.
38%, though.
35 to 38% comes from OPEC.
Yeah, yeah, of which a small fraction comes from the UAE.
So, you know, great.
I'm all for oil supply, but it's not going to stop the immediate problem.
And it's going to be, you know, a little bit less oligopoly in the long run.
It's not clear how much it's going to stop.
Who is upset by this the most?
Who does this impact the most?
Saudis.
In what way?
Tell me in what way?
It's politics.
Yeah.
This is not really about oil necessarily.
I mean, yes, UAE, like you said, this is a longer term thing.
So, yes, the short run disruption is the excuse to do it, but it's a longer term political project.
The UAE wants to run their economy the way they want to run their economy.
They want the Saudi influence and the OPEC influence on what they're doing.
Who does this benefit?
The United States.
Because of supplies coming to us.
And Japan and Europe, China, and the whole world.
But I think on the political context, this helps the Trump administration because what they're basically saying is look, there's more to this story.
There is much more to this story that we're not getting.
So, you think the Trump administration was involved in this?
Phone calls were made, negotiations?
It would be silly not to think that.
I'm kind of with you.
First of all, the UAE goes to Washington for the IMF meetings a couple weeks ago.
A couple days later, we hear UAE asked for a dollar swap line with the Treasury Department, really through the Federal Reserve.
Then, suddenly, a couple days after that, UAE says, hey, guess what?
We're out of OPEC.
So there has to be financial guarantees.
They had to have top level discussions with the Trump administration saying, look, this Iran conflict, we're on your side here because Iran is getting hit more than Israel.
Iran's our enemy.
We need some security guarantees.
We need some financial guarantees.
We need some economic guarantees.
And oh, by the way, we also probably need a dollar swap line, too.
And the Trump administration said, yeah, okay, we understand you're under pressure.
We're here to help you, but what are you going to give us?
Give us something, too.
The UAE said, I'll give you an easy one.
We'll get out of OPEC.
We want to leave anyway.
So it makes it, the UAE is moving away from the Gulf regime or the status quo in the Gulf and move toward the more.
They were number three, number four, right?
Number one is Saudi.
Number two is Iraq.
Number two, it used to be Iran, number three.
And then UAE, but I think UAE passed up Iran by like 100,000 barrels a day, whatever the number is.
And even on the OPEC list, I think Venezuela falls as number seven.
So it's funny how the U.S. has got the control with Venezuela that's on that list.
And then you can kind of, now that you get UAE out, there's a lot of leverage here for them.
Do you agree with Jeff's assessment on this?
Yeah, well, we're deep in the Middle East politics, which bring your rug negotiating skills.
I kind of want the UAE and Saudi Arabia to get along.
I'd like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel to get along.
And be unified about Iran.
So there's a lot of what are they going to do about Yemen and stuff going on there?
So, yeah, what a mess.
But competition in oil markets is always good.
Brandon.
Yeah, I think the bigger thing, the more concerning thing, is that they're dangling out the idea of accepting oil payments and something aside from the dollar.
They're talking about, oh, if we don't have enough dollars, we're going to have to take payments in Yuan.
And it was a couple of years ago, too, that even Saudi Arabia started floating around the idea of taking payments in Yuan.
And I mean, I don't know how serious or feasible that is, but if that starts happening, then everything falls apart.
I mean, I think overall the decoupling of OPEC is a good thing because it's not something that's good for the market.
It's just like a controlled agreement between the biggest oil producing countries to.
You know, have a collective agreed upon price of oil.
So I think, yeah, the detangling of that is a good thing.
But the notion of these countries taking payments and currencies other than the dollar, that's something that we have to fight against vehemently.
Did you see the oil tanker arriving in Japan?
Did you guys see that?
Did you see this or no?
No.
Oil tanker with 910,000 barrels of Texas light oil at a refinery near Tokyo through the Panama Canal, avoiding the Strait of Hormuz.
Watch this year.
They're announcing it.
Rob, go a little bit lower so I can hear the audio.
If you can raise it.
Can you translate, Jeff, please?
I just want to make sure we heard that.
910,000 barrels.
So these are the types of things where you're sitting there saying, wait a minute.
Like, so you ever wonder, you watch Trump, you're like, why is this guy just sitting?
We're going to attack.
Doesn't attack.
We're going to attack.
Wait, I'm telling you, we're going to attack.
He's not doing anything.
He's got the blockade.
He's kind of sitting around.
He's like, all right, take your time.
How long you can go with it?
Zoom out big picture.
Again, the framework here is Cold War 2.0.
And what's really happening is the world is realigning.
The world is realigning away from the, you know, we had an alignment during the Cold War.
It kind of went away in the 1990s and 2000s, and, you know, things got mixed up a little bit.
But the world is now realigning, and the Trump administration, at the very least, is recognizing the dangers as well as the potential opportunities.
And he's trying as hard as he possibly can to realign the world in a way that's more favorable to the United States.
So, John, you're right.
I mean, we'd love Saudi Arabia and the UAE to get along.
I don't know if that's ever possible.
But, This is part of it, you know.
It's another chess piece on the board that says we need to move, we need to break down some of the blocks that have been not necessarily, you know, against the United States in the past, but, you know, OPEC has been a thorn in the side for quite some time.
Not tremendous, not huge, not a huge threat, but it has been a thorn in the side.
So if you can break OPEC down into pieces and then realign some of those pieces that are more friendly to the U.S. national interest, that is a strategic goal that fits with the Cold War 2.0.
That tanker actually is a wonderful visual of.
The great power of supply and economics and substitution, all these things we keep saying.
You know, if prices go up to $100 a barrel, all of a sudden there's a lot of oil lying around that can get rearranged to different places.
It can't happen instantly.
So you go through some months of pain.
But basically, the Middle East is shutting itself out of the market in many ways.
You know, maybe Europe will discover, um, I'm putting the fucking is not the worst thing in the world.
And all of a sudden, they're sitting on this enormous amount of natural gas.
If they'd only let it out of the ground, that was actually a very good accident.
I was very impressed about it.
Can you pull up the clip of what the president said?
Here's the president.
Because, you know, they're talking about, well, you know, we may need to use one.
I mean, we may use, and both Besant and the president have some thoughts on this.
Go ahead, Rob.
We appreciate all your time.
If you have time, I want to ask you one more question.
Go ahead.
And, you know, we have allies now in the Middle East.
Maybe some are, we can maybe count on more than allies in other parts of the world.
They're much better allies than NATO, that I can tell you.
The UAE asking the U.S. for.
Some type of financial lifeline.
I don't know if it's a solvency problem, it's more of a liquidity problem.
And I know we did, Secretary Besant did something with Argentina that worked out.
Is there some type of swap possible, currency swap with the UAE to help if they need it?
And do you think there would be backlash because it's such a wealthy country?
Is that under consideration?
It is, but it's been a good country.
It's been a good ally of ours.
And, you know, these are unusual times.
They were, more than anybody else, I mean, it was shocking because we thought that they'd shoot missiles at Israel, but not every other country.
In the area.
And, you know, UAE got hit with 1,400 missiles.
Now, fortunately, they had the Patriots and they had a great defense and they were able to shoot down most of them.
But they did get hit hard.
They were hit the hardest of the group, actually.
And they're really led by incredible people.
And, yeah, I mean, I'm surprised because they are really rich.
You know, they invested a year ago.
I went there and I got them to invest $1 trillion in the United States.
So building a tremendous plant in a great state.
Called Oklahoma, aluminum plant, smelting plant, beautiful, incredible top of the, it'll be the best anywhere in the world.
You know, they're very good for this country.
So, yeah, if I could help them, I would.
I mean, we're helping them much more with what we're doing with the war.
Plaza right there.
So that's the president.
What do you think about what he's saying here?
Great state called Oklahoma.
Yeah, exactly.
Beach is beautiful over there.
Exactly.
The dollar swap issue, I think, is a big one.
It's not because UAE is not wealthy.
As John said, I mean, when you don't have oil coming in, you have no dollars coming in.
And the UAE has a lot of dollar commitments through financial channels and other things.
And if they don't have the oil revenue coming in, plus investors kind of get cold feet.
The UAE, especially through Dubai and the Dubai International Financial District, whatever it's called, they have been turning themselves into an international monetary hub, supposed to be the gateway to the global south, and funded in operating in U.S. dollar denomination, other currencies too, but primarily U.S. dollar denomination.
So a shortfall of dollars coming in is a big problem for the UAE, regardless of their wealth or oil status or even the amount of reserves that they hold.
Because the market is saying we're a little bit nervous about what's going on over there.
We're nervous about the fact that UAE is right in the middle of the conflict.
Without the oil revenue and dollar backing, they could get into a situation where if the marketplace gets cold feet and starts to pull back on dollar funding, it leaves them in a situation not unlike 2009, where the UAE was at the forefront of a second crisis that actually erupted afterwards.
So the dollar swap is about liquidity, as John pointed out.
It's not really about wealth, it's about the fact that the conflict is really squeezing them pretty hard.
We talked about this earlier, and John, I want to come to you with this.
That this isn't the first time somebody left OPEC, right?
Qatar left 19, Ecuador left 22, Angola left 24, and then Indonesia left and came back and they left.
They suspended.
They're not with them anymore.
They left because they weren't pumping enough oil.
Ecuador just didn't have enough oil.
They're not major players, right?
So it's not like the first time.
When you think about NATO, France left once in 66 or something and then they came back.
It was like a quick thing, it wasn't even a major thing.
NATO, no one's ever left NATO.
It's a whole different thing.
Do you think that now that Qatar and UAE are out in the last seven years, there are other players?
Players that may be leaving and following their lead.
What do you think, John?
Well, I think the whole thing has become less and less important.
As you saw, they said, We want oil $100 a barrel.
Oh, it goes $65 a barrel.
So much for your vaunted power to do the price well.
And the swap line, the crucial thing that it's doing is the UAE pegs its currency to dollars.
So if you're going to peg your currency to dollars, every now and then people say, Hey, I want my dollars, and you need that temporary liquidity to support the currency.
NATO's Shifting Alliances00:13:29
That's the major feature of what's going on.
I like people pegging to the dollar.
So it's a fairly minor issue, though.
So, do you think on the NATO side, now that we're looking at OPEC, on the NATO side, no one's ever left?
A lot of people are saying, hey, Trump's threatening to leave.
He's been threatening to leave for a long time.
And if you, one of the most important charts, I don't know if you guys have seen this chart or not.
Rob, if you want to pull this chart up, Humberto, Connor, if you can send this chart to Rob, it shows from the moment Obama was in president to today, how many NATO members started paying their minimum 2%.
I don't know if you've ever seen this.
It's from 2011 to 2025.
It shows.
That at first it was only two or three that were paying their minimum 2%.
Connor Humberto, if you can text it to him, Humberto's working on it, Rob.
You're going to get the text any minute now.
And it goes from two, three, three, three, four, three, five.
Nothing changing under Obama, under any of the previous presidents.
And then all of a sudden, Trump gets in, and then that three becomes a four, it becomes a five.
This is by far the most important chart to show because.
This leads to something.
Rob, have they sent it to you yet?
Not yet.
I just texted them again.
Connor has it.
This chart has to be shown because it's all part of what it leads to.
But then when you go into this chart, there's one thing Biden did in 23.
If Biden did it or somebody else, who knows?
In 23, they put something in law through Congress, I believe, that in order for the U.S. to choose to leave NATO, you need two thirds support from the Senate.
We've never had that before.
They just did this 23.
So imagine how much the Biden administration knew or NATO knew that, hey, if we're negotiating, we need help with Ukraine, give us money for Ukraine, support us.
And at the same time, can you kind of put that thing in there that if the U.S. chooses to leave, you need two thirds Senate?
So what happens if you got two thirds Senate?
You're not going to leave.
Who the hell is going to get two thirds Senate?
Yeah, no problem.
You're not going to be able to leave.
So these guys either knew, either NATO knew that Trump would leave because he offered those threats to everybody publicly, or number two, the U.S. kind of sat there and knew Trump's going to get elected.
Either way, to me, the way I read it is the fact.
That, hey, we knew this guy's going to come back.
If he does come back, we need to be protected.
How are we protected?
I don't know.
This is the chart.
Watch this.
So in 2014, only three countries from NATO were paying.
If you look at the bottom left blue, in 2014, only three were paying the minimum 2%.
15, 3, 16, 4.
Trump comes in.
Oh shit, he's not calling out.
Nobody pays their minimum.
Trump's first term begins in 17, goes to 5, 18, 7, 19, 9, then 11, then he's out.
Biden comes in, it drops.
They're like, ah, I don't need to really pay.
23 goes back to 11.
Trump gets back in there.
Look what happens.
23 and then 30 plus.
So now 32 out of whatever the number is, they're not paying their minimum 2%.
Spain, who is sitting there bitching and saying, Well, you can't come use our military.
I'm sorry, you can't do what?
Well, you can.
We pay 65, 67, 68% of all the.
We spend a trillion dollars on our military.
You guys don't.
Spain's all the way at the bottom of doing 1.1% of their GDP, by the way, 1.2% of their GDP.
Where's that money going?
But the point where I'm going with this is do you think that gridlock was intentional to not allow Trump to be able to leave?
Because now, how the hell is he going to leave?
He can't even, he can threaten all he wants.
He can't leave because he needs Senate support.
Explain so much because we've been asking what gives NATO the audacity to do these things and to say things are straight up against the Trump administration.
But yeah, I had no idea they slipped that in there.
Oh, you didn't know that?
Ron, can you pull up the bill?
There's a bill that they passed.
Humberto, can you send a bill here so we have it?
Yeah, was it part of the bigger bill?
They did it so quietly.
They did it so quietly that to do it now, apparently, you need two thirds to pass to leave.
To pass to leave.
That's everything.
It's like, where does the leverage come from?
Where does the leverage come from?
Where does the leverage come from?
You almost have to get creative and find another way to, I guess, not give them money or not give them support instead of straight up leaving.
Or you create parallel structures.
You say, okay, we're stuck in NATO, but we'll start to create another alliance over here and just hope NATO kind of goes away.
Right.
Which, again, I think that's the intent here.
The OPEC business in the UAE by itself is really not that significant.
Its significance is in, it's an example of this realignment that's taking place.
So if you're the Trump administration, you think NATO's worthless.
But you can't get out of it.
You got to try something else.
You got to try to, you know, like the peace conference or whatever that was, kind of recreating the United Nations, a group of peaceful people coming in and doing what the United Nations is supposed to do.
So you create parallel structures, which starts by demolishing some of the old alliances, some of the old structures and organizations.
It's called the Section 1250A National Defense Authorization Act, fiscal for 2024 law designed to prevent a president from unilaterally withdrawing from NATO.
And by the way, you know who signed on it?
Kanan Rubio.
Which is very interesting.
Wow.
It's very interesting.
Two thirds on the bottom to withdraw from NATO, one of the following must happen.
Two thirds of the Senate has to prove it or Congress passes a law authorizing withdrawal.
I couldn't think of two more different people out there, too Tim Kaine and Marco Rubio.
Yeah.
Well, I think you guys are losing your minds.
Tell us.
Bring us back home.
If you don't want to, you can just let something rot if you don't like it.
But NATO is really important.
It's kind of sad that.
We have pissed off NATO and they're pissed off at us.
Vladimir Putin had a lot to do with the Europeans starting to spend more money on defense and they're realizing they need defense.
Just spending money.
Europe is really good at spending money down rat holes.
What counts is military effectiveness, spending it in the right place.
And that actually was even worse in Europe's case than the mere spending of money.
So Putin's there.
Europe's woken up that it needs to provide its defense.
This is a good and great thing.
These are our allies, our friends, the best democracies we got around the world, big trading partners.
I don't know why you guys want to.
You're naive.
You're naive.
You're so sweet.
You're part of the.
I thought you were the grumpy economist.
So you mean to tell me you don't want your commander in chief to have the ability to leave NATO and NATO is afraid to make sure they stand up to our challenges?
Absolutely not.
I want the Senate and Congress.
This is a major treaty, a major U.S. commitment.
So you support.
Wait, wait, a major commitment of them to the U.S.?
Yeah.
I want to go back to the nice world where we had treaties that were ratified by the Senates and agreed to and lasted over multiple administrations.
We don't go back to Trump's in, Biden's out, Trump's in, Gavin Newsom's out.
That's a crazy way to run a country.
But that's the world we live in.
No, but wait a minute.
I just want to qualify this.
The world of rule by executive order that changes every four years?
I'm not saying it's good.
I'm just saying that's to be pragmatic and realistic.
By the way, NATO is not that important anymore anyway.
The focus needs to be on the Pacific.
Be careful.
You can upset.
I was a wham.
NATO is very important.
I told you.
It's a false concept in the first place.
Tell us what NATO is not on.
Because originally, OPEC is not important.
You're saying NATO is not important.
No, what we should be focusing on is Japan, Philippines, Australia, Indonesia.
It should be a NATO or the Pacific.
That's where all the focus should be because that's where the flashpoints are right now, today.
So you like NATO and you want another one out on the other side?
I'm with you.
No, the idea is what is NATO today?
Is NATO today what it's supposed to be?
It's supposed to be, I mean, understand in the Cold War framework of the pre 1980s or before the 1990s that NATO was essential, it was crucial.
I think NATO just antagonized Russia.
So I think NATO caused problems with Russia more than anything.
Was Russia ever going to really proactively do something against Europe if NATO wasn't working on it?
I'm sorry.
That is Putin propaganda.
We actually wanted to invite Russia to join NATO.
We wanted Russia to join the civilized world.
But that was back when George Bush looked into his eyes and saw Putin's soul or whatever that was.
It was actually when Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton looked into his eyes.
Well, you know what happened with.
But what happened?
What happened, though?
Finish the story.
We got to do it.
Which part of the story do you want to finish?
No, no.
The part about Putin and Clinton are having a call and he says, look, let's just finish this.
I'll join NATO.
And then Clinton's like, let me make a phone call.
And then what happened?
He called somebody.
Nobody knows who he called.
You know the story.
Well, Putin turned out to be not the world's greatest Democrat and free marketer and all the rest of it.
Look, if Putin goes on the offensive and invades Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, you're going to be damn thankful you've got a NATO to fight back because you need that combined force, good structure.
And NATO could have won in Ukraine in about a week if they felt like it.
So then there's no danger of invading Poland.
Well, there wasn't a danger of invading Ukraine either until it actually happened.
But I'm really curious because you realize there's a complete audience that's against the narrative that you have of NATO.
And I want to go a little bit deeper into this.
So Putin says, Listen, I don't want any problems with NATO.
I'll join NATO.
Calls Clinton, they're talking.
Clinton says, You will.
Yes, let me make a phone call.
Makes a couple phone calls.
Calls Putin back and says, Look, I can't do anything.
Not right now, maybe later.
So the guy is trying to talk to Clinton about trying to eliminate all war.
And NATO members don't want him to be a part of it.
Why wouldn't they want him to be part of NATO?
Well, you've got to join the club, a little bit of democracy before you join NATO.
Actually, NATO's a little unsure about Turkey.
You want people on your side in NATO if you're going to have a joint military there.
So it's too bad Russia developed the way it did into a dictatorship oligarchy.
But you can't put Russia in NATO now.
It makes no sense.
We're basically at war with each other.
No, but if you put Russia, well, not now.
I mean, listen, there's never realistic.
I mean, let's face it, Russia was on a path to that direction anyway.
To which path?
To where they are today.
I mean, that was Putin's plan from the very beginning.
Everybody knows that.
But there's also the complete different faction that if you accept Putin to join NATO, people are going to be like, did you guys forget history why we started NATO?
What's the purpose of NATO?
It was against the Soviet Union.
Now that he is part of us, what the hell are we doing spending this money and relying on America to protect NATO?
So, I'm with John on that one.
Putin wasn't going to join NATO to be a friend.
Putin was going to join NATO to undermine what I'm saying.
But before Putin.
This is Russia before.
When Russia went to Putin, then kind of the die was cast.
But in the early 1990s, there was a world where Russia became like what Poland is today.
Russian people want freedom, democracy, all the things.
They want us.
Like everybody wants us if they get the chance.
And there was a world where Russia would do that, become a regular country, heaven knows, join the European Union.
NATO would cease to be that important at that point because there's no Russia.
Maybe we'd be fighting against China or something of the sort.
But once the 97 currency revaluation happened, that was it.
Yeah, there was no good.
About 97, the die was cast and then it was forever.
Remember what James Baker said, though?
He said, if the Berlin Wall comes down, we're not going to expand NATO a foot past the Berlin Wall.
And I just sent you a chart, Rob.
We expanded well past the Berlin Wall and all the way up to Ukraine.
And that was the red line where Putin started going to Ukraine when we started trying to put missiles into Ukraine.
So I don't know.
Would Russia have gotten aggressive if we didn't expand NATO all the way up to its doorstep?
Yeah.
Possibly not.
NATO is a defensive alliance.
It acted like an offensive alliance over the last 20 years, though.
He supports that.
No, I support the expansion of democracy, freedom, and the European Union into Eastern Europe, which has been one of the most wonderful things in our lifetime.
Well, one person's democracy expansion is another person's aggression, encroachment on your doorstep.
I think there's a big difference in democracy between Poland and Russia.
What about what happened in Ukraine's governments?
Like when they had a democratically elected president, and then we went in and stirred up a riot and had them ousted.
Gorbachev was a perishing.
By the way, just so you know, you have to know his background.
So this is not a regular guy.
He's one of the only few people in the world.
That got a bachelor's in national security and a master's in national security.
That's his background.
So, this is the argument.
This is the argument where now it's being had.
And for me, to be honest with you, I don't like the fact that they have gridlocked the president to not be able to threaten NATO that we can't leave because we're funding it.
And we're protecting everybody in NATO.
Who are the only three countries in NATO that have nuclear weapons?
Look, forget us, put us out.
That's only two others France and UK.
So, who has the majority of it?
We do.
You know, they're kind of pushing around their weight.
And then when we need them, you don't want to be there for us?
I have a problem with that.
Well, it was kind of nice that we had control over the nuclear escalation, and Europe is now figuring out, well, maybe Europe wants control of the nuclear.
Here's the problem in getting them to pay the guy who picks up the bill chooses the restaurant.
Back when we picked up the bill, we chose the restaurant, we picked the wine.
If they're going to pick up the bill, they have rights to do what they want with the money, and you might not like it anymore.
Dining Etiquette and Politics00:09:46
That's not how it works.
That's not how it works.
You're paying for water.
I'm paying for the bone and ribeye wagyu beef.
You ain't paying for nothing.
You paid for that little sorbet.
Two to 3% of GDP.
Is couch change.
No great empire has spent less than 10% of GDP.
Pay the minimum.
Europe is paying 50% of GDP on social programs.
So we're arguing.
That's not a problem, though.
Yes, yes, but 2% to 3% relative to 50%.
In the US, 2% to 3%.
Listen, everybody's got to pull their little red wagon.
And if you don't, there's a negotiator that shows up and makes everybody uncomfortable.
By the way, go back to that chart again, Rob.
Go back to the chart.
Up until this Donald Trump guy showed up, nobody was paying their fair share.
That's also when this Putin guy showed up and showed up in Ukraine.
You think that's why they started doing it?
Absolutely.
You think that's why they started doing it?
Talk to them.
Why weren't they doing it under Biden?
Why did it flatline under Biden then?
It took them about a year to get really serious about defense.
And Europe is now woken up.
But it flatlined under Biden.
Yeah.
And he was still invading the area.
No, no, no.
But this is good.
This is good that there's differences here.
I like it.
Let me get to our next one.
So now there's a meeting that happens at the White House with King Charles showing up, okay?
And what made this very interesting with the timing of it is there were a lot of shots.
Fired at each other.
It was fun.
It was humor.
It was comedy.
They had a meeting together.
Trump told some jokes.
King Charles told some jokes.
The president did something to make sure that we won the war that had to be there.
But let's start off with, Rob, let's start off with King Charles getting a standing ovation in Congress, something President Trump has a hard time doing, but he got it.
And even President Trump commented on this afterwards.
Go for it.
Principles reiterated, often verbatim, in the American Bill of Rights of 1791.
And those roots go even further back in history.
The US Supreme Court Historical Society has calculated that Magna Carta is cited in at least 160 Supreme Court cases since 1789, not least as the foundation of the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances.
Chuck Schumer.
What?
Mark Kelly.
Gotta be kidding me.
You got Pelosi standing up?
AOC standing up?
And Rob, I send a clip to you.
If you want to play this clip, what the president said afterwards.
President Trump brings up on how.
No, I just texted it to you right now.
I think this is the clip.
Check to see if it's just played.
Let's see if it's the clip or not.
He said this afterwards.
Go ahead.
We welcome their majesties, King Charles III and Queen Camilla of the United Kingdom, to the White House.
Very special place, very, very special.
And I also want to, before we really begin, I want to congratulate Charles on having made a fantastic speech today at Congress.
He got the Democrats to stand.
I've never been able to do this.
I couldn't believe it.
I couldn't believe it.
Him more than they've ever liked any Republican or Democrat, actually.
So, today you have.
How big of a deal is this to have this meeting with King Charles?
Yeah, symbolism, right?
I mean, it's maintaining the old alliance with the UK that has definitely been strained, okay, and trying to fix everything.
And it's, you know, it's part and parcel of the discussion we're just having about NATO whose interest is all these alliances?
Are we going to be antagonizing our allies?
Are our allies going to be antagonizing us endlessly?
And does that make them not allies?
And is there anything worth preserving as far as this special friendship?
Or has it gone too far in the other direction?
Does it even matter?
I think it's one of those things where it's raising issues that need to be talked about.
It's symbolism.
John.
Well, as the UK is sort of falling apart, our relations aren't good with them.
Relations should be better with them.
That's nice.
The clip you showed was interesting.
I'm surprised that the king, who is usually very polite, said that line limits on executive power.
You know what we're talking about here.
The consistent line from the Democrats that Trump is an aspiring dictator, autocrat, and so forth.
That's why they were standing up.
Of course, who invented the phone and the pen exactly?
There's a lot of the imperial presidency to blame on both sides here.
And America's limits on executive power are pretty darn healthy, as Trump regularly loses in the Supreme Court as often as he wins in the Supreme Court.
So I think it's kind of a political kerfuffle and sad that the king decided to.
Step into that a little, but I don't think there's much you can say hello in Washington without stepping in a political kerfuffle.
So, good luck to him, Rob.
What clip do you have here?
Which one is this?
Is this one of the jokes that he told?
Yes, he told a lot of jokes.
It was like a stand up what he was doing.
Go ahead, and by the way, I think uh Bezos was in the room.
Who else was in the room?
Quite a few people were in the room as well.
Uh, of the billionaire class that folks in Stanford want to tax, but go ahead.
This said, our French friends can feel equally at home with a glance at a map.
Indeed, you recently commented, Mr. President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German.
Dare I say that if it wasn't for us, you'd be speaking French?
By the way, this clip went bonkers on X.
This clip right here, Brandon, your thoughts.
Yeah, if he's saying what I think he's saying, that's such a stupid joke.
I mean, I had to look it up because of how.
Like small and insignificant, the thing he's referencing is it's literally called the quasi war, where we like slightly had some engagement with France and UK where we were fighting.
But so he's comparing that to us literally saving them from not existing anymore during World War I, World War II.
Like, we nearly bankrupted our country helping them in World War II and World War I.
So, to compare those two things, it's crazy.
And it's not even on the same playing field.
I think he's referring to the French and Indian Wars, in which George Washington fought on the side of the British.
And in fact, there was a big issue about how much of the continent would be run by us versus Americans.
Compared to World War II, though, I mean, come on, man.
Oh, no, no.
It was not World War II size.
Come on, it's an after dinner speech.
Give the guy a break.
Yeah.
What I find most funny about this, of course, is that the Democrats, who were the no kings set and Trump autocrat and so forth, They love British royalty.
They all tune into PBS for Downton Abbey.
There's nothing they like more than the aristocracy.
Who's this?
The Brits?
No, the Democrats.
Oh, the Democrats.
Yeah.
They don't like more than.
Well, King Charles is one of them anyway.
I mean, he is.
He had to put in a climate crisis.
Of course.
You noticed.
Of course.
The Arctic, which is, I forget the exact quote, which is melting incredibly and has been for decades now.
They say no kings, but they would take him in a second.
Yeah.
This is the beautiful part.
How much of this is like?
Let me just expose her hypocrisy.
What's that one clip that went viral with the president showing that we won the war?
Is this the one?
Which one is that, Rob?
What's the one you have right there?
So the two I have is Trump talking about his mother loving King Charles.
Oh, this is funny.
Aren't they cousins or something?
Yeah, there's some kind of.
Is this the one how long they were married?
And he looks at his wife and says, This will never.
I also have that.
That's a separate clip, but they're back to back.
Okay, go ahead, Rob.
Let's have some fun.
My mother, I just see it so clearly.
She loved, and I told.
The king, this she loved the royal family and she loved the queen.
And anytime the queen was involved in a ceremony or anything, my mother would be glued to the television and she'd say, Look, Donald, look how beautiful that is.
She really did love the family.
But I also remember her saying very clearly, Charles, look, young Charles.
He's so cute.
My mother had a crush on Charles.
Can you believe it?
Amazing how I wonder what she's thinking right now.
I can't believe you told him that.
Yeah, is this the one about marriage?
Yep.
This one's funny.
Go ahead, Robin.
She came to America at 19, met my incredible father.
We loved him so much.
We all loved him.
We loved her.
We loved him.
Fred, and they were married for 63 years.
And excuse me if you don't mind.
That's a record we won't be able to match, darling.
I'm sorry.
Just not going to work out that way.
We'll do well, but we're not going to do that well.
63 years.
What do you think about it?
What do you think about his humor?
What do you think about the stuff that he's saying, you know, the jokes?
It's like he's having fun.
That's the point.
In the middle of a war, and he's having this fun right now.
That's the point.
Why did FDR connect to people?
Is he connecting with people?
He's connecting with people.
There's a political purpose behind this.
Iranian Negotiations Under Pressure00:14:37
Who was it that used to say that George Bush never said nuclear?
It was an act.
He was trying to make himself more relatable.
So, politicians, that's what they have to do.
Especially when you're trying to do big things, you've got to connect with people.
So, he's connecting with people.
And the thing is, like Bill Clinton, Trump is really good at it.
Yeah.
And because he's really good at it, that's where a lot of his power comes from.
Yeah, I don't know if he's as good as Biden though.
Biden was on a whole different level.
His ability was a different game.
Yeah, it was a very unique ability he had.
So, all right, let's get to the next story here.
Next story Trump skeptical of Iran's Strait of Hormuz proposal.
Now, we saw it, we've all seen it.
They asked for three different things.
Those three things are lift the sanctions, open a blockade, and then let's talk nuclear, right?
There's a clip on this as well.
President Trump and his national security team are skeptical of Iran's offer of a deal that would see the Strait of Hormuz open.
Discussions about nuclear work were tabled.
U.S. officials said Trump had discussions with aides Monday morning about the offer.
While he didn't reject it outright, officials said Trump sounded notes about Iran not dealing in good faith or being willing to meet his key demands.
Ending nuclear enrichment and vowing never to make a nuclear weapon.
They didn't agree with that.
What's this, Rob?
Here is this.
This is MS Now reporting on that.
Okay, go for it.
President Trump appears unlikely to accept Iran's latest proposal to end the war.
Tehran's offer includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz while requiring the U.S. to lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports and setting aside questions about the country's nuclear program for later negotiations.
The New York Times cites multiple people briefed on discussions in the White House.
Situation room yesterday, who say the president has told advisors he is not satisfied with that proposal.
The paper goes on to report it is not clear precisely why Trump is skeptical of the offer, but he has repeatedly insisted that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons.
That is a sentiment Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed.
While we're looking at that, Trump warns Iran better get smart soon as he waives military options over Strait of Hormuz.
He's been saying this nonstop, and Trump tells aides to prepare for extended blockade.
Of Iran in a Wall Street Journal article that came out causing oil prices to jump to 115 after reports of extended Iran blockade.
So, what do you think is happening here, Jeff?
Well, did she really say it's not clear why he rejected the.
Did she really say that with a.
Are you surprised that she would say such a thing?
I know, I know.
Look, this is a game of chicken.
It's been a game of chicken from the very beginning.
The Iranians are betting that Trump will fold because of the midterm elections.
If they can keep oil prices high enough, the economic pain will be sufficient that the U.S. administration will.
We'll try to save face and come to the negotiating table in a weakened position, and therefore they can get a deal that allows them to survive.
That's all this has been.
What Trump has done repeatedly is say, look, I am willing to take the short run pain.
I know this is going to be bad.
I know it's going to be, and the longer it goes, the worse it's going to get.
But the long run strategic goal here is worth the short run pain.
And so everybody keeps underestimating the strategy here.
And we've talked about this before.
You know, how the Trump administration has behaved very differently.
They started with Panama, they went to Venezuela, they've got Cuba on.
There is a strategic goal here.
And they have shown, first of all, that they're willing to go past lines that people had thought they were, you know, you don't take out Venezuela's leader.
You don't do that.
They have shown a resolve to be able to do things that nobody else does.
And they've also shown here that they're willing to take this as far as it needs to go.
We'll sacrifice the midterms if we have to, because this is worth it.
This is one of those things that you don't negotiate.
This is not something you can just set aside.
Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
That's it.
That's the starting point.
Well, we'll see if that works.
You're right.
We're trying to strangle Iran with the blockade.
They're trying to strangle us with the Straits of Hormuz and see who blinks.
The capacity of a dictatorship like that to withstand economic pain is something we might have been misestimating.
You know, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela were able to inflict enormous pain on their citizens and stay in power as long as they're ruthless about doing it.
I think we forget, we are not here negotiating a treaty with the United Kingdom.
We're negotiating with the IRGC, basically a criminal gang that's taken over the country.
Who knows actually who we're negotiating with?
Is the Supreme Ayatollah even alive or is it AI creation at this point?
Promises from Iran, vows to never create a nuclear weapon for the next 20 years.
These guys want to know if they're going to wake up tomorrow morning.
So that whole business just seems kind of silly that that's what we're negotiating about.
We need to reopen the straits.
And we're unwilling to do it with any.
We're unwilling to do what we could reopen them in a week if we wanted to, but it would take a military commitment we don't want to do.
Something you just said is really important that you're not negotiating with the United Kingdom.
One of the reasons why is that for the Iranians, at least the Iranian regime or what's left of it, this is a war of survival.
There is no tomorrow.
If they lose this, I mean, it's very likely they're going to be hauled up into the streets.
And so, you know, why don't they just say, sure, we'll give up the nukes?
Right.
Because they can't make nukes anyway.
Right.
If they try to move anything, these raids will pound a taxi cab going down central Tehran.
Well, I think that's a public relations thing for them to say we're still going after the nukes.
No, just like they keep saying that, you know, they got all these ships going through the blockade.
Abbas al-Ghajji, who was the main negotiator, went out there, met with Putin.
Putin made a very clear, we have each other's back.
Okay, so that was a very, he went, I think he went to Pakistan, Islamabad first, and went to Oman.
Then went to meet with Putin and they had a public meeting.
Russia said, Hey, we're supportive.
Our relationships are strong.
So that was a statement.
Is this it, Rob, that we have?
Go ahead.
How courageously and heroically the people of Iran are fighting for their independence, for their sovereignty.
This is obviously the optics.
You want to show to say we're on the same page as we're going through this.
Rubio says the Iranians are serious about making a deal to get themselves out of the mess they're in.
So Rubio is saying one thing.
Trump is saying something else.
Okay, you got Frederick Mart saying the U.S. was humiliated by Iran.
So everyone's saying their own thing.
This is it, Rob.
Go ahead and play this clip.
They let them travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result.
A whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership, especially by these so called Revolutionary Guards.
And in that respect, they let.
Yeah, so Brandon, where are you at with this?
That's why they call it the fog of war, because everybody has a complete.
If you listen to somebody from that side, somebody from our side, you think it's.
Completely different things going on.
But yeah, no, fact of the matter is that, yeah, dealing with a ruthless regime like that, we don't even know who's in charge anymore.
But you have to take it all the way at this point.
You have to be as ruthless as possible in return because they only respond to one thing, and that's strength.
And, you know, we're not going to have anything amicable happen.
It's not going to be a negotiated thing.
It's going to be like a brute force, savage outcome where we have to, you know, be kind of ruthless.
So, Brandon, would you go?
You were a little bit pacifist earlier.
If you want to open the straits by force, Yeah, the U.S. can do it.
There's never been an overwhelming match.
Well, it's going to take boots on the ground.
There's no way to do it without the possibility of boots on the ground to open the strait casualty.
Absolutely, yes.
Well, the strait's open, though.
I think the problem with the strait is that the ships won't, the insurers won't insure ships going through because you still have the threat of drones hitting ships.
Exactly.
The U.S. has to remove that threat, which the U.S. could do if we wanted to.
But that threat could come from anywhere, though, which I think is the problem.
It's like the chance of that happening is why they won't get insured.
So, how would the U.S. go about removing that threat?
It's not going to come from Saudi Arabia.
No, but I mean, you could send drones from anywhere from Iraq.
Exactly.
I don't think this ends while that regime is in power.
Right.
So that's why I'm saying we have to go all the way.
So, if you're saying that, and if you're saying to open up the Strait of Hormuz, don't you think if you open up the Strait of Hormuz, you give them leverage?
I think you can open up the Strait in the short run at tremendous cost.
You can come with some deal, and they agree to stop shooting for a while, at which point you've lost.
At which point, you've handed them perpetually the power to shut it down whenever they want.
And if the U.S. is Is willing to go along with that, you might as well send Xi Jinping the keys to Taiwan.
Yeah, we can't have that.
We can't give him the power to shut it down.
So, we are actually on the edge of a no way out.
The U.S., I think, and you think, cannot just give in, have a short run deal.
They stop shooting for a little while.
We get to the midterms.
No, because then we have lost strategically a tremendous amount.
They can't give in either because they want to get up the next morning and they are willing to murder their people in enormous quantities in order to stop anything that comes up because of the economy.
So, there's a scenario here where once all the oil tankers that are on the sea have reached port, The oil situation gets really bad for the rest of the world, not so bad for the U.S. because we make it.
And things are really tough all around.
There is no short run solution here.
I think you're right.
We're in a place where it's an either or.
Either we go all the way or we stop short and the U.S. loses and they don't achieve their objectives.
And I think, again, going back to the framework here, the Trump administration has said, we realize this.
We're going to tolerate the short run pain to achieve our long run goals.
What they're betting is that they can break the Iranians before.
But can you achieve that goal with the IRGC, which is the government of Iran, still in power?
I mean, this.
What I love about the Jordanese is they have pushed all of our enemies to the five yard line.
Venezuelans, the Cubans, the Iranians, nobody, we were stuck on our own 30 yard line and just sitting around in an eternal huddle for 20 years.
So they just, but there's no points till you get to the goal.
Right.
So, I mean, yeah, there's obviously a tremendous argument whether they can execute the plan, but I think that's the plan.
There's not going to be a short run, hey, let's get the Hormuz thing open and we'll negotiate later.
This is either or.
Either the Iranians break or we leave.
Yeah.
And the tough part is that there's the absence of a rebel group and there's an absence of a clear next leader in the country, which is normally something you can do.
You know who the leader is today?
Pull up the guy I sent you.
That's their guy today.
Forget about Khamenei.
This is the guy.
This is their commander in chief of IRGC right now, appointed March 1st.
Just so you know his background a little bit, he previously served as a deputy commander of IRGC and then he took over.
Argentina's highest court formally charged him in 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires.
Argentina issued a no, no, no.
This is who we're negotiating with.
Okay.
Bahidi is considered a regime hardliner.
He publicly warned Iranian women that security forces would punish those breaking the rules with respect to hijab compliance.
So imagine what kind of a player you have that you're negotiating with.
This is the commander in chief.
Now, go to the Wall Street Journal story that came out two, three hours ago, Rob, this morning, with how the economy is impacting the people.
25 million people or so in Iran work.
One million directly lost their job.
Another million indirectly lost their jobs.
Inflation is up 67%.
The price of meat right now, I think a pound of it right now, if you go a little bit lower, is 360.
Not a pound, I'm sorry.
If you go a little bit lower, 360 an ounce, if I'm not mistaken.
A pound.
Yeah, 360 a pound.
Beyond the reach of most in the country where the minimum wage is $130 a month.
Iran's national security, look at the number 1.8 million real to the dollar.
The people are getting destroyed.
The people of Iran, the day to day average, day to day people are getting destroyed.
And while you're reading this, a story comes out, which this may be the biggest story, and I want to come to you guys.
Trump says Iran has days left before it's forced to halt oil production.
Okay.
Now, others say it could go for another two months.
Two months puts us where?
July 1st, right?
May 1st.
Yeah.
Right.
July 1st is two months.
World Cup starts when?
June.
Can you find out when the World Cup starts?
I don't know when the World Cup starts, but it starts in the next.
And this story, as you read it, it says President Trump's mid April blockade of Strait of Hormuz is largely about forcing Iran's oil industry to confront a shut in date when its oil storage capabilities are exhausted and production literally stops.
That would be a dramatic economic.
Development for Iran as oil wells are difficult to restart, then there's a risk of permanent damage.
The White House's logic is that the Iranian economy will be under such strain that the political leadership will accept a deal that Trump can announce.
The problem is that few know that deadline will hit, and estimates vary considerably.
Bremer's own group has suggested that Iran might have about a month's time to hold that.
Others suggest that things will come to a head earlier in May.
Still, others have suggested June is a possibility.
Trump, as is his wont, offered the most dramatic take when the Fox was told that they only have about three days left.
I don't know if it's three days.
So you're playing this game, saying how much time they have.
They just went to Russia.
God knows what promises were made behind closed doors.
Gas prices in America, when you look at it right now, national average is 423.
It's up 33.6%.
National average is 543 for diesel, up 50%.
You already look at the stats with the economy, some of the stuff.
First time buyers right now, it's only 26% of purchases.
Historically, it's been around 40% historically.
Average age 36.
So, the economy isn't the best today.
To put this even a little bit more on them, it's putting too much pressure.
So, who's going to be able to manage that pressure more?
It's what it's going to come down to.
Jeff, your thoughts on this?
Yeah, again, it's a game of chicken.
The U.S. economy is not good, and historically, oil shocks lead to recessions.
That's just how it goes.
Trump knows that.
This is not a surprise to them.
They've been planning for it.
I don't think there's any set schedule.
I know they started out and said, hey, we'll get this done in six weeks, but that was just for public consumption.
I don't think it was a realistic target.
And we talked about that back then.
It was going to take longer than six weeks.
We all knew that was the case.
They know that's the case.
So what they're really trying to do is they're betting that the damage that they're inflicting on Iran.
Will be so substantial that they don't have to negotiate with the IRGC guy because somebody else will take care of him.
The pressure on the Iranian population, there'll be a popular uprising or some other faction will take control.
The strategic calculus here is the United States plus all these other groups against the IRGC.
And so, how much ability does the IRGC have to withstand all of these consistent pressures all over the place?
We don't know.
Nobody knows.
Maybe they have an idea.
Maybe they think they have an idea, but we have no.
Clue, but that's the strategy that's going into it.
Farming Subsidies and Free Markets00:12:36
We're not talking about that anymore.
We're talking about, oh, you know, want them to make a deal because of the pain.
And there, I think, you know, you look at how many people did Mao starve?
How many people did Stalin starve?
How many people did North Koreans starve?
They are immune to economic pain unless somebody else, maybe the regular army, sees an uprising.
There has to be an uprising.
They're not making a deal with the IRGC.
That's what I'm saying.
That was never the option.
The option here is, I've been saying from the beginning, is regime collapse.
I agree entirely, but that's not what we're hearing out of Washington right now.
And they're not going to say that, though.
I mean, Nobody in the Trump administration is going to say that we can't negotiate with these people because they're fanatics.
What they're going to say is, like they said before, they're going to bring the public along slowly.
First, they say we're going to have this wrapped up in six weeks.
Oh, then we're going to do a ceasefire and then we'll wrap it up.
They're going to string along the idea of a deal, but I don't think that's their realistic goal.
There's no midterm elections in Iran.
The thing that makes it tough, though, is that the IRGC has guns and the people of the country don't have guns.
So, regime collapse, you have to have one side having guns as well.
Historically, what makes a population rise up and get guns?
A rebel group.
Starvation.
Yeah, but wouldn't you say a rebel group typically exists with the help of an intelligence agency in situations where?
I think in Iran, the hope is that the regular army, they have guns.
The other way regimes collapse 30% of them are IRGC in the regular army.
Yeah.
The other way regimes collapse is the people with the guns realize this is completely rotten.
I can't do this anymore.
That's how the Soviet Union collapsed.
The soldiers refused to fire.
Right.
And which percentage of the army is religious zealots and which ones aren't?
That's a part of the question, too.
In terms of the U.S. economy having trouble, I think we're due for a good recession.
Let some inflation die down a little bit.
So I think that's fine aside from the midterms.
Except we're going to get stagflation.
Welcome to your 1979.
I was there.
It was not fun.
I know.
Look, the Trump, the midterm election, I think they realize they've lost the midterm.
So the midterm isn't even a calculation here.
This is the long term goals here.
Again, short term pain, long term.
I don't know about that.
I don't know about that.
When I speak, you're not dealing with a guy that throws in the towel that quickly.
You're not dealing with him.
You're dealing with Trump.
You're dealing with a guy that thinks he can turn anything around.
He is wired in a very different way than the average person tries to understand him.
In my opinion, now having said that, you know how quickly we were talking about everything was Epstein.
Story went away.
Everything is Iran.
Story goes away.
Everything is World Cup.
We move so quickly.
The average person moves on so quickly that it's like, you know, when somebody attacks you and you're maybe a newer influencer, oh my God, they wrote a hit piece on you.
They lose sleep every night.
But you know what the guy that's been around the block for a while says?
Bro, this story's going to be done in 48 hours.
People have lives to live.
They're going to move on.
But if it goes, My opinion, John, and please push back.
I want you guys to disagree with me if you don't.
If my opinion, if they're able to figure it out before the World Cup, we're scored away.
Because the World Cup is the biggest positive distraction they will have.
Something massive is going to happen in the World Cup.
And then we move on.
Then you have the 4th of July, 250 year anniversary.
Then you got the UFC fight at the White House.
You have so many positive distractions that the market's going to be like, and by the way, you know how this guy works.
He's going to tweet something and say, You know, we have come to an agreement.
We are very close for Cuba to be the 51st state or Cuba to be a, you know, and I was, oh my God, we have come to Greenland.
And the next topic is that.
So, as much as I want to say I'm with you 70% on midterms, I don't think he's wired like that.
And I don't think his team is wired like that.
And it's not just Trump because, of course, he's not doing the voting.
I think what you said about Iran is true of the U.S. You need somewhere to run to, not just somewhere to run from.
And the average voter says, I'm tired of Trump or the war or whatever.
And then he looks at his average Democrat and says, oh, wait a minute, do I really want that team in power?
Yeah.
We'll see what happens.
It's interesting you're saying that.
The one pushback I have for you is that the one issue that Americans have focused on for year after year after year, talking about five years now, is the kitchen table issue.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cost of living.
Oh, yeah.
You can distract them all they want, but then they go home and try to fill up the gas.
No, no, you're right.
No, you're right.
And I'm telling you, you're right when it comes down to that.
Right now, do you know how bad farmers are doing right now?
You know, farmers right now, I think bankruptcy for farmers last year in 2025 was up 46% bankruptcies.
Do you know the Strait of Hormuz?
How much they're relying on the fertilizer that's coming from the Strait of Hornbus, how big of a liability this is for them.
And when you go through all the different kinds, what they need it for, price going from $300 to $650 in months.
So they're dealing with regulation.
They're dealing with prices going up for fertilizer.
They're dealing with all this stuff.
So I think that economy, so oh my God, farmers are charging up.
Farmers are not making any money.
If you look at the average farmer's margins, they make 3% to 12% if they're lucky, and they make 0 to 5% on average.
And most of the time, they're losing money.
We got to make sure they're good.
We got to make sure the younger guys are buying houses, having kids.
You know, and you're saying first time buyers dropping from 40% to 26%, so they can't afford to buy a house.
I think that affordability issue was there before Iran, but this just kind of ratcheted things up.
We can't do it the European way by writing everybody checks because that'll just cause more inflation.
But we are doing that with farmers.
We gave them $44 billion this year.
Sometimes it's necessary.
With farmers, it may be, but I want to hear his thoughts on that.
Well, that's where, you know, it would be lovely if they could score a victory.
If Venezuela would actually have a change of regime, if Cuba would have a change of regime, if Iran would have a change of regime, that would be, hey, we actually notched one big victory.
Otherwise, you know, yes, you and I, we say, oh, in the long run, this is a good thing for the U.S. strategically, but at some point, you want to win a political goal.
That's massive, though.
That's massive.
If they do flip Iran, if.
That's a big if.
It's a 5%, 10%, by the way.
I'm putting it very low.
But if they're able to flip that, this may be a complete.
I think it's a higher percentage of success, and if it does happen, it'll certainly be worth it.
So, again, it's short term.
Pain.
I think they realize this is going to cause short term pain.
And this food issue is much bigger than people are giving you credit for.
Not only will you have people who are pissed off about the economy for the last couple of years, now you jack up the price of gasoline.
It's going to get to $5, maybe $5.50, $6 a gallon.
You're going to see food prices rise, not next month, but three, four, five months from now.
So there'll be a delayed effect right before the midterms.
And it's baked in the cake at this point.
There's no going back.
If they get the hormones problem solved tomorrow, it's too late.
There's still going to be some short term pain.
So by the time you get to November, you're going to have gasoline prices are Still relatively high, even if they start to come back down.
You have food prices that are going to be up.
There's going to be a lot of unrest around the rest of the world.
So I think Trump administration being pragmatic.
This is going to be the rest of the world, and that's going to spill over to us as well.
Yeah.
I mean, you said this is much worse for the rest of the world.
Yeah, it's much worse.
Much worse.
The food and energy issue.
They rely on us, so we have to lead the way.
Well, the fertilizer issue is underappreciated.
We could see, I mean, if it continues to go this way, you could see countries fall.
You could see regimes collapse.
That's the real downside scenario.
Oh, my God.
When you look at the data of how bad it's impacting farmers, it's probably.
You know, you don't just 10 years.
This year, we're going to give, we're committing to $44.3 billion to farmers because less than 9% of farmers are under the age of 35, which means young guys are now growing up saying, I want to be a farmer.
Everybody's above 35.
$44.3 billion we have to give them this year.
Farmers, 10 years ago, that was only $11, $12 billion.
In 10 years, it's 4X.
Well, I will challenge the have to.
So Franklin Roosevelt started giving money to farmers.
We've been doing it ever since.
The fraction of the U.S. who works on fire is way under 2% right now, most of which are illegal immigrants.
So, you know, this is a tiny slice of illegal immigrants.
They lost some of those immigrants.
Well, that's another problem for farms you can't get Americans to do it.
So there's stuff rotting on the vine right now because you can't get work.
You can't.
That's the one thing you can't.
God loves farmers.
For the U.S., it's a small fraction of our economy that, God forbid, could be allowed to be the free market.
If you're in the Philippines, if you're in Thailand, if you're in Malaysia, South America.
South America.
That's where it's really going to hit.
This is really hard on the overall economy as well as just farms.
Yeah.
So I always wonder about that.
Play that out.
What does that look like if we don't do farming subsidies?
Because I always wondered if that was necessary or if they did it so that farmers could sell at lower prices so they didn't have to kind of raise the prices with the market fluctuations.
What would that look like if we stopped with farming subsidies?
We would get cheaper food at more productive, more productive, and cheaper food.
But you end up subsidizing all the unproductive farms.
Right.
Because they can't make enough food to make it profitable to sell at the market price.
Are they worried they would go out of business, though, if they had to lower the price that much?
They will.
So, you eliminate some of the unproductive producers, and the overall system, you know, they get absorbed by the larger.
Yeah, the mom and pop car company went away in the 1920s.
Sorry, they were cute, but, you know, big companies are more efficient.
So, why doesn't Trump understand that, though?
Because Trump does the law of farming subsidies, and he seems like a free market guy.
So, Trump is not a free market guy, and everybody has understood this since about 1955, and farmers vote.
And the Senate is very, very biased towards rural areas.
Let's say, why do we have to buy a farm?
Are you saying there's a big farm out there?
Big pharma, there's big farm.
Trump just went back in and we do more corn ethanol now, which is, this is, anybody wants industrial policy, my answer is corn ethanol.
Complete waste, doesn't save the climate, but boy, oh boy, they vote in Iowa.
Interesting.
Yeah, no, I always wonder about that, if it was actually necessary or not.
And that's interesting.
I wonder how that would play out if we let the free market do its thing there.
I always wondered if it was different than the rest of the industries.
No, there's almost no anti free market argument you could make about food.
I mean, all the fancy arguments my fellow economists like to make.
Food, it's you plant stuff in the ground, you grow it, you sell it.
Sometimes prices are high, sometimes prices are low.
There's no failure of free market there.
Yeah.
Because you hear the things about them like destroying a certain amount of crops or whatnot to keep the prices elevated, right?
Yep, that's what the government does.
Yeah.
So we pay artificially high prices.
Then the government buys the artificially high priced stuff and gives it away for free via food stamps, another way of supporting the farmers.
It is, but it is a form of it getting nationalized.
Like, you know, we used to have 14,000 banks and we had a lot of small loans being given away.
And then all of a sudden the banks started picking them up.
We saw what happened during COVID.
We saw what happened during the recent crisis when JPMorgan Chase started buying up a bunch of smaller banks, the Signature Bank, whatever it was, one by one by one.
But the model was hey, we need more loans.
And even during quantitative easing, when I said, we're going to give $700, $800 billion and it's going to be loans going to the small business owner, never went to the small business owner, got stuck up there.
So the same thing happened with defense.
We used to have 55 defense companies that we would buy from and they would compete.
Now it's down to five.
Because they're all picking each other up.
So, nationalizing that, nationalizing banking, nationalizing farming makes me a little bit uncomfortable, you know, on that side.
But it is happening.
You know, these guys, like even on the insurance side, people are picking up the smaller guys and it's getting more and more power going to five, seven, 10, 12 players.
Well, large can be very competitive.
So, don't confuse.
Large can be efficient and very competitive.
So, four or five is fine if they're competitive.
The banks are very much protected by competition by the banks.
You know, they're on the same team.
They eventually end up being on the same team.
Team, and they don't really, it's the wink wink business model.
I'm not with that.
And by the way, there's a lot of other manipulation that happens as well.
We saw this in Florida since 2005, where a Blythe was, you know, all of a sudden came in to different farms, and 90% of our groves in Florida were destroyed, orange groves, since 2005.
And some are speculating that it's the disconfirmation.
Farmers have a lot of different risks that they deal with.
It's almost like forcing them to say, sell, sell, sell to the bigger guy, sell.
And they have so many deceptive, dark ways of forcing the smaller guy to sell to the bigger guy.
And, you know, long term, long term, if the small business owner, if the barrier to entry is tough for the small business owner to get in and it's all going to flow from the top, I don't look at capitalism, free market capitalism, as that being a good thing for us.
But we'll see.
We'll see what's going to happen.
Fiscal Sanity vs National Debt00:14:59
Let me get to the next story here.
You look like you want to say something.
Well, if we're going to go to a capitalism versus socialism debate, it's going to take a while.
Let's go on to the next story.
There's not going to be much debate here.
Capitalism, crony capitalism, or socialism?
I'll take freedom.
Capitalism is the freedom one.
But let's be clear about capitalism.
Capitalism is, at its core, competition.
Competition.
That's the key here.
Competition by the right to enter.
We don't need a big deal.
We don't get to decide what to do.
The Federal Trade Commission approving any deal.
That's not competition.
Milton Friedman said, let her rip.
Let them go compete.
I'm part of the Milton Friedman talk.
Competition solves so many problems.
But let me tell you, which is bullshit, and this is the bullshit I'll call.
If you want the free market and let the guys compete, great.
Get rid of the lobbyists, get rid of the crony stuff, get rid of the other stuff, or else, hey, if I can afford to spend billions of dollars on lobbying and you can't, and you're a small guy coming up, that is a problem we'll be facing if the small guy cannot compete.
The heavier guy gets to control the democracy.
Well, that kind of monopolistic behavior is supposed to be something that the government takes care of.
That's where you take the Teddy Roosevelt view and say, look, if you're going to act like a monopoly, we're going to be.
No, but the monopolies are granted by the government.
The reason the big guy can go and get the lobbyists.
Is because the lobbyists can get in with the regulator.
The regulator can pass rules.
You need limited government.
The lobbyists can hire the regulator after the regulator has given a definitive decision.
What phone do you use?
Because the government is so powerful and putting its nose in so many places.
What phone do you use?
That's what's going on with tariffs right now.
I'm going to go to the tariff story.
The sad part about tariffs is everybody's in there saying, oh, give me an exemption.
It's just catnip for crony capital.
John, what phone do you use?
I have an iPhone.
What do you use?
I use Samsung.
Samsung, Rob.
iPhone.
What do you use?
iPhone.
I'm an iPhone.
So this is what?
Four out of five.
Is it four out of five?
Four out of five is Apple.
Okay, if I were to ask the guys over there, Apple's a what percentage of U.S. users iPhones?
It's 57%, 55%.
It is a better product.
I disagree.
But by the way, there's also.
There are two darn good products which compete like crazy, even though there's only two.
What are monopoly laws in America?
50%.
Well, wait a minute.
They're at 55%.
So I don't even know if we're implementing the monopoly laws that we have in America.
We're not.
No, so you said monopolies are granted.
The monopoly law is not about size.
So it's just size of the market.
It's supposed to be about consumer welfare.
Can we prove that you're hurting consumers by raising prices?
That was the standard.
Or restricting other competition.
Anti competitive.
What used to be a big part of the mandate was are you engaging in anti competitive practices, which everything John just said could be categorized as anti competitive.
It's kind of subjective.
Monopolies are granted largely by the government looking the other way.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, when he said the word granted, I agree.
So you're allowing this monopoly to be a monopoly.
And that's because nobody can enter in a given market.
That's a government granted monopoly.
Banks, you have to have a charter in order to become a bank.
Okay.
Let's go to the story.
So you said tariffs.
U.S. tariff charges could raise deficits by $1.1 trillion, CBO officials say.
Rob, is this the clip?
Yes, sir.
22 minutes ago.
Well, he gets to it right in the beginning.
Go ahead, Rob.
Let people know where we started here with your report before the changes arrived.
A federal budget deficit projected to be $1.9 trillion in 2026, rising to $3.1 trillion by 2036.
Debt held by the public growing from 101% of GDP to 120% in that period of time.
So take away some, if not all, of the tariffs.
Those numbers get better.
Add the war in Iran.
It could be a wash.
Do you have any way of thinking about this now?
Yeah.
I mean, so we could do some of that arithmetic.
So the deficit over 10 years would be about.
You know, $1.1 trillion higher because of the net of the Supreme Court taking away some tariffs, the administration putting back some.
The challenge is that the administration has a lot of authority to impose new tariffs and to change them around.
So we haven't gotten to a point at which we're comfortable making that kind of long term potential.
Yeah, create more debt.
They're positive.
They're positive.
Do you agree with him?
About what?
About what he's saying there.
So, meaning that the administration still has the power to impose new tariffs, even though.
You know, the Supreme Court ruled against it.
The U.S. can still use it as a.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the emergency tariffs.
I forget the number of the section.
But the Congress has delegated so much tariff imposition authority to the administration.
So there's about five different laws, and they're patiently working their ways through those procedures to put tariffs back in again.
Yeah, I think that's not really the issue.
Really, the issue is about the deficit itself.
Let's not get distracted on the tariffs.
The tariffs are $1.1 trillion is a big number, but it's over 10 years to begin with.
And we have no idea what that number is.
And that's what the CBO guy was saying.
We can't even do a projection here because we have no.
Clue.
We don't know the legal stuff.
We don't know what the effects are going to be.
A much bigger problem is the deficit itself.
The fact that it's as ridiculous as it is and it's only going to get bigger, that's the problem.
And tariffs are very small as far as revenue.
So tariffs are an answer in search of a question.
One of those questions was, oh, we'll raise revenue because the federal government did raise almost all its revenue from tariffs back in the 19th century.
And the federal government was about 2% of GDP back then.
That's right.
Well, you can't raise that kind of revenue on tariffs anymore.
I always looked at it though as like a behavior shaping mechanism rather than a revenue source.
The tariffs, you know, like the whole point of us is to get companies to come back onshore rather than looking at it as a you know outlet for revenue or a way to save us from our deficit.
And you know, I'm so curious what would happen if we for a year or two made it um illegal for the government to go over the um the budget that it receives in revenue from the you know the tax.
You mean the debt ceiling doesn't work?
Well, I mean, what would be cut first?
Like, um, I mean, what would happen if we weren't allowed to go into deficit in a yearly budget, right?
Like, it's what about 1.5 to 2 trillion per year that they go over budget.
We could start by just actually using the budget process we have.
There's this lovely budget process in Congress where you're supposed to say, here's the overall total, and then everything has to add up to that.
They don't even obey that.
So, you know, whether that overall total obeys a balanced budget or not in that particular year, that's a fun argument to have.
But let's just start with guys, abide by the overall total that you're supposed to do in the first place.
Yeah.
So I think that's the root of everything.
That's the root of inflation.
That's the root of, you know, obviously.
The 40 trillion that we're in now.
So I think that's the root of all these problems that we're having.
I mean, here's where the waste and fraud is coming from.
Here's what Elon Musk said.
Elon Musk said America will 1,000% go bankrupt due to debt.
And here's what he claims can save the country.
Is this it, Rob?
Yes, sir.
Go forward.
I think that's right.
What was the point of the Doge cuts if the economy is going to grow so much?
Well, I think like waste and fraud are not good things to have, you know.
I was actually pretty worried about, I guess.
I mean, I think in the absence of AI and robotics, we're actually totally screwed because the national debt is piling up like crazy.
Now, our interest payments, the interest payments to the national debt exceed the military budget, which is a trillion dollars.
So, over a trillion dollars just in interest payments.
You know, that was like, I was like, okay, pretty concerned about that.
Maybe if I spend some time, we can slow down the bankruptcy of the United States and give us enough time for the AI and robots to.
You know, help solve the national debt, or not help solve it.
It's the only thing that could solve the national debt.
Like, we are 1000% going to go bankrupt as a country and fail as a country without AI and robots.
Nothing else will solve the national debt.
Um, and so, so, but we'd like to, well, we just need enough time to get build the AI and robots, uh, to and not go bankrupt before that.
We can possibly, I guess, I'm curious about.
We got 39 trillion dollar national debt.
He's saying that, Jeff.
Do you agree with him?
Yeah, look, historically, what we did after World War II, we got out of that debt mess by allowing a little bit of fiscal sanity from Truman and Eisenhower.
It wasn't aggressive, it wasn't austerity.
It was just, hey, let's not spend like we were during the 30s and 40s.
And you allowed the economy to grow.
So, what Musk is saying is like the economy that he sees building from AI and robots will be enough economic growth and economic potential that if we pair that with a little bit of fiscal sanity, we'll solve the debt problem the same way that we did in the 1950s and 1960s before it all went to hell again afterwards.
So, That's the only way to do this.
That's the only legitimate way to do this, is to grow our way out of the deficit problem.
But the first part of that is you have to have a little bit of fiscal sanity, and you have to have the political will to have fiscal sanity.
And in many ways, that's the hard part.
I'll put more of an emphasis on the fiscal sanity part.
Musk's right that growth is the thing that solves all wounds.
AI is one potential source of growth, not as fast as my Silicon Valley people trying to get your money on their IPO will tell you, but it is one, you know, growth comes from new inventions like AI.
But there's the statements that this is the only thing, AI is the only thing that will save us, I think, are wrong because of the size of the dumpster fires.
So the main problem is spending, and there's about a trillion dollars going down various rat holes.
Not so much fraud because it's perfectly legal fraud.
We're just talking about farm subsidies, speaking of rat hole.
But the big one is Social Security, healthcare.
Our government prints checks and sends it to voters more than it feels like taxing them.
Our tax system is completely dysfunctional.
So, it is designed to raise as little money as possible at the highest possible marginal rates.
It needs the opposite.
So, you know, a 1986 style tax reform, or heaven forbid, put in a consumption tax instead of the income tax.
All straightforward.
Money would roll in.
And let's fix the dumpster fires of our growth, not just hope for AI.
Let me introduce you to the California high speed train example.
You know, can you do that?
I mean, it doesn't exist, right?
Exactly.
You cannot build anything in the U.S. anymore, which, you know, Actually, progressive Democrats have figured out I can't hook up my windmills to the power grid.
It takes 15 years to get the permits.
Maybe something's wrong here.
But there are so many just things in the way, permits in the way of getting anything done in the U.S. that I think fixing those dumpster fires of growth, getting back to a little bit of free markets, spending sanity, reform the tax code, those are all perfectly possible of a faintly competent government.
And then, yes, AI largely of get out of the way.
The last thing we need is an AI policy to guide the growth of AI.
That'll kill it the way the Europeans did.
Yeah, the way it's set up right now, it almost feels like somebody who has terrible spending habits, like that's in debt with their credit cards and everything, if they were to win the lottery with the blessing of a massive economic boom, we would handle it terribly right now because we don't have the foundation or the infrastructure to manage the economy properly.
The spending habits of Congress today were applied to an economy where AI and robots bring us to the stratosphere in terms of economic growth.
We would still find a way to ruin it because of the habits that we have in.
Place.
Yes, they would just spend it.
Yeah.
So we need to get that score, which it sucks because I, you know, the way that Elon Musk responded to the Doge situation makes me think that, like, it's the biggest, most powerful money pot in the history of the world, this deficit, like something that happens every year, that something scared the hell out of money, tried to tap into that and stop it.
So he backed right away from that.
And now he's just kind of taking a different approach.
Right.
And it's a power center, right?
Yeah.
The bigger the government gets, the more money it has, the more political influence it has just by its very nature.
Right.
All that social security money, military health.
Remember the Learning Center up in Minnesota?
Where does that come from?
But let me ask you this.
While he's talking here, he's saying things.
He's also continuing to say that saving for retirement is irrelevant because AI is going to create a world of abundance.
It will not matter when he's talking about retirement.
Rob, is this the clip?
Yes, sir.
I wonder where you guys are at with this.
Go for it.
UBI.
In other words, one of the questions is if in fact this future we hit massive productivity and massive profitability because we're dividing by zero.
The cost of labor has gone to nothing.
The cost of intelligence has gone to nothing.
And we're still producing products and services faster and faster.
So there's more profitability.
Someone needs to be buying it.
And someone needs to be able to have the capital to buy it.
I mean, this is an important question to get thought through.
Yeah.
Well, one side recommendation I have is don't worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years.
It won't matter.
Okay.
Either we're not going to be here or.
You won't need to save for retirement.
If any of the things that we've said are true, saving for retirement will be irrelevant.
The services will be there to support you.
You'll have the home, you'll have the health care, you'll have the entertainment.
The way this unfolds is.
Fundamentally impossible to predict because of self improvement of the AI and the accelerating timeline.
Pause it right there.
That's cool.
Do you agree?
No.
No, no.
I mean, first of all, you know, is that a reckless comment to make?
Yes.
What we're really talking about here, okay, let's assume that he's correct and that we have these labor saving robots and software and everything else, but how do you distribute all of the goods that are made and all the services that are provided?
You can't just eliminate the economy.
You just say, hey, we're just, everybody's going to have something for free.
There's still a distribution mechanism, and I mean, there's still arguments to be made about whether or not that's actually achievable to begin with.
Is there enough resources to be available?
I mean, they're talking about having more robots walking around than humans.
How do we get to that point to begin with?
Is that something that's going to happen in 10 or 20 years?
I highly doubt it.
I think that there is a positive outcome here that the human robot partnership will make people more productive, but people stay at the center of the economy, they stay at the center of everything.
Yes.
That was one of the more economically incoherent things.
Yeah, well, John, can you pull the Michael literally?
One of the more economically incoherent things I've ever heard.
These guys are brilliant about starting companies and AI, but not about adding together.
And it's, there's the fancy word is cognitive dissonance for completely incompatible thoughts that live at the same time.
So at the same time, don't worry about saving for retirement because we'll all be so bountiful.
But the U.S. government is 100% going to go bankrupt.
AI Risks and Human Productivity00:09:15
You notice that.
We need that bankrupt government to give universal basic income to everybody because we're all going to lose our jobs to the dry.
I mean, it's just, Does not make any sense whatsoever.
What's going to happen?
We have seen this hundreds of times before from the invention of the printing press, the steam engine, the locomotive, the steamship, the tractor.
Tractor, it's 1900.
70% of Americans work on the farm.
The tractor's invented.
Oh no, we need universal basic income because they're all going to be out of a job.
Well, it turned out not to work.
You got it exactly right.
This will raise human productivity.
Human.
And this will open, this AI is special because it's going to open new possibilities.
It's not, we have the old production line and we have now a machine that gets rid of three of you, go out and live in the streets.
No, this opens new possibilities, new businesses that you can radically reduce the scale of a business to get started.
The things that humans do are going to become worth much, much more, and that's why humans will have the ability to buy this stuff.
AI does not eliminate workers, it eliminates hours, it eliminates tasks and burdensome tasks.
Right, so you spend less time doing the same amount of stuff.
I want the AI who can answer my email.
And fill out my expense reports and I will have three quarters of the money.
The fact that you guys are agreeing is scary because you guys are not talking about your blind spots.
But it will be slower.
It will not come in one or two.
Yeah, Brandon.
Yeah, but I mean, each time the sum happens, though, there's things that we never even thought of that we end up doing with the economy, you know, like jobs and tasks that we couldn't think of before because we didn't have the time to do it before.
Exactly.
But anytime, you know, you are relying on somebody else or relying on the government, especially, you're getting yourself into a trap.
Like, I mean, the sad thing is that there are going to be people who listen to them here who assume they're going to be taken care of by the system or by the government.
Horrible situation to be in.
I mean, even let's say they're saying there's retirees out there right now liquidating their stock portfolios and just going on vacation.
I think it's more his age.
Yeah.
I think it's guys in a 20s and 30s.
Yeah, because there are people.
You're going to be reckless.
100%.
There are people that will run with this.
I'll totally, you know, take it back to the sinker.
You know why though?
Because there's a big group of people that want to have a savior.
And when I mean savior, I'm talking different than faith.
I'm talking savior to say they're going to save us.
Yeah.
They're going to take care of us financially.
They're going to do this.
Listen, you know, the old saying, pray like it's up to God, you know, but work like it's up to you.
And to me, if you're sitting here saying, You can pray like it's up to Elon and all the trillionaires and billionaires that are going to take care of you, but you better work like it's up to you because it's going to come down.
The onus is going to be on you.
You got to pull your.
I think it's a little bit reckless to make a comment like this because you are followed by hundreds of millions of people.
Some could say you're followed by billions.
Maybe some people don't follow you, but billions know who you are.
For you to make a comment like that, it's a little bit scary.
I will say the other side as well on what you guys are talking about is yes, the tractor.
I went and we did an exercise together.
We looked at the numbers of what tractors did and how scary it was 40 million workers that we had, and all of a sudden, boom, it was like, oh my God.
And not even 40 million, it was 40% of workers, I think, were in manufacturing.
But the difference is, you know, the zero to million chart that we see?
You know, the zero to million, like, hey, it took Facebook this long to get to a million.
Hey, it took Google this long.
Hey, it took ChatGPT.
How long to get to a million?
If you think about inventions that disrupted our lives and it was overnight, OpenAI ChatGPT was overnight.
I was like, hey, can you.
Write a rap song by Trump, but you know, write a rap song in Tupac's voice, but as if Trump is saying it with the words that he would use.
Boom, that video went viral.
Instantly, within seconds, you got something.
So I think OpenAI made things.
And you know, the whole atrophy conversation.
You know how I tore my ACL, and everybody's telling me, every doctor I meet with, atrophy, atrophy, atrophy, atrophy.
Your quad strength's going to go away very quickly.
But quad strength is one thing.
I can rehab it, and I'm prehabbing it right now to get it addressed.
The atrophy of the brain of kids no longer need, like right now, I'm giving an assignment to one of my nephews.
One of my nephews, as if I have a hundred, I have one nephew.
I'm giving an assignment to my nephew.
And the way I'm doing it is, I know you can go to ChatGPT and ask for a summary of a book, but I know the three stories of the book because I've read the entire book.
And I'm going to say, What happened to such and such in the story?
Because I want him to read it.
I don't want him to have atrophy because he's relying on open AI.
So then the question becomes, which we don't know.
We all are, you know, senior fellow.
Hoover, professor, Chicago booth.
I mean, you know, the heavyweight he's taught, who have been your students over the years?
I bet you've had some students that have been very successful in their lives that are probably famous people.
Successful guy when it comes to money, and you know, hey, you got your stuff that you've done with schooling and what you're doing now.
But we don't know what life is going to be like when all of a sudden we're going to the mall, we see a thousand robots.
We don't know what work is going to be like.
They're part of the unknown.
This is why I'm part of the Andy Grove community, where he wrote a book called Only the Paranoid Survive.
I think if you're cocky, arrogant, confident about anything right now, you will be destroyed.
I think if you think you know it all right now because of whatever thinking in the past got you, don't get me wrong, have your values, principles, all those evergreen principles.
But if you get too cocky right now, there's a percentage of things that could happen next decade or two that we know nothing about it.
And you, as a family, the leader of the family that's watching this content, a lot of our people that follow the content, they're business owners, they're executives, they're people that are performers, or else you couldn't listen.
You couldn't tolerate listening to us for too long, right?
So, no, look at these guys.
I don't want to tell.
So, you're somebody, you're a performer, you're winning, and you're off.
It is on us to make sure we take the lead.
If we sit down and we're like, oh my God, Elon Musk just told us this is great, babe, let's go to Vegas and double up the money and gamble.
I think there's a little bit of risk that we're facing.
I wouldn't worry about.
Young people taking retirement advice from Elon Musk's tweets too seriously.
Where I'm in Palo Alto, most young people are still, if they're not saving for retirement, it's because they think the climate apocalypse is going to be.
America's not Palo Alto.
Well, young people.
You're living on an island.
No, young people who've had the unfortunate experience of fancy universities tend to believe that way.
But more seriously, what's going to matter is people who know how to use AI.
So I actually think the young are going to be fine because they're the ones who know how to use AI to cheat on tests.
They're going to know how to use AI in the workplace.
And think historically.
Everything that's come, people have always said, oh, it's going to be so.
The calculator will come.
They won't know any math.
The automobile will come.
It's going to destroy the morality of young America.
It always worked out fine.
If you worry about jobs, though, which I do, there are going to be people who lose their jobs.
There are going to be people who are left behind.
But what we absolutely don't want to do is regulate AI or give them checks so long as they don't earn new skills and get a new job.
That's the way Europe does it.
You know, if you worry about jobs, worry about our education system.
You worry about people who aren't able to read.
Aren't taught to read in schools, who are graduated from schools thanks to the teachers' union with a third grade reading level ability.
That's where lack of reading comes from, not because they're spending too much time scrolling AI enabled Twitter.
Yeah, so let's go to a story.
X, I'm sorry.
Guys in your community, Sam Altman, right?
There's a lot of stuff going on between him and Elon.
We're on a bunch of stories with Elon today, apparently.
So Elon Musk said Open AI was his idea before executives looted it, okay?
And this is getting very, very nasty.
This is a Reuters story I'll read on what he says.
Ilhamas took the stand on Tuesday.
Is this it, Rob?
Is him speaking or is he just giving an update on it?
An update on it.
I'll just read it here myself faster.
So, he took on the stand Tuesday on high stakes trial over the future of OpenAI, casting his lawsuit against ChatGPT Maker as a defensive charitable given.
The world's richest person is suing OpenAI.
Its co founder and chief executive, Sam Altman, and its president, Greg Brockman, saying they betrayed him and the public by abandoning OpenAI's mission.
To be a benevolent steward of AI for humanity and transforming the nonprofit into a profit seeking juggernaut.
If we make it okay to loot a charity, the entire foundation of charitable giving in America will be destroyed.
Musk testified on the first day of trial.
That's my concern.
Musk, who founded automaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, characterized OpenAI as a brainchild as well.
I came up with the idea, the name, recruited the key people, taught them everything I know, provided all of the initial funding.
It was specifically meant to be for a charity.
That does not benefit any individual person.
I could have started it as a for profit and specifically chose not to before Musk began testifying.
William Savitt, a lawyer for OpenAI and Altman, told jurors during his opening statement it was Musk who saw dollar signs as he helped finance OpenAI early growth and pushed it to become a for profit, one he might eventually lead as a CEO.
Savitt said Musk wanted the keys to the kingdom and sued only after he failed in 2023.
He started his own AI business, XAI, and now part of SpaceX.
What he cares about is Elon Musk being on top, Savage said.
We are here because Mr. Musk didn't get his way.
Jeff.
The Claude Charity Vision00:03:28
Who the hell knows?
It's a he shed, he said, she shed.
And unfortunately, you can see both sides have arguments because, I mean, Ilan does come across as some guy who always has to be on top, and maybe that's a true story.
Then his point of view, you could also see that as potentially being the issue there.
But I think the broader issue is more really about who gets to control where this is going.
I think it's really about not necessarily who benefits, but who's going to be on top as the wave continues to move.
And honestly, I have no idea which.
Which story to believe in, John?
There's nothing more fun than watching billionaires fight over money, is there?
And nothing that brings it.
But it's not money, it's prestige, it's control, it's all the stuff that they don't get with their money.
But once you got a billion, a friend of mine who's a billionaire hedge fund manager says, It's not about the money, John, it's the scorecard.
Right.
But there is a serious issue here the which AI question, the who controls it.
AI is going to be in our future, but which actual company is going to survive or which new companies are going to come in?
And every time people tell me, Oh, the internet's a monopoly, I say, Yeah, you know, you got it right.
Yahoo, AOL, Time Warner, Netscape, they got this thing just wrapped up, don't they?
There's going to be a shakeout.
These companies are all ridiculously overvalued.
We will get wonderful AI, but just which one of these or what?
Well, for these guys, it's a blood sport, right?
It's a competition, it's a game.
It's not necessarily about AI or business or making money.
Which one do you use?
What do you use?
Oh, I use both Chat and Claude right now.
You use Chat and Claude?
Which one more?
I've been using it mostly for writing lately, so Claude's been pretty good about that.
How about yourself?
I use Chat.
You still use chat?
Yeah.
Brandon?
I started using Claude recently, like the last couple months.
I phased out ChatGPT.
You phased out ChatGPT?
Yeah.
Why?
It's not as unbiased.
It isn't as structured as Claude.
Claude seems better researched.
And yeah, Gemini is better at searching things on the internet.
Like, ChatGPT just seems like it's out of sync with what's actually online.
Like, it has something pre stored rather than being able to search the internet.
So, Claude and Gemini seem to be able to search the internet better.
Croc also is reasonable on search.
It says some crazy stuff sometimes.
No, they do crazy stuff.
I mean, you know, as to your earlier point, yeah, they came in, we're all using them, but you can't see a bit of them in the productivity statistics yet.
Getting this thing to really make a difference in actual business applications in a reliable way.
Claude just goes off and hallucinates like crazy every now and then.
And you can't use that in a business until you really got the process.
In terms of trajectory, though, like I said to you before, I think that ChatGPT is going to be done in five years.
You know, they start off hot.
Usually it's the one that's there first that ends up being.
The best, but I don't know.
I think Claude's probably going to dethrone it.
Gemini will be around because it has the power of Google behind it to invest in it.
But ChatGPT has never really been profitable.
They've gotten a bad reputation.
And I think just based on the track record of Elon versus Sam Altman, a lot of the success probably was because of the vision of Elon at first.
Have you met a Sam Altman?
No, no.
We're not great.
We live in Palo Alto, but we're not great buddies.
I would challenge you, though, it's usually not the first, it's usually the fifth.
Google was not the first search engine.
You know, Edison started with direct current.
I guess I was thinking about the book position that says that something usually is first, but you're right.
Yeah, first.
First, Google or Advantage.
I mean, you know what was the first social media website?
MySpace.
No, it was.
Predicting the Next Wave00:03:21
Before that?
No?
No, it was Friendster.
I've never heard of that.
That's the point.
But they were the first.
It was Friendster.
And I see Jeff very active on MySpace.
Very.
You've got to kind of slow it down a little bit, Jeff.
I hear all your posts.
I would also add that, you know, the big thing that I think is exciting about AI is not the large language models that we're playing with.
It's the AI used in specific applications, business applications of AI.
It's kind of under the radar screen, but that's what's going to drive it.
Well, that's the promise of AI, isn't it?
It's not a homogenized AI, big AI like cloud computing.
It's the ability to customize it and make it an individual experience that you can use it for whatever it is you need it to do.
Yeah, in large language, it's all about prediction.
So it's an ability to predict what comes next given a vast amount of data.
That's useful in predicting what word comes next.
It's useful in predicting what picture comes next.
It's useful in finding out where the Russians are in Ukraine and all sorts of things.
Yeah, let me get to the next story here.
Next story is.
The main one that California's billionaire tax could create a hundred thousand California jobs and revenue, and apparently they got enough signatures to be on the November ballot.
Is this it, Rob?
That they're celebrating it?
Go for it.
The push for a new tax on California billionaires has reached a major milestone.
This morning, a coalition of health care workers announced that they've collected enough signatures to put the initiative on the November ballot.
The proposal, known as the billionaire's tax, is a one time 5% tax on Californians with a net worth of a billion dollars or more.
The measure is backed by the SEIU United Healthcare Workers West.
Renee Saldana is a spokesperson for the union.
She says the money would go to help keep hospitals open and protect access to healthcare.
Every parent, no kid.
People were excited to sign this.
People understood the stakes that our healthcare system is going to be stripped of $100 billion just in California, and they want to keep their hospital open.
They want to keep their ER open.
They want to make sure that they can still get healthcare when they need it.
But even if this makes it to the Keep it going, even if it makes it on the ballot.
It's a big talk with a lot of people.
Lots of people have left.
Sergey Brin just came out and made comments about this.
He says, Brutal way, Google Sergey Brin told Gavin Newsom he was ditching California.
California Gavin Newsom apparently felt sick literally after he found out that one of the most influential tech figures were quitting the state back in December at a treehouse party north of San Francisco.
The Google founder, Sergey Brin, confronted Democratic governor.
Brin, one of the wealthiest men, told Newsom he was leaving the state.
He mentioned a proposed tax on billionaires, which would hit $260 billion net worth hard.
Newsom was reportedly cold and hungry when Brin and his girlfriend spoke with him at the Christmas event.
He made some comments talking about, is there the clip there on what he says, Rob?
He said something about he left a socialist.
Where's the part where he says that there's a quote about him saying there's a reason why I left the socialist state?
Billionaire Taxes and Political Power00:05:25
Uh, next story from Forbes.
Uh, next story from Forbes.
I'm gonna go find because I'm adamantly brento moved to a bankrupt Republican.
I'm trying to see where that quote is, Rob.
If you want to find it, I'll read it to you.
Um, there's a quote there he says about the socialist, anyways.
Yeah, Google billionaire Sergey Brin compares California war tax to Soviet Union socialism on why he's leaving.
So, John, you're there, you're in Palo Alto.
What are you hearing?
Well, I'm hearing my uh colleague, Josh Rao at Hoover, who has done Some of the best analysis of this, which is, yep, the billionaires are on the way out.
Don't slam the door behind you.
And in fact, the state is going to lose money, not just on this tax.
When the billionaires leave, you don't get to tax the future income going forward.
So we're going to leave.
California is so weighted towards high income on their taxes, they're going to actually lose money on it.
He had a great debate with Emmanuel Size, an economist who was one of the big brains behind this thing.
Size was quite honest it wasn't about raising revenue, it's about getting rid of billionaires.
He thinks that if you can get rid of the billionaires' wealth, you'll reduce their political power.
That's an interesting thing.
Do you agree with that?
No.
Anywhere they go, they're going to have political power.
Well, I also disagree with the idea that what's wrong with America right now is the billionaires have political power.
By the way, dear lefties, most of the billionaires are lefties.
They go.
And they're pushing for climate change and inequity and all the other stuff.
Things too.
But in America, it's not, you know, look at Trump.
Trump was, with some money, able to disrupt a political system that otherwise would have.
Been in the hands of a blob.
If you get rid of the billionaire's political power, what they're saying is we want that power in the hands of the government, which is, it's at the 250th anniversary of that's a bad idea.
Who was that guy that the economist said that this is about?
Give him credit being honest.
This is a political move.
We've talked about this before, the demonization of successful people.
They want to bring back the guillotine.
Exactly.
This is about creating a villain.
Get rid of the rich.
You talk about, we need to create a god and we need to have a savior.
Well, the other part of that is we also need to have a villain.
And politics is about crafting a story.
The story usually has a savior, the protagonist, and then there has to be a villain on the other side of it.
And they've decided that the billionaires are villains.
I want to give them some credit for cleverness.
Most wealth tax proposals, like the French one, is we're going to take 1% or 2% of your wealth a year.
Which, when you think about it, if you're getting a 2% return, a 2% wealth tax gets rid of the entire return.
So it's a huge, even 2% is a huge tax.
The problem with that is then people don't save and invest anymore.
Right.
In economic theory, a one time wealth tax that nobody expects is in fact a great tax because you can't distort savings investment.
The problem is one time.
Everybody instantly chuckles when you say one time, we're never doing this again.
So that's clearly why that's not going to work.
Brandon.
Yeah, I mean, I'd love to see the billionaires of California get together and advocate for an audit of all the things that California has wasted money on, like all the black holes, whether it be the high speed railway, whether it be the $24 billion that disappeared that was supposed to go towards the homeless.
Whether it be, um, was the CalPERS, it's $5,000 per homeless person, and what do you get?
More homeless people, right?
I wonder why.
So, where did that go?
And, um, the went into the NGO industrial complex, is where it went, yeah.
Well, that's the lie at the heart of all this, right?
The choice that they're giving these people is either we tax the billionaires or you have no hospitals, right?
Which is absolutely ridiculous, absolutely false, yeah.
That is absolutely false, right?
Medicare is being cut, yeah, right, right.
So, why not we don't build the bullet train to nowhere and take that money because there's about 100 billion there, or at least there would have been.
Um, that would have paid for this, supposedly.
I mean, it's.
It's all about political narrative.
What could happen for you to leave California?
Anything?
You've got four kids, two grandkids, you've got a family.
Would anything happen for you to leave?
Yes.
Due to climate change, the weather in Texas becomes like the weather in Alabama.
Oh, and somehow some mountains spring up, and you're just outside of Austin where I can go skiing.
So you would?
I think it's funny that Newsom is finally, you know, he'd like to be president.
And that the billionaire tax is where.
Where you can see, we can already film the campaign commercials.
How about a viaduct for the unbuilt high speed train, which will be the ruins of progressive state that our grandchildren will go see?
Or maybe the houses that are still burned down in the Palisades that are still completely unrebuilt because they can't get permits.
Good luck, Gavin.
So, is it at a point where you're talking to your family and saying, you may leave?
Are you there yet?
Too much inertia.
Too much inertia.
I love my home, and I don't have a billion dollars.
If you guys pay me a little more for this, say, if you think they're going to stop at a billion dollars, they're coming for you too.
They're coming for you.
Maybe the free market capitalists, maybe the guillotine.
That's what we're getting.
Professor, senior fellow, tax them.
If you work out, even before the billionaire tax, you work out with the total marginal tax rate.
I earn an extra dollar, how much federal, state, local, property tax, sales tax, excise tax, all the rest of it that you pay in the high tax states, California and New York.
It is just astounding how, you know, the idea there's room to tax the rich is when.
Then I asked people, California.
Isn't that why they're taxing wealth?
They say you can't tax the income anymore.
We've got to tax the wealth.
We should raise the taxes on the rich.
And I asked, what do you think the rich are paying now?
First Lady Controversies Escalate00:12:19
And usually they have no clue.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, the top 1% pays 41% of taxes.
And that's the average.
Yeah.
So the marginal, if I earn an extra dollar, is even higher.
I figure it's above 60%.
Above 60% that the top 1% is paying.
Yeah.
Yeah, but the campaign of the top 1%, they need to pay their fair share.
You know, that's the campaign that's happening.
Let me get to the next story here.
Next story is so Jimmy Kimmel, a few days ago, makes a comment about President Trump's wife and says, You look like, just go to my Twitter account if you don't have it.
You look like an expectant.
Expected widow, right?
And that goes viral.
Everybody starts talking about it.
Wait a minute.
Why would he say such a thing, right?
That's the clip right there.
It's seven seconds.
So he makes this comment.
We need audio, guys, in the back.
Our first lady, Melania, is here.
Look at Melania.
So beautiful.
Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.
Okay.
So he makes this comment.
Then the first lady, Melania Trump, responds in a tweet.
And she comes out and she says, Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country.
His monologue about family isn't comedy.
His words are corrosive and deepen the political sickness within America.
People like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate.
A coward, Kimmel hides behind ABC because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him.
Enough is enough.
It's time for ABC to take a stand.
How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior at the expense of our community?
The president also responds to it.
Then, You get, by the way, Kimmel responded back.
If just so you know, I don't know if you have the Kimmel respond back.
There's Kimmel responding back.
Is this the one, Rob?
Yep.
Okay, go for it.
So this is the next day after the first lady's tweet.
Go ahead.
I greeted the day facing yet another Twitter vomit storm and a call to fire me from our first lady, Melania Trump, saying I should be fired because of a joke I made, again, five nights ago.
It was a pretend roast.
I said, Our first lady, Melania, is here.
Look at her, so beautiful.
Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow, which obviously was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they're together.
It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am.
It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination, and they know that.
I've been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular, but I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend.
And probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house.
And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject.
I do, and I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband about it because.
Okay, so that's that.
That causes FCC to call on Disney stations for early license review in wake of Kimmel Saga.
The FCC is expected to call the license Disney for license review as soon as Tuesday, which was yesterday, marking significant escalation tensions between the media giant and Trump administration.
Disney's own ABC affiliates will have to prove FCC Chairman Brandon Card that they have been operating in the public interest.
The license are not up for renewal for several years, but FCC plans unprecedented action to accelerate the renewal.
Heels of Kimball controversial expectant widow, citing people familiar with the matter.
First, reported that the FCC moved forward a review of Disney's broadcast licensing.
So, this is getting this is continuing to get a little bit nastier.
And yeah, the president also responded, Wow, Jimmy Kimball, who is no way funny, as attested to by his terrible television ratings, made a statement on a show.
It was really shocking.
He showed a fake video of First Lady Melania and our son Baron, like they were actually sitting in the studio listening to him, which they weren't and never would be.
He then stated, Our First Lady Melania here, look at Melania as beautiful as.
Ms. Trump, you look like a glowing expectation.
So he makes his comments of where he's at.
FCC comes out.
One, Jeff, how do you feel about the comments that were made by Kimmel?
Two, what do you think about FCC making a call to Disney to threaten Jimmy Kimmel's job?
Oh, Kimmel's just doing what Kimmel always does.
And it wasn't really a joke, let's be honest about it.
It was an attempt at a joke.
I mean, one of the problems with late television is they traded jokes for just applause.
I agree with what Jimmy Kimmel says.
I hate Trump, therefore, I'm just going to applause because he said it.
However, the response to it, I think, has been playing right into his hands.
Don't make the guy a martyr.
Don't make the narrative that Jimmy Kimmel was taken out by Trump, who's acting as an authoritarian.
Call out his behavior.
Say this wasn't really a funny joke and it was bad.
But then just let him go back to his late night show that nobody ever watches.
It's gotten to the point where late night television is simply like rage tweeting on Twitter, just trying to get engagement.
You're giving the thing that he really wants, which is attention.
So I don't think the government should be responding to it at all.
And I don't think they should really make a big deal out of it because the best thing that could happen here is just people just ignore the guy.
The First Amendment is there to protect idiots from the government.
Idiots with particularly ill timed bad jokes.
I think the joke was made before a shooter actually came in and tried to assassinate the president.
So, a particularly ill timed bad joke.
But that doesn't mean the FCC should go after him.
This isn't now before we get all Trump, Trump, Trump.
You know, the Biden administration had the Twitter files, the attempt to use government regulatory pressure to censor media and to censor Twitter.
We've been after it, and this is a one upmanship that needs to stop.
The government needs to get out of the business of using legal pressure.
There's plenty of social pressure, plenty of moral pressure.
Jimmy Kimmel obviously is not going to do great.
But we are normalizing violent talk, which this was not.
The New York Times, a new word has come from the progressives.
You've got to keep up on your progressive vocabulary social murder.
There was social justice, and now there's social murder, which the New York Times is normalizing.
As something okay to shoot health insurance companies because you don't like capitalism.
We've got to stop this.
I'm with you guys.
I think he's a nasty guy, Kimmel, but I'm much more concerned with the precedent of going after somebody who's an entertainer, who has a TV show, who's a network.
I think we should be putting more energy into righting the wrongs of the Biden administration, holding people accountable who were doing things like the Twitter files where they had a portal with Twitter where the government could submit requests to take things down.
I think those things need to be protected against.
Like to see legislation that protects against that rather than proactively going after somebody with the force of the government.
Because, I mean, what's Gavin Newsom going to do if he gets into office or AOC?
You know, if some people are talking about them on YouTube or on TV.
Hey, in Europe, you go to jail if you use the wrong pronoun.
Exactly.
That's coming in two and a half years.
So, yeah, I need to fight like hell to protect against that instead of using the government as a weapon for the short amount of time that he's in office.
Yeah, look, I'm with that on what the FCC is doing.
I will tell you, there's a group of people.
That are also, you saw the indictment on Comey yesterday came out with Todd Blanch.
Hey, they're going, this is the second time, 486-47.
I don't know if you saw that, Rob, if you want to pull it.
Up on what he said.
To me, there is a group of people that voted the president in to go after the criminals, to go get them.
Like, hey, Jim Comey, what did he do?
86 47.
That's not acceptable to say that.
He's different, I think.
I put him in a different category than Kimmel.
But the part where I'm going, and I understand what you're saying, I'm just telling you, there's a community that's sitting there saying, hey, we were getting, what do you call it, strikes on YouTube for just questioning putting on a mask.
That's all we did.
Doctors were being interviewed, went viral, 15 million views saying, hey, we just don't think we need to make it mandatory for everybody to get a vaccine.
67% of Americans ended up getting the vaccine.
I think the number right now is 72, 73%.
Military guys being kicked out, and you would put them on the podcast, you get a strike.
And so, what we have to move on that quickly.
So, there's a lot of people that are saying, and another story came out.
We probably will talk about this on Friday this story, which is not a big story.
There's so much stuff going on that this story just kind of goes under the radar.
Former Fauci advisor indicted on COVID related charges.
What?
And it's not even a main story?
No.
No, no, it's not that big of a story.
So, there is a group of people.
That are sitting there saying, hold them accountable because they freaking got you a mugshot.
They try to bankrupt you.
They try to destroy your life.
You have the moral authority to go after them.
And he's not aggressively going after anybody if you think about it.
He himself, who is he aggressively going after?
Not anybody.
I want to push back on that.
I know a lot of Trump voters, one in particular, who did not vote for Trump to go after his political enemies, but to stop the lawfare that Trump was unbelievably the victim of.
At some point, we got to stop tit for tat.
And I think he's right.
Put this sword back in the shield and get rid of it.
Comey is guilty of 100 things, but not the thing he's being charged of.
And I'm sorry, you got to charge him for something he's actually guilty of.
So I'm going to unpack that.
He's not guilty for the 86 47?
For putting.
You're really going to unleash the Department of Justice on a tweet to some shells on the beach?
No, the Russia collusion hooks.
Going after parents who are questioning local school boards.
That kind of stuff.
I think that's why people elected Trump and they were hoping that he would either.
Um, let me get to this.
Am I living in la la land?
Like, the director of FBI tells the world, Kill him, and you guys are saying that's not a like, are we getting to this point that we are so immune to death threats from the director of FBI?
It's not immune, it's not being normalizing that behavior.
It's like, Look, there's bigger stuff that he should be.
I get that.
I there's a lot of other stuff that he can get into, and for me, you know, when they did the Twitter files, you kind of brought up the Twitter files earlier.
You know what I wanted when he won the election.
I wanted FBI files.
I wanted FBI files.
I want to know what the hell they're telling each other.
I want to find out what they're using the power to go after the president.
So, to me, do you think like bring down the temperature, like your friend that you said was a Republican that voted for?
Okay.
Do you think, you know, I'm more from the thought of let's not retaliate that much, let him kind of go, but some people need to be held accountable.
Do you think like being the tolerant Christians, let's be tolerant?
Do you think us going that direction, John, if AOC and Newsom, you think they're going to follow our example of nobility and follow the same lead?
You think they're going to follow your example of nobility?
No, you think they're going to come for his throne.
And this is the way third world countries work that when you lose an election, you go to jail, you're lucky if you keep your life, you lose your business, your family loses your business, your supporters lose your business.
And what do you do?
You make darn sure not to lose an election.
The key to democracy is the ability to lose an election.
And just lick your wounds, go back and try again the next time.
And as we go to tit for tat escalating lawfare on both sides, then that's, you know, you worry about the ends of democracy.
That is a really dangerous one.
So you got to have both sides stopping it.
One thing here I don't know if you saw the comments from Dan Bongino, the former second number two at the FBI, and how he said that there's basically two FBIs.
They found very quickly that there was one FBI that was just, you know, we want to.
That's what we need to be focusing on.
Not whether or not Comey said 86 47, it's what did he do while at the FBI to create.
Permanent power structures that are going to linger on long past we have this.
How many presidents have we had that have had three assassination attempts?
Not many.
How many?
Not many.
I don't know how many.
Obama never had an assassination attempt.
God forbid if they did, we would be in a.
So this guy.
Why do we know anything about those?
Why do we know anything about.
Why don't we know anything about Butler?
What happened there?
I mean, where does that.
Well, I mean, think about it.
It took them one year to go after the 86 47.
The speed is never going to be at the speed that you and I wanted.
So I don't know what the story behind that is.
Two years ago.
Two FBIs and Dangerous Targets00:02:03
I agree.
I agree.
That was one of the main things I asked when I said, how come we don't know what it is?
Because.
Kirk, Butler.
Yeah.
We know more about the other guy at Palm Beach.
Ralph.
Ralph, what his name is, yes.
Ryan Ralph.
Yeah, Ryan Ralph.
So I agree.
I just think the temperatures have been raised.
I also know when they get back in, they will forever use that card.
Forever.
You know what I don't like the most?
I don't like presidents pardoning their entire families.
That's what Biden did.
Guess what Trump has to do?
What do you think are the likelihood that Trump partners his entire family?
80%?
70%?
Because what's the likelihood that the minute they get in, they're going to invest?
I don't like that, but we've got.
To a point that they're gonna target them.
And so, what a strange place to be in.
Anyways, really enjoyed the podcast.
John, thank you for coming down.
This was great getting your insight.
You're not always right, but it was some very good insight that you shared.
And I like to push back and your extreme hardcore support for NATO.
We're not merely grumpy enough.
We're merely grumpy enough.
Folks in NATO know how supportive you are of them.
Snyder, as usual, you're phenomenal.
And Brandon, it's good to hear the perspective of somebody in their 30s, something I haven't been for nine years or eight years.
I'm 47 today.
But, folks, go support John Cochran's podcast that he has.
Not his podcast, the Substack that he has, The Grumpy Economist Rob.
Can we put that link below?
Let's make sure we put that down there as well for them to go find, as well as Jeff Snyder.
He's a fan favorite.
Jeff has done great work, Eurodollar University.
Put the link below for people to go support as well.
And Brandon Aseto, if you want to learn more about Bed David Consulting, Brandon, why don't you give them your cell number?
Oh, man.
That was a joke.
That was a joke.
Yeah, Apple took me away.
It's okay.
It's okay.
So, You were about to do it.
It wouldn't matter.
Anyways, take care.
Tonight, I believe Governor Westmore is flying in.
I'm going to be doing a sit down with him.
What time is that one, Rob?
Five to seven.
Yeah, and then we'll release that probably here soon.