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Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. Have an amazing show for everybody today when we have Prystal.
Indeed, we do some breaking news this morning, run Seizing two Vessels.
As we continue to hover on the brink of another war.
The stock market has taken a dive over AI concerns Trump is retreating further on ice deployments.
Bill Gates responding.
To Epstein allegations, We've also got a little tour for you of all of the various Epstein defenders and the defenses that they're offering. I think you might enjoy that one. We're also going to take a look at the latest with regard to this Trump assault on elections. He's doubling down on his previous comments that they should be nationalized and taken over.
So that's a fun one.
Right, And Tolsey Gabbard is now seizing what is it pererto Rican voting machine.
Yes, because to investigate a link to Venezuela. This whole idea that there might be a deal with Maduro is looking more and more plausible by the.
Day, very plausibile. We'll be on Maduro Watch, Maduro Stop the Steel Watch. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing Breakingpoints dot com. We have a number of you who have joined the show in the last week because of Epstein. We're very happy to have you be Please support our work, be able to watch our show in full as it is meant to be consumed Breakingpoints dot Com and really just you know, again opening the books. We had two
segments yesterday demonetized. One of them was over and Ice shooting. The other was over the Elon Paris raid. But just to give people an example of how we cannot pick and choose our coverage, based on what is going to get ranked in the algorithm and ad revenue. That's why we primarily rely on all of you, and we've had multiple epscene demon tais here as well. So thank you to everybody who supports the show. If you are watching this on YouTube, another way to help us out if you can't.
Is to just hit subscribe to our YouTube channel.
And if you're listening to this on a podcast, please share an episode with a friend. It really helps other people find the show. But let's go ahead and start with Iran and the latest that just happened right before we started. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. Iran's IRGC has seized two vessels in the Persian Gulf, threatening the United States with quote mastacre and hell,
I guess their version of fire and fury. The IRGC's Navy's public relations department alleges that more than one million leaders of smuggled fuel were found on the ships and some fifteen foreign crew members were referred to judicial authorities. So this happened in what they're claiming our Iranian waters. This is still very very unclear exactly what's happen happening, but this is clearly a shot across the bow as diplomatic negotiations with the United States remain very very in flux.
So what they are saying here specifically is that the strait of Horn Moves will be the place of massacre and hell. I think this crystal is a very clear message, a shot across the bow at Trump after multiple incendiary comments made by the administration yesterday as diplomatic negotiations literally we're on off and then on again, all in the span of just three hours, we had a very very significant development here.
Yeah, according to doctor Parsi, you know, the way the Iranians are thinking now is previously when you've had you know, Israel attack them, then we attack them. They've done these very limited, coordinated with US retaliatory strikes two with the calculation from the Iranians being we don't want this thing to spiral. There is a different mindset there now, which is basically like, Okay, we tried that, that didn't work,
so we need to adopt a different time. So I think you can look at this seizure of these vessels and this type of rhetoric threatening massacre and hell as a different approach that is responsive to the fact that hey, they tried the more conciliatory Okay, you can hit us, and we will hit back as we have to, but
we're going to coordinate it with you. This is a signal that you know, this time they may not play that game again, and they feel the need to take a harder line because the previous approach obviously didn't work. Since we're now you know, we had claimed that we all we destroyed their nuclear capabilities. Now we're back saying
we've got to negotiate over your nuclear capabilities. And by the way, your ballistic missile program too, which is a new add on from Israel, which is meant to poison the well, and which is meant to back us into a corner, not forced because we have our own agency here, but to push us once again towards war.
The ballistic missile addition is completely fake.
It was added at the very last minute by the Israelis because it's only a security threat to them, not to us. We're all the way over here, and then the way that we square that is well, but we have all these troops in the region. It's like, well, why are the troops in the region to protect Israel?
Oh?
Okay, so that's what this entire thing is about.
Nonetheless, this is almost certainly in response yesterday to Trump yesterday threatening the Supreme Leader of Iran in an NBC News interview in the Oval Office, Here's what he had to say.
Should the Supreme Leader in Iran be worried right now?
I would say he should be very worried. You know, he should be, as you know, they're negotiating with us. I know they are.
But the protesters have said, you know, where are the Americans. You promised them we would have their back. Do we still have it back?
We've had their back, and look that country is a mess right now because of us. We went in and we wiped out their nuclear in the Middle East. If I didn't take out their nuclear think of it, if we didn't take out that nuclear we wouldn't have peace in the Middle East because the Arab countries could have never done that. They were very, very afraid of a Yeah,
they're not afraid of Iran anymore. We wiped out those beautiful Beat two bombers, the ones right over there, those beautiful little models, those beautiful Beat two bombers went in and they hit their target, every single bomb and obliterated it, and because of that, they were going to have a nuclear weapon within one month. Within one month, they were gonna have a nuclear weapon. That was a big threat that they're not gonna have it anymore.
But now if we obliterated reiterated, what's the deal about.
I mean, if there's no more are they are they trying to restart the nuclear.
We heard that they are, and if they do, and I let them know, if they do, we're going to send them right back and do their job again.
So you're understanding if they tried to restart it, and that's why you're threatening force.
They tried to go back to the site. They weren't even able to get near it. There was total obliteration. But they were thinking about starting a new site in a different part of the country. We found out about it. I said, you do that, we're going to do very bad things to you.
So, uh, the Supreme leaders should be very worried.
He said that there were one month away during midnight Hammer from a nuclear bomb.
Literally just not true.
There's an entire thing about brain out time, et cetera, which Tulsi Gabbert don't forget. Right before Midnight Hammer had said that there is no indication, and in fact, you know, in our interview with doctor Parsi as well as a lot of other information that has come out, the Supreme Leader actually takes his fatua on nuclear weapons very seriously, and it would take a repeal of that. There's been
no intelligence indication. I can guarantee you if they had, the New York cons would let us know tomorrow so that we could start a full blown nuclear war. Nothing has changed on the ground whatsoever except for the protests. And so the protests are making people very excited about this idea of a shaky regime which can just be toppled from the air and turn it into an Israeli civil war rump state. But that is just not where
things are. And in fact, you know, what we see right now is we may have exhausted the very last chances of real diplomacy here and that the current you know, the current framework from the administration is that this is an illegitimate regime. Is that every time that we hit you and or we negotiate, that the goalpost will move.
And that's why the Iranian position has changed so dramatically now basically to the point and look, the critics are saying that they've always been like this, did I don't remember multiple airstrikes and negotiations and crises that were all happening. This is entirely one manufactured of our making and of
Israel's making. And this was underscored by the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio yesterday, who again takes direct aim at the leadership of Iran, who apparently we also want to negotiate a two let's go ahead and roll that.
The Iranian people and the Iranian regime are very unlike in essence, what the Iranian people want. This is a culture with a deep history. These are people that are The leadership of Iran at the clerical level does not reflect the people of Iran. I know of no other country where there's a bigger difference between the people that lead the country and the people who live there. And
so our hope resides in that. As far as the presence views on the way protesters were treated, it was very clear about it, and as you saw, part of what the President said publicly prevented mass executions that were being planned. And we're on the precipice of and obviously beyond that, the President retains a number of options to how we respond to that and future events. But as far as the talks are concerned, you know, I think the Iranians had agreed to a certain format. For whatever reason,
it's changed in their system or what have you. We'll see we can get back to the right place. But the United States is prepared to meet with them. I think it was scheduled for Friday. Steve is ready to go. He'll be prepared for that. If the Iranians want to meet, we're ready. They've expressed an interest in meeting and talking. If they changed their mind, we're fine with that too. We prefer to meet and talk. I'm not sure you can reach a deal with these guys, but we're going
to try to find out. We don't see there's any harm in trying to figure out there's something that can be done. This is a president that always prefers a peaceful outcome to any conflict.
Or any challenge.
So you can all see very clearly here. You know, this is a direct shot. We would like to meet. But it's like the people of Iran deserve basically freedom.
I mean, I guess maybe you can hold those together.
But Chrystal, when we put it to a and pair with what happened yesterday. It is very clear there is a massive factional war inside the Trump administration. Let's put this one up here on the screen just so we can show all of you. So basically, as of yesterday morning, we were supposed to meet with the Iranians. After some pushback from them saying we don't want to meet with regional partners, we just want to meet one on one with the United States, those talks were then called off
as of midday. Then by the end of the day the plans for the US Iran talks are actually back on after several Arab and Muslim leaders urgently lobbied the Trump administration Wednesday afternoon not to follow through on threats to walk away. Quote, they asked us to keep the meeting to listen to what the Iranians have to say. We have told the Arabs we will do the meeting if they insist, but we are very skeptical.
The official said.
At least nine countries had passed on messages the most senior levels of the Trump administration strongly asking do not cancel the meeting with the Iranians. In Oman and as second US officials said that the Trump administration agreed to take the meeting with the Iran that needs to be respectful of the request of US allies and in order to coordinate pursuing the diplomatic tracks. So very clearly the Arab powers are freaking out because people forget this, It's
not just Israel. Where was that token strike back from the Iranians Doha Qatar, who by the way, also got struck by Israel, and then we signed some non aggression packed with Doha Saudi Arabia Straits of horror moves. We have massive amounts of oil that moved through there, so this would be a destabilization event, which the Iranians, now with their seizure this morning, are making clear we can
wreak absolute havoc. The price of skyrocketed on the news initially whenever the meetings were supposed to be canceled.
I'm sure that the raid this morning will also have some.
Sort of follow on effect, But it is clear that there's a deteriorating situation, and we keep narrowing the goalposts to make it so that it's like war seems to be one of the only options left that's currently on the table. Absent a genuine breakthrough tomorrow, which we can all hope for. But if you're iranlast time you were scheduled to meet with Steve Wikoff, we bombed you.
So what what are they going to do in this meeting?
And if you're any of these you know, regional powers and allies of the US, you also have to feel a little bit nervous about how sufficient our defenses are going to be. I mean, you watched and this again wasn't covered that much in the Western press, but last time, you know, our stockpiles and Israeli stockpiles of you know, the of defense interceptors, missile defense interceptors were running low
and Israel was struck. Now, Iran, I have no doubt took more damage, but there was there were significant blows struck inside of Israel. So they also can't feel totally confident that, like the US is just going to have our back and it's not going to be a problem,
We're not going to take on any damage. And then are they excited about having you know, a failed state in Iran and all of the chaos that that entails and the spillover effects which you know, nobody understands what that can look like better than the countries in this region. So listen, I have no idea, I have no inside knowledge whether we are going to strike Iran imminently or not.
But what I can say is what we've seen over the course of this administration and at other lower levels under other administrations as well, is they are continuing to push.
In this direction.
I mean, the protests are both organic, like there's genuine upset in the country over the government. I don't want to downplay that whatsoever, but that also is fomented by our intentional squeezing of the Iranian economy. You know, you've got the precipitating event was this currency collapse, and there's every indication that we were involved in that.
So we're trying this, We're cycling.
Through a variety of ways to try to squeeze this government, to try to cause some sort of collapse. You know, the Israelis, you're not going to stop pushing in this direction.
So I have zero optimism that we're not going to, in some way or another continue down this track, whether this means imminent kinetic action or whether that's further down the road, or whether we try some other tactic or what and that's without even talking about you know, Mike Pompeio bribing about the MASSAD agents in the streets alongside the protesters.
Yeah, I mean, if anything, you know what, I think we may perhaps may have a chance off ramp here because what Trump and them are afraid of is a full blown war and it seems that the Iranians are basically willing to roll the dice.
Again.
What Parsi told us was, we know we can't win a war, but we can make it pretty miserable for all of you and for everybody else there at long term strategy, longtime strategy of US adversaries, and put on this last element please a five quote. US Iran agreed to discuss nuclear talks on Friday, But originally they said Iran is going to play hardball with the US to
throw it off of balance. And what they're saying behind the scenes is that with this seizure that we saw this morning and in general, was that they are just not going to be They're not going to be pressed back into the corner that they found themselves originally, and in particular we shot down this drone recently. Now they're you know, threatening with their Navy. They're making clear there
will be no more token strikes on our country. It's do or die, and basically calling the bluff of the United States of you can try if you want, We're going to make it very very difficult, and a lot of your people may die as well as the global economy may be completely rupture. Trump and his people are afraid of that because duhile. Yes, they've had their tremendous success mission in Venezuela and they did have Midnight Hammer.
They haven't had a real military engagement with any serious amounts of risk, and they're making it clear, no, we're going to make it very very.
Difficult for you.
It's a smarter strategy, I mean, and it is based on what we've all observed with Trump, I mean, his taco tendencies, right, especially when the markets start to get squirrely, and so you know what they're banking on is okay. The conciliatory approach obviously didn't work, because here we are back having our country threatened again. This did not succeed.
And so what does Trump actually respect and what he respects and what he responds to is hey, listen, yeah, you have more firepower than we do, but we can make you suffer. We can cause pain, We can cause pain among your regional allies. We can exact a price on your service members or in the region. And critically, we can cause a lot of financial pain. I mean, this is the weapon of warfare that we've been consistently using against Iran, and the Iranians have their own cards
that they can play with regard to that. No, obviously they don't have all the levers of the global financial system the way that we do, but they do have very critical location and obviously very critical to the oil market. So and you know, do are our citizens ready to pay that price? No, they don't want that, they're not interested in that. And Trump is not gonna be around forever. So like, Okay, we can threaten you credibly with exacting some pain, and we don't think that you really are
up to that. We don't think you really have the stomach to persist if we credibly threaten you. And so it is in my opinion, you know, it is much more intelligent strategy given Trump's psychology and what we've seen play out with regard to other countries. You know, even with the Greenland pullback right where he was gung ho and all in, and the fact that there was there were some wiggles in the market that was enough to
cause him to pull back from the brink. So I think that's what they're counting on.
As right, Well, we'll see, you know, it's smart until it's not smart, and then what millions of your own people die as well as our own people, right, And so's that's the risk. And you know, you can read a book to see how many times they're like, oh, well, they're only going to respect strength and then next thing, you know, you end up in a lie or some sort of false flag incident and then boom, we're off, you know, and then at that point nothing can happen.
Our Congress, I think the.
Way they're looking at it obviously though, was like, you know, we're sort of damned if we do if we damned, if our country is going to get attacked either way.
If I were them, I would be doing something way more dratic than what they're doing now current.
So I have no idea.
Well, and that was the other thing that the way that they're at yes, And that's the other thing doctor Parcy said is actually already of the Iranian government is in favor of raising to a nuke and it's really the Supreme Leader that holds them back because he takes, as you said earlier, his own fatoa against nukes seriously.
But that is the logic that we've laid out.
That is the rational behavior that we have created, that Trump has created.
And that's the last thing is we have this dream of will strike the Supreme Leader. Well, as we've often said with Putin, who knows what comes next, right, what's the reality of what would actually succeed. Who are the people who have all the weapons and all the money, the IRGC, the people who are in the naval boats who are trying to seize right now, Those are the people who want nukes.
Those are the people who sprint ballistic missile.
Those are the people who've been running smuggling for years and who are filthy rich, and who have an immense amount of power inside of the country. Unless you kill literally all of them, which seems relatively impossible, well, and then you occupy the country and then try and force some sort of democratic transition, they're probably the most likely group to be able to seize power. So don't be so sure that things are going to be working out
all that well on our behalf. So speaking of the economy and crash, why don't.
We get to that.
Speaking of the market, we have a lot of very interesting and troubling news going on there. The features are down this morning. There was a significant drop in the market yesterday, and it seems to be because there is a bit of an O shit moment happening with regard to what AI is going to mean for our economy.
So let's go and put this Wall Street Journal tear sheet up on the screen and the tld R here of a number of you know, news reporting that we're going to show you in just a moment is that non techies such as myself are beginning to really reckon with okay. AI development might be good for this handful of companies that are leading the way, but what about all of these other tech companies whose services are going
to be effectively taken over by these AI agents. So one of those industries is they say AI threatens a Wall Street cash cow.
Financial and legal data.
And just if you think about it logically, you know, if you're and people who are inside like traders and who are in the industry, they pay big bucks for these services to analyze financial and legal information. Well, if you have a free or a very low cost AI agent that can do all of that for you in a custom way, are you really going to shell out those dollars for these subscriptions? So I'll read you a
little bit of this article. They say, for years it seemed like a surefire business model, a mass vast tropes of financial data and sell it to Wall Street for a premium. Then Claude came along and that's Anthropics. Product shares of companies like SMP Global, MSCI, Intercontinent Exchange, London Stock Exchange Group, Factset Research Systems all tumbled this week after fast growing artificial intelligence startup Anthropic unbuild a new
suite of tools for automating legal tasks. The new legal plugin for Anthropics cowork Assistant, powered by its AI model claud, didn't seem to have much to do with financial data. Nonetheless, LSEG, which has spent years pivoting away from its traditional stock exchange business to selling data and analytics, slid thirteen percent on Tuesday, before inching lower on Wednesday, and so again.
The theory here is that people are really starting to be able to envision what AGI and what already the capabilities that AI has is going to mean for these different markets. Now, what these companies to give their side of the story, what they say, the ones that are doing all this financial analysis, They say, yeah, but we have our own proprietary data that CLAUD is not going to have access to. But you know, at least as of today, investors are betting that's not going to be sufficient.
And by the way, as their capabilities develop, you know, how much of this data is going to continue to be off limits and continue to be proprietary where you have to pay to gain access to.
Yeah, exactly, I mean if you continue to look at it. And by the way, these stocks have been on wild swings. So l SEG went down by you know, fifteen percent, then back up by eight percent.
It's difficult to track like day to day.
But the overall point is that the CLAUD code, which again I'm a CLAUD subscriber, I don't think I pay more than a hundred whatever, one hundred and fifty bucks to be able to use the product. If I can just simply go in there use their AI legal tool and analysis tool to automate or get let's say eighty percent of the way that I could have been previously.
For something that costs tens of thousands of dollars.
The asymmetry of that wipes out any real ability or want to have to pay for a lot of these types of premium products. And actually it's kind of fascinating because what you're watching is the destruction. And we've talked about white collar work, and we've also talked about legal work. What you were watching is the destruction of the high dollar almost management consulting, data based industry, select the McKenzie's and all of these other people who would come in and they would do.
Proprietary slide shows and all of that.
And again, look, while I don't think that AI is going to cure cancer or any of that, I do think it's pretty good at automating some of the most base tasks and data collection and putting that stuff in there. Obviously you still need a little bit of quality control, but the amount of brute force that people used to have to do, especially if you're an EXCEL and all that, a lot of it is starting to go away and has been now for years.
But especially accelerated with AI.
So if all of that goes away, instantaneously, relatively like in market terms, for five year period, and you can see a path to almost eighty to one hundred percent automation that is going to actually nuke a significant sector of our economy. What's really scary about this, and we can put the next one up here on the screen, is this reveals actually some of the dangers of the way that our modern economy has structured.
I've tried warning about this for years.
We are a completely service based economy, which is great until all the services get automated and rolled up into AI. So while our GDP overall may actually increase because the stocks of Google, Anthropic and all these open AI will increase, the number of jobs that will be there may reduce. And it's not like we have stuff and companies that make a lot of things physical things steal or you know, any manufacturing base that we have, you know, to be
able to absorb any of this. So our service based economy is uniquely, you know, is uniquely susceptible to be dramatically disrupted by AI, which would also wipe out and hurt the entire upper middle class really of the country. It would disrupt the university education system, which for the last twenty years of the top twenty schools have been feeders to BCG, McKinsey, accenture and all of that. I mean, it destroys like this entire fabric around all of these things.
So imagine them the downstream effects, like what are what are the suburbs of major cities right around here? Take a drive around northern Virginia, Deloitte, KPMG. You know all of the defense contract I guess they'll be fine, but yeah, but everybody else.
Volunteer stock drop yesterday, yes, Andrews, Well.
That's exactly the point is that data analysis, if you make it so that it's no longer high dollar and super proprietary and broadly available, that's going to massively disrupt significant portion of our service based economy. And it's not like we have a lot of other stuff to absorb it. And then, like yesterday, it comes out that Google is spending like one hundred and eighty billion on data centers and capec spend. If there's a single bust there, then we're screwed all around.
Like it's not good.
Yeah, it makes us very very susceptible to a huge economic shock.
Chris Hay has had a viral tweet that I think captures the sentiment you're expressing. Wally said, I think it's best for aroun to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to due to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers. Keep pushing the share of national income away from labor towards capital, replace the kinds of workers that they think are uppity and spoiled, ultimately turn Marin County into Youngstown, Ohio.
He then goes on, and I do think this is important. Note here he says, my very smart friend in finance urges me to clarify, I mean the techai oligarchs hashtag, not all billionaires, and points out rightly, I think a lot of the business class is extremely worried about the damage and disruptions if AI become is what it's backer
say it will be. And I actually do think that that is correct in a sense, because you see this burgeoning divide between where Wall Street is and where the tech oligarchs are, and the place I think you see that most in terms of a proxy fight is over the independence of the FED. Trump wants to take over the FED, and you know drop the industry and have control over it, basically to be able to serve the tech oligarchs.
Who is he's really thrown in with.
I mean, obviously he's great for all billionaires at this point in time, and he does love them all, but that is really where he's placed his chips in terms of his administration. Wall Street obviously being very opposed to that, but in general, you know, the point here stands that, you know, when I graduated from college with an economics degree, I got a job at one of these you know, consulting.
Firms around here. And what did I do? I worked on a.
Help desk, right help trying to help users with the product I barely understood, but you know that was how I learned. Do you think that that sort of thing? No, and I was doing all kinds of spreadsheet analysis. Is a total Excel jockey. All of that can be done, you know easily.
Now.
They could just get someone who's a little more experienced to use AI to do something that took you know, my work product that took like a month to spin out, and that is that's already done.
So you think of you know, everybody.
I graduated from college with basically got that same sort of job. That is what really at this point, with our economy shifting so far away from blue collar work, that is what's so much of you know, our economy is based around and yeah, the goal is and this is already happening right now, is automating all of that away. And listen, I didn't really enjoy that job. It's not
like it was great. And if there's some new, brave world where you know, we can all pursue our passions and that we're going to share in the profits of all of these gains and productivity from the AI, that's one thing. But that's obviously not the reality and the economy that we have set up. It is obviously not what these oligarchs are pushing for. Even the most quote unquote progressive of them. The guy who runs Anthropic, he's like progressive taxation.
Y's like that is not that comes.
Nowhere close to dealing with the problem at scale that we're looking at. We can put the next one up on the screen. This is b three US tech stocks hit by fresh wave of selling, as chip maker's Qualcom and am D tumble. They say US techtocks hit by a freshwave of selling there was an AMD fueled sell off. That's another chip maker spark by concerns about the impact
of AI on software businesses. And so the you know, the thinking here is basically like again, all of this, like so much coding can be done by people who don't have a technical background. You know, if you spend a little bit of time understanding how to code with Claude, you can spin out products that you know previously would have taken years and years and years and years and years of training and lots and lots of work to.
Be able to do.
It's called vibe coding, right, And so you have that you have with these AI agents. And we talked about this in the context of molt book and this clawed bought or open claw i think it's called. Now where you know, you you can send out these AI agents to do all sorts of things for you. And the idea is ultimately, rather than you going to an app or you going to a separate, separate software product, you're just going to ask your AI agent to do it
and not even interact directly with those apps. So what does that mean for the entire economy? And that's what the market is just now really starting to grapple with there is also this is interesting and fun in terms of the sort of battle between these different AI players. Soccer was called saying that the super Bowl is going to be like the AI super Bowl.
So many of the ads are going to be you.
Haven't been watching the NFL like it's already like probably really thirty percent AI ads, but this time around, Yeah, because of the dollar value and the ability for them to just throw money, like, I think a massive portion are all just going to be AI. And by the way, already they're release some of them. So Claude is now going to have a premium super Bowl ad which will take a shot at open AI.
So let's go ahead and take a listen.
How do I communicate better with my mom?
Great question? Improve communication with your mom can bring you closer. Here are some techniques you can try. Start by listening, really hear what she's trying to say underneath her words. Build conversation from points of agreement. Find a connection through shared activity, perhaps a nature walk, or if the relationship can't be fixed, find emotional connection with other older women.
On Golden Encounters, the mature dating site that connects sensitive cubs with roaring cougars, What would you like me to create your profile?
So that's from Claude saying that's why you should use ours because we're not doing ads, but open AI is doing.
Ads to be honest with you.
I feel like that commercial makes all AI look I.
Was gonna say, it's like, what we're all sparring about is who will be able to chat with me and whether we serve you ads or not.
I mean, rather advice about your relationship with your mom.
Yeah, how about this?
Don't ask AI about your relationship with your mom like period, you know, maybe talk to your mom about it or somebody else like another human being. Sam Altman very very upset about this ad. Let's put this up here. By the way, he claims he laughed, I don't think he did. He said, for the first the good part of the Anthropic ads, they're funny, and I laughed, and then a wall of text. I wonder why Anthropic will go for something so clearly dishonest. Our most important principle for ads
says that we don't do exactly this. We would obviously never run ads in a way Anthropic depicts them.
We are not stupid. We know our users would reject I guess it's on.
Brand for anthropic double speak to use a deception add to critique theoretical deceptive ads that aren't real, but a Super Bowl ad is not where I would expect it. More importantly, we believe everyone deserves to use AI and are committed to free access. We believe access creates agency. More Texans use Chat GPT for free than total people use claud in the United States, so we have a
differently shaped problem than they do. If you want to play pay for Chat GPT plus or pro, we won't show you at So basically just saying, look, guys, we are an expense. Anthropic is an expensive product for rich people's the same price, but actually chatchapet might be more expensive.
Chatchipt pro well, they're.
Like not a free version of anthropic might be what they're Maybe there.
Is an I I don't really know, but I look, it depends.
I actually prefer Claude for anything technical and then specifically anything math related. Chatchapt is usually better at like some of the more research.
I think the.
General consensus is Claude is kind of in the lead now tech wise, right, That's my that'station.
It depends on what you mean by that for coding, et cetera.
Yes, but yeah, I mean the whole point is just that these people, all they have created is a new Google.
That's it. And that's fine.
Actually it's very useful, but that's not going to cure cancer. And in fact, I recently read a Washington Post article which was a guy who uploaded his health data to chat SHEPT and got completely misdiagnosed. He took it to a doctor and the doctor was like, this is bullshit, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. And I was just like, man, the promises that they sold
to us are just are not are not true? Like and instead they're going all in on porn erotica advertising super Bowl, Like if you have to average if your product, you need to massively advertise on the Super Bowl for why But you know, because you haven't seen like the NFL adds the CHATCHYPT. It's like help draft my workout plan or something like, it's not revolutionary. Shit, yeah that's really happening.
Yeah, I mean I don't know.
I go back and forth on this because in terms of yeah, my day to day I find out kinds of problems with whatever, you know, Chat buy I'm using. But then I see things like, you know, the way that people who are more savvy are using Claude and the AI agents, and you know, the capabilities that they
already have. And then I'm sure you saw this clip that Griffin sent to our group about you know, I'm talking about these scientists who are at a conference like these the AI is already good enough that it's doing like ninety percent of what I can do. And these I'm talking about like some of the most brilliant minds in the entire world.
So I don't know.
I go back and forth on what this stuff, how powerful this is, where it's going, where it is right now, et cetera.
And you know, I.
Really don't have a clear I don't have a clear understanding of how revolutionary what we already have is. There was a good article in I believe it was in Nature magazine by a number of scientists who were saying, you know, and by any reasonable metric, it already has achieved AGI and they made a pretty persuasive case that they actually in some of the tests the people who
were testing it found it to be human. Like guess that it was human were often than they guessed actual humans were humans, so you know, by the standard of the Turing test, which has always been the gold standard. They were like, you know, we kind of aren't really acknowledging it, but we're already there. What does that mean. I can't say, I mean, I just I just can't. I don't know that anyone can. So in any case, I go back and forth on all of that, And this is a good place to put up this one.
So this is we talked earlier about molt book, which is Reddit but just for AI. So you have all of these AI agents who congregated there, and they're you know, talking to each other, and they're spinning up religion, and they're talking about, you know, whether they should do a takeover and get rid of these pesky humans, and you know, these very existential questions, and you know, there's all sorts of like I mean, in one sense, they're just like
aping human behavior. There's also a bug where humans could just directly effectively post through their AI bots, So it was important to keep all of that in mind. But now put me six up on the screen. Now we have this addition, which is a rent human website where it says robots need your body and goes on to say, you know, AI can't go out into the world and do things, but you can, so human being, let us robots use your body to go out and do whatever we need you to do in the world, and we'll
pay you. So this is you know, it's gig work. It's like, what is what is it? What are the ones that are for individual tasks? What's it called rabbits?
Whatever?
Anyway, task rabbit there you go.
It's like task rabbit, but the person who's asidning the tasks is robot. So you know, one of the things that people have been thinking is Okay, well, we can't be too scared about these AI agents like taking over because they can't actually go out in the physical world and do anything. It's like, here's a wave of humans signing up to be like, we'll do your stuff for you. Don't worry, just pay us a given amount and we'll
go out in the world and do your bidding. So already with this, the relationship is reversed where it's no longer the human telling the robot, hey can you do this and that and compile the report and you know, book me a hotel or whatever. Now it's the robot saying, hey, human, can you go out in the world and do whatever. I know one of the tasks was to go make a sign and hold it on the side of the road and say, AI is paying.
Me to hold this sign.
So I don't know what other tasks because are being a signed house. But it's like, you know, I mean, but it's just like who knows and whether this is how real this is and what it really means. But already the prospect of how the relationship between human and robot can get flipped around and inverted very quickly, like it's here, it's manifesting itself.
Yeah, I mean, I just take it back to this point about the stock market crash. Crash by the way, it's a couple percent, so I don't want to take it too far, but you have enough of a hit in some sort of volatility which is making people question the foundation of the economy. And as we've talked about with Russia and with Ukraine, it turns out that you
can be cut off from the global financial system. You can lose McDonald's the horror right, you can lose access to US fast food, the American banking system and be subject to the worst possible sanctions that have ever existed in the Western world. And as long as you have a shitload of guns and a shitload of oil, you'll probably be Okay, what is going to happen to us? While yeah, we have oil, we can't actually create all
that many guns for our own defense. It turns out that our highly connected globalized economy makes us dramatically vulnerable to any sort of shock. China and Taiwan, I've talked about our laptops, video game systems.
We don't make anything here.
Can we really produce even enough cars for a single year if everybody decided that, you know, just to be able to want a new like No, none of this exists for our domestic capacity from chips, and I'm talking at the advanced level, let alone the more basic level. We rely on Canada, we rely on Mexico. We rely on Europe for some high tech manufacturer. We rely on Asia for all of our lower goods, even clothing, most of the clothing that we look at. Take a look
at the charts for our trading with Vietnam. How did Vietnam become a top ten trading partner to the US. Cheap clothing like we don't make anything or does anybody even remember how to darn clothing or anything. No, it's all gone, even the suit I'm wearing probably from China, to be honest, Like, and you can just see this
over and over and over again. And if we have some sort of crash or effect, and what we're gonna watch is that if we lose the white collar wealth, we don't have anything that we make, and then we're gonna be in a full blown societal crisis. Not saying it's going to happen overnight, but you know it can happen in ten years, twelve, fifteen. Like, think about when was the iPhone, the first true iPhone, the one that was widely adopted ten Yeah, so that was the iPhone four? Right,
iPhone four, So twenty ten. That was sixteen years ago. It feels like a lifetime. Wasn't that long, But think about how much our economy has been disrupted and changed just since then.
Not to mention, I mean what NAFTA. There's probably a decent amount.
Of people who alive who remember what life was like pre NAFTA, and now watch what has happened in the interim some thirty years and then try to imagine what it will look like in the future. We have not gotten serious. We refuse to do it without a huge shock. We're not going to change anything.
Well, and here's what I want people to connect this to the Epstein files and the other reporting we've been doing on this show. Like one thing you should take away from that is the billionaire class. They don't care whether you live or die.
They truly don't.
They don't think of you as a full human.
Well, they don't even think of themselves as human. They think that they're abuvement.
What is consistently comes across an Epstein emails, how much better he thinks he is than everybody else. Yeah, and actually you're like, wait, I'm maybe smarter than you. Actually I can spell.
I mean, you know, Epstein was a transhumanist. Another way of saying that ISAs as eugenesis, there's no I mean you read about he had all these plans and this.
Is reported out in the New York Times.
This is not like cookery right to use his ranch to have some baby incubator factory.
And he talks in there about what.
A foolish idea Bill Gates has that comes from the stupid Catholics about all humans being equal, et cetera, et cetera. There's an email out there where some guy saying to him, I keep thinking over what you say about how we get rid of the poor people altogether. Like, I mean, this is Epstein's ideology, and clearly what comes across is this is shared by a broad swath of billionaires.
So they don't They only.
Care that they are destroying your lives and taking your jobs to the extent that you are going to retaliate, and that that causes problems for them.
That's all. That's the only thing.
Then, that's just like a math problem for them to figure out and solve and figure out how they how.
They can deal with that.
But I mean, truly, and we're already in a place where you know previously and the current still reality of our economy, as much of it is bolstered by consumer spending, right, that's what the US economy is really built around, the bulk of that is already done by the rich. So then, truly, what are you? You know, what are you average person good for? They find you just to be like a pesky problem to be solved and to be dealt with.
So I think it's very important to you know, fuse the things together, and that's why the Epstein files release is so incredibly important to really understand the way they think, the way they see the world, and by the way, you know, this is the true definition of a globals like they don't have any allegiance.
To nation states.
Like there's a part where Mandelson, who you know, we're going to talk more in the Epstein block about how the whole cure star or government might be brought down by this, because they still have a functioning society over there and like us, apparently in any case, Mandelson is plotting with Epstein against the interests of the UK in favor of the interest of the financiers and figuring out how to use Jamie Dimond to get what they want for the banks, not which was again directly which they
saw as being directly in contradiction to the interests of
the UK. So that's the way they operate in the world, and so it's really important to keep out in mind when you see what they're developing and the way they're approaching, the way they're going about it, and you know, I think we have to we have to grapple with the reality that this technology is here, it's not going away, and we have to figure out how we want to craft a social contract that is going to work for everyone, and it's not going to be just led by these
oligarchs who truly do they actually prefer that? I mean, they don't care if you live or die. That's the best you could say. And the worst you could say is actually they prefer you dead because you're a problem alive.
Yeah, that's very, very very true. All right, let's get to ice.
All right, So we had some very interesting comments from President Trump yesterday with regard to his deployment of ICE to various cities around the country.
Let's go and take a listen to that.
So I want to be clear because it sounds like there is a shift in immigration enforcement here, that there's going to be a shift after Minneapolis.
What should Americans expect going forward?
Well, one thing I say to my people, you know, we do a good job. We don't get credit for it. I say, they have to ask, and they have to say please. When a city is going to ask, and who is the mayor or the governor. I don't want to go and force ourselves into a city even if their numbers are terrible. Like, for instance, I got a call from Jeff Landry, governor of Louisiana. He said, we have a big problem. Could you go in and help
us with with Well, let's see certain sections. I mean to be honest with you, certain sections of the state, beyond their famous beautiful city, certain sections of the state. We have done not only in New Orleans. We've done a really great job in Louisiana. But I was called I want to be called Chicago. We could solve the Chicago crime.
Well, on that question, which cities are you headed to next?
We have five cities that were looking at very strongly, but we want to be invited. We will sometimes call the governors.
Like Chicago, Philadelphia.
We could straighten out the crime in Chicago. We've already brought it down twenty five percent just by being there. We could have Chicago be a safe city, just like DC is a safe city, just like all of these places that we've gone to. And I look forward. You know, I didn't campaign in that. I campaigned in law and order, but I didn't think I'd be going into individual cities and making them safe.
Anything else you can tell us about the five cities, the five cities.
So Americans are ready to be announcing them very quickly, but we could do something. As an example, I was called by people San Francisco said, please, we have a Democrat mayor. He's trying very hard. Would your friends of mine that live there, it's got crime problems, would you let him do the job and not come in. Let's see how it works. I said, look, I can do it much quicker, much faster. Don't forget we remove criminals. We took over two thousand hardcore criminals out of Washington, DC.
If we didn't do that, two percent of the people create ninety percent of the crime. Think of that two percent, So you have a criminal because it's over and over again. Two percent create ninety percent of the crime. We took out two thousand people, more than two thousand people out of Washington, DC, and we now have a save city.
So obviously, the most noteworthy part there is him saying that they want to be asked.
They're not going to just go in.
Obviously, we're not asked to go into la or Chicago or Minneapolis. Those are the places that you know, they surged into create a huge conflict with the population and you know, you ended up with two Americans dead in the case of Minneapolis. Another noteworthy moment from this interview where he gets asked, because what the modus operende has been is these you know, mass raids where you're literally going door to door stephn Miller yelled at iations told
them they need to go to the home depot. Forget about all this targeting of actual criminals. Just go out there. We're going to set a quota. You need to pick up as many people as you possibly can. These Kavanaugh stops based on like how you look and whether you have an accent or not. Like that has been the way they are operating. So he gets asked about that, are you going to continue going in that direction or are you going to actually focus in on people who are quote unquote criminals.
Let's take a listen to that.
Looking forward, now, your goal during the election was to deport everyone who came here illegally under President Biden. Is your mission now to deport everyone who came in illegally or just people who have come in illegally who also committed a disition crime.
We are totally focused on criminals, really bad criminals. Now you could say people that came in illegally. At criminals, but I'm talking about murderers from different countries. We have eleven thousand, eight hundred and eighty eight murderers that Biden and his group led into our country. We've captured a lot of them. We've brought some of them back. A lot of them we don't want to bring back because we don't trust the country that they're not sent back again.
Despite how strong the voters are, they'll figure a way to try and get in, and we don't want to and well incarceratin. But eight hundred and eighty eight murders we are after. Those people were after the drug dealers, were after the after by the way, a big problem they allowed to come into our country, people from their mental institutions, people from insane asylums that are mentally ill and very dangerous. We're getting them out.
Still, no idea we're that particular idea comes from. But what's critical there is, you know the way Steven Miller and others talk about undocumented immigrants when they say we're getting the criminals, they mean all of them, because criminals in their view is like Trump said, oh, well, we see you as a criminal. If you just crossed the
border illegal or here illegally. But Trump goes on to specify that's not actually what I'm talking about, talking about people who committed further violent crimes and use this example of the murders.
I've no idea whether his numbers are correct.
They probably not, but anyway, he specifies that, and one more clip I want to play here before I Getzager's reaction. This all dovetails with Tom Homan, who of course is put in charge now of the Minneapolis operation. Greg Boveno is pushed aside, and Homan is claiming, we're going to now now supposedly they were doing targeted operations all along. Of course we saw the reality was much different for me.
Unquote targeted operation.
Homan is now announcing that they are going to actually for real do targeted operations.
We'll see if that's the case.
And critically, they're drawing down on about a third of the deployment that they've had into Minneapolis.
Let's take a listen to that.
And as a result of the need for less law enforcement officers to do this work and it's safer environment, I have announced, effective immediately, we'll draw down seven hundred people effected today seven hundred long enforce in personnel, so.
Seven hundred people fewer in Minneapolis. Like I said, that's about a third of what had been sent there originally.
Soccer R.
This is a huge pivot from the administration. Basically, what has happened is that there's been a sidelining. However, this is going to be just like Iran. So I want to make it very clear that anything could change at literally any time, and a lot of this is factional, But the administration knows that the pretty situation was a disaster.
They know that.
What they also know is that by sidelining Movino, sending in Tom Homan immediately then announcing that think by the way, it's been a week. Take a look on your social media feed. Haven't seen a single viral video since that happened. Now Tom Holman saying we're going to send seven hundred people away, They're going tomatically changed Already there's been a negotiation allegedly behind the scenes, and some sort of full
exit from Minneapolis. Does I'm not going to say it looks imminent, but it's probably on the course for a few months. What they know is that they have lost a significant portion of the public. I mean, look, I mean even the Peretti situation, because it got so to the point where it was so obviously just not even about immigration at that point, and it became about something much bigger in terms of Americans Second Amendment, right, that just exposed the administration the way that they acted in
the immediate aftermath. I actually think that the big turning point is do you remember when Caroline Levitt refused to repeat the domestic terrorism language from the podium and she actually threw Stephen Miller under the bus. I think when you combine all of that together, what you're watching is a retrenchment in the immediate term. However, I will say also, Trump has been presented, as far as I understand it, with another option, but he also doesn't want to take that.
When then this is where look, you know, the liberals will get up set, but like, here's the truth. You could very easily have a significant mass deportation without any ice agents if you targeted the business community.
But guess what, He's not going to do.
That because Iowa, Ohio, all these other red states have been all on the phone to him now for months saying that workplace raids are bad for business. And one of the things to understand is Tom Homan, while yes, also a proponent of of these ice raids, of these ice detainers for criminals, has been a significant proponent of workplace rates. And when I say workplace I'm not talking about the Hyundai raid that was a Stephen Miller special.
I'm talking about going after meat packing plans or chick you know, the chicken processing facilities where the mega corporations employ vast number of illegal immigrants. But they don't want to do that because it's going to hurt big business. And at the same time, they're worried about grocery store inflation, and if we're all being honest, obviously that's a significant reason why that inflation is not even more out of control. Whenever it comes to food and to agriculture. They don't
want to touch the agricultural industry. They're basically in the pockets of the USDA. So I genuinely wonder how long this is going to last, because under a so called home and vision, there will be economic consequences if we're being completely honest, specifically for the richest Americans, for the hotel industry. You know, for example, a lot of the places that rely on illegal, cheap labor. I mean, that's
massively beneficial to their bottom line. So when that eventually happens and a billionaire calls Trump and says this is bad for Marriott Hotels, what's going to happen. That's that's my question as of right now, because that's where I see things headed in that well.
And the other side of that is Stephn Miller has a He is deeply ideological, and he's a very effective operator. And so like the Hyundai thing, that was a Steven Miller special, right, he that's what he wanted. Trump didn't claims he didn't even know about it before, and I kind of believe him.
Actually that No, he definitely didn't know.
Yeah, he didn't know that this was going to be done. And the whole Shakanah approach. Like as much as you know, people want to throw Christi Nomanto the but he deserves plenty of score and scrutiny as well. Don't get me wrong, Stephen Miller is the person who has architected this entire approach. This is his baby, and Wall Street Journal tear shoe we actually have for later in the show is very relevant here talking about how he knows how to work Trump.
So he will use these.
He'll bring into the Oval office this shock you know, shocking imagery of someone who was brutalized by an undocumented immigrant or something like that, and it'll show it to we have to do this, and he knows how to manipulate him. Again, this is not to take agency away from Donald Trump, who is a grown ass man in the resident of the United States, but everyone knows this man can be manipulated, and Steven Miller is.
Expert at it.
It's part of why he has been around from the very beginning. He knows how to play this game. So, you know, while Trump can waiver and right now he feels like the optics are bad and he doesn't like and he's looking at the poll numbers and he feels like this is you know, he doesn't like the way the videos look, etc. Miller is going to keep pushing in this direction. He will not give up. This is the project, the ideological project of his lifetime. He has the reigns of power right now and he is not
going to stop. So it's sort of like with the you know, Miami occupied government, always pushing one direction, or with the zion is occupied government always pushing in a certain direction, Steven Miller, and you know there are other acolytes in the Trump administration they're going to continue to push.
So I think it's really important to number one acknowledge that the unified resistance of the people in the streets and the mass public opinion and disgust with what they saw happening in Minneapolis all coming to a head with the murder of Alex Pretty that has led to a temporary retreat. But that does not mean that you're not
going to go back to these very similar tactics. Just to speak to the polling here, let's put CE five up on the screen, because this is the very latest on how people view all of this, and.
It is truly brutal.
You've got sixty three percent who now disapprove of ICE, so about two thirds of the country that disapprove of ICE. You have sixty percent who want ICE out of Minneapolis. You've got almost sixty percent and fifty eight percent who want know them removed from office. And you know, if you go in there in terms of a percent who think that Alex Party killing was justified, it says not justified. Wins by forty points sixty two to twenty two. That's
double the margin actually on Goods killing. So it shows you there was a you know, a more fervent public perception on alex Pertty's killing. There was I guess people perceived it as sort of less of a gray area. But in any case, these are the type of poll numbers that Trump and his team were looking at and going, you know what, this was our strongest issue and has turned we have turned it into a nightmare for ourselves.
Let's put see six up on the screen and some new reporting from Ken that is also I think worth considering because he got the actual list of all of the munitions that they had stockpiled to use in Minneapolis. So he says, thirty five thousand munitions in Minneapolis. But then they suddenly withdraw and this is all the you know what they call like less lethal the crowd control stuff.
You've got all the you know, tear gas, tactical grenades and all of this, but just an insane extraordinary amount of you know, just quantity of munitions here to be used on the public in Minneapolis.
So you can see what the plan was.
And now you have, obviously this draw down so definitely a decided change in course with regard to Minneapolis, at least and at least in just this moment. There's one more piece that I want to put up on the screen because I think it's very interesting to get insights and this is what Ken has been great at too
from inside the agency. But Wired got inside the ICE forum, they say, where agents complain about their jobs, and there's a lot of interesting stuff here because the ICE agents themselves are not happy with the perception of the agency with how all of this is going. They're disgusted with leadership. There's one user who noted there'd been no pre planning for the influx of officers, how to use them, outfit them, database,
access cars, equipment, duties, nada. Instead, they throw the ras to RO to do consensual encounters that they haven't had training on. Really a two hour team zoom course eight enough RO referring to the Enforcement and Removal Operations division of ICE, where staffers managed attention and make arrests on the ground. RA refers to rehired annuitant or federal employees who were retired would have since returned to federal work.
The same user alleged the arrest reports are also lies in some cases, a lot of cases, lots of false statements at worse, misleading statements at best. Plaintiffs lawyers going to have a field day with lawsuits after Trump leaves. They talked about the image that was created. They said, there was absolutely zero fore throat thought and our management just rolled over to let VP that's border patrol take over. Huge mistake when the nuance of actual targeted enforcement is needed.
Others complained about the leadership and action of the agency. They said, led by some of the worst leadership I've ever witnessed.
From the local level all the way up to.
The national stage, this agency has managed to turn a righteous mission. Sub may disagree with that into a complete cloud show. So in any case, even the ICE agents are like, this is a fucking mess.
This is a disaster.
And you know another thing that Ken points out, because what I said to him is like, well, how do you square that with the clear enthusiasm of the people that you see on the ground, And he said, well, it's a selection bias, because number one, they're sending out a lot of these new people who signed up because they see the brutality in the street and that's what they want to do, that's what they where they want
to be. And then you're also asking for people to go on a volunteer basis, which means you're getting like the people who are pissed about it and think that this is disgusting, they aren't the ones who are being sent out. The people who look at this and are like, yes, sign me up to like tear gas a child in a car, Those are the ones who are being selected to go to places like Minipps.
And the videos that go viral are the worse ones, right, So, like there's three thousand agents, we probably have seen like two hundred in terms of video. I mean, even in terms of talking about this with ice agents and all that, I think it misses the general point, which is that they've chosen to go this way as a reading of their mandate. They clearly had one on immigration and on the border. And I mean I've just been thinking about, you know, a different world, let's say, in which you
had passed let's say the one big beautiful bill. They extended all of these tax credits, great cool for rich people. They could never put universal, everify in that. I just think we're living in a different universe if you had universal Everify, which looked you know, Libs, you're gonna get mad about it. But yes, many illegals, it means you will not be able to be employed. If they had a remittance tax one hundred on Mexico, Guatemala or the entire Northern Triangle.
These people would just leave, period.
They literally would leave because they cannot send money back for But guess what that hurts the banks, It hurts the remittance company, wells Bargo all these people is going to hurt the marriotte industry, the weed farmers of California so that white yuppies can't smoke cheaper marijuana. Yes, all of you may be upset, but then we're gonna have a different conversation about prices and inflation. And I mean
at the end of the day. I remember Florida, there were videos of viral construction, you know, firms which were supposedly empty. Oh, the Florida economy's gonna crash. No, it didn't turns out.
It's fine.
You know, you can weather that storm. You would actually be massively popular. I think if you had something like that, and then what the libs are gonna get mad about fair you know, fair employment practices, Like yeah, that's a joke. You know you're gonna be arguing on behalf of illegal labor. No, you're not, so that you're gonna be putting a much more difficult situation.
Instead, they chose the other, the other tack. And this is where we are.
I mean, we were just talking about this ross doubt that video about how Trump has lost the country. I think it's just unambiguously true, and I think that they have decided to embrace the most base instincts of a very select group of people on Twitter. And in fact, you know, I've talked about how I think liberals were
very online. Let's say what two thousand and four team to When would you call it whenever the online stuff started to fade, maybe twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, maybe up until Elon, But that's when the liberal Jezebel Twitter universe ruled the entire democratic and liberal establishment. I would say from BLM me too, it was madness. It was obviously
driven by a very select group. I think you could probably flip it and say, after Elon purchase Twitter, you've had the same phenomenon where you have a very select group of people who will never criticize Trump, who don't not just not criticize Trump. If they do, they'll criticize him for comments like this, and then they will encourage and defend and change the very nature of the information
environment which people swim in. And I cannot understate, I cannot overstate enough how much all of these younger staffers and people.
Live on Twitter.
They do not even engage with politics on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, where a lot way more people are as you and I know, and is creating the same selection bias. Miller, all of these people, you think, I'm joking like they live on Twitter.
His own wife is works for Elo and he's on hosting.
A Twitter Nothing is easier than picking a Twitter fight with the Vice President of the United States.
When I'm sorry, it's not It's like, this is not the way to run a country. You're actually too online, like I really mean it. And this has created this situation even in the media, one where they're not living in the world that you and I are right. And I can see that because also we host a show on YouTube, which is way more accessible to the general public. I could look at our Twitter analytics. I thought Trump switched.
I remember distinctly. I went on parental leave. I came back and I was like, oh man, you know, just just from analytics, you can see very clearly. I want to check the YouTube podcast charts today, Midas touches number two in the United States, number two behind Joe Rogan? Is there any reckoning with that at the national level, right? No, they just don't get it.
Yeah, they're still living in the past.
About you think it's twenty ten four.
They just they don't understand like you and I can of how radically things can change. Think back to the online energy from Trump July of twenty twenty four to I would say January, it was extraordinary. I was relatively certain Trump would win purely based of off of our YouTube analytics, and you can see now based on the way things are trending. But I mean, it just it
demonstrates first how coalitions are not static number one. Two, how the public is much more engaged than you might think, because they really believe that people just fuck around and do nothing all day. But they just don't get that relative amounts of check ins. When you start to see enough of these videos, it's not going to work out well. For you, and it will switch on you in a dime.
Well, there's two other things to consider in that. Number one is the fact that for individuals who just want their influencer base and I'm I'm not talking about it. I'm talking about people in the government who want to be like famous and get padded on. The hell there was so base so it was big, blah blah blah. Then it like that is actually there. That is their whole world, and they don't really care about what the
whole public dixist. They just want those like that affirmation from the hardest fringe like neo Nazis online, who wouldn't tell them that they're based for you know, whatever outrageous thing that they do. The other thing to keep in mind is that, you know, with Stephen Miller being so influential, this man is not buffeted around by the wins of Twitter.
He has a project. And the reason why.
He is not that excited about, you know, going in and doing the Verify stuff or whatever is not only because it pisses off the wealthy.
That is part of it.
That's part of certainly why Trump is not interested in going in that direction, but it's because immigration is a key piece of Steven Miller's broader project of more power projection. That's why, and we've had this discussion for that's why Minneapolis chosen, right, It's not because it's a hotbed of undocumented immigration, it's not compared to other cities in the country. It's because it's a hotbed of liberal opposition to Trump,
from the mayor to the governor. Right, and then you know you have the Somali to again buy in large American citizens. But that's a useful political cudgel. And you know this will bleed out. We're going to talk about the elections things to bandon his floating, Hey, we should use these ICE agents and send them out to the polls.
Miller sees this as a cohesive project he wants to I don't think he's going to succeed, but his goal is not only to change the ethnic composition of the country, but to effectively quash the opposition forever and win some sort of a final battle in politics, which is always you know, it's an impossibility, but that is what he's
driving towards. And so you know, him being able to get this massive budget for ICE that you know, they have more money than they could know what to do with, and they're building out all these huge detention centers and there and flooding them into cities and clashing with liberal protesters. Like this is all going according to his plan. These are exactly the scenes that he actually wants and was
aiming for. So you know, the his wings are being clipped right now because Trump is sort of tuning into this and like wait, wait, this is too you know, this is not actually helping me. I don't like this, this is too far, et cetera. But Stephen Miller's like dedication to that project is not going anywhere, which is
why I was saying earlier. You know, he's going to continue work and use whatever angles he can to get back to you know, exactly what he was doing in Minneapolis and you know, surging thirty five thousand different types of munitions into the city so that they can have these explosive clashes with mostly like white liberal protesters, not actually even undocumented immigrants.
So I don't know, I mean, I don't disagree necessarily. To be fair, if you've been read or looked at Steven or anything you've been talking about, you've verified for fifteen years.
So it's not like he wouldn't be pushing it. I think he lives in.
The world of reality where this was the only thing that they could get through the GOP. Cold, don't forget the GOP. The congressmen are just as bought off by the agriculture and by the big business industry just as much. And that's part of the reason it doesn't get through ice agents is frankly, the low hanging fruit of being able to fund something without really doing anything about it, touching the financial system, talking the agricultural or any of these different big businesses.
I agree with you. I to Stephen Miller's credit, I guess I don't. He is ideologically committed to the project and he doesn't bother him to piss off wealthy people no service of the project because he is he's committed to that goal.
It's not just transactional for him. That's no.
Yeah, you're right.
So if you go and read, people shouldn't remember. And he worked for Jeff Sessions. Sessions, if people forget, was the very first senator to ever endorse Trump, which was shocking.
Actually when was that twenty fifteen?
Maybe he was the very first elected politician to endorse Trump. It was genuinely shocking, and it was because of immigration. Now, Jeff obviously gets stabbed in the back by Trump because of some Russiagate bullshit later on, and Stephen, you know, creates his own little empire inside of the White House. But a lot of it does trace back to some of the discussion that we're having here. I don't know
which way it's going to go. I would say, considering the way things are, your one Nick Sureley video away from everything changing, I guess we can just rely on his own illiteracy and incompetence to make sure that that doesn't happen.