Will The Epstein Files Bring Down Trump? + How Big Tech Is Weaponizing Your Data Against You w/ Lina Khan

on the right as well as on the left. And I hope it's both one part education about what exactly the FTC should and can do, and one part sort of warning, if you will, about about the things that the government should be doing but hasn't been able to do. I of course believe we're in a moment here not dissimilar to the moment Teddy Roosevelt face miss the original Trustbuster, if you will, And we're in a similar period, right, the rise of the robber barons, the rise of the prologarts.

So I really have been looking forward to this interview. I enjoyed it. I hope you will too. But before we get to it, this was kind of Look, we have plenty of days where we say wow, this was kind of a crazy day. In the Trump era. And you know, if you just's you could probably say about

half the days, you could say this is kind of a crazy day in the Trump era. But we were felt as if the morning began. I'm speaking to you now it's Wednesday evening on July sixteenth, but this day began on Wednesday, July sixteenth, where we thought we were about to cover a story. Is the President of the United States going to fire the chairman of the Federal Reserve as a way to turn the page on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. And that's exactly what it seemed to

be what was building. There was a leak of this meeting that he had, and I've been in the room when Donald Trump has shown letters. Look, I've got a firing letter. I had a bizarre heads up about his indecision to fire people at one point and had an interesting off the record with him before a firing when he was asking for the opinions. You know, I've come up with this letter saying I'm going to fire so and so and so. He did it. This is not a new thing for him. This is sort of how

he operates. He'll get somebody will put me, get me a release, give me a letter, I'm going to fire somebody. So apparently you had this letter together. Whether he's going to fire Jerome Powell. Clearly they've and I told you about this on Monday. I said, this is a story that should be getting more attention, And boy did it start getting attention, because it was clear something was afoot where in order to get around the question about whether the President had the power to fire the chairman of

the Federal Reserve. I couldn't fire him over a policy dispute. That was pretty clear. The Supreme Court seemed to make that clear to him, even as they've given him a green light to fire, to have a more executive authority on to hire and fire. The loophole they were developing was all about, well, he's overseeing this renovation of the

Federal Reserves headquarters in Washington. There are cost overruns, and the president did they believe they did have the legal authority to fire him early on that so it looked like they were manufacturing this authority. Well, of course, what did the market. The markets had something to say to him.

The markets started awfully on Wednesday morning, and then of course by noon he's backed off. But it does feel as if you can't help but wonder. And I'm going to use the words of my friendly and Caldwell over at PAK where she said many Republicans she was talking to over the past few days had predicted that Trump was going to do something pretty dramatic in order to distract from and that the anti Powell letter that he produced was part of that idea that maybe feeding that

to his base could distract him. But I think he's finding out now that this story is not not going

away at all, and he decided to light the fuse, right, and the fuse that he lit is he attacked his own supporters on this story, and he attacked them in a way that I've always wondered what happens. He attacked him in a way frankly that mainstream media and the left has attacked his supporters at time, like you guys are idiots. You're being duked, and that is usually not

a good way. You know, nobody is going when you tell somebody they've been duped, Right, there's an expression it is easier to con somebody than it is to convince somebody they've been conned. Well, here's what he wrote. This

is this morning is truth. So the radical left Democrats have hit payder again, just like the fake and fully credited Steele docia, the lying fifty one intelligence agents, the Laptop from Hell, which the Dems swore had come from Russia, No, it came from Hunter Biden's bathroom, and even the Russia Russia Russia scam itself, a totally fake and made up story used in order to hide crooked Hillary Clinton's big loss in the twenty sixteen election. These scams and hoaxes

are all the Democrats are good at. They are no good at governing. Also, unlike Republicans, they stick together like glu Actually that's not true. I'm going to have a little comment about that with Hunter Biden, and I don't they got a Biden agrees with them on that. Their new scam, he writes, is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein hoax. And my past supporters have brought

into this bullshit, hook line and sinker. They haven't learned their lesson and probably never will, even after being conned by the lunatic left for eight long years. Actually, his supporters weren't cone by the left because they've stuck by him. But anyway, but I digress. I've had more success than six months than perhaps any president in our country's history. And all these people want to talk about with strong prodding by the fake news, and the success star of

Dems is the Jeff free Epstein hoax. Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work. Don't even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success because I don't want their support anymore. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Make America great again. Well to say

that that went down that that didn't go down well with his supporters is an understatement. And look, he is behaving. What's interesting here The word hoax is an incredibly important word that he used here because hoax is the word that he always attached to Russia, and hoax is in some ways, you know, I would say it's Trump speak for I have no other explanations for my weird behavior. Right.

You know, one of the hallmarks of the twenty sixteen Russia scandal was it was it was clear Russia was infiltrating, you know, was trying to you know, manipulate our our political conversation or discourse, or I mean that's been proven. Right, the Justice Department charged a group out of Russia. Sanctions were had like this is this is not in dispute.

Marco Rubio signed on to an investigation. The current Secretary of State for Donald Trump signed on to an investigation by the Senate that also, that is not in dispute. The Russian government wanted to get involved, disrupted our election in any way they thought they could, and yes, they

had a preference, and their preference they wanted Trump, not Clint. Now, of course, what's in dispute was whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians to do this, or whether they were just happily accepting the help the way you might accept help from a surrogate or a labor union or some other outside group, no different than the Koch brothers paying for advertising to help the Republican ticket. This was just, oh, the enemy of my enemy is my

ally and Trump's. But it was Trump's person behavior about

it that actually brought on more suspicion, and in fact, there's something very similar is happening here. John chap who's now The Atlantic, formerly of New York Magazine. He writes this se because sometimes people sound guilty even if they aren't, especially if their government officials still, whatever probability you had in your mind that the Epstein files contained damaging material, you should probably raise it after listening to Trump's remarks

on the subject. And that's the thing, right, It's the same thing that happened with the Russian investigation. The more he said things like, hey, Russia, if you're listening, you know, the more he would talk about how much he loved the wiki leagues and how much he seemed his campaign appeared to be at least either really nimble for when there were new wikileague releases or sometime Hoow got a

heads up and look like they were coordinating. Now, perhaps they just it was Julianasan who was very helpful to the Trump campaign, and it had nothing to do with the Russians. I think there's a lot of I think it is a reasonable conclusion that Trump didn't collude with the Russians. But at the same time, he didn't mind

getting their help. Uh, and a lot of a lot of folks didn't mind it, and didn't certainly didn't tell them to stop, and certainly didn't you know, there was one of the great uh, one of the weirder scandal near scandals of the two thousand election. I'm gonna do a little diversionary history lesson here Al Gore, George W. Bush.

Al Gore gets mailed a videotape of George W. Bush's debate prep and they don't understand and it clearly came from some staffer, uh in, you know, the Bush's media consultants. Mark McKinnon's firm had never really worked with Republicans before working with with with Bush. So there was some speculation that there was some sort of cranky Democratic staffers working on behalf of McKennon and Bush that may have may

have done this. Well, the Gore campaign was petrified, thought they were being framed, and they went directly to the FBI right and it basically became a nothing burger. Donald Trump didn't actually go, you know whatever, they knew what the Russians were, They didn't go running to the FBI going, hey, look we are worried the Russians are doing this. You know, John McCain and Barack Obama's campaign were hacked in eight and they took that dispute and they made sure law

enforcement knew before it ever went public. So my point is is that it's pretty clear Donald Trump had no interest in alerting law enforcement, had that something that was benefiting their campaign. But hey, this isn't on the up and up. That ain't the way Donald Trump acts, thanks behaves, et cetera. So my point is that I think it's certainly plausible that two things can be true at the

same time. Right, And of course, you know, Trump the advantage of the Steele dosia at the time is what Trump was so successful at doing is if you can discredit the steel dosier, you know, then it makes it easier to discredit everything else. And then still does say there was enough there that they could plausibly discredit the story of Michael Cohen going to the Prague and the whole you know, Ppe tape business that it turned out like you know, I'm one of those that if if

it existed, it'd be out already. So it's it's likely that this was and it's possible Christopher Steele was being played by other Russians in that that all of this was a mess there. But let me come back to Epstein, right, which is, you know, I don't think a lot of

people Again, you go back to Trump's relationship, and it was something I talked about before that I'm going to go back. The most plausible explanation is yet a whole bunch of rich people who had no problem taking free plane rides with Jeffrey Epstein, free stuff from him, no, you know, and knew who he was, always had the you know, Donald Trump is on the record talking about how young Jeffrey liked them, and they didn't look the other way, right, or they just chose to look the

other way. It didn't bob, you know, because that's how much they wanted the free airplane. And this so called client list is. And again I go back to the government. If they have you cannot do what they what what some of these folks want, release everybody that may have been associated with him, which may simply be were you on the air and an airplane with him at any

one time? And of course people are going to take that and assume if you were ever on an airplane, you're a ped You're you're a pedophile too, right, And

that's where and this is so the question is is that what Trump's afraid of? But now the more that he digs in his heels, the more he digs in his heels, the more he digs in his heels, and now it's like, you know, I'm not going to sit here and say I believe that he was doing the same things Jeffrey was doing Jeffrey Epstein was doing. But the more the more defiant he sounds, the more he digs in his heels, and the more he attacks his own supporters, the more clearly it's going to raise questions.

Now let's go back to why is he having a hard time. Normally he can just tell his supporters, you know, do his own Jedi my trick. These aren't the hoaxes

you're looking for. Pay no attention. Oh these ass isn't the hoax we're looking for. You know, this work done? Fox News? Oh hey, don't pay any attention to Jeffrey Epstein, got it? And Fox News salutes the flag. They don't cover anything in the Jeffrey Epstein story. Charlie Kirk said, you know, when Trump said he was done with it, Charlie Kirk then saluted the flag, said he's done with it. Then he got attacked for that, then he came back. So he's kind of a mess, right, But there's a

reason why. And again I go back to I go back to the point of the hardest thing to do is it is harder to give in somebody they've been conned than to actually con them. And that's where we are. And you've got to understand the importance of Jeffrey Epstein, and the best way to understand it is in this fascinating retort. So Donald Trump drops that explosive truth social post telling anybody on his that supposedly is in MAGA that believes the Jeffrey Epstein hoax, I don't want your

support anymore. You're just doing the bidding of the Democrats. Well, the sort of the the unofficial pope of the pedophile conspiracies is now Michael Flynn, the disgraced former general retired general that was the National Security Advisor for about I believe, I believe for about two Scaramucies, right. I think it was twenty two days he survived. Scaramuccie is eleven days. If I'm not mistaken. I hope I have that right. Anthony will let me know if I've gotten that wrong.

So I think Flynn was two Scaramucies in office there, and he went real deep into QAnon, to the point where it's almost like he decided whether if no one knows who Q is, I'll let people think it is me. So anyway, you have to understand this. So he writes this very long post on X and he's directed at Donald Trump. Let me read a portion of it. He says to Donald Trump, I hesitated to write this, however, with the utmost respect and deference to you for all

you've withstood. If you know it better than me, what the deep state can do when they want to turn on a person. The Epstein affair is not about who killed him or if he committed suicide. Personally, I'm glad this known pedophile is debt, but neither is this a hoax. This issue goes beyond that. Michael Flynn writes, there are millions of Americans who overwhelmingly voted for you to be our president, and we want you to be massively successful, no more than me personally. I still have a target

on my forehead. Our country is facing a level of internal subversion, and it is a relentless attack on the very foundation for constitutional republic. So he is knee deep in this belief that there are these hidden forces coming after him. All right, He's really and the question is, does he really believe it, or is this just a giant grift because it bailed him out of financial trouble. I certainly assume it's a financial grift. But we'll see,

he continues. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but he continues here at the end, because this is part's important, he says. An element that is of great importance surrounding this Epstein affairs the fact that this man was a known pedophile, had a list of clients who represented the upper crust of society and likely did untowards things to children on his island, in his homes in New York City and New Mexico and maybe elsewhere, and

he was convicted of it. I want to single out the word pedophilia here a minute, so as you know, the entire QAnon bizarreness is sort of the importance of believing your political opponents or pedophiles is important in the whole dehumanization process. Right. This is I think at the heart of this of this unfortunate climate that we're all

living in right now. And it's it's harsher, of course online than it is in real life, but it's had some real life consequences, right that this gentleman that really thought there was some sort of you know, kids being held captive in the basement of a pizza shop in Washington, d C. He shows up and there is no basement, nothing is there, And he was about to possibly kill a whole bunch of innocent patrons and the owner of of of a pizza shop in Washington, d C. But

Jeffrey Epstein doing what he did, he's sort of like the Kevin six degrees of Kevin Bacon game for these for this, for this crazy conspiracy theory, once you have bought in that the Left is not just against you culturally, but is against you because they're a cabal of pedophiles. And again, this is this is what this crowd is believing. This is where Marjorie Taylor Green gets her gets her energy from. This is Michael Flynn, this is this, This is this world. This is how Dan Bongino made a

fortune uh uh conning these people with his media. And

all of a sudden, if Donald Trump is saying that Jeffrey Epstein story is a hoax, it shatters the entire conspiracy that was built up. It's sort of like it's like it's it's an extraordinary It's like knocking down a foundation pillar. Right if you have a house on stilts, and if you get the right one, you know, or if you're in Jenga, it's like if you pull the

wrong leg, everything collapses. And if if Jeffrey Epstein is not proven to have been the sort of the chief recruiter of victor of young kids to feed this pediph this manufactured pedophilia, uh uh ring that that this conspiracy supposedly has cocked it and supposedly exists. You need the

Jeffrey Epstein story right because Jeffrey Epstein put a face to it. Jeffrey Epstein may actually be a pedophile. Jeffrey Epstein knew all these famous people right now? Does that mean just because he knew these famous people, does that

mean all of them are now this well? To Michael Flynn, it is right now, Whether again I go back, I don't know whether Michael Flynn really believes this now or whether this has just been so financially lucrative for him to be the face of this of this crowd that he has as the high unofficial high priest of the QAnon crowd and believers of this conspiracy, he had to push back or his financial empire would crump. So this is the part where you send up. You end up

finding out does Donald Trump fully understand his base? Right? There's sort of and there's always been two distinct bases with tru. There's the actual working class space, the ones that demographically are non the non college educated crowd, the people that you know, the different people that shower at night, shower after work versus showering before work. Right, that's sort of like do you shower, do you shower when you come home for work, or do you shower before you

go to work? Right? That that sort of blue collar, white collar mindset. And then there's the crazy conspiracy theorists.

And Donald Trump fed those conspiracy theorists. Right, he has built his entire political profile on a conspiracy theory. It began with burtherism. Right. How did he how did he convince the anti Obama right, the ones that were the most vocal who decided not to oppose Obama on policy but simply oppose him whether on otherism, right, the fact is he a real American? And questioning whether he was

an American? Trump, of course rode that wave of conspiracy theory, and so one of his habits is this comes back to what he did with David Duke. Right, Why couldn't he immediately denounce David Duke because David Duke sent something nice about him? Why couldn't he immediately denounce Vladimir Putin because Putin said something nice about him? So he is sort of catered, right. He appeases this crowd of conspiracy theorists,

and he'll feed him every once in a while. Right, He'll feed the velociraptor every once in a while, And suddenly the velociraptor has a taste for this and has a taste for this. And of course they've kept feeding and feeding and feeding until they caught the car. They run the government, the head some of the lead characters pushing the conspiracy theory are actually in now the deep state themselves, Dan Bongino and Cash Patel and Pam Bondi got into it as she's been trying to debushify herself

and retrumpify her self, if you will. And here they are.

And so whatever the truth is, and I you know, I'm still one of those who believes that what they have they don't if they had evidence that somebody else committed a crime on Jeffrey Epstein's island, they would have brought the charges. Okay, this idea that charges wouldn't have been brought, I just you know, I under I understand. You know, nobody wants to get in the way of a good conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theories are always more

interesting than the truth. But when you've spent twelve years torching institutions, torching those who were trying to speak the truth, and then you're in charge of set organization and then you're like, you can't believe they don't believe you, and it's like, well, you know, you reap whatt yourself. So but I do think to truly understand why Trump did.

I don't think full appreciates how important Jeffrey Epstein is as a connective tissue to this weird Like I said, one of the dehumanization tactics of the right has been to manufacture this pedophilia business. And so it is it is that is the long tail of crazy here that has brought Epstein into this sort of swirl, if you will, And why it is so important for this crowd that you know, the proof of Epstein's guilt Seeing this is sort of it will become. It is this idea that hey,

we're not crazy. See we're right, We're right, We're right. There was a pedophile ring. You know, we kept telling you there was one, and here it is. And if

it's not there, you know, for some of these people, if they're true believers, it it becomes a oh my god. You know, this could be the moment that they maybe feel cond I'll say this. You know, we've all wondered when you know the Trump err is going to end at some point, does it end with a whimper? Does it end with a loud bang? Does it end you know?

I don't you know, I don't think any of us believe it's going to It was going to end with a rousing closing argument in some sort of courtroom, you know. And there was a lot of prosecutors that dreamed of that they were somehow going to be a TV lawyer and be portrayed in a TV movie someday, that they were going to get him right. It was never going to end this way. It always was going to end when he got exposed for being a hypocrite, right and

for for duping his own people. I think a lot of us thought it, but still believe it will be when it hits their own pocketbook, when they realized the policies that he's advocating are a disaster and they're going to be economically punishing here in a few months. Unfortunately. I really hope, uh you know, I mean, look, you know, buried in this sort of story to end about him toying with firing Jay Powell, which clearly doing it feels like he was trying to do it as a way

to distract from Epstein. But the point is he's going to get control of the FED in a year no matter what. And the fact that we're going to have

a president who, by the way, is now showing so many signs of age, and it is it is, you know, whether it's falling asleep at events more often now, whether there's you know, he's there's clearly a bunch of medical issues. He's not disclosing, you know, what's wrong with his hand. We've seen that, you know, there's there's there's something he's dealing with, some sort of health issue that they're not disclosing. And of course they've so uh scared the press score

that covers them. It seems like nobody will ask about this as directly, you know, and if they do, he you know, he chastises him as evil by the way, you know, and all this business, this weird use of the word evil, which is again ahuman as dehumanization tactic in order to give a green light for his supporters to treat fellow Americans like they're not American and that they're not human. But something is off about him, right, He didn't seem to remember that he appointed J. Powell. Now.

I accept the premise that in his first term he let way too many other people influence him that maybe now he regrets. I think there's no doubt he was on the job training, he did not understand how everything worked, and he took a lot of other people's advice, and he was surrounded by folks that were more in the mainstream than I think many gave credit. I go back, you know, Mike Pens and Wrytes prepus stacked that first Trump term with a lot of conservative normies, if you will,

who I think prevented economic calamity before. They couldn't get in his way to you know, once COVID hit the crazy, you know, there was only so much they could do to keep him from from totally messing things up. And you know, by the time COVID came, they couldn't stop it, and the public reacted as you might expect. So so, but the fact that he can't remember that he appointed him or that it's not I don't think that's a denial. I think that is some weird you know, maybe it's

cognitive dissonance, but maybe it's something else. But there's definitely he is showing just simple signs of age. He tires earlier. You can see it. Anytime after four o'clock in the afternoon, he seems to fade a little bit. And you can just look. I mean even when he if you look at his where he was celebrating with the soccer team, even the celebration, he just seemed a little off. He seemed like he was a little struggling to sort of have the energy to be there. So there's definitely you know,

who knows, they're not never going to say anything, and whatever they release is not going to you know, you can't take it to the bank. Right We are now living in an era where any press release that the Trump administration puts out is not factual. You have to assume it's not factual at all, and you have to

figure out, okay, where what's relevant here. It's very it's never been harder to be a reporter on any government agency because you certainly have to acknowledge whatever you know they're there, Uh, you have to acknowledge their point, you know, what their response to an article. But sometimes there's you know, it's so much cognitive dissonance that it almost makes your story. I mean that guy Stephen Chung will say things that just are non sequiturs, right, which is the point? Right?

They almost kind of want because the more the more they confuse the story, the harder it is for a negative story to stick. So it's a it's a tactic and it's been been quite successful one. But but there's something, you know, there's something here. I think this is proof he doesn't fully understand his own voters. Sometimes he certainly doesn't understand what he the monster he has created with

this mainstreaming so many conspiracies over the last decade. And you know, if this is the way it ends, you might want to give an applause to the Writer's room on this one. Right, it's a it's a more unique ending than something that just uh, that just goes out

with a whimper. But you know this, I don't think he gets out of this Epstein debacle unscathed. I think at some point his folks this this also has the feel, you know, one of the even in the pre Trump era, there was always the summer silly season where there'd be some summer scandal that would kind of just catch a White House sleeping a little bit, but catch them off guard. I think they weren't. You know, they've been focused on some other things. They didn't really understand how explosive what

they were dealing with with Epstein. So if you told me by September, they're in a different place and this is sort of still still percolating, and there's still some people that won't forgive them, But it's a smaller cabala people that won't surprise me. But the fact is, you know, it's it's like Rocky four and the first time he made Drago bleed. It bleeds right, it's human. This one's drawn blood and Trump. The question is how debilitating politically is it going to be? All Right, I've gone on

long enough with my intro here. I really hope you enjoy this conversation with Lena Khan. It was fascinating to me. I think you'll learn a lot and hopefully understand even better the role of the ft S And joining me now is the former head of the f t C Federal Trade Commission. The alphabets sometimes folks get confused. Uh,

it's Lena Khan. Lena, welcome to the Todd Past. Thanks for being here, Thanks for having me so before we get into some of the nitty gritty of some of the work that you left to your successor, and in some cases, I'm curious how pleasantly surprised you are that some of your work is continuing. Uh, And we will get into that. But you were the youngest FTC chair and I guess did you know you wanted to be the chair of the FTC? And when did you know you wanted to do that? And how does one become that?

I mean literally, for those that you know, trust busting and the demand for government regulation is something that's always sort of in the ether, but a lot of people don't understand how specifically it would work, how the FTC works. How did you know you wanted to do this when you were younger?

consumer protection. I actually always growing up, wanted to be a journalist and was really into kind of research and reporting and figuring out how to tell stories that are kind of holding power to account. I graduated shortly after the financial crisis, and so journalism jobs were pretty difficult to come by, and ended up landing at a think tank and research organization where my job was to document

the effects of market consolidation. And so I was doing a lot of reporting by talking to farmers, say, and figuring out, hey, this big merger happened a few years ago, what does it look like to be a chicken farmer in today's America. I was on book publishing, rental cars, airlines, and really saw how over the last few decades, a secret trend across the American economy has been increasing consolidation.

And so whereas decades ago you would have dozens and dozens of competitors, increasingly now you just have a small number of companies that dominate, be it in meatpacking, be it in airlines. If you go to the grocery store, it might look like there are dozens of brands, but they're actually just owned by a handful of companies, be it for diapers or laundry detergent or snacks. And the

costs of this are really severe. I mean, Americans pay more, wages are lower, small and independent businesses can't compete on a level playing field. And yet, at least a decade ago, it seemed like something that was really fringe and marginal to the public conversation. And so I got really excited about the possibility of trying to reinvigorate our nation's anti monopoly laws. And that's kind of what led me on this work.

have the big titans of industry, we have the tech brologarchs today, you have you know, you have this sort of you know, we had a rise of nativism back then that seems to be coming back. Obviously, there's concern as we transition. Back then it was a grand economy to an industrial economy. Now we're transitioning from an industrial economy to do whatever we're going to call us right, we still haven't figured it out. Is it a service economy,

is it a tech economy? However we want to call it, And with it will come over time more people noticing, Hey, wait a minute, something's off here. Looking at that historical comparison, he said, play professor for me. We're am I right, and where do you think I'm a little off base on a comparison.

a tremendous amount of power. And it was the ability of these monopolists and these industrial trusts to abuse that power that set in motion of movement anti monopoly movement to make sure that government had the tools and the authority to check corporate abuse and to try to create

an economy that's really delivering fairness for everyday people. And I think you know, at the FTC, I was able to travel the country and meet with a lot of communities and try to understand what are the economic points that people are facing, and so many of the daily challenges, be it, you know, the inability to afford your medicines, having to ration things like insulin, to not being able to afford your groceries, to having another job offer but

not being able to switch because you have a noncompete, to you know, being abused by your corporate landlord. I mean, so many of the day to day pain points that are really squeezing Americans and making them feel like they're not getting a fair shake no matter how how hard they're work than not able to get ahead. I think a lot of that economic anxiety is very ripe and not all too different from what people were facing a century ago.

is it are we in late today capitalism? Is it failing? In some ways you're articulating that, hey, if capital you know, capitalism in its purest or free market form should be uh, should be egalitarian of sorts. And in some ways we've

we're perverting capitalism with this consolidation of power. It's not that isn't capitalism, right? I mean, it's like I always joke the NFL is one of the great socialistic enterprises that exists, right, it is not. The teams do not compete against each other, right, They share all of their revenues equally, and they have marginal ways that they get to do this. Do you count yourself as a sort of in some ways a pure capitalist who just thinks the rules need to be fair.

new business to market. You should be able to compete on a level playing field, right, And so much of the innovation, the breakthrough advances in our country, be it in Silicon Valley, be it in areas like medicines have come from upstarts, right, from somebody with a good thing

being able to fairly compete. And you're absolutely right that as our markets become more and more dominated by smaller and smaller number of companies, and those monopolies abuse their power to squash out their arrivals to kind of rig the playing field, we all lose out right. People. People feel like it's not fair, and materially the consequences and the outcomes are worse for us as an economy.

selfish point of view, which is media. I look at the issue of distribution and we in media, and I don't care where you are these days, whether you're at CBSNBC, ABC, whether you're an independent substacker or somewhere in between. You do not control your distribution. Distribution is in the hands of some a handful of tech companies who can dial up or dial down the algorithms, and there is no transparency and how it works and how it does walk

me through the difficulties. It is for THETC to play a role here in trying to because I just I think you've been I think you tried. I think you're trying. I think there's some form of this of your successor at least keeping some of these cases going. But is in my great fear is that we're going to get resolution and it'll be obsolete tech that we finally were able to you know, we're finally able to resolve some issues,

but it's no longer the prominent thing. Meanwhile, this consolidation of power has destroyed the entire media ecosystem.

and policymakers in DC were generally slow to kind of recognize the enormous problem of tech consolidation. Right in the early two thousands, there was almost this like religious zeal that these tech companies were spreading this idea that there were these revolutionary companies that were just going to be

you know, really fantastic for people. And there was almost like this you know, move fast and break things type mentality, and there was a sense that these markets moved so quickly that if anything, it's better to get out of the way, that the government should be a stands off as possible. And I think what we've seen is that

there were enormous costs to that. Right, we now have just a handful of companies that are controlling key arteries of commerce, key arteries of communication, and that functionally means that these companies are getting to call the shots on slots of business activity. Right. You noted, they're getting to effectively call the shots on what content gets heard or seen with no transparency and no accountability, right because there's

no competition in the market. If you don't like what a Google algorithm is doing, you don't really have that

much choice. And that's what was so eye opening for me is that there were actually thousands upon thousands of businesses that were enormously alarmed and disturbed about the power that these tech companies had accumulated because they could only their access to customers was entirely dependent on the whims of an Amazon or a Google, and I would have companies tell me, you know, I woke up today for some reason, on Amazon, I went from page one to page seven, or on Google from page one page seven.

And if this does I don't know why, nothing changed on my end, But if this doesn't get fixed, my business is going to go bankrupt. And you know, I remember there was a business who was quoted saying Google has more power than the government. Right, the government can tax me, but if changes an algorithm, my business is going to go under. And so I think people started to realize just the enormous power these companies have. If it's not how to account can just be extremely abusive.

apport simply to update a product I've already purchased. But if I want a free update, I've got to you know, instead of you know, I got to give something in return, And there's no alternative, like I could say, Hey, I don't want to give you this data? Can I buy it? Right? They're not even they're not even giving me access to this updated version of the apps. How did we get here where we're they're not asking us permission, but essentially we're being coerced.

you and harvesting all of your data.

across the internet. Now it can be combined with data collected on your phone, including your precise geolocation, and there's just a huge business incentive because that's how they make money. And it's really striking because you know, America has a long tradition of being very skeptical of government surveillance, but we are now increasingly being surveilled by these private companies

and we don't know what's happening with that data. At the FTP sometimes found it was actually being sold just to the highest bidder, even if that meant selling it to foreign adversaries, and sometimes it is sold to the government or used by the government, and so it seems like there's this whole workaround. And you know, companies have adopted this notice and consent where they think if they just present you this long terms of service and you

agree that that means you're consenting. But we all know that's a fiction. And as you noted, we have to use these services to navigate day to day life, and so it does feel like coercion.

I mean, it's absurd, but it was really well, it was satire done exactly to point out this absurdity of terms and conditions and the fact that nobody actually reads it and you have no idea what you've just consented to, and this idea that oh it's on you. Oh come on like that. That's not where, that's not realistic. What let's this you just talked about the hands off approach that essentially government decided to take on the tech industry

in the first two decades of the century. Here we are at AI at this moment, and that is exactly the same conversation all these AI had, don't regulate us, right, And we just saw that bill there was going to be an attempt to put a moratorium on state based

regulations for ten years. As soon as it popped up there there were there were at least a few people howling about it, and they got stripped out. A reminder sometimes transparency is still the best disinfected that you have on sometimes on bad policy, but it certainly looks like we're about to do the same make the same mistakes with AI that we made with social media.

youer more competition. The risk we're seeing now is that this technological revolution will instead allow the existing giants to just expand and double down on their power.

is not so the only companies that can afford it are the companies that have already the already have the power and the resources.

the lack of consent. I mean, when I was at the FTC, we were talking to creators, writers, graphic designers who said, I just woke up one day and my life's work had been ingested by this model that is now spitting out stuff that is competing with me, and it was trained on me, and nobody asked me, and

nobody paid me. How is that fit? Right? And so we've already seen what some of people would call theft in terms of just how much of that information has already been ingested and monetized without any consent or compensation. I think the other potential abusive practice we could see

is this idea of surveillance pricing. We're not only is your data being collected on you, but then it is being used against you to price as much as you will pay. So imagine you had a death in the family and you got an email notice about where the

services are going to be. You go to buy a plane ticket and the airline company knows you are trying to get to a funeral, it's an emergency, and maybe they'll overcharge you, right, And I think that's going to be one of the next frontiers of potential abuse that we have to be on guard for.

know the answer to that question, but I feel like that's the inherent flaw in the FTC.

was a ban on noncompete clauses. These are clauses that basically block you from taking a job editor or starting your own business.

I think if.

original restaurant was trying to block it. I mean, they're just such absurd and horrifying stories about how these non competes are abused. So we've got put through a rule to ban them in the vast majority of contexts, it's currently being litigated pushed back against. I think the biggest challenge for the FTC candidly is its size. I mean, this is a tiny agency relative to its mission and mandate.

It oversees economic activity across the vast majority of the US economy, and at its height when I was there was around thirteen hundred people. Now smaller, we've seen, you know, a brain drain, a lot of attrition, people kind of trying to flee. And it's tough. You know, we've heard about DOGE cuts and the agency shrinking further, and so I think that's a challenge.

seem like that part of that base as a voice in this current administration. That's what it's been more lip service.

through this, you know, at the FTC. I think you're right that there was kind of support among Republican members of Congress, but there's almost support at a grassroots level, right, I mean, I would get.

massive middleman that's squeezing me out. And so I think, you know, this issue of unchecked corporate power, of monopoly abuse has become so acute that it affects every part of our country, then there's a lot of support for taking it on.

an extraordinarily consolidated thing. And what role should the FDC

have in something like this? On behalf of independent pharmacists.

That's how important they are, you know. And just see I've seen it sook, you know, with an in law who was suffering and a prescription ran out on a Saturday. They didn't know what else to do, right, and it so it really is a community lifeline in these smaller and these smaller communities.

Some of them have their own mail order pharmacy, and pharmacies will tell us that patients are coming to them and saying, Hey, I've been fulfilling my prescription with you for years, but I just got this letter from my insurance company saying now I can only fulfill this through their mail order pharmacy. And guess what. The mail order pharmacy is using trucks in the heat, and by the time your medicine gets to you, it actually ended up

getting spoilt. And so they're just all these perversions. The PBMs are also responsible for reimbursing the pharmacies. Pharmacies tell us they are routinely under reimbursed, and so they're actually losing money when they are providing patients with life saving medicines, and so it seems like a big, big perversion. We investigated this at the FTC. We sued the PBMs for practices that we alleged lading drug prices. But there's a lot more to be done here.

able to finish, right you, you know, would would have liked that more time. And what's going to continue? Where are you relieved? Where it looks like the FTC is going to stay on this?

lawsuit against John Deere is going forward. This is a lawsuit where we alleged Deer was illegally making it very difficult for farmers to fix their own tractors and equipment fixed by a deer dealer, which meant not only was it more expensive, but you had to wait an incredibly long time, and sometimes that would result in farmer's crop getting ruined. So that those litigations are still going forward.

We have seen some backtracking on the consumer protection side, which is where we've been very active in terms of taking on these junk fees, requiring that businesses make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign. A judge just tossed out that rule, and we're going to have to see where the FTC stays strong or backs off.

for something to then cancel it. It is And it doesn't matter whether I'm talking about national season tickets, who like they will literally send an email on a notice but no link, and then they'll like be on the lookout for the link two or three weeks later and they don't ever And that's just them, And this is this is just an example across the board with these subscription services, no matter what it is, right, whether it's a small subscription for for for a magazine or something,

or a large one for a streaming service or season tickets or whatever it is, it does seem as if that there is a lot of fast and loose when it comes to these auto renewals, if you will, and that that feels that feels like one of those one of those issues that if the government could find a way to clamp down on it, it would be enormously popular.

a reliant on subscription based revenues. So even for things like a printer, sometimes you need a subscription for your printer to work.

This may be a tad before your time, but it was Circuit City and best Buy used to just try to force you to buy these, and Amazon now does it too. Actually, if you buy any sort of product, hey, do you want to buy insurance on it? Or you want to buy a you know, they sort of force these back then. It was a bit predatory the way Circuit City did it. I think actually the government claimed down on them at the time.

cancel rule, our rule banning non competes. We had rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would limit medical debt from being used on your credit report, that would have limited overdraft fees. A whole set of rules have been tossed out by courts. Sometimes I think on pretty

bogus basis. I think there is going to be if kind of Democrats get a chance to govern again in four years, it kind of broader reassessment of how is to govern when you have courts that are so hostile to some of this governing.

guys are doing a tremendous amount of stuff, but it's almost like you're over the public's not. There's too much and the public's not going to realize what you're doing. And if they don't, then it doesn't take root. And if it doesn't take root, becomes easy to throw out. What what have you? What did you learned ear in your four years that if you ever got another shot at this, what would you is there is there different ways would you would you sort of tackle less at

any one time? Right? Because there's so much you want to do, like, how much do you think the communications strategy has to be a part of what you're doing.

couple of reasons. One was I think in DC sometimes there can be this tendency to over index on kind of the expert class for how we understand the economy, and that can create certain blind spots where you really have to talk to people and understand what is people's lived in experience to understand what those pain points are.

And so we did listening sessions, We did regular open commission meetings where anybody in America could sign up and talk to the Federal Trade Commissioners, and just really broadened the voices we were hearing to make sure we had a real three sixty view of the economy rather than of you that was dominated by the kind of lobbyists

and the lawyers and the kind of class. But it was also to be able to communicate, right, I mean, the FTC is the agency where if it's doing its job, if it's taking on monopolies and corporate law breakers, it is going to face pushback from those corporate interests, and you need to make sure that you are building the countervailing support from the people that are benefiting from this work.

You know, we had a small agency. We had a heroic comms team, but it was very small, and so, you know, I think figuring out how can kind of other players and government and political system alsolifying this will be key.

when it comes to coverage of the economy is I used to argue we don't cover the economy, we cover markets, and the CNBC afflication of business coverage right when I was you know, coverage of the economy was much different in the eighties and nineties, and then when we all became so market focused, Right, there's a part of me that thinks that it almost made people more comfortable with consolidation because consolidation was good for the stock market than

stock market was good for retirement. Like we sort of perverted what even economics reporting was right. The economy is people. The economy is not markets. And the only business coverage in mainstream media today is markets. Right, whether it's Fox Business Channel or SANBC, you don't really get the same kind of consumer protection coverage that used to be quote unquote business coverage. Now it feels like it's all about markets and all about equity.

or not, we're going to miss a lot. And sometimes candidly, stock prices go up because companies are doing things that are profitable for them but actually bad for regular people. And so not only can it be inadequate, but it can sometimes be you know, the inverse, and so I think that's a problem. And I think, you know, one thing that's been interesting is this broader conversation now happening in DC but across the country about how it is it that that people should govern and how is it

that people should kind of win elections. And it does seem like those people who are focusing on listening to people, right, we just had money when in New York City he went to all cards and asked them, Hey, what is it that's making your business? Right, kind of that on the ground level economics, economy reporting, and to bring to it a sense of curiosity, right, just like there's a lot we don't know in DC, and making sure we're actually going out there and asking people who are kind

of experts in their own domain. So I think we need a lot more of that.

If I'm going to sound a little rubish and go ahead and say it, which is, God damn it, I want my government to I mean, who's who's regulating these algorithms? They're black boxes and it is it is. How I interact with Google is different than somebody else interacts with Google, and I have nobody sort of I have no idea whether I'm I'm getting a fair look or not because I don't know how the algorithm works. Do you should

the act? Who should and should government basically be in the business of regulating algorithms.

comes to kids. Right there's been a huge epidemic of you know, social media addiction abuse on these platforms, and parents feel like they don't have any control of what their kids are seeing. And these companies, again, their business model is to monetize data. And it's been shown that the content that is does best is oftenheims the content that is most divisive or most inflammatory.

a lot of pain and going to lead to a lot of problems.

We'll see, but he's actually, you know, he he he has pitched this idea that data should be in a public trust that Amazon should known data, Google should know own data that you know, they essentially should license the use of data, but that data should be almost like a public utility. I guess what would that could that happen, what would that look like? I mean, at what point, you know, I've been waiting for my data built privacy Bill of Rights to be passed by a Congress for

the last twenty years, and it's not happened. I think we inherently and here's what's sort of frustrating. Individual data is worthless, collective data is infinitely valuable. It seems that we've got that this is sort of one of the hardest issues to tackle, and yet it's at the heart of almost all of these current antitrust conversations.

you know. To my mind, that's a key question. But another key question is should some of this data be off limits for monetization in the first place? I mean, at the FTC. We would do investigations where we would find that companies like health apps, we're collecting sensitive information, health information from people and then selling that on to these data brokers and then you know, all sorts of

bad actors could get their hands on it. We had geolocation from your phone being sold, including to stalkers and abusers. There's just huge risks here. And so one thing that we did through some of these law enforcement actions was say that for sensitive data, for data about your browsing history on the internet, your precise location, your health, that data by default cannot be sold. That unless you are

affirmatively agreeing and consenting to that data be sold. The default is it cannot be And so you know, I think we need some more of those bright line rules to get past this fiction. The default is everything is collected and sold. And then we need to think about some of the business models and the monetization and the algorithm and how all of that fits together.

who may who made money simply on quote unquote free acts, right that it hurt their businesses. I'm not shedding a tear over that. If that's how they if that was there, if that was their north star and how to make money for their business.

you know, they've been sort of trained, if you will. Unfortunately, you know, and maybe that's on me as a parent, didn't realize how much this was happening, right, You just don't fully appreciate it until they're like, yeah, you know, this is the price of doing business and on the internet, which you know, you know, I guess that's what these big tech companies are counting on, right, that we're just going to be we care about using the products too much to worry about the personal stuff.

in state legislatures in Congress. It does it's clear that whenever lawmakers have tried to do something here. There has been ferocious pushback, farrocious lobbying, and just a clear example of companies using their economic power as political power.

more as this happens. Is there any good consumer tips to sort of to you know, double check to see if this is happening to you.

of their privacy. But it's tough, and I think kind of telling lunched officials to kind of work on this is going to.

is working, and how do we make that better? How do we govern better?

enjoy the person you teaching this fall. You're going right back into it. Yeah, all right, Well, there's there's nothing more uplifting than teaching college kids. That's what I have found in it. No matter how cynical you get, right, it sort of it gives you hope. So enjoy that time back in academia. And I hope we talk again.

that's trying that's broadcasting on YouTube. But I take anyway, So go ahead and stark at me. I get it, but in all seriousness. So what happened earlier this morning? I was preparing my interview of Lena Khan and I had interviewed Jonathan Canner, who was the head of the Anti Trust Division during the previous Justice Department, and it was an interview I conducted with him when NBC owned my podcast, And so I was looking for it, right,

did the old fashioned Google search? Right, They're seeing if I could find it somewhere archive. I just wanted to see if I could find transcript something of it. And as I'm you know, I rarely I hadn't Googled myself in a while. I was just doing Chuck Todd podcast Jonathan Canter, right, And as I'm typing, you know, Google will helpfully give you other things as you type a person's name, and suddenly the words Duck Todd illness shows up, and I'm like, I wonder what that is. I was curious,

so I hit it. And now, of course everybody has experienced the Google the way the Google pages work. Now you get the AI, you get Gemini's quick summary of the search in your thing. And so when you do Chuck Todd illness, here's what happens. The AI overview ends up saying the following. Chuck Todd, the former host of Meet the Press, is publicly disclosed that he has Parkinson's disease. He revealed his diagnosis in twenty eighteen after being diagnosed

in twenty thirteen. While specific details about the progression of his illness are not widely publicized, there have been reports of symptoms like fatigue, any way changes, as well as a decrease in public appearances. Okay, there's nothing about this is true. I don't I'm not going to say it. I don't feel like i've been you know, this is defamatory. I don't have Parkinson's disease. I get a physical anyway. My point is, none of this is true. I've not

had any illness. I would tell you. Is there something nothing? You know, I've had a few kidney stones that I've gone public with. I've not gone what I've gone. I think I'm up to nearly a year without a kidney stone, but I frequently get those. That's about the worst health problem I've had to deal with. And I'm sitting here going, wait a minute, this is in a this is the AI search. And then of course you can do Chuck

Todd illness update. And then it claims Chuck Todd, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in twenty thirteen, has publicly acknowledged his condition and has been managing it while continuing his media career. I have never publicly acknowledged this because there is nothing to acknowledge. And then it says he shared his diagnosis in twenty eighteen and has since been involved with the Parkinson Association of Central Florida, even serving

as president in twenty twenty one. Not true, says Todd has spoken about his low gluten free diet. That is true, and his exercise routine. That is true, but everything else is not true. It appears that there is a gentleman with the first name of Todd who's involved with the Parkinson Association in Central Florida, So that got conflated. The point is is that here I am, who is going to you know, where does one go? I have sent a note to Google to say, hey, this is all wrong.

I don't know how much more to tell you this is all wrong, and you know it's it's it gets into a large you know, this could have been something, you know, truly defamatory, could have been something horrendous. You could be accused of a crime. You know where do you who?

that isn't true. And for the longest time we all just sort of ignored it. We figured, oh, you know, it sort of will go, you know, the non truth stuff just sort of goes away and dies. But what has happened with these all these AI tools, these large language models have trained themselves on the garbage that has been saved on the internet. So even if you know, take Gemini. In this AI business, it's probably eighty five percent correct, which is B plus right BB plus material.

The problem is that fifteen percent that is wrong taints at all. And this is the inherent flaw right now. I think in where we are in AI, I hope this is a good lesson right, like the Grock incident

with how quickly you know? And Elon Musk wanted to do He didn't like the answers that groc was giving and he wanted to give new answers, and suddenly he created a Nazi AI persona you know I. You know, maybe by sharing this story more people will to understand is that that AI is not all knowing A has got a lot more flaws right now, and an inherent

flaw is what you the data you have trained the

AI on right. And Google doesn't fully appreciate that there is a lot of garbage, particularly about public figures that isn't true for a variety of reasons, right, And nobody is saying they have to fact check everything, but you know, there's got to be some form of of truthiness that that is there, and a consumer, whoever it is, an individual has got to have some right to correct you know a right to get this, you know, because this again, I you know, this is not being accused of having

a disease that you don't have, is not you know, it's not going to you know, cause me problems personal whatever it is, that's not the issue. I don't. You know, this is not fair to people that are dealing with Parkinson's whose stories should be told and who's you know, should be and things like that. So I just wanted

to share this story because this is a warning. All right, AI is very flawed right now, Okay, I have a personal experience with it, and clearly Google's AI is not as and yet what is Google doing every time you do a Google search it produces the AI overview. First, I watch my son. He just takes AI overview and just assumes it's fact. And you know, like the early

days of Wikipedia, there's a lot of manipulation still out there. I'm not saying that over time this won't get better as these AI, but to put it out there in public, I mean, this is what happens when these tech companies essentially want to test their technology out in public, sort of let it all crowdsource the problems away. Well, there are people that get caught up in that crowdsourcing of information where you may defame them, you may harm them, you may do harm to them, or you may cause

them so much anxiety they do self harm. So I share the story. I hope Google. I am happy whoever's listening from Google, I am happy to participate. So you guys need to figure out why how this happened. I'm happy to help out in any way if I can help you, Because look, I'm not an AI skeptic. I want to. I want to. This is a probability. You know, I know what AI is. It's not intelligence, it's not

you know, a robot. It is simply probability. Uh, it's it's a probability, uh, sample of of what you know, what's likely to be said next, what's the next word, et cetera. So I'm you know, I'm I am pro

the concept of continuing to try to make this work. But it's possible. We haven't fully uh Uh. This stuff's half baked and it's being released to the public, probably in an attempt to try to catch up to the folks over at Open AI. Why why Google's doing this and all this stuff? And they're pushing it out there

for for a variety of reasons on that. Maybe it has to do with making it look like they're on Hey, we have AI tools too, but I'm here to tell you this AI tool ain't working the way it's supposed to. And anybody that's been in the public space, like myself, who has had so much bullshit written about them, stuff that's not true. This is how it can all get cobbled together and create literally a fictional story that the only thing that is correct is that I've worked for

NBC and my name is Chuck Tad. All right, let me deal with a couple of questions there. So, Helena Khan, I didn't I would have told you about that, but I didn't want to make the interview about that. But the FTC come on, Where where do we go as citizens to essentially correct when our persona is misidentified and miss h and frankly just wrong by the by by

one of these big tech companies on this front. All right, let's do a couple of ask Chucks, Ask Chuck. Okay, first question comes from the Essa in Charleston, South Carolina, home arguably to one of the best eating towns in America, probably at least you know, in the top five, not tops of New Orleans. But it's if I said about Charleston,

it's New Orleans without the refraff, and yet some of us do like the riffraff in New Orleans. Don't get me wrong, but here's the question. If the Trump administration is so adamant about deporting violent illegal criminals, why didn't they start by clearing out the prison system. Republicans love to use Lake and Riley as their example for ridding America of this dangerous criminals, but her killer, Jose Antonio Evara, is still sitting in a Georgia prison living off of

taxpayer dollars. It seems that if Republicans were serious about cleaning up fraud, waste, and abuse, this would be a good place to start. Instead of rounding up migrant workers from the fields they are working in people off the streets who may actually be US citizens. Am I missing something, Vanessa, You're not. You know, I don't have a good answer to this question other than boy, that's a really What I want to do is send this over to whoever's

going to interview Christino next. Right, this is a ter question that needs to be asked if I get an opportunity to ask anybody in the in the DHS system, whether it's Stephen Miller, who I may you know, whether it's for my newsphere show or here So I did. It's a terrific question and I want to know the answer to that, and hopefully somebody listening also wants to know the answer to that. That is a outstanding observation.

Second question comes from Jeff H. By the way, like you know, if you're absolutely right sidey, that seems to be would probably I bet you if you pulled that question, should American tax dollars be used to how's criminals who are here illegally? I have a feeling I know how that would how that poll question would go. This next

question comes from Jeff H. He says, what do you think about eighteen years for term elaments on senators and representatives? We've got to get people out of these positions before they become decrepit. Jeff, here's all I want to tell you. I'm on Monday next week. I'm dropping an interview with Larry Lessik, who is a Harvard Law School professor who is focused and he's got this campaign finance law that has passed in Maine that the Feds are that some

are trying to say is unconstitutional. But if they successfully argue their case, he thinks he might be able to make super Pack essentially obsolete right by limiting all donations to super packs to five thousand dollars. I'm not going to get into the details of this, but in that conversation, Larry and I talk about the idea of a constitutional convention, because ultimately term limits would have to be put in the constitution. That the only way you can make it constitutional.

And there's a lot of argument to be made. We're due for a constitutional convention. Deal with campaign money, right, things that the Supreme Court is said is unconstitutional, deal with campaign money, deal with age limits, term limits. It's you know, maybe you do it as age limits we have, we have age minimums to run for office, right, twenty five for the House, thirty for the Senate, thirty five

for the presidency. I'd argue those are kind of obsolete now, you know, you know, should there really you know, maybe you just if you're eligible to be in Congress of twenty five, why is there you know, why make a difference on the Senate and the presidency at that point. But if you're going to put in age maximum, since age minimums are in the constitution, age maximums have to be in the constitution. So I think this is a is it eighteen years? I think eighteen years for instance,

is a I'd call that a generation right? And is it eighteen years collectively? Right? That? Or is it eighteen years in each chamber too? That that's another question that some might have. But a good constitutional convention, balance budget amendments another thing where you might have some some people on the right want this, some people on the left want this, you know, just like the original constitutional convention, you would get some interesting compromises. And I'm going to

leave it at there. This is the long one. And on that so I've got a bunch of other questions. We'll save it. We'll save it for We'll save some of them for next week. I promise you know me, I will get to all of them. That is the goal. All right. With that, I hope you enjoy your weekend and I will see you in about seventy two hours or so until we upload again.