Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com.
One of the biggest data center projects, this one in Utah that you can possibly imagine, is moving forward. Listen, sixty two square miles of desert getting carved up for you know, I guess to jack up your electricity bills.
And use more power than the entire state of Utah.
It's like sixty two square miles and getting a tax break of humming data center. Like, good, look look at that thing. I don't even I don't even know what to say about that.
Look at look at that beautiful, beautiful so chunk of land.
Locals out there looked at it, and we're like, uh yeah, don't think I don't think we want this either, did not seem to matter. Let's roll a little bit of uh C two here.
All of this as well.
Then why won't they let people talk?
Why won't.
This is not real information?
And we sitting here like it's okay, it's a charaine, it's a charaine.
It's full.
So despite this kind of outpouring of opposition, the project is continuing to move forward. Also, environmental concerns being spelled out roll C three here.
How are you upsetting the how are you offsetting these environmental concerns?
Well, I'm actually the only developer of data centers on Earth that graduated from environmental studies, so I'm pretty aware of what these concerns are. They are around air, water use, heat, noise pollution. So sustainability is at the heart of what we do in terms of all these proposals, not just Utah. We have ten thousand acres in Alberta, Canada with the same concerns, and so we search for the best technology. There's many air cooled turbines now, so you're blending in
air cooled versus water. There's so many different ways to generate power. We can also put a percentage of the power generation through solar, wind and batteries because the battery technology is ten x more efficient than it was just five years ago. So that's very helpful because it makes the cost of energy lower. So no one, you know, if you're environmentalists, then you don't care about that stuff. Of course you protest, and that's what happens.
I noted.
You know what's happening in Utah right now is we think over ninety percent of the protesters are actually not people that live in Utah or box Elter County.
They're being busted in Oh goodness.
Yeah, I don't know what I think of this new trend of even like the data center guy.
Kevin O'Leary of jud Tank and Party Supreme.
Like doing the car thing.
I mean, nobody trusts you if you like have overprocessed videos now and they've discovered that three very commercials, not in this case, but like have you started to see some commercials that are filmed like they're on a phone. It's really something.
So unless you're like Kyle Kolinsky coming back from the golf course with Crystal nobody wants to hear.
Nobody trusts you.
Nobody trusty Crystal en Route, nobody trusts your take. Of course, all this is propped up by an inflated bubble put up CE five here. Bloomberg has a nice little graphic this is crazy, tries to explain how how the money is flowing through here and to help us walk, to help us walk through this. Lucky enough to be joined by Rohit Choper, who's the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, also a former FTC commissioner. What's your
what's your current gig? Now that Trump threw you out of this CFPB because I don't want to, we don't want to just do formers. Row Hit, welcome to show. What are you up to now?
Well, I'm helping out our state attorneys general actually prosecute some of this wrongdoing that the federal agencies are just watching as crime is committed all over the country.
Excellent.
It would have been really funnyhead if your answer was I'm I'm spearheading massive data center construction.
Data center consulting.
No.
Rowhit is one of the people that keeps corporate America up at night. The the foul language that people like Jamie Diamond have had for Rowhead. I think speaks speaks to speaks quite well to him and to the analysis that he's able to give here. So, first of all, this Utah Data Center project, am I an idiot? Like? Why are they putting these things out in the desert? First of all? When the big problem is overheating? Am I the first person to think of that?
Well, here's what we're seeing across the country, massive actually competition from all of these states and localities to hand out tax breaks in order to subsidize these very massive real estate developments. And I think you're seeing an unending thirst for power when it comes to keeping going this
AI machine. There is even analysis from Goldman Sachs that is suggesting that AI is contributing to all sorts of increased consumer prices, whether it is the increased cost of electricity that some people believe is a result the increased demand for electronic equipment and chips, as well as a whole other set of costs. So you're starting to see a lot of pushback, especially because some of the traditional arguments for subsidizing these developments, like creating lots of jobs,
aren't necessarily materializing. Well, it takes people to construct these data centers. If you walk through some of them, you'll see there's very few people working at them.
Have you done that before you've walked through the data centers.
I've seen a data center. I've seen it's actually it's quite extraordinary in some ways to see the sheer volume of electronic equipment, the need to cool some of this, and the need to just kind of keep it going twenty four hours a day. And I think we forget that every time we are opening an app or streaming a show that is really resting on those behemoth data centers.
So on that point Trump takes office, CFPB, you're gone. CFPB is now a shell of its former self. Basically was doged, which was a plan of the conservative movement long before Doge, of course, But one of the things that you were doing, and correct me if I'm wrong, at the CFPP was starting to pay really close attention to the consumer effects of cryptocurrency. And I think one of the reasons cryptocurrency and just financialization and the like.
And I think one of the reasons that people are so mad about what started to happen with the data centers is that they look around and they say, for what, what is all of this? All of this is war schemes, whether it's I mean, crypto isn't directly related to this, or maybe it is, correct me if I'm wrong, but like it's all to that Bloomberg piece we just we just had up on the screen. It's all like Microsoft funding in Nvidia to fund Microsoft, like it's all it
all feels fake to people. It all feels like it's for the sake of people who are going to be fine no matter what, just like what happened in the Great Recession. They are going to survive, many of them are going to survive. Average people are going to be screwed once again. And so some of it I think just comes from this anger about what's building up, the froth that's building up in the economy.
Yeah, you know, there's a concept that we talk about on Wall Street. It was I think coined by a Bloomberg journalist, number go up, which is really this push no matter what type of asset you're referring to, they want the number.
To go up. And we have seen it in the data.
The top one percent of Americans now own over fifty percent of the stock market and mutual fund assets in the US. And if you look at the portion of what we refer to as the Magnificent Seven, those big tech companies, Nvidia and others, they are a larger and larger and larger share of the overall stock market. So we're in a situation now, and I'll tell you something. Just in one quarter recently, just baby boomers saw their wealth increase by a trillion dollars and this is due
to some of these stock market gains. So we're in a situation where the economy is now in some ways resting on these big asset prices, and many people are wondering are these asset prices really real? You mention what's called circularity. This is where a.
Group up while you're talking people.
Yeah, these group of companies are really kind of all in deals with each other. Some of it is related to services like cloud, some of it is related to chips, the things that you know in video makes. Some of it is actually investment. So there is really this web and honestly, this Bloomberg graphic doesn't even begin to show some of it. You are seeing that in some cases an enormous part of even the cloud infrastructure is increasingly
being paid between these companies. And what's interesting is that it is not necessarily they're paying cash. They're entering into deals financing and equity deals that are really tying some of these firms together.
So we don't really know.
Is this a situation where if one problem occurs, will it have a ripple effect? I think earlier you mentioned what happened in the financial crisis, the regulators had no clue about the linkages between the big banks between some of these credit default swaps insurance companies like AIG, and the result was a mess. And I think we're starting to worry that maybe there isn't a big problem here.
But is anyone really looking because it seems like most of the regulators in Washington are worshiping at these companies alters rather than actually kicking the tires to see if there's a bigger issue on our hands.
And so, what happens if the revenue expectations of an open AI or an anthropic start to not meet? Like well, we're.
Already seeing signs of this.
Open AI I think has delayed its timeline for a IPO where they go public anthropics.
I think we still don't have a.
Firm timeline on it, and many analysts believe this is because us open AI is not showing the level of revenue that the street expects.
So this is the worry.
You have a set of companies that are an overwhelming share now of the stock market, over a third of the stock market, and you have all that wealth really concentrated at the upper echelons of the economy, and they are driving those wealthy individuals are driving a huge amount of spending. If we start seeing the stock market values of these companies go down, will they all face a correction? And what will the ripple effect be through the economy.
I think that's really what a lot of people, both on Wall Street and who follow the economy closely, are really really curious about.
And if we could talk a bit about the consumer end of this rowhead, I'm curious, you know, some of the stuff you all were doing at the CFPB to stealman the conservative argument it was you didn't need the CFPB. The CFPB could sort of be folded into other agencies that already existed. So if we take that seriously for a moment, I'm curious if you believe that some of those responsibilities have adequately been folded into other oversight bodies
and what risk. I'm assuming you're gonna say, no, what risk? Then consumers find themselves in with a basically empty CFPB and some of this real economic change happening kind of under everybody's noses right now.
Well, let's look at the proof.
While I was in office, and even before, the CFPB was regularly returning billions of dollars. I think on average it was over three billion dollars a year, and really some serious fraud.
I think we've basically seen zero.
I don't I can't even tell you when the last time they took an action. It has mostly been to gut the place. So I think the arguments that someone else would do it just haven't held up. Here's the thing, Emily that I think we've got to really think hard about. It's one thing about, you know, going after fraud, returning.
Money to people.
The big, big work is often preventing the next meltdown or crisis. Had there had been I think some real scrutiny of subprime mortgages, we wouldn't have gotten into the big, gigantic mess from two thousand and eight that honestly, we are still feeling aspects of today, both politically and economically, including in our housing costs.
But I really wonder.
These alphabet soup agencies are they asking any question, are they actually looking at anything, or are they simply just doing deals to scratch the backs of political supporters. We're seeing this at the FTC when it comes to mergers, waving mergers through where there is a politically connected lobbyist and going hard on firms that might be enemies of the administration. And what I say to all my conservative friends is that I really thought you guys didn't want
the government picking winners and losers. That is really how Russia and China often work. I thought we were about letting people build and create and not just deciding and crowning corporate royalty. I'm worried we're shifting toward that. And let's see if there is a broad spectrum of people across the ideological spectrum who just say no and we're.
Tired of it.
Yeah, I'm picking a lot of tech companies those winners in particular.
And Rohitchroper I also wanted to ask you uh to kind of unpack for us a little bit this this fight that's going on between Wall Street banks on the one hand and crypto companies on the other hand that seem to be attempting to act like banks. They want to.
It looks like they want to start taking deposits and paying interest on deposits, but without being kind of regulated as as banks, which you know, the nice thing that we got out of the Great Depression was the fdi C and you put you put your money into a bank, and if the bank goes under. As Americans, we're not actually worried that we're not that we're going to lose our deposits, and so therefore we don't rush and we
don't create runs on those those banks. So Tom Tillis, I maybe we can add this and pose with Tom Tillis and Angela also Brooks, the Tom Till's Republican from North Carolina, also Brooks Democrat from Maryland, putting together a proposal that they thought had reached some type of compromise between coinbase and the crypto world and Wall Street. But that seems to have kind of unraveled a little bit. So can you unpack for us, like what are these
what are the different camps arguing for? And I wonder so Coinbase just laid off what fourteen percent of its of its staff, and I wonder if they were waiting to kind of reach a deal and then and then went for this massive layoff. Setting that aside, What what is this fight over?
Yeah?
So look, Ryan, you know I'm not some kind of unvarnished cheerleader for banks. I think we got to scrutinize them carefully. But let's be honest. We do need banks in our society. We need a place where we can pull our deposits and that we can get loans on everything from building factories or starting a dry crew or pizzeria.
That's what banks do. The banks are arguing that the crypto companies that are wanting to start these crypto dollars or stable coins they call it, that they're going to put money in those coins, and that it is going to drain the banks of deposits who they would otherwise use to lend. And so what the battle is about here is can those stable coin companies or crypto dollars, can they pay interest on the deposit. The argument if they pay interest, there will be lots of flight from
banks to those stable coin issuers. And the argument from the stable coin issuers. Is that the banks they can just compete and raise their interest rates too. So this sounds actually like it's a debate about it's really not. It's really a debate about what is the future of our banking system. Is our banking system going to be one where we put money in deposits and that leads to lending, but we can always get our money back, as you said, Ryan, or we going to have something
a little bit different. I really worry that this is not becoming a debate about farm lending and mortgage lending and national security and sanctions. Instead it seems a little bit more about a fight that's just jocking between two big industries shooting.
At each other.
But the truth is is that if you look at as what is happening about, big questions about the future of the dollar trade, the financial system, the future of the FED, these are all linked, and you just don't see a lot of coverage about this. So we got to all get smart and make sure this is not just a lobbying frenzy between industries, but we're choosing what is right for America.
So what does the world look like if we're doing crypto dollars instead of.
Dollars, and the stable coin push from the Trump administration, which is enriching to them as well. By the way, but remember when with the tariff, Trump's what Trump what brought him from the brink was the bond market's getting quote a little yippy. And I don't think anybody totally understands what they're trying to do with the dollar in the long term.
Well, here's really one of the best cases they're trying to make is that by issuing these stable coins, they're going to attract more demand for dollars, and therefore that will mean more purchases of US treasuries, which will then make our debt cheaper. I really I wrote a piece last year that really questions some of that assumption, because I do think a lot of the funds that will power these stable coins will actually just come from US
consumers and businesses. When I send a Venmo or a cash app, I'm not thinking about is it in a stable coin, is it in a bank deposit. I just expect it to work. This is not going to be so clear to consumers, and I want to make sure that if something went down, if there is a crisis, that people will not panic and that they will be able to get their money back. That is something that
is so key for confidence in our economy. And I would hate to see those who really live paycheck to paycheck all of a sudden, or a small business all of a sudden lose everything because what their money, that their money is not really stable.
We're so cooked.
No, no, no, it's not, we're cook We just got to get smarter and we got to get our voices in the arena. And we can't just be passive observers.
Yeah, who are the smartest, Who are the people on the right side of this, Who are actually who actually get it? In Congress?
Now, well, you know what's funny is I think actually a lot of them do get it, but many are worried about what they can say out loud. I think they see huge lobbying interests on those companies. Yeah, and I think that is something that is something that politicians, you know, we want them to all be courageous to do the right thing, but we know the power of
these big arsenals of lobbying money. We're seeing it in AI as well, where the AI you know, companies are forming lobbies to really destroy any state legislator or local politician who is even speaking up against data centers or trying to put some basic protections on the books. So this is why we can't just we can't just observe. We gotta we gotta be in on it.
Rohit Chopra, thanks so much for joining us. Former director of the CFP, PB, former chairman or former commissioner on the FTC. Much appreciated.
Thanks raving.
The conservative movements. Woodward and Bernstein turned up in Havana, both of them. Takes two to match the wits one. Nick Shirley. Nick Shirley, however, running into a little running into a few problems in Havanah. Here he is from a sanctioned Havana hotel. I think through sheer ignorance, Nick Shirley is confronting the absurd of American sanctions by staying in a hotel. He is definitely not allowed to be staying in. So critical support to comrade surely here who
is facing difficult circumstances. Let's roll this video that Nick Shirley actually produced. This is not AI or made up or anything. Let's roll some Nick Shirley.
All right, Depending when this comes out or if it does We are currently being telled by Cuban intelligence here in habout A, Cuba.
I came here.
I've been wanting to make a video for so long about life and communism and showing people what communism is like in a place like Cuba.
For instance, I go out.
At the airport. They sees all of my cameras. They sees both my GoPros, my metaglasses. These are not my metaglasses, all my microphones. However, the only thing they don't take is my iPhone camera. That's what I'm filming. It's on right now. They don't take my iPhone camera, and somehow they didn't get this microphone that was in the very very bottom of my backpack. We're filming this video and when we're next to the hospital, we see undercover cop roll up on us and my security guards that are
with me. They detected him, and then all of a sudden, there's another one. So we hot back in another taxi. We left the scene and we thought we were good. They didn't tell us and we left. But since we left the airport, we had been getting telled or the word had gotten out that there was a journalist inside of Cuba. There's only two flats that come in here every single day, so it wasn't hard to spot out
who the journalist was. And we have a Cuban intelligence down in the lobby of the hotel right now working to essentially try to round us up and potentially imprison us or make it so we cannot leave Cuba.
So the interesting thing about that video, one of them, at least when I went over there recently, there was this massive hullabaloo about the fact that we stayed in a quote unquote five star hotel. For when you have a giant group of Americans who are traveling to Cuba, there are only a couple of hotels that you're allowed to stay, and you can stay in their version of kind of Airbnbs, but spreading seven hundred people out around
those would be rather logistically difficult. So among the hotels that you're allowed to stay in, there's only a couple because they can't have, you know, connections to the Cuban government. He's staying in one that is fully one hundred percent sanctioned. I don't think he's deliberately violating American sanctions and supporting the communist Cuban The argument is by staying there, he's supporting, you know, the tyrannical communist government, and so therefore he
shouldn't be staying there, and it's a crime. What's the statute of limitations? Would be funny if like President Platna rolls in and and like lifts sanctions on Cuba, but also prosecutes, surely for violating them while they were still in place. So good for surely for showing the absurdity of these American sanctions. Now, so he's there doing some reporting. I think his mom is sort of like his handler, right, she's.
Kind of I thought they traveled together.
Yeah, I'm much anger at his mom than him. He doesn't have any idea what he's doing. You can't be Yeah, he is, he's challenged.
We weren't going to make the joke about literacy being Cuba's one strand.
He's bringing down the literacy rate in Cuba single handedly.
I wasn't going to make the joke, but I was going to tee you up to make the joke.
But I'm upset with his mom, Like his mom should have been like, well, you can't just bring in a whole bunch of equipment and start filming in Cuba, like you, there's a process you have to go through with the government to get a visa connected to doing journalism. Chinese tried to send their leading propagandist to like make videos here in the United States.
We'd roll out the red carpet.
Well, we would also.
We would follow them.
We would follow them, yes, yeah, and there are way like you can't just come in on a You're not supposed to just come in on a tourist visa and do it when there are processes forms are supposed to fill out. Right now, obviously Cuba has stacks and stacks of forms. They are that's what they are.
Well, and nobody except for like maybe I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe people who are sort of still avowed Marxists, nobody really tries to claim that the Cuban government isn't repressive and is not going to follow forg journalists and that the process.
Everyone would agree they're repressive. The questions like some would argue, maybe.
It's good, yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's a good point, but it's obviously a repressive country. Again, even some of the people were arguing against sanctions and the like.
They have tight rules, admit that speech.
Yes, the media, they have artists in political prison, like I guess.
Wanting to interview somebody at the University of Anna who is a high profile person, Like that's a government university, and you have to then get permission from like the government interview like right, not the kind of system that I, as a journalist.
Prefer, which when you came back from Cuba, we talked about all of this, like we talked about the process, We talked about how you were able to do those tours of the hospitals.
But it's also not a mystery like what Cuba is apparently other to anybody other than Nick Shirley. So I hope, I hope the Cubans governments takes mercy on poor Nick Shirley. Truly, he doesn't, he knows not what he does.
So Marco Rubio gave a briefing yesterday, and I think it's worth rolling this side. This is going to be D four MARCOO did with the White House briefing yesterday, and both for you and Trump continue to talk about what could be coming imminently for Cuba. Trump obviously infamously said that he may have the privilege of taking Cuba very soon. Here is Secretary of State Rubio at the White House yesterday.
There's no oil blockade on Cuba, per se. Here's what's happening with Cuba.
Okay.
Cuba used to get free oil from Venezuela. Used to give them a bunch of free oil. They would take like sixty percent of that oil and resell it for cash.
It wouldn't even go to benefit the people.
So the only blockade that's happened is the Cubans have decided, I mean, the Veneze weddings have decided, we're not giving you free oil anymore. And you can only imagine nowadays the way oil prices aren't. No one's giving away free oil, much less to a failed regime. So the problem with Cuba is worse.
Okay.
Their economic model doesn't work, doesn't work, and the people who are in charge can't fix it. And the reason that I can't fix it is not just because they're communists. That's bad enough, but they're incompetent communists.
Okay. So he also south Coomb's Twitter. I can't believe that's the thing I'm even saying. But south COM's I guess x account posted a very calculated image of Secretary of Rubio yesterday D two posing in front of a map of Cuba with General Francis Donovan. Quote. Their discussions, according to Southcom, focused on US efforts to counter threats that undermined security, stability, and democracy in our hemisphere. Absolutely no mistake that they're shaking hands in front of a giant map of Cuba.
Ran yeah, and he was asked about that in his press conference. Then he said, yeah, that was to send a signal. Also, what he said in that clip is just a flat out lie. Forget Venezuela, Mexico and every other country that wants to sell oil to Cuba, not give it away, sell it is told that they're not allowed to do that by the United States. I don't know why he keeps telling this lie so confidently, but he does. The Russia brought a tanker there and Trump
allowed it to go through. The fact that Trump had to say that he was allowing a Russian tanker to go to Cuba tells you that there is a blockade. If there was no blockade, Trump would have nothing to do with a transaction between Russia and Cuba. Meanwhile, a little bit of a little bit of news that came out yesterday, Cuba finalized a massive reform of its immigration system,
a huge loosening of it. Previously, they weren't they didn't allow dual citizenship for the most part, and if you were gone for a certain amount of time, that was
kind of a de facto renunciation of your citizenship. Immigration law is always complex, so it might have the details slightly off here, but the loosening allow it's going to allow dual citizenship, and it's going to allow Cubans who have gone to not just the US, but you know, Brazil, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, you name it, to go back and forth. It will also allow them to spend money that they have earned in you know, Central or South America or the North American back and back in Cuba and then
to go and then to go again. So it's it's a it's a huge liberalization of their of their immigration policy, which is interesting, and it's it comes at a time as hundreds of thousands of people, as Trump and then Biden really ratchet it up the boot, the boot on the neck of the Cuban economy. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans have millions at this point over maybe five six years have fled Cuba, and so what this is saying is that if they want to come back, it's it's
the way I read it. If they want to come back, they can do so. And they don't have to stay either. They can come back and visit and go back.
So anyway, that's and bring I guess potentially bring stuff for people.
Suffering, bring stuff and bring money.
Yeah, because and to just as a flight from Miami to Avanta it's easy, or.
From Costa Rica or wherever else they are, because they're like, Cubans are doing pretty well in other countries because they all got this as they all got this, but Cubans are particular because they got this really good education in Cuba, and so they're able to then outperform other people in like Brazil or Columbia or Costa Rica or whatever. I
was talking. When I was in Cuba, I was talking to some people there who who were saying it was ironic that a lot of their friends have who have left and done really well, have turned right wing, and they're like they're the ones who staying here, like it's a little annoying because they got this socialist education and then use that to do well in these countries where education is not a priority and have kind of forgotten, you know, how they got there, but that that's because
there's real genuine animosity towards the sclerotic Cuban government.
Yes, right, well, we'll see, we'll be we'll of course be paying close attention to Nick, the plight of Nick Shirley, the education Nick Shirley, and the like. In all seriousness, though we hope that he's okay and safe, because that can get hairy very quickly, as you know.
Right, imagine interrogating Nick Shirley about anything about.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, right, I would like to see you do that for the record. Nick, come on, Ryan, we'll talk to you.
Yeah, sure, yeah, let's do it.
All right, we got big election updates to get to, so let's start now in Indiana. We can talk about this. We'll just put this New York Times tear sheet up on the screen because it kind of gives a broad overview of everything that happened last night, big election results around the country. Quote. President Trump's efforts to oust Republicans deemed insufficiently loyal faced a key test on Tuesday's Indiana voters decided whether to backstates who opposed redistricting, in whom
the president wanted out all right now. The Times also said his political payback campaign, Trump's is going to extend later this month to classes in Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana. But in Indiana, these are primaries. We're not actually even talking about the general elections yet. The Times says several Republican led states quickly fell online last year when mister Trump demanded redrawn maps. You may remember that Indiana Republicans
tried to push back against that, so quote. When lawmakers returned to Indianapolis in December, the House approved a new map which would have positioned Republicans to flip the states to Democratic held congressional seats, but the Senate said no, and a slim majority of Republicans joined all Democratic senators
to vote the bill down. Those senators who were on the ballot for reelection, not all of them were, but the ones who were faced I've seen estimates between eight million and twelve million dollars from Trump groups like National True groups basically and not even secretly, but very openly, who then said Okay, that's it, you're gone, and basically all of them ended up losing with the exception of one as of right now losing their primary battles last night.
So brutal day for Indiana Republicans who wanted to push back against Trump. Basically again as of now, just one who is clinging to and a high profile race who's clinging to the seat. But you know the way that I would describe this, we're in an arms race now on jerrymandering. There's no question about it. This was after Texas, which then you saw California, and the redistricting has been going.
On, held by the Voting Rights Act decision because that opens up, yes, redistricting possibilities everywhere from Alabama, Mississippi to Tennessee. Right said, you know, because they what they can do is they can just eliminate the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act required basically majority black district They'll just carve up the black voters and dilute them into a bunch of white districts.
Right, And so six of the eight who refused to do the gerrymandering, we're gone.
You have time to do it before November or that. Well they're still in.
Office, so right, yeah, some of them are.
Yeah, but they'll do it for twenty twenty eight.
Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. Yes, And just to again, the argument from Jim Banks and Trump Republicans is that you can't do unilateral disarmament or you can't. Yeah, that's not happening, right, So it's not possible. And the only if you're going to make like a moral pencion type stand on the principle against redistricting. At this point, there is no you're not the bulwark again national redistricting
just because you say Indiana won't do it. And so Trump people and obviously Indiana voters for the most part, looked at that and said, yeah, this is bs. You guys aren't stopping redistricting. It's happening whether you like it or not. And what you are doing is just saying we're disarming ourselves and giving Dems more seats in Indiana. So it's I think that's a pretty compelling argument to most voters. Everybody hates redistricting.
Maybe everybody hates it.
Everybody hates it.
They lived they started it in Texas, like they didn't have to do this mid district, a mid cycle redistricting in Texas, and they chose to do it and then yeah, once they chose.
To do that, then you're yeah, the cycle was on. Yeah, it was immediately Gavin Newsom was like, Okay, we're doing it. And Gavin Newsom's people loved that because everybody knows that we have we don't have. The stigma around these boundaries has been blown up during the Trump era and so it's unfortunate. It's reality. Nobody is unless somebody if these Indiana Republicans had a real substantive plan to stop redistricting around the country, they would probably have a better case
with Republican voters. But nobody. Everybody hates jerrymandering, but also everybody hates not doing it now, like Republicans, Republicans and Democrats hate not doing it now. It's a it's a horrible status quo, but it is unfortunately our reality. Right Ohio, interesting results in Ohio last night as well. We can put this up on the screen Politico quote Ohio Republicans fhere former ice official could cost them a battleground house seat. Now, this is about Madison san who was a very young
and inexperienced deputy to Christy Nome. Her title was I'm trying to remember exactly what her title was. She was deputy director at ICE, that's right, and then resigned to run for congress. Back home and Ohio was the subject of a salacious Daily Mail hit piece about her sex life. Yes, about her sex life just a couple of weeks.
Ago, rather aggressive. Was it sexual assault? Even like there was some pretty pretty serious like hikes.
It was definitely a yikes story.
I don't remember if there's such anyway going on.
Ruled into it, but yes, Madison she and people may I lose, right, Madison Sheen is. The results are in lost and lost big as we can look at the results right now. So this is former state Representative Derek marin one and now goes up against Marcy Captor in Ohio's ninth congressional district. Yeah, she lost, she lost. And the Daily Mail story, the headline was that she was engaged into year secret relationship with a junior staffer inside of the Ohio Republican Party and there were just some
private communications and stuff that leaked. Obviously, anytime you have same sexual relationships within a Republican administration, that is also equally to like the media a sort of hypocritical. I mean, it's it's different within the Trump administration. But that was also the subject of fascination I think in the media reports or gave them extra little extra fuel because of course it's from a Republican administration.
So oh and before we go to call one real quick one on the Ohio Yeah, this is buried down here. This is Greg Lansman, who held on to a seat. This is but he is one of the only Democrats to publicly support the war in Iran and has been one of the most ridiculously outspoken, unapologetic supporters of Israel within the caucus. Damon Lynch, the fourth the Progressive, who spent like five dollars, got thirty two percent of the
voting against this against the incumbent Landsman. So to have Landsman under seventy is suggests that like he's his type of politics is vulnerable.
And that actually I just did another point on Ohio on the she and race. This was seen in I think some way as a test of whether Trump's Ice immigration policies would be toxic in a place like Ohio, and a Republican primary in Ohio. Is it like she was literally Deputy director of ICE, not some random bureaucrat but like actually the deputy director behind Christinoman, all of
these photos, those were in the ads. So another thing just before we move away from Ohio, I wanted to note that did not work for Mason Shei.
In Yes, indeed, so in Colorado speaking of this redistricting cycle, they're Democrats are trying to get onto the ballot a measure to redraw these boundaries in November, which would then apply to twenty twenty eight, which shows that like this is a long term thing that would only give them the advantage in twenty twenty eight and twenty thirty because
it was coming anyway from the from the census. But Colorado, being one of these Democratic run states, had leaned more towards fair process and doing a you know, the kind of commission type of approach where you're fair. Democrats plan to throw that out for twenty eight and twenty thirty if if voters approve it according to the new report
and put up B three. The primary donor to the cause of getting this measure onto the ballot is Hakeem Jeffries is like super pac basically, and so yes, and so then moving over to Michigan real quickly, there was a state Senate race, massive blowout over performance again in a what was a plus one this is plus one district? Yeah, what do we have the E seven State.
Senate thirty five Harris plus one district and.
He blew it out by like twenty plus or whatever, just across the board. I don't think. I think Democrats have now flipped five seats in special legislative elections.
Yeah, let's throw E nine on a screen. The street guy Taniel Ryan, who said this is a remarkable analysis that he did over at Bolts his website, the JUPE has not flipped a legislative seat in any states since twenty twenty four. Just read that again, not flipped a legislative seat in any state since twenty twenty four. Democrats, meanwhile, have flipped five seats so far in.
Twenty twenty six.
And that's after flipping twenty five in twenty twenty five. And I would like to remind everybody that the end of the Obama administration, Republicans took a victory lap that you may remember. This is a huge Politico story that came out seats or whatever. Yeah, that was retrospective. This was towards the end of twenty six on all of the seats Democrats had lost during the Obama administration and how he had essentially not. I mean, maybe it's the
Obama brand. Maybe it was a lazy Democratic party under Obama that tried to kind of coast on vibes and not really take care of some of these underlying problems in the economy that was giving rise to Trump and Bernie populism. Whatever it was, Democrats hemorrhaged seats around the
country over the course of the Obama administration. It looks like, not to anybody's particular surprise, but after Republicans took that victory of love about ten years ago very smugly over Obama, it looks like that is the experience that will probably be part of the Trump era for Republicans.
Yeah, they're going to flip a bunch of chambers, I would suspect in November as well.
Seems like it.
Yeah. So, meanwhile, the d Triple C has ticked off enormous number of Democrats. You can put up e five here is this was really not the moment for Washington Democrats to creep into congressional elections around the country and put their thumb on the scale and endorse a particular Democratic candidate while there are while there are serious contests
still underway. So they added I think eight new people, yeah, eight new Democrats to what they call their Red to Blue list, which mean means they're getting the Democratic parties basically their endorsement, getting access to their to their donors, to their vendors, to their consultants, which you know, who knows what all of that is worth to them in the end, but also gives them actually gives them both the sheen of being party endorsed but also the stench
of being party endorsed. And so it'll be interesting to see how some of these play out. In California twenty second district, jazz Meat Baines is one of the most more controversial Red to Blue candidates. Jazz Meat is running against Randy Viegas. Jazz Meat had been asked if Israel was committing a genocide, said yes, then said, oh, I think I heard that wrong, after starting to get support from pro Israel superpacks, and so, yes, Isra's committing a genocide. No,
it's not. Pro Isral money flows in, and then Democratic Party money flows in. This is a Latino heavy district, so for them to go and endorse against Randy Vegas, who has the support of the Congressional Progressive Caucus boldpack, which is the Hispanic Caucus. Is an aggressive use of
you Democratic dues money. Like the way that you D tripleC is funded partly is through other House Democrats paying dues in So the Progressive Caucus, which represents ninety plus Democrats, endorsed Vegas, is spending its money and then the detrip C is using their dues money to then support the opponent in the race. So a lot of House Democrats,
you know, very upset about this. They did. Bob Brooks, who's in the news lately because he accidentally outed Josh Shapiro as having did you see this thing, endorsed this Republican because he was mad at the Democrats or something for comptroll or control or some one of those positions. Bernie backed guy, So D triple C and Bernie on
the same page, which is which is quite fascinating. But anyway, we will we'll track these red to blue ones as they get closer to the races and see how well that D tripleC did and putting its thumb on the scale, because the only thing more embarrassing than putting your thumb on the scale. Is putting a thumb on the scale and still losing.
Well, this is let's let's put E four on the screen. This is another dub for Graham Plattner. Big dub for Graham Plattner. He's a K file found an old video of Susan Collins behind George Bush and Graham Platner is yelling in the audience, don't attack a rocket two thousand and two, So before the invasion, let's roll the clip.
I want to thank the grassroots activists who are here. I want to thank the people who take time, who work hard to make sure that the democracy is strong. I want to thank you very much for your efforts on behalf of all candidates. I want to thank you for what you have done. I want to thank you for what you're going to do, and that is to turn out to vote for these candidates on November the fifth. When I say that, when I say that I understand Susan Collins, I do. I've worked closely with her.
So there's George W. Bush pumping up Susan Collins back in two thousand and two, and you hear Graham Plattner audibly his voice in the background saying, don't attack a rock. So the point Ryan was making about going back and checking how the d trip putting its thumb on the scales works out just a reminder of establishment Democrats here in Washington's record of that recently, there was no way they wanted Platner to be the candidate in Maine to
take on Susan Collins. But here you have unearthed video, I think, showing exactly why they should have been excited about Plattner being the guy to take on Susan Collins rather than Janet Mills, one of the most uninspiring candidates conceivable in that race in Maine.
And we knew about this protest because it was reported publicly and he was interviewed by someone, you know, after he'd gotten taken out of this event, and then people and then one of the first things I asked him when we had him on the air was okay, you did that, but then you enlisted to go fight in those is like why and what he has what he said then and what he said he he's actually addressed this like in Reddit posts, basically says he can't explain it really, but he had wanted to be a soldier
since as long as he could remember, but that doesn't mean that he agreed with the policy decisions that were that were being made. He also made a point in one of his Reddit posts that that I think people don't quite understand is that basically in every unit, there's like not every unit, but a lot of them. There's there's the lefty and as somebody from rural American type, Yeah, there's like we exist out in rural America too, Like there's lefties out there, not as many, but they're out there.
And then there's always like a nationalist right winger in the unit, and then everybody else is like just a normal person doing going about their life. He was, he was the lefty in the unit. It happens. Why I can't quite explain it, but it happens.
I mean, there's a lot of benefits to enlisting if you're well, there's that too. Yeah. All right, let's go ahead, Ryan and bring in our next guest, who's going to tell us exactly how miserable it is to be graduating college.
Right now, Graduation season is upon us, which means it's time for students to start hitting the job market. But if you're like me and Emily, you're hearing from people around the country that graduates are entering a workforce that is as brutal and facing headwinds is stronger than any time perhaps since two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine. Yet without I hesitate to call it optimism, but the optimism at the time that at least that would be a you know, one to two to three maybe four
year hiccup, but that things might recover. Now they're graduating into a world that is seems like different in kind than the world that they kind of entered college in. And by the way, they entered it in difficult time because you're you know, finishing up with with you know, finishing high school amid COVID and then entering college minute. And so what we wanted to do today is talk to one of those graduating seniors. We're gonna be joined by Timmy McCallister, who is a computer science uh soon
to be graduate at the University of Central Florida. Timmy he got on our Timmy, you got on our radar a couple of years ago because he did kind of a funny video.
He did some computer science.
Some computer science video, kind of taking the conversation that Sager and I had had on this program about the Barbie movie and turning it into a video. And but now you're now you're headed into into the job market. A recent video that you did has gotten I think, you know, enormous numbers for a small YouTube channel, A one hundred thousand and view viral video about the about what it's like trying to get into this job market
in this environment. So timmy, first of all, thank you so much for being here and taking time out of your kind of graduation schedule. Appreciate it.
Yeah, absolutely, I'm a huge fan of the show, so I really appreciate the opportunity.
So when when do you? When do you graduate? By the way, you still finals kicking around.
I finished my last final yesterday, so I'm through pretty much all of my school work. My actual graduation is going to be Saturday evening, So just working on that.
Well, bittersweet congratulations. Maybe at the end of the we'll play some of the Barbie things at the end of the end of the se He.
Loves it so much. He loves it so much, I'd go it's great.
So let's let's start with a little bit of the video of yours that kind of went went viral that was getting attention about the difficulties of finding work at this moment, let's roll out for one.
I'm applying to PhD programs because I've pretty much given up on the idea of getting a job, because even if I did get a job, I probably just end.
Up doing like annoying.
Work wrangling with AIS for like one or two years, and then you have AIS that can wrangle themselves and I'm not even useful anymore. So I'm going into a PhD hopefully I can do a little bit of research about AIS, even though I don't have access to the best AIS.
And so is What was your job application process like before you made the decision to just pull the plug on it?
Yeah, so pretty much all of last summer I just spent like applying to internship positions. I was looking for some web development positions because I've done a lot of like full stack web development work. I was also looking for like, you know, like AI internships stuff like that because I've experienced like fine tuning large language models to.
Do specific tasks.
But you know, I applied to probably definitely over one hundred job applications. I did at least like one to three every day, like I forced myself over last summer, mostly on like LinkedIn.
But you know, I'm not counting.
Any of those like stupid like easy apply things because those don't really do anything. No one ever responds to those. So just counting the ones where you know, I found the job application on LinkedIn, went to the employer's website. Definitely over one hundred, and I mean I didn't get I feel like I'm almost lucky in the sense that I got probably like thirty to forty rejections. A lot of people don't hear anything back at all from these
jobs that they applied to. And then I did get one interview at the unpaid frontend web development position that I've been doing the past couple semesters, and yeah, that's what that's what I've been doing these past couple of semesters. And yeah, I talked to the supervisor there also, and I mean this was the thing that honestly really like shocked me is at that unpaid internship position, he told me that there were two hundred and fifty other applicants.
Wow, and I was I was.
The one who got the lucky unpaid, unpaid job.
So wow, So.
You start, you went into school studying computer science as an undergrad what in twenty twenty two, and so yeah, I'm really curious that you could tell us just a little bit more. You get into this in your video, which folks can go watch, but tell us a little bit more just about yourself, about how well you did in school. You had your pretty good grades, and why you know, going in, what your expectations were of how studying computer science would set you up. I'm sure you
believed for success. You're jumping in right before the AI boom is starting to change absolutely everything.
Yeah, so I mean, yeah, I remember, you know, before I had, you know, decided on UCF, I was pretty sure I was going to go into psychology. But you know, I was always interested in computer science. I've always been like a coder, always worked on websites, stuff like that, and I thought that, you know, there's a lot of great opportunities there. They told us there are a lot of great opportunities there. The job market was great in twenty twenty two. But yeah, I mean, now I have
a four point oh gpa. I literally literally straight a's like my entire time here at college. I've done you know, I was a teaching assistant. I've done research in various labs. And you know, another big thing too that, like they say employers like to look for, is that you know you have sort of a decent number of like personal projects, like not just that you've had good grades, but you know that you were able to actually like work with
something like a much larger scale project. And you know I did that, like over my soft sophomore in junior year, I worked on like this very large scale full stack web development project where I like fine tuned large language models to perform like this the specific task of sort of identifying sort of like spin in like language.
And yeah, I.
Mean nothing nothing back from from anyone.
Yeah, what what about? Well what one of the things I I saw people be critical of your video for as well? This guy's not at Stanford, it's University of Central Florida. But well for two things to that you see f is actually when it comes to computer science, you know, pretty strong school. Secondly, we're not an economy just for Stanford, like like we there are millions of people in this country. They all they all need work, and so to say, well, sure, everything's fine. As long
as you go to Stanford, you're going to be fine. However, from what I'm hearing, even the people who went to Stanford are deeply struggling to to find the kind of jobs that one year ago even would have been easy for somebody coming out of Stanford. Just anecdotally, among the circles that you run in, the computer science circles that you've run in. What are you what are you hearing from other seniors?
Yeah, so you know, I don't I don't know anyone at Stanford, and most of the people I know are just here at UCF.
You know, I have you know, one of my.
Close friends, you know, he got his first internship freshman year, and so you know, he was able to sort of use those connections at the time and and sort of like continue working through various positions. He has a job offer right now, so I'm very happy for him.
I know a lot.
Of other people who are going to grad school. It really just kind of seems like a safe option, especially if you've done well in school. You can work towards like a specific project like research something like that, continue getting paid, like if you have an assistant ship with a tuition waiver, and it's like, that's that's an option I've actually seen a very large number of people doing. But yeah, there's I'd say it's mostly that, and then yeah,
I do. I do have a couple of people who sort of got those connections early, and like you know, they always tell us like networking is really really important for for like getting a job, but nowadays it feels like that really is kind of the only way anyone gets any job, because if you're trying to wade into that pool of college or not college application job applications, where it really is just thousands and thousands of AI generated resumes that are going to these AI filters that
who knows what they're even doing, how many of these jobs are even real? You're not going to be in for a fun time.
Can you talk us Talk to us about the response you've gotten to your video. Again, we mentioned it's over one hundred thousand views, and that's I think interesting in and of itself. I think it probably speaks to you capturing something that other people are then sending around and saying this is what my experience is. Like, it's resonant. So talk to us a bit about what you've heard from other people is you've shared your own experience publicly.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. There's sort of a couple of different sets of responses.
I mean, there's a lot of people who are you know, even like earlier along the path than me, who are either like just graduating high school right now, or they're like a freshman or a sophomore, and you know, they're just trying to like figure out what should they even be doing right now in this economy. And you know, I try to give advice as best I can, but you know, I honestly don't really know like what the best option would be for for someone going through that.
I mean, honestly, the best piece of advice I could give to someone like that is just to keep working on like personal projects. You can you can use Claude code to like spin up an interesting idea pretty quickly and maybe you can put that on a resume or get some sort of connection or something from that.
And then there's sort of like this other set of people. I don't know.
I got this email from someone who's like just just like move to the Bay Area, bro. There's a bunch of like AI AI engineer physicians. XAI is paying like four hundred thousand dollars a year if you're willing to sell your soul. But you know, not everyone can can live in San Francisco, So I don't really.
Know about that.
Yeah, that might not be the best of us it.
Yeah, I mean that is, you know, when you combine it with the idea that networking is the only way to get a job at this point, Like, I get the idea, like just move to the Bay Are Like when you wanted to be an actor, you move used to be moved to La You want to be a country musician in this or you want to be a folk musician in sixties you moved to you know, the village. You want to be a country singer, you moved to Nashville. Like so I get it. But as you think about that, what,
like is that possible? Like are there affordable group houses for people moving out there or like because if it's five thousand dollars for an apartment, you better network immediately and you're also not going to get the apartment.
Yeah, I mean that is the issue.
It's like I don't know anyone in cal and like I can't just get a job, like I need to have a job lined up there already, and then you know the ability then to move knowing that I have like some sort of stable income, Like I could never just move to San Francisco, Like that's not financially feasible.
That's bleak unless you're in the street.
Right And to me, you go through this in the video, but tell us a little bit more about why you've landed on the path that you've landed for your future, Like why are you taking the bet that you are? What is it? I mean it actually it's a story that reminds me a lot of well people were making the decision to do during the Great Recession, kind of the stay in school. So talk to us a little bit about why you're thinking what you're thinking right now,
why you're taking that kind of gamble. It's a sort of safer bet. Why do you think it's a safer bet?
Yeah, I mean there's sort of like two reasons.
I mean the first one is kind of just purely financial, Like I'm very lucky that I don't have any like I had a very good scholarship, so I'm debt free and I don't have to really worry about immediately making income to try to pay that off, so I have a little bit more time. I managed to land a graduate assistantship position, so you know, they'll pay me for doing research and I get tuition waves, so you know, it's not like.
It's not like I'm.
Going into two more dire financial straits by doing this.
And then the other reason is I really.
Am just sort of interested and worried about sort of the consequences of AI on society. I've always been been worried about this, Like I think social media is an example of a sort of very very simple AI system that just runs from like the one rule of maximizing engagement, and I think it has had catastrophic consequences, like on the mental health.
Of my generation.
And I can't imagine like what the consequences could be for for something way way smarter if we don't like take this really really seriously and get this right. So you know, I'm hoping to be able to do some sort of research with AI safety alignment, figuring out how we can actually make these things do what we need to. But I understand that it's it's not going to be easy, but hopefully I can make at least some sort of contribution there.
Hopefully nobody else is taking it very seriously, that's for sure. Let's finish up with some Barbie we can roll Timmy's all right production from a couple of years ago put up F three. One reason okay with her getting Stubb, though, is because she really flopped the landing with this like ratification of neoliberalism at the very end, with this you are you are enough like nobody nobody's kanough. You need, you need community, you need socialization, you need friends, you
need family, like you need loved ones around you. Nobody is enough. And the idea that you would try to tell a whole bunch of kids that they don't need anything other than themselves, I thought was just a like horrific message at the end. So, and the.
Idea that you would try to tell a whole bunch of kids that they don't need anything other than themselves.
Nobody's enough, nobody's enough. You need, you need community, you need socialization, you need friends, you need family like you need loved ones around you.
Nobody is enough.
No, nobody is enough. You need community, you need socialization, you need friends, you need family, you need loved ones around you.
Nobody is enough, it's pretty good stuff to me.
That's pretty funny.
Thank you, thank you.
It's uh, it worked pretty hard on it.
Yeah, and must must be probably a lot easier now with Claude. That was that was this was like pre claud coding, right.
Yeah, that is a that's.
A that's artismal problem.
Yeah, Tommy mcgautha. Where can people follow you? Where can they find find your work, whether it's lo fi or graduation videos?
Yeah, so I'm on YouTube, Timmy McAllister. I've been trying to upload like about a video every week talking about.
AI society stuff like that.
If anyone wants to try to support me financially, I just started a Patreon. I don't have anything really on there yet. I have like a couple of videos, but if anyone is able to that would be awesome.
But yeah, that's about That's about what I'm doing right now.
That's about all we got left to offer as an economy. So well, we'll we'll stay in touch. Curious how your how your journey goes over the next you know, months and years. So thanks for thanks for being here and good luck.
Yeah, absolutely, thank you so much for having me.
All right, enjoy graduation day. Well, Emily, I am sure, sure, glad, I'm not graduating right now. I'm god, I'm sorry for all these people that are graduating into this disaster.
No, it's brutal. I pulled up a New York Times article while we were talking to Timmy, and the New York Times is describing this as quote the most dismal and unpredictable job market in years. Employers overall are hiring fewer workers, dimming the prospects in particular for first time
entrance into the into the labor market. And then also obviously mentioning the rise of AI, which we just heard from Timmy who thought computer science would be a safe major going into school in twenty twenty two, how quickly.
They learned to code. And yeah, and the harder that first, the higher that first obstacle is, then the more it helps to be rich to be in with and the further we get from a remotely meritocratic level playing field. M hm.
Yes, that's a good point, because.
Like, if your parents can send you to the Bay Area, you can do the end for six months, pay your.
Rent, unpaid internship ypes that type of.
Thing which apparently possible to get too anyway.
Really like I mean. That was the theme of today's show, with the exception of maybe Ron. We we may, we may have an end of kinetic fighting. We may there may be an end in sight. I don't know, we'll see, but bleak all around. Indeed, So thanks for watching Freakingpoints dot com. I'm get a premium subscription if you like being tortured by bad news like we do.
Indeed, talk to you later.