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Content:
Politics, Silicon Valley Grooming, Jillian Michaels, Anti-RFK Fake News, Joe Rogan, Dr. Mark Gordon, Ivermectin, Prostate Cancer, MSNBC Viewer Mental Health, Nicolle Wallace, CNN Harry Enten, President Trump's Approval Level, Bill Maher, Trump NC Tour, Trump LA Fire Tour, President Trump's Talent Stack, Joel Pollak, CA Incompetence, CA Corruption, Rick Grenell, Mayor Bass, Melania Trump, Mitch McConnell CCP Ties, DOJ Ed Martin, DOJ Purge, Denmark PM Frederiksen, Alex Soros, Embassy Gay Pride Flags, Marc Andreessen, AI Jobs Impact, Amazon Business Model, Scott Adams
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Good morning everybody and welcome to the highlight of human civilization, golden era.
If you'd like to take this experience up to levels that nobody's ever seen with their tiny, shiny human brains, all you need for that is...
A cup or a mug or a glass of tanker gels with dine, a canteen, jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee.
And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure of the dopamine of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called a simultaneous sip, and it happens now.
Thank you, Paul.
Oh, my God.
That felt so good.
You know, one of the things I don't think I've ever mentioned, but I do this low-rent kind of podcast where I put, obviously, I'm not putting all of my efforts into production values and hiring a team of writers and having a makeup artist and things that other people do.
Not everybody, but some do.
And one of the things that happens is that in a small way, I end up recreating what Trump does, and in a very specific way, not the entire Trump thing, but just one narrow specific thing, which is it becomes sort of an audience participation.
And one of the things, if you ever see me say thank you, Paul, at the beginning of the show, is because I always had trouble knowing if the sound was working, because no matter how well the sound works, there's always somebody it's not working for.
Because their own phone is in some mode or something.
So I can never tell for sure if the trolls were real or not.
But one of the subscribers on Locals, I won't say his full name just in case he doesn't want me to, but created a graphic that shows that I can very quickly see that the audio and the video are working.
And I think he's looking at multiple...
Multiple platforms at the same time.
Now, I didn't ask him to do that.
It's just it really needed to be done.
So he had the capability.
So he just did it.
And it's the sort of thing that you see in the Trump administration where somebody has a good idea and they can find somebody who can find somebody who can find somebody who knows the president.
And next thing you know, the president hears the idea.
And if it's a good one...
He says, that's a good idea.
And the world changes.
It's the damnedest thing.
It's only a Trump thing.
But I've sort of accidentally recreated it by having low production standards.
But there are a number of other examples I won't get into in which people are just doing add-ons.
They're saying, you know, this show would be a little bit better if you had this going for you.
And then somebody will just do it.
It's really quite amazing.
So after the show today, Owen Gregorian is going to host a Spaces afterparty.
So Spaces is the audio only thing on X. So you have to be the next user.
And it'll be after the show.
And people simply wanted a little extra.
And they wanted it in a different form.
So somebody made it.
In this case, it was Owen.
So I appreciate everybody who contributes, either sending me DMs or figuring out what's wrong with the show and fixing it.
And it really is special.
It makes it feel completely different to me.
It always feels like a team effort, even if I'm sitting here alone.
Anyway, you know I'm going to talk about EVs and batteries.
Turns out, according to CarScoop, Stephen Rivers, That at this point in time, an EV, an electric vehicle, will last as long as a regular combustion engine automobile.
Now that kind of snuck up on me, didn't it?
Because you're thinking, why wouldn't you buy an electric car?
And the first thing you say is, well, they don't last as long.
Well, that's over.
They last a little bit longer.
So you don't have to worry about that anymore.
Now, I still think it depends which one you get, and the battery isn't exactly the same at the end as it is at the beginning, so there's some of that.
So if you have some skepticism about the battery, I'm open to that.
But the point is, there are things like this that just sneak up on you.
For example, if you didn't get an electric car because there weren't enough charging stations, well, that's probably not true now.
I remind you that I have some Tesla stock, so I'm not completely objective about the domain.
But you're going to see EVs, they seem to have crossed all of the critical things, meaning that the public now says, there's nothing wrong with it.
It lasts as long as the other ones.
There's a way to get electricity.
So a lot of those things got solved just by waiting and innovating over time.
Anyway, I saw a post today by somebody I don't know on X, Simp4Satoshi.
That's the name of the account.
But let me read the opinion.
And this one hit me like a box of rocks.
So the opinion is, Silicon Valley is broken into being a bottom, by the way.
So the context was somebody saying that in Silicon Valley, it's like the PDD situation.
That there's a lot of gay grooming, and that's behind a lot of the startups.
Now, if you had told me that before I'd ever heard of Harvey Weinstein, I would have said, eh, sounds unlikely.
If you told me that before I heard about P. Diddy and the entire music industry, I would have said, yeah, I don't know.
That doesn't sound real to me.
But when you tell me after I know those two things, and they're both sort of male-dominated, at least the management of the culture, the managers in the culture, how could it not be true?
What would be the argument that it's not true?
Now, I can tell you that I've lived in the Bay Area my entire adult life.
I've never seen any hint of it.
And I've also never heard of it.
Until today.
It's literally the first time I've ever heard this accusation.
So I can't confirm from any personal contacts, and I have lots of them.
I mean, you can imagine how many people I know who work in the Valley.
But I've never heard this before.
On the other hand, so I'll put it in one basket.
I've never heard it.
So that argues against it being real.
But on the other hand...
If it seems to be real in 100% of the situations in which it could be real, and this is one in which it could be real, I don't discount it.
I can't confirm it from any personal experience, but it certainly opened my eyes to the fact that I'd never even thought about it.
The accusation is that if you're willing to get groomed, you're going to get a lot of money and you'll be introduced to people and then you get on the fast track.
I'm not saying that's true.
I'm just saying if it were true in both the hetero and the homosexual way for these other industries, why wouldn't it be true in Silicon Valley?
What would stop that from being the same?
I can't think of any force that would stop it from happening.
Anyway, Jillian Michaels has a new fake news finding here.
Apparently, there's a letter that alleges to be signed by over 17,000 doctors denouncing RFK Jr. and his non-standard views on things.
Now, if you heard that 17,000 doctors were against this one guy who wasn't even a doctor.
He's not even a doctor.
That'd be pretty persuasive, wouldn't it?
How did he get 17,000 doctors to be on the same side?
I mean, that's a lot.
Well, here's how they did it.
They started a website where you could just say you're a doctor, and then they would count you.
That's all it was.
It was just a website where you could sign up.
How many of those do you think are real doctors?
Well, now 17,000.
They might have gotten a few hundred.
But most of them seem somewhat obviously fake.
So, no.
I don't think there are 17,000 doctors saying that.
Anyway, so good for Jillian Michaels to call that out.
I love it when anybody gets involved in the fake news spotting business.
The more people who don't do this for a living, but are so inspired because they...
They're the first to notice it, or they know that they have a bigger platform.
And they just say, you know what?
I got to fix this.
So again, in the Trump golden age, somebody like Jillian Michaels, although she's a public figure, but somebody like her doesn't say, oh, this is bad, and then just move on with their business.
She says, this is bad.
Is anybody fixing it?
Oh, if nobody's fixing it, I'll fix it.
Because I can.
So she makes a video, and she fixes it.
You know, at least now there's a record that there are two sides to the story.
So when you start noticing, you're going to start noticing the pattern over time, that people are simply noticing a need, and then just saying, I can do that, and just stepping into it, like nobody's ever seen before.
The fire victim is in LA and North Carolina, same experience.
The necessity just brings people in.
So people are willing to pitch in now.
They feel some optimism.
They feel connected a little bit to their neighbors a little more.
This might be the biggest trend.
Like the most important thing might be people just saying, you know, I can do this.
Nobody else is doing it.
I'll do it.
This would be exactly the case for my next story.
So Joe Rogan has a doctor on, Dr. Mark Gordon, who said, and I quote, I have a 76-year-old veteran who was diagnosed with a Gleason 7. Roughly speaking, that's how aggressive your cancer is, the Gleason score.
So 7 would be high.
And the Gleason is a grade of cancer of the prostate, meaning, you know, stage.
And it was a Gleason 7. And he says he went on 12 milligrams of ivermectin.
Every day for eight weeks.
And at the 12th week, he got a special PET scan done to look at the abnormalities in the prostate.
And they couldn't find anything.
They couldn't find anything.
And his PSA, when he came in, initially it was a 12.6.
The PSA is what tells you if your prostate's got cancer, usually.
It could be for other things, but normally that's what it means if it's high.
And it's now down to 5.3, which would be, I think that's below the midpoint.
So it'd be perfectly acceptable for somebody who had no cancer at all.
Now, remember I said the larger theme is people just see a need and they say, oh, nobody else is doing this.
I can do this.
And then they step in.
That's what Joe Rogan's doing.
Joe Rogan.
You know he's been following the Ivermectin story because he has a connection to it through the COVID experience.
And you know that he probably said to himself, why do people say it works, but other people say it doesn't work?
Like, where's my medical test?
Where's my evidence?
Why isn't the news following up?
It's like not even in the news.
And so Joe Rogan says, here I'm speculating because I can't actually read his mind, right?
But it seems like a reasonable assumption.
Probably said, Nobody's going to look into this.
Well, how about if I do it?
And so he invites really exactly the right kind of guest, and then he looks into it.
And then he's added to the public discussion.
Now, adding to the discussion, always good.
Being right every time about everything, not really a standard I would put anybody to.
That's not the standard.
Nobody's right all the time.
If this is a big, big important thing, And there's somebody who can really add to it.
And Joe figures out that if this is real, he could be doing an incredibly, incredibly important service to the rest of the country and the world, really.
Because if this is true, it would be unbelievable.
Now, like Joe, and maybe even like the doctor himself, I'm noticing something that needs to be done.
About this story that unfortunately I'm uniquely capable of doing, which is debunking it.
Now, I'm going to debunk it, but without knowing if it's true or false.
So what I'm going to debunk is just the credibility of it.
Because if you went into this and said, okay, that's a real doctor.
He doesn't look like he's lying, and I don't think he's lying.
I do not think he's lying.
I think the doctor and other doctors have similar claims.
I think they're telling the truth about what they think they're seeing.
So they don't really have any tells for dishonesty when they're talking about it.
But here's what you should look for.
Number one, the patient is anonymous.
If I told you that something depends on an anonymous witness, what would you say?
If it were a political story, you'd say, oh, anonymous means it's not true.
But if I tell you there's an anonymous case in the medical community, you probably wouldn't have the same impression because you'd say, well, duh, people like to stay private with their medical stuff.
Totally understandable.
Yeah, everybody understands that.
Except if you were 76 and you cured a Gleason 7-scored problem and cancer problem in your body, You're not being Joe Rogan, meaning that you're now in a special place, if it's true.
If it's true, you're in this very special place where only you can step up.
So going public, unfortunately, it comes with a price.
But if he'd like to also go on the show with his doctor and maybe have the medical records so we can all see a copy, just the medical records that are relevant.
I don't need to know anything about his health.
But we would ask questions such as, was he on anything else?
Well, HIPAA doesn't apply if everybody agrees.
So obviously the doctor can't on his own talk about it.
We all understand that.
It would have to be with consent.
But if the patient and the doctor and their medical records could all be presented at the same time, Maybe on a podcast.
And somebody who could ask the right questions, I'm just going to throw out my favorite, Dr. Drew.
So you just put Dr. Drew on the podcast, or his podcast would be the ultimate, right?
Dr. Drew's podcast.
Just have the same doctor, but I don't want to hear from doctors anymore.
I want to hear them sitting next to their patient with the medical records in their hand, just the relevant ones, and say, look at this, look at this, look at this.
That's what happened.
And then I'm going to be like, whoa, now you got something.
So here's my role.
I'm going to keep pushing on this.
Because if you've got cancer, you really need to know if this is real.
Like, really, really, really.
And if it isn't real, I think it's a service if you know what the real odds are.
You know, being realistic about the odds and knowing what to do and what not to bother with.
So let me give you a standard by which I would check.
In my opinion, so this next part is an assumption, but I think it's a good one, that it's so well known to anybody who has this specific cancer, prostate cancer, pretty much, I would guess, close to 100% of them would be aware that people have claimed cures with ivermectin and or fenbenazole.
I don't think anybody in America who has a social media account and at least one friend would be completely unaware that there are these claims of complete miraculous cures for the very thing they have that can't be cured without pretty bad side effects in any other way.
And if it metastasizes, then there's no cure at all.
So you're talking about the most incentivized people who are going to look for under every rock, To find out what works.
Now, let's do the math.
So let's say, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of people being diagnosed every year with this exact cancer.
Almost every one of them will find out how much ivermectin somebody else took and what result they got.
And if they believe it, which almost all of them will say, almost all of them will say, wait, you're telling me the side effects are minimal to nothing.
And there are people who look like they're telling the truth, like this doctor.
He looks like he's telling the truth.
And they say it works.
Why wouldn't you try it?
Right?
If you're asking me what's rational in a risk-reward world, I would think almost half of them are trying it by now.
So my guess is you've got hundreds of thousands of people who are just...
Sucking down the ivermectin and fentanyl, and probably have for the last six months or so.
Now, keep in mind that the claimed cures happen in one to three months of being on the...
So just one to three months.
So by now, we should have a base of something like, if I had to guess, maybe one-third of all the prostate cancers in America.
Probably one-third of them have taken fenben or iverbectin or both.
So, if it's as effective as claimed, and the claim is not that it's 20% better than what you're doing, the claim is that it just gets rid of it.
So if 100,000 people got rid of an incurable cancer, wouldn't every oncologist know it?
Because every one of them would have five patients apiece just in a year that had been cured.
Now, am I doing the numbers wrong?
Tell me where am I? Yeah, I'm aware of Dr. Mackis.
I've looked into all the claims.
And they're all the same.
It doesn't match the doctor with the medical record, with the patient, and somebody who can ask them some smart questions.
And then I'll take it to the next level.
If it worked, hundreds of thousands would be using it, and certainly almost every oncologist would say, oh my God, I don't have a randomized controlled trial, but in my practice, I saw three to five things that I've never seen in my life.
So there's something going on, right?
But I don't think you're going to hear that.
So you have to ask why.
Here's a second.
If it works as well as the few doctors say, and again, under the assumption that probably 100,000 people are taking it by now, just in case, wouldn't the mortality for this specific cancer be dropping through the roof?
Now, some of them are metastasized, so you can tell if they died or didn't die.
But you might have to wait a few years.
Maybe that's...
It might be three to five years before you knew for sure.
But we should see that the death rate for this specific cancer just falls off a table.
Because I'm pretty sure there's every single patient that's heard about this and doesn't think it's a bad thing to at least give it a shot.
Now, don't take any medical advice from me.
This is the most important thing I'll say.
Do not take medical advice from me.
So what I'm engaged in is trying to figure out what is true.
I'm not engaged in telling you what's true.
I'm engaged in trying to figure out what's true, because if this is true, I'm going to be its biggest supporter.
I mean, I will make sure the whole freaking country knows this works, if it works.
But you're going to have to get over this little hump to show me that either all oncologists have noticed, because they would.
Every single one would have noticed by now in their own patients.
Or the death rate falls off a table, and we don't have any other explanation for it.
Or we can get at least three doctor couples with their patient and with the records.
You give me any of those three pieces of evidence, and I'll be the biggest proponent for it.
But I'm going to push hard against it being credible until I see something that's credible.
So that, I think, is a value that I can provide.
We'll see.
And again, it's because I'm simply capable of doing it.
If I weren't capable of doing it, I wouldn't step in.
If somebody else were doing what I just did, I wouldn't do it.
I'm just saying there's a hole here.
I can fill that.
So I jump in.
Do you think this is safe?
This isn't safe.
Do you know how much shit I get over this topic?
A lot.
But I waded into the shit, knowing it's going to be up at least to my chin, because I can do it, and I can handle that.
So I know I can handle it, so I can do it for you.
Anyway, too much on that.
Nicole, as I've said before, but it's funny every time it happens, when I wake up in the morning, there are always some MSNBC clips going around that people are commenting on.
What is the one thing they all have in common?
They're being treated as comedy and nobody's adding anything to it.
In other words, it's simply just showing what they said.
And nothing needs to be added to make it funny.
And so all morning long, I'll be looking at these MSNBC clips with no commentary added and just like, that's funny.
Oh, wow, they're so silly.
CNN's not like that.
You know, when I watch CNN, it's usually because, oh, I disagree with that or something like that.
Or maybe I'm challenging whether they got the story right.
But I'm not really laughing at it.
MSNBC is literally just for the laughs.
It doesn't seem to have any other purpose.
Anyway, so MSNBC's Nicole Wallace, she had a segment.
On tips for navigating political anxiety.
Steve Guest was posting this on X. Now, here's what she said, Nicole Wallace.
Our job is to hold up a mirror and to cover the story.
But I think having done a Trump presidency once, I think it does create a lot of anxiety among a lot of our viewers.
And I think some of these tools and just being mindful about it without being woo-woo feels really important.
Is there anything missing?
In this story, like the part where MSNBC acknowledges that all of this anxiety that their audience is feeling is caused by MSNBC? Did Trump do anything this week that would make anybody feel anything except happy and optimistic?
Not really.
The reason that the MSNBC audience has severe mental health problems, including half of their hosts, It's the way they cover it.
It's not Trump.
And so here's a perfect example.
Did Steve Guest need to put some commentary on this?
Not really.
You can just read it and laugh at it.
Because looking at them not understand how anything works is really the description of the worst part of the Democrat Party.
They're the ones who don't understand cause and effect.
Literally don't understand.
That they cause this, and what they're watching is their own effect.
Don't get it.
Don't get that incentives matter.
Never.
They never understand that incentives matter.
No cause and effect understanding whatsoever.
Anyway, Tom Elliott on X was sending another MSNBC clip around.
Same thing.
So Al Sharpton was on air.
Saying that enforcing immigration law is racist.
That's it.
That's the whole story.
The reason Trump won is that even Democrats finally said, okay, yeah, this open border thing is totally not working.
And the best that MSNBC could come up with is Ella Sharpton, who basically only has one thing he says, that's racist.
And they put that on the air, and they're like, yeah, that was a good segment.
I wonder if they could have one of the Watergate guys come on, Bernstein or the other one, and say it's worse than Watergate.
If you have somebody whose only thing they ever say is it's racist, do you have to have them on?
You know, they have that other guy who's got like the mushroom hair, and he's also like Al Sharpton.
They bring him on just to...
Just to say everything's racist.
If that's all they do, and it is all they do, why do you watch it except to think it's funny that they call everything racist?
Now it's just funny.
So the more he calls things racist, the harder I laugh.
Meanwhile, on CNN, where things are actually, they are, at least management, is fighting to find a middle ground so that their audience can trust them again.
And in many ways that are important, they are actually finding the middle ground.
And one of them is Harry Enten, their data guy.
And once again, I mention him a lot.
But he was glowing about Trump's recent approval level.
So if you compare the approved versus the disapproved for each person, Trump was negative three in 2017, meaning more people disapproved than approved.
And he is currently at plus six.
A nine-point swing.
Now, the data guy, Harry Anton, was pretty excited about a nine-point swing because you don't really see nine-point swings on things that people understand really well.
Maybe if they learn something new.
But this is still Trump.
He was Trump then, he's Trump now.
I would argue he's doing a much better job after the practice term.
The first one's like the practice term.
So he is doing a better job, and people are noticing.
So I like that.
And good for CNN for finding the middle sometimes.
They have some work to do.
I think they know exactly where that work has to be done.
But at least when they show the data, they're not making up stuff to make Trump look bad if the data says it looks good.
Stephen A. Smith and Bill Maher.
Two people that have been for a long time associated with, let's say, the Democrat side are definitely softening on Trump.
So Stephen A. Miller was on Real Time with Bill Maher last night, and he made a big deal saying about how the reason that Trump is more popular than ever is that he's keeping his promises.
That he ran saying, I would do these hundred things.
And he's just all over the hundred things.
He's doing what he said he would do.
And especially for men, I think, I don't know if it hits the same with women, because there's definitely a gender difference to this, so maybe the women can tell me.
But for men, if you say you're going to do something that's even really hard, and then you put your total shoulder into it, And like you're really leaning on it hard and you're pounding.
Almost don't matter if it succeeds.
Because that's the person you want on your team.
Even before it works, and you don't even know if it's going to work in every possible way.
Yeah.
Watching him risk his life, go from the bottom of the swamp to the top of the hill, is some of the most inspirational male energy I've ever seen in my life.
I mean, it is American in the way that we want it to be, not the way it usually is.
It is masculine.
It is corrective.
It is common sense.
It's kind of everything men like.
So I certainly understand why the men like it.
So I can't speak for the female view on this, but doing what you said you would do.
I just feel like that means more to men.
Is that sexist?
I'm willing to be talked out of that.
So maybe you can correct me on that if you think so.
But anyway, even when Bill Maher criticizes Trump now, the criticisms are either some generic thing, like, I don't like the guy, or, you know, he might be too something-something.
But I don't even think Bill Maher is calling him a fascist, because that would be dumb.
And I don't think Bill Maher is saying that he's going to steal your democracy.
He seems to be spending almost all of his time telling the people on his side, stop saying stupid shit.
You'll never win like that.
And here again, we've got a country with a big need.
Here's what the big need is.
Come together.
There's not a thing we can fix unless we...
Find some unity.
And I know there's competing opinions about Bill Maher and Stephen A. Smith, but I'll give you mine.
I think Bill Maher says there's a giant hole that nobody's filling, which is a reasonable Democrat who can sort of bridge that total divide that the media has created artificially.
Somebody who can say, okay, can you just settle down?
This part you cannot like.
Let's say abortion.
This part you cannot like.
That's perfectly reasonable.
That's a difference of opinion.
But the common sense stuff?
Stop arguing against common sense.
You'll never win.
And honestly, I think we're all better off if our two parties are a little bit competitive.
At the moment, it looks like Republicans could just roll over all comers for a while.
And that makes me a little nervous, even as much as I back that side.
I don't want one side to have too much power that works against our interests.
So when Bill Maher says there's this giant hole for somebody to take the arrows in their back by taking a bold stand and saying, okay, my own team is being ridiculous.
You'll never win like this.
Shape up.
I say...
That's exactly what the country is doing.
That's male energy, finding a need, realizing that he's going to get his ass kicked.
This is the important part.
Bill Maher has said it, and obviously it's obvious, that being a little bit open to at least Trump's performance, if not his character, is hugely destructive to his income, his reputation, probably even his personal life.
And he jumped in anyway.
Now, I know what you're going to say.
Scott, he's just a performer.
You know, he's going where the wind is blowing.
No, he isn't.
No, he's going where the arrows are going to put him in the fucking back.
That's brave.
No matter what else you want to say about him, he walked into the breach.
And he's done it before, so we don't have to say this is the only time.
So, even if you disagree with him, he saw a need.
He realized he had a unique ability to fill that need, and he jumped in with both feet.
I have complete respect for that.
Doesn't mean I'll agree with everything.
That's a different topic.
Anyway, so the big story yesterday was Trump doing a tour of both the North Carolina hurricane disaster and the L.A. fire disaster in the same day.
That is so baller to do them in the same day.
The same day.
And the contrast with Biden's low energy, with putting him right in the middle of it twice in one day, I mean, this really is next-level stuff.
I mean, I know anybody could have traveled there in one day, but he's the only one who would do it.
He's the only one that could stay awake that long.
He's the only one who could absolutely dominate, at least in terms of common sense, those situations.
Let's talk about it.
So apparently after the North Carolina situation, people were complaining about insurance.
And insurance for the North Carolina people was a big deal.
So Trump's already moved and Congress and Josh Hawley has picked it up and he's going to call the insurance companies in and say, why don't you give insurance to these people?
Now, the reasons I think are going to be economic and, you know, maybe systemic.
I'm not sure it's the insurance companies that will be the bad guys when we're all done, because they want to sell insurance.
They want to.
Probably it's going to be government stuff getting in the way, just the economics of homes, the way people built them.
If a home was only worth $100,000, you could get insurance.
If that same home just sits there, and because of inflation, Turns into a million-dollar home.
It's the same risk, except now it's ten times more expense.
So the insurance company can't fix that.
It just doesn't work as an insurance property, unless you pay so much that you're not willing to pay it.
Anyway, so the first thing is that as soon as Trump had a number of people on the ground say the insurance is our problem, he was on it.
Now, where it goes, we don't know.
But he's on it, and Hawley has already put them on notice and said, you're coming in, you can explain to us why these people can't get insurance.
Exactly right.
Exactly right.
Don't know where it goes yet, but those are the questions and those are the people to ask.
All right.
Then he goes on to L.A. and Pacific Palisades.
Now, if you noticed both of these events, there's one thing that stood out.
It's almost like a dog not barking.
Maybe that doesn't fit in this case.
But did you notice how well he listens?
This is the big surprise about him.
People who only see him on TV and he blusters.
Let's say he's in a debate.
If he's in a debate, he might talk over you.
If he's giving a press conference and the press is being jerks, he might cut him off.
So if you see this big old bully personality cutting people off and making sure they heard him ten times and hear them none, stuff like that, you would imagine that if you put them in a room with somebody who has something to say, they're not going to be able to say it because you'll just sort of talk over them and not hear it, right?
That would seem to fit, like if you're just going to guess what's it like to be in the room.
But I've told you from my own experience, a number of people have said exactly the same thing.
People have met him in private.
For the 20 minutes I talked to him, in the Oval Office, I had the most amazing sensation that he didn't care about anything except what I was saying for 20 minutes.
Now, obviously, there was an exchange, so I was listening to him and he was listening to me.
But he had complete focus.
He did not change the subject.
He stayed on my topics for the most part.
And he was interested and asked questions with some depth of understanding and what I believed was genuine curiosity.
Some of it was about my business model for cartooning.
And he learned about the cartooning business model.
He just added that to his knowledge stack.
In 20 minutes, now he's got another whole business model that maybe he didn't have fully figured out before.
So his listening skills, if you experience it in person, are almost unprecedented.
You know, I would call him out as, if anybody's done it better, I don't have a memory of it.
It's impressive.
By the time you leave, you feel like you're the only person who mattered for 20 minutes.
Now, in reality, Well, I don't know what was happening in his head.
I can tell you that at one point, an aide came in with a note that must have been something important because it interrupted us.
He takes one look at the note, sets it down, and then he's right back with complete focus on me, like the note didn't matter.
I don't even know what it was.
It could have been important.
So when I watched him in North Carolina, he said, you take the microphone, you tell us your story.
And then he just stood, and he just watched, and he listened.
Then he goes to L.A., and he's got a very carefully picked group of people with his advanced team and his advisors, and he's got a room full of people.
It's televised.
And he listened to everybody in the room.
The politicians, you know, he was a little harder on the politicians, which we like.
But when the people who lost homes were talking, not only did he understand it perfectly, but he could repeat it in his own words with even more emphasis than they told it to him, you know, about the insurance problems, the regulations, etc.
And then he brought to it a complete understanding of the building industry and the regulatory problems and like a real-world total talent stack that was almost made for this purpose.
Yeah, it was almost like if Trump didn't exist, you would want to invent a Trump just to handle at least the LA part, and I think North Carolina as well.
Because you need somebody who understands that when the public says, we want to build back, but we can't, because the government is stopping us, or the insurance company is stopping us, he doesn't just hear it and move to his next problem.
He takes a drill and he just goes right to the center of the earth until he understands that problem.
And then he tells you what you need to do about it because he understands the space.
I've never seen anything like it.
And so yesterday, last night when he was in L.A., I was doing a Man Cave live stream for the subscribers and locals.
And we just watched it.
And it was so entertaining.
To watch him go into full boss mode and just bully these worthless politicians right in front of us.
He just bullied them right in front of us.
I could not have been happier.
And then there was one moment, which was pure Trump.
So there's a moment when Joel Pollack got to talk.
He was in the room.
And, you know, he's a senior editor for Breitbart, but on top of that, he's one of the affected people in the...
So his home survived, against all odds, but it's not habitable, just like the other people.
And Joel had an extended sort of explanation, lots of good visuals about him trying to save his house with nothing but a bucket and a vase of flower water that was still there from before the fire.
And the neighbors tried to help, but there's no water.
So that just brought you right into the scene.
And Trump just listens to every word.
And then Joel gets to, could we do something like 9-11 did when there was a lot of federal funding to repair the 9-11 stuff?
And there was some kind of special master that was appointed to make sure the money didn't get diverted to all the illegal stuff.
Now, if you live in California, And you hear that the government's going to give you, ideally, some large amount of money to help you recover.
Your first concern is, and then the idiots in my local government are just going to hand it over to their friends, and their friends will never build anything, like this is what usually happens.
So hearing that the federal government is just going to write a check to California without any control on it is like hearing that they're not going to do anything.
That's how it is to my ears, because I just think it'll all be stolen.
Or the friends will be the ones that win all the bets, or the bids, not the bets.
And so I think the state is so corrupt and so incompetent that there is no amount of money that can help us get out of this problem.
So Joel, knowing that, says, what would you think about having a special master to make sure that the money is spent correctly?
And then this amazing thing happens.
Trump goes, That's a good idea.
And he turns to Rick Grinnell, who's a California resident, so he was a part of it.
He goes, do you think you can hook me up, like form a committee or something, like get me a special master, and we'll take care of that.
And then he looks back at Joel and goes, that's a really good idea.
And in that moment, federal help for California became real.
It didn't feel real until he said, yeah, I'm going to make sure somebody's watching where it goes.
And then, his event in the Palisades, Trump's, was the most remarkable display of capability and talent and talent stack.
You know, a whole bunch of talents that are coming together at that moment that I've ever seen.
And it was entertaining on a level that I can't even explain.
I mean, we were cheering.
You know, watching it in the man cave.
I was standing up and, like, pumping my arms and cheering, like, literally out loud.
And I don't get that excited about anything.
But I was watching something for the ages.
If you watched how he took care of the politicians and, you know, told them what's real, what works, and what isn't, my favorite moment was when Karen Bass, the Bobble-headed idiot with a creepy smile.
The only one in the room full of disaster victims who thought that smiling was the right play.
You can't be dumber than that, right?
You can't be talking about with a smile.
Oh, yeah.
We're going to do some things and we're going to do some things.
And you just looked at her and she was a few people away from Trump.
And the contrast...
It was incredible.
First of all, she's a small person.
Physically, she's not very tall.
And Trump's a big, hulking character.
So seeing her tiny little bobble-headed stupid smile, and then it gets better.
So Trump is all about, you've got to get rid of this regulation.
I'm going to stomp on this regulation.
I've already canceled all of the federal regulations.
All this left.
Is your local regulations?
And he's trying to get the mayor to say, yes, I will do what you're doing and be commonsensical about the regulations.
And she's acting like she's agreeing.
And Trump's saying, can't they get back into their own property and do their own cleanup if they want to pay for it?
He's like, yes, yes, they'll totally get back in.
Yeah, yeah.
And then Trump says, Everybody I talk to says that you say they can't get back or they can't do something for 18 months.
And then he says, he actually points to the residents.
He goes, he just told me that.
He just told me it's 18 months.
And you're telling me that they can go in tomorrow.
So he's basically calling her a liar.
And then she goes, I think it'll be safe.
We'll let people in in a week.
And then I just watched Trump after she said they'll be able to get back in a week.
And you knew what was coming.
It was just the most wonderful live moment.
You know he's seething when he hears it's going to take a week without a reason.
And there's this little pause.
And he looks at her and he goes, a week is a long time.
Oh!
He goes, why not tomorrow?
Now, I don't know if getting in there tomorrow is a good idea.
I don't know what the safety is, etc.
But I sure liked him pushing.
Because the citizens couldn't push.
They had nothing to push on.
They didn't have any leverage.
Nothing.
So citizens can push all day.
It doesn't mean anything.
But Trump, he listened.
And he said, I'm just not going to let this happen.
So he just embarrassed her in public.
And that was the right play.
We needed to see her absolutely embarrassed in public.
Now, again, I don't even know who's right.
It could be.
That waiting a week would be the smartest week you ever waited, because then you'd really know what the toxicity is and what to do.
Maybe.
I mean, I'm no expert.
But the pushing against it and saying that, here's what I like, the frame.
In government, a week is a short period of time.
So that's why she said it.
That's just a week.
In construction, a week is the end of the world.
You don't wait a week for anything.
If you're waiting a week, you're losing money.
So Trump's time frame of how fast anything should work is so different than much of the world that watching him press that point of view on her that a week's a long time.
God, I wanted to hear that.
I so wanted to hear that a week is a long time because the whole time after she said it, I'm just sitting there thinking, a week.
A week's a long time.
That's a long time.
Why a week?
And then it comes out of Trump's mouth.
He says what we were all thinking, but nobody could say it because they're not in the right position, not the right person, etc.
And he talked for us.
He talked for us.
Wow.
It was incredible.
I would say it's Trump's best performance in any domain.
It's better than any speech he's ever getting, better than any press conference, better than any debate.
It was his best moment.
He's at full power, he's not taking prisoners, and he's working for the people.
And wow, it was just shockingly positive.
Now, we'll see if he follows up, you know, because follow-up matters.
And we'll see if he keeps the boot on the mayor to actually do something useful.
We'll see.
But again, it was the ultimate boss situation.
And then there's also the insurance question.
I just don't know how that's going to get solved, but maybe somebody has a better idea.
I was asked to comment on Melania.
So I will.
You might have noticed that Melania seems more present this term than the first term.
I attribute that to Barron's age.
I think when Barron was younger, Melania necessarily wanted to be just there for him, and that was her top priority.
And we all get that.
I get that.
Now Barron's off to college, and Melania is not just with him.
But she's with him as an asset.
When she's with him, and she's clearly with him, like she's not, there's no attitude, there's no sense that she wishes she were somewhere else, she's usually smiling.
And she also looks great, fashion-wise.
You know, this is not a sexist comment.
It's just, fashion-wise, she's just kill of it.
You know, I'm not like a fashion guy, but even I can tell.
That I can't keep my eyes off her because her fashion choices are just really good.
And so here's my take on that.
Imagine going through what they both went through for the last eight years.
Just imagine the impact on Melania.
My guess is she wasn't...
Maybe 100% supportive of everything that happened in the first term and beyond, because it didn't make her look good, didn't make the family look good, which isn't good for Barron.
Kind of a stain.
And then she would have to live with it the same as the rest of them.
And then, like a phoenix, he rises from the ashes, Trump does, conquers all of politics, His popularity we've never seen, the international community is fully respecting of him,
and the entire narrative has changed from the survivor of assassination, strongest politician in the world, the role model that other politicians are looking to, the single most important change agent, and maybe the only person who could save us.
From the ledge that we've been driving toward.
Now what do you feel like?
Well, if she went through the assassination attempt, and she had to live with the thought that it could have been so much the other direction, and then she's part of it.
So, you know, her critical part, we don't see everything she does, but you know it's critical.
And I think she's taken a victory lap, which, man, did she earn.
She earned her victory lap, same as Trump did.
So I think part of it is feeling that he's on some kind of a winner's crusade, and she doesn't have the barren responsibilities the way she used to, that she's just enjoying the show.
So I think she's loving it.
My lenses are fuzzy?
I think you're right.
Yeah, my lenses are dirty.
Good catch.
I will clean them on my T-shirt.
All right, Pete Hegseth got confirmed, but only because Vice President Vance cast the tie-breaking vote.
So Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski said no, but also Mitch McConnell.
Huh.
Mitch McConnell voted against Pete Hegseth, and yet everybody except these two other senators We're foreign.
Republicans.
How do we interpret that?
I've heard somebody say that he didn't kiss enough ass or that the Hegseth had not been the darling of the military-industrial complex and Mitch would be, some say, associated with the military-industrial complex.
And so...
He wouldn't want to support the guy who's not necessarily part of that team.
Maybe.
That would fit the, I don't know if it's true, but it would fit the observation.
But here's my question, and I think it has to be asked in a situation like this.
We know that through his wife, he has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party, you know, big industry.
Now, you all knew that, right?
So his wife, her sister, and her father are big in the Chinese Communist Party.
Now, we, of course, don't prevent anybody marrying anybody they want, and that doesn't mean there's anything going on that's inappropriate.
Would we all agree?
It doesn't mean there's any problem.
It's just a gigantic red flag.
But here's the context that I'd like to know.
So I can evaluate this risk properly.
The risk of too much Chinese blackmail or incentivization or something.
I would like to know, what is the history of spies?
Is there any known history where a spy will marry somebody and stay married for, I don't know, 50 years, and the entire time they were just a spy?
Do we have any history?
We're especially Chinese spies.
But any other kind of spies?
I know on TV shows it's real, because I just watched a TV show called The Agency, and a big part of the plot was that he was sort of in a relationship that was a fake relationship for six years.
Is that real?
Do we really have people who will go so far that they'll marry you, have your kids?
And they've been a spy the whole time?
Now, if that's not a thing, if it's not a thing, then I'd be way less worried about it.
If it's a normal thing, meaning it's been happening forever and other countries do it too, well, then I've got more questions.
So I'm not going to, you know, everybody's innocent until proven guilty.
I have no evidence of Mitch McConnell doing anything wrong.
But wow, the red flag there is just, literally red flag, is just so obvious that I feel like I need the next level of understanding to judge it properly.
And that is, is it common to have somebody who's a fake spouse?
I'm not saying she is.
I'm just saying I need to know how common it is to have any opinion about this story.
Rod Martin is reporting that there's a huge Department of Justice purge going on with the Trumpers coming in and getting rid of the anti-Trump type people.
And apparently there's a rule that you can't get rid of employees within 120 days of new leadership taking over.
Seems like a dumb rule.
So if Pam Bondi comes in, And gets approved, she wouldn't be able to fire anybody for 120 days.
So you might say, well, how are they firing people now?
Here's the trick, as Rod Martin points out.
They're using an acting director.
So there's no rule about the acting director firing people.
And the longer it takes them to confirm Bondi, the more people they can fire.
So by delaying the approval of Bondi, The acting director, who is very pro-Trump, can just lay waste to all the anti-Trumpers, and they'll be gone before Bondi's even on the job.
Now, that's kind of clever, using the system against itself.
I kind of have to appreciate that.
But apparently, the purge is hitting the criminal division in national security and international affairs.
This is all per Rod Martin.
And apparently the guy who's the acting U.S. Attorney was one of the Stop the Steal organizers, or maybe the Stop the Steal organizers.
So if you were worried about keeping your job and you were a prominent Democrat in the Department of Justice, the most scary thing that could ever happen is that the guy who organized the Stop the Steal movement, It's the one in charge in firing people.
Oh, wow.
Anyway, let's see how Democrats are doing.
So I've already glowed with my praise of how Trump is doing.
But, hey, there's two sides.
So maybe the Democrats are doing okay, too.
Let's check in with them.
Let's see.
There's a story in Red State by Mike Miller that Jamie Raskin called in a psychologist to help House Democrats cope with Trump derangement syndrome.
Oh, well, that's not so good.
Now, I think the characterization there might be a little bit more narrative than the facts, but not much.
So the facts are, according to Punchbowl News, so Raskin was with the House Judiciary Committee, so not all the Democrats, just the House Judiciary Committee.
They had some kind of retreat for the judiciary Democrats only.
And Raskin invited a psychologist, some guy who was a University of Virginia professor of psychology.
And the people who attended, this is according to the reporting by Red State, by Mike Miller.
They say that the purpose was, according to the attendees, to counsel Democrats about how to approach conflict and effectively combat what Raskin described as authoritarian styles of speech.
And they were also, Democrats were advised to avoid devolving into partisan mudslinging.
How much did they pay a psychologist for that?
I'm not sure that's like a therapist.
But who needed to tell them not to devolve into partisan mudslinging?
Why don't they just listen to Stephen A. Smith or Bill Maher or, indeed, 100% of the Democrats who are still smart?
Every one of them would have told them the same thing.
Are the only people who didn't know they should avoid devolving into partisan mudslinging?
Are the only ones who didn't know that?
The ones who went on this retreat?
The ones we elected into office.
Does electing somebody into office make you not know simple things that everybody else knows?
So, anyway, that doesn't look like a winning play by the Democrats.
Meanwhile, we learned that Trump had a phone call with the Prime Minister of Denmark over the Greenland situation.
And this was before he was in office, but not long before.
And apparently it didn't go well.
Denmark's Prime Minister is a woman who is described as the John Bolton of Europe.
So one expert said she's the John Bolton of Europe.
So imagine Trump making a phone call to the female John Bolton of Europe saying that he wants to conquer their territory.
So needless to say, the conversation did not go well.
Did not go well.
And I asked myself, how would you ever get a deal with a female John Bolton?
There's no way to get there, is there?
So I've got a question.
How long will that prime minister stay in office?
Because I've got a feeling that Trump is going to sweeten the offer until the people in Denmark say, We've got to get rid of our prime minister because the threats are too big and the benefits are so attractive that the only person stopping us from getting these benefits and keeping us safe is the female John Bolton of Europe.
So I have a feeling that step one of doing something useful in Greenland is going to be changing out the prime minister because I think Trump can do that just by pressure.
So we'll see.
We'll see.
I'm not going to predict that's what he's going to do.
But I don't see the current leadership of Denmark making a deal.
Because the way they're approaching it is almost emotionally.
It doesn't seem that they came at this rationally.
If they came at it rationally, then yes, a deal will get done.
But if it's an irrational response, there's nothing you can do except get rid of the person.
So he might have to do that first, and I think he has the capability to do it.
He could bring down another government if he needs to.
So I talked about this.
Alex Soros did this rare interview in Financial Times.
It's behind a paywall, and it's a Japanese-owned entity, and they only ask them polite questions.
So it's not a real interview.
And there was this point where, you know, he said he was so happy to see a gay pride flag on an embassy once, you know, things are going in the right direction, he thought.
Which is a weird thing to call out as your priority.
I don't know where that would be on my list of priorities, but gay pride flag on an embassy?
Wouldn't be among my top 100 most important things.
And I'm as pro-LGBTQ as you can get.
You know, I often call them out as remarkably successful demographic in the United States.
And so, to me, that's just American.
So that's the end of the story.
But, you know, he thinks the flag on the embassy is important.
I don't know.
Something wrong.
But he did say that apparently he was trying to arrange meeting Elon Musk in November.
And it didn't happen.
He thinks Elon wasn't committed to actually doing it.
But every day that Alex Soros does not do a real interview with somebody who's going to ask real questions, whether it's Elon Musk or somebody else, I'm going to assume the worst.
I'm going to assume the worst.
Because what am I supposed to do?
He's deeply influential in my country's politics.
Deeply.
To the point of being the main thing sometimes.
And he's not going to do an interview, like a real one.
He does this fake one behind a paywall with a friendly.
That's not a real interview.
So, I'm going to say that the Elon Musk theory that the senior Soros wants to destroy America or the world because he hates humankind, ridiculous as that sounds.
I don't have a better explanation.
And if that's the best explanation, as absurd as it sounds, I'm going to have to run with it, because this is important.
It's important how much influence he has on the country.
And we can't say, well, we don't know why, and then just walk away.
I think we have to treat it like an existential risk, and that if he can't explain why he's doing what he's doing...
I'm pretty sure it's exactly what you think.
Now, the part of the conspiracy theory I don't buy into is the anti-Semitic stuff.
So I'm not buying into any of that.
That just doesn't map to anything I'm observing.
I know that some of you are going to say, what?
What?
Don't you notice?
But until the anti-Semites can explain...
How things would look different if all you knew is that Jews are good at school and therefore they end up getting good jobs and end up in leadership.
If you have a perfectly normal explanation, you don't really need a conspiracy.
All right, so I don't buy the conspiracy stuff.
All right, here's an interesting factoid I only have a partial understanding of.
I saw Naval Ravikant posting on X. In the middle of the morning today, which was really last night.
He says, turns out that instead of scraping the web to train AI, you can just scrape the AI that scraped the web.
Now, I think what he's talking about is this new Chinese open source AI called DeepSeek R10 that is apparently completely public.
Like, you can look at it yourself.
It's open source.
And it wasn't trained the way AI is trained.
I think this is what he's referring to.
It was just trained on the AIs.
So somehow you can use the AIs to train it.
Now, I'm guessing, but this is just a guess, that since the point of an AI is to look for these patterns in the real world, you have to start with all the real world stuff you can absorb, and then you can find a bunch of patterns.
By the time you've created the AI, it's a bunch of patterns.
So if you use another AI and you want to train it, you could skip all of the looking at the details and just look at the patterns and copy them.
And apparently that works so well that you don't need a data center to do your AI. You just need a normal computer and you put this code on it and it runs.
It runs an AI that's apparently comparable or better to the commercial ones.
Now, I should also admit that while I held some NVIDIA stock for a while, several months, got a nice gain, I got out of it.
And the reason I got out of it is because in the back of my mind, I could not believe that it wouldn't be disrupted by something like this.
On one hand, you need $100 billion to build a data center to have the best AI. On the other hand, this one that costs nothing, it costs nothing.
It's free.
It's open source.
You can get this one for nothing, and all it will do is see if there's any new patterns developed by the $100 billion data center.
So, do they even need chips?
How many NVIDIA chips do you need?
If your AI runs on my personal computer?
And the answer is none.
The answer is none.
Now, AI could maybe get further trained by more things happening, but I don't think people are that interesting.
And I think we just repeat what we do all the time.
And I think we probably were at the end of training.
So if we're at the end of training, and this free one...
Can take all of the value that the hundreds of billions of dollars took to produce, and it can just clone it, and it will work forever because the patterns of the way humans talk and think don't really change that much.
So what is NVIDIA worth if there's a free version that doesn't need any chips?
Now, I don't know enough about AI to know if what I said makes sense.
So I'll give you a big...
I'll give you a big caution.
Don't buy or sell any stocks based on what I just said.
If you know my history, sometimes I get lucky, but it's probably luck.
Don't listen to individuals about individual stocks.
It's a really bad idea.
And I'm an individual, and I'm talking about an individual stock.
So don't make a decision based on that.
In related AI, And this is fascinating.
If you're not following Mark Andreessen, you're really missing a tremendous show because he's got incredible intellectual weight plus a knowledge across all the relevant everything.
So his opinions are just way better than other people's opinions in a whole bunch of domains.
And he's sort of come out of the shadows and he's becoming more of a public figure like Sachs or like Elon.
And wow.
Is he adding value?
Almost everything you post is either interesting or funny.
But I'm going to tell you his take.
He says that AI won't take our jobs.
Now, I love it because it's contrarian.
But his argument, as best I can reproduce it, is that there have been two times in our history when we were sure that all the jobs were going to go away.
One was when we started shipping jobs to other countries.
So we were going to downsize all our good jobs and everybody to be poor.
Now, it did devastate parts of the country, you know, Rust Belt, etc.
But we still added jobs.
So the total number of jobs went up, even as we were shipping our jobs out as fast as we could.
So when people said that will make the jobs go away, well, it didn't.
I mean, it wasn't ideal, and we do want to bring manufacturing back.
It seemed obvious that it would reduce the number of jobs, but it didn't.
Secondly, as Mark Andreessen points out, in the 2000s we had a lot of robots.
You know, not the smart ones, but the ones who could do assembly line stuff.
And sure enough, robots became an enormously important part of manufacturing.
But employment went up.
So every time we think there's some big change in society, That we'll certainly get rid of all the jobs.
We created more jobs than we ever had.
So Andreessen is speculating and predicting, I guess, that AI will have a similar effect.
It will definitely eliminate some kinds of jobs.
But probably we'll just build other kinds of jobs.
Somebody doing robot maintenance.
Well, maybe the robot could do that too.
So I don't know exactly how it's going to go.
But then, this is the more interesting part.
Andreessen points out that if you look at all the various technologies and industries in the United States, some of the industries are zooming up in cost, like housing, education, and healthcare.
They're like zooming up.
Some of them are zooming down, such as digital TVs and phones and stuff like that.
So what's the difference between the stuff that's Going down in price through competition and market forces, et cetera, versus ones that are just going to the moon.
And part of it is that the ones that are going to the moon, healthcare, housing, college, food and beverages, I guess, are because they made it illegal to use technology to get better.
Now, I need some, I asked for some clarification on that.
But what I think he means is there's not much stopping you.
From making your television cost less, especially if it's made in another country.
There's not much that affects that.
But if you tried to make a change in healthcare, well, now the doctors say, well, if you did that, then there would be fewer doctors.
So the AMA might be against it because they want to support their doctors.
Maybe there's some insurance problem.
Maybe there's some other bureaucratic problem.
You take education.
If colleges really wanted to lower prices and they're really competing in a real world, we would already be trained by AI and, you know, the teachers would be less part of it.
So I guess the argument is that wherever there's an industry that is sort of constipated either by union Or a set of regulations.
You know, housing is more about regulations.
Education, at least at the lower level, is more about unions.
But there's like some big force that's stopping you from automating.
And if you don't automate, you go right in the toilet.
So, very interesting hypothesis.
I got a question for you.
I'm going to add my own futuristic prediction.
How can Amazon survive the age of AI? Because think about why you go to Amazon.
You go to Amazon to easily find a product.
Well, AI is going to find the product no matter where it is.
It doesn't have to be on Amazon.
If you have a website and you're selling the product, AI and a search engine will find it.
So you don't need Amazon to find a product.
But Amazon makes it really easy to compare.
So you know which one's better.
You look at the reviews and stuff.
But the reviews are often fake.
So can you really compare?
But AI can compare.
AI can look at all the comments ever made.
It might even be able to determine which ones are real, if it can figure that out.
And it can compare any two products, just like Amazon.
And it would do it instantly and just on demand.
But now, the other thing that Amazon has is, you know, they keep your credit card information, and you can just do one click, and your address is already in there.
So it's just the easiest, best-buying experience.
AI can do that.
You only have to tell AI what credit card you want to use and what your address is, and then it'll know it for the next time.
So instead of one click, you just say to your AI, okay, buy it.
Why do you need one click?
If you could just say, oh, that's good.
Okay, buy that one.
How about shipping costs?
There might be a period where the only thing that Amazon has going for is low shipping costs.
But if you sell on Amazon, don't they take 30%?
I don't know.
It might depend on products.
But if you took 30% off your selling cost, you've got some money to pay for some shipping, don't you?
So maybe...
If the only place you were selling is on Amazon, and then suddenly you could sell just as much from your own private website, as long as AI could find it, wouldn't you be able to offer free shipping?
Because you just got rid of 30% of your expenses.
That would have gone to Amazon.
Now, I'm sure I'm oversimplifying, but here's the main point.
I don't see anything that Amazon would be necessary for in 10 years.
Do you?
I mean, nothing's going to happen quickly.
But how can Amazon stay a business?
It seems like that would be the first thing that would go away.
I don't know.
Now, there is a little of a trust issue.
So maybe you'd say, well, Amazon vetted it, so I trust it.
But how many fake and pirated things does Amazon carry now?
A lot.
A lot.
And if you wanted to return something, usually it's just a pain in the ass to figure out how.
Fill out the labels and to take it to the post office or have FedEx pick it up.
But if you could just tell your AI, hey, print me a label and notify FedEx that I've got to pick up, there's your returns.
So how does Amazon survive?
I have no idea.
I don't see a path.
Again, don't sell any stocks because of something I said, okay?
There might be a good argument on the other way.
All right.
I'll tell you, remember that Owen Gregorian has the spaces right after this.
So on X, go to Owen Gregorian's account, or you can see that I reposted it if you want to see it on my account.
And go to spaces.
I'm just going to finish with this following story.
Do you hate paperwork as much as I do?
Probably not as much, because I have trouble writing with my hand if I have to figure out.
Fill out regular paper the old 1960s way, which is often the way you have to do it.
So it's like a struggle just to write because of my hand problems.
But I also have, you know, some mild ADHD and dyslexia.
So for me to simply fill out a form is almost impossible.
So the other day, I got a notice in my email that there was a foreign entity, it was the UK, who had some royalties for me.
That somehow got lost and they didn't have my address so they couldn't pay me.
So they asked me to fill out some forms so they could give me money that I didn't know I was even owed.
So I looked at the forms as like, I don't know, like 12 pages of dense boxes.
And I said to myself, oh, how long is it going to take me to fill out a form that was created in the UK and it's going to be full of stuff that I don't know how to do?
Like it'll be codes I've never heard of.
So I said to myself, all right, I'm not going to be an idiot because I don't know how much the royalties are.
So I first emailed back and I say, tell me how much the royalties are before I go into this painful process.
And I was hoping they'd say, well, it's $26.
And then I was going to say, oh, just keep it because there's no way it's going to be worth it, $26 to fill out all the paperwork.
But they go back, they say, I forget the exact number, but it's like $1,700.
$1,700.
Now I'm like, ugh.
Okay, you would not be surprised to know that I don't need $1,700.
And I could just say keep it.
But I can't really say keep $1,700.
Like, I'm just human.
So it doesn't matter if my net worth isn't changed by $1,700.
I'm going to fill out some paperwork for $1,700.
This is free money.
It's not a scam.
It's from a reputable entity that I've worked with.
So I said to myself, all right, the only way this is going to turn bad for me, because I cleared my calendar, turned my phone off.
Turned all the, you know, went to a room where nobody could bother me.
So I could really focus.
Got my coffee.
Got my snack.
And I'm going to try to fill out some paperwork, damn it.
So I start.
Like, all right.
I'm working through page after page, painstakingly filling in these box, swearing and hating my life every moment.
Oh, I wish I were doing anything but filling out a form.
I hate this form.
But I'm making progress.
And then I get to always there's this point.
They ask you for something that you don't even know what it is.
I have to put my IBAN there.
I-B-A-N. No explanation.
It's like a box.
Put it in your IBAN. Okay, so now I have to go on this whole treasure hunt to figure out what the frickin' IBAN is.
And then I research it.
It's like, well, it's something your bank has so that you can do international transactions.
I'm like...
Well, I thought that was a SWIFT number.
Oh no, that's for wire transfer.
This is just, you know, going to be deposited in your bank.
So I go, okay, so how do I get this IBAN? So now I have to figure out Charles Schwab's, not my bank, I had to figure out my bank's process for giving me one of these IBANs.
Nowhere can you find it on your app.
Because I just thought, you know, there's probably one of these extra...
Extra resources or something you look for.
So it's definitely not on there.
So now I have to contact a live person to ask this question.
So finally I waved and waved and, you know, 17 minutes and finally I get a live person.
I go, all right, what's this IBAN thing?
And they go, that's your account number.
Your bank account number.
And I said, well, no, it says bank account number right after it.
And I've already written in my bank account number, what's the IBAN? And he says, oh, it's the same as your account number.
It's just your account number.
So I had to fill in my account number twice, once above and once below on two different lines.
Do you know how many times I had to fill out my name on these 12 pages?
Yeah, it needed my name on about every other page.
You know, do you know how mad I get when I have to write my name more than once on the same form?
The same form.
These pages will never be separated.
It's one document.
And I had to put my name like five times.
So now I'm a little bit crazy, but I'm still making progress.
I'm like halfway through this thing, and I'm not quitting.
Oh my God, I've decided.
You know, sometimes I say you want something.
Sometimes you decide.
And I said to myself, the only thing that can stop me now is if I get to the last thing on the forum and it's impossible.
And man, is that going to make me mad.
If the last thing on the forum is like something you actually can't do, which is very typical for this situation, I'm telling myself, don't look ahead.
Don't look ahead.
Don't be distracted.
But man, I hope that last thing isn't as bad as I hope it is.
And then I got to the last thing.
And I said, if you're a UK resident, we've got to charge you this 20% VAT tax.
And I'm thinking, well, I don't want to pay a 20% VAT tax because I already have to pay 50% income tax.
If I pay the VAT tax too, it's 20% off the top.
And then what's left?
My own government will take 50% of.
That's my current tax rate.
So they're going to take 70, not approximately, 70% of my money.
So suddenly, the total amount that I'm going to receive is now below the level where it was worth doing the work.
But I've gone this far.
I've gone this far.
And the only thing they needed was a certification that I was an American resident.
And then I don't have to do the VAT. So it wasn't good enough that I say I'm an American citizen.
It wasn't good enough.
I have to have certification.
So I said, do I have to do a whole bunch of research now to find out how I certify it?
So I go to the Internet and I start researching.
How do I certify it?
And it says, well, you use this form, download this form, and then you apply it to the government.
And the government will send you another form that's the one that you would send in to them to show that you're certified.
And then it said, you should expect that to take, I think it was three months or something.
I can't remember what the timing was, but it was weeks in the future, if not months.
And I would have to keep this document that is almost completely filled out.
And in a few months, I won't even remember why I was waiting for something.
I'm not going to keep anywhere in my house a 12-page document for months sitting on the surface, waiting for that one document to come in so I can complete the form, which, by the way, before I send it in, I don't even know if it's right.
Because the most likely outcome is I get another email that says, you filled it out wrong.
You forgot to sign something.
You should have put in a number or you put in the wrong number.
So I don't even think it's going to work.
So now I'm down to the choice.
It gives you the option and it tells you very directly.
If you don't want to prove you're a resident of the other country, you can just go ahead and pay the 20% VAT. Imagine how I felt knowing that I had to give the UK 20% of my money or wait weeks.
For a bunch of paperwork that I'd rather put a steel spike through my forehead than to wait and complete.
What do you think I did?
How do you think I handled it?
20% VAT tax?
Fuck you and give it to me.
Because I'm not going to spend another second on this damn thing.
So I just printed it and saved it and took the 20% hit.
So I'm going to get, you know, $10.
At the end of it and spend my whole fucking day.
Now, this story is not about me.
And it's not about this little situation.
This is about Trump's meeting in L.A., where it became incredibly clear that the government was the entire obstacle to doing anything that made sense.
And Trump did a masterful job in understanding that and trying to fix it.
This is everywhere.
Now, you might say to me, Scott, Why didn't you just hire your bookkeeper, your accountant to do it?
Very simply, they would charge me more than the amount I would get in the check.
So there wasn't really any small business way to do it.
If it had been part of lots of other business, maybe I would have thrown it on the pile.
You can't really get anything done in terms of a small business.
Even the simplest things, the government is just so burdensome.
And it makes me think that what we need is some kind of special low-regulation state, where if we could just pick one state that has reasonably good transportation and access to water, I guess, to say, all right, let's just have one place that you could build a manufacturing plant starting tomorrow if you wanted.
And we would just say, make sure you don't do it too dangerously.
Okay, got it.
Maybe just cover it with insurance instead of government mandates.
So, yeah, the problem that the Pacific Palisades uncovered is part of this massive incompetence problem that the country is suffering from.
And I don't think anybody but Trump could understand it well enough and care about it well enough and be strong enough to do something about it.
And it's the only way we're going to ever be competitive.
We have painted ourselves in a completely Doomed economic situation.
We have to fix the regulation problem.
We've got to get the government out of our pants.
I mean, you know, it's always been true.
There's no time in my life when I wouldn't have said that.
But it's just reached monumental proportions.
I mean, you just can't really do anything in the business world.
So, that, by the way, is all I have for today.
Thanks for joining.
And remember, Owen Gregorian has his spaces right after this on X. He's probably already running over there and firing it up.
I'm going to say a few words to the people on Locals privately, but I won't be long so that you can go over and listen to Owen if you'd like or listen to everybody else talking.
