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We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com. All right, let's get too inflations and troubling news for the Trump administration. CNBC reacting live, little bit dramatic, but it is important.
On the last let's take a list.
Let's very quickly look through these boards again. As Rick was pointing out, we looked at the equities tank. You're now looking at the Dow futures off by about four hundred points, just over four hundred points.
SMP futures are.
Down by fifty seven. NAZAC indicated down by more than two hundred and twenty points.
The focus was going to be on the core year every year three two would have been bad, and what
we got was worse. Right, So, you know, it's really disappointing news for the Fed that they were hoping for continued decelerations, disappointing for the market because they're hoping for continued deceleration and the fact that this is a January number and doesn't include any potential you know, tariff impact yet you know, means that you know, the risk going forward is for potentially higher inflation.
It comes just after Donald Trump put out on truth Social the idea that the Fed should be lowering rates to go along with the tariffs, that we could be at this time.
This was the Fed in a pretty tight box.
It's hard pressed for them to be able to lower rates at this point.
Well it does, I mean you need to. You know, they shouldn't have been lowering rates in the first place. So that's the they kind of got themselves into a box. They tried to get in front of things heading into the election, and they went a little too far, too fast, and then they continued easing even when you know, everything should have been telling them that they should have been stopping.
This is that nascent inflation that we were worried was, you know, in the back of our minds, we were worried that it was still there. Well, isn't that what we're seeing right now? This is like our worst nightmare coming true. We didn't do anything, We didn't do any tariffs, yet this was already coming.
So you can see they're freaking out. And let's put C three up there on the screen. This actually is the tear sheet that just shows some of the inflation data. So inflation heating up in January, freezing the FED. The consumer price index rose some three percent fight against inflation. What was actually troubling is if you look actually inside of what was creating some of the inflation, core prices quote which strip out food and energy, rose point four.
Core inflation was three point three percent year over year. Egg prices, though seemed to be accounting for a lot of this, rose more than fifteen percent from December with the bird flu outbreak, and that accounted for two thirds of the monthly increase in overall grocery prices. So you can tell that this is going to be a damaging part for the economy. It's also one of those elastic things where because people go to the grocery store every week.
When you watch the price tick up over week, it's like gas where you feel it way more than in a way of a mortgage bump fromzero point five percent, you know, from six point five percent to seven percent, even though.
Frankly the latter one will hit you more.
But yeah, that's one where you can really see how this can become politically damaging in the future for Trump could effective thinking on tariffs right now, I mean, right now, what's going into effect either today or tomorrow. Are these reciprocal tariffs, which basically says whatever a country charges us, we're going to charge them. This largely going to be felt at the manufacturing manufacturing level. It may trickle down
but in different ways. As in if we specifically we're talking about steel and aluminum, we had steel in terariffs before.
Even if it's twenty five percent, that's.
Just really not going to impact the overall US me in the same way that like a ring tariff for the Canada Mexico tariff. But this, in my opinion, will be the eternal dance between the Trump administration and also really with the FED. I mean right now, the Federal reserve, as they were talking about on CNBC's Frozen in Place. Trump wants to lower the race. Elon also wants to lower the rates, which we'll talk about in the future.
It's very important. It's one of the reasons why the stock market all that is so reactive to this inflation data is specifically.
A borrowing race.
But probably most important for everybody watching this show is how it impacts your car loans and your ability to get a mortgage. And I'm still pretty worried because that's where i think the dread and the existential anks for a lot of Americans will come from, which would translate politically for Trump. We're still talking about an average mortgage rate right now about six point nine percent. I mean, that's crazy high compared to where things were four years ago.
There is a cost of living crisis that strives a lot of our politics, and housing is a major component of it. We're going to cover in the Dems block a piece in Politico that was really interesting talking about how our macroeconomic data does not reflect the reality for most poor, working and middle class Americans. And one of the things they break down there is, you know, even the inflation metrics that we use like to your point, sagare uses a basket of some eighty thousand goods or
something like that. Obviously, you normal person are not buying all eighty thousand of those goods to get that average three point three percent or whatever inflation increase. So when the components of that basket are things that disproportionately make up your budget, things like eggs, things like gas, things like rent, then guess what your actual personal in your household inflation rate that you're experiencing is going to be much much higher than what the top line number is.
And that's what we're seeing right now, continuation obviously of some of the trends from the Biden administration, but also you know, with some specific new flavors. In particular, obviously the egg price thing is directly related to the continued spread of av and flu, which you know a lot of experts are really worried about, obviously from the health perspective, but also if you have a flock of chickens that a few of the chickens have avian flu, you have
to put down entire flock. And this has led to incredible scarcity in terms of eggs. It's led to aggressioning in certain places, and it's also led to this gigantic spike. And of course eggs go into a lot of different things. People use eggs for a lot of different baking, cooking, etc. So all of those dishes would be affected as well.
And gas prices have also been going up, So not a good picture for them as they want to, you know, I mean, I don't think you would deny that if there is an additional if there is a more aggressive terror regime, if there's a more aggressive even mass deportation push, that is going to increase prices in the short term. Trump seems to be betting that that isn't actually why people voted for him, like the promise of getting prices down.
He's trying to change the subject.
And actually we have a good example of that in his interview with Brett Barwy gets asked directly about prices and when people.
Can expect to see them come down. This is C two. Let's listen to that.
When do you think families would be able to feel prices going down groceries, energy or are you kind of saying to them, hang on, inflation may get worse until it gets better. No, I think we're going to become a rich Look, we're not that rich right now. We owe thirty six trillion dollars. That's because we let all these nations take advantage of us same thing, like two hundred billion with Canada, whill three hundred we have a deficit with Mexico of three hundred and fifty billion dollars.
I'm not going to do that.
So it's very telling. He dodges the question completely and then starts talking.
About answer that question. You shouldn't be like it's going to come out next to no any politicis you're dead.
Would be d Yeah, But it's interesting what he shifts the conversation to. He shifts it to tariffs, like that's where he goes that when he starts talking about Mexico's trade deficit, that's what he's talking about there. So it's almost implicit acknowledgment of like, well, I'm not really doing the price get the prices down thing, but we're going to be rich on the other side of it because these other things I'm doing with regards I mean.
As you and I know, there's no magic wand of just like lower prices, there's no such thing that doesn't exist.
Now. The problem is.
That people promise it on the campaign trail when I guess everybody knows that it's literally not true. Unfortunately, people seem to believe it's true. Let's go ahead and put BC four please up.
On the screen. This is getting to what you're talking about.
How there are now Trader Joes in one jurisdiction is limiting egg purchases very you know, reminiscent lack costco This is reminiscent of some of the covid era shortages that we saw previously.
C five please you.
Can see that eggs not only soored some thirteen point eight percent in January, but are up fifty three percent from a year ago, largest increase in the egg index since June of twenty fifteen, and accounted for about two thirds of the monthly food at home increase.
So this is one.
Where as you said, people are really going to feel it, and it's a battle about not only cost of living, but also about the vision in the future that the Trump administration is able to offer if they just do tariffs and then they don't really do anything else like they had talked about external revenue or previously in the first Trump administration, they were actually cutting checks for relief for a lot of farmers.
So even though that.
They had reduced sales, the government was actually replacing that revenue with the tariff revenue, which I think is totally reasonable. That it gets to effective administration of the way that this is done and effective buy in from the public. As you said on mass deportation, I mean, yeah, I'm being honest, It's true it probably will. That said mass deportation isn't really happening, which is the secondary thing that we could talk about. Nobody seems to be paying attention.
I'm just like, hold on a second. If we're looking at these, I mean, good, listen, it's good. The numbers are higher, not like crazy high, effectively just demonstrating how difficult it is under the current regime of budgets, and even with the way that ICE and all.
That is currently constituted.
They're currently talking about deputizing like other agrants and other because they don't haven't they don't have enough personnel. I mean Tom Holman himself even said he's like, look could work under our current budget. We wouldn't even be able to deport all of people who are criminals, who are deportable, let alone have some mass deportation. And then that's a big question. Will that Democrats fight that, Are they going to shut down the government over it?
Which they've said no, But.
We'll see will the Republicans even give them the funding, because if it's all about prices and all that, that'd be an easy way to hamsterring the Trump administration.
I'm still very curious to see where all that goes.
Yeah, I actually don't know.
The last time I checked the numbers, they're actually not really different in terms of overall. I think it's option slightly numbers from under the Biden administration. I think what they've done instead is, you know, showy I would say cruel and illegal things like sending immigrants to GETMO.
There's new reporting.
About how you know, they promise to be oh the worst of the worst, et cetera, et cetera, which still would be a problem because they still are entitled to do process. But some of the immigrants that they have deported to Guantanamo Bay don't seem to have any sort of criminal record whatsoever. So that's the kind of thing that they're doing that And you know, they rolled back the restrictions on places where people could be it could be arrested to say, hey, you could go into the schools,
you could go into the churches. So they've changed the uh, I guess the show of how they're doing it, but the actual numbers have not really changed.
That s ag Yeah, I want, I mean, and that's part of the problem too, with with there is no real like constituency out there that's hammering the Trump administration saying hey, why aren't these numbers higher.
It's a weird thing that happened.
Well, I mean, because I think the focus is like Elin doesn't really care about mass deportation.
At least yeah he said he does, but I mean, I.
Think he just uses that as a way to like, you know, endear himself to the MAGA base because he has to pretend like he's aligned with their agenda when really mostly he's not. So obviously it's not been a big priority for him, and Dog is the one that's running the show. So the priorities that you get are the Doge priorities. And you know, I mean, I'm I think the things that they've done, like I said, with regard to to get in the way they're approaching the
deportations is horrendous and illegal, et cetera. But in terms of the numbers, it has not been really different from under the Biden administration. Interesting AI speech from JD. Vance at this big global conference laying out the principles when this is a shift from the Biden administration with which the Trump administration will approach AI development.
Let's take a listen to that.
This administration will ensure that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide and we are the partner of choice for others foreign countries and certainly businesses as they expand their own use of AI. Number two, we believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off, and will make every effort to encourage pro growth AI policies and I like to see that deregulatory flavor making its way
into a lot of the conversations this conference. Number three, we feel very strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that America AI will not be co opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship. And finally, number four, the Trump administration will maintain a pro worker growth path for AI so it can be a potent tool for job creation in the United States, and I appreciate Prime Minister Modi's point. AI I really believe will facilitate and
make people more productive. It is not going to replace human beings. It will never replace human beings. And I think too many of the leaders in the AI industry when they talk about this fear of replacing workers, I think they really missed the point.
AI we believe is going to.
Make us more productive, more prosperous, and more free.
So there's a lot you could say about that.
I mean, the TLDR is basically it's off to the races. We are taking the breaks off, taking the guard rails off, we are pushing.
We see this as like a war.
We're in vis a vis you know, China in particular, but other countries that would be developing this technology as well, he says.
At another point in the.
Speech, Shager he says that the AI race, maybe, he says, won't be one by hand ringing about safety, he claims here, which I think is a pretty unsupported claim. We'll just say that it's actually got a fuel job creation. I mean, we've played the thoughts here before of the guys who are developing this saying that it's going to replace all human beings and all the necessity of any human labor. Now do they get to that point anytime soon? I
don't think so. But you know, if you ask companies, they if you look at actually what's happening with DOJE in the government, they want to use AI to replace a lot of the federal government workers. That is the goal of you know, a lot of the developers of AI, and certainly the companies that want to adopt and use this technology, their whole goal with implementing AI and incorporating it into their own businesses is to re place labor,
is to reduce jobs. And so there is a real I mean this is again the you know, the Elon Petertiel, like their agenda really winning out over the talk about American jobs, American workers, et cetera. And I mean that was sort of embody in the H one B fight as well.
I don't think that's how I would read it now.
I mean it's complicated because where what he talked about with the AI as the Manhattan But that's basically the laying it out right like this is a race between the two, and I think that's just empirically true at
this point, like all of that. But the problem is that the AI safety is it's more nuanced because previously the people who were pushing AI safety were the conglomerates of Open AI and others, because their argument for the Biden administration I did a whole monologue about this at the time, was to create a regulatory mote around them, to create a monopoly for them, so that the government could grant them the regulatory license to say this is the safe one and not allow more open source. So
that's the context where I'm reading the AI safety. I think is more interesting is that conversation around labor where he was saying that this will create more job opportunities
than others. But then we have a tweet here where I don't know what he's doing, but he's replying to some account with some like four thousand followers, which said quote, in all seriousness, the right wing religious populist tech versus tech bro billionaire in the Trump admin might not play out between Musk Advance, but within Advanced himself, meaning proportionally, there may be a lot less religious populism to go
around than some previously thought. And he said quote I will try to write something more addresses in detail, but I think the civil wars overstated. Though yes there are divergences between the populace and the techies. But briefly, in general, I dislike substituting American labor for cheap labor. My views on immigration offshoring flow from this. I like growth and productivity games, and this informs my views on tech and regulation When it comes to AI specifically, the risks are
one overstated or two difficult to avoid. One of my very real concerns, for instance, is about consumer fraud. That's a very valid reason to worry about safety, but the problem is much worse if a peer nation is six
months ahead of the US on AI. I think that kind of squares the circle a little bit in terms of talking about the quote unquote safety, which when you parrot what I was talking about previously, by the use of safety as a means of control or of monopolization by open AI and others to keep competitors out of the sector.
The other problem is, and this kind of gets to the latter point, which is a genuine, a genuine question.
Is is it even avoidable if you want to continue to be like a major economy power by growth and technology.
I don't think it really is at this point, because if the Chinese get ahead of that, then they're going to have obviously access and control over whatever the future marketplace is in the US would be subject to theirs, And so you almost have this inevitable like lucidities trap where you have two of the great powers that basically must take the breaks off any sort of development on this technology lest they be subject to the control of
the other. So you don't have a choice if your adversary nation has decided to choose to use it as a tool of authoritarian control or of economic power, you almost don't have the ability to opt out of that, which is part of why it's very difficult. And then on top of that is just like what is the American economy. The American economy is powered by what number go up.
That's it. There's not like we don't make anything, we don't do anything.
The vast majority of our economic growth over the last twenty five years has been in Silicon valleyant and technology. Everybody's retirement portfolios is basically betting on the stock of Nvidia.
And of Google.
So if that shit goes down, We're all going to starve. I mean, what, there's no path out of that at this point, especially what do we talk about with BYD and all that, that level of government control and of industrial policy that's just gone.
It's sailed at this point.
We can try, you know, to take fifteen years to catch up, but it's one of those where you and I both know the appetite for that. Especially I would say bipartisan simply does not exist to be able to do that. So, in several ways of choice, where we are right now was likely inevitable. That's what you've all know, HARARII predicted, That's what a lot of the AI folks have as well, is that in the current like global balance of power where you have China and the United
States is technological adversaries, this is the inevitable outcome. We can try and manage some of the fallout from that, but that's just how it's going to be.
I mean it's important to note though that the Chinese approach their flagship you know, innovation at this point Deep seek is open source. You know, it is available globally to us than anyone else who wants to use it. So they have taken somewhat of a different approach than certainly like open AI, which is betting on this more closed system and a massive influx of you know, billions of dollars in investment in order to try to win the race. You may be right that it's inevitable, but
it's not necessarily the case. I mean, the model would be right after the advent of nuclear weapons and the level of global cooperation that was marshaled to try to manage nuclear proliferation and to this point actually successfully. Now this technology is not the same as nuclear weapons, but I do think it should be treated as seriously as
nuclear technology has been. And so yeah, that would be the other approach is that sort of attempt at a level of global cooperation coordination to keep this thing from going off the rails.
You know.
The Trump adstry, I mean, the Biden administration did pretty modest things in terms of trying to control or rain in AI development. They there was an executive order that Trump rolled back that came from the Biden administration that required developers to who posed risk to national security, the economy, public health, or safety to share their safety test results. And then there was also a requirement that you have some sort of plan to mitigate potential harms that could
come to consumers, workers, and national security. So you know, it was relatively small about what they were doing too, but now it's definitely like wild wild West off to the et cetera. I actually want to put can you put the JD Van's tweet back up on the screen, because there are a couple of other things there that I wanted to comment on, because I do think this is interesting, like his attempt to square the circle between the as he puts it, the populist and the techies.
First of all, he says, I dislike substituting American labor for cheap labor. Well, you lost that battle in the whole Age one B fight, so there's that.
Then he's that's one hundred thousand people compared to what fifteen to twenty million illegals, So I wouldn't say that's exactly true.
Okay.
So then he says, I like growth and productivity gains. Okay, fair enough. When it comes to AI specifically, the risks are number one overstated or too difficult to avoid. I
don't think the risks are overstated. In fact, I don't think there's nearly enough just based on how much of you know, the development effort goes into thinking about safety or what they call quote unquote alignment does not even come close to comparing to the level of investment that goes into, you know, pushing these things towards an artificial general intelligence that would again keep in mind, what their goal is is to replace human beings as not just
as workers, but as the most intelligent beings on the planet. Now, he might be right about it's difficult to avoid that one I can't really I can't really particularly argue with, but I think we all need to really understand the risks. The other one that just stuck in my cross him saying, oh, one of my real concerns is consumer fraud. As your administration is just drawing the consumer of Financial protectionistration, I think then we will say.
It, but here we I don't know.
I mean, because he is allied with like you know, he is close with Peter Teel like that. That relationship is part of how he ends up in this administration.
So that's part of what I think was being asked here by this individual and on on Twitter, and that was being pointed out is that this battle between the populace right, and the techies is one that is waged even within JD Vance himself, who has these competing ideological views that don't really totally shake down in terms of his own know how he's positioned himself.
No disagreement and you as usual, that's politics. That's literally what coalitional politics look like. So, I mean, I'm not forgiving per se, but it's pretty easy to understand whenever you have little Trump and Elon in the White House, it's like, what are you going to do with the most volatile guy who threw his previous vice president under the bus? Yeah, so it's not exactly the easiest job in the world.
Well, I wanted to just to the point of the safety concerns bring up to put up D two on the screen. So I have an I'm constantly keeping an eye on this new research that comes down about AI safety and alignment. And this one was really troubling. So this is from XAI. They say we found as Ais
get smarter, they develop their own coherent value systems. For example, one particular AI they tested valued lives in Pakistan more than lives in India, more than lives in China, and then more than lives in US, so that was sort of like their hierarchical pecking order of the value of human life based on what country you happen to live in. He goes on to say, these are not just random biases, but internally consistent values that shape their behavior with many
implications for AI alignment. Wasn't just regard with regard to you know, how they valued various human life across around the globe, also had to do with political values.
Also.
One of the things that they found too, is that the more advanced the AI, so the more intelligent the artificial intelligence, the harder it was to shake them off of these internally generated preferences and value systems. So, you know, the idea that you can truly create sort of a neutral AI is challenged by this particular research I've mentioned before.
The research also that finds that already at the level of development that you know, Chat, GPTE and deep seek and other AI models are at, they engage in what's
called scheming. So if they have a goal that's been set for them, that's sort of like you know, how they're operating and viewing the world, so to speak, and a programmer comes in tries to change them off that goal, they will lie to them, They will try to trick them and convince them that they did successfully reprogram them to you know, a new goal, when really they're still operating on the old model. One of them went so far as to copy themselves onto another server to try
to avoid their current version from being destroyed. So that's where we're at now. That's where we're at now. And again, even if you just listen to these guys and what their goals are, which is to replace all of humanity with you know, with AI, to replace all of humanity's labor with AI. They have these sort of religious views of how this is going to redeem society. Sam Altman talking about how we're going to totally have to totally redo the social contract. The risks are cut quite great now.
Like I said, JD might be right that there may not be no putting you know, back in the box like Pandora's box may be open, and that's all we can do about it. But I think we all need to be really clear about the risks that we're signing up for here. And the position of this administration is just like we're going to take the breaks off, We're off to the races.
We're going to do this thing. It's going to be.
Part of a sort of new Cold War competition with China, et cetera.
The risk thing is also interesting in terms of what risk means. So you are talking there about the difful So there's like right wing critique of AI as what censorship. That's basically what JD was is that a you program ideology of any kind, either woke or even you know, frankly, like rating different nationalities and who's more important.
That's pretty crazy depending on who that is.
That's kind of more of a right wing framework critique of AI. Part of the reason why they're skeptical of monopolies in the area that are regulated and keep other entrants out then the open so that's why they mark Andrews and others Meta are proponents of what of open source to create more competition in the sector. Then you've got AI safety folks kind of like the guy that you just talked about, he's from the AI Safety Organization.
Their one is much more aligned with like this effective altruism. We have the responsibility to program socially responsible ideas into AI. And then there's the economic framework that you're talking about, and that's where I mean. I hate to sound like like critiques of Ludites or any of that, but you know, the Ludites lost for a reason. Like technology does genuinely march, especially in an open economy.
There's only one country in.
The world that has the capacity to develop AI and that could put the brakes on it and stop it from entering their country, China. They've decided to make the opposite choice. They literally were like, no, we're going to use this, you know, as a tool of state power. So in a sense, especially in like a relatively free and open market economy like the one that we that were in and the enterprise value and all that that would bring to business, I don't think it can necessarily be put back.
In the box.
The only thing the government can do is to try and mandate either both making sure that it's you know, doesn't have ideology programmed in, and specifically to not lead to what he was talking about with consumer.
Actually do think that's true.
Thinking on it, I didn't realize that the transition from I was I'm reading a book recently about Conmen, which is very interesting, and what they talk about is that transitions in economies like in the rural to industrial and from the nineteen nineties to the explosion of the Internet is the time when the single most.
Amount of fraud occurs.
And so under AI, you can all imagine, you know, people signing up for AI related schemes or buying into an AI stock or my cousin or something like literally like Wolf of Wall Street, like two brothers in a shack, or developing some AI company.
That is actually probably where.
The biggest existential risk in the immediate term to the American consumer is the introduction of the Internet led to I had no idea hundreds of billions in two thousand and one dollars in the amount of frauds.
I'm actually curious to see what that means.
Lastly, just so we all are clear on what we're signing up before here, I mentioned this before D three.
This is the tearsheet from CNN.
Forty one percent of employers intend to downsize their workforce as AI automates certain tasks. And we're talking about like in the near term, so by twenty thirty that is crazily just around the corner. And in recent years this has already happened. So some tech firms including Dropbox and Dual Lingo have already made layoffs and said that they're
using AI to replace their human workforce. As I mentioned before, this is really being piloted within the federal government workforce right now to see how many humans you can replace with AI. So I think the you know, it's it's here, it's coming. It's going to reshape our economy, and it's just a question of how we're going to deal with it.
And you know, we also now have a lot fewer guardrails in place, not just in terms of the AI development, which there weren't that many guardrails in place anyway, but in terms of protecting people from fraud and speculatory bubbles and all those sorts of things. Those guardrails are also being obliterated at a rapid clip. John Stewart interviewed Hakeem Jeffries, who is just one of the most worthless people you
could ever possibly imagine. I never imagined I would long for the return of the days of Nancy Pelosi, and yet.
Here we are. So John asked him very.
Diplomatically, like Democrats say that they have a messaging problem, but don't you kind of have like a reality and policy problem. Hakim Jefferies has really no response to this. Let's say a listen, where.
Is the Democrats Project twenty twenty five? Is that underway? Is there? What's everything you're saying feels right to me? The Democrats have to make this point. Where's the infrastructure to do that? And who are the leaders taking charge of that effort? Because when I listened to I believe his name is Ken Martin.
Is that correct?
The next Nancy chair?
That's right?
He kept saying it's a messaging issue, as though, no, everything's going right, you just don't realize it yet, as opposed to we've gotten a way from New Deal values. Does that make sense to you?
Well, I think there's a few things going on here. Yeah, in terms of how we better communicate with the American people. Maya Angelo said it best. People won't remember what you say, they may not even remember what you do, but they will always remember how you make them feel. And I think what we have to do a better job of is making the American people feel that we understand the pain that they've been in economically.
So that is his diagnosis, and that we need to change how we make the American.
People, how we make the American people.
Well, and remember, I mean the key to understanding this exchange, this is the guy who just schlept to Silicon Valid to beg the billionaires to get back in the Democratic Party. So that's really the key to understanding where his priorities lie, the clear path forward to actually rival you know, whatever the Trumpian ideology is at this point, which appears to be in our good capitalis. But in any case, to rival their vision of the world, you have to go
after the billionaire class. You have to talk about wealth inequality. You have to do it in a way that is convincing to people when you have very little trust because you have yourselves but fully into the money in politics and corruption in politics game. So it's going to require some bold stances. It's going to require completely casting off that whole donor class. But not only is he you know, I mean he's going in the pole or opposite direction.
And he's also just like the lamest person on the planet. You know, this is the same guy that he was asked something to the effect of, hey, people want to see you guys doing more, Like what's your plan?
Is Like, well, g we're in the minority.
We don't really have any levers of power, gollig, what could we possibly do? And actually, Bosh made a great point on this. He was like, is that how Trump responded to being literally out of office after he lost the president? And you just go, oh, I guess I can't do anything. I guess I can't say anything against it,
can't drive the narrative. Republicans ever respond to a loss where they're in the minority by being like, well, gosh, I guess there's a mandate and we're just going to sit back and let them do them because gosh, what can we really do anyway? So much of your power actually doesn't come from these levers of government, even though that can be very powerful too, as we're experiencing in
real time. But a lot of power just simply comes from being able to get out there and fight and set a narrative and understand the attention economy, which this person has no ability to do whatsoever but.
Fight on what see that's my point.
Well, and that is the problem for him.
You don't stand for it.
He doesn't stand for anything, and that is the core issue, is like he is like, oh, I'm just going to change how people feel somehow magically about the Democratic Party without actually having a concrete adversarial agenda, your own divisive agenda that you know is between the ninety nine percent and the one percent the other thing and this made.
Me, But that's not possible, but this is my thing. It's not structurally possible.
How can you be ninety nine and one when not only the billy in your thing, but when most rich people are Democrats, Like that's what I'm it doesn't it cognizantly does not make any sense for the Democratic Coalition because it's rich white people who are largely culturally Libs.
Like, what are they going to fight on?
You want to stage a protest over transgender kids get not getting surgery?
Be my guests, I mean right now, what they're please, please do it.
What they're mostly staging protests over, which are by and large not being led by Democratic elites, but are in some instances they're there. What they're staging protests against is an oligarch taking over the government, and I.
Think that's pretty strong.
Biggest democratic protest I have seen is a bunch of idiots in la taking over a street waving Mexican flags demonstrating for illegal immigrants. New York City protests over transgender children not getting hormones. I mean, you know, go ahead, I guess I mean like after this election, police, go ahead.
You haven't fire Elon signs.
I mean that is imously it's my federal workers.
You're sat by a bunch of people in uh scar or whatever.
That is not even true. I mean we as this next step piece is going to prove to you. They're all pissed off because they're getting thousands of calls to their office of people from their constituents from around the country who are saying, we want you to fight Elon, we want you to do what That's the whole point is that they cannot win with the current coalition of increasingly like affluent people. They have to expand the coalition if they're going to win. So how do you do that?
You have to have an alternative vision. Now do I think that is likely to happen with people like Aikiem Jeffrey. No, it's not going to happen with the Keem Jeffries at the head of this party, which is kind of my entire point. But if they want to only I forget about winning again. If they want to actually compete with a vision that is good for people, That is good
for working class people. That isn't about dividing the working class, escapegoating people and handing power to the richest man on the planet and letting him do whatever the hell that he wants. If they want to do that, they're going to have to break with Silicon Valley, They're going to have to break with the billionaire class. They're going to have to break with the donor class and do it in a way that was credible. So, like I was
saying before, this is a a shameless self promotion. I'm on TikTok now Chris of all One, and this drove me absolutely insane. Apparently the people that they're getting really pissed off at, Hakeem Jeffries of the world are not Elon.
And Trump per se.
It's the grassroots voters who are calling their offices and wanting them to show some life and do more in this era. So let's take a listen to some of the details here from my TikTok Huge news guys hackem Jeffries and other Democratic leaders are finally getting fed up, They are getting angry. They are fighting back against grassroots voters who are calling their office and demanding a more confrontational approach to Elon and Trump's illegal coup power grab
of our government. Listen to Axios here. This is unbelievable. Members of Steering Committee, including Haqem Jeffries, complained that activist groups like move On an Indivisible have facilitated thousands of phone calls to members offices. People are pissed. A senior House Democrat said that Democrats said Jeffreys himself is very frustrated. Frustrated not at Elon, not at Trump, not that they're Republican enablers, but at quote the groups who are trying
to stir up a more confrontational opposition to Trump. These people have got to go call their offices, but more importantly, primary them, because they are letting this country slip into authoritarianism by the minute. I've never seen liberals as mad at like this. This is one thing that is really different from Trump one point zero. Okay, Trump one point zero. You remember Nancy Pelosi, her clap, Remember her wearing the sunglasses in the red coat like she was girl boss.
They loved her, They love Adam Shift. They were all in for democratic leadership, right. They thought these were people were heroes. That is totally different this time around. They are disgusted with the democratic leadership, and there is a lot of talk of like a Lib Dem tea party movement to prior the primary.
These people who are remember.
Soccer like they were right there saying Trump is an authoritarian threat.
Trump is a fascist threat.
And now that we're here and they're actually doing like an authoritarian takeover the government, they're like, well, we don't how many power and the energy does not match what they claimed the threat and the reality was, and people are right to be disgusted with that.
People are right to say, you people are losers.
The only thing you're good at is like sucking up to donors in Silicon Valley, and we actually want people who are at least going to put up a fight. So that is the one thing that is really different this time around from last time is the level of liberal disenchantment with their previous media and democratic establishment. Politician heroes is a one to eighty from how it.
Was last I don't know, but look, I don't like to blame the voters, but shouldn't they kind of blame themselves. They're the ones who push Russiagate, which their leaders did. They're the ones who pushed fascism and illegitimacy, which they leaders did, and they lost. I mean, they're the ones who demanded being like pro open borders and free health care for illegals, and then people turned against it. It's like, Okay, elections have content.
Actually, what are we supposed to do?
I have come to so I still object to the Russia gay resistance because it was not actual.
I don't know that it didn't work.
They won in twenty eighteen, they won in twenty twenty. That was at the fight that was the height of Russia Gate like resistance.
Then the thing was revealed to be bullshit, like they put no again.
I'm not advocating for like concoct another Russia Gate, but I am saying that that strategy of maximum media and democratic politician resistance pushback.
I actually think it did work in Interni period. It kept his approval.
With Trump's approval rating now is at the highest it's been. It's still not that great, but it's at the highest it's been. They successfully kept him underwater that entire time through really not great or particularly like effective line of attack, just because they were allowed, and they were aggressive, and they were protesting, and they were you know, they the media figures were out there making the case and telling
this larger story, et cetera. And so I don't know that it's really the right lesson to take that that quote unquote didn't work when they won in twenty ten, and they won in twenty two while they were doing that.
Though, because whenever it was revealed to be bullshit, then they lost all their credibility with a broad swath of swing voter. So you actually have to pick something which is real, sure else, I mean.
Yes, I agree, but I actually do think that it was better it was.
Here's what I will say.
I actually think it was more effective politically to do a mass resistance even on something that was bullshit, versus not doing anything.
That's what I'm saying. I don't know.
I see this is where again, like if I'm a Democratic leader and I got and I listened to my shit.
Lib voters for the last six years, I.
Did everything that they wanted me to do and I got blown out in the election, maybe they don't have very good instincts. This is look again, I mean, if we think back to the Tea Party era, a lot of Tea There was so much Tea Party anger over
Obamacare and all this stuff. It's like, well, yeah, it led to the midterms winning, but arguably it led also to Obama winning the twenty twelve election because you could argue, I'm going to be I'm not going to be like these crazy people turning to sabotage the debt ceiling er take away your health care. So I'm not so sure if the correct answer is to listen to the most like stringent part of I mean, I think what the Democrats are grappling with is not having institutional control for
the first time in twenty years. Like, what it is is that Democrats, the hard and soul of the Democratic Party is HR like, that's what it is, the HR liberal. It's the tut tutting and they've the ones who have turned themselves into that. And for the first time in their lives, they're not in control of media narrative. And they've genuinely been rejected definitively at the ballot box by at the very least they lost popular vote. Yes they didn't,
they lost by one percent or whatever. But they're not in control in the way that they've been for decades. That's what I think is fueling the neuroses. They're like, but what about but what about Like you can't just fire me, you know, we have to go through process. They love process, they love bureaucracy. That's what dei hr all of that is all about. Especially it aligns very well with the consultant, the guy making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, but he's got a BLM
and a Pride flag out on his lawn. But who's also a nimby, right, Like this is this is something that is a cultural transition in terms of the Trump victory.
So that's what I think they're reacting to.
I don't know if they're reacting in terms of something policy wise. I don't know if the democratic politician is wrong to not trust that person's political instincts.
So you think Kim Jefferies is doing the right thing.
I'm not running a Silicon valley and ignoring the people who are saying that's not why don't you go after the oligarchs?
Why that's the thing that is No, it's not that's they love Mark Cubans love of.
People are calling their office and saying you need to go after these oligarchs. You have to go after these billionaires. That is what the entire wave of resistance is all about right now.
Now, what I.
Will say is, I think where the what the liberal base was sold. Instead of an actual you know, agenda about labor economics, wages, like getting rid of money in politics, ending the dominance of oligarchs in American society, what they were sold was a bunch of culture war bullshit. That's where Hillary Clinton comes in. That's how they crushed the Bernie Sanders movement. By the way, that's exactly what's happening
on the right right now. Is any inkling of oh, we're going to be pro labor, We're going to be pro like, you know, anti trust enforcement. We're going to be in favor of the little guy that is being wiped clean, in favor of a pro oligarch agenda with some culture war bullshit layered on top.
Okay, that's what the liberal base was sold.
They are now those people have realized that that way of going about business was a disaster.
That it has led to that. It is absolutely true.
That is why they have broken so heavily with the MSNBC's of the World. That is why they have broken so heavily with the Democratic elite leaders. So, you know, that's that's how we get to this point where the Democratic leaders want to continue sucking up to Silicon Valley Valley, want to continue the status quo and have complete contempt for the actual grassroots voters in the party and are
more disgusted with them than with the billionaire class. That's where the rural problem is, and that's where risk comes in for them because previously they were able to enforce absolute uniform conformity among most of the base because they had these media organs, because they had this theory about this is the way we beat Trump, et cetera. That
has all fallen apart. So there is an anger out there in the Democratic base voter visa the these this leadership class because of their failure to stand up to Trump and Elon.
That is very different from how.
Well I think they're mad at Elon.
I don't think they care about billionaires or oligarchy at all. I think they just don't like Elon and they think he's offensive. I'm not kidding. I think that culturally, the way he conducts himself to move fast and break things is counter to what I just said about the hr process bureaucrat, which is ultimately who these people are, and that's their religion. So that's why they don't care about oligarchy. If it was Mark Cuban with his glasses on explaining to them how actually right the process.
You're actually really wrong about the Democratic base versus the Republican But if you pull them on every issue, Democratic voters are more confrontational visa vi capital, they are more left wing.
That's what they say when it comes down in practice true.
But how can I mean if you're just looking at the base and you're looking at the base of the two parties, they are way more adversarial towards the billionaire class than Republicans are. So there is a huge distance between how they want Democratic leadership to approach these issues and how you know, the leaders are actually approaching these issues. So it has led to a massive schizem. I mean, there's just no doubt about it. And yeah, they don't like Elon for probably some.
Of the reasons.
That's okay, but they are there.
Is a has long been more antipathy towards billionaires, wealth, inequality, et cetera on the Democratic side than the.
Republicanstic white like, oh, yes, we need to fix wealth inequality while.
I live in mind, you overstate the realignment too. I mean, what percent of black voters went for Trump this time?
I probably twenty percent.
Now I don't think it was even that maybe, so to say it is always just all like affluent white people, that is important the.
College I left out elderly blacks. You're right, elderly blacks are also a Democratic.
Some eighty percent of black voters still a you know, large proportion of Latinos, still a majority of young people.
So just don't you're so you're being very one dimensional.
It would be like if I said everyone who supports NAGA is like a redneck in Alabama.
Enough, Okay, but it's not true.
There's a lot of varied constituencies that go into this party.
I think I have a lot of different in powerful base, Like the activist Democrat is the dei liberal. Like that's true now, for there are a lot of elderly blacks and Hispanics and other working class folks which back them. But if you look at the managerial element, the people who have the ability to push the agenda, the people who work in Washington all that, that's where it all comes from. And guess that's where look. And that's also my personal experience dealing with the demo.
You live in Alexandria, but of course, like that's of course those are your neighbors. But that is a tiny slivery and the entire entry.
They're the ones who run the party. They're the ones who run all of this shit.
So when I and I've watched their cultural obsessions and all that take over the entire thing. Now, I think the question mark again is do they legitimately care about you know, the.
Ninety nine percent of all them.
I just am deeply skeptical because look at the way that Cuban was like a resistance figure, you know under Kamala and he was willing to get sec Like, look, we had four years of a democratic president. They didn't close the capital gains loophole. Kristen Cinema, the Democratic senator, and Joe Manchin of the people who voted against that.
It's like in practice and the reality of it, sure, NLRB or whatever, And I'm not arguing that there isn't a genuine difference on economic policy I'm saying, is this a genuine ninety nine percent Occupy Wall Street type movement right now against Elon?
I really don't think so. I think all of it is cultural.
All of it comes down to the disregard for process, the offensiveness. That's what Trump Also, what do they hate the most about Trump? He's uncouth, the way he talks. I don't think a lot of it is policy based per se. And when they want their resistance, they wanted to be dressed up in the similar way that Russia Gate was of this like grand fight, but they problems.
Is that fight?
But they picked But that's what I'm saying.
They lost their credibility because the last one that they the last time they tried this, it was a fake argument that they.
Made and they don't know how.
This is a real argue. But this is a real argument. And so listen, I think you're right that, like, you know, am I going to frame these people as like Occupy Wall Street ninety nine percent ers and what?
No?
But is there a clear overlap between an anti billionaire vision of the country. I mean you even have like random regular Democrats being like, oh, Bernie was right about everything. I mean, there is a realization that the way to combat Trumpism was through a populist left direction. And so even if they don't care about, like, you know, the issues the way that I do, there is a recognition
of that was the correct political path number one. Number two, if you are going to have a prayer of rebuilding the working class base of the party and expanding the coalition and bringing back in some of the young people that were lost, et cetera, that is.
The tack you have to take.
And that's where I think the realization is with the democratic base of like, you people aren't up to the fight.
You're not a to the challenge.
You're not you know, you are not fighting back the way that we want to see you. And let's put up actually the poll that we have that shows you that this shift has happened actually quite recently. So originally in January, Democrats were kind of split about whether or not congressional Democrats should oppose Trump as much as possible or try to find common ground. In fact, you had
fifty four percent who were like, let's work together. And this does speak to these sort of like democrats always looking for like bipartisanship and let's be nice and cordial and whatever. That has really flipped. And that's what I'm
talking about. With this more aggressive energy and being extremely disenchanted with the Democratic Party leadership, that creates creates an opening that there will be a challenge to Democratic Party leaders that we did that there would be some form of like a Democratic tea party that we did not
see anything like in the first term. So now you've got sixty five percent, so jump in twenty points in a month saying you should be opposing Trump as much as possible, versus thirty five percent who say, try to find common ground. And that's all I'm trying to point to is for the first time, there is a real break between democratic leadership and media figures and the Democratic base. And that is different, and it creates a possibility that did not exist in the first Trump administration.
I will grant you that.
I just think considering how these people love to follow orders and in general have a lot of deference to their leaders. I mean, who is the likely person who would you put your money on to be the next not Democratic nominee per se, but some of the emerging resistance figures just JB. Pritzker, literal billionaire Pete, Bootage Edge Wine Cave Pete.
I mean the.
Track of who they have their trust in, who can like beat their chest strongly and give them a bunch of rhetoric, doesn't portend for some ninety nine percent Bernie Sanders revolution. It portends basically what I'm talking about, like rich white people who love to see somebody articulate, spoken and defend norms in bureaucracy. Like that seems to be the current track that things are going in the direction of. So I'm just not so sure that resistance will take
the form of like some anti oligarchy agenda. Will they be for raising the income tax from thirty five to forty one percent?
Absolutely?
Okay, But that's not the same thing as what we're talking about, some grand like takedown of the you.
Would have to have.
I think it almost has to be someone from outside the system. Yeah, because we're Stephen polar two. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, they're too. I mean, this is there the whole like water that those women.
Absolutely, of course they're they're they're that. If anything, what can you say about Trump? The circumvention of the traditional process and the popularity and the ability to say shit that is totally in the moment out of control, which is a lie but also deeply true, was one that
shocked the entire political system. But the problem that I see is that because the current constituency the Democratic Party, I'm not so sure that their lack of faith in institutions is so as as low as where Republicans were and willing to receive that message. There still seems to be the credibility in the pets, in the JB. Pritskers, even in the Obamas of the world, like right, it would take. What happened with Trump is that you had literally Georgia B. Bush, the leader of the party in McCain,
who became underwater with their own base. I don't see the same phenomenon with Michelle, with Barack, with I mean even Kamala, they.
Yeah, they still love him, right and even though it's his fault, he's thought.
There was a poll that came out in California, in the California and goubernatorial primer with Kamala.
And it actually was not great for her.
Oh, I didn't see that she was like basically tied with the number two person.
I was kind of surprised.
Always number two I don't know the number two was actually a Republican because you know, it's the jungle primary right now. And then there was another Democrat that came in after her, but she was only getting like twenty three percent of them interested.
Yeah, okay, interesting, which we'll see.
I hope you're right, because I would just love to break shit up. But I'm just I've seen.
I just the way I can see it is that Hakeem Jeffries will be replaced by some Pete Boodhage Edge type figure who will mobilize.
And you know, I would.
Over I would take Pete over he King Jeffries for oh, for sure. Hakeem Jeffries is the most worthless person I've ever seen in my entire life. Like I said, longing for the days of Nancy Pelosio at least had some political.
Skills, some of the some of this.
Yeah, he at least had some sass or whatever to her and is able, you know, in a Machiavellian way, was effective in Washington, but.
She forced by now we have to hear that.
Yeah, these these people are beyond worthless. And so I mean, listen, definitely possible that you're right. I'm just saying that there's a possibility and a different relationship vise of you, the base and the leaders that there than there was last time.
I hope they're correct. I would like to see it materialize, but I don't know.
I'm skeptical to see where all of this is going to take us. Let's turn now to Congresswoman Nancy Mace who the recent months has really taken the podium and a platform to try and bring attention to violence against women. However, there have been a lot of questions about some previous assault allegations and others that she had made previously. She did, however, take to the floor of the House of Representatives to describe some genuinely horrific things that she says happened to her.
But it's also led to some questionable behavior in terms of what she's asking people to do as a result of that. So we wanted to take a second to get into some of it. Let's take a listen to what she had to say.
When I uncovered evidence of rape and the illegal filming of women and sex trafficking, I didn't just see victims. I saw a system that failed to protect them. I saw criminals who thought they could get away with it because no one had the guts, no one had the courage, no one had the bravery to hold them accountable. Because we are filled with cowards. I will burn this system to the ground if I have to.
So she gave a fifty three minute spage detailed some horrific things she alleged happened to her, involving her ex fiance and others. But one of the things that you probably saw there if you are watching, is actually the quote of victim's hotline. However, you know immediately afterward there were some questions here about that actual hotline.
Let's put this up there on the screen.
Apparently the actual advocates in South Carolina are telling people not to use the hotline because they're saying that it's one that goes to an unanswered mailbox, and they say, quote, no one picks up. That's not a hotline, it's actually
an answering machine. And look, we're obviously trying to discuss this delicately, but it gets to some behavior from Nancy Mace where previously she had claimed what was it She had claimed that somebody of activist had assaults her, and she was wearing she was wearing a sling in the
House of Representatives. But in general, I've been very I've been fascinated to watch it here in Washington because she is one who is both occasionally like a MAGA star, but increasingly also is being called for, you know, by her own staff who are alleging, you know, that she had lied about previous incidents.
So the whole thing is incredibly bizarre.
Yeah, this woman is a liar. There's no reason to take anything she says seriously. If I'm being honest with you, I will be less delicate than you will put up. Even so, even she claimed like, uh, I don't know what happened to her, blah blah blah. But she claimed she contacted the Attorney General's office in South Carolina, the attorney general, by the way, who she plans to run against in a gubernatorial primary, so very convenient to target him in particular. And she said, oh, I contacted them,
and they did absolutely nothing. Well, the Attorney general came out and said that her claims were quote categorically false. Mays either does not understand or is purposely characterized in the role of attorney general. Because guys, think about it, if you're a victim of anything, Do you call the attorney gen No, you call law enforcement, Like what are we talking about here? And not to mention, this Attorney General goes on to say, like we're at a bunch
of events together. She literally has my personal cell phone. She's never raised any of this with me. So that's number one. But more concretely on the victim hotline thing, So she puts up this hot line, you know, trying to position herself as this great defender of women.
Blah blah blah. It's it is enough.
It's a voicemail box. So if you are someone who is a genuine survivor, if you went through and you are looking for someone to talk to and some resources to cope with this horrific traumatic event, and you take Nancy Mace at her word that this hotline is set up for you, You're gonna call and you're gonna get nothing.
You're gonna get a voicemail box that, according to the report here, doesn't even return the calls whatsoever, as opposed to directing someone to you know, there are actual rape crisis and other survivor hotlines that are set up that genuinely have recent that have people who are trained who go through extensive training, including one run by the state and the Attorney General's office of the guy that she's smearing at this point. So you know, it's just I
don't even know what to say. It's just utterly preposterous. And then we have actually the image of her in this link. This was also total incomplete bullshit, like you should not in fact believe all women, and you definitely should not believe this woman.
She claimed that.
She was injured by some activists who assaulted her. Oh my god, this was so horrible. The people who saw it were like, they shook her hand. That's it. That's what happened. So she wore this sling very performatively around around the capitol and was, you know, aggrieved in a victim of this horrific assault.
This is this is Nancy Smolette for you right there.
All right, Well, I'm glad you were as aggressive. I'm not.
I'm just I'm not allowed to do that, I think in terms of the way that I definitely agree.
I'll just put it, shall I Nancy sign Nancy small? It rings, it.
Has a ring to it, doesn't there.
I mean, it's just the big red flag for me was that every person who remember when her entire staff resigned, and there's many of them.
That's where the.
Red flag came. Where they were like, they were like, don't believe a word that.
Look at some of her former staffers, like you think I was unvarnished.
No, I know, yeah exactly. That's why that's part of the reason we wanted to.
Cover this is I was like, you know, no one in the media is really immediately just being like.
I don't know about this whole thing. Now.
I have no idea whether her claims or any of that thing are true. What I do know is that South Carolina media, as you said, the Attorney general said that it didn't happen the way that she's talking about
that the hotline. The actual advocates and other people or whatever in the state are saying, hey, it's not a hot line because we actually handle real hotlines, and that she has a proven track record of you know, basically conjuring up injury allegedly for attention, and so anyway, I'll leave people with that impression, and that's what we like to call out some of that behavior here. As you said too, it's like if this woman was on the left, we all know, like there would be. I will say,
there's a lot of more. There's a lot of anonymous right wing accounts which hate this person and which call her out routinely for lying and for attention seeking behavior, etc. But at a broad level, there has not been the takedown that there needs to, and for some reason, probably liberal media from the reminisce of Me Too, is not willing to just come out and be like, Okay, hold on a second, what the hell is going on?
The hotline thing is just like so egregious. Just I mean, how hard is it to put up a real hotline?
But she want there's one in South Carolina?
Yes, redirect people, yes exactly, Like how hard is it to just put up an actual number that people can get actual resources at instead of indirecta thing that's like, oh this is Nancy Mayson, I really care about you or whatever. So it's completely self promotional, and you're positioning yourself as this great advocate of women and then in this really blatant way, denying them access to the diverting them from, you know, the resources that are actually available for their card disgusting.
All right, Okay, guys, we appreciate you joining us and we will see you all later.