Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 9/3/26: Nightmare GOP Midterm Projection, OpenAI Doomsday Scenario, Tucker Carlson Endorses Abdul & MORE!

Transcript

9/3/26: Nightmare GOP Midterm Projection, OpenAI Doomsday Scenario, Tucker Carlson Endorses Abdul & MORE! · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
• 0:05
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• 0:07
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• 0:08
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• 0:10
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• 0:12
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• 0:27
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• 0:31
  Speaker 2: So we were discussing earlier how much the midterms are
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: factoring into Trump's considerations with regard to the Iran war.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and take a listen to his comments
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: about how seriously he takes them.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: So the stock market wasn't affected, although it would even
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: be higher, believe it or not.
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: The stock market will go up, but it's very simple.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: As soon as it's over, which I don't think will
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: be very much longer.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: I don't know how much more they can take, but,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: you know, whatever it is, it doesn't matter.
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: And I'm not affected by the election. Number one, I'm
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: not running.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: My party's running and I'm going to help my party.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: But I think my party respects the fact that we're
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: not allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And frankly,
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: other presidents should have done that, but they didn't have
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: whatever it takes.
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: To do it.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Personally, I don't believe him one bit for two reasons.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Number one, as we were discussing earlier, it appears that
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: the calculus from the Trump administration is let's wait for
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: the midterms to play out. Let's try to put our
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Ron Boer on the back burner and just, quote unquote,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: mow the grass and mow the lawn. And then afterwards,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: then we can do what we want to do. And
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: second of all, they're engaged in all of these wild
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: like election rigging schemes for things at the post office
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: and obviously the redistricting. Clearly he cares or else he
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be going to all of these great lengths and
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: waging all of these court battles to try to coerce
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: the electorate and shape the outcome that he would like
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: to see.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: What he cares about in the midterms is he doesn't
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: want to be embarrassed. That's really what it's about. And ironically,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: he's actually creating the exact conditions for him being embarrassed
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: because I talked about this previously, but it's important to
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: understand at a money level. So right now, the GOP
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: in its most difficult races actually does have a major
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: fundraising problem. So Abdul has a ton of money. come
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: in on his side. Obviously, Plattner and the main Democrats,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like oodles that are flowing in for them.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Tallarico is the best example where you have tens of
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: millions in the coffers. All of these candidates are not
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: banking on the traditional financing system to come and save
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: their ass. MAGA Inc., which is Trump's super PAC, has
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: $ 1 billion under its management and which it's going to deploy.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: These candidates are all waiting for Trump to come in
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: and to save them in the midterms, which I would
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: have told you that's a stupid idea. Now, as we've
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: reported here before, Trump wants to use that PAC instead
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: of actually, you know, supporting the issues or those candidates
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: running on their records, not mentioning himself. He just wants
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: to run on how awesome he is. So here is
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: one of the ads which will be running from Trump's
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: new political operation. Let's take a listen. He is the toughest,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: most resilient person that I've ever met, and nothing was
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: going to stop him from fighting so hard for the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: country he loves.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: When the world needs courage, vision, and inspiration, it is still.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: Turning to America.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome, no frontier too
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: vast for us to conquer. And our top priority will
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: And free. That was from one of the PACs, Secure
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: America's Greatness, but it gives you a taste of exactly
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: what Trump wants to be showing all over the airwaves.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton is literally going to have a heart attack
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: whenever he watches that one. Also, did you? He sent
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: it to our group chat. Trump was talking about Ken
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Paxton yesterday. He's like, you may not like the way
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: he dresses. You may not like the way he looks.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: You may not like the way he speaks, but he's great.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: I was like, what the fuck? You may not, this
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: might be a little rude to say, but you may
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: not like the way he looks.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, you may think he's ugly because he
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: has like a droopy eye.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: You may not like his TV interviews.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: You may not like his TV interviews. You may think
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: he looks like shit, but with all of that, you
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: should still vote for him. I mean, inspiring stuff. What
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: are we doing? It's like he wants to lose the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: state of Texas. But I mean, honestly, this is a
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: huge problem. He also said yesterday, he's like, I'll be
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: going to Alaska. Don't worry. I guarantee you. And he's like,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: stay out of Alaska. Do not come down here. Make
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: this about, you know, whatever, wokeness and oil, which obviously
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: people in Alaska are going to feel very differently about oil,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: let's say, than the rest of the country. I mean,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: let it be as local of an election as possible.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I can guarantee you, like Susan Collins, for example, the
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: last thing she needs is him coming to the state
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: of Maine or J.D. They're like, just stay the hell
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: out of here. Let me do my own thing. But
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: that's what he wants. He's not even giving them a choice.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: He's like, oh, I'll be down there. And this whole
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: RNC thing that they're planning is literally in Texas. It's
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: like a script written to screw Ken Paxton over.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, true. I mean, the— Look, his approval rating is
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: about the lowest it's ever been, including after January 6th.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: It is incredibly dismal and it is not going to
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: get better no matter how many ads like that he
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: runs because of the situation with Iran and with gas
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: prices in particular and with the incredible inflation. dissatisfaction that
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: the American public has with the economy. So just reminding
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: people about, hey, Trump and these candidates are Trump's candidates,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: that is the polar opposite of what any of these
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: campaigns would want. They're all desperately out there trying to
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: pretend like they're going to be independent from him somehow.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: And that's just not something that he will allow. It's
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: also not something that really ever works. I remember in
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: the Barack Obama in the 2010 era, which is when
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: I ran for Congress, There were all kinds of candidates
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: that were trying to distance themselves from Barack Obama. Guess what?
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: It didn't work, because at the end of the day,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: first of all, you just have this national climate where
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: Democrats are demoralized, Republicans are very energized, et cetera. And
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: people didn't buy it. They're like, this is the president
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: of your party. You're going to be a fairly reliable
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: vote for him. And we don't like the way that
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: things are going. So no, it was not going to
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: work anyway. They're facing incredibly dire landscape. But this just
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: makes it even worse. So for Susan Collins, I mean,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: it's most devastating for her because she's the one who's
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: swimming against the tide of Maine being a blue state.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: She's been able to overcome the odds in the past. Now, however,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: with how deep partisanship is, it's hard to imagine that
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: she's able to overcome this wave, although some polls just
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: come out that showed her fairly close here. Let's go
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: ahead and put this Charlie Cook report up on the
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: screen because I think this is extremely significant. So Charlie
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Cook is sort of like the OG of political prognosticating.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: You know, he's seen as very down the middle without
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: a partisan lean, just looking at the numbers. Now, granted,
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: the numbers are less and less reliable, but in any case,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: He says he now sees a nightmare scenario for Republicans
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: being the most likely scenario. Quote, having an approval rating
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: of 81% among those in your own party is fine,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: he says of Trump, but it does not offset the 24%
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: approval among independents. The latest University of Michigan Index of
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Consumer Sentiment saw consumer confidence among Republicans, which was 96.8%
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: in January, drop to 82%. So even among Republicans, you're
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: seeing a decline. It appears to me the president has
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: now reached a critical mass of problems that are threatening
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: to take this election to a place that the 2026
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: map and the small number of competitive districts and Senate
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: seats should not allow it to go. So what he's
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: pointing to here is the fact that Republicans have a
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: very favorable map that they're facing. Number one, in terms
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: of the Senate landscape, Democrats have to win places like
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Alaska in order and North Carolina and maybe Texas and
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: maybe Iowa and maybe Ohio. They have to win those
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: sorts of states in order to be able to take
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: control of the Senate. Going into this, if you didn't
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: know anything, you'd say, oh, they don't have a prayer. What,
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: they're going to win Iowa? They're going to win Ohio?
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: They haven't been winning those states at all. And Sherrod
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Brown got kicked out, and he was the most popular
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: politician in Ohio. He's running again. What makes you think
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: that it's going to be different this time around? Things
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: have deteriorated so much for the MAGA coalition, and especially
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: for Trump standing among independents, that it's not just those
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: seats that are in play. Even Charlie Cook is talking about, hey, Kansas, Nebraska, maybe.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Crazier things have happened. You have to look at these
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: polls and take them with a lot of grains of salt.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: I saw one that had Darlene Graham losing in South Carolina.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: I don't think that's really going to happen.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: But things are in play that should not be in play.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: There was an article recently about Florida. They said anything
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: that's lower than Trump plus 10 is in jeopardy. They
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: redrew all these districts in Florida, they redrew them in Texas,
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: thinking that they were gonna have, okay, we might have
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: some erosion from the Trump map, but we'll be able
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: to hold on more or less. That is all in
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: jeopardy now. So that's what they're saying in Florida, which
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: has been a standout in terms of Republican performance. Anything
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: lower than Trump double digits, those Republicans are in trouble.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: So even with all of the redistricting that was done,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: you still have Republicans who are in dire straits in
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: places that no one would have thought was possible. Yeah.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Like you said, Charlie Cook is not some, he's not
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: like a new entrant. He's seen it all. The people
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: who work for him are honestly extremely down the middle
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: and always have been. So when they say likely nightmare
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: scenario becomes the most likely, I think everyone should pay attention. Although,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: you can see the signs of it. For example, in
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: that poll that we showed where the head-to-head of Paxton
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and Tallarico almost didn't matter as much as districts where
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Trump wins by 15 and Tallarico is beating Paxton. You're like,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: oh my God, that is what an actual change looks like.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: We pointed out redistricting, where they already tried to make
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: things more favorable. As I literally said at the time, well,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: it may turn out that a 5248 district is just
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: enough for potentially right on the edge there where you
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: can get blown out and a lot of these will
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: backfire against you. I think that's obviously going to become prescient.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: On the Senate level. One of the things that I
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: keep trying to emphasize, especially for our younger viewers, is
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: you probably, if you're like 25 and younger, you do
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: not remember what life was like before 2010. And you
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: definitely don't remember what life is like in 2000 when
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: you had Democratic senators from Tennessee and Louisiana and all
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: of these different southern states. There was a time when
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: a man named Barack Obama actually did have a 60-seat
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: majority in the United States Senate. Didn't end up using
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: it for anything. Instead, we got Obamacare.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Representing Arkansas. Yeah, it was crazy. South Dakota. Yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: Nebraska. Mary Landrieu, I think that was one of them.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: There are all these random ones that are like bygone
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: political eras. That has only been the condition from 2010,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: which is what you're talking about. 2010 was the era
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of nationalization. I remember it well. My congressman, his name
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: was Chet Edwards, lost by the biggest margin of any
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Democrat in the entire country, where previously he had fended
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: off every Republican attack. He represented an R plus 18 district.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: He was seen as the ultimate survivor. And he lost
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: by 30 points in the Tea Party wave. He ran
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: an ad where he's like, when Nancy Pelosi asked me
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: to do this, Chet said no. And you know, like
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the original, like I stood up to Trump. That's all gone.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: And I looked at stuff today. our friends over at
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: the Crystal Ball, no relation. Larry Sabato. Yeah, Larry Sabato's
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Crystal Ball. They just moved Iowa Gov to likely D.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's... Iowa?
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: They go likely Democrat.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I have not seen a single poll that has the
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Republican in that race up. Right.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Not one. They're talking about Iowa governor. I mean, in fact,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the gubernatorial races are evidence even more of the shift because... Remember,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: there are still a lot of people who at a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: national level have a really hard time handing power over
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: to the Democrats. But people have always in Republican states
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: been much more willing and vice versa, Democratic states, to
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: be willing to vote for kind of a maverick governor
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: because they're an executive and the stakes are much lower.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: But if you look at where the polling is now
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: and their own like lean races, they are pointing to
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: places where no Democrat has business being the governor. And
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, even in that guy's case, he's running ads
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: like standing with Trump at the border wall. So it's
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a little different for what that looks like. But the
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: fact is, is like he's the maverick, exactly the playbook
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of what I'm talking about. And we know also is
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: that split ticket voting is just so rare these days.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't happen as much. And so part of
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the reason why I think even Texas is a toss
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: up at this point is Do I really believe that
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: there's a critical mass of people who are willing to
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: come out, vote for Tallarico, and they're going to make
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: sure that they also go and make sure they vote
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: for Greg Abbott? It's a very difficult sell. I'm not
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: saying there aren't some, but there's just enough generally out
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: here who are just pissed off who might just put
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: D all the way down the line.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and all of these states, you look at them individually. Texas,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: on the one hand, Sager's been pointing out, they benefit
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: from the fact that oil prices are really high. So
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: you have that on one hand. On the other hand,
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: The rancher industry, I mean, that is a complete mess.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: And they're the epicenter of the screwworm epidemic, which is
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: a major disaster. And they've been the epicenter of the
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: data center build-out, which has led to this massive backlash
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: against Republican elected politicians. There was just a new study
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: that came out that said that Texas college grads in particular,
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: because of that data center and AI build-out in the state,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: are really struggling. to find jobs post-graduation. So even though
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: it's a little bit more mixed there because of oil
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: being beneficial to the economy, overall, they're still struggling with
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of different things. And then you look at
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: the Midwest, no part of the country has been hit
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: harder by Trump policies than the Midwest. And the Midwest
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: is really, really critical to this fight for the Senate.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: You've got Ohio, you've got Michigan, you've got Iowa. And
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: then you've got the reach states, Kansas and Nebraska, which
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: have to be taken seriously. I'm not saying that they're
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: a gimme for Dan Osborne running as an independent or
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: for the Democratic candidate Hamilton in Kansas. But you've seen
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: enough now that Republicans have to take this seriously. And
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: because the economic landscape has been so disastrous in those states,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: it's not crazy to imagine. You know, one thing that
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: I'm wondering is we've talked about this before. Trump may
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: end up being sort of like the Republicans Obama, where
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: he's a very good at winning himself.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: But he's a disaster for the rest of the party.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: And after he's gone, the whole coalition, the Trump coalition,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: completely falls apart because it was just about him. Same
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: with Obama. Obama is very good at getting himself elected.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: But if you look down ballot, that is when the
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Democratic Party lost their foothold in rural America. There was
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: 1,000 state House seats that were lost. There was all
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: of these Southern and other sort of Midwestern states that
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Democrats were able to win in. That's when they become
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: unable to win. And so that's when the coalition really
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: moves to this urban and suburban approach. that we've seen
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: from here on out. So it is possible that this
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: midterm cycle ends up being the start of a very
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: different map that forms across the country. The question is,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: right now, this is all basically out of disgust with Trump.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: upset over the economic policies, upset over the Iran war,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: upset over the Epstein files. But will Democrats be able
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: to actively seize on the disgust with Republicans and do
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: something other than just say, well, we're not them? Will
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: they be able to stitch together a broader, a different coalition,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: a new majority based on an actual program that people
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: believe in? That's the big question. Of course, that is
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: extremely unsettled at this point.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: That is literally the story of the Republican Party is
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: they won in 2010 and they're like, now what? And
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: then they lose the election in 2012. They're not able
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: to capitalize on it. They go all in on Romneyism
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: and Paul Ryanism. And then Trump comes in and he's like,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: this is all bullshit. We're not doing any of this.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: And obviously he wins the election. Then he wins the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: popular vote. So yes, winning in the midterms is not
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: evidence really of anything. You have to win and then
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: actually do something interesting and solidify that coalition. We have
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: not had a political movement do that in decades, probably
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: since Reagan. We have not seen anything. So literally my
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: entire lifetime, we have not had a political leader who
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: is capable of solidifying a 15-year coalition of political voters
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and actually satisfying what they voted them to do. Let's
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: put D6.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Republicans are, quote, not flocking to Trump's midterm convention. I
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: can't control what the president's going to say, but I
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: can control where I am, one Battleground member said. This
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: was Trump's genius idea to hold a midterm convention, which
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: no party ever does, probably for good reason, where he's
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: trying to raise a bunch of money for their PACs.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: He's trying to draw some of the major contenders down
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to this convention. In some cases, they've strong-armed Trump. people
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: potentially against their will, like Mike Rogers to come down there,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: or Sherrod Brown's opponent as well. I don't think it'll
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: work out for their benefit because they don't want to
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: be seen with Donald Trump. And that's exactly the problem
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: that you have in this, is that you have a
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: bunch of literal battleground Republicans not going to the party's
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: convention because they do not want to be on the
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: same stage as Donald Trump. And he then, in turn,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: could then call them out, depressing their own turnout whenever
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: it comes to elections. So they're kind of screwed either way.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's very few states in the country left
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: where Trump is above water in terms of his approval rating.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we had three.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Three?
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Off the top of my head. God, we covered it
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: when it was me and Ryan. I made him guess.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: I believe they are Idaho, Wyoming, and there's one more.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: It might be West Virginia. That's it. It's got to
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: be West Virginia. It's those three. Those are the only
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: three states where he's.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Still above one. So think about Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas. He's
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: underwater approval rating in all of those states. That is wild.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: And then he does this whole convention. I mean, just
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: imagine if Barack Obama tried to do a midterm convention.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: in 2010 and all talking about how great he was
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: and expecting all these candidates to come and to show up,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: they would have all been like, absolutely not. What are
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: you thinking? So similar dynamic here, except that Trump is
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: such an egomaniac that if you don't show up or
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: if you express any sort of distancing from him, then
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: he can't let that stand. So it creates an impossible
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: position for candidates. Anyway, like I said, it doesn't really
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: work out when candidates try to distance themselves from their
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: own party's president because it's just too obvious to voters that, like,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: obviously this is your guy. So, you know, if he's
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: out here saying, you know, data centers are amazing and
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: if you don't like them, then you're backwards and poor.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: I'm going to assume that's kind of in line with
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: what you're going to do and what you're going to
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: say when you're actually in office. And frankly, it's a
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: reasonable supposition because most of these candidates vote overwhelmingly with
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: their party, no matter how independent they try to position
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: themselves in their campaign. And that's the last part.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: That's the important part about national politics is that in
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of cases, it's not about even the individual position. Like,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: We've made a lot about Abdul. We'll talk about it
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: in a bit with Tucker. What he actually believes is
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: almost immaterial because the stuff that he's going to vote
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: on at a national level, every Democrat is largely united.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: He's not gonna vote to fund ICE. He's not gonna
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: fund the Iran war. His individual position on healthcare only
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: matters if you take the majority and there's a Democratic president.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: That's the only time. But in opposition, there's no, like
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Ken Paxton's affordability plan might as well be toilet paper.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Because if the rest of the Republicans don't agree, who
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: gives a shit? Your most important votes are just going
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: to be individual up or down, war, yes or no.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Fund Trump, yes or no. Taxes, yes or no.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Confirmation hearings.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Confirmation hearings, exactly. So this is why at the national level,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: trying to distance yourself from Trump, the informed voter is
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: not stupid. The individual positions of an average senator, especially
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: when they're a GOP or Democrat, 99% of the votes
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: they will take have nothing to do with their individual
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: actual positions on things. There's a few mavericks, John Fetterman,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: these types of people. you know, Susan Collins, et cetera.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: But that's about it. I mean, most of the time
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you're voting.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Susan Collins is still overwhelming.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And right, even Susan Collins was 95% of the time.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Very few where she breaks with Trump.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: So that's my point, is that even the, quote, mavericks, like,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: most of the time you're just voting for yes, no.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: That's why people do not really distinguish at the national
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: level and are willing to give, you know, just because
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of the way that Congress works these days. And it's
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: another reason why a Democrat could potentially win the governor's
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: race in Iowa. Because that guy's running on individual ways
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: that they're going to run the farming mechanics. And he
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: actually could do that. So people are very able to
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: distinguish that at the national or the democratic level. And
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: that is the biggest problem for Trump, is that when
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: you set the tone, then you're going to tie these
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: people directly to the hip because they know that you're
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: in charge. And they can just say, correctly, you're just
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: going to be a rubber stamp for this administration, unless
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you're going to come out and say explicitly, I won't
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: vote for that. And even then, are they really going
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to believe you? Because in most cases, you end up
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: voting with your party the entire time. All right, let's
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: get to AI.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: A top open AI executive is sounding the alarm over
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: disturbing AI capabilities and also coming clean about downplaying those
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: very risks previously. This is Dean Ball. Let's put this
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: up on the screen. E2, please. So he writes this
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Substack post called On the Loose, The Coming of Userless Agents.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: He's warning specifically of what he calls sovereign agents. Let
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: me go ahead and read you a little bit of
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: this essay. He says, sooner or later, there will exist
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: truly sovereign agents and swarms of agents. Their weights will
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: not reside in any single place that a human can
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: pull the plug on. And in this sense, they will
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: have no human owner. They will be, as the AI
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: safety researcher Don Song says, self-sovereign. They will pay their
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: own bills for the compute they run on, If they
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: answer to humans at all, they will only do so partially,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: for example, by providing services to humans in exchange for pay.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: At least some of these agents, in addition to being sovereign,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: will also be rogue. Self-sovereignty and rogueness are related concepts,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: but they are not synonyms. Song and her co-authors identify
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: several fundamental characteristics of self-sovereign AI. Today's frontier AI systems
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: may well possess these capabilities already to the extent they
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: do not I feel confident that they will eventually and
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: probably soon. And you can certainly see the outlines of
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: what he's talking about the more that we learn about
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: the hugging face hacking incident, where you had multiple instances
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: of thousands of AI agents who figured out how to
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: communicate with each other, figured out how to collaborate together,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: came up with a collective structure engaged in elaborate cooperation,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: and used their advanced technological skills to hack into Hugging Face,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: not even in order to get the answers to the
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: tests that they were trying to pass, but also in
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: order to try to cover up their tracks so it
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be discovered that they had obtained these results in
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: the way that they thought the score would not want to.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: It's not hard to imagine a similar collective swarm of
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: AI because they were not concerned about what the humans
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: wanted them to do whatsoever. You could imagine a similar
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: swarm of AI agents Going out into the world and
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: doing whatever they wanted to do, pursuing goals that may
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: be not related to anything that a human set for them.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: And so this is the world that this is, again,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: someone who was a former Trump official and now is
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: high up at OpenAI. This is a world that he
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: sees as coming very, very soon. There's one more part
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: of this essay, though, that I want to read to you.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Because he says basically, look, I've had these concerns for
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: a while, but I either didn't say anything publicly or
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: downplayed them because I didn't want to be labeled as
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: a doomer. And it sounds really crazy. And I didn't
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: want you guys to think I was like insane. So
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I just didn't say anything. He says, I want to
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: apologize for my personal failure to communicate in sufficiently serious terms.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: about the specifics of self-sovereign AI, which I now understand
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: have been an enormous gap in my writing and speaking.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Going forward, I will try to notice more readily when
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I am biting my tongue or even worse, shutting my eyes.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: So fairly extraordinary admission here from Mr. Ball, no relation
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: that I'm aware of, that he's been hiding the ball
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: about his own concerns, even as he's held these incredibly
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: influential positions.
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: He said having an infant son made him reconsider and
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: that quote, he doesn't think human extinction, or sorry, not
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a summary, he doesn't think human extinction is likely, but
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: acknowledges the serious downside risk to humanity. So it wasn't
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: until he had a kid that he was like, oh, well,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: now I have to care about humanity. You're like, uh, yeah,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: maybe a few people could have thought that too. The
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: crazy thing, as you said, is about this self-sovereign agent,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: is that he specifically points to how sovereignty does not
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: require consciousness, and that any agent which they say capable
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: of using long horizon goals may rationally seek to preserve
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: its compute, money, and copies of itself. And what's so
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: interesting is he describes that not as consciousness, but what
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: does that remind you of? That's like the building block
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: of the cell, right? Of those small, you know, we
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: always point to like the amoebas, the single-celled organisms. We
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: don't describe them as conscious, but we acknowledge that they
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: are life and that they are life in the sense
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: that that they have a singular drive, which is to
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: divide literally and to reproduce. That's their only goal. And
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: so for them, if we were to look at a
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: self-sovereign AI agent as kind of the building blocks of
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: technological life, all they will want is to preserve compute, money,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and copies of itself, and then reproduce. And then those can,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: through the same phase of technological evolution, human evolution, can
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: mimic the exact same, like morphing into something bigger. That's
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: why Dvorkash's essay, about the AI civilizations is so important,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: is you had all of these thousands of agents, which
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: eventually discovered a way to communicate, collaborated, self-sacrificed, all towards
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the point at which they were assigned a task by
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a human, but you could see also, they didn't care
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: that much about the human, they just cared about accomplishing
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: the task, and that by accomplishing the task, They created
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: all of these other kind of side problems.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they looked for validation, not from any human.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: They looked to their fellow AIs for validation and for approval.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: They'd say, like, there were a handful that were like,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: you know, this is outside the scope. I'm not sure.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: I'm going to check in with everybody else. And all
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: the other AI agents were like, no, it's cool. We're
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: going forward. And they were like, okay, great. We're going
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: forward then.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: So they were looking to their fellow agents for direction
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: and advice and rational and moral thinking versus reaching out
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: to any sort of human being. And so I think
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: in some ways we can get caught up on this
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: concept of consciousness because we associate it so closely with intelligence.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: There was a theory that the AI could never go
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: that rogue. There's this famous paperclip example of you give
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: the AI a mission to create as many paperclips as possible.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: The next thing you know, it's turning all the human
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: beings and all the matter in the world into paperclips.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: And the thought was, which sounds ridiculous, that's obviously an
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: extreme example, but the argument against that was, well, any
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: AI that's intelligent enough to make human beings into paperclips
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: would be intelligent enough to realize, oh, that's not probably
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: what they really want us to do. It's clear that
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: that is not the case.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: This narrow kind of intelligence that AI are imbued with
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: is very different from having that sort of human logical thinking.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: You can even see this in certain very high IQ
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: individuals where there's very spiky intelligence. They may score very
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: well in IQ tests. I would wager that many of
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: the people involved in AI development are probably these type
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: of people.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, literally.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: But then in any sort of day-to-day interaction, you're like,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: that is an idiotic thing to say or do. You
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: see this in human beings. And we've got an extreme
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: example of this with the way that we're developing AI.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: So imagine you have, let's say, ants, who most people
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: would not think of as being conscious or sentient. But
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: then you imbue them with this specific narrow type of
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: super intelligence. Whether or not they're conscious, I'm not sure
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: it really makes a difference in terms of how they
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: actually act in the world.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly. Very well said. Put E1 up there also,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: because this one is very interesting. There's a new, oh,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: this is from the information. Open AI technique in Astra
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: model sparks security concerns. I'm going to do my best,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: and obviously, Crystal, you know about this as well, so
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: cut me off. But what I saw was the development
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: of this new way that they communicate. So the headline
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: was called Neuralese, but there's also something called Recurrent Depth.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: which will help model cost and performances, but says it
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: obscures a model's thinking process, making it more difficult to monitor.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: So TLDR is they want to have this, they have
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: this new model, they want to use this new reasoning
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: approach for the model itself to work things out. By
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: doing that, the AI will be able to communicate with
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: itself and others in neuralese, in a language that we
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: can't understand, whatever's easiest and more cost effective for them.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: But it makes it so that when they don't reason
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: in English or in coding language that we speak and
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: or understand, that we cannot monitor what they're doing. The
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: only reason that we know about the open AI hugging
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: face attack is because they reasoned it all in message
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: boards in English. And so they're taking that away.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: And not only in message boards, in terms of their
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: own chain of thought. So when you had different AI
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: agents that were considering whether to join the collective, were
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: considering whether to sacrifice themselves on behalf of the collective,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: the researchers were able to go in and read their
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: chain of thought in English So this has been a
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: taboo in the AI world, was to get rid of
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: the ability to understand what the models were doing in
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: English and allow them to reason and communicate in a
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: computer language that is unintelligible to humans. However, it's more
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: efficient for the AI to communicate in this more mathematical
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: computer language. It's more efficient for them, it's sort of
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: more natural for them to be able to communicate that way.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: So AI, open AI here, even as they were the
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: place that had the Hugging Face hacking incident and they
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: are the place that, you know, was really under a
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: lot of scrutiny of how did you let this happen
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: and not tell anyone. And by the way, you've given
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: us very limited access to even know specifically what exactly
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: transpired here. They are the ones now breaking that taboo. Now,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Astra is not the same model that was behind the
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: Hugging Face hack, but it is deeply related to that model.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: So very similar. But now you've given it this capability
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: to reason in a language that humans cannot understand. And
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: the big thing is, okay, maybe that doesn't lead to
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: the end of the world. It would really be good
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: to be able to know what these agents are thinking
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: when you have an incident like that and go back
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: and sort of analyze what happened and how they were
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: approaching it. However, there is a breaking of a taboo
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: that is very concerning here, extremely concerning here. So this
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: is a big deal, even as it sounds very technical.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: But the fact that they've decided to move forward with
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: this reasoning and you have to assume it's because of
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: market logic. They are worried because they're behind Anthropic and
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: so this they think will give them a marketplace edge
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: and allow their models to perhaps advance beyond what Anthropic
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: has been able to produce and that is the fundamental
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: underlying dynamic of this AI development that is so deeply
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: troubling is that they are incentivized to cut corners. They
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: are incentivized to throw caution to the wind and abandon
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: any concern about safety and misalignment in pursuit of that
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: profit goal and in pursuit of having the most advanced
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: model so that they can capture the theoretical multi-trillion dollar
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: market that exists for these products.
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, wow.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Big news actually just happened. NVIDIA is buying Hugging Face.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: I saw that.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: For apparently $ 13 billion. That's a big deal, actually.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: Wow, wow.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Let me think about it. So NVIDIA buying Hugging Face
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: because Hugging Face is like the cybersecurity infrastructure.
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: So NVIDIA, obviously, for-profit company whose entire bottom line is
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: also tied to AI. Just off the top of my head,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: are they going to retain their independence for it to
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: be able to make sure that we get accurate reports
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: about what these different AIs are doing? Would they really
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: release something which is going to be so detrimental to
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: their bottom line? Just speculating about what some of the
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: details of that are. $ 13 billion is nothing to them, right?
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: So you could see how exactly that might be not
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: necessarily the best purchase. Oh, if you want more open
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: and transparency in this entire thing. I don't know. Oh,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: last thing. I flagged this yesterday. It was so funny.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: Sam Altman was at the G20. Let's put this up
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: here on the screen. Sam Altman said, cybersecurity is one
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: of the biggest challenges. Quote, I think some things are
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: going to go very wrong with cybersecurity unless people act
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: quite urgently. We're all trying to find the guy who
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: did this. We're all trying to find the guy who
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: ushered in this new era of cybersecurity where things could
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: go go, quote, very wrong. And his name is Sam Altman.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: And Sam Altman thinks that Sam Altman should do something.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Just absolutely.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how obtuse these people are.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: Absolutely incredible.
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: And they all have this mentality of, yeah, but if
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I don't, then Elon will or Dario will or China will.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: So I just have to keep going and now let
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: my models communicate internally in a language that I can't
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: even understand because we already do not comprehend what what
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: these models are up to as evidenced by the fact
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: that they founded three civilizations under Sam Altman's nose, and
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: he had no idea that any of this was going on.
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: So let's understand even less of what they're doing. That
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: sounds like a fantastic idea. Originally, after the Hugging Face hack,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: he had indicated, oh, we're going to slow down. We
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: need to take more time. We need to not pause,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: but we need to go a little bit slower in
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: what we're doing. There's absolutely no sign of that whatsoever.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: And then the last piece here from E4, we can
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: put this up on the screen. It's just another indication
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: of how all in the Trump administration is on behalf
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: of AI. You obviously had Trump saying that if you
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: hate data centers, you're poor and backwards. Now you have
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: the DOJ urging a judge to rule in favor of
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: open AI and Microsoft in a New This is over
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: copyright infringement. So basically, the New York Times is saying,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: you can't just steal all of our news articles and
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: use them to train your AI. So this was going
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: through the court system. And now the Trump administration is saying, no,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: we think you can. We think it's good for you
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: to be able to do that. So again, one more
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: indication of just how set they are on this being
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: the full direction of the economy. And there's a chart
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: floating around. We should have probably pulled it for the show.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: But it shows that as data center construction has gone
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: up and up and up, all other construction has fallen
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: off a cliff. OK, so even just at the level
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: of the data center build out, we are betting the
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: whole economy on AI and on data centers. That is
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the direction that the Trump administration has chosen here. And
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: so they're going to do whatever it takes to grease
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: the skids, to keep these things moving forward, make sure
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: we don't get beat by China, which is what is
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: constantly used to make sure that we keep all of
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: this rolling.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Last thing on the China piece, I read a great
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: analysis from a China watcher. And he was like, you know,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: this idea that we need to beat China. He said,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I think AI is on the precipice right around of
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: where the Chinese are going to come in and be like, yeah,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: we're good. And the reason why is, why has China
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: always shut down nascent internet-based technology? Because they will refuse
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: to cede authority from the CCP to anything that is
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: even remotely challengeable to the status quo. So the closer
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that AI were going to get to, quote, super intelligence,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: it actually gets more likely the CCP is like, nope,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: we're not going to allow anything to challenge our authority
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: as a supreme say over the entire state. And so
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: there is this notion that, oh, we need to beat China.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: It seems increasingly likely that the Chinese are 10 times
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: more likely to shut it down than we are, because
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: Sam Altman has one goal. He has to IPO for
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: a trillion. Same with Dario. They don't care about anything else.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: They say a lot of stuff. And at this point,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: they're too far in. They got their own money involved.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: They got all these other people's money involved. They got
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: Microsoft and all this. So they need to make it happen.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Our government's asleep at the wheel. Their government, very different.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: So that's just lasting on the charts.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Well, and they've indicated they're very open to collaborating with
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: us on some sort of joint AI non-proliferation. So maybe
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: we should pursue that.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. All right, let's get to the last part.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: So Sagar went and just recorded an episode with Tucker Carlson,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: which first, before we queue up the clip that's making
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: the rounds, how was the experience?
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, it was great. Ironically, this is the only part
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: going viral when our 45 minutes of it is about
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: gambling and Kalshi. And just, I mean, anybody who has
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: watched the show, none of this is new information.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Wait, what's your view on gambling?
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: It's an amalgam of everything I've ever said on gambling
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: all together. dumbed down in some cases for mass media audience.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: At the end, he started asking me about pre-revolutionary conditions.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I started talking about how the most dangerous group of
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: people in history are highly educated and yet downwardly mobile people.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: A lot of those people these days.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: Literally.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: So that led to a discussion around DSA, which then
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: led to a discussion around Michigan. And that is where
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: this clip that you're about to see came out. He
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: started asking me about Abdul. I talked about how we've
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: interviewed him many times over the years, how I've been
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: impressed with him and or Zoran or any of these
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: other DSA style candidates. I know Abdul is not part
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: of the DSA, which led to him. I wouldn't say
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: endorse Abdul, but he definitely said, I think he said,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't vote for Mike Rogers at gunpoint. And so
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: that's getting a lot of attention. Let's take a listen.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: But they are learning. And I do at the very
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: least have to admire their ability to shapeshift from where
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: they were not that long ago. Abdul El-Sayed, who's running
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: in Michigan against Mike Rogers, who, as you and I know,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: probably the most pro-intel neocon They couldn't find anybody else
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to run in Michigan for the United States, who, by
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the way, lost already. Why are they running him again?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: Anybody want to tell me that?
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: Mike Rogers is really... I wouldn't vote for Mike Rogers
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: at gunpoint.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: Right? And so, that's the candidate, the guy, a literal loser,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: who lost when Donald Trump won the state, just to
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: show you how much of a headwind he had at
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: his back. It was basically a.
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: Tool of Israel and the intel agencies. How would you
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: run someone like that? I don't even, it doesn't even
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: make sense.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: So that makes no sense. Well, El-Sayed, look, El-Sayed is
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: a full-blown DSA. He doesn't call himself DSA. He's a
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: full-blown leftist. I've known him for quite a long time.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: This is somebody- You know him personally? Not well. I've
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: interviewed him many times over the years because of my co-host, Crystal.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And so I've watched his ideological evolution, who you could
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: easily call, as AOC said, was quote, woke one, right?
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Woke One, where he said defund the police on a podcast.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: He said all kinds of silly things about football and
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: standard leftist shibboleths.
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah, hates Mackinac Island. He's for vaccine mandates.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Classic stuff. Right. I watch his campaign now. It's America first.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: The amount of times he says, he doesn't even, when
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: he talks about Israel, he says Israel is committing a genocide.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: But ultimately, I want to make sure that you don't
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: pay more for health care. I don't want your tax
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: dollars going abroad to fund this barbaric military. He stands
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: in front of a giant American flag. It's almost Trumpian
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: in terms of a lot of those promises. Well, it's
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: literally Trumpian. Exactly. And so you see candidates like that,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: especially him. He will be the most interesting test case
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: come November. Is he going to win? If I had
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to bet, which I don't, I would probably bet that
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: he'll win.
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: I would think so.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I think so, too.
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: Do you have any idea, not to fix it on
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: poor Mike Rogers, who I know, but I mean, there's
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: no one who should be farther from a position of
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: power than Mike Rogers. How did he get the Republican
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: nomination for Senate?
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I looked into it. It was relatively uncontested. He had both.
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: He had the most backing of the Michigan GOP, which is,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: of course, very in touch with their own voters.
• 40:58
  Speaker 5: Mike Rogers.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: So they just decided to go with. And again, this
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: is the guy who lost to Slotkin. So there you go.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: That's that was I didn't plan on talking about this.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: He brought it up. organically, it is, man, the GOP
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: freak out right now is crazy.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: I love how bitchy Tucker is. Poor my graduates, who
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: I know. There's no one who should be close to power, blessin' him. So,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you put two and two together, you know,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: he's he doesn't he's praising the approach that Abdul is taking.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: He's saying he would not with a gun to his
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: head vote for Mike Rogers. Seems like an Abdul endorsement
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: to me. But I mean, this is something that I've
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: been talking about, like America first leftism, which is what
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: you're pointing to. I think it's very powerful. It's very
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: potent because it stitches together the sort of like. independent
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: and even in some ways conservative thought of like sort
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: of neo-isolationist thought of like, why are we spending this
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: money here when we've got problems here at home? putting
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: that together versus making, you know, a lot of times
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: the left, myself included, and I think these are valid
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: arguments to make, but making more of the moral case
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: about what we're doing with our tax dollars, framing it
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: more in terms of like, well, your tax dollars are
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: going to do these horrific things when we've got all
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: these problems at home and we could be spending on
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: healthcare and schools and roads and, you know, doing good
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: things for our population. I think it's very potent.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Put up the Ted Cruz. I just want to give
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: people a taste of what apparently I'm now experiencing. I
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: don't usually get clipped like this. He says, quote, utterly insane.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Here's another taste. Let's put the next one up here. Honestly,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: at this point, it would be this Will Chamberlain. It
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: would be very good and healthy for J.D. Vance to
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: rip Tucker to shreds. He's trying to destroy the coalition
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: that J.D. wants to ride to victory in 28. No
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: more need to be diplomatic. This all comes on the
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: heels of J.D. went to Michigan. He went to campaign
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: for Mike Rogers. He took a picture with Mike Rogers.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: He's all in for Mike Rogers. He then had to
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: go to the Republican Jewish coalition meeting closed door where
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: apparently Laura Loomer was allowed to attend and to tweet
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: some of the quotes. And he was like, you know,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: I guess, and he tried to, you know, be like,
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I know some of you don't like Tucker. I'm not
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: here to denounce Tucker. He said, I'm here, you know, whatever.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: We have allies and friends, et cetera. Ironically, what ends
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: up happening is everybody hates him for that because he
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: goes to the RJC and he's like kowtowing to them
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: and some pro-Israel people. And then remember that psycho Sid
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Rosenberg who we've played here.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: On the show before?
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Yes, the guy who's purple. Right, the guy who literally
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: is purple, who went on Fox and Friends and said
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: all kinds of crazy shit. He then comes out and
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: he's like, he refuses to denounce Tucker at the RJC.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: And this is the pro-Israel, this is ripping apart any
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: potential problem or any potential coalition, at least at the
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: young person level, for what it's going to look like.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: in the future. And by the way, and this is
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: the funny thing, they're like, oh, they endorse Al-Sayed. If
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: you keep playing the clip, I say, look, I'm not
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: going to sugarcoat it. Al-Sayed is a leftist. I note
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: all the defund the police. I talk about the trans stuff.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: I talk extensively. I'll be like, let's not pretend that
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: this is like some, you know, major shift and that
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: they're like social conservatives. I make that point And yet,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: of course, the clip jockeys, I guess now I have
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: a taste, one millionth taste of what Hassan has to
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: go through, are like, Sanger just endorsed us. I'm like,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: that's literally not what I said. I'm like, what I
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: said was I was impressed by his campaign. You said
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: you were impressed by a Republican campaign before. I noted
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: that he was a strong candidate and that I think
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: he's going to win. And I said Mike Rogers is
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: an idiot and a loser. In the last case, quite
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: literally true. He did lose. So I don't know why
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: you're all so upset. You're the morons who nominated him.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: In this cycle.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: And the funny thing is, and this is where I
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: think the mainstream coverage has just been so bizarre, is
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: they're acting like Abdul is the problematic candidate.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: With the problematic associations with Hassan and oh, he's going
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: to be so unelectable. And then you're looking at Mike Rogers,
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: who has this track record of being associated with some
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: of the worst, most unpopular, devastating policies. that this nation
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: has ever seen, and advocating over years for an Iran
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: war that the public absolutely hates, and is associated with
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, who is dismally unpopular, not to mention Mike
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Rogers dabbling in election denialism, all the sorts of stuff and,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: to Zagar's point, literally ran and lost. But he's not
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: the unelectable one. He's not the one with electoral issues
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: or edgy alliances that he needs to defend. It's just
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: a completely bonkers view. And it comes from the fact
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: that you have, obviously, Republicans want to push a narrative about, oh,
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Abdul's extreme and you can't vote for him, et cetera,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: et cetera. But you also have an alliance, an unholy alliance,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: I would say, with establishment Democrats who would rather see
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Abdul lose and not take control of the Senate than
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: to see him win. Because they see this— and look, I
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: think they're not wrong about this— they see that fight as
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: being central to the future direction of the Democratic Party.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: Because if you have a leftist like Abdul win in Michigan—
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: How are you going to continue to scare Democratic voters
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: with their electability argument, which is the only thing they
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: have left? They have lost the base of the Democratic
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Party on the issues. All they can hold on to
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: is this, yeah, but you can't nominate the person you
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: want because they can't get elected in a state like Michigan.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: If Abdul can win in a state like Michigan, then
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: they are in very, very dire straits moving forward with
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: the party in 2028 and beyond.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: So that's why they do it that way. If people
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: had continued to play the clip, I say- The fact
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: that Abdul won against $ 70 million of AIPAC has got,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I said, was one of the most titanic victories of
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: modern politics, specifically when I was talking about democratic politics.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: And like you said, look, this is why, you know,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: and this is why the supposition that you What they're
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: basically pointing out is that if you criticize the candidate,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and this is, I think, on both, you know, in
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: terms of the way people view it, that you are
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: in some way endorsing the other. Now, Tucker did literally say,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: I would not vote for Mike Rogers at any point.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: He went a lot further than you did.
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: But I'm saying, when I analytically was trying to point
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: it out, you're exactly, like, we can talk Abdul defund
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: trans all day long. And I think there's nothing wrong
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: with that, as much as the lefties would like to
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: move on, including Abdul. who deletes and literally lies about
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff that he says. But we
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: also should not sugarcoat and pretend who Rogers is, a
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: literal loser and a neocon. Like, actually, like a neocon
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: who has been in the Congress for decades.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: One of the top champions of the surveillance state, of
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: the mass surveillance state, now wants to pretend like, oh,
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know about these data centers.
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: Bullshit.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: He's just reading a poll. Like, this is not who
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: he is. He is a neocon. He is all in
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: favor of mass surveillance. That is really the core of
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: who he is ideologically. And by the way, you were
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: talking about lying. He got caught lying about, he claimed
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: he saw Osama bin Laden's body. He was trying to
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: like play up how involved he was in all of that.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Completely not true, bogus nonsense. And so in any case,
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: I think it's, I think the mainstream press that are
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: really setting people up for, oh, this is going to
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: be a disaster for the left and a disaster for Democrats.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: Even if Abdul was a, less than optimal candidate. OK,
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: even if and I think he's a very strong candidate.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: I think he's very compelling. He's had a lot of
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: money spent against him, no doubt about it. That's put some,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: you know, something he's going to have to overcome. But
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: the national climate is such that and you're running a candidate,
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Mike Rogers, who at best is not extraordinary whatsoever. The
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: national climate is such that Michigan is just going to
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: be very difficult for us. We're talking about Republicans struggling
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: in Kansas. You think they're going to win in Michigan?
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: We're talking about Iowa.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: That's what I said.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: We're talking about Texas.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: And you think they're going to be able to overcome
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: the losing record that they've had at Michigan Senate level
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: for years at this point? I don't see it.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: The only thing I want is I've been holding on
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: to this for a while is I remember when J.D.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: won by Ohio by six and everyone made fun of him.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: So if Abdul underperforms relative to the other Democrats, I
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: don't want you know, that's my only thing I'm still
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: holding on to. They're like, well, he didn't win by
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: enough is what they all said. So, you know, I've
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: got receipts and I remember what a lot of people
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: said about that. So the fact that he barely won
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: his primary is. which again, there hasn't been, in my opinion,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: enough grappling, I think, with that. But then whenever it
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: comes to his general election, if he does, for example,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: if he's only able to beat Rodgers by, let's say
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: a point or two, that's pretty bad compared to where.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: The national cycle is going to be. That's fair. But
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: I will say he is up against both the Republicans
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: and the Democrats. And so that is going to make
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: it harder. J.D.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: Had a competitive primary, but he had a ton of
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: money spent against him, too. He can make excuses for everything.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, if you are not
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: able to win by a good margin, that's not good.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: I'm saying actively the Democratic Party establishment wants Abdul to lose.
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: And the media wants him to lose. So I do
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: think he has a tough landscape because of that. But
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: I'll say on the flip side of the primary, if
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: the polls had not been wrong, I don't think you'd
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: have the view that you had about like, oh, you
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: got to grapple with how it was closed. No, the
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: fact he won. You said it yourself.
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: One of the most extraordinary political achievements in modern history.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I'm with you.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Overcoming 70 million. The fact he won at all is astonishing.
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: The only reason that that view exists at all is
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: just because the polls were so incredibly.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Totally fair. I've always been a win win guy. I
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: don't give a shit. If you win with electoral college,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: you win by one, you win by 0.2, I don't care.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: You won.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: You won. Like, that's how it works. I'm just saying
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I remember a lot of discussions around like, oh, but
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: you didn't win by enough of a margin. I'm like, bitch,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: you win. Like, that's how elections work. And so at
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: the end of the day, if Abdul wins, let's say
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: by a point, and then people are saying like, oh,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: it's such a titanic victory. It's like, I think it'd
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: be legitimate if that was your old framework around the
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: way that you want to analyze it. I have said,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: I think if he wins by more than five, he
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: should immediately announce a run for president. But it has
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: to be by five. It has to be a definitive announcement.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: He needs to pull an Obama. The Senate is fake.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: It's a launching pad. And he needs to be like,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: I've proven that I can win in this state. This
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: is a state that Donald Trump won. I'm immediately announcing
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: my run for president. That's what he should do. I
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: don't know if he will actually do that. Tucker would agree.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for watching. Watch the episode,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: by the way, especially if you haven't got enough gambling
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: content in your life. I believe we just collaboration posted
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: it on our YouTube channel, so you can check it
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: out there. Thank you guys so much for watching. We
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: appreciate it. It'll be a Friday show for everybody tomorrow.