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Hi, Ryan Grim, how's it going?
It goes? Got my earbuds figured out?
Nice.
The phone kept insisting that it was going to take the earbuds, So yeah, I told the phone, guess what, no bluetooth for you.
So yeah, that's it.
You cut off now that earbuds have no choice.
When you learn your lesson, they can get a bluetooth back. Yeah, that's well, I was just recounting the travails of my face. That's all you missed so far.
I know that story.
So anyway, there's a lot to get to you this morning. I think what we're probably going to do. We're going to go through the LEAs with the terraces, which are like on and off again, and who knows what's going to happen there. Ryan, have you just give it exactly exactly. We'll have Ryan give us big updates on Israel and ceasefire negotiations and what's going on there. We've got some new Zorah and Mondani pulling out of New York that is looking interesting. I'm starting to I'm starting to believe
he could pull it off. What do you guys think.
I'll never believe it until it happens.
I believe it.
And then and Cuomo will run like buffalo style in the general election against him, So he's gonna have to beat him twice.
If what's the name of the woman, what's the name of the woman? Forgetting her name?
Yeah, it's a buffalo mayor, that's right.
I covered that so closely too. But in any case, she beats the like corrupt incumbent, major underdog victory, grassroots like people powered victory, and then they just turn around and run this dude in the general elect Did he run as a Republican or an independent, I don't remember.
I think even a Republican.
I think he did, and he's able to win in the general. So I could see Quomo Pole in the same and I think there's a good possibility it would work. There's no laws in New York City that would prevent that.
Well, he already has a ballot line because New York has like a hundred different parties and the Constitution Party in this party, so he actually he doesn't even have to do anything. He's and he's already on the ballot for the general if he wants it.
Damn, that's correct.
Way a star is born was so wrong. But yes, he's been launched.
Yeah, his first campaign when he ran for.
Oh did you really? He was on my radar.
He was part of this wave of DSA candidates who won in the cycle after like AOC and the squad one in twenty eighteen, and then this whole wave of DSA candidates won state, Senate and state.
I remember that council seats in twenty Yeah, I remember that, and he was.
One of them.
DSA and also I'm sure Working Families Party back they had. Yeah, they had a great a great eight track record, a great like election season right in that in that era. So we'll do all that, I think probably then for premiums we're going to do You've got the polster who did the like Abundance Versus Populism poll. Yeah, we're going to talk to you, which I'm excited about. I need
to take a look. Have you guys seen the Abundance world criticisms of this poll, because I do want to ask him about some of those, so I've got to take a look.
Yeah, so smart. Basically the criticisms are hilarious. One is that, well, this is not electoral, it's not supposed to poll.
Well, but they explicitly say like a political project. I mean, we've all I've asked Eric about that. I mean they're you know, say that quite explicitly. So that's fine.
And then they say whenever a somebody with an agenda designs a poll, you can't trust it. And so what they have the people who organized the poll said, okay, you like, look at the wording, like it's your wording. Tell us precisely how you'd like to do it, and we'll redo it so we can talk to tell and the polster about that, because they said, give us your words, you write another poll that is the most lopsided pro abundance poll that you can think of, and we'll test it. Let's see.
I feel that confident, Yeah, in the results, I mean, I think fairly so. And then this I've I've been excited to have this conversation with the two of you guys, Ben Shapiro taking shots at the OVONN, I mean, listen, obviously it's because he's not happy with the OVONN being like, this is a genocide in Kaza and I have a
problem with it. But I do think some of the content, like putting that aside, some of the content of what Shapiro said about the number of grown adults who aren't acting their age, I thought that was kind of interesting, and I wanted to get your thoughts on if there's any there there putting aside the like, you know, the Israel bias, like that piece of it. So wanted to get to that as well. But let's go ahead and
start with what's going on with the tariffs. So last week left off, the tariffs were off because the court ruled this this what is it Court of International Trade rule that the tariffs exceeded the powers of AIPA the authority they were using to do the across the board Liberation Day tariffs. Now we have another court that has weighed that has said, listen, there's an appeal process that is going to play out, and in the meantime, we are going to reinstate those tariffs for now. So they say.
A federal appeals court on Thursday granted the Trump administration's request to temporarily pause a lower court ruling that struck down most of President Trump's terariffs. Trump administration and early told the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit it would seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court as soon as Friday if the tariff ruling was not quickly put on pause. So they are headed to the Supreme Court.
There's one other piece of this I want to put up before I get to start with Emily's reaction, because I'm very interested in what you have to say about this. So Trump, in response to this starts tearing into the Federalist Society, which is involved in vetting all of these judges, and specifically tears into Leonard Leo, the head of the Federal Society, who is so influential in conservative circles and Emily, I know you'll be able to speak to that better
than anyone. Here's Snania's like commentary on this, which I also think is sort of a stude. He says, Trump now denouncing the Federalist Society, saying he doesn't want their judges anymore, pretty much the last tie to conservatism as an ideology. We're getting judges from now on who act like sickophants in the administration. But anyway, I won't read this whole thing, but this is just him like really going after Leonard Leo and calling them back room hustlers
and all these sorts of things. So Emily, tell us, you know, how is this being received in conservative world and what is your view of the import here?
This is how a lot of conservatives actually feel about Leonard leon now and I shall, oh, really maga conservatives.
There's a difference between the sort of old conservative movement that is still really loyal to the Reagan crew and the Reagan years and the Reagan legacy, and then there's Maga world, which has been frustrated, particularly by Amy Coney Barrett, sometimes by Brett Kavanaugh, and then also by some of these lower judges, these lower court judges, and so it's not really surprising that Donald Trump has had that planted in his ear and that he would even like kind
of organically feel frustrated by that. It's just a matter of time before that, you know, even boils over further. But it was interesting in that true Social Post because he also says he doesn't even really think it's Leonard Leo's.
Fault, So like he spends the first half of the truth Social Post.
Unloading on Leonard Leo and then being like, but actually, like these judges, it's these these judges are just a complete and total disaster.
So it was weird because.
Nilla says they're communist judges.
Communist judges, right, which certainly would have nothing to do with Leonard Leo. So anyway, all that is say, it's pretty like, I wonder where this goes from here in conservative world because the Supreme Court all day the White House yesterday was saying we're going to take this up to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court we are utterly confident will decide in our favor.
Well, the Supreme Court.
Donald Trump, when he says Leonard Leo helped him pick judges, he's talking about dozens and dozens of people in lower courts, but also the Supreme Court. Right, every single person on the Supreme Court that is a Trump appointee or Trump nominee was picked from the list that Leonard Leo gave him in twenty sixteen in order to get conservative votes.
That's the lore we go back to twenty sixteen. Trump needs to get the support of the conservative movement before the election, and so Leonard Leo gives him a list of judges that he will pick, and Trump picks every single judge and justice from that list. And so now most of the Conservative majority is Leonard Leo Trump picked, and the White House is saying they have every bit of confidence in them.
So it's contradict it's a self contradiction.
Of course, it's wild to think too. So first of all, I mean, I certainly would not surprise me it's a Supreme Court upholds the decision that the tariffs exceed the statutory authority. Because part of the federalist society was cultural issues and part of it is being very pro business and business is not excited about this terror regime. Would not surprise me at all if that was the finding. I don't know. And also I just I mean, I
think on its face, it is a preposterate. It is preposterous to imagine that you can as a executive claim this much unilateral power for yourself when the power of the person is so clearly busted in the Constitution with
the UH with the Congress. So putting that aside, it's also ironic that, you know, back in twenty sixteen, right after the grabber by the pussy fallout is happening, and he's at risk of losing the evangelical right and there's like a real, you know, potential split in the foundation of his coalition. The way he shorees that up is by putting out this list of like federalist society, like here are the Supreme Court justices I will consider, like I'm locking it in now. These are the people, and
they're your people. And that's a important part of how he's able to keep his coalition together and secure victory. So it's wild to now fast forward to now and see him going after them because they're not just doing everything he wants them to do, you know. To Hanania's commentary there, I agree and I disagree, because obviously Trump is his own animal and is just like the cult of Trump. But when you look at the primary accomplishments that he has you know, effectuated an office, it's like
destroying the administrative state. That is a big you know, traditional Reagan type conservative goal.
It was a big Leonard Leo goal.
Actually, yeah, absolutely, you know russ vote is deeply steeped in the conservative movement. Like this is not some rando who hasn't been in Washington before.
Right.
And then the tax cut from the first administration, which is the number one priority right now of the second administration. It was literally written by like Paul Ryan and the Heritage Foundation, so it's always with him. It's like, well, there is there are differences, but also I don't want to overstay the amount of break that Trump is that Trump's administration in practice has represented from Republican administrations of the past. Ryan, what do you think about that sort of thing?
Yeah, this, like Trump is really going for a basically a clean break, not a clean break from, but complete domination over you know, all factions of Conservatism.
Yes, that's the way to put it. So it's not before necessarily an ideological break, but he wants complete domination over. I think that's the way the way to put it right, it's.
Like, Okay, you evangelicals have this these politics, You fed SoC people have these politics. You Chamber of Commerce people have these politics. You America First or Jendie Vance types have this going on. It's like you all serve me. And this is and trump Ism is what I say it is, and that's that's how it's going to be. And so yeah, this because if if he gets his tariffs shut down by the Supreme Court, that's a pretty radical rebuke to him his policy and his domination over
the entire coalition. So he seems to be you really going.
For it here, Emily.
Oh sorry, I was just gonna say, I forget who posted this this week, but someone posted like this is Auderborough mob shit. And it's a really good way to put it, because I think a lot of people try to shoehorn what Trump is doing into an ideology, but
it's actually Trump is trying to sort of shoehorn. Trump is trying to force the ideology of the right to be deference to Trump and there are times where it overlaps with the goal of russ vote or the goal of lear Lee or whatever, but particularly Russ and you know, creating the unitary executive and restoring executive power and all of that. But there are times when it's also just
like Donald Trump isn't overlapping with the ideological goal. Donald Trump is just Roy Kohane as president of the United States.
Yeah, that's right, Emily. You had pool duty yesterday and so you were there for all of you know, everything there was to get out of this administration in terms of the response to this court decision. Let me go ahead and play a little bit here of Peter Navarro saying, listen, this pause and terrorists doesn't really change anything at all.
These will not affect the negotiations in any way. You have people out there in the world. Since we look at the court decisions, the court was clear, as I said, that President has brought it forward the post hariffs. They took issue with the particular statues be used.
So there have been other indications too that they're going to try to move forward in some way. You know, what did you make of those comments from Navarro and from other administration officials as well.
Well?
And that last part there about the particulars of the statute from Peter Navarro is why the administration is projecting utter confidence going into the Supreme Court. They feel like they can, they feel like they're coitutional argument will be like met with agreement from conservative Supreme Court justices, because it's not quite as simple as just oh, you know,
President doesn't have the ability to do this. But the question that I kept trying to get in both at the briefing and to Navarro, and it's just some kind of luck thing. Some people are very skilled at getting their questions asked, like their hands super loud, or they if you talk to White House reporters about their tricks, it comes down to like how they smile and make.
Real craft trying to get a drink.
Yeah, exactly, Yeah, Ingram knows what's up. So anyway, it was the question is just if part of the problem from this kicking through the court system is that it creates complete uncertainty. Again, you can kill two birds with one stone here and go through Congress, why would the administration not pass the slate of tariffs or even like a slightly reduced slate of tariffs through Congress, because then that brings certainty to investors and it removes the problem
of the courts. But of course they know that they can't pass these through Congress, they have no confidence that they would be able to get you know, Ron Johnson and the Susan Collins, they sort of hardcore fiscal conservatives, but also moderate conservatives.
Even this is a perfect continuation what we were just talking about.
Even in the kind of cult of Trump era of the Republican Party, tariffs are aligned too far for a lot of traditional Republicans and moderate Republicans. So they're stuck with having to as you have pointed out many times, Crystal, rely on Trump kind of waving his magic wand which he definitely enjoys. But that's because it's actually this is why Congress, why the founders delegated the power to Congress, because it's not supported by the representatives of the public.
It's just supported by the president. And so it's a huge problem.
And the other reason why this is delegated to Congress is the exact reason Trump doesn't want to have to go through Congress, which is he wants people to have to go and petition the king. And so if you have some stable regime that has to be subject to legislative branch scrutiny, then you take all the fun of it.
In terms of what he actually wants to achieve or not to mention, you know, all the like, oh, potential development deals that can be thrown his way, or if he wants to do a favor for Elon and make sure they get Starlink or they're partnering with Palenteer or whatever it is that's in his basket, you know, of Goodie's wish list, then that becomes more much more difficult to effectuate. If you're actually going through the legislative branch.
And just ran you can respond to this, because I think you might have thought. It's one of the questions people were asking throughout the day is doesn't this destroy your leverage? I mean, doesn't going through the courts destroy your leverage when you're going to other countries. I mean, just yesterday Kevin Hassett was saying, they expect many, many
deals to be coming in the next few weeks. But who's going to make a deal with you when they don't even know whether the courts are going to block your tariffs from being imp Absolutely so, right, I feel like what leverage India?
I don't. I don't actually think that that's that's significant, that plays that significant of a role, because I think the US has leverage because it's it's an economic superpower. At the same time, countries that were already reluctant to strike deals with US because we just Trump just renegotiated US MCA with Canada and Mexico just a couple of years.
Ago, right, and then just already tearing it up and.
Completely abrogates it. The United States cuts an around deal, they abrogate it, then they're talking about going back into it. Like so the idea.
Ties into Israel and Moss as well, Yeah, make some you know, claims with a mass and then totally turns around, does something different when they talk to Israel.
So the courts are like the seventieth wild card thrown into a deal with the United States, which is just becoming like a completely arbitrary and capricious country, and other countries are trying to move move away from it, you know, just real quickly on the Yeah, my take on the founders, it's like they never really even thought of the president as making policy at all, Like that was supposed to come from Congress, and tariffs for the first hundred plus
years of the US were a were major policy. It's like where huge portions of our federal revenue came from once we once we kicked in an income tax, and we had a federal reserve, like the economy and the and the treasury were run, you know, with tariffs as a real kind of side show. And so that's why Congress then delegated, you know, the kind of moving of the dial to the executive because the policy was already set in place. What Trump's doing is a brand new policy.
It's like, it's like bringing tariffs back to a central place in our economic policy making like they were in the nineteenth century, and that you can't do unless Congress allows you to do it, would be the argument. It's just all power though, So.
Yeah, no, that's right. I wanted to highlight this just to kind of put it on all of our radar. Arnot Bertrand was highlighting these deals that are being struck outside of the US to your point, Ryan about how we're just like this rogue nation at this point and every other country is just figuring out how to adapt. And he says, this is bizarrely received almost zero coverage in Western media, but it is actually massive deal. China, the countries of Southeast Asia, assion and the Arab States.
GCC just held a summit in Kuala Lumpur to forge what could become the world's largest economic block, covering everything from free trade agreements and dedollarrization to Belton Road connectivity. Together, these countries have over two billion people, thirty percent of the world's GDP, and crucially about fifty five percent of world GDP growth in PPP terms. Here's their joint statement. They agree to massively develop free trade bypass the dollar.
That's an important one. Belton Road expansion, develop across region digital economy framework including an AI and energy markets coordination. So one more sign that the rest of the world is trying to adapt to you know, the US ye rogue actions.
And like I would saying maybe this is a good thing for everybody. It in a world where the US is still the loan superpower and also sees the rapid development of AI, Like we know how that world ends, like with a like just plutocracy of like a few trillionaires controlling everything. That's yeah, that like i'd love to say that DSA and and the remnants of Bernie are going to like put the brakes on that I don't.
I don't see it happening. And so it has to be the US like committing suicide and handing over power to these other countries who who at least they might have a better shot at making a slightly more egalitarian world out of this, out of on the other side of this, whatever this AI development is.
Yeah, we need to have Janis fair Faucus back on because he also is tracking both, you know, the de dollarization that ties into this, the deals that are being struck here that Arno is high landing along with the US's embrace of quote unquote stable coins, and so he sees a world in which you have two competing monetary systems.
One that is sort of more you know, traditionally im backed by governmental central banks like public you know, currencies that would be emblematic of like the bricks arrangements and what's happening with Asian and China and the Arab nations. And then one that is this private digital currency, you know, and with the quote unquote Genius Act and these stable coins which are not stable. Actually, then the trick the dollar as the alternative.
The trick there if people aren't connecting the dots, is it buys you say, another ten or twenty years of being able to kind of float endless amounts of treasuries into into circulation because that the bitcoin people, the crypto people, will have to buy the treasuries as the collateral for their stable coin. So it's it's basically a way to it's it's a it's kind of a pump and dump for like the entire United States.
That's cool. Yeah, that sounds like it's going to work out really great.
It'll be good for ten or twenty years and that that's that that's longer term thinking than our economic planners are usually getting into. So let's give them at least credit for that.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, Trump and the other gerontocracy people will be dead I guess by the time it collapses, So what do they care.
Yes, this was a good piece from from you honest that people should check out that he wrote on this recently.
We should definitely have it. Just closed it.
Sorry, it was called Trump wants a big tech to own the dollar.
It was really perfect.
Yep, that sounds right.
One more one more piece on this, again highlighted by r no So Marco Ruby announce they're going to start revoking visas of Chinese students, including those with connections the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields any place as rip American AI industry. According to recent study by the Paulson Institute, thirty eight percent of the top tier AI talent work in the US are Chinese, more than Americans themselves. So again, I guess right, that's for those
they were very concerned by a development. We should be like, yeah, I guess good work.
Crazy times.
This is Trump's real plan. We didn't even see it coming. This is the five D chess. Be right, I see it coming. This is all a plan to topple.
The Empire's ability to thrust us into AI, into the dystopia of AI.
So well done, mister president.
It is it is wild. It is wild to see the very obvious consequences of these actions. In any case, anything else there, guys, Are you ready to move on to Israel?
Yep?
So, Ryan, you guys have been doing the best reporting on what is going on with the ceasefire deal negotiations. So I'll pull up here the framework, the text that you guys published of the term sheet delivered to Hamas by Steve Whitcoff, and you can talk us through some of the details here and also the larger context Yeah.
So the original deal understanding, as Hamas kind of described it, that Jeremy reported on last week into early this week, was that there would be a sixty day ceasefire. The
Israeli forces would withdraw to their March second positions. There would be five captaves released on day one and then five hostages released on day sixty And the idea there was that breaking them in half and spreading them out forces Israel to abide by the ceasefire for that entire sixty days, and during that sixty days, the US would guarantee the stability of the ceasefire and would pressure Israel to negotiate towards a long term truce that the war
would not start up again on day sixty one. The new agreement. Oh, and how that unfolded. Jeremy was able to get the details of this and publish that there was an understanding between Hamas and Witkough that the Israel immediately comes out and they don't want to do this. They don't, they say they don't want to do this. Witkoff then calls Axios Barack Revide and says, I'm really disappointed in Hamas's reaction to this, and so blaming Hamas,
even though Hamas had had accepted the terms. So then Wikoff goes back and he's like, okay, what can I what can I tweak in this to get Israel on board, which again tells you that Jeremy's reporting was correct because the deal would not have gotten more favorable to Israel if the original one was okay with Israel but not
okay with Hamas. So now they have a new deal which instead of the five, the second half of the captives, and they're believed to be twenty living captives remaining in Gaza, so the five, instead of being released on day sixty, would be released on day seven. And the language around Israel, kind of withdrawing back to March second, is much vaguer, and the language about a long term truce is is vague,
giving Israel the ability to restart the war. Net Yahoo met yesterday with hostage families, and audio of it immediately leaked, which people in Israel, reporters in Israel were speculating or and just guessing like that this was a deliberate Net
and Yahoo leak. So in his conversation with the hostage families, he was telling them we're going we're going to restart the war like it's happening, like I'm sorry, like and we hope we get the rest of the living captives out, but we'll see and just letting you know, we're going to break this deal.
Yeah.
And the thinking of Amir ta Bona, a r's columnists who's been on our show. His analysis is that Yahoo is push is put that out to pressure Hamas to reject the deal. Like his preference is that Hamas reject the deal rather than accept it, and then nen Yaho has to break it because even though he's willing to break it, it comes with a political cost, like the world has completely lost its patience with nen Yahu and his genocide. It's like Europe is, you know, it's twenty
percent of its trade. Even Germany is telling Israel that that this is that this has gone too far. So on the one hand, you could imagine why Hamas is still debating this internally. You can imagine why they would reject this deal because it may be seven days of a ceasefire, right and then right back to where they were.
Right.
On the other hand, you can imagine why they would accept it because if Netton, now, who wants them to reject it. You could think, okay, whatever net Ya, who wants us to do like, we should do the opposite, uh and and and it would further isolate Israel internationally if they once again broke another ceasefire. And so the question, you know, for Hamas is is you know, what is what is a seven day or a sixty day seasefire
worth to them? If they and if they're because there as they say their their remaining leverage is is there the twenty hostages that they hold if that's down to ten and increasingly maybe shrinking, as as Israel's relentless bombing campaign, you know, puts the puts their lives at risk on a on a minute by minute basis. So there was a lot of hope in Gaza. You saw people, you know,
almost like pre celebrating the possibility. This was just such a just a poignant and painful thing to see because the the expressions of joy our reflection of the depth of the pain.
Right.
But there's what we don't know yet how this will go. And it's to me it's pretty hard to hard to predict.
Ryan, what do you make of like what can we read into wit Coough and the Trump administration's role here and their preferences, because I mean, you know, as we sort through all these details, which are really important, at the end of the day, the you know, probably the critical factor is what the Trump administration is willing to do to compel BB two end the war.
Yeah, and it doesn't seem like they're willing to do much because if they had just if they had just kept the arrangement something similar to all right, five on day one and five on day sixty and net Yahoo is publicly saying, screw you, I'm going to restart the
war as soon as I can. At least at least you're then forcing ams to ask the question of is a sixty day cease fire and a flood of aid worth it to this population that is being pushed into total anarchy like at this point, whereas when you say, is seven days worth it, it's like, well, you know, they might not even let much. They'll barely let any aid in for seven days and then start bombing again.
So Okay, they agreed to sixty but like they're being very public in their in their you know, confidence that they don't have to abide by it. So yeah, without you know, without without witcough pushing it for slightly longer. It does suggest that they're not willing to do that much.
It's interesting that from let's just say, from Netanyahu's perspective, he probably feels like he is on the presspoe of a generational opportunity for like Mara Gaza.
Totally.
But then also the flip side of that is a.
The alternative is the reconstitution of Hamas with any type of again, from his perspective, any type of ceasefire. So he thinks that he's on He's walking this like very very fine line between getting exactly the like fantasy scenario from the Israeli far rights perspective, or losing it and having Trump and the United States go into a future that is much more skeptical of Israel and has a much more skeptical alliance with this.
And I guess it's sort of.
Like they they feel like they're on a tight rope and I don't know, I mean, I don't think they realized that the more skepticism of the alliance future is kind of already here.
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot to that, and I think this ties into it as well. They're you know, rapidly moving to enable the additional expansion, major expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank. You know, they're worried that there will be international, real international pressure for some sort of a you know, Palestinian state to be recognized in some sort of a two state solution to be forced upon them. And so and look like BB grew up in the United States, I mean, these
are people deeply understand American politics. They probably understand it better than almost anyone, to be honest with you, and where the pressure points are and how to get their way and when the clock's ticking and when it's not. And so look, they can rit a poll as well
as anyone else. And see the way that first of all, the privilege that they enjoyed of having lockstep unified bipartisan support, it is going to come to an end, Like you cannot sustain a situation where the base of one party, the Democratic Party, is so dramatically at odds with the elected leadership of that party. And that's going to come to it. I think is going to come to a
head quickly in twenty twenty eight. I think this will be a litmus test and that you will not get through a Democratic primary without having a very different position on Israel than you know, Joe Biden and every other Democratic president has had in modern American history. So they know that that bipartisan consensus is going away. And even within the Republican Party, you know, older Republicans still have
very positive views of Israel. Younger Republicans do not. So, you know, Ryan, how much of the actions that are being taken now, you know, the attempt to actually consolidate some sort of like wild Greater Israel project, the dramatic expansion and the dramatic escalation and oppression and violence in the West Bank, obviously, the attempt to do the final
solution in Gaza. How much of this is a realization of like, this is our moment, and if we don't go for everything right now, the landscape is going to be different for us in the future.
Yeah. And I think there's almost a break from reality among the political class and a lot of the population in that there's a real impulse now of Israeli saying we don't need the world. The world has abandoned us, And it's a break with reality in the sense that for twenty months, the entire world Western world has financed and armed their war against this small militia in Gaza endlessly like an unlimited capacity in a way that no
other small country has gotten. Yet they feel like the world has abandoned them, that the world has turned against them, and so their response to that is, we don't need the world. We have a we have this startup nation. We've got all these this high tech firms. We make a lot of they do make like a non trivial amount of their own weapons, like they have their own, you know, weapons manufacturing capacity. So they're like, we don't need the we don't need the world. We're going to
go it alone. There are some who are like, we're just a couple of million people here and we don't ever we don't want to like never leave. And also like a dependent on international trade. We're dependent on all the favorable terms that we get from the from the US. We don't have just the demography to keep up endless wars on the north and the northeast and the and the south. Like, yeah, there were numbers coming out something like seventeen thousand wounded, and then they're talking about tens
of thousands more with debilitating PTSD. They're recruiting people suffering from PTSD back into Gaza, like back into service.
Well, and they have major long term demographic issues because.
The Palestinians made up a lot of their labor force.
That's true too, Yeah, people.
And you know things like the economy is struggling and so people, you know, people can't who can leave or leave, Like a lot of them have American passports, European passports and so can can leave.
And the ultra Orthodox don't want to work, serve in the military.
They don't want to work either.
They have a lot of kids, but they don't want to do anything.
So yeah, it's going to be just them and the Palestinians that stay behind. It's like or who who survive. It's so the idea of where they're going to take this to this like Greater Israel accomplished through endless war and the reality of their demography and their economic base are very far apart right now, and I think kept alive by war.
Fever, when think of how that's influencing the donor class that influences the Trump administration, actually politicians on both sides
of the aisle. But since they have the keys of the car right now, the Trump administration that I don't want to say paranoia, because I'm not that would imply that it's irrational or unfounded, but that almost desperation you can sort of sense it, I think, being pushed to the politicians as they're hearing from people who they've taken a lot of money from and have seen as great allies for a long time. It's sort of been like the Republicans, its just sort of been natural and a
very unquestioned alliance and like a marriage. Really.
Yeah, And meanwhile, they Notna government announced twenty two new settlements in the West Bank yesterday, which the government explicitly said the purpose of which was to prevent and make impossible the formation of a Palestinian state in the in
the West Bank. Like they're just saying this out loud. Yeah, you know, so the one the path they're choosing that they want to they they are desperately hoping to go down, is this and this one of endless war when you know, the world really, despite their paranoia, does not have any
sympathy for Palestinians. And if Israel today said we accept this term and we accept Hamas's long term truce in Gaza, and we accept a technocratic government to run Gaza with the support of the you know, Gulf countries, and then let Ireland and Spain and some others like recognize that little rump as as a Palestinian state and they just stopped bombing and starving the Palestinians. The world would be like, that's fine, Like, well, we're good, that's that's good enough.
When it from a perspective of global justice, it would not remotely be good enough, but the world would be fine with that. The world would just like Israel to stop, you know, humiliating the West when it comes to its hypocritic values but doesn't really have much concern for the actual Palestinian people.
Yeah, I think that's very apparent. But and to Emily's point about the you know, increasing desperation here in the US include in particular, we have this new announcement for Marco Rubio saying the US is implement vigorous new vies of policy to prevent foreign nationals with anti Israel views from traveling in the US. This is the job that
Laura Lumer is auditioning for. And at the same time, you know, even given the cost of pro Palestinian protests at this point, you had a large You've continued to have large protests at graduation ceremonies, in particular, this was you had one at Hunter College. I can pull this up drop site again shared this rely on you guys so much. Students protesting the administration.
You know, if you listen to this tale Jane is great Talia Otg, people should follow that one.
She's yes, absolutely absolutely, and yeah, so they you know, this was a quite significant protest if you watch this video and the you know the percentage of students who were involved here, so even knowing the incredible consequences that student have faced.
Yeah, the MIT speaker like when you've lost Mi T and Israel has to be watching this and and and shuddering. These are the these are the future elites of this country, that's right, who believe that this is there.
That's why, I mean, that's part of why there's such a panicked authoritarian reaction is because it they can. They don't see it as just you know, oh, these like college kids and they don't really mean it doesn't really matter, and this is so impotent. And you know, sometimes it does feel impotent because it's not like it has changed
the policy. But it is again an indication that the writing is on the wall and that even in spite of your incredibly authoritarian, anti free speech, illegal unconstitutional crackdown, that they're still willing to protest and speak out and you know, stand for what they see and what I see.
And it's the most vil it's the most I r L version of the beatings will continue until morale improves that I've really ever seen. And the more the beatings have continued, the worst morale has gotten. That they're willing to continue to do push these protests in the face of indefinite detention of protesters people, you know, the n YU guy losing his diploma. We have a little petition going at drop site for the n YU speaker who they are withholding his.
Diploma degree, something very basic thirty seconds.
Of like don't don't do terrible things to.
Civilians, how dare you outrageous?
And in the face of that, to see all of these kids still doing that, Yeah, it's like the beatings are going to have to really increase.
Well, I also meant a lot to hear from Abu Baker that you know, he and other Palestinians and Gaza have been tracking those protests and found it very hardening as well. Let's go ahead and talk a little bit. Oh, we've got actually, we've got Dan here, So we go ahead and talk to Dan about the polling. Then we can we can push zoron off until until after we talked to Dan.
Yeah, let's do that.
Okay, welcome, Hey, thanks for having.
Me, Thanks for doing it, appreciate it.
Ryan.
You want to set this up?
Yeah, let's do this. Do I do I let me find this, let me find this Axios poll. So yeah, Dan, Well I'm looking for this pole. So you you were the polster basically who ran this, this viral pole that was published first in in Axios that has caused all sorts of uh discourse back and forth about polling, about abundance, about populism. So just frame up for people kind of what the question was that you wanted to get from from voters, Like what were you trying? What were you
trying to figure out? And then I'll pull up some of the discourse.
Yeah. So when I was approached by Demand Progress about this, the the idea was.
To andre there are kind of populists like left right, like more on the left, but like they work in coalition with the right a lot.
Yep. So the idea was to just test kind of the resonance of all of this, you know, the arguments around abundance relative to what we look at as more traditional populist ideas and look at, you know, in terms of people's understanding of why there are economic struggles that you know that working class and middle class people are dealing with. You know, what do people think is the
cause of that? Is the cause more within the abundance framework or the populist framework, What do people want to hear candidates for office or president for Congress talk about, you know, the same kind of split, and what do people think is the best way to solve those things and address the concerns of middle and working class people.
And we.
Put it together to just make sense of it. The purpose was not to go public to try to prove anything. I was skeptical from the beginning because it's not you know, they're not usually exclusive concepts, and I you know, it's much easy.
The ultimate goal of populism would be to have abundance for all, right, absolutely, so I.
Was skeptical going in. But the idea we just wanted to get a benchmark since people were arguing about it and there didn't seem to be some good data, just
kind of placing where things fall. The interesting thing that happened when we got the results back was over helmingly, like across the board, the traditional populist ideas resonate far more people's sensibilities about the cause of their economic anxiety and challenges for working class people completely fall into a thing where a lot of us, you know, have been
talking about a lot. Now, that doesn't mean to the exclusion of some of the abundance ideas, and I think it's it's important that there are places where people do understand that there can be regulation that has unintended consequences to hinder, you know, to artificially shift the supply curve
and cause problems there. So again they're not exclusive. But if we're thinking about how to realign where democrats credibly talk to the electorate to win elections and implement stuff, there is no question that that populace framing is the stronger way to go about it, and that can access of abundance.
Ye give us the top lines on that and then we'll get into some of the criticisms of it.
Yeah, So the most straightforward thing that we did was we tested. We laid out the whole framing of what the abundance argument is, you know, based on you know, the book and the literature, what people are saying. We tried to be you know, really good faith capture what it is that they're talking about, and we asked the question.
I pulled it up here at least the first sentence of the abundance framing versus the populace framing.
Yeah, great. So overall, we asked if a candidate for Congress or president made that abundance argument, would that make you more or less likely to vote for them? Overall? Twelve point six percent said much more likely, thirty point nine said somewhat more likely. So it's a total of forty three point one percent said more likely, almost thirty percent said less likely overall, so that's you know, not super strong. The populist argument, which focused on you know,
corporate power primarily. The much more likely to vote for a candidate using that rhetoric was twenty six point three percent, the somewhat more likely twenty nine point three percent, So a total of fifty five point six percent more likely
and only twenty four point two percent. Now that again, like that was primarily among Democrats, but independence very much to the extent that there was an appetite for a lot of the abundance arguments there it felt not exclusively, but disproportionately toward the Republican side, and independents acted more
like democrats in these frameworks. Interesting, and then one of the important things, right, so then we just asked the question, well, now that you heard both these perspectives, which one do you agree with most, even if neither is exactly right. The abundance got twenty nine point two percent, the populace got forty two point eight percent. I'm sure got twenty
eight percent. And that goes back to one of the amusing things about how all of this went viral and there was all this debate on social media for the past couple of days where it's like, this is not the end of the story or the end up into these issues. This is one poll and they're you know, and a lot of the stuff that came up, a lot of the critiques people are like, well did you try polling this language?
Like oh, like, we will in the future will continue to look at this, and other people will in the future as well, but the striking thing is how people you know, are are telling us in this.
They think the cause of their economic anxiety is corporations having too much power. They're being too much corruption on the levels of government. And then even when we ask like later, and this is stuff that hasn't gotten like public yet, we asked, to the extent that there's excessive regulation, is that the fault of big corporations using their influence for their own profit or is that the fault of actualist groups? Overwhelmingly more people said it's the fault to the big corporations.
Even interesting into the apportioning the blame for these bottlenecks, they're like, corporate power.
Yeah, right, absolutely, And so that's why we ended up going public with this stuff because they're like, actually, these results are really striking. Of course, it's not going to be the final word on any subject, but it's it's a pretty important thing to get out there.
Ryan, Can you put back up, Yeah, put back up the Eric levittz tweet here, and let's just get you to respond to.
This critique thread here.
Yeah, to this critique. He says, this poll is shamelessly hackish. Yes, and populus rhetoric is definitely more resonant the technocratic critiques of zoning ANIPA three. The political case for monents is that voters will punish you if shit gets expensive, not that fight bottle next is a popular message. And this is I think consistent with a number of the critiques that I saw. You you sort of reference, so there were critiques about the language could have been different, or
you know. Another one we saw is basically like, well, this wasn't really meant to be and Eric is kind of getting at this like abundance messaging isn't meant to be the most politically potent messaging. It's about delivering for people. What did you make of some of the points that are raised here, though, Well, my favorite is.
His first point that the poll is, uh, was it shames hackish? Yeah? Absolutely, And every single person part of this debate on any side is absolutely hackish. This is not being discussed in corporate breakrooms, you know, this is completely in the realm of hacks. His second point like, okay, so then we're in agreement. The populist framings are far more resonant than it is rather technical. It's framings, right, So like no disagreement there that's what we're saying.
Right, So then I mean that to me raises the question then is the goal to run as a populist challenging corporate power, but then to a bate and switch where the actual program is like zoning reform, because it seems like a recipe for also political disaster of people being like you ran on something and you didn't deliver on what you promised and the way you positioned yourself.
When when this poll came out, I had numerous friends text me and go, So the solution is to run on populism and then do abundance.
And it's just like.
I think the reality is. And this is an important thing when we talk about what the message should be. There's been all this discussion there was during the previous presidential race and going to midterms, what should the Democrats
message be? Message requires that you have credibility, and if people don't believe that you're actually going to stand up to corporations and fight corporate power do all that, then it doesn't matter if you're you know, it might be marginally better to say you are, but it doesn't ultimately help.
You have to be doing it, And I don't know anyone who doesn't believe there are some regulatory changes that would help in certain industries at certain places to reduce the price of things and to create more goods, like which is in the abundance wheelhouse. Like I don't know anyone who disagrees that there's not places to do that. But that has nothing to do with where are you insisting taxes come from, you know, relative to the working class to you know, the very rich, Like how are
you dealing with those other policy things? So I think the solution is build the confidence of the voters by running on populist ideas doing concrete populist things. And also when you find that someone who's in the abundance camp goes, hey, here's a regulation that's actually like not doing what it intended to and is like mucking up some economic system. So of course, then take care of that. Yeah.
Yeah, Here I'm sharing this post from Chris Murphy, Senator Chris Murphy, who has dabbled in trying to, I guess, make the Democratic Party's message respond to the populist moment. He says it's a weird exposition because why not craft a message where we aggressively reduce concentrated corporate power and
we fix bottlenecks and build more stuff. And Dan, this brings us to, I think an interesting question as to whether sort of mainstream establishment Democrats and I think everyone has to include Chris Murphy in that group, are capable of adopting the messaging of populism. And you know, we could talk about in substance, as you just said, marrying it with genuine populism and abundance downstream after being elected because voters say, we trust you and that message is.
Appealing to us. But can they actually pull it off?
Given the way Democrats tend to approach these questions, do you have a take on that, like, what would this look like in practice for a mainstream establishment democratic politician who's not Bernie Sanders to Kamala Harris tried to do this a little bit, to actually embrace that type of messaging.
It seems pretty hard.
Yeah.
I mean, look, ultimately, when elections are happening, they are run by candidates and not parties, So it's really case by case who would have credibility kind of carrying that
populist water. And I think that people who have been viewed as part of the larger Democratic establishment to date are going to have a hard time doing that because the voters clearly and we you know, tested some of that in the beginning of this just to get some benchmarks that people don't have great confidence in either party
to really carry that water, you know. I think if there's an immediate lesson, it's you need new faces talking about you know, some really traditional classic ideas, but highlight the success us where that's that's working. And I mean that would be my advice, like generally, like if you're starting from a point where voters have so little confidence in you, but you feel like you've got a winning message and a winning agenda, you have to first of
all mean it. And I'm sure everyone could debate for hours whether most of the top level Democrats really give a shit about this stuff or.
The senator from Connecticut Yeah, yeah, But.
It's like, if you really want to build a populist based Democratic party, then you need to uplift leaders who are credibly carrying that water to some degree already and keep kind of amplifying that. Yeah.
I think that's it's such an important point. Is why the Bernie aoc Oligarchy tour has been so effective is not only because the message resonates, you know, when it's consistent with the populist messaging that you're testing here. But they're both people that have, you know, some credibility in the space, Bernie Sanders in particular, and so you know, I think people sometimes miss that is an important part.
You can't just you can't just we appreciate posters, appreciate the work that you do, but there has to be some credibility to back it up. The thing that, you know, was the funniest dodge to me was the claim by some that abundance in like I said, Eric Levitz and his critique, they're kind of gestures at it, that abundance isn't really meant to be a political platform.
Because that's while you're speaking. I'll put up a couple.
Examples of this. Yeah, because the I mean, I had Derek on breaking points. I got to engage with him on a bunch of these points. You know, I explicitly asked him the question, Okay, well, is this is how a policy reforms because that's one thing, or is this like a central message and political platform and movement. I've read the book, by the way, you know, I read
the whole book. I've engaged with the critiques, I've engaged with the defenses, all of those sorts of things, and they're consistent in saying, no, this is yes, it's some specific policy ideas, but this is really about how we think the National Democratic Party should be oriented. And this is, you know, in evidence by the fact that as re
client is like meeting with the Senate Democratic Caucus. If you were most interested in like the you know, local level zoning reform, you wouldn't be going to the national Political Party. You'd be going, like, you know, to the San Francisco board or mayor or you know, other localities where you think that this program really needs to be effectuated.
So that was to me, you know, an interesting almost admission that they recognize that well actually as a messaging device to organize a political project around there are some weaknesses here.
I think that people were arguing that point from different sides, at least in the little firestorm online. Yeah, because there was a lot of focus on, oh, if you had used this slightly different language, maybe it would have pulled better, which was also an amusing criticism because we use the exact language that the leading proponents of abundance have been putting out there. So if the argument is that that language actually sucks, like maybe you should talk.
About where can you can you just elaborate on that, Dan, Where did the language come from?
So a lot of the frameworks in the book, like, for instance, the concern about using bottlenecks and the suggestion of using red tape, like a couple things on that first off, like sure in future polling, like we'll test red tape, like cutting red tape, Like I have no problem with that. The language itself came from largely the book, which mentions bottlenecks at least a dozen times, and to my understanding, does not mention cutting red tape once, and
we do talk about, you know, reducing regulations. But the other point is like in understanding polling, like we're not testing words, we're testing a political program that uses those words. So if someone reads a full paragraph explaining a policy, set up policy ideas and one word is different from what you think the ideal word, that's not going to substantially change the results because people understand what the concept is.
So a lot of the focus on that, like one word in one term, like sure, we can test things differently, But that's really not gonna be like, you know, the magic bullet that suddenly makes abundance the thing everyone's clamoring for, because.
Especially when it wasn't close, you know, if this was like a fifty two forty eight kind of a proposition, maybe, but it was pretty clear, especially when you're talking about a democratic base, which is this is an intrademocratic party fight at this point.
Yeah, I mean, but what's so important and I don't think this is like a new addition to the discussion about how the Democratic Party should rebuild itself. It's an intrademocratic fight right now that requires for ultimate success. That's that's credibly resonant with independence along the way right, And that's the thing that really stands out, Like the fact that the Democrats are falling on like what is like
a more traditional yet populist liberal. I think that's not surprising, but the number among independents are just really clearly falling along the populist line as well.
Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. Got any other questions, guys, you want to throw it Dan, My.
Last one would be, would you commit to if Jonathan Chait or somebody comes to you with a better question, can.
You Yeah, I mean, if you put it out in a poll, I would be more than happy to. I mean, I just can't emphasize enough, like my skepticism about this initial project from the get go. You know, some people were like mocking, like, oh, this is obviously not disinterested. I was both disinterested and uninterested. I didn't even want
to do this whole the perfect combo. So, like, for sure, if there's any any subsequent uh, you know, research we do on this, like a lot of stuff people have brought up, you know, as as suggestions and criticism, like yeah, well, also.
Can you also pull how many people know the actual difference between disinterested and uninterested? Just throw that question in I would.
I think people will get confused answering.
That though, And for everybody watching, let's do a public service here. Disinterests, I mean you're you're like unbiased, You like, you don't have an interest. And by interest, it doesn't mean you're not excited about the thing, means you don't have a financial or personal vested interest in the thing. You are disinterested outside as an observers uninterested, which means you're bored by it. So just everybody get that.
We're going to do a special show Jess for Ryan where he just spends an hour defining relevant terms.
Yes, I'll do it. If you do that pole question and we'll record on.
We'll come back and be part of that lesson.
All right, Thank you, Dan, great chat with you?
All right?
He was great?
Yeah, he was great. Did you know him, Ryan, you've talked to him before?
Yeah?
I talked to him about some polling in the past. He's done a lot of work with David Siegel in the band Progress. But he's he's really good.
Gotcha nice? Yeah, fun talking to him. We'll have to find other excuses to have him back. Should we circle back to his arm? Because I actually feel like this. All right, guys, thank you so much for watching the free portion of the Friday Show. We're going to move into some premium bonus content, so if you want to watch that as well, make sure to go and subscribe at Breakingpoints dot com. And for all of you guys who are already premium subscribers, that portion is going to start right now.