WEBVTT 00:00:04.690 --> 00:00:15.710 Okay shall shall we start yeah okay my notes up blah blah blah switch this to live here we go, 00:00:38.330 --> 00:00:44.450 Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, February 8th, 2025. 00:00:44.790 --> 00:00:48.670 It's just after 18 UTC as we're starting to record. I'm Sam Menter, 00:00:48.750 --> 00:00:50.410 Yvonne Boas here again. Hello, Yvonne. 00:00:51.130 --> 00:00:51.490 Hi. 00:00:52.290 --> 00:00:54.530 You seem enthused. Did you have a great birthday? 00:00:55.530 --> 00:00:59.830 The birthday was very good. it the 00:00:59.830 --> 00:01:04.430 only you know there was here's one 00:01:04.430 --> 00:01:11.650 thing that happened okay so um my friend that that you know mireya okay okay 00:01:11.650 --> 00:01:17.650 yes she she did at the last minute it wasn't totally a surprise because i had 00:01:17.650 --> 00:01:23.330 to go pick her up but she said i organized this din i was i was putting together a dinner, 00:01:23.910 --> 00:01:26.830 And I had told her about it. I'm like, well, it would be great if you could come. 00:01:26.930 --> 00:01:29.970 And then also she surprised me. I said, well, I got a ticket. I'm coming. Let's go. 00:01:30.330 --> 00:01:35.070 So she flew down on, dinner was on Saturday night. 00:01:35.190 --> 00:01:39.590 She flew down Saturday afternoon so we could go to dinner and flew back Sunday 00:01:39.590 --> 00:01:43.970 to go home just so she could come to my birthday dinner. Okay. 00:01:44.890 --> 00:01:48.270 So she did do that, which is really awesome. Okay. 00:01:48.410 --> 00:01:52.830 All right. We had a great time. the one thing that wasn't awesome, 00:01:53.430 --> 00:01:57.870 is that Manu had been sick the previous couple of days and Manu had wanted to 00:01:57.870 --> 00:01:59.750 go to the restaurant and we got to the restaurant you know, 00:01:59.830 --> 00:02:04.770 dressed him up and he went to the restaurant he kind of like he soldiered to 00:02:04.770 --> 00:02:07.690 get to the restaurant then got there and was like oh my god, 00:02:07.830 --> 00:02:09.370 I feel terrible I need to go home, 00:02:10.870 --> 00:02:12.550 and Juan said look, 00:02:13.660 --> 00:02:18.020 You've got your family here, your friends that came. I'll just take them home. 00:02:18.220 --> 00:02:21.720 I'll take an Uber and I'll take them back home. So that sucked. 00:02:23.280 --> 00:02:32.100 Okay. So that was, you know, but it was still, we still had a really good time, but Manu couldn't come. 00:02:32.600 --> 00:02:37.020 Now, Manu did insist that, well, okay, fine. So I could be there at the restaurant 00:02:37.020 --> 00:02:39.420 that day. So then we need to go. 00:02:39.880 --> 00:02:42.220 We need to go later. We need to go back. 00:02:43.340 --> 00:02:46.280 so i'm not sure if we're gonna go today i don't 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:49.120 think no we're not gonna go today because we're gonna go see dog man 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:52.400 the dog man yes what's dog 00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:56.200 man dog man is a series of books and uh 00:02:56.200 --> 00:03:02.240 that is police officer that had a dog and they were in some kind of like accident 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:07.300 explosion and so all of a sudden they decided that the way to save them was 00:03:07.300 --> 00:03:13.300 to fuse the guy's head to the dog or the dog's head to the guy something along 00:03:13.300 --> 00:03:16.180 those lines and so it became dog man so. 00:03:16.180 --> 00:03:18.160 You said it's a series of books i see it's. 00:03:18.160 --> 00:03:21.420 Yeah there's a series of books and well no it's the first movie that i know 00:03:21.420 --> 00:03:27.400 of about dog man but there's a series of dog man books so i'm all about this 00:03:27.400 --> 00:03:32.080 this guy who is a cop that's half man half dog. 00:03:32.080 --> 00:03:34.420 So wait are you seeing the movie or are you. 00:03:34.420 --> 00:03:35.040 Going to like. 00:03:35.040 --> 00:03:36.260 Is the author coming. 00:03:36.260 --> 00:03:40.940 He's been right no no no the movie came out it came out like about a week ago 00:03:40.940 --> 00:03:44.520 Mano has been reading all the books He really likes them, and the movie came 00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:46.460 out So we're going to go today to go see the movie. 00:03:47.200 --> 00:03:51.680 Okay, I'm looking. There's a 2025 animated film. 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:52.500 Yeah. 00:03:52.920 --> 00:03:59.600 There was a 2018 Italian crime drama film by that name. 00:03:59.900 --> 00:04:01.460 Okay, I don't think that's it. 00:04:01.720 --> 00:04:07.060 And a 2023 French action drama film by that name. 00:04:07.300 --> 00:04:08.780 I don't think that's it either. 00:04:09.160 --> 00:04:12.320 There was a children's musical by that name. 00:04:12.700 --> 00:04:15.080 Well, that may be related to the book series. 00:04:15.080 --> 00:04:23.200 And there was a an album and a song by kings x by that title as well i. 00:04:23.200 --> 00:04:25.420 Don't think that's that's it either. 00:04:25.420 --> 00:04:32.240 And the the i guess the book series is the graphic a comedic graphic novel novel 00:04:32.240 --> 00:04:35.020 series by dav pilkney yeah. 00:04:35.020 --> 00:04:37.080 That that's that's that's the author yes. 00:04:37.080 --> 00:04:42.240 And then there was a character by gillian mark as well. 00:04:42.240 --> 00:04:46.320 Not yeah it's dave pilkey that's the that's the author of the series. 00:04:46.820 --> 00:04:47.260 Okay. 00:04:47.800 --> 00:04:48.580 So dog, man. 00:04:48.940 --> 00:04:55.180 So I, I have added all three movies and the book series to my lists to potentially watch. 00:04:55.580 --> 00:04:59.100 Yeah. We'll watch it sometime like in 20 80 something. 00:04:59.640 --> 00:04:59.960 Yeah. 00:05:00.060 --> 00:05:02.500 Something, something, maybe something like that, perhaps. 00:05:02.740 --> 00:05:05.520 Yeah. So anyway, you know. 00:05:05.620 --> 00:05:09.000 So, so yeah, so it was, it was really cool that I mean, I, I see, 00:05:09.120 --> 00:05:14.800 I, I mean, I talked to a regular, I, I, I had, I, we had met up at some event in New York, Thank you. 00:05:15.370 --> 00:05:18.330 not last year but the year before but i used to go more 00:05:18.330 --> 00:05:21.930 often to see somebody that i know from pittsburgh sam's 00:05:21.930 --> 00:05:24.750 met her at least once more from 00:05:24.750 --> 00:05:27.430 more and more times and i don't know 00:05:27.430 --> 00:05:30.330 so that just surprised me to come to my birthday and it was really really 00:05:30.330 --> 00:05:33.030 really really cool that we got cool got to 00:05:33.030 --> 00:05:37.650 hang out so so yeah you know even though it's like i mean the her she got here 00:05:37.650 --> 00:05:43.170 like the day before at like four o'clock and then her departure flight was at 00:05:43.170 --> 00:05:51.670 7 a.m the next days i had to get it was yeah so yeah so anyway so that was birthday very. 00:05:51.670 --> 00:05:56.670 Exciting anything else for our but first segment that you want to relate before 00:05:56.670 --> 00:05:58.690 before i i say something i. 00:05:58.690 --> 00:06:01.690 Don't know yeah because that was just my question of what happened at my birthday 00:06:01.690 --> 00:06:06.750 yeah but first look i i it's Speaking of generalities, 00:06:07.170 --> 00:06:15.930 okay, all right, about the current state of our world, you know, 00:06:16.030 --> 00:06:19.290 this is a very exhausting time that we live in again. 00:06:20.110 --> 00:06:26.370 You know, we did this before with Trump before where it was just every, you know, 00:06:26.670 --> 00:06:35.710 with him, It's just, it is this entire circus of him doing shit to just that, 00:06:35.770 --> 00:06:42.510 that becomes, it does become impossible to ignore as much as you want to. Okay. 00:06:43.330 --> 00:06:46.530 And it's exhausting for everybody. Okay. 00:06:47.150 --> 00:06:53.170 And because that's what he wants. He wants the attention. That's why he's doing 00:06:53.170 --> 00:06:55.070 this more than anything else. Okay. 00:06:56.250 --> 00:07:00.970 And it's just, I mean, between my job and shit and whatever, 00:07:01.270 --> 00:07:03.410 I mean, this is fucking exhausting, man. 00:07:04.170 --> 00:07:12.590 I have decided, and I have set this, and I did this, and I'm keeping to this. 00:07:12.830 --> 00:07:22.890 I have to completely set time limits on how much scrolling I'm doing on whatever the fuck it is. 00:07:23.110 --> 00:07:25.230 Because, no, it's just draining. 00:07:25.830 --> 00:07:28.470 I have set a limit of 40 minutes a day. 00:07:28.810 --> 00:07:29.210 Wow. 00:07:29.290 --> 00:07:29.670 That's it. 00:07:29.870 --> 00:07:31.470 I can't imagine being that low. 00:07:32.850 --> 00:07:38.330 Now, what I'm doing is, which is less stressful, still you get the news, 00:07:38.370 --> 00:07:41.970 but it is honestly using more Apple news. 00:07:42.370 --> 00:07:42.890 Okay. 00:07:42.930 --> 00:07:46.710 To reach more of what's going on, to know what's going on. 00:07:46.790 --> 00:07:50.750 So I've been devouring tons of those, and I've been actually noticing that I'm 00:07:50.750 --> 00:07:54.490 settings that I hadn't used before, and that I could subscribe to certain things 00:07:54.490 --> 00:07:56.210 and I could get certain things a certain way. 00:07:56.490 --> 00:08:01.510 Although, here's the one thing that I have as a feedback about this. 00:08:01.810 --> 00:08:05.910 I'll tell you what, the content in Apple News is fantastic, but they haven't 00:08:05.910 --> 00:08:13.050 really updated the application for you to tweak and customize those feeds more attuned to the taste. 00:08:13.530 --> 00:08:17.170 They've left it a little bit. They've added some features and done some stuff, 00:08:17.230 --> 00:08:22.870 but damn it, they should allow you to be able to customize that feed more. 00:08:23.670 --> 00:08:29.510 That is the drawback. But it really does provide you a place where I can get 00:08:29.510 --> 00:08:35.350 from a ton of sources just what the hell is going on without having to go on 00:08:35.350 --> 00:08:39.930 social media to do that and having to go to each individual website to get that information. Okay? 00:08:39.930 --> 00:08:40.210 Mm-hmm. 00:08:41.170 --> 00:08:45.030 And so, so yeah, so that, that, that's what I, I, you know, for. 00:08:45.050 --> 00:08:49.130 For that kind of overviews thing, I still use Google news more like, 00:08:49.210 --> 00:08:50.430 and I don't use their app. 00:08:50.590 --> 00:08:56.570 I'll go to their website on desktop and go to the, for, therefore you page. 00:08:56.570 --> 00:09:00.550 But the thing is that, you know, you could use it on the phone. 00:09:00.550 --> 00:09:03.570 I could use it on the iPad. It lets me save articles. 00:09:04.250 --> 00:09:08.190 Man, they've got a lot of content. I didn't realize they've got like New York Magazine. 00:09:08.430 --> 00:09:14.130 They've got the Atlantic. They've got, you know, they have so much, so many. 00:09:14.330 --> 00:09:18.270 I didn't realize they added even more local newspapers that they buy. 00:09:18.510 --> 00:09:22.730 You can like, you know, pick like different newspapers from different places. 00:09:23.170 --> 00:09:25.930 There's just so much stuff on there. 00:09:26.570 --> 00:09:29.810 that it's just, you know, it's, it's available on all the devices. 00:09:29.810 --> 00:09:32.470 I don't have to just, I don't have to just do it on desktop. 00:09:32.750 --> 00:09:36.990 I find it that, you know, I've been using it a lot more and so I can find out 00:09:36.990 --> 00:09:39.130 what's going on, but without a lot of the, 00:09:39.370 --> 00:09:48.310 the, the, the commentary is really just, just worse than anything many times, you know? 00:09:48.630 --> 00:09:51.650 Yeah. I, I, I understand the mood. I don't need it. 00:09:51.790 --> 00:09:54.810 Repeat. one of the things that happen is it's just people keep 00:09:54.810 --> 00:09:57.790 banging on it over and over and i'm like okay 00:09:57.790 --> 00:10:01.030 yeah you know what you're just creating a spiral this 00:10:01.030 --> 00:10:05.910 is a depressive spiral i don't i don't need this shit i know it's bad i know 00:10:05.910 --> 00:10:10.930 it's fucking bad i don't i don't i don't need you know well i don't need the 00:10:10.930 --> 00:10:17.050 extra commentary on it i know it's bad i could tell all right so yeah so that's 00:10:17.050 --> 00:10:19.690 what I've come to, but it's still, 00:10:19.930 --> 00:10:22.170 I mean, it's just, you know, 00:10:23.090 --> 00:10:25.130 and I just, just mentioned one thing. 00:10:25.550 --> 00:10:26.070 Okay. 00:10:26.750 --> 00:10:31.110 And I, but maybe reiterate this. Why was I so early on? 00:10:31.960 --> 00:10:35.740 caught on to the reality that Elon Musk is an asshole. 00:10:36.020 --> 00:10:41.400 How the fuck did everybody why was everybody so late to this, Sam? 00:10:41.940 --> 00:10:45.620 Because you've no, I've said this for it's not recent. 00:10:46.380 --> 00:10:51.500 It's been years. I mean, I'm pretty sure I looked it up like seven plus seven 00:10:51.500 --> 00:10:53.240 years at least that I've said this. 00:10:53.440 --> 00:10:55.720 That this guy is a massive asshole. 00:10:56.220 --> 00:10:59.100 Why did it take people so long to catch on? 00:11:00.020 --> 00:11:06.520 I don't, I mean, he's certainly been a lot more vocal and out there in the last couple of years. 00:11:06.680 --> 00:11:11.280 I mean, he was always there if you were paying attention, but now he's just 00:11:11.280 --> 00:11:12.460 in your face constantly. 00:11:12.840 --> 00:11:13.400 Yeah. 00:11:13.780 --> 00:11:18.680 I mean, I actually take that back slightly. 00:11:19.940 --> 00:11:25.640 In the last few weeks, his visibility is a little bit different. 00:11:26.760 --> 00:11:32.940 He's out there tweeting obnoxious stuff, but like I don't see like that. 00:11:33.100 --> 00:11:39.880 Man, like that time he called that guy a pedo back in like the Thailand cave thing, for example. 00:11:40.280 --> 00:11:40.620 No, I know. 00:11:40.880 --> 00:11:44.360 The way that he, listen, Sam, why did people miss that? 00:11:44.760 --> 00:11:50.120 Anybody that talked and said anything negative about Tesla stock going back. 00:11:50.340 --> 00:11:51.060 Oh, no, I know. 00:11:51.540 --> 00:11:57.780 He had his whole gang of thugs like these clowns right now at government going 00:11:57.780 --> 00:12:03.540 and viciously attacking them, doxing them. making their lives miserable. 00:12:03.880 --> 00:12:06.480 Oh, no, no, I know, I know. What I was going to say just now, 00:12:06.560 --> 00:12:13.200 though, was like his recent, like in the last few weeks, visibility is his Doge 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:15.980 thing is doing all kinds of stuff, and I'm sure we'll talk about that later. 00:12:16.300 --> 00:12:20.020 And he's still doing obnoxious tweets that occasionally get surfaced. 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:25.460 But what you don't see as much of, at least I haven't seen as much of lately, 00:12:25.740 --> 00:12:31.700 is like actual like him doing videos or public appearances or those guys. 00:12:31.800 --> 00:12:34.740 He seems to have quieted down on that front, which is, 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:41.300 just i don't know interesting like it's a different kind of visibility and specifically 00:12:41.300 --> 00:12:46.560 in contrast to donald where yeah he he's also doing his truth social posts and 00:12:46.560 --> 00:12:51.140 all that but you know you do see the video of him i don't i don't know maybe 00:12:51.140 --> 00:12:55.020 it's just maybe it's an illusion based on my media consumption i don't know what. 00:12:55.020 --> 00:12:58.240 I'm saying is my my question is i'm going back to the question. 00:12:58.240 --> 00:12:59.960 The question why did it take. 00:12:59.960 --> 00:13:06.740 So long for people to notice that this guy is a massive raving asshole. 00:13:06.740 --> 00:13:09.800 I i think it's all about the level of visibility 00:13:09.800 --> 00:13:12.860 i mean lots of people did notice back when years ago 00:13:12.860 --> 00:13:17.100 but lots of people didn't care because those 00:13:17.100 --> 00:13:20.220 his antics were antics that 00:13:20.220 --> 00:13:23.760 if you weren't paying attention could easily 00:13:23.760 --> 00:13:26.500 you know pass under the radar and you 00:13:26.500 --> 00:13:29.380 didn't know he was doing those things you know 00:13:29.380 --> 00:13:37.300 i guess but now like what he is doing is front and center because it's national 00:13:37.300 --> 00:13:43.000 news yeah yeah you know and and so that that's i think a big part of the difference 00:13:43.000 --> 00:13:48.700 also i mean honestly he's gotten bigger too i mean you know well. 00:13:48.700 --> 00:13:49.620 He has gained weight. 00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:56.640 Okay but i was talking like you know he's richer than he was oh. 00:13:56.640 --> 00:13:57.580 All that you mean. 00:13:57.580 --> 00:14:00.320 He's richer than he was he's more prominent than he 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:05.640 was he's got more his fingers and more stuff than he was he's got the big megaphone 00:14:05.640 --> 00:14:10.640 because he owns twitter now yeah so there are a lot of things that make him 00:14:10.640 --> 00:14:17.500 more visible and more out there than he was five ten years ago i mean and again 00:14:17.500 --> 00:14:19.080 he was out there five, 10 years ago. 00:14:19.220 --> 00:14:22.420 If you were paying attention, you saw his stuff, but, but if you weren't paying 00:14:22.420 --> 00:14:24.040 attention, it would go right over your head. 00:14:24.800 --> 00:14:27.780 It's just, I've realized that my asshole radar is pretty good. 00:14:27.900 --> 00:14:35.600 I mean, I was, you know, I was on the Trump is an asshole, massive raving fuck face like 20 years ago. 00:14:35.860 --> 00:14:40.560 Plus I, you know, I mean, and you know that. And so I, I don't, 00:14:40.680 --> 00:14:42.960 I, I, you know, I don't, I don't get it. 00:14:43.160 --> 00:14:47.060 How you were talking about how Trump was an asshole when you were still in the womb. 00:14:48.900 --> 00:14:54.480 Probably but you know I mean I was like I mean this goes I mean my Trump is 00:14:54.480 --> 00:14:59.760 a fucking like lying piece of shit like loser like it was like late 90s you know, 00:15:01.250 --> 00:15:09.610 It was in the 90s, for sure. But I just, I don't, I don't, there is this thing 00:15:09.610 --> 00:15:13.790 where these type of people, like right now, 00:15:14.310 --> 00:15:16.950 are quite popular. 00:15:17.690 --> 00:15:23.130 But I guess those are the phases in, like, the world. 00:15:23.310 --> 00:15:27.610 I mean, Mussolini was also very popular at one point in Italy. 00:15:28.050 --> 00:15:34.810 So, what the fuck does that say? Yeah, this is why, I mean, we've said before, 00:15:35.050 --> 00:15:38.890 this is a global thing right now. This isn't just the U.S. Yeah, it's not just here. 00:15:39.030 --> 00:15:39.210 Yeah. 00:15:39.430 --> 00:15:46.430 Like, people are craving your sort of brash, type A, 00:15:46.990 --> 00:15:51.610 just push and get whatever the hell you want and don't care about anybody type 00:15:51.610 --> 00:15:58.090 personalities because they're frustrated with, you know, the anti-immigrant 00:15:58.090 --> 00:15:59.270 thing seems to be worldwide. 00:15:59.270 --> 00:16:02.570 there's a frustration generally that 00:16:02.570 --> 00:16:05.790 with hey democracies are slow and it 00:16:05.790 --> 00:16:09.150 takes time to build consensus and 00:16:09.150 --> 00:16:14.750 you don't get results fast and so people are frustrated that like hey we voted 00:16:14.750 --> 00:16:20.770 for x and it didn't happen so let's you know let's get this guy who's just going 00:16:20.770 --> 00:16:25.910 to come in like a bulldozer and and do whatever so so. 00:16:25.910 --> 00:16:31.050 Anyway uh this is exhausting sam i don't know the fuck i i mean i i um, 00:16:32.110 --> 00:16:38.130 But I will say that it doesn't help that I haven't been able to exercise as much as I normally do. 00:16:38.370 --> 00:16:43.350 I notice that the exercise does help get my mind off of this to a certain extent. 00:16:43.670 --> 00:16:49.950 But I've been I have been traveling for right now for four straight weeks. 00:16:50.350 --> 00:16:55.930 I will travel the next two weeks again. So I will wind up six straight weeks 00:16:55.930 --> 00:16:58.310 at least right now of traveling. 00:16:58.550 --> 00:17:01.510 And it may be more. i i i don't 00:17:01.510 --> 00:17:04.990 i don't it's i i my my i 00:17:04.990 --> 00:17:08.330 i i am having to do to go 00:17:08.330 --> 00:17:11.710 basically every week to puerto rico right now i 00:17:11.710 --> 00:17:15.270 have found it like inevitable to not not get 00:17:15.270 --> 00:17:18.930 on a plane and go and meet with people and 00:17:18.930 --> 00:17:22.130 part of it is also you know look this return to 00:17:22.130 --> 00:17:25.510 office it well it 00:17:25.510 --> 00:17:28.430 doesn't impact me in the sense that my company hasn't done that 00:17:28.430 --> 00:17:32.410 um maybe for some people you're meeting with have yes so 00:17:32.410 --> 00:17:37.490 you have to go to their office that's right yeah yes 00:17:37.490 --> 00:17:44.630 you know because no i mean they they've been like they've actually been pretty 00:17:44.630 --> 00:17:49.610 how do i say pragmatic about that you know they know like sales roles like what 00:17:49.610 --> 00:17:52.970 are we doing man you know yeah we're not we're not you know you don't you We're 00:17:52.970 --> 00:17:54.330 not sending you to the office, whatever. 00:17:54.950 --> 00:17:57.790 They don't want to spend the money on the real estate. They were closing real 00:17:57.790 --> 00:18:00.990 estate even before the pandemic, even before stuff and whatever. 00:18:01.190 --> 00:18:03.830 They were like, you know, but there are certain roles that, yes, 00:18:03.910 --> 00:18:05.150 they have said that they want them 00:18:05.150 --> 00:18:08.930 in the office and certain things and consolidated some in certain places. 00:18:09.110 --> 00:18:13.810 But they're like, look, I mean, you know, field people covering multiple geographies, 00:18:13.930 --> 00:18:15.950 like based in whatever. I'm like, what are we doing? 00:18:16.110 --> 00:18:18.950 I mean, you're going to the office to do what exactly? 00:18:19.310 --> 00:18:21.510 Your boss isn't even there. What the hell are we doing? 00:18:22.170 --> 00:18:22.290 Right. 00:18:22.290 --> 00:18:25.090 So that that's that that's been like so they've been 00:18:25.090 --> 00:18:27.930 pragmatic about that i haven't heard 00:18:27.930 --> 00:18:30.830 anything about that's gonna make a a change in 00:18:30.830 --> 00:18:33.830 that at any time soon we don't have an office anywhere to go to anyway 00:18:33.830 --> 00:18:36.810 unless they get they close they shut it down so it's 00:18:36.810 --> 00:18:39.970 not like i mean there was but if they 00:18:39.970 --> 00:18:43.410 told me to go back to the office every day there was an office that was like 00:18:43.410 --> 00:18:47.250 in a reasonable distance that would have been convenient to go daily that i 00:18:47.250 --> 00:18:50.470 would have been like okay i i can figure that out it's fine no big deal but 00:18:50.470 --> 00:18:57.050 they closed it down two years ago so i mean so that you know i mean if. 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:00.860 Well, we had a couple of snow days here this week. 00:19:01.160 --> 00:19:06.980 So got to work from home, which instantly like means, oh, you know, 00:19:07.760 --> 00:19:11.920 two days this week, didn't have the commute, actually probably got more work 00:19:11.920 --> 00:19:13.560 done than I would have otherwise. 00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:17.880 You know, it was nice, I guess. 00:19:19.820 --> 00:19:21.600 How full is the office right now? 00:19:21.900 --> 00:19:25.600 Oh, it's getting so it's actually full now. It's getting so it's actually full. 00:19:25.600 --> 00:19:29.320 Like if you want to grab a conference room, it's hard to find one now. 00:19:29.660 --> 00:19:35.020 If you, there are people in the hallways, there are, you know, 00:19:35.200 --> 00:19:39.400 I have, you know, I think I've said before on this show, like I tend not to 00:19:39.400 --> 00:19:44.100 sit at my proper desk because I just don't like it. 00:19:44.500 --> 00:19:48.960 Well, you know, look, look, honestly, the issue and my entire time working has 00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:53.160 been like this, at least at my current employer, which is over 19 years now. 00:19:53.860 --> 00:19:54.680 Oh my God. 00:19:54.840 --> 00:20:00.160 Yeah. At the beginning, we had personal two-person offices. 00:20:00.560 --> 00:20:05.820 So we had an actual office with doors and walls and two people per. 00:20:06.180 --> 00:20:10.640 And as long as I got along with my office mate, that was fine. 00:20:11.020 --> 00:20:14.040 I had no issue with that. I sat in my office a lot. 00:20:15.560 --> 00:20:18.040 But either when... 00:20:19.500 --> 00:20:22.300 You guys went to an open plan? No more offices? 00:20:22.300 --> 00:20:26.960 Well, eventually they went to open plans and only managers had offices. 00:20:28.740 --> 00:20:33.760 And, you know, and even before then, sometimes when it's like I didn't have 00:20:33.760 --> 00:20:38.160 the best relationship with my office mate, I would do this. But once we went open plan. 00:20:39.010 --> 00:20:44.870 Almost all the time, I was wandering around trying to find the common areas 00:20:44.870 --> 00:20:48.650 where they have like couches and comfy chairs and stuff like that. 00:20:48.790 --> 00:20:51.270 Those are good. And since they have them there, that's good. 00:20:51.890 --> 00:20:55.510 Every office tends to have at least a few spaces like that. 00:20:55.570 --> 00:20:58.170 Well, that's good to have those, you know, at least. Yeah. 00:20:58.290 --> 00:21:03.450 And that's usually where I would go. Like my criteria for actually feeling comfortable 00:21:03.450 --> 00:21:09.690 sitting down and working is I like to have my feet up as opposed to just be 00:21:09.690 --> 00:21:10.950 sitting in a stiff position. 00:21:11.130 --> 00:21:14.690 It depends what I'm doing, but I like to have my feet up. So I like to have 00:21:14.690 --> 00:21:17.690 a footstool or whatever that I can put my feet up. 00:21:17.970 --> 00:21:21.850 I don't like having people around me. I'm sorry. 00:21:22.030 --> 00:21:29.450 I like to find a space where the next closest person isn't like right next to me. 00:21:30.130 --> 00:21:32.970 And and and honestly yeah i don't what i 00:21:32.970 --> 00:21:35.730 don't like the feel of having somebody sitting where they can 00:21:35.730 --> 00:21:38.630 see over my shoulder all the time okay and it's 00:21:38.630 --> 00:21:41.310 not you know and and yes i do sometimes check the 00:21:41.310 --> 00:21:46.590 news yes i do but it's not like that my primary concern is oh my god they're 00:21:46.590 --> 00:21:50.330 going to check and they're going to see over my shoulder that i'm not doing 00:21:50.330 --> 00:21:53.530 work i have to have one of those hot keys to bring up the fake spreadsheet or 00:21:53.530 --> 00:21:59.790 whatever no no it's it's not that it's just I feel self-conscious in a way, 00:22:00.030 --> 00:22:06.410 like whenever there's people just hovering and that can see exactly what you're doing second by second. 00:22:06.650 --> 00:22:10.410 Cause you know, I, I will be productive over the course of the whole day, 00:22:10.430 --> 00:22:13.970 but I don't want to feel like, like I have to watch. 00:22:14.150 --> 00:22:17.490 Yeah. I don't want to feel like I'm being watched and I can't like flip to the 00:22:17.490 --> 00:22:21.370 other window for 10 seconds without somebody questioning it and all that kind of stuff. 00:22:21.770 --> 00:22:26.390 And so those are the spaces I feel comfortable in. And even there, 00:22:26.630 --> 00:22:32.290 like at my office now, it's getting harder to find spaces that meet that criteria 00:22:32.290 --> 00:22:35.290 because there are more people, especially at lunchtime. 00:22:35.760 --> 00:22:39.580 You know, because, hey, everybody's using those open spaces for lunch. 00:22:39.640 --> 00:22:42.540 Now I typically don't eat lunch at lunchtime. 00:22:42.680 --> 00:22:47.700 So I still want to work during that time. So that that's been problematic for me. 00:22:47.940 --> 00:22:53.260 But, you know, and also like I'm now the person who sits closest to where I, 00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:58.180 my official desk is, is now actually somebody I do work with. 00:22:58.520 --> 00:23:01.620 That had not been the case really previously. So 00:23:01.620 --> 00:23:04.980 I do have stuff to talk to them occasionally so i've 00:23:04.980 --> 00:23:07.820 spent a little bit more time at my actual desk than i 00:23:07.820 --> 00:23:10.600 would have otherwise and also lately i've been 00:23:10.600 --> 00:23:13.400 doing the other time i stay at my desk is if 00:23:13.400 --> 00:23:17.000 i'm doing something specifically where having bigger multiple 00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:19.800 screens would be helpful like because if i'm 00:23:19.800 --> 00:23:22.940 sitting at one of those comfy chairs i just have my laptop screen and 00:23:22.940 --> 00:23:26.020 that's all yeah yeah and and for lots of things that's absolutely 00:23:26.020 --> 00:23:30.740 fine i don't mind i don't mind the ergonomics of it i don't mind working on 00:23:30.740 --> 00:23:36.140 the laptop keyboard and the laptop screen on my actual lap it's fine but there's 00:23:36.140 --> 00:23:39.120 certain things like you know this last week i've been doing something where 00:23:39.120 --> 00:23:44.320 i've been trying to refactor this big like this this big like, 00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:51.000 document full of information okay and i'm trying to restructure it into a new 00:23:51.000 --> 00:23:55.500 new format that makes it easier to see what the hell is going on and so i've 00:23:55.500 --> 00:23:58.940 got these two things i'm copying and pasting me in between them and looking yeah you. 00:23:58.940 --> 00:24:00.480 Would two screens would would be. 00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:03.540 So two screens is very helpful in that situation two 00:24:03.540 --> 00:24:06.760 large screens is very helpful in that situation so i've 00:24:06.760 --> 00:24:11.520 been sitting more at my desk to do that you know and also like if you know i 00:24:11.520 --> 00:24:16.620 was gonna say like at home if i'm having a conference call where i'm going to 00:24:16.620 --> 00:24:20.140 be going over a document as well as needing to see what the people are saying 00:24:20.140 --> 00:24:24.260 and seeing their faces and stuff i always hook up to my multiple full screen setup at home. 00:24:24.540 --> 00:24:27.720 But at work, I actually don't. 00:24:28.300 --> 00:24:34.100 Because my desk is in the middle of everything and there's people around and 00:24:34.100 --> 00:24:35.960 it feels rude to have a call there. 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:41.920 So I go to a conference room or someplace private or one of those little phone booth things, 00:24:42.140 --> 00:24:46.400 unless there are more people that are also actually in the same building, 00:24:46.580 --> 00:24:49.660 in which case, okay, well, that's the conference room scenario we go we go to 00:24:49.660 --> 00:24:52.680 the conference room but even then i'm on my laptop again. 00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:54.020 Right so. 00:24:54.760 --> 00:24:57.760 Although in in those cases we have the big screens but. 00:24:57.760 --> 00:25:02.800 So i got i i am now because i got that new ipad pro a couple of months ago which 00:25:02.800 --> 00:25:07.520 i i have to admit that now that i've got that new ipad pro i am definitely using 00:25:07.520 --> 00:25:16.100 my ipad way way way way way way more than i used to be doing okay all right I have noticed, 00:25:16.260 --> 00:25:18.620 holy shit, I am like now, like, just, just, 00:25:19.350 --> 00:25:23.370 gravitating to using this iPad a lot more than I expected. But one of the good 00:25:23.370 --> 00:25:26.890 things is that I carry it, you know, when I'm traveling together with my laptop, 00:25:27.170 --> 00:25:28.570 and so I can use it as a second screen. 00:25:29.230 --> 00:25:33.270 So when I go to, because we do have an office in San Juan where I've been traveling 00:25:33.270 --> 00:25:35.350 a lot, and I will go there to a desk, 00:25:35.510 --> 00:25:40.510 I can, you know, put down my laptop and like connect to the iPad and basically 00:25:40.510 --> 00:25:45.110 have my two screens right there like handy while traveling. So that's definitely been. 00:25:45.110 --> 00:25:46.050 I haven't that was. 00:25:46.050 --> 00:25:48.490 A true of my old ipad but but this. 00:25:48.490 --> 00:25:49.490 Was you know but. 00:25:49.490 --> 00:25:52.610 It was slower this is working a lot better yes. 00:25:52.610 --> 00:25:59.570 So like to to i don't know i i guess i'm done with the worst you got me distracted 00:25:59.570 --> 00:26:04.970 onto the ipad thing the other on ipads i keep thinking these days like do i 00:26:04.970 --> 00:26:08.850 want an ipad again and so i had. 00:26:08.850 --> 00:26:10.650 To let me i had debated about. 00:26:10.650 --> 00:26:13.610 So let me let me tell you my problem with the 00:26:13.610 --> 00:26:16.570 do I want an iPad again thing is how 00:26:16.570 --> 00:26:20.550 that thought process goes to me is okay 00:26:20.550 --> 00:26:24.350 I think I want an iPad again maybe 00:26:24.350 --> 00:26:27.430 but I don't need like the 00:26:27.430 --> 00:26:31.270 high-end iPad Pro sure I 00:26:31.270 --> 00:26:35.970 don't even know for sure I'm going to use the damn thing so maybe I'll 00:26:35.970 --> 00:26:39.390 just buy the absolute bottom end iPad like the 00:26:39.390 --> 00:26:42.130 cheapest ones like 350 or something it's not 00:26:42.130 --> 00:26:44.970 that expensive i could go do that and and then 00:26:44.970 --> 00:26:47.850 just see if i use it and then if i use it 00:26:47.850 --> 00:26:51.230 and and i'm like then maybe i consider upgrading 00:26:51.230 --> 00:26:54.110 in a year or something but then then i go 00:26:54.110 --> 00:26:57.250 look at the bottom end ipad and i'm 00:26:57.250 --> 00:27:00.050 like it's shit well then it's fair not 00:27:00.050 --> 00:27:06.830 but yeah it's then then you hit apple's famous ladder of their products yes 00:27:06.830 --> 00:27:12.930 because i'm like well looking at this bottom and ipad it's but it's only a hundred 00:27:12.930 --> 00:27:17.130 bucks more for this one that's a lot nicer that it's a that and then you add 00:27:17.130 --> 00:27:18.250 the memory and that's another. 00:27:18.250 --> 00:27:23.490 Hundred bucks then you add the cell that's another fifth yeah yeah this just starts. 00:27:23.490 --> 00:27:27.930 The next thing you know you've got a fully loaded ipad pro Exactly. 00:27:29.770 --> 00:27:35.250 You know, and then I'm like, you know, I could, I could justify 350 for this. 00:27:35.450 --> 00:27:38.690 I'm not going to justify 1500 bucks or whatever. 00:27:38.990 --> 00:27:42.250 And so I ended up not doing anything, you know, but here. 00:27:42.290 --> 00:27:46.950 But here is a thing though. But now, because I, you know, went the way that 00:27:46.950 --> 00:27:51.430 I got a Mac studio because I wanted to have a desktop still regardless. 00:27:51.570 --> 00:27:53.850 You have your laptop. Do you take your laptop to the office? 00:27:54.570 --> 00:27:56.010 Oh, my personal laptop? No. 00:27:56.150 --> 00:27:56.290 Yeah. 00:27:56.650 --> 00:28:01.870 I mean, I have my work laptop, obviously. But the only times I've ever taken 00:28:01.870 --> 00:28:07.870 my personal laptop to the office are when I, like, during election season when 00:28:07.870 --> 00:28:11.410 I knew I was going to take lunch off and do some election graphs during lunch. 00:28:11.570 --> 00:28:12.430 Okay. Okay. 00:28:12.510 --> 00:28:15.230 That's the only time I've done that because I've been hesitant. 00:28:15.550 --> 00:28:17.410 I mean, I've done it a few times anyway. 00:28:17.830 --> 00:28:21.110 But I'm hesitant to do that kind of stuff on my work laptop. 00:28:21.410 --> 00:28:26.390 Like, I like to keep personal and work separate. So like, but that's been very rare. 00:28:26.490 --> 00:28:30.350 I think I've done it like twice ever where I've brought my personal laptop to work. 00:28:30.610 --> 00:28:36.710 Now, what I do all the time is like right now, as we're recording this podcast, I'm in my office. 00:28:36.910 --> 00:28:41.130 My laptop is hooked up to three 27 inch screens and a bunch of external hard 00:28:41.130 --> 00:28:45.450 drives through a dock and a full size keyboard, mouse, et cetera, et cetera. 00:28:45.450 --> 00:28:52.890 But I find myself now regularly multiple times per week, undocking the laptop 00:28:52.890 --> 00:28:54.770 and working on it in the couch and the living room. 00:28:55.030 --> 00:29:01.010 You know, I do that all the time, all the time, you know, because I can I can 00:29:01.010 --> 00:29:06.210 sort of hang out there like my son's watching TV or something or I put on the 00:29:06.210 --> 00:29:09.290 news on the on the projector screen and blah, blah, blah. 00:29:09.890 --> 00:29:13.330 You know, I do that all the time. but you 00:29:13.330 --> 00:29:16.030 know and and look i have honest questions of like 00:29:16.030 --> 00:29:18.850 how often would i use the ipad that's the problem if i 00:29:18.850 --> 00:29:21.830 knew for sure i would use it all the time then that's 00:29:21.830 --> 00:29:24.730 a different story but like i'm not sure 00:29:24.730 --> 00:29:32.330 like because last time i had an ipad i sort of slowly used it less before it 00:29:32.330 --> 00:29:39.990 got too old and died anyway um and i've got the the the pro max size phone now 00:29:39.990 --> 00:29:41.990 which is good for lots of stuff. 00:29:42.370 --> 00:29:47.130 So I don't know. And, and like, you know, I, I feel like if I got, 00:29:47.290 --> 00:29:50.410 if I did get an iPad again, at some point I would get the, the medium, 00:29:50.590 --> 00:29:54.530 like I wouldn't get an iPad mini and I wouldn't get like the 13 inch size. 00:29:54.530 --> 00:29:56.810 I'd get like the 11 inch size, the, the in between. 00:29:57.970 --> 00:30:02.970 And you know, I feel like I would use it for some things, but I'm not sure I'd 00:30:02.970 --> 00:30:06.870 use it for a lot, which is why I was, I'm like, 00:30:07.610 --> 00:30:11.790 You know, maybe one of the cheap ones. But then again, I hit that lot. 00:30:11.790 --> 00:30:14.190 The thing is, the reason I need it is because of my travel. 00:30:14.490 --> 00:30:15.570 I don't have that. 00:30:16.070 --> 00:30:19.630 Exactly. I needed to get it because of my damn travel. 00:30:19.950 --> 00:30:26.850 I've gone so much, I don't want to be doing personal shit on my work computer, okay? At all. 00:30:27.350 --> 00:30:31.690 Okay. I don't want to avoid it. You know, I maybe get some message or something, 00:30:31.810 --> 00:30:35.690 but I don't do personal shit on my work computer. 00:30:35.970 --> 00:30:40.590 I mean, you know. As we have discussed many times before, keeping those things 00:30:40.590 --> 00:30:46.090 as separate as possible is really smart, and it's dumb not to. 00:30:46.350 --> 00:30:47.530 It's dumb not to. 00:30:47.590 --> 00:30:53.750 And, you know, I admit I'm not perfect on that. You know, I've sort of slipped over time. 00:30:54.370 --> 00:30:59.450 I slip, like, sometimes it's rarely, okay, I need to do something, I'll use my laptop. 00:30:59.610 --> 00:31:05.170 But there is some incidental usage, which I know with the company is perfectly 00:31:05.170 --> 00:31:08.470 fine. But I just don't, you know, I make a rule to not do it. 00:31:08.630 --> 00:31:12.790 It's just sometimes, you know, maybe I've logged on to an airline website. 00:31:12.790 --> 00:31:16.270 I needed to do it and I had the laptop right there and I needed to check on 00:31:16.270 --> 00:31:19.350 something, for example, or something like that. But I'm not reading news. 00:31:19.550 --> 00:31:22.490 I'm not, you know, I'm not doing stuff. Or maybe I'll, you know, 00:31:22.690 --> 00:31:24.870 I'm not accessing my bank. 00:31:24.990 --> 00:31:27.910 I'm not, you know, yeah, I'm not doing any of that stuff. 00:31:28.370 --> 00:31:31.670 Yeah, so I probably do a little bit more than I should. But anyway, 00:31:31.990 --> 00:31:35.450 okay, we should move on to our real topic. 00:31:35.550 --> 00:31:39.690 I did want to say one additional thing first. Well, two, two. 00:31:41.450 --> 00:31:43.590 First, Pete, Greg, and Ed, I 00:31:43.590 --> 00:31:49.250 suck. I still have not done your postcards or sent the mug. I will do it. 00:31:49.490 --> 00:31:53.210 We're going to cut his salary like as soon as we can. 00:31:53.610 --> 00:31:58.610 Yeah, so Pete and Greg, I owe doing a postcard and then sending the postcard 00:31:58.610 --> 00:32:02.470 to Yvonne so Yvonne can add his stuff and send it to you. Ed, I owe you a mug. 00:32:03.510 --> 00:32:08.650 Someday, someday. Also, last week with Bruce, I mentioned that I'm near to the 00:32:08.650 --> 00:32:12.390 point of ready to do media reviews again, and I was hoping to do one this week, 00:32:12.470 --> 00:32:16.070 but I didn't get, I didn't finish like logging my stuff. 00:32:16.090 --> 00:32:18.770 So I'm not ready to do that yet. Maybe next week. We'll see. 00:32:19.250 --> 00:32:24.550 And that is it. Shall we take a break, Yvonne, and then come back and talk about our more newsy stuff? 00:32:24.870 --> 00:32:26.970 Breaky, breaky, breaky, breaky. 00:32:27.470 --> 00:32:28.710 Breaky, breaky, breaky. 00:32:31.030 --> 00:32:31.870 Okay, here we go. 00:33:08.160 --> 00:33:14.040 Okay, on the AlexEmslow.com subject for a second, there are new videos this 00:33:14.040 --> 00:33:15.840 week that have been posted, 00:33:16.160 --> 00:33:25.760 one of which was posted on February 6th about a snow day from a previous February 00:33:25.760 --> 00:33:28.340 6th exactly eight years ago. 00:33:28.340 --> 00:33:33.980 So Alex made sure to edit the video of him and I playing in the snow from eight 00:33:33.980 --> 00:33:41.080 years ago and made sure to schedule the posting to be exactly eight years after 00:33:41.080 --> 00:33:43.240 the damn thing was recorded. Wow. 00:33:43.720 --> 00:33:47.500 And I will add to that. We had snow this week. 00:33:47.600 --> 00:33:54.140 So we went out in the snow also exactly eight years from that previous video. 00:33:54.140 --> 00:33:56.920 in fact the video posted while we were 00:33:56.920 --> 00:34:00.520 outside playing in the snow again and not 00:34:00.520 --> 00:34:04.160 only that he he had us do activities 00:34:04.160 --> 00:34:06.880 to recreate what we had 00:34:06.880 --> 00:34:10.680 done in the video eight years previously now that 00:34:10.680 --> 00:34:13.420 was all of course recorded on video which will 00:34:13.420 --> 00:34:16.300 be probably be published i doubt in another 00:34:16.300 --> 00:34:19.260 eight years at the pace he's going but maybe if 00:34:19.260 --> 00:34:22.240 you're lucky it will be out in another 50 years if 00:34:22.240 --> 00:34:25.240 you come back and you know check in at that point 00:34:25.240 --> 00:34:28.000 while when alex is retired and catching up 00:34:28.000 --> 00:34:31.760 in that stuff and we're long dead you know 00:34:31.760 --> 00:34:34.900 but good lord but anyway and also 00:34:34.900 --> 00:34:38.760 also i will add he convinced 00:34:38.760 --> 00:34:42.120 me to post on my own youtube channel 00:34:42.120 --> 00:34:46.200 not the curmudgeon's corner but a 00:34:46.200 --> 00:34:53.240 very embarrassing video of me singing and dancing along to stuff on the apple 00:34:53.240 --> 00:35:00.920 tv including the very famous song hamster dance you know on uh on my youtube 00:35:00.920 --> 00:35:05.820 channel it's six minutes long and uh it sounds and. 00:35:09.780 --> 00:35:13.560 And I am neither a good singer nor a good dancer. 00:35:14.180 --> 00:35:21.200 I make some motions that in retrospect are, are regrettable. 00:35:21.820 --> 00:35:26.440 Some of which involved the dog, some of which involved a stuffed animal. 00:35:28.020 --> 00:35:29.980 And so, okay. 00:35:30.600 --> 00:35:37.260 Anyway, it's out there. So yeah, that's, that's, that's, Okay, so, Yvonne. 00:35:37.700 --> 00:35:41.680 You know, I'm going to give a data point, like right now. 00:35:41.880 --> 00:35:46.220 Great news for Donald Trump, according to the RCP average. 00:35:46.460 --> 00:35:48.080 Oh, yeah. His approval rating? 00:35:48.440 --> 00:35:52.900 Oh, yeah. The favorable, unfavorable. I have never seen anybody. 00:35:53.280 --> 00:35:59.540 Oh, no. It's actually, yeah, he, I guess it's, it's. 00:36:00.620 --> 00:36:04.880 Actually, I guess it's improved. But compared to... 00:36:05.420 --> 00:36:10.020 I'm looking at the polls that are there. I'm noticing there's a big one with 00:36:10.020 --> 00:36:13.160 a plus 10. He seems to be sliding back the other way. 00:36:14.200 --> 00:36:20.780 I don't think I've ever seen a slide from... Because he came in with an approval, 00:36:21.300 --> 00:36:24.080 positive approval at this point. 00:36:24.220 --> 00:36:29.840 But I think that he will go down. So given where it is, like right now, 00:36:30.180 --> 00:36:31.880 he's going down quite quick. 00:36:34.240 --> 00:36:37.960 So, yeah, he's at, it says plus 3.4. 00:36:38.140 --> 00:36:43.020 But RCP has very few. There's been very little of this. I saw it 538. 00:36:43.280 --> 00:36:46.840 What's interesting, too, is usually they do favorability for people who are 00:36:46.840 --> 00:36:50.940 out of office and they do approval rating for people who are in office. 00:36:51.320 --> 00:36:57.140 I've noticed 538 has a page up for approval ratings, but it's his last term. 00:36:57.240 --> 00:36:59.120 they don't have one up for this term. 00:36:59.300 --> 00:37:02.320 No, no, no. There is one in 538 for his term. 00:37:02.560 --> 00:37:06.300 Oh, yeah. I just flipped to it. I just flipped to it. It's got very few, though. 00:37:06.860 --> 00:37:10.560 It's got very few. It's got very few. They don't have a graph yet. 00:37:10.680 --> 00:37:11.840 The other thing they had... 00:37:11.840 --> 00:37:12.740 No, there's a graph. 00:37:12.900 --> 00:37:15.540 I see it right here. No, no, no. Sorry. They have that graph. 00:37:15.760 --> 00:37:22.440 What I meant, on previous ones, they had comparison graphs for all the other presidents. 00:37:22.440 --> 00:37:24.440 All the other presidents. Yes, yes, yes. 00:37:24.680 --> 00:37:29.160 And they don't have that up yet. Like they had a little chart at the bottom 00:37:29.160 --> 00:37:31.340 where you could look at comparison. 00:37:31.340 --> 00:37:35.020 There was one that showed that he's his, you know, yeah, he's. 00:37:36.620 --> 00:37:43.720 But the average there is still at a, you know, approval 49% disapproved 44.2. It's still positive. 00:37:43.820 --> 00:37:44.060 It's still positive. 00:37:44.520 --> 00:37:46.480 Which, if you flip that. 00:37:46.540 --> 00:37:50.580 I think the one thing compared, like, Biden, when he came in into the last term, 00:37:50.740 --> 00:37:52.560 his positive was, like, plus 22. 00:37:53.220 --> 00:37:57.820 So he started off with a plus four. Not exactly a... 00:37:59.040 --> 00:38:03.600 Well, he started out at plus eight. He's down to a plus four already after three weeks. 00:38:03.960 --> 00:38:05.380 Okay, yeah. Right. 00:38:05.380 --> 00:38:11.180 Sorry, let me not round. Plus 8.2 initially is now plus 4.8. 00:38:11.760 --> 00:38:14.140 So closer to 5 than 4. But yeah. 00:38:14.520 --> 00:38:15.520 It's only been two weeks. 00:38:16.060 --> 00:38:17.800 Three. Well, almost three. Almost three. 00:38:17.820 --> 00:38:18.320 Almost three. 00:38:18.900 --> 00:38:19.440 Two and a half. 00:38:19.560 --> 00:38:26.820 It feels like three years. Fuck. Jesus Christ. What are we going to talk about? Do I got to choose? 00:38:27.060 --> 00:38:31.240 You choose first. If you want me to choose first, I can choose first. 00:38:31.760 --> 00:38:37.760 You know? It's okay. I mean, look, one easy way to divide it, if you wanted to. 00:38:37.980 --> 00:38:38.900 Okay, all right, go ahead. 00:38:39.140 --> 00:38:42.740 Well, first of all, we could try to avoid Trump entirely, but that's hard. 00:38:43.020 --> 00:38:47.060 But if we're going to do Trump stuff, we could divide it into things he's actually 00:38:47.060 --> 00:38:51.180 been doing, and then the reaction to it. Could be a separate segment. 00:38:51.380 --> 00:38:58.780 Or we could pick specific things. Like we could talk about tariffs or immigration 00:38:58.780 --> 00:39:04.400 or, or Elon Musk going into all the agencies or something like that. 00:39:04.640 --> 00:39:06.940 I don't know. What do you want to do? 00:39:07.620 --> 00:39:13.140 You know, this is the kind of stuff that like other people would like plan before 00:39:13.140 --> 00:39:17.360 we start, but no, for us. No, no. We're doing it live. 00:39:18.260 --> 00:39:23.840 Yeah, we're doing it live. Um, well, uh, 00:39:24.900 --> 00:39:30.960 Well, let's talk about, I guess, I think the number one thing right now is what 00:39:30.960 --> 00:39:36.380 is going on with the government, the federal employees in the government. Okay. All right. 00:39:36.640 --> 00:39:40.680 And, and, and Doge in general and what they're, what they're trying to do. 00:39:40.880 --> 00:39:46.080 This is, it's, it's, well, the first thing that they, they did, 00:39:46.240 --> 00:39:49.720 which they've been pushing hard, which all of a sudden a federal judge actually 00:39:49.720 --> 00:39:52.480 blocked a couple of days ago. 00:39:52.480 --> 00:39:56.320 Since the beginning, I had said, by the way, that the strategy, 00:39:56.500 --> 00:40:02.200 and I'd shared a link to one group that has been opposing legally many of these 00:40:02.200 --> 00:40:03.140 things that are happening, 00:40:03.880 --> 00:40:08.820 that number one strategy is to just start suing for everything. Okay, all right. 00:40:09.100 --> 00:40:13.540 This is the only good tactic that's available, like, right now, 00:40:13.580 --> 00:40:18.900 is to fucking drag them into court. 00:40:18.900 --> 00:40:23.460 Quick tangent here, and maybe we'll talk more about this later, maybe not. 00:40:23.600 --> 00:40:27.440 But I just want to say, how people... 00:40:28.480 --> 00:40:33.100 There's been so many criticisms about how people are reacting. 00:40:33.540 --> 00:40:37.320 And we did ourselves, like two weeks ago when we were talking about here, 00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:41.800 we were talking about how the only Democrat who's responding well is AOC, 00:40:41.980 --> 00:40:43.740 blah, blah, blah, in terms of communications. 00:40:44.080 --> 00:40:44.240 Yeah. 00:40:45.120 --> 00:40:49.120 And I feel that's true. And maybe the Democrats have stepped up a little bit 00:40:49.120 --> 00:40:51.700 in the last week or so in a way they hadn't before. 00:40:52.020 --> 00:40:56.900 But still, it's improving communications. And I hear lots of people going, 00:40:57.100 --> 00:40:59.100 why aren't you doing anything? 00:40:59.420 --> 00:41:05.500 Why aren't you doing it? And I'm like, look, because you didn't vote them control of anything. 00:41:05.720 --> 00:41:06.560 Thing, right. 00:41:06.720 --> 00:41:11.640 There's, you know, basically, look, there's two things you can make noise. 00:41:11.800 --> 00:41:15.760 You can't even drag them. You can't even subpoena them to drag them into hearings. 00:41:16.020 --> 00:41:20.260 You can't do anything. So there's communication strategy. You can make noise. 00:41:20.260 --> 00:41:24.820 And so I hear people saying, oh, no, are you going to send them a sternly worded letter? 00:41:25.020 --> 00:41:27.560 Well, fuck, that's about all they can do. I'm sorry. 00:41:28.200 --> 00:41:34.420 Now, there's a bit more like you can be more effective in the communication 00:41:34.420 --> 00:41:36.440 than a sternly worded letter. 00:41:36.700 --> 00:41:41.440 You can you can do performative event. You can do protests, performative events. 00:41:41.440 --> 00:41:46.920 People have pointed out that in the Congress, you can pull out every possible 00:41:46.920 --> 00:41:51.420 procedural delay tactic you possibly can. 00:41:51.580 --> 00:41:55.200 You may not be able to stop things, but you can slow things down. 00:41:55.980 --> 00:42:00.720 And you can also choose to just oppose everything. 00:42:00.960 --> 00:42:04.100 Like the McConnell style, just make everything fail. 00:42:04.680 --> 00:42:09.720 Like, as opposed to, like, there's still a strand of the Democrats of, 00:42:09.980 --> 00:42:14.940 oh, well, let's find places where we can do bipartisan cooperation. Oh, fuck this shit. 00:42:15.140 --> 00:42:16.200 No, fuck this. 00:42:16.460 --> 00:42:21.700 You know, you've got certain Democrats voting for nominees and stuff like that. 00:42:21.820 --> 00:42:25.320 This ad has just, you know, fuck that shit. 00:42:25.940 --> 00:42:26.380 Yeah. 00:42:26.600 --> 00:42:26.700 No. 00:42:27.060 --> 00:42:27.880 I mean, but yeah. 00:42:28.080 --> 00:42:30.060 This has to be right now scorched earth. 00:42:30.600 --> 00:42:36.380 Yes. Yeah, I don't. Every time I see one of those where it's like some set, 00:42:36.520 --> 00:42:41.280 you know, some some one of his nominees, instead of being a party line vote, 00:42:41.600 --> 00:42:43.260 has like 60 votes or something. 00:42:43.440 --> 00:42:45.660 I'm like, what the fuck are those Democrats doing? 00:42:45.980 --> 00:42:46.160 Right. 00:42:46.320 --> 00:42:52.460 I don't care if it's a sort of normie. I don't care if it's and Rubio was nearly unanimous. 00:42:52.580 --> 00:42:56.720 You know, I don't care if he was a formal former senator and fairly normal, 00:42:57.000 --> 00:43:00.740 like oppose, oppose, oppose be a damn opposition. 00:43:02.360 --> 00:43:05.340 But but yeah, so you can do more of those kinds of things. 00:43:05.460 --> 00:43:10.620 But otherwise, the main thing that's possible right now is lawsuits. 00:43:11.420 --> 00:43:15.080 And there are all sorts of groups which you were about to talk about. 00:43:15.180 --> 00:43:18.380 And I'll let you get back to in a second who are doing lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits. 00:43:18.500 --> 00:43:21.940 but and they you 00:43:21.940 --> 00:43:24.780 know they'll probably a bunch of them go up to scotus and who knows what 00:43:24.780 --> 00:43:27.640 will happen there given the current supreme court uh it probably 00:43:27.640 --> 00:43:30.660 depends on the issue but that those are 00:43:30.660 --> 00:43:38.060 the things right now the things that democrats can do are make noise slow things 00:43:38.060 --> 00:43:45.040 down a little bit in legislator in the legislature states blue states can oppose 00:43:45.040 --> 00:43:49.280 in various ways and lawsuits And that's really it. 00:43:49.420 --> 00:43:52.700 So the people who are going like, why aren't you doing something? 00:43:52.880 --> 00:43:56.320 Why aren't you doing something? You're acting like everything is normal and 00:43:56.320 --> 00:44:01.900 you're just running for 2026 instead of like you're doing something. 00:44:02.040 --> 00:44:04.260 It's like, well, you didn't give them the House. 00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:07.380 You didn't give them the Senate. You didn't give them the presidency. 00:44:07.700 --> 00:44:13.200 The Supreme Court is 6-3 conservative majority. What the hell do you want them to do? 00:44:13.480 --> 00:44:13.940 Right. 00:44:13.940 --> 00:44:20.740 You know, and I know some of them are like, let's have a revolution already, but like, come on. 00:44:22.650 --> 00:44:24.630 Things, you know, well. 00:44:24.730 --> 00:44:29.990 A revolution when, okay, look, those go south. No, no, no, it's not that the 00:44:29.990 --> 00:44:34.370 problem is, it's not that it's that look, the majority of people, 00:44:34.390 --> 00:44:39.430 I know that we've had this discussion for a few times on, on our Slack. 00:44:39.970 --> 00:44:43.270 Oh no, it was still whether it, because people are saying this was stolen. 00:44:43.510 --> 00:44:46.910 This is whatever. And I'm like, listen, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to say this, 00:44:46.990 --> 00:44:51.870 but the vote, the majority of fucking people that went to vote, 00:44:51.870 --> 00:44:57.450 even when you take into account all of this shit and whatever, whatnot voted for this. 00:44:57.770 --> 00:44:58.230 Yep. 00:44:58.490 --> 00:45:03.110 That's the reality. Narrowly, but yes, narrowly, but they did. 00:45:03.390 --> 00:45:03.770 Yes. 00:45:03.870 --> 00:45:10.870 This is what they fucking voted for. You know, you, you. 00:45:10.990 --> 00:45:16.270 So you do also get, I mean, and I, I enjoy watching these videos as much as 00:45:16.270 --> 00:45:17.650 anybody, but I don't know. 00:45:17.870 --> 00:45:20.850 I don't think any significant numbers are changing their minds yet, 00:45:21.370 --> 00:45:26.430 But you get videos of these, you know, they're calling them to fuck around and find out videos, right? 00:45:26.610 --> 00:45:32.030 Where it's like some Trump voter who now is already within the first three weeks 00:45:32.030 --> 00:45:36.130 suffering consequences from the fact that Donald Trump is in charge. 00:45:36.130 --> 00:45:39.650 the most I've seen several with 00:45:39.650 --> 00:45:44.050 people who are being rounded up by immigration services or their family members 00:45:44.050 --> 00:45:48.610 are the most recent one that's been going around are a couple of farmers who 00:45:48.610 --> 00:45:53.070 were reliant on aid that has been frozen by Musk and his company and are like 00:45:53.070 --> 00:45:58.610 I'm going to lose my fucking farm and it's like well sorry dude listen they the. 00:45:58.610 --> 00:46:02.650 One thing is but but I do think that one of the things that's very interesting 00:46:02.650 --> 00:46:08.290 about all these videos is that these people you know these people are upset 00:46:08.290 --> 00:46:11.170 because they took away something from them directly. 00:46:11.170 --> 00:46:14.190 Yes yes and i know it's all. 00:46:14.190 --> 00:46:16.950 About the selfish prick vote. 00:46:16.950 --> 00:46:19.810 Okay and i've seen a few videos calling this out as 00:46:19.810 --> 00:46:22.730 well including one you shared on the questions corner slack yvonne but 00:46:22.730 --> 00:46:25.610 others as well that all of this and 00:46:25.610 --> 00:46:28.410 this comes back to the core issue of 00:46:28.410 --> 00:46:31.670 empathy which i think underlies a 00:46:31.670 --> 00:46:34.870 lot of american politics right now is there's 00:46:34.870 --> 00:46:38.570 just apparently half of the voting public who can't 00:46:38.570 --> 00:46:45.030 understand empathy every every decision is about well how will it affect me 00:46:45.030 --> 00:46:51.930 and if it if it's not them it doesn't even cross their mind like oh this is 00:46:51.930 --> 00:46:58.450 gonna screw this other group that i'm not a part of well why would i care about that you know not. 00:46:58.450 --> 00:47:03.310 Not just why do i care about that i hate that group because they're maybe taking something from me. 00:47:03.670 --> 00:47:09.230 Right. Whereas then all of a sudden on a whole bunch of these videos and like, 00:47:09.950 --> 00:47:14.290 and just, not just videos, I've seen stories about it in other places. 00:47:14.530 --> 00:47:16.330 You know, it's suddenly... 00:47:16.730 --> 00:47:19.130 The Trump policy is affecting them. 00:47:19.330 --> 00:47:19.590 Them. 00:47:20.090 --> 00:47:23.910 You know, directly or their family directly. And then they're like, 00:47:24.130 --> 00:47:27.170 oh, my God, this isn't what I voted for. 00:47:27.630 --> 00:47:31.230 And it's like, you didn't think it would be you, you jackass. 00:47:31.370 --> 00:47:32.330 Right. Yes. 00:47:32.670 --> 00:47:35.990 Like, there is not a single thing. 00:47:36.090 --> 00:47:39.890 They called you all by name and you didn't think it was going to be you. 00:47:40.230 --> 00:47:44.490 There's not a single thing Donald Trump has been doing so far that he did not 00:47:44.490 --> 00:47:46.550 completely telegraph during the campaign. 00:47:46.730 --> 00:47:47.350 Correct. 00:47:47.690 --> 00:47:52.870 Like, nobody should be surprised about a fucking thing. 00:47:53.690 --> 00:47:57.350 And, you know, I've heard people say, well, you know, I didn't have time to 00:47:57.350 --> 00:47:59.990 read all that stuff. I didn't have time to research it. 00:48:00.130 --> 00:48:03.790 Well, fuck you. You know, I'm sorry. 00:48:04.410 --> 00:48:06.530 Like, the information was out there. 00:48:06.810 --> 00:48:12.370 It was repeated over and over. And you said that the Democrats were all lying. 00:48:12.610 --> 00:48:16.230 Yes, that's the other thing. It's like, oh, you're lying. That's not true. 00:48:16.230 --> 00:48:18.710 He has nothing to do with Project 2025. 00:48:19.050 --> 00:48:23.850 None of that stuff is real. You know, he's, oh, he just says that. 00:48:24.030 --> 00:48:27.170 He's loud and blustery, but he won't actually do that. 00:48:27.490 --> 00:48:28.610 Right, right, right. 00:48:28.790 --> 00:48:32.190 He was president before and we were fine, you know? 00:48:32.270 --> 00:48:32.390 Right. 00:48:33.510 --> 00:48:39.770 So, anyway. So, back to Elon Musk. Lawsuits. Lawsuits are one of the ways that 00:48:39.770 --> 00:48:41.330 Democrats can actually fight right now. 00:48:42.230 --> 00:48:46.930 It's really the only good tool that they have at their disposal. 00:48:47.130 --> 00:48:51.690 It's the only thing that isn't just talk, essentially. It's the only thing. 00:48:51.790 --> 00:48:56.130 And it's the only one that has teeth in any way, shape, or form. 00:48:56.590 --> 00:49:03.210 And because as much as the reason is, when you get a court order like that, 00:49:03.370 --> 00:49:06.970 as much as people say, oh, man, they're just ignoring or whatever, listen. 00:49:07.690 --> 00:49:12.030 Ignoring it always has consequences, you know, down the road. 00:49:12.150 --> 00:49:14.710 You can't just, you know, it's hard. 00:49:15.950 --> 00:49:19.150 You know, it becomes hard. 00:49:19.470 --> 00:49:25.510 And so it does become hard. But I think one of the open questions that we're 00:49:25.510 --> 00:49:28.310 still in very early days is, 00:49:28.310 --> 00:49:36.690 does the Trump administration try to push these things hard in terms of ignoring and or just like 00:49:36.970 --> 00:49:43.130 trying to actively get around some of these court orders, you know, 00:49:44.030 --> 00:49:48.450 I think in some cases already, it seems like they've given lip service to the 00:49:48.450 --> 00:49:51.790 court order, changed a couple things, but then tried to keep doing it anyway 00:49:51.790 --> 00:49:56.250 in a different way, and then only to be slapped down again by the next court order. 00:49:56.690 --> 00:50:01.930 And the question is how hard they push. Do we ever get to that point where the 00:50:01.930 --> 00:50:06.430 Trump administration explicitly says, we're ignoring that? 00:50:07.530 --> 00:50:12.110 So far, no. So far, no. But I think that's what everybody's worried about, 00:50:12.210 --> 00:50:15.390 right? Because if you get to that point, then you have the true constitutional crisis. 00:50:16.110 --> 00:50:16.210 Yes. 00:50:16.810 --> 00:50:22.710 You know, and frankly, like I mentioned the 6-3 court before, 00:50:23.050 --> 00:50:27.090 there's a chance by the time this gets to the court, Trump will win a lot of 00:50:27.090 --> 00:50:29.570 these. The court has signaled. 00:50:29.710 --> 00:50:32.110 But actually, that's not true, Sam. 00:50:32.350 --> 00:50:32.630 Well, no. 00:50:33.130 --> 00:50:37.750 The reality is that a lot of these decisions that have not been about religious 00:50:37.750 --> 00:50:40.310 or faith or whatever stuff. 00:50:40.310 --> 00:50:46.890 The reason why many people were pissed off at this court right now is because 00:50:46.890 --> 00:50:50.290 you had Amy Coney Barrett, and they've been calling her a traitor, 00:50:50.530 --> 00:50:53.050 not voting for them on this shit. 00:50:53.250 --> 00:50:58.750 To be absolutely clear, I said they may win a lot of these, not all of them. 00:50:59.150 --> 00:51:03.270 And I think one of the things that they've explicitly said is part of their 00:51:03.270 --> 00:51:07.810 strategy is they want to throw tons and tons and tons of these into the court 00:51:07.810 --> 00:51:09.290 system, get them up to SCOTUS. 00:51:09.290 --> 00:51:15.470 and if there's 600 of them and they lose 500 and win 100 they're going to be 00:51:15.470 --> 00:51:17.890 happy with the 100 they won i. 00:51:17.890 --> 00:51:22.350 Don't know they but listen they had won like i don't know how many they lost one and they were pissed. 00:51:22.350 --> 00:51:26.950 Well no they will of course be pissed at you know well and then the question 00:51:26.950 --> 00:51:33.490 will they ignore scotus even then but like but you know here's the thing like 00:51:33.490 --> 00:51:35.910 it depends on which ones too, right? 00:51:36.370 --> 00:51:43.950 And one of the things, the court has signaled that they like, 00:51:44.150 --> 00:51:50.150 the current 6-3 majority, or at least five of the majority, 00:51:50.410 --> 00:51:56.990 are hot on the unitary executive kind of thing. They like executive power. 00:51:57.150 --> 00:52:00.050 They like giving the executive more than they used to. There have been a number 00:52:00.050 --> 00:52:03.350 of rulings in that direction over the last couple of years. 00:52:04.170 --> 00:52:08.950 And so they're not, not, not a hundred percent consistently. 00:52:09.170 --> 00:52:14.590 There are a few counter examples and it also does appear to depend on who's 00:52:14.590 --> 00:52:17.190 president. So I don't know that they're completely consistent. 00:52:17.330 --> 00:52:20.770 Like there's some rulings that have stripped power from the executive, 00:52:20.770 --> 00:52:23.090 but it was while Biden was president. 00:52:23.250 --> 00:52:26.730 And would they have ruled the same way if it was Trump doing the same thing? 00:52:26.830 --> 00:52:28.710 I am not convinced that they would. 00:52:28.990 --> 00:52:32.970 Like, it would be nice to think it would be consistent, but I don't know that it is. 00:52:33.690 --> 00:52:36.610 You know, listen, the one that I think that we're against it, 00:52:37.800 --> 00:52:42.940 And listen, the reality is that we don't know exactly what's going to happen. 00:52:43.100 --> 00:52:43.360 We don't. 00:52:43.540 --> 00:52:43.760 One thing. 00:52:43.980 --> 00:52:44.640 And it may take a while. 00:52:45.800 --> 00:52:50.600 But the one thing is that the number one strategy that they have to do is every 00:52:50.600 --> 00:52:55.360 single thing that they're doing, they have to challenge the legality of it. OK. All right. 00:52:55.600 --> 00:52:58.860 Democrats need to learn from Donald Trump himself. 00:52:59.480 --> 00:53:01.500 Yeah. Delay, delay, delay, delay. 00:53:02.080 --> 00:53:08.260 Like Donald Trump was such a master of this. I mean, he made he made things 00:53:08.260 --> 00:53:15.160 that normally in routine cases are settled in a day, expand into years. 00:53:15.640 --> 00:53:19.280 Yes. Or at least months for the one step. 00:53:20.380 --> 00:53:27.980 Yeah. And just through taking advantage of every single procedural opportunity. 00:53:27.980 --> 00:53:31.280 You have to throw every fucking lawyer 00:53:31.280 --> 00:53:36.420 that you got with every fucking bullshit thing that every little tiny thing 00:53:36.420 --> 00:53:43.640 you want to drag every single doge guy and Elon Musk and all of those into depositions 00:53:43.640 --> 00:53:50.120 and do it to things you want to fucking make their lives miserable in court. 00:53:51.020 --> 00:53:58.320 and put him through the chipper on every single one like that asshole said the other day about USAID. 00:53:58.560 --> 00:54:02.720 The guy is a disgusting fucking prick. 00:54:03.040 --> 00:54:06.240 By the way, doing Vladimir Putin's... 00:54:06.240 --> 00:54:07.160 People might not know. 00:54:07.640 --> 00:54:12.260 The only... The biggest major asshole we've got right now operating. 00:54:12.900 --> 00:54:17.820 Fucking Elon Musk. He is such a dirtbag. 00:54:18.680 --> 00:54:21.820 I I really hate him so much. 00:54:22.720 --> 00:54:27.280 You're adding him to the list with Donald Trump with people you're willing to openly hate. 00:54:27.740 --> 00:54:28.300 Yes. 00:54:31.520 --> 00:54:33.520 Uh yeah no. 00:54:33.520 --> 00:54:39.620 Oh and putin putin's on that list okay it's fine it's a pretty distinctive list 00:54:39.620 --> 00:54:45.520 what you what i've got the three people i've got is fucking putin trump and elon musk um. 00:54:45.520 --> 00:54:54.520 Yeah i i mean look the all these cases are i'm not all of them but the the strategy is almost explicitly, 00:54:54.880 --> 00:55:00.580 look, we're going to do things that seem to be clearly illegal, 00:55:00.580 --> 00:55:08.040 but the traditional way that administrations have done this stuff before is 00:55:08.040 --> 00:55:13.420 at the very least, when they do something that is on the edge, 00:55:13.620 --> 00:55:20.920 they have the Office of Legal Counsel or whatever write up a document with some 00:55:20.920 --> 00:55:24.180 justification for why it's really legal. 00:55:24.500 --> 00:55:29.340 Right. And then they go do it. Now, sometimes those justifications are pretty 00:55:29.340 --> 00:55:32.300 weak, you know, but they do something. 00:55:32.540 --> 00:55:36.520 They do something to say, here's why it's legal, and then they do it, 00:55:36.600 --> 00:55:41.680 and then someone takes them to court, and then the court decides and sometimes overturns it. 00:55:41.860 --> 00:55:46.480 The Trump strategy seems to be, fuck that. We're just going to do what we want. 00:55:46.980 --> 00:55:52.040 and the burden is on whoever doesn't like us to take us to court about it. 00:55:52.520 --> 00:55:57.480 And then we'll worry about it. Like, we're not going to try to figure that stuff 00:55:57.480 --> 00:56:01.360 out first. We're not going to, like, try to justify in advance. 00:56:01.460 --> 00:56:05.820 We're just going to do what we want to do and then let them try to stop us. 00:56:08.280 --> 00:56:11.460 And, you know, and look, 00:56:11.860 --> 00:56:15.680 here's the problem with that is, you 00:56:15.680 --> 00:56:19.360 know probably from our point of view is legal 00:56:19.360 --> 00:56:22.400 stuff is relatively slow in the 00:56:22.400 --> 00:56:25.240 end now we've they're within the first few weeks there are already 00:56:25.240 --> 00:56:30.220 some temporary restraining orders there's some preliminary injunctions the you 00:56:30.220 --> 00:56:34.160 know for the the most obvious one like the this birthright citizenship stuff 00:56:34.160 --> 00:56:40.360 is like on hold there uh a lot of there have been judges saying no elon's team 00:56:40.360 --> 00:56:44.700 can't go into these agencies they can't do this they can't do that well today the. 00:56:44.700 --> 00:56:49.800 Judge completely like blocked them and told them to actually destroy all the 00:56:49.800 --> 00:56:52.880 data they had captured from treasury. Like a judge ordered that today. 00:56:53.060 --> 00:56:58.320 Right. Yeah. I saw that. And the, the question is on all of these things, 00:56:59.560 --> 00:57:02.780 is speed and and yes and yes 00:57:02.780 --> 00:57:06.020 how can like because traditionally the court system 00:57:06.020 --> 00:57:12.240 as we saw with the donald trump cases is slow is very very slow so i think part 00:57:12.240 --> 00:57:18.080 of the trump plan is do enough damage so by the time anybody even tries to stop 00:57:18.080 --> 00:57:25.460 you it's already done yes like and yeah so then then like let's talk about us but. 00:57:25.460 --> 00:57:28.580 I think that they'll then they'll they'll have to rebuild it the way that they 00:57:28.580 --> 00:57:31.680 want to, which is what I think that they did with USAID. 00:57:32.000 --> 00:57:37.620 Because Marco Rubio is one that has for years advocated for USAID shit, 00:57:37.760 --> 00:57:43.500 but now they want it to be reconstituted under the, you know, Secretary of State, 00:57:44.180 --> 00:57:48.660 you know, basically under the State Department and Rubio, they just wanted to 00:57:48.660 --> 00:57:50.160 do things the way that they want. 00:57:50.300 --> 00:57:55.140 So, hey, we get rid of everybody because we are doing this purity test of everybody. 00:57:55.220 --> 00:57:57.100 So let's not even do the purity test. 00:57:57.240 --> 00:58:01.640 Let's just fucking and fire them all, and then we'll be forced to rehire a whole 00:58:01.640 --> 00:58:04.180 bunch of them because, you know, probably we did this illegally, 00:58:04.700 --> 00:58:09.260 and then we'll just bring back the ones that we want, and then we'll just, 00:58:09.260 --> 00:58:11.520 you know, pay off the ones that we don't want back. 00:58:11.860 --> 00:58:15.860 It seems to me that that's the ultimate strategy because the funding isn't going to take away. 00:58:16.240 --> 00:58:23.100 The legal framework is forcing it to exist, so it seems like it's their entire M.O. for this shit. 00:58:23.830 --> 00:58:28.570 Yeah. And this is exactly the point here is like they can do what they've done 00:58:28.570 --> 00:58:34.910 with USAID, for instance, then lose all the court cases and still end up with 00:58:34.910 --> 00:58:36.090 what they wanted at the end. 00:58:36.390 --> 00:58:36.510 Yeah. 00:58:36.950 --> 00:58:42.630 Like they will still have the impact they wanted even after they lose the cases, 00:58:42.630 --> 00:58:47.670 because by the time this makes its way through court, there will be facts on the ground. 00:58:48.330 --> 00:58:53.570 Like even now, like right now, all of these USAID people have been told they're fired, essentially. 00:58:54.250 --> 00:58:59.910 Now, there's a court order saying, no, you can't do that. 00:59:00.050 --> 00:59:03.730 But if you're one of those employees, what are you doing right now? 00:59:04.490 --> 00:59:06.870 Nothing. You're twiddling your thumbs and getting paid. That's it. 00:59:06.990 --> 00:59:11.350 You're twiddling your thumbs. You're getting paid. They're definitely telling you. 00:59:11.350 --> 00:59:12.510 But all the work was stopped. 00:59:12.690 --> 00:59:15.510 All the work was stopped. All the work was stopped. 00:59:15.670 --> 00:59:19.450 It's not going to resume. Even if they're court orders that happen, 00:59:19.610 --> 00:59:24.550 these people are, you know, any sense that they might have had about job security has gone. 00:59:24.790 --> 00:59:27.410 So, you know, they're all looking for other opportunities anyway. 00:59:28.430 --> 00:59:35.490 You have already broken the agency, regardless of what happens from this point out. 00:59:35.490 --> 00:59:38.350 Yeah yeah yeah yeah totally yeah. 00:59:38.350 --> 00:59:41.250 And and this is true like the other big one 00:59:41.250 --> 00:59:44.850 where this is happening right now is fbi and doj 00:59:44.850 --> 00:59:50.230 for that matter they're they're doing purges they're gathering lists of anybody 00:59:50.230 --> 00:59:54.230 who had anything to do with the january 6 investigations no matter how minor 00:59:54.230 --> 00:59:59.870 there have been lawsuits on this and injunctions from judges as well in terms 00:59:59.870 --> 01:00:03.670 of where this list can go and blah, blah, blah. But what have you done? 01:00:03.970 --> 01:00:06.330 The entire agency is fucking scared. 01:00:06.690 --> 01:00:12.810 The entire agency is frozen in place because they don't know what their futures 01:00:12.810 --> 01:00:14.350 are. They don't know what they're doing. 01:00:14.590 --> 01:00:21.650 And they're also clearly the messages out there loud and clear that no, if you just, 01:00:22.470 --> 01:00:25.710 do your job and like try 01:00:25.710 --> 01:00:28.830 to do things based on the law and 01:00:28.830 --> 01:00:33.050 the established procedures that have existed for decades rather 01:00:33.050 --> 01:00:39.790 than follow the political orders no matter what then you're fucked you know 01:00:39.790 --> 01:00:46.390 and so yeah you know that and you know i mentioned this to bruce last week the 01:00:46.390 --> 01:00:51.790 result of this is not going to be a smaller less powerful fbi now it's. 01:00:51.790 --> 01:00:52.830 The one that they want. 01:00:52.970 --> 01:01:01.450 It's going to be a probably even more powerful FBI that instead of holding to 01:01:01.450 --> 01:01:07.310 any general principles of law and accountability and transparency and blah, blah, blah, 01:01:07.570 --> 01:01:13.870 is all about just go after the people Trump wants you to go after. 01:01:14.210 --> 01:01:21.890 Well, there is one thing today in the news where Trump apparently is very displeased 01:01:21.890 --> 01:01:28.770 that that despite all the redirection and effort on immigration, 01:01:29.130 --> 01:01:32.770 the reason I bring it up is because they told a whole bunch of FBI agents to 01:01:32.770 --> 01:01:35.370 stop doing criminal stuff and focus on immigration. 01:01:35.370 --> 01:01:39.290 And they're all like, what the fuck are we supposed to do about this? 01:01:39.730 --> 01:01:44.050 I mean, it's like, you're like, what the hell? You want me to stop investigating 01:01:44.050 --> 01:01:50.350 actual crimes, you know, and focus on immigration? Do what exactly? 01:01:51.030 --> 01:01:52.470 And so that was one thing, but 01:01:52.470 --> 01:01:57.990 that Trump is very displeased that the deportation numbers are not higher. 01:01:58.800 --> 01:02:02.960 Which is something that we have said already, you know, I don't know how many 01:02:02.960 --> 01:02:07.120 fucking times, okay, that it's just mathematically. 01:02:07.720 --> 01:02:13.620 Well, there are a couple of things here. One, apparently arrest numbers are 01:02:13.620 --> 01:02:17.980 up a little bit, but deportation numbers less so because they don't have the 01:02:17.980 --> 01:02:20.020 resources to actually make some of these people leave. 01:02:20.140 --> 01:02:22.460 So they're actually releasing a bunch of these people. 01:02:22.460 --> 01:02:24.340 Releasing them, a whole bunch of these people. Yes. 01:02:24.680 --> 01:02:26.260 You know, so. So, by the way. 01:02:26.400 --> 01:02:29.200 This was what was trying, you know, a lot of what they're trying to give them 01:02:29.200 --> 01:02:32.620 the funding and what Biden had done with with the Republicans that they came 01:02:32.620 --> 01:02:35.380 up with this compromise deal, blah, blah, blah, that Trump blocked. 01:02:35.520 --> 01:02:37.760 And so they haven't done any of that. 01:02:38.040 --> 01:02:42.280 It's not like they multiplied the people. The problem is, as we've said before, 01:02:42.780 --> 01:02:46.020 oh, Biden is letting everyone in. 01:02:46.280 --> 01:02:52.620 No, they're Jesus Christ. The deportation machine under Biden was in full fucking force. 01:02:52.620 --> 01:02:59.940 it's just a lot of people you don't i mean what you guys want to do is almost 01:02:59.940 --> 01:03:02.020 humanly impossible to do. 01:03:02.020 --> 01:03:05.300 Also i will add the donald trump folks 01:03:05.300 --> 01:03:08.180 have been on tv and stuff once again saying things like 01:03:08.180 --> 01:03:11.920 look look look yeah yes everybody 01:03:11.920 --> 01:03:15.040 who's in here undocumented is potentially 01:03:15.040 --> 01:03:19.680 subject to deportation but of course we are going to concentrate on the criminals 01:03:19.680 --> 01:03:25.300 and the violent people and blah blah The percentage of people being arrested 01:03:25.300 --> 01:03:32.700 that have any sort of criminal issue associated with them other than it was. 01:03:32.700 --> 01:03:33.940 Less than 50 percent that I. 01:03:33.940 --> 01:03:38.320 Recall. Well, more so that percentage is down from the Biden administration 01:03:38.320 --> 01:03:44.760 because because they're pushing to get the overall arrest and deportation. Right. 01:03:44.800 --> 01:03:47.720 Because they want the numbers up. We need to pump the numbers. 01:03:47.720 --> 01:03:54.140 And actually, the number of actual criminals is relatively small compared to 01:03:54.140 --> 01:03:56.980 the number of overall undocumented immigrants. 01:03:57.160 --> 01:04:03.760 That the only way to get the numbers up is to arrest more people who aren't criminals. Yes. 01:04:04.640 --> 01:04:09.660 And so, yes. So far, so far. 01:04:10.220 --> 01:04:14.980 Basically, it's that it's very, you can't do something that is completely based on a lie. 01:04:15.660 --> 01:04:18.700 Yeah. And so they have not yet. 01:04:19.820 --> 01:04:26.380 They have not yet succeeded in pushing numbers to significantly higher than 01:04:26.380 --> 01:04:28.360 where they were happening under Biden anyway. 01:04:28.680 --> 01:04:33.340 Now they're going to keep trying. You know, as you said, Trump is mad. 01:04:33.840 --> 01:04:39.280 Trump is redirecting like FBI and other federal agencies to help with this. 01:04:39.280 --> 01:04:42.140 And what the fuck are we supposed to do man. 01:04:42.140 --> 01:04:43.360 And the end. 01:04:43.360 --> 01:04:46.180 You know what here's a worse thing right that one 01:04:46.180 --> 01:04:48.900 of the unions that was that is always shown 01:04:48.900 --> 01:04:55.640 to be pro-trump is the cbp folks okay those people are pro-trump now just imagine 01:04:55.640 --> 01:04:59.160 this that happens right now say that he starts doing the same thing that he 01:04:59.160 --> 01:05:05.080 did with the other areas and starts like a purge of these guys right and saying 01:05:05.080 --> 01:05:07.240 you guys are not doing what I want. 01:05:07.440 --> 01:05:10.900 I'm going to fucking get rid of you. What that's going to do is that the morale 01:05:10.900 --> 01:05:14.080 of this entire group is going to go into the shitter. 01:05:14.380 --> 01:05:18.620 Because they go in, and they have been, they were pro him. 01:05:18.980 --> 01:05:22.780 They were trying to do as much as he wants. We're trying out there, 01:05:22.920 --> 01:05:25.860 we're doing it, and now you're going to shit all over us, okay? 01:05:26.020 --> 01:05:31.440 Because we can't, because, wait, because we can't do what's impossible. Okay, all right? 01:05:31.760 --> 01:05:34.060 Based on the resources that we've got, okay? 01:05:34.060 --> 01:05:40.980 And by the way, it's not like ICE and these other agencies are full of like, 01:05:41.020 --> 01:05:46.940 you know, liberals who are all about, like, let's let everybody in and be nice to people. 01:05:47.020 --> 01:05:50.500 Yeah, they're not full of bleeding heart liberals. Okay. All right. 01:05:50.600 --> 01:05:52.960 You people, you're fucking deluded. Okay. 01:05:53.260 --> 01:05:55.680 So the one thing that I. 01:05:56.180 --> 01:05:58.180 Not the FBI either, by the way. 01:05:58.900 --> 01:06:03.400 Not the FBI either. You know, so which is one of the things that's so crazy. 01:06:03.400 --> 01:06:07.780 This reminds me of what the hell happened in the Soviet Union every time that, 01:06:07.900 --> 01:06:12.320 like, especially Stalin had tried to force, like, the... 01:06:12.910 --> 01:06:18.190 people in the fields to grow more and basically just, you know, 01:06:18.690 --> 01:06:23.390 punish them or push them because they weren't meeting his, they set these agriculture 01:06:23.390 --> 01:06:25.290 quotas that were almost fucking impossible. 01:06:25.550 --> 01:06:29.550 And then they were like forcing to try to do it. And then what happened was 01:06:29.550 --> 01:06:31.150 production didn't go up. 01:06:31.290 --> 01:06:32.650 It actually started going down 01:06:32.650 --> 01:06:37.870 because, you know, these people were like actually faithful or whatever. 01:06:38.090 --> 01:06:41.850 And then what you're doing is you're shitting all over them because what you 01:06:41.850 --> 01:06:43.050 asked to do is impossible. 01:06:43.290 --> 01:06:45.790 And so at one point, they're like, well, fuck you. 01:06:46.530 --> 01:06:50.150 That's it. Bring somebody else. Fuck you. Can't do it. 01:06:50.590 --> 01:06:56.230 And so I don't know what the hell, but yeah, he's going to be pissed. 01:06:56.370 --> 01:07:02.550 But I don't see how, you know, anything really changes related to this at this point, like right now. 01:07:02.690 --> 01:07:06.050 I mean, because they went out and already in full force. 01:07:06.090 --> 01:07:07.470 They deployed everybody. Hey, 01:07:07.570 --> 01:07:12.010 you had all these like famous people like wearing like, uh, you know, Dr. 01:07:12.270 --> 01:07:17.090 Phil and I, Oh my God, you know, going out there. 01:07:17.250 --> 01:07:21.250 There was one operation where I saw where they said 400 people to one place. 01:07:21.330 --> 01:07:22.290 You know how many people they caught? 01:07:22.730 --> 01:07:23.750 One, I believe. 01:07:24.030 --> 01:07:28.570 Yes. Correct. One. Very productive use of resources. 01:07:29.230 --> 01:07:29.750 Yeah. 01:07:30.730 --> 01:07:35.290 But yeah, I, I, I hate this. 01:07:35.650 --> 01:07:41.150 We've got how many more, how much more time of this, fucking administration do we have? 01:07:41.690 --> 01:07:44.930 Oh, let's see. There are a number of websites tracking this. 01:07:45.270 --> 01:07:49.250 Trump timer. Let's see if I can find one real quick. Trump countdown timer. 01:07:51.730 --> 01:07:57.390 1,441 days, 21 hours, 42 minutes, and 25 seconds as we're recording this. 01:07:57.630 --> 01:08:02.470 I will openly declare right now that my alcohol consumption this year has been 01:08:02.470 --> 01:08:05.990 far higher than it's been in any recent year. 01:08:06.770 --> 01:08:07.370 Okay. 01:08:07.370 --> 01:08:13.390 I, you know, by the way, I don't drink that much anymore as I used to. Okay. 01:08:13.690 --> 01:08:17.950 But, but definitely it, because, and that's my point. 01:08:18.130 --> 01:08:24.610 I had, I was barely drinking and now I'm like, you know, eight drinks a week. 01:08:26.490 --> 01:08:31.430 From almost like two drinks a week or one or zero, maybe. 01:08:31.750 --> 01:08:32.150 Right. 01:08:32.710 --> 01:08:33.490 This is not good. 01:08:33.690 --> 01:08:34.590 That's a big increase. 01:08:35.050 --> 01:08:39.910 Yes. Now, it's better than when I was younger When I would like I mean, 01:08:39.970 --> 01:08:46.750 I drink eight drinks in one day Regularly So, relatively speaking This is a 01:08:46.750 --> 01:08:48.290 massive improvement Well. 01:08:48.310 --> 01:08:51.890 There you go Yeah, so, okay, 01:08:53.130 --> 01:08:58.590 We started out, and we've taken a tour of all kinds of different things, 01:08:58.770 --> 01:09:05.450 but we started out specifically talking about Elon and Doge going into things. 01:09:05.570 --> 01:09:08.430 Do we want to get back to that? Anything more to say about that? 01:09:09.890 --> 01:09:15.250 Listen, we did go specifically into what the strategy is of what they want to 01:09:15.250 --> 01:09:16.970 do and what the outcome is. 01:09:17.050 --> 01:09:20.790 I don't think that there is anything more to say about it. That is what they're going to try to do. 01:09:20.790 --> 01:09:27.130 Well, the one thing I'll add, though, is as far as I know, correct me if I'm 01:09:27.130 --> 01:09:31.350 wrong on this, most of the court orders coming down are narrow. 01:09:31.650 --> 01:09:35.890 Like, OK, you have to undo what you did at the. 01:09:36.990 --> 01:09:41.590 There is one lawsuit that is actually just, you know, trying to shut them. 01:09:41.590 --> 01:09:42.350 Down entirely because. 01:09:42.350 --> 01:09:48.630 What I'm saying is that they did file and it's been it's been it's been filed 01:09:48.630 --> 01:09:50.030 a few weeks and they've got like. 01:09:50.810 --> 01:09:54.950 You know, they've got a lot of people that sign up. 01:09:55.330 --> 01:09:59.050 Citizens for Responsible and Ethics in Washington, by the way, 01:09:59.090 --> 01:09:59.950 if you want to donate to them. 01:09:59.950 --> 01:10:01.110 Yeah, that's what CRU is. 01:10:01.210 --> 01:10:04.290 That's what CRU is. But they've got the American Public Health Association, 01:10:04.450 --> 01:10:07.650 American Federation of Teachers, Vote Vets Action Fund. 01:10:08.580 --> 01:10:14.760 And they filed basically a suit, basically seeking the court to just absolutely 01:10:14.760 --> 01:10:19.100 just stop Doge on its tracks. Now, it's been out there for a couple of weeks. 01:10:19.100 --> 01:10:24.820 Because what's happened so far is they've been stopped from doing specific things 01:10:24.820 --> 01:10:28.540 in specific places. But overall, their response to that is, OK, 01:10:28.640 --> 01:10:31.360 well, we'll just go do this somewhere else for right now. 01:10:31.860 --> 01:10:37.520 And, you know, and look, to be clear, let's be explicit here. 01:10:37.520 --> 01:10:41.880 The problem here is not the general idea of, hey, 01:10:42.060 --> 01:10:46.700 let's look at government and try to eliminate things that, well, 01:10:46.800 --> 01:10:50.840 even eliminate things that just, there's a policy disagreement from the president 01:10:50.840 --> 01:10:53.560 or certainly not efficiencies and things like that. 01:10:53.700 --> 01:10:57.240 The problem is there is a mechanism to do that. 01:10:57.760 --> 01:11:03.980 It is relating to, you know, you, look, the Republicans have both houses of Congress. 01:11:04.240 --> 01:11:07.720 Go pass some fucking laws. Yeah. 01:11:07.900 --> 01:11:08.080 Yeah. 01:11:08.200 --> 01:11:08.320 Yeah. 01:11:08.440 --> 01:11:11.140 Go. Yeah. You want to eliminate USAID? 01:11:12.060 --> 01:11:12.780 Go up. 01:11:13.080 --> 01:11:14.600 Go eliminate USAID. 01:11:15.340 --> 01:11:15.620 Exactly. 01:11:16.780 --> 01:11:20.900 You have the mechanism to do that. You have both houses of Congress. 01:11:21.100 --> 01:11:26.300 Okay. Yeah. You might need to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate to do it, but you could do it. 01:11:26.580 --> 01:11:27.500 You could do that. 01:11:27.680 --> 01:11:32.860 You could do that. You could. And same thing here for all of these massive cuts 01:11:32.860 --> 01:11:35.740 elsewhere. The problem is what 01:11:35.740 --> 01:11:42.120 these agencies are doing is, for the most part, what is required by law. 01:11:42.320 --> 01:11:42.660 Law. 01:11:43.080 --> 01:11:47.300 And also meeting obligations that they have already entered into. 01:11:47.540 --> 01:11:50.980 So there's also flexibility in terms of saying, okay, you know, 01:11:51.100 --> 01:11:54.860 like the grants on health research and stuff like that. 01:11:55.000 --> 01:11:58.700 It's one thing to say we're going to put a pause on approving new one. 01:11:59.450 --> 01:12:03.970 It's another thing entirely to say we're not going to pay the ones. 01:12:03.970 --> 01:12:05.150 That are already approved. 01:12:06.850 --> 01:12:11.330 That's different. And the legal obligations associated are different. 01:12:11.670 --> 01:12:16.070 And so there's a lot of stuff here. 01:12:16.150 --> 01:12:21.030 Like I said, the approach here is do what you want first and let them try to stop you. 01:12:21.190 --> 01:12:28.110 But there's so much here where it's like we're not trying to change the policy for the future. 01:12:28.110 --> 01:12:34.610 we're trying to put a wrecking ball through everything that's already there that is just, 01:12:35.410 --> 01:12:38.870 executing the law as it exists today right 01:12:38.870 --> 01:12:45.270 you know and that's the you know look i'd have a if they were trying to do it 01:12:45.270 --> 01:12:49.970 the legal way i would oppose it anyway you know right most of these things are 01:12:49.970 --> 01:12:55.970 bad ideas that like usa id is actually incredibly valuable you know here's. 01:12:55.970 --> 01:13:00.770 The one thing Like USAID was something that was valued by both Republicans and Democrats. 01:13:00.770 --> 01:13:01.450 Alike. 01:13:01.450 --> 01:13:05.690 And the main reason is because it's one of the instruments of soft diplomacy 01:13:05.690 --> 01:13:11.310 that we do around in order to counter both Putin and China, OK, 01:13:11.610 --> 01:13:13.290 in general, in these countries. 01:13:13.330 --> 01:13:18.770 And the reality is that the number one advocate that wanted to fucking shut down for, 01:13:19.250 --> 01:13:22.690 USAID, was fucking Vladimir Putin. 01:13:22.950 --> 01:13:28.470 And most of the shit that they have been spreading about why USAID sucks is 01:13:28.470 --> 01:13:29.950 fucking Russian propaganda. 01:13:30.310 --> 01:13:34.510 And these guys are so fucking dumb. Now, I know that Marco Rubio knows that 01:13:34.510 --> 01:13:37.510 it's fucking Russian propaganda because I know that he's talked about it. 01:13:37.590 --> 01:13:43.730 But right now, Marco Rubio, as the major fucking ass kisser that he is, 01:13:43.930 --> 01:13:49.410 he has shoved his head so far up their asses that he's not going to say anything 01:13:49.410 --> 01:13:53.170 right now about this and just going to let him do a fucking wrecking ball over 01:13:53.170 --> 01:13:54.930 something that I know he knows, 01:13:55.230 --> 01:13:57.710 okay, is what Vladimir Putin wants. 01:13:57.730 --> 01:14:03.370 But he is such a fucking caaskisser that he's not going to do anything to oppose it right now. 01:14:03.810 --> 01:14:08.270 Right. And like you said, maybe on the back end, he tries to keep some things 01:14:08.270 --> 01:14:10.350 going. Like already, like... 01:14:10.350 --> 01:14:14.130 Actually, I'm pretty sure that he's going to keep most of this shit going. 01:14:14.150 --> 01:14:17.810 Well, one thing that's already been in the news is George W. 01:14:17.950 --> 01:14:21.490 Bush's, what is it called, PFR, whatever, the anti-AIDS program. 01:14:22.610 --> 01:14:25.850 That's one of the things where Rubio has already been out there saying, 01:14:26.010 --> 01:14:28.810 no, no, no, that's one of the things that has an exception. That can keep going. 01:14:28.910 --> 01:14:30.150 That can keep going. That can keep going. 01:14:30.530 --> 01:14:33.190 Meanwhile, reports from the field is it has that. 01:14:33.210 --> 01:14:34.950 They cut it, right. They've stopped it. 01:14:35.010 --> 01:14:38.010 They've stopped it because of the general guidance, but that's clearly something 01:14:38.010 --> 01:14:39.630 Rubio wants to keep going again. 01:14:39.870 --> 01:14:39.990 Right. 01:14:40.090 --> 01:14:42.530 We'll see how that goes, whether he can stand it back up again. 01:14:42.530 --> 01:14:49.370 but again it's about you know once they've destroyed it they have to try rebuilding 01:14:49.370 --> 01:14:53.210 the specific thing that they care about yes and by the way rubio might like 01:14:53.210 --> 01:14:58.070 that program who knows if donald trump does you know right he might just. 01:14:58.070 --> 01:15:01.410 Stay for fucking kill more africans fuck it yeah he's like yeah. 01:15:01.410 --> 01:15:04.810 Let him die why do we why why do we why. 01:15:04.810 --> 01:15:09.790 Do we care why do we care about a whole bunch of Black people in Africa. Fuck them. 01:15:10.470 --> 01:15:15.990 That may be, by the way, this is me quoting Trump. Please do not quote me out of context. Okay. 01:15:16.350 --> 01:15:18.730 Hypothetically quoting Trump. You don't actually have a real quote. 01:15:18.930 --> 01:15:21.130 I'm sure he's probably said something like that. 01:15:21.790 --> 01:15:22.830 Shithole countries and all. 01:15:23.270 --> 01:15:23.750 Yes. 01:15:23.970 --> 01:15:31.470 Yes. Yes. But yeah, like the fundamental calculus there is, and this is part of the response too. 01:15:31.470 --> 01:15:42.150 USAID, targeting it is a strategically good first place for something like Doge to go to. 01:15:42.410 --> 01:15:43.970 Well, because it's very small. 01:15:44.150 --> 01:15:46.390 Relatively, compared to other agencies. Well, it's relatively small, 01:15:46.390 --> 01:15:50.490 but also, foreign aid is unpopular. 01:15:51.130 --> 01:15:52.790 If you just poll people. 01:15:53.530 --> 01:15:56.590 Like— Foreign aid! No, no, leave the money here! 01:15:56.950 --> 01:16:03.350 Right. Like the reasons why this is actually good for American interests are 01:16:03.350 --> 01:16:05.410 more complicated and subtle. 01:16:05.670 --> 01:16:11.790 It's like, yeah, it's it's like, yes, making people like us more in other countries. 01:16:12.500 --> 01:16:17.580 by helping them, does come back with positive benefits to us in the end. 01:16:17.760 --> 01:16:22.580 I've heard people who are involved in the State Department and USAID giving 01:16:22.580 --> 01:16:25.820 interviews over the last few days talking about how, 01:16:26.420 --> 01:16:33.980 for instance, various programs that we've done overseas have resulted in massive 01:16:33.980 --> 01:16:39.280 intelligence gains for us because people were more willing to cooperate to give 01:16:39.280 --> 01:16:42.780 information than they would be otherwise because they're like, 01:16:42.920 --> 01:16:45.520 hey, the Americans are actually our friends and, you know, 01:16:45.700 --> 01:16:47.980 they're good. They helped us. We'll help them. 01:16:48.320 --> 01:16:52.840 This is the soft diplomacy part, okay? All right? This is deployment of soft 01:16:52.840 --> 01:16:55.640 power for diplomatic purposes. 01:16:55.840 --> 01:16:59.380 All of this, by the way, is still, if you're only willing to look at it from 01:16:59.380 --> 01:17:07.120 a purely instrumental how-does-it-help-me point of view, completely ignoring 01:17:07.120 --> 01:17:09.100 the actual benefits to people that you're. 01:17:09.100 --> 01:17:12.660 Going to have. right right right i mean you know that's the point so. 01:17:12.660 --> 01:17:15.240 Okay i. 01:17:15.240 --> 01:17:16.560 Mean yeah so. 01:17:16.560 --> 01:17:19.860 Uh so given that we started talking about usaid i 01:17:19.860 --> 01:17:24.160 suggest we take another break and most of the stuff we've been talking about 01:17:24.160 --> 01:17:30.400 so far has been domestic let's just make it a domestic versus international 01:17:30.400 --> 01:17:34.240 division and talk about international for a bit and then wrap up the show sound 01:17:34.240 --> 01:17:38.940 sound good okay so here comes another break and then 01:17:39.180 --> 01:17:43.060 we'll we'll we'll do that back after this yeah yeah, 01:17:44.560 --> 01:17:45.440 yeah you. 01:17:45.440 --> 01:17:48.760 Can edit this out i'm gonna go get coffee and water i'll be right back. 01:17:48.760 --> 01:17:54.780 Okay enjoy your why would i edit this out we we all want to know that you're 01:17:54.780 --> 01:17:59.500 getting coffee i could go get a tea but no no i'll just wait here you're. 01:17:59.500 --> 01:18:02.280 Like you're fucking break i'm getting too old for this. 01:18:02.280 --> 01:18:04.540 Here's the break, 01:19:12.350 --> 01:19:18.990 okay we we we are back and uh you know unfortunately this means we missed yvonne 01:19:18.990 --> 01:19:22.830 laughing at that break that he usually laughs at you know i. 01:19:22.830 --> 01:19:28.110 I yeah you couldn't hear me laughing but i i yes i was listening to it because 01:19:28.110 --> 01:19:34.010 i my headphones on it they were still working i'm like oh my god maybe. 01:19:34.010 --> 01:19:42.290 Maybe we got to do more of those yeah yeah there you go okay so So internationally, 01:19:42.890 --> 01:19:45.610 like real quick, do we own Greenland yet? 01:19:46.710 --> 01:19:53.430 Let me check. No. And Puerto Rico has not been sold to Denmark either. 01:19:53.730 --> 01:19:54.630 I'm really disappointed. 01:19:55.070 --> 01:19:57.110 I was like really rooting for that. 01:19:57.390 --> 01:19:58.970 Do we have the Panama Canal yet? 01:19:59.410 --> 01:20:04.590 Not that I know of, no. How are egg prices, Sam? 01:20:05.070 --> 01:20:06.350 I hear they're up. 01:20:07.370 --> 01:20:08.870 Oh, really? 01:20:09.370 --> 01:20:09.930 Yeah. 01:20:10.190 --> 01:20:10.830 Yeah? 01:20:11.670 --> 01:20:17.410 Something about the bird flu but like i i think cdc did finally get to put out 01:20:17.410 --> 01:20:21.410 an update but they pulled some stuff they they put up one thing about cats and 01:20:21.410 --> 01:20:27.030 then had to take it back down i don't know what's going on there like so i i 01:20:27.030 --> 01:20:30.290 guess i don't know something something did. 01:20:30.290 --> 01:20:36.430 We did we i heard that we were going to pass a balanced budget did we do that. 01:20:36.430 --> 01:20:39.670 Oh is that happening i i I heard that Trump said. 01:20:39.830 --> 01:20:42.090 Trump said that we were going to pass a balanced budget. 01:20:42.470 --> 01:20:48.390 Oh, did we? I don't think that's happened yet, but I did see some news that 01:20:48.390 --> 01:20:51.230 they're quote unquote making progress towards a budget deal. 01:20:51.690 --> 01:20:54.310 Because we've got deadlines coming up really soon. 01:20:54.510 --> 01:20:58.230 Well, listen, the debt ceiling thing is already, they're already using like 01:20:58.230 --> 01:21:02.030 the extraordinary measures thing like right now. 01:21:02.650 --> 01:21:08.270 So, yeah, like right now, yeah, we're in that window, like right now. 01:21:08.990 --> 01:21:12.810 I think the last estimate I heard was sometime in March we hit the debt ceiling, 01:21:12.810 --> 01:21:14.510 even with the extraordinary measures. 01:21:15.090 --> 01:21:17.510 Yeah, that's the thing. 01:21:17.630 --> 01:21:22.910 Yeah, it's coming up soon. And the deal where they punted the spending authorization 01:21:22.910 --> 01:21:28.190 stuff that prevented government shutdown also, I believe, expires in March, right? 01:21:28.670 --> 01:21:31.890 By the way, gas prices are up. 01:21:32.030 --> 01:21:33.410 Oh, right. 01:21:33.790 --> 01:21:34.490 Yeah. 01:21:35.780 --> 01:21:37.900 Imagine that from a month ago. Yeah. 01:21:38.340 --> 01:21:43.420 Well, we were going to talk international. Oh, before I get to the one that 01:21:43.420 --> 01:21:47.220 caused the biggest splash this week. Do we have a 51st state yet? 01:21:47.880 --> 01:21:48.320 No. 01:21:48.680 --> 01:21:49.000 No? 01:21:49.520 --> 01:21:55.760 No. Canada isn't part of the. Canada has not been a next. No, not that I know of. 01:21:56.080 --> 01:21:59.500 Yeah. He's going to have to get on that. Anyway. 01:21:59.800 --> 01:22:00.820 He's going to have to get on that pretty quick. 01:22:00.980 --> 01:22:02.280 The big international splash. 01:22:02.280 --> 01:22:09.920 The average regular price, like the price of regular gas right now is 3.196 cents for regular. 01:22:10.260 --> 01:22:20.440 Let's see. It is higher than it's been the last few months, but it's lower than it was 2022. 01:22:21.300 --> 01:22:23.460 It is a lot higher than 2021. 01:22:24.020 --> 01:22:27.560 How does it compare to same time each of the last few years? 01:22:27.660 --> 01:22:30.480 Because you have the annual cycle. 01:22:30.480 --> 01:22:36.220 3.196, January, let's see, last year was 3.197, so it's about the same, 01:22:36.840 --> 01:22:40.920 3.445, 2023, 3.413, 2022. 01:22:42.040 --> 01:22:46.920 Now 2021, 2.420, 2020, 2.636. 01:22:46.920 --> 01:22:50.020 six okay i mean during the trump administration 01:22:50.020 --> 01:22:54.340 it was lower 20 2.057 to 01:22:54.340 --> 01:23:02.180 you know two point you know it was in the mid two dollars range during that 01:23:02.180 --> 01:23:08.580 time but but here's the thing you go back to shit i mean they give you a year 01:23:08.580 --> 01:23:14.140 for example i remember gas is super expensive 2008 that was It's like last year, W. W. 01:23:14.440 --> 01:23:17.560 Bush's term. It was a three. It was at the same price as now, 01:23:17.800 --> 01:23:21.480 which inflation adjusted is way higher than this. Like right now. 01:23:22.440 --> 01:23:28.220 You know, we had very expensive gas during the Bush administration. 01:23:29.300 --> 01:23:34.140 And then when the Great Recession started, it dropped, like, significantly. 01:23:34.380 --> 01:23:40.720 And then it picked back up between 2010 and 11 and 12. 01:23:41.160 --> 01:23:45.540 And then 2015, it dropped. It was the last year of, you know, Obama. 01:23:45.840 --> 01:23:49.860 And it stayed relatively low for the next few years. But one of the things that 01:23:49.860 --> 01:23:54.660 the reason why a lot of that happened was because gas demand was going down. 01:23:55.500 --> 01:24:00.400 So it's a supply and demand thing. Heaven forbid, Sam. You know, I know it's like shock. 01:24:00.500 --> 01:24:04.680 Imagine that. Now we were we were saying this segment was mostly international. 01:24:04.680 --> 01:24:06.240 So I was running through the countries. 01:24:06.440 --> 01:24:07.820 Well, gas comes up. 01:24:07.920 --> 01:24:10.900 Yeah, it comes from places. 01:24:11.420 --> 01:24:11.880 Yes. 01:24:12.040 --> 01:24:18.440 Yeah, it comes from places. Um, no, but the, the big splash this week was not 01:24:18.440 --> 01:24:22.580 Greenland or Panama or any of that. It was Gaza. 01:24:23.120 --> 01:24:26.340 Yes. Oh, it was Gaza. It was Gaza. 01:24:26.720 --> 01:24:32.240 So what happened, Sam, Trump? Well, before we get to Gaza. 01:24:32.640 --> 01:24:33.020 Yes. 01:24:33.240 --> 01:24:34.800 Is a war Ukraine over? 01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:37.780 Oh, the war in Ukraine. No, that's not over. 01:24:38.160 --> 01:24:42.700 In fact, I just look like any, it's look like it's anywhere close to being over. 01:24:43.400 --> 01:24:50.920 In fact, this morning, I just saw news that Zelensky has announced that Ukraine 01:24:50.920 --> 01:24:55.600 has resumed a new offensive push into Kursk. 01:24:56.060 --> 01:25:01.020 Yes, I've heard that. Apparently, the Russians have not been able to. 01:25:01.600 --> 01:25:05.680 They've made new advancements and taken over more Russian territory. 01:25:05.680 --> 01:25:11.480 Now, having said that, within Ukraine, Russia has continued to creep and get 01:25:11.480 --> 01:25:14.640 a little bit more territory each month. But we are talking a little bit. 01:25:15.420 --> 01:25:23.920 It's basically still a stalemate. The Kursk thing is that basically Zelensky 01:25:23.920 --> 01:25:28.060 wants as much of Russia in his hands as possible if they are forced into negotiations. 01:25:28.380 --> 01:25:30.200 I think it's a brilliant strategy. 01:25:30.640 --> 01:25:31.080 Yeah. 01:25:31.700 --> 01:25:36.340 I mean, I think it's a brilliant strategy. I can't argue with that at all. 01:25:36.760 --> 01:25:43.700 Now, the thing, speaking of Donald Trump and his transactional self that has been reported. 01:25:43.860 --> 01:25:47.180 Oh, wait, the thing this week? Yes, the rare earth deal. 01:25:47.440 --> 01:25:53.520 Yes. So basically, Trump is saying to Zelensky now, actually, 01:25:53.520 --> 01:25:59.800 we might continue to support you in this war in exchange for your minerals and rare earths. 01:26:00.860 --> 01:26:09.200 Actually, I'm like, okay. And Zelensky was like, sure, let's make a deal. Why not? 01:26:09.880 --> 01:26:18.400 Yeah. And because also, by the way, Donald Trump's like what he has proposed for a deal. 01:26:20.080 --> 01:26:24.780 Actually, I'm going to choke while I'm saying on this. Is it all bad? 01:26:25.500 --> 01:26:31.200 No, I was shocked too. Listen, I have to think. Listen, I got to tell you something. 01:26:31.900 --> 01:26:36.180 Marco Rubio must have come up with this. Trump is not smart enough to come up 01:26:36.180 --> 01:26:37.540 with this. No fucking way. 01:26:37.740 --> 01:26:42.300 It's not just the mineral rights, but also, you know, we've said for a long time that, 01:26:43.080 --> 01:26:48.480 I mean, we said this the first week after the invasion and then sort of backed 01:26:48.480 --> 01:26:51.540 off it a little bit and now we're coming back to it, is like, 01:26:51.640 --> 01:26:54.500 as much as we don't like it, in the end, 01:26:55.000 --> 01:26:59.640 the end of this is probably going to be Russia taking some territory. 01:27:00.400 --> 01:27:06.200 But not as much if you've got a piece of Russia on one side and if you make 01:27:06.200 --> 01:27:08.740 a mineral deal on the other end. 01:27:08.900 --> 01:27:11.900 Right. But the other thing that Donald Trump is adding, like, 01:27:12.420 --> 01:27:15.280 is that, OK, no NATO membership. 01:27:15.780 --> 01:27:21.700 However, part of a peace deal would be Western NATO troops all over Ukraine. 01:27:22.860 --> 01:27:26.780 Like we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll bring in troops from Western Europe. 01:27:27.060 --> 01:27:31.480 We'll have faces, you know, and so basically as a deterrent. 01:27:31.740 --> 01:27:34.980 I'm like, where the fuck do I side? 01:27:35.420 --> 01:27:38.620 Where, where, you know, where the fuck do I side for this deal? 01:27:38.800 --> 01:27:42.460 I'm like, look, if I were me, I would do what I've done to other people, 01:27:42.480 --> 01:27:45.120 but they've made an offer like this, but they don't put it in writing. 01:27:45.540 --> 01:27:48.020 Okay. I've actually gone and put it in writing. 01:27:48.440 --> 01:27:48.740 Right. 01:27:48.760 --> 01:27:52.020 I I've gone, Oh, you offered all of this. Perfect. I call the son. 01:27:52.160 --> 01:27:55.800 I'm calling a fucking lawyer. I'm like, draft this whole fucking thing. 01:27:56.480 --> 01:28:00.720 Just put it on a page. Just, just take everything he said. Oh, 01:28:00.800 --> 01:28:02.760 he offered, he offered to get just beautiful. 01:28:03.160 --> 01:28:06.520 I'm like, here, look, let's, what do we sign? 01:28:06.800 --> 01:28:11.560 Where do we sign? Can we decide? Sometimes that works, by the way, it's worked. Okay. 01:28:12.120 --> 01:28:16.040 Because you're just taking whatever he says. It's just fucking. Yeah, go. Yes. Yes. 01:28:16.380 --> 01:28:20.760 So, so far, as far as I can tell, no interest from Putin, but you know, 01:28:20.760 --> 01:28:27.380 So the other report is that Trump and Putin are close to organizing a summit 01:28:27.380 --> 01:28:30.120 that will happen sometime soon. 01:28:30.420 --> 01:28:32.160 So we'll see what happens. 01:28:32.600 --> 01:28:36.220 Well, I'll have these two guys jerk themselves off on a global stage. 01:28:36.660 --> 01:28:42.440 Fantastic fucking event that we all are just waiting to see. Fucking Jesus Christ. 01:28:43.320 --> 01:28:45.280 Yeah. Okay. Gaza? 01:28:45.900 --> 01:28:47.580 Hey, so. 01:28:47.980 --> 01:28:48.460 Yes. 01:28:48.460 --> 01:28:59.780 Did the people in Dearborn get their savior in Trump or did they get what we 01:28:59.780 --> 01:29:03.640 told them during the fucking campaign when we repeated, hey, 01:29:04.200 --> 01:29:08.700 did you hear that Jared Kushner basically said that he wants to like ethnically 01:29:08.700 --> 01:29:11.260 cleanse the whole fucking place and build condos? 01:29:11.820 --> 01:29:17.720 Which one is the one that is getting the most traction right now? 01:29:18.460 --> 01:29:25.360 Hmm, interesting. You know, Donald Trump apparently promised these folks in 01:29:25.360 --> 01:29:28.800 Dearborn peace, but didn't say how. 01:29:29.000 --> 01:29:32.660 How? How? That, ah, that's not true. 01:29:33.780 --> 01:29:38.280 Other people, even before the election on Trump's team, I forget I forget which 01:29:38.280 --> 01:29:42.320 one it was, but somebody on the campaign, like at an off moment, 01:29:42.620 --> 01:29:47.040 like accidentally said, why don't we just nuke the whole place? 01:29:49.120 --> 01:29:49.940 You know. 01:29:50.600 --> 01:29:53.120 Yes, I remember that one. Yeah. 01:29:53.820 --> 01:29:57.680 I forget who exactly said it, but. um such. 01:29:57.680 --> 01:30:04.100 As such people with such a such i mean the the the outpouring of of just empathy 01:30:04.100 --> 01:30:08.500 and love just just such a big heart that they show to. 01:30:08.500 --> 01:30:09.240 The poor. 01:30:09.240 --> 01:30:10.580 Suffering people it's just. 01:30:10.580 --> 01:30:15.980 Nothing but of course the thing that happened this week is trump at a dual press 01:30:15.980 --> 01:30:21.620 conference with netanyahu at the white house based brought up the idea of like 01:30:21.620 --> 01:30:27.260 the the and by the way apparently it has been reported and he did not tell Netanyahu 01:30:27.260 --> 01:30:28.740 this before the moment he said it. 01:30:28.740 --> 01:30:31.800 Oh, no shit. Really? Like, I really needed to know? Yeah, like, 01:30:31.980 --> 01:30:33.920 I couldn't have guessed that one. 01:30:34.120 --> 01:30:40.760 So he goes and he says, you know, yeah, we're going to take over Gaza after 01:30:40.760 --> 01:30:44.080 all the people move out, of course, and we will flatten it. 01:30:44.220 --> 01:30:49.240 We will, like, build the best development you've ever seen. It will be wonderful. 01:30:49.340 --> 01:30:53.940 It will be the Riviera of the Middle East, et cetera. 01:30:53.940 --> 01:31:00.180 and oh of course like all the people they they they can go like egypt and jordan 01:31:00.180 --> 01:31:02.700 they'll take them i'm sure you 01:31:02.700 --> 01:31:09.080 know of course hasn't talked to those folks either you know and look there, 01:31:10.080 --> 01:31:15.380 here's the thing first first of all he has repeatedly actually used the word 01:31:15.380 --> 01:31:22.520 clean in associated in association with this this this is 100% ethnic cleansing 01:31:22.520 --> 01:31:28.160 yes which violates numerous international laws on the face of it. 01:31:28.160 --> 01:31:31.120 Wait wait wait wait wait i'm sorry what. 01:31:31.120 --> 01:31:34.620 Yeah really shocking so. 01:31:34.620 --> 01:31:41.480 You can't you can't so so so let me get this straight if we take i mean how 01:31:41.480 --> 01:31:43.020 many palestinians are in gaza. 01:31:43.020 --> 01:31:45.200 I'm not even two million ish so. 01:31:45.200 --> 01:31:52.540 I think two million So if we forcibly relocate 2 million Palestinians to build 01:31:52.540 --> 01:31:54.800 condos, that's illegal? 01:31:56.160 --> 01:31:59.900 Ah, you know, I'm sure they would all leave voluntarily, Yvonne. 01:32:00.640 --> 01:32:03.200 You think? I mean, you don't think that they're just going to, 01:32:03.300 --> 01:32:08.520 we say, hey, we show up in these trains and like we just pack them in like cattle 01:32:08.520 --> 01:32:12.780 and we ship them off to Egypt? They're not going to be just thankful? 01:32:14.220 --> 01:32:22.680 You know, that actually brings up, like, if you are going to even seriously 01:32:22.680 --> 01:32:25.760 consider the possibility of, like, hey, 01:32:26.100 --> 01:32:30.060 let's just give these folks a home elsewhere, okay, the possibility. 01:32:30.990 --> 01:32:34.650 I'm not, and just to be clear, I'm not saying this is a good idea anyway, 01:32:34.650 --> 01:32:37.230 but if you were going to take it seriously, 01:32:37.570 --> 01:32:43.110 you would produce a voluntary option and you would provide, like, 01:32:43.310 --> 01:32:46.710 here's what Donald Trump would do if he was serious about this. 01:32:46.710 --> 01:32:49.310 He would say, OK, look, here's the situation. 01:32:50.210 --> 01:32:52.690 Any Palestinian who wants to. 01:32:53.030 --> 01:32:54.090 And come to the U.S. 01:32:54.390 --> 01:32:59.690 Is free to come to the U.S. immediately. And we will provide relocation support 01:32:59.690 --> 01:33:06.210 to get you settled in the United States with a free with a path to citizenship and accelerating. 01:33:06.930 --> 01:33:08.890 How popular would that be with voters? 01:33:10.770 --> 01:33:14.290 Well, how popular would that be with Donald? you know i i. 01:33:14.290 --> 01:33:21.710 Well listen remember he's very transactional so therefore i could be he could 01:33:21.710 --> 01:33:25.470 be like oh because the pentagon what's on the other end because if he thinks 01:33:25.470 --> 01:33:28.750 for some reason i don't know i guess he thinks that this is like really how 01:33:28.750 --> 01:33:31.410 i value real estate oceanfront yeah. 01:33:31.410 --> 01:33:36.230 Well i i joked with bruce last week but i'll bring it up again you could get 01:33:36.230 --> 01:33:37.830 you could give the gossens cleveland, 01:33:40.530 --> 01:33:41.010 i 01:33:41.010 --> 01:33:44.450 Mean i listen i don't think that's your new homeland i mean 01:33:44.450 --> 01:33:47.530 i i i know one thing if they 01:33:47.530 --> 01:33:50.690 were offering me i'm in puerto rico they're gonna fucking offering me hey we'll 01:33:50.690 --> 01:33:53.430 take you out of there we're gonna say you know ship you off to fucking cleveland 01:33:53.430 --> 01:33:57.750 i'm fucking like listen i'll i'll fucking live in a goddamn floating raft in 01:33:57.750 --> 01:34:01.590 the middle of the ocean before i'm fucking living in cleveland i'll tell you 01:34:01.590 --> 01:34:05.610 that i'll fucking just you know build a raft out I'm fucking like, you know, 01:34:05.710 --> 01:34:09.050 like the Cubans do when they cross over without a flot salmon, 01:34:09.210 --> 01:34:12.030 whatever the fuck. I'll put it together, tie it together. Boom. 01:34:12.470 --> 01:34:14.890 I'm living on the ocean. Fuck Cleveland. 01:34:15.410 --> 01:34:16.250 But like, look, sorry. 01:34:16.370 --> 01:34:17.550 People from Cleveland. 01:34:17.810 --> 01:34:21.350 But look, here's the thing. The way to do that would be, yes, 01:34:21.490 --> 01:34:22.690 provide the incentives. 01:34:22.990 --> 01:34:28.090 You know, provide a path out of there and provide support and provide like even 01:34:28.090 --> 01:34:33.770 how like, hey, we will pay you to leave Gaza. Now, this is a bad idea for a 01:34:33.770 --> 01:34:34.850 number of reasons anyway. 01:34:35.190 --> 01:34:39.910 But if you were going to do that, 01:34:40.130 --> 01:34:47.310 a purely voluntary, incentivized way, and pay people for the land you're taking 01:34:47.310 --> 01:34:50.350 from them as well, by the way. Pay them full value for whatever. 01:34:51.630 --> 01:34:55.350 Listen, the reason Beebe loved this, of course, listen, I'm sitting there and 01:34:55.350 --> 01:35:00.050 if I'm Beebe, of course I'm loving this, is because he took completely all the heat off of me. 01:35:00.050 --> 01:35:03.690 he just completely completely completely 01:35:03.690 --> 01:35:12.170 completely took all the fucking heat off of me yeah okay i i mean just it i 01:35:12.170 --> 01:35:17.410 mean i i i just he i'm sure that bb walked out of there and he was like holy 01:35:17.410 --> 01:35:22.210 shit this trip was genius it couldn't have gone any better if i never planned it. 01:35:22.210 --> 01:35:26.990 Oh yeah and and look there there are a number like one of the conservative members 01:35:26.990 --> 01:35:30.710 who'd left the coalition with BB was like, hey, if this deal happens, I can be back in. 01:35:32.180 --> 01:35:32.700 Exactly. 01:35:33.440 --> 01:35:39.380 You know, look, because because basically the ultimate goal of the right wing 01:35:39.380 --> 01:35:44.020 in Israel is to fully annex West Bank and the Gaza Strip anyway. 01:35:44.220 --> 01:35:44.340 Right. 01:35:44.520 --> 01:35:48.680 They want to kick the Palestinians out and take that over as part of Israel 01:35:48.680 --> 01:35:54.300 with an Israeli population, with a Jewish population, not with the people who live there right now. 01:35:54.300 --> 01:35:58.600 Right. And the goal of Hamas is to do the opposite to the Israelis. 01:35:58.860 --> 01:36:01.540 It's like, it's like, I look at fucking Jesus fucking Christ. 01:36:01.840 --> 01:36:04.040 I love this shit. Yeah. 01:36:04.260 --> 01:36:09.680 But, but look, nothing like what I said of like a purely voluntary incentivizing. 01:36:09.840 --> 01:36:11.040 That's not what's on the table. 01:36:11.820 --> 01:36:12.520 No, no. 01:36:12.600 --> 01:36:13.720 And then talking about. 01:36:13.900 --> 01:36:15.500 You know, and by the way. 01:36:16.640 --> 01:36:22.080 Well, wait, with Trump's initial comments, it very much seemed like he was like, 01:36:22.260 --> 01:36:24.720 BBO invite me in and we'll go clear. out in Gaza. 01:36:25.040 --> 01:36:30.820 But all his staff and everybody and him and a post on Truth Social had to clarify 01:36:30.820 --> 01:36:32.900 like 24 hours later, oh, no, no, no. 01:36:33.440 --> 01:36:38.060 U.S. troops won't be necessary because we will take over after Bibi ends the war. 01:36:42.240 --> 01:36:47.760 Look, look, this is not going to happen. I mean, as much as it's just one of 01:36:47.760 --> 01:36:51.980 these fucking idiotic spitballs that he has in the middle of fucking something 01:36:51.980 --> 01:36:54.140 that he thinks is some kind of brilliant brainstorming. 01:36:54.160 --> 01:37:00.240 But but the one thing that, you know, did happen with this is a it shows the 01:37:00.240 --> 01:37:06.180 complete disregard and disdain he has for the Palestinian people. 01:37:06.180 --> 01:37:11.000 If they weren't if if you guys weren't sure of it before, because obviously 01:37:11.000 --> 01:37:17.760 many people weren't, you know, now he made it crystal clear to all of you, 01:37:17.980 --> 01:37:20.740 OK, that he basically values them at zero. 01:37:20.740 --> 01:37:29.140 yep and so and it and bb is thrilled because donald just completely took like 01:37:29.140 --> 01:37:33.520 a massive amount of heat that he had been getting over all this shit off of 01:37:33.520 --> 01:37:35.160 his plate and sent it trump's way, 01:37:36.240 --> 01:37:38.120 so he's going back and he's like, 01:37:39.240 --> 01:37:40.600 genius yeah. 01:37:40.600 --> 01:37:47.320 So i agree i i cannot see like an actual future where it's like oh yeah the 01:37:47.320 --> 01:37:49.440 u.s is occupying gaza a year from now. 01:37:51.100 --> 01:37:55.500 Well, listen, listen, of course, people have short people. Well, 01:37:55.600 --> 01:37:58.780 I mean, I don't I say short memories. This is a long time ago. 01:37:59.120 --> 01:37:59.360 Yes. 01:37:59.600 --> 01:38:04.620 I mean, but, you know, look, I mean, I remember when, you know, 01:38:04.740 --> 01:38:06.460 we sent troops to Lebanon. 01:38:06.960 --> 01:38:07.160 Yeah. 01:38:07.440 --> 01:38:12.260 To try to keep the peace. And how did that go, Sam? Do you remember? 01:38:12.520 --> 01:38:16.460 I believe there was a bombing and Ronald Reagan got the hell out of there. 01:38:16.960 --> 01:38:23.680 Yes. There was a massive bombing at the Marine barracks that killed a lot of Marines. 01:38:24.420 --> 01:38:27.460 And after that happened, we're like, well, we're out of here. 01:38:27.760 --> 01:38:31.020 Exactly. Just as I said, that's it. That did not go well. 01:38:31.480 --> 01:38:35.440 It did not go well in Iraq when we occupied it either. Okay. 01:38:35.840 --> 01:38:38.600 It really didn't go all that well in Afghanistan. 01:38:40.660 --> 01:38:45.480 So, you know, it's not going to go well in Palestine either. 01:38:46.000 --> 01:38:48.040 Gaza. It's just, it's insane. 01:38:48.660 --> 01:38:51.820 It's an insane plan. Well, I'm saying this. 01:38:52.500 --> 01:38:53.780 Yes. Did I mention this? 01:38:54.000 --> 01:38:58.300 Oh, by the way, it's a fucking insane plan. 01:38:59.440 --> 01:39:05.320 By the way, any scenario where foreign peacekeepers end up working in the end, 01:39:05.520 --> 01:39:08.320 the country in question. 01:39:08.640 --> 01:39:08.940 It can't be us. 01:39:09.220 --> 01:39:14.300 Well, it can't be us. And the country in question also has to fundamentally, 01:39:14.540 --> 01:39:18.660 they really do have to be sovereign. They need to be the ones making the decisions in the end. 01:39:19.080 --> 01:39:24.360 It can't be a scenario where we're coming in, for instance, and saying, no, we're in charge. 01:39:24.820 --> 01:39:25.300 Right. 01:39:25.380 --> 01:39:30.940 No, no. It has to be, you know, we could help, like, I don't know, 01:39:31.120 --> 01:39:32.500 maybe we can help in some ways. 01:39:32.640 --> 01:39:39.040 But here's fundamentally the thing. If anything, the last year plus in Gaza 01:39:39.040 --> 01:39:44.940 has resulted in Hamas having more support within Gaza than they did before, not less. 01:39:46.680 --> 01:39:52.280 Hamas, that's not totally accurate. I saw many people that were also fed up 01:39:52.280 --> 01:39:55.580 with Hamas because of how they dragged them into it. 01:39:55.700 --> 01:39:58.280 The fact that they wouldn't close a deal on this. 01:39:58.500 --> 01:40:02.240 OK, the fact that there was a there was a peace offer over and over. 01:40:02.720 --> 01:40:07.120 I think that you're in a kind of a situation here also where we're, 01:40:07.120 --> 01:40:09.900 you know, pissed off at the Israelis. 01:40:10.240 --> 01:40:12.880 All I'm saying is that Hamas would still win. 01:40:13.840 --> 01:40:18.920 I don't know if that's true. I don't know if that's true. The last time I saw 01:40:18.920 --> 01:40:20.820 something on polling on the ground. 01:40:21.020 --> 01:40:23.220 Not like they can poll reliably. 01:40:23.340 --> 01:40:26.980 But on where, you know, not like a regular poll, but the one getting sent to 01:40:26.980 --> 01:40:29.080 it, people were really angry at Hamas. 01:40:29.640 --> 01:40:33.980 And the anger had been building over time because there's no resolution. 01:40:33.980 --> 01:40:35.340 There was no endgame. Okay? 01:40:35.580 --> 01:40:38.560 All right? It's the same thing as what's happening to Bibi on his end. 01:40:38.700 --> 01:40:41.340 Okay? you know at first you know 01:40:41.340 --> 01:40:44.800 a lot of israelis were supportive but as time went on why 01:40:44.800 --> 01:40:47.600 his position became very untenable is because people were like 01:40:47.600 --> 01:40:50.840 oh what the fuck we keep fighting we keep killing people people keep 01:40:50.840 --> 01:40:54.120 dying we're not getting anywhere what the fuck is going on and so 01:40:54.120 --> 01:40:56.860 you had the flip side on their side too where people were also 01:40:56.860 --> 01:40:59.780 getting fed up now now that there's a ceasefire that 01:40:59.780 --> 01:41:02.960 may be a different story but it got to a point i know that 01:41:02.960 --> 01:41:05.980 that especially because but you got two things 01:41:05.980 --> 01:41:09.040 on one end i mean israel did 01:41:09.040 --> 01:41:11.900 kill a lot of the hamas leadership that was there yes 01:41:11.900 --> 01:41:14.700 okay all right which that that really weakened their 01:41:14.700 --> 01:41:17.460 position overall in general but at the 01:41:17.460 --> 01:41:20.540 same time people were getting pissed that there was there were 01:41:20.540 --> 01:41:23.840 multiple ceasefire offers that kept coming up and 01:41:23.840 --> 01:41:29.820 they weren't closing and so you had the situation on both sides where both were 01:41:29.820 --> 01:41:33.040 unhappy with their leadership about this because this fucking ceasefire and 01:41:33.040 --> 01:41:35.840 i'll tell you that a lot of the reason I understood that the ceasefire finally 01:41:35.840 --> 01:41:41.320 happened is because of also the discontent on the Palestinian side about that 01:41:41.320 --> 01:41:42.540 this thing isn't ending. 01:41:44.000 --> 01:41:47.800 So I don't know what happens if there's an election because of that. 01:41:47.940 --> 01:41:51.440 Maybe like right now, because there's a, there is just to be clear. 01:41:51.560 --> 01:41:54.200 That's a hypothetical anyway. There's not going to be an election in Gaza. 01:41:54.380 --> 01:41:57.600 There's not an election anytime soon. Yeah, that's not happening. 01:41:58.380 --> 01:42:03.040 Yeah. So anyway, okay. Now we're near the end of time, but I did want to hit. 01:42:03.040 --> 01:42:05.940 End of time end of end of times. 01:42:05.940 --> 01:42:06.820 End of times. 01:42:06.820 --> 01:42:11.880 Yeah it's hey hey no it's not get too hasty here I don't, 01:42:12.720 --> 01:42:15.040 I'm hoping that I can outlive Trump by a long time. 01:42:15.360 --> 01:42:16.960 Dogs and cats living together. 01:42:17.940 --> 01:42:20.580 I hope I get a chance to piss on his grave when he's dead. 01:42:22.820 --> 01:42:25.660 He'll probably put him at that golf course over there where they put, 01:42:25.860 --> 01:42:28.900 like, what's her name? Ivana, like, over there. 01:42:29.260 --> 01:42:35.420 Just on a corner. Okay. No, I wanted to hit—we need to close up, 01:42:35.440 --> 01:42:39.180 but I did want to hit the tariff stuff as well real quick. 01:42:40.200 --> 01:42:48.500 And I think since the last time we talked, Yvonne, we've actually had the tariff 01:42:48.500 --> 01:42:52.900 threat come and go for Colombia, Mexico, 01:42:53.700 --> 01:42:58.420 Canada, and there's even been some back and forth in China as well. 01:42:59.960 --> 01:43:03.980 Let's real quick on the common theme. 01:43:04.460 --> 01:43:09.160 Is that all of them gave him something that Dio already was getting on? 01:43:09.180 --> 01:43:11.140 Anyway yes the. 01:43:11.140 --> 01:43:13.960 Three don't the all three they gave them. 01:43:13.960 --> 01:43:16.980 Something colombia canada and mexico colombia canada 01:43:16.980 --> 01:43:20.040 and mexico it turns out in colombia the 01:43:20.040 --> 01:43:23.700 main actual like concession that 01:43:23.700 --> 01:43:29.040 was given anywhere is donald trump conceding not to use military planes and 01:43:29.040 --> 01:43:34.080 not to have them like all shackled when they're delivered right correct yeah 01:43:34.080 --> 01:43:38.960 that was it like that because colombia never actually objected to taking flights 01:43:38.960 --> 01:43:43.160 of migrants back to Colombia that were Colombian citizens. 01:43:44.040 --> 01:43:48.000 And they'd been happening during the Biden administration all along. 01:43:48.160 --> 01:43:48.720 Biden administration, yes. 01:43:48.960 --> 01:43:55.380 But they were essentially happening on civilian flights. The people were not, 01:43:56.150 --> 01:44:00.510 in shackles and all of this kind of stuff. Trump tried to make it incredibly 01:44:00.510 --> 01:44:06.830 performative by using military planes and sending them in orange jumpsuits and chains. 01:44:07.410 --> 01:44:11.610 And that's what Colombia said no to. And Donald Trump backed off. 01:44:12.130 --> 01:44:18.990 And, you know, the flights resumed in the same way they've been going for years. So that's Colombia. 01:44:20.350 --> 01:44:24.610 For Mexico, by the way, officially on Mexico and Canada, we're only on a 30-day 01:44:24.610 --> 01:44:27.750 delay on the tariffs, but we'll see what happens. 01:44:29.030 --> 01:44:31.590 But in Mexico... 01:44:31.590 --> 01:44:35.990 By the way, and the problem with Mexico and Canada is that the current trade 01:44:35.990 --> 01:44:41.310 deal in place with them is the worst ever negotiated trade deal ever, 01:44:41.510 --> 01:44:43.450 that it's just a disaster, Sam. 01:44:43.590 --> 01:44:49.710 The trade deal that is in place with them is a fucking disaster that is stealing 01:44:49.710 --> 01:44:52.650 from America. Now, Sam, who negotiated? 01:44:52.970 --> 01:44:58.590 Who? Yes. Who signed? Who negotiated that deal and signed it? Who was it? Was it Obama? 01:44:59.590 --> 01:45:01.150 It must have been. It must have been. 01:45:01.210 --> 01:45:01.790 It must have been, right? 01:45:01.970 --> 01:45:03.770 Yeah. Or Biden? Biden? 01:45:04.750 --> 01:45:04.950 Biden? 01:45:05.690 --> 01:45:09.590 Yeah. No. Or, you know, it was probably Jimmy Carter. You know, he just. 01:45:09.830 --> 01:45:12.270 Ah, it was Jimmy. Yeah. Yeah. Just blame it on Jimmy. 01:45:12.950 --> 01:45:13.970 No, it was Donald Trump. 01:45:14.270 --> 01:45:18.430 It was Trump himself. It's like, like, what the fuck, man? 01:45:19.400 --> 01:45:22.000 We already renegotiated this fucking deal because you wanted it. 01:45:22.180 --> 01:45:25.980 We set down, we did it. And now you're like shitting all over your own fucking deal. 01:45:27.120 --> 01:45:32.280 And so Mexico agreed to send 10,000 troops to the border that they were- Now. 01:45:32.440 --> 01:45:32.680 Sam! 01:45:33.260 --> 01:45:33.660 Yes. 01:45:34.920 --> 01:45:39.000 You know, was that, you know, absolutely came out of the blue, 01:45:39.100 --> 01:45:41.440 right? Nobody expected them to send those troops over there, right? 01:45:42.160 --> 01:45:43.840 They'd been doing that for years. 01:45:45.940 --> 01:45:49.060 You know, like, off 01:45:49.060 --> 01:45:52.480 and on i gather the numbers fluctuate but generally speaking they 01:45:52.480 --> 01:45:55.980 have 10 000 plus people at the border doing that 01:45:55.980 --> 01:46:01.080 kind of work anyway they'd done it they'd most recently ramped up requests because 01:46:01.080 --> 01:46:05.280 of the biden administration asked them to in some way and yeah so yeah that 01:46:05.280 --> 01:46:09.680 it's unclear to me whether they're even sending anyone new to the border right 01:46:09.680 --> 01:46:12.580 like at this point They're just doing what they were doing. 01:46:12.960 --> 01:46:22.100 And Canada agreed to spend, what was it, $1.3 billion or something on fentanyl or something? 01:46:22.380 --> 01:46:27.220 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some system to interdict the stuff coming through the Canadian border now. 01:46:27.480 --> 01:46:29.380 Which, by the way... 01:46:29.980 --> 01:46:32.380 Was a deal that they negotiated with the Biden administration? 01:46:32.440 --> 01:46:35.120 Oh, yeah. And they actually announced it fully in December. 01:46:37.500 --> 01:46:40.920 They just repeated it to Donald Trump. that 01:46:40.920 --> 01:46:44.100 they were going to do that and by the way the fentanyl thing 01:46:44.100 --> 01:46:47.340 apparently the actual volume of fentanyl through the northern border is tiny 01:46:47.340 --> 01:46:55.800 anyway nothing you know nothing um so both so all three of these columbia canada 01:46:55.800 --> 01:47:01.760 and mexico basically agreed to do things they were doing anyway, 01:47:03.320 --> 01:47:07.940 and got the tariff threat removed or at least delayed. 01:47:08.420 --> 01:47:12.100 And in at least the Colombian case, they got the Donald Trump administration 01:47:12.100 --> 01:47:14.460 to back down on something else as well. 01:47:16.160 --> 01:47:21.580 Now, here's the thing, though. This is once again one of those things that Donald 01:47:21.580 --> 01:47:26.220 Trump is a master of declaring victory off nothing. 01:47:26.620 --> 01:47:27.180 Correct. 01:47:27.180 --> 01:47:34.580 And depending how closely you're paying attention and which news sources you're paying attention to, 01:47:35.180 --> 01:47:41.760 like, you may hear what we just talked about, or you may just hear Donald Trump 01:47:41.760 --> 01:47:42.920 won and they backed down. 01:47:43.200 --> 01:47:43.660 Yeah. 01:47:43.660 --> 01:47:48.800 And that's all you hear. Yeah. Donald Trump threatened them, 01:47:48.960 --> 01:47:53.020 and they backed down, and Donald Trump won. Tariffs are working. 01:47:53.820 --> 01:47:55.960 Yeah. That's what they said. Tariffs are working. 01:47:55.960 --> 01:48:04.980 And I suspect that a huge proportion of the American population and an even 01:48:04.980 --> 01:48:10.100 bigger proportion of Trump voters, all they heard is Donald Trump won. 01:48:10.880 --> 01:48:12.080 I'm pretty sure as well. 01:48:13.380 --> 01:48:20.520 And so in the end, he gets what he wants, like, because this is performative. This is transactional. 01:48:21.360 --> 01:48:26.720 And in this case, the transaction is essentially imaginary, but he gets a win out of it anyway. 01:48:27.440 --> 01:48:27.900 Yeah, I know. 01:48:30.320 --> 01:48:35.800 And meanwhile, with China, by the way, the tariffs went into force with China. 01:48:35.800 --> 01:48:40.080 And the biggest part that everyone was most worried about, that they were like, 01:48:40.180 --> 01:48:44.520 this is going to change the dynamics of Chinese commerce in the United States 01:48:44.520 --> 01:48:47.520 dramatically, is that it would apply to everything. 01:48:47.520 --> 01:48:51.060 Whereas previously there had been an exemption for things under $800. 01:48:52.220 --> 01:48:58.420 And this is an exemption that occurs to, like, it's not just with China. 01:48:58.560 --> 01:49:01.120 There is what they call the minimus. 01:49:01.880 --> 01:49:02.120 Basically. 01:49:02.500 --> 01:49:06.740 Yeah, the minimus. It's a minimus. It's of small value, basically, 01:49:07.420 --> 01:49:12.500 that those kind of shipments were exempt from customs, you know, 01:49:12.720 --> 01:49:14.000 tariffs, etc. and so forth. 01:49:14.040 --> 01:49:17.100 And the thing is that whole businesses that have been built on this. 01:49:17.360 --> 01:49:21.980 Like exactly, Tambu and whatever, they've been building precisely on this. 01:49:22.440 --> 01:49:28.020 Where they're shipping low value items and selling them cheap in the U.S. 01:49:28.020 --> 01:49:34.240 And so like when when the Chinese sanctions sanctions tariffs initially did 01:49:34.240 --> 01:49:39.520 go into effect, everyone was like, oh, crap, this is going to kill all of those 01:49:39.520 --> 01:49:40.780 businesses. This is going to. 01:49:40.780 --> 01:49:45.440 And it would have because it would have added a lot of like process and cost 01:49:45.440 --> 01:49:49.740 to every shipment. It just would have I mean, it just would have made it far 01:49:49.740 --> 01:49:52.520 more complicated because they're shipping directly from China. 01:49:52.520 --> 01:49:52.840 Okay. 01:49:53.120 --> 01:49:57.340 And so the thing is that then every one of these would have had to have a customs 01:49:57.340 --> 01:50:00.960 clearance form and pay duties and taxes and have to be cleared from customs 01:50:00.960 --> 01:50:03.520 for every single one of these like tiny shipments. 01:50:03.580 --> 01:50:06.440 It was just would have been a crazy backlog. But now, you know. 01:50:07.070 --> 01:50:12.570 Trump, for whatever reason, has undone that undid it. Yeah. 01:50:12.690 --> 01:50:14.910 Yeah. He put the exemption back in place. 01:50:15.110 --> 01:50:19.350 I'm going to, you know, you want me to take a wild guess? That's probably not that wild. 01:50:19.690 --> 01:50:20.330 What's that? 01:50:20.650 --> 01:50:26.110 I wonder where the money got to him that they, that whoever in Temu went and 01:50:26.110 --> 01:50:28.530 like bought, I don't know how much DJT, 01:50:29.050 --> 01:50:35.030 how many hotel rooms or what kind of like coin or Trump coin or whatever the 01:50:35.030 --> 01:50:39.310 fuck that they went and they just decided to go and like spend a few hundred million. 01:50:39.530 --> 01:50:45.730 Because unlike the other three that we talked about, there's no public concession 01:50:45.730 --> 01:50:47.790 from China, even a fake concession. 01:50:48.110 --> 01:50:50.490 Even a fake concession. There's just got dropped. 01:50:51.270 --> 01:50:51.430 Yeah. 01:50:51.790 --> 01:50:55.630 Look, by the way, Venezuela the other day with now, of course, 01:50:55.750 --> 01:50:58.710 all the Venezuelans like up in arms with like the fact that, 01:50:58.890 --> 01:51:02.950 you know, they voted for him and all of a sudden he said, fuck your family. 01:51:02.950 --> 01:51:05.870 We're going to deport him anyway, because everything's fine in Venezuela. 01:51:06.270 --> 01:51:11.110 Look, some oil guy paid off, must have made some nice payoff to him. 01:51:11.210 --> 01:51:16.090 There was a Mar-a-Lago guy that somehow got all of a sudden to send Marco over there. 01:51:16.470 --> 01:51:19.930 Now we're friendly with Maduro and now we're buying oil. 01:51:20.090 --> 01:51:22.810 And, you know, it's all of a sudden that I'm like, OK, you know, 01:51:22.950 --> 01:51:27.150 look, I mean, this is another one where it's very obvious that there is some 01:51:27.150 --> 01:51:32.170 payoff somewhere for this to happen. But, you know, is the Justice Department 01:51:32.170 --> 01:51:33.350 going to go to investigate? 01:51:33.710 --> 01:51:38.310 Oh, you know, not only not only is the Justice Department obviously not going 01:51:38.310 --> 01:51:41.010 to in in investigate Donald Trump, 01:51:41.230 --> 01:51:50.290 but one of the areas that they have reportedly essentially shut down the two there's two. 01:51:50.290 --> 01:51:56.710 One, the group within the Justice Department slash FBI that was dedicated towards, 01:51:56.710 --> 01:52:01.470 like, FARA violations and, you know, international agents, international influence, 01:52:01.570 --> 01:52:02.890 whatever, they're just shutting down that group. 01:52:03.530 --> 01:52:09.090 And just generally speaking, they're also apparently significantly reducing 01:52:09.090 --> 01:52:12.150 the folks that do public corruption in general. 01:52:12.310 --> 01:52:15.610 Because, like, why would you want to investigate that? They're talking to Eric 01:52:15.610 --> 01:52:18.270 Adams in New York about potentially, like, dropping that. 01:52:18.270 --> 01:52:21.490 Yeah, I know. I did hear that. They're going to drop it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. 01:52:22.390 --> 01:52:24.810 And here's the thing. People are like, well, why would he do that? 01:52:24.930 --> 01:52:27.050 Eric Adams is a Democrat. Yeah, but you know. 01:52:27.250 --> 01:52:28.410 Criminals are his friends. 01:52:29.250 --> 01:52:38.810 Exactly. Because the idea in general that there should be restrictions on what politicians want. 01:52:39.230 --> 01:52:45.770 What kind of deals politicians could do in exchange for their actions is anathema in general. 01:52:45.970 --> 01:52:46.810 Totally anathema. 01:52:46.970 --> 01:52:48.570 Because, of course, that's what you want to do. 01:52:48.810 --> 01:52:49.350 Yes. 01:52:49.510 --> 01:52:51.290 That's just how business is done. 01:52:51.670 --> 01:52:52.190 Right. 01:52:52.590 --> 01:52:58.770 You know, now, do we have any proof of these specific briberies that we're saying? No, of course not. 01:52:59.290 --> 01:53:02.350 But is it plausible? Of course it is. 01:53:02.530 --> 01:53:07.110 I mean, is it plausible? It's just plausible. It's probable. 01:53:08.470 --> 01:53:11.450 What are you talking about? What do you mean plausible? 01:53:12.850 --> 01:53:16.150 It's, I mean, nothing else explains this shit. 01:53:16.310 --> 01:53:20.830 The one other thing to mention on tariffs that came out in the last couple of 01:53:20.830 --> 01:53:29.470 days is the Trump administration is preparing global reciprocal tariffs, which basically, 01:53:29.730 --> 01:53:33.950 as I got the wrong one, but I pointed out on our Commudgence Course Slack that 01:53:33.950 --> 01:53:36.270 this was right out of a Tom Clancy novel as well. 01:53:37.110 --> 01:53:42.370 way or not yeah i said some of all fears yvonne says it was debt of honor you 01:53:42.370 --> 01:53:47.130 know i you know it's been like 30 years since i read any of those books it has been. 01:53:47.130 --> 01:53:49.450 30 years yes since we read that book yes. 01:53:49.450 --> 01:53:55.510 But but anyway like no the basic notion here is that if any country has a tariff 01:53:55.510 --> 01:54:00.570 on american goods we put exactly the same tariff on their goods and here. 01:54:00.570 --> 01:54:04.730 Here it is let me read it because I looked up the plot summary from Debt of 01:54:04.730 --> 01:54:07.290 Honor, 1994, Tom Clancy novel. 01:54:08.230 --> 01:54:11.870 Japanese industrialist Raizo Yamada has been plotting to bring back his country 01:54:11.870 --> 01:54:15.230 to position of greatness for years, partly as revenge for the death of his family 01:54:15.230 --> 01:54:19.450 at the hands of American forces invading the island of Saipan during World War II. 01:54:20.590 --> 01:54:25.790 Then there is, it says here, there was some incident with a car accident, 01:54:26.110 --> 01:54:27.490 faulty gas tanks made in Japan. 01:54:27.670 --> 01:54:30.690 The incident leads to the swift passage of a law allowing the U.S. 01:54:30.750 --> 01:54:32.030 to mirror trade practices. 01:54:32.350 --> 01:54:35.830 of the countries for which it imports goods, cutting off the American export 01:54:35.830 --> 01:54:38.210 market upon which Japanese economy depends. 01:54:38.790 --> 01:54:46.510 So there's your, yeah. So that was the initial plot point of the movie. 01:54:46.710 --> 01:54:49.410 Okay, I will also add before we- I mean. 01:54:49.470 --> 01:54:51.370 There's no movie on Dead of Honor, it's just the book. 01:54:51.430 --> 01:54:55.810 Right, right, the book, the book. I will add though, since we are talking about 01:54:55.810 --> 01:55:00.490 fictional things related to this, people have also been pointing out The opening 01:55:00.490 --> 01:55:06.090 crawl to Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace, is the following. 01:55:06.770 --> 01:55:12.470 turmoil has engulfed the galactic republic the taxation of trade routes to outlying 01:55:12.470 --> 01:55:15.630 star systems is in dispute hey. 01:55:15.630 --> 01:55:19.170 But you know that was all bullshit i mean who the hell would go to you know 01:55:19.170 --> 01:55:24.330 get get into a tiff over you know the taxation of traders what are you talking about sam. 01:55:24.330 --> 01:55:31.430 Yes anyway anyway so the the reciprocal tariffs actually like initially it's 01:55:31.430 --> 01:55:33.450 like oh well that That might kind of make sense. 01:55:33.630 --> 01:55:37.410 But like the reality is here, this is another one of these things that is probably 01:55:37.410 --> 01:55:42.050 going to work out the same way that we're talking about Canada and Mexico and 01:55:42.050 --> 01:55:47.950 Colombia, which the default will be reciprocal trade, reciprocal tariffs everywhere. 01:55:48.490 --> 01:55:52.690 But then there will be all sorts of exceptions made. 01:55:52.690 --> 01:55:58.110 It'll be Swiss cheese based on like what Donald Trump thinks he can get transactionally 01:55:58.110 --> 01:56:01.070 out of all these different countries, which is what we, 01:56:01.890 --> 01:56:08.950 like Yvonne and I, we talked like before the inauguration that the thing to 01:56:08.950 --> 01:56:11.370 watch with tariffs is not the tariffs themselves. 01:56:11.430 --> 01:56:14.850 It is what are the loopholes in the tariffs and what are the exceptions? 01:56:15.350 --> 01:56:17.430 Because that's where the deals will get made. 01:56:17.730 --> 01:56:18.430 Yeah, yeah, yeah. 01:56:18.810 --> 01:56:23.450 And in this case also, like, I think we said this before too, 01:56:23.650 --> 01:56:28.390 but like, if any of these actually go through and stay through. 01:56:28.650 --> 01:56:31.930 They'll be damaging, they'll be inflationary, all of that kind of stuff. 01:56:32.210 --> 01:56:35.830 But Trump's game is absolutely clear now. I think it was clear before, 01:56:35.990 --> 01:56:37.650 but it's absolutely clear now. 01:56:38.090 --> 01:56:40.190 It's threatened the tariff, 01:56:40.800 --> 01:56:46.220 get some sort of win out of it. And I say win, not real concession because of 01:56:46.220 --> 01:56:47.200 what we talked about before. 01:56:47.440 --> 01:56:51.700 Like in some of these cases, yeah, they say they're doing something, 01:56:51.860 --> 01:56:53.400 but it's something that we were doing anyway. 01:56:53.540 --> 01:56:56.140 So it's only a PR win. 01:56:56.700 --> 01:57:00.540 Maybe in some cases he'll get something real out of it too, based on the threat. 01:57:00.860 --> 01:57:05.840 But the key is the threat of the tariff and then try to get a win out of it 01:57:05.840 --> 01:57:10.740 without ever actually putting the tariffs in place for any period of time that matter. 01:57:10.960 --> 01:57:14.540 Which is, by the way, it's a moat, which is why we're talking about a whole bunch of the changes. 01:57:14.920 --> 01:57:19.340 Although, to be fair, in his first term, he put on a bunch of tariffs to China that stayed on. 01:57:19.480 --> 01:57:20.220 That stayed, yes. 01:57:20.360 --> 01:57:21.740 That did cause some damage. 01:57:21.740 --> 01:57:25.580 They never, and they never got, there were some tariffs that never were. 01:57:25.780 --> 01:57:29.940 I mean, he had to do these farm subsidies to make up for the losses that farmers 01:57:29.940 --> 01:57:35.420 got due to those tariffs. And so it's quite possible that in some of these cases, 01:57:35.420 --> 01:57:38.700 the countries will call the bluff, not do anything. 01:57:38.940 --> 01:57:42.920 The tariffs will go into effect and stay in effect. And then we will see some 01:57:42.920 --> 01:57:49.680 of these negative consequences of tariffs. But I suspect the international world learns quickly. 01:57:50.240 --> 01:57:55.160 And they are remembering how to do business from Donald Trump from what they 01:57:55.160 --> 01:58:01.480 found out last time, which is you flatter him, you give him PR wins. 01:58:01.720 --> 01:58:06.040 They don't have to be real wins. You know, maybe in certain cases you give him 01:58:06.040 --> 01:58:11.360 a real win, but you basically give him PR wins and you flatter him and you talk 01:58:11.360 --> 01:58:14.440 about how he's incredible and amazing and blah, blah, blah. 01:58:15.000 --> 01:58:21.080 And you can figure out a way to get through it without having the negative consequences actually hit. 01:58:21.620 --> 01:58:27.020 So, okay, that's it. We're done. We're over time. But I wanted to talk about 01:58:27.020 --> 01:58:28.240 tariffs because they're so interesting. 01:58:29.960 --> 01:58:30.340 You know? 01:58:30.580 --> 01:58:34.200 Tariffs. Woo! Woo! Woo! 01:58:35.100 --> 01:58:40.600 Yeah. And if you want a primer on tariffs, you know the one source, 01:58:40.760 --> 01:58:43.520 of course, to go to. Right, Yvonne? 01:58:44.040 --> 01:58:45.160 I go, what? 01:58:45.540 --> 01:58:49.300 If you want to learn more about tariffs, there's only one thing to do. 01:58:50.140 --> 01:58:51.240 Um, um. 01:58:52.000 --> 01:58:55.100 You're not going to get it. Rewatch Ferris Mueller's Day Off. 01:58:55.980 --> 01:58:58.840 Oh! Yes! Of course! 01:58:58.840 --> 01:59:01.520 To get the lecture on the Smoot-Hawley tariffs. 01:59:01.820 --> 01:59:05.800 Tariffs by fucking what's his name, Ben Stein, who's also a MAGA asshole. 01:59:06.020 --> 01:59:10.080 Yes, there you go. So go re-watch that. 01:59:11.120 --> 01:59:13.780 Okay, we're done here. Thanks everybody. Oh, wait. 01:59:14.140 --> 01:59:18.960 Should I say this? Go to our website, curmudgeons-quarter.com All the stuff, 01:59:19.600 --> 01:59:24.340 the transcripts, how to contact us, Patreon, all that stuff. 01:59:24.340 --> 01:59:28.340 If you give us money at Patreon, we will eventually give you stuff, 01:59:28.560 --> 01:59:31.240 even though I'm slow and it takes me forever. Sorry, guys. 01:59:31.900 --> 01:59:37.280 And yeah, and $2 a month or more, or if you ask us, we'll invite you to a convention 01:59:37.280 --> 01:59:41.840 score of Slack, where Yvonne and I and others are chatting throughout the week. 01:59:41.960 --> 01:59:43.980 Yvonne, do you got anything from the Slack this time? 01:59:44.700 --> 01:59:48.980 Do I have... Jesus, I forgot. Hang on, hang on. There's gotta be something here. 01:59:50.900 --> 01:59:56.560 Uh... da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Oh, yes. A brilliant one. 01:59:56.880 --> 02:00:01.820 Pete Hack says Venmo got leaked, and now people are flooding him with payment requests. 02:00:02.960 --> 02:00:08.480 It's, you know, so the one thing about Venmo, which I realized early on. 02:00:08.600 --> 02:00:10.340 It's by default, everything you do is public. 02:00:10.880 --> 02:00:14.680 Right. And I very quickly, immediately, I saw this stream. I'm like, 02:00:14.800 --> 02:00:18.040 fuck this shit. I don't want everybody to know what the fuck I'm doing with my money. 02:00:18.300 --> 02:00:21.560 Oh, I'm paying whatever I want, and I shut that shit off. But apparently, 02:00:21.880 --> 02:00:22.940 Pete Hack said being the. 02:00:23.000 --> 02:00:26.280 I don't use it very often, but every time I do, I'm like, okay, 02:00:26.280 --> 02:00:32.060 everybody's gonna see that i just gave you know my daughter thirty dollars i 02:00:32.060 --> 02:00:37.260 just gave my daughter thirty dollars to buy my son dinner you know or whatever okay. 02:00:37.260 --> 02:00:40.280 All right okay all right you know at least it's not hookers that you're paying 02:00:40.280 --> 02:00:43.760 so that's good good news okay so pete hack says. 02:00:43.760 --> 02:00:48.920 Venmo you say that but that was part of the evidence but against matt gates 02:00:48.920 --> 02:00:50.820 was his venmo payment Venmo. 02:00:53.040 --> 02:00:55.120 Why am I not surprised? You know. 02:00:55.240 --> 02:00:55.860 Okay. Go ahead. 02:00:57.080 --> 02:00:59.920 And now people are flooding him with payment requests. It's a remind button 02:00:59.920 --> 02:01:03.380 for me combined with the emotional damage. So this guy pending. 02:01:03.660 --> 02:01:07.160 You requested $45,000 from Pete Haxit. Why? 02:01:07.420 --> 02:01:11.200 Emotional damage. There you go. So people have been flooding him with requests. 02:01:11.200 --> 02:01:14.340 I'm sure that he's probably changed his thing by now. 02:01:14.920 --> 02:01:15.160 Probably. 02:01:15.340 --> 02:01:16.320 Yeah. That was just. 02:01:16.360 --> 02:01:20.900 I would be more interested if he was actually like paying the people who asked them for money. 02:01:21.480 --> 02:01:22.640 Ah, well, that would be. 02:01:23.460 --> 02:01:26.260 Well, that would be interesting on me. So what are you telling me? 02:01:26.300 --> 02:01:27.580 I should send him a payment request? 02:01:28.260 --> 02:01:29.140 See if he pays. 02:01:29.660 --> 02:01:32.340 I mean, I don't understand. You know, these people are cheap. 02:01:32.440 --> 02:01:35.320 I mean, only $45,000. I'm like, you know, what the fuck? 02:01:35.760 --> 02:01:38.180 That's it? I mean, if you're really going to hit him up, hit him for. 02:01:38.600 --> 02:01:42.220 Although, of course, I'm sure I think the limit on how much you can request. 02:01:42.220 --> 02:01:44.080 I was going to say, why don't you request a million dollars? 02:01:44.220 --> 02:01:47.060 What are you doing? I don't think you can Venmo. I don't think. 02:01:47.480 --> 02:01:51.900 Well, and you know, Hegseth has some money, but he's not like, he's not Musk. 02:01:52.220 --> 02:01:54.600 Yeah, he's not Musk. Oh, well, damn. 02:01:55.200 --> 02:01:58.780 Okay, we are done. Here comes the outro music. Thanks for listening, 02:01:58.900 --> 02:02:03.160 everybody. Tell your friends. Have a great week. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. 02:02:03.420 --> 02:02:05.660 Look at this Venmo feed. Look, I'm looking just before you go. 02:02:05.840 --> 02:02:09.780 Look, I just went in. I mean, this guy that I despise. I don't know who I am. 02:02:10.240 --> 02:02:13.600 I guess he has a contact. Tracy Lopez. This guy is a douchebag. 02:02:13.700 --> 02:02:16.040 Oh, you're giving his name publicly, too. 02:02:16.100 --> 02:02:18.800 Oh, yeah. Fuck him. Whatever. He's a fucking asshole. You know, 02:02:18.900 --> 02:02:22.320 somehow he tipped an AA club, whatever the fuck that is. you know, 02:02:22.560 --> 02:02:24.180 you know, he did that on Venmo. 02:02:24.360 --> 02:02:27.460 Okay. For example, I got, let's see, what else? 02:02:27.560 --> 02:02:30.940 I got somebody paying for, you know, one guy paid his brother, 02:02:31.120 --> 02:02:35.680 another guy paid his brother, ginger grooming and tip for groomer. 02:02:35.760 --> 02:02:38.260 So I'm guessing they groomed her dog wings. 02:02:39.040 --> 02:02:39.920 I don't know. 02:02:40.960 --> 02:02:45.540 Basketball. I mean, I don't know, you know, but what else I'm looking at that one. 02:02:45.700 --> 02:02:50.920 I went because I'm like, I'm literally a guy I hate in his guts. 02:02:51.400 --> 02:02:55.000 And why the hell is he showing up on my fucking feed? Fuck him. 02:02:56.140 --> 02:02:59.660 Okay. Okay, now can I say goodbye, Yvonne? 02:02:59.960 --> 02:03:00.700 Yes, you can say goodbye. 02:03:00.980 --> 02:03:04.820 Okay. Stay safe, everybody. Have a great week. Tell your friends to listen to 02:03:04.820 --> 02:03:07.780 the show. We'll talk to you next time. Goodbye. 02:03:08.480 --> 02:03:08.960 Bye. 02:03:38.960 --> 02:03:43.440 Thank you. Okay, hit and stop. See you later, Yvonne. Bye. 02:03:44.140 --> 02:03:46.760 Bye. Thank you.