Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 5/6/26: Shark Tank Host Faces Data Center Backlash, Nick Shirley Visists Cuba, Trump Attacks Disloyal MAGA, 2026 Dire Job Market
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
- 0:01Speaker 2: Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election,
- 0:05Speaker 2: and we are so excited about what that means for
- 0:07Speaker 2: the future of the show.
- 0:08Speaker 3: This is the only place where you can find honest
- 0:10Speaker 3: perspectives from the left and the right that simply does
- 0:13Speaker 3: not exist anywhere else.
- 0:14Speaker 2: So if that is something that's important to you, please
- 0:17Speaker 2: go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and
- 0:19Speaker 2: you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free,
- 0:22Speaker 2: and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
- 0:25Speaker 3: We need your help to build the future of independent
- 0:27Speaker 3: news media, and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints
- 0:29Speaker 3: dot com.
- 0:33Speaker 1: One of the biggest data center projects, this one in
- 0:37Speaker 1: Utah that you can possibly imagine, is moving forward. Listen,
- 0:41Speaker 1: sixty two square miles of desert getting carved up for
- 0:47Speaker 1: you know, I guess to jack up your electricity bills.
- 0:51Speaker 4: And use more power than the entire state of Utah.
- 0:55Speaker 1: It's like sixty two square miles and getting a tax
- 0:58Speaker 1: break of humming data center. Like, good, look look at
- 1:03Speaker 1: that thing. I don't even I don't even know what
- 1:04Speaker 1: to say about that.
- 1:05Speaker 4: Look at look at that beautiful, beautiful so chunk of land.
- 1:12Speaker 1: Locals out there looked at it, and we're like, uh yeah,
- 1:15Speaker 1: don't think I don't think we want this either, did
- 1:18Speaker 1: not seem to matter. Let's roll a little bit of
- 1:21Speaker 1: uh C two here.
- 1:24Speaker 5: All of this as well.
- 1:26Speaker 1: Then why won't they let people talk?
- 1:27Speaker 5: Why won't.
- 1:31Speaker 4: This is not real information?
- 1:32Speaker 1: And we sitting here like it's okay, it's a charaine,
- 1:36Speaker 1: it's a charaine.
- 1:36Speaker 5: It's full.
- 1:50Speaker 1: So despite this kind of outpouring of opposition, the project
- 1:53Speaker 1: is continuing to move forward. Also, environmental concerns being spelled
- 1:57Speaker 1: out roll C three here.
- 2:00Speaker 6: How are you upsetting the how are you offsetting these
- 2:02Speaker 6: environmental concerns?
- 2:04Speaker 7: Well, I'm actually the only developer of data centers on
- 2:08Speaker 7: Earth that graduated from environmental studies, so I'm pretty aware
- 2:12Speaker 7: of what these concerns are. They are around air, water use, heat,
- 2:18Speaker 7: noise pollution. So sustainability is at the heart of what
- 2:24Speaker 7: we do in terms of all these proposals, not just Utah.
- 2:27Speaker 7: We have ten thousand acres in Alberta, Canada with the
- 2:30Speaker 7: same concerns, and so we search for the best technology.
- 2:33Speaker 7: There's many air cooled turbines now, so you're blending in
- 2:37Speaker 7: air cooled versus water. There's so many different ways to
- 2:41Speaker 7: generate power. We can also put a percentage of the
- 2:44Speaker 7: power generation through solar, wind and batteries because the battery
- 2:47Speaker 7: technology is ten x more efficient than it was just
- 2:51Speaker 7: five years ago. So that's very helpful because it makes
- 2:54Speaker 7: the cost of energy lower. So no one, you know,
- 2:57Speaker 7: if you're environmentalists, then you don't care about that stuff.
- 3:01Speaker 7: Of course you protest, and that's what happens.
- 3:03Speaker 1: I noted.
- 3:04Speaker 7: You know what's happening in Utah right now is we
- 3:08Speaker 7: think over ninety percent of the protesters are actually not
- 3:11Speaker 7: people that live in Utah or box Elter County.
- 3:13Speaker 4: They're being busted in Oh goodness.
- 3:16Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what I think of this new
- 3:18Speaker 1: trend of even like the data center guy.
- 3:21Speaker 4: Kevin O'Leary of jud Tank and Party Supreme.
- 3:24Speaker 1: Like doing the car thing.
- 3:27Speaker 4: I mean, nobody trusts you if you like have overprocessed
- 3:30Speaker 4: videos now and they've discovered that three very commercials, not
- 3:33Speaker 4: in this case, but like have you started to see
- 3:35Speaker 4: some commercials that are filmed like they're on a phone.
- 3:37Speaker 4: It's really something.
- 3:38Speaker 1: So unless you're like Kyle Kolinsky coming back from the
- 3:41Speaker 1: golf course with Crystal nobody wants to hear.
- 3:44Speaker 4: Nobody trusts you.
- 3:45Speaker 1: Nobody trusty Crystal en Route, nobody trusts your take. Of course,
- 3:50Speaker 1: all this is propped up by an inflated bubble put
- 3:55Speaker 1: up CE five here. Bloomberg has a nice little graphic
- 3:58Speaker 1: this is crazy, tries to explain how how the money
- 4:02Speaker 1: is flowing through here and to help us walk, to
- 4:05Speaker 1: help us walk through this. Lucky enough to be joined
- 4:08Speaker 1: by Rohit Choper, who's the former director of the Consumer
- 4:12Speaker 1: Financial Protection Board, also a former FTC commissioner. What's your
- 4:17Speaker 1: what's your current gig? Now that Trump threw you out
- 4:20Speaker 1: of this CFPB because I don't want to, we don't
- 4:22Speaker 1: want to just do formers. Row Hit, welcome to show.
- 4:25Speaker 1: What are you up to now?
- 4:26Speaker 6: Well, I'm helping out our state attorneys general actually prosecute
- 4:32Speaker 6: some of this wrongdoing that the federal agencies are just
- 4:36Speaker 6: watching as crime is committed all over the country.
- 4:40Speaker 1: Excellent.
- 4:40Speaker 4: It would have been really funnyhead if your answer was
- 4:42Speaker 4: I'm I'm spearheading massive data center construction.
- 4:45Speaker 1: Data center consulting.
- 4:47Speaker 5: No.
- 4:48Speaker 1: Rowhit is one of the people that keeps corporate America
- 4:50Speaker 1: up at night. The the foul language that people like
- 4:55Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond have had for Rowhead. I think speaks speaks
- 4:59Speaker 1: to speaks quite well to him and to the analysis
- 5:04Speaker 1: that he's able to give here. So, first of all,
- 5:08Speaker 1: this Utah Data Center project, am I an idiot? Like?
- 5:13Speaker 1: Why are they putting these things out in the desert?
- 5:16Speaker 1: First of all? When the big problem is overheating? Am
- 5:20Speaker 1: I the first person to think of that?
- 5:23Speaker 6: Well, here's what we're seeing across the country, massive actually
- 5:28Speaker 6: competition from all of these states and localities to hand
- 5:33Speaker 6: out tax breaks in order to subsidize these very massive
- 5:37Speaker 6: real estate developments. And I think you're seeing an unending
- 5:42Speaker 6: thirst for power when it comes to keeping going this
- 5:47Speaker 6: AI machine. There is even analysis from Goldman Sachs that
- 5:52Speaker 6: is suggesting that AI is contributing to all sorts of
- 5:57Speaker 6: increased consumer prices, whether it is the increased cost of
- 6:01Speaker 6: electricity that some people believe is a result the increased
- 6:05Speaker 6: demand for electronic equipment and chips, as well as a
- 6:09Speaker 6: whole other set of costs. So you're starting to see
- 6:13Speaker 6: a lot of pushback, especially because some of the traditional
- 6:18Speaker 6: arguments for subsidizing these developments, like creating lots of jobs,
- 6:24Speaker 6: aren't necessarily materializing. Well, it takes people to construct these
- 6:29Speaker 6: data centers. If you walk through some of them, you'll
- 6:32Speaker 6: see there's very few people working at them.
- 6:35Speaker 4: Have you done that before you've walked through the data centers.
- 6:38Speaker 6: I've seen a data center. I've seen it's actually it's
- 6:43Speaker 6: quite extraordinary in some ways to see the sheer volume
- 6:47Speaker 6: of electronic equipment, the need to cool some of this,
- 6:52Speaker 6: and the need to just kind of keep it going
- 6:55Speaker 6: twenty four hours a day. And I think we forget
- 6:57Speaker 6: that every time we are opening an app or streaming
- 7:01Speaker 6: a show that is really resting on those behemoth data centers.
- 7:06Speaker 4: So on that point Trump takes office, CFPB, you're gone.
- 7:12Speaker 4: CFPB is now a shell of its former self. Basically
- 7:15Speaker 4: was doged, which was a plan of the conservative movement
- 7:18Speaker 4: long before Doge, of course, But one of the things
- 7:22Speaker 4: that you were doing, and correct me if I'm wrong,
- 7:24Speaker 4: at the CFPP was starting to pay really close attention
- 7:26Speaker 4: to the consumer effects of cryptocurrency. And I think one
- 7:31Speaker 4: of the reasons cryptocurrency and just financialization and the like.
- 7:35Speaker 4: And I think one of the reasons that people are
- 7:38Speaker 4: so mad about what started to happen with the data
- 7:41Speaker 4: centers is that they look around and they say, for what,
- 7:44Speaker 4: what is all of this? All of this is war schemes,
- 7:48Speaker 4: whether it's I mean, crypto isn't directly related to this,
- 7:51Speaker 4: or maybe it is, correct me if I'm wrong, but
- 7:53Speaker 4: like it's all to that Bloomberg piece we just we
- 7:56Speaker 4: just had up on the screen. It's all like Microsoft
- 7:59Speaker 4: funding in Nvidia to fund Microsoft, like it's all it
- 8:03Speaker 4: all feels fake to people. It all feels like it's
- 8:06Speaker 4: for the sake of people who are going to be
- 8:08Speaker 4: fine no matter what, just like what happened in the
- 8:11Speaker 4: Great Recession. They are going to survive, many of them
- 8:14Speaker 4: are going to survive. Average people are going to be
- 8:16Speaker 4: screwed once again. And so some of it I think
- 8:18Speaker 4: just comes from this anger about what's building up, the
- 8:22Speaker 4: froth that's building up in the economy.
- 8:24Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, there's a concept that we talk about
- 8:26Speaker 6: on Wall Street. It was I think coined by a
- 8:29Speaker 6: Bloomberg journalist, number go up, which is really this push
- 8:33Speaker 6: no matter what type of asset you're referring to, they
- 8:38Speaker 6: want the number.
- 8:39Speaker 5: To go up. And we have seen it in the data.
- 8:43Speaker 6: The top one percent of Americans now own over fifty
- 8:47Speaker 6: percent of the stock market and mutual fund assets in
- 8:52Speaker 6: the US. And if you look at the portion of
- 8:55Speaker 6: what we refer to as the Magnificent Seven, those big
- 8:58Speaker 6: tech companies, Nvidia and others, they are a larger and
- 9:03Speaker 6: larger and larger share of the overall stock market. So
- 9:09Speaker 6: we're in a situation now, and I'll tell you something.
- 9:13Speaker 6: Just in one quarter recently, just baby boomers saw their
- 9:19Speaker 6: wealth increase by a trillion dollars and this is due
- 9:24Speaker 6: to some of these stock market gains. So we're in
- 9:27Speaker 6: a situation where the economy is now in some ways
- 9:31Speaker 6: resting on these big asset prices, and many people are
- 9:36Speaker 6: wondering are these asset prices really real? You mention what's
- 9:42Speaker 6: called circularity. This is where a.
- 9:45Speaker 1: Group up while you're talking people.
- 9:48Speaker 6: Yeah, these group of companies are really kind of all
- 9:55Speaker 6: in deals with each other. Some of it is related
- 9:58Speaker 6: to services like cloud, some of it is related to chips,
- 10:02Speaker 6: the things that you know in video makes. Some of
- 10:05Speaker 6: it is actually investment. So there is really this web
- 10:09Speaker 6: and honestly, this Bloomberg graphic doesn't even begin to show
- 10:13Speaker 6: some of it. You are seeing that in some cases
- 10:18Speaker 6: an enormous part of even the cloud infrastructure is increasingly
- 10:25Speaker 6: being paid between these companies. And what's interesting is that
- 10:31Speaker 6: it is not necessarily they're paying cash. They're entering into
- 10:35Speaker 6: deals financing and equity deals that are really tying some
- 10:40Speaker 6: of these firms together.
- 10:41Speaker 5: So we don't really know.
- 10:44Speaker 6: Is this a situation where if one problem occurs, will
- 10:50Speaker 6: it have a ripple effect? I think earlier you mentioned
- 10:53Speaker 6: what happened in the financial crisis, the regulators had no
- 10:58Speaker 6: clue about the linkages between the big banks between some
- 11:03Speaker 6: of these credit default swaps insurance companies like AIG, and
- 11:09Speaker 6: the result was a mess. And I think we're starting
- 11:12Speaker 6: to worry that maybe there isn't a big problem here.
- 11:16Speaker 6: But is anyone really looking because it seems like most
- 11:21Speaker 6: of the regulators in Washington are worshiping at these companies
- 11:25Speaker 6: alters rather than actually kicking the tires to see if
- 11:30Speaker 6: there's a bigger issue on our hands.
- 11:32Speaker 1: And so, what happens if the revenue expectations of an
- 11:35Speaker 1: open AI or an anthropic start to not meet? Like well, we're.
- 11:41Speaker 5: Already seeing signs of this.
- 11:43Speaker 6: Open AI I think has delayed its timeline for a
- 11:49Speaker 6: IPO where they go public anthropics.
- 11:53Speaker 5: I think we still don't have a.
- 11:55Speaker 6: Firm timeline on it, and many analysts believe this is
- 11:59Speaker 6: because us open AI is not showing the level of
- 12:03Speaker 6: revenue that the street expects.
- 12:08Speaker 5: So this is the worry.
- 12:10Speaker 6: You have a set of companies that are an overwhelming
- 12:14Speaker 6: share now of the stock market, over a third of
- 12:17Speaker 6: the stock market, and you have all that wealth really
- 12:21Speaker 6: concentrated at the upper echelons of the economy, and they
- 12:25Speaker 6: are driving those wealthy individuals are driving a huge amount
- 12:29Speaker 6: of spending. If we start seeing the stock market values
- 12:34Speaker 6: of these companies go down, will they all face a correction?
- 12:40Speaker 6: And what will the ripple effect be through the economy.
- 12:42Speaker 6: I think that's really what a lot of people, both
- 12:45Speaker 6: on Wall Street and who follow the economy closely, are
- 12:49Speaker 6: really really curious about.
- 12:51Speaker 4: And if we could talk a bit about the consumer
- 12:54Speaker 4: end of this rowhead, I'm curious, you know, some of
- 12:57Speaker 4: the stuff you all were doing at the CFPB to
- 13:00Speaker 4: stealman the conservative argument it was you didn't need the CFPB.
- 13:04Speaker 4: The CFPB could sort of be folded into other agencies
- 13:08Speaker 4: that already existed. So if we take that seriously for
- 13:12Speaker 4: a moment, I'm curious if you believe that some of
- 13:15Speaker 4: those responsibilities have adequately been folded into other oversight bodies
- 13:21Speaker 4: and what risk. I'm assuming you're gonna say, no, what risk?
- 13:25Speaker 4: Then consumers find themselves in with a basically empty CFPB
- 13:31Speaker 4: and some of this real economic change happening kind of
- 13:35Speaker 4: under everybody's noses right now.
- 13:37Speaker 5: Well, let's look at the proof.
- 13:40Speaker 6: While I was in office, and even before, the CFPB
- 13:46Speaker 6: was regularly returning billions of dollars. I think on average
- 13:51Speaker 6: it was over three billion dollars a year, and really
- 13:55Speaker 6: some serious fraud.
- 13:57Speaker 5: I think we've basically seen zero.
- 14:02Speaker 6: I don't I can't even tell you when the last
- 14:04Speaker 6: time they took an action. It has mostly been to
- 14:08Speaker 6: gut the place. So I think the arguments that someone
- 14:11Speaker 6: else would do it just haven't held up. Here's the thing,
- 14:15Speaker 6: Emily that I think we've got to really think hard about.
- 14:20Speaker 6: It's one thing about, you know, going after fraud, returning.
- 14:24Speaker 5: Money to people.
- 14:26Speaker 6: The big, big work is often preventing the next meltdown
- 14:31Speaker 6: or crisis. Had there had been I think some real
- 14:35Speaker 6: scrutiny of subprime mortgages, we wouldn't have gotten into the big,
- 14:40Speaker 6: gigantic mess from two thousand and eight that honestly, we
- 14:44Speaker 6: are still feeling aspects of today, both politically and economically,
- 14:48Speaker 6: including in our housing costs.
- 14:51Speaker 5: But I really wonder.
- 14:54Speaker 6: These alphabet soup agencies are they asking any question, are
- 15:01Speaker 6: they actually looking at anything, or are they simply just
- 15:05Speaker 6: doing deals to scratch the backs of political supporters. We're
- 15:11Speaker 6: seeing this at the FTC when it comes to mergers,
- 15:15Speaker 6: waving mergers through where there is a politically connected lobbyist
- 15:20Speaker 6: and going hard on firms that might be enemies of
- 15:24Speaker 6: the administration. And what I say to all my conservative
- 15:27Speaker 6: friends is that I really thought you guys didn't want
- 15:32Speaker 6: the government picking winners and losers. That is really how
- 15:39Speaker 6: Russia and China often work. I thought we were about
- 15:44Speaker 6: letting people build and create and not just deciding and
- 15:51Speaker 6: crowning corporate royalty. I'm worried we're shifting toward that. And
- 15:56Speaker 6: let's see if there is a broad spectrum of people
- 16:00Speaker 6: across the ideological spectrum who just say no and we're.
- 16:04Speaker 5: Tired of it.
- 16:05Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm picking a lot of tech companies those winners
- 16:07Speaker 4: in particular.
- 16:09Speaker 1: And Rohitchroper I also wanted to ask you uh to
- 16:12Speaker 1: kind of unpack for us a little bit this this
- 16:14Speaker 1: fight that's going on between Wall Street banks on the
- 16:18Speaker 1: one hand and crypto companies on the other hand that
- 16:21Speaker 1: seem to be attempting to act like banks. They want to.
- 16:25Speaker 1: It looks like they want to start taking deposits and
- 16:27Speaker 1: paying interest on deposits, but without being kind of regulated
- 16:32Speaker 1: as as banks, which you know, the nice thing that
- 16:36Speaker 1: we got out of the Great Depression was the fdi
- 16:38Speaker 1: C and you put you put your money into a bank,
- 16:40Speaker 1: and if the bank goes under. As Americans, we're not
- 16:43Speaker 1: actually worried that we're not that we're going to lose
- 16:46Speaker 1: our deposits, and so therefore we don't rush and we
- 16:48Speaker 1: don't create runs on those those banks. So Tom Tillis,
- 16:53Speaker 1: I maybe we can add this and pose with Tom
- 16:55Speaker 1: Tillis and Angela also Brooks, the Tom Till's Republican from
- 16:58Speaker 1: North Carolina, also Brooks Democrat from Maryland, putting together a
- 17:03Speaker 1: proposal that they thought had reached some type of compromise
- 17:07Speaker 1: between coinbase and the crypto world and Wall Street. But
- 17:11Speaker 1: that seems to have kind of unraveled a little bit.
- 17:13Speaker 1: So can you unpack for us, like what are these
- 17:16Speaker 1: what are the different camps arguing for? And I wonder
- 17:19Speaker 1: so Coinbase just laid off what fourteen percent of its
- 17:24Speaker 1: of its staff, and I wonder if they were waiting
- 17:26Speaker 1: to kind of reach a deal and then and then
- 17:30Speaker 1: went for this massive layoff. Setting that aside, What what
- 17:34Speaker 1: is this fight over?
- 17:36Speaker 5: Yeah?
- 17:36Speaker 6: So look, Ryan, you know I'm not some kind of
- 17:40Speaker 6: unvarnished cheerleader for banks. I think we got to scrutinize
- 17:45Speaker 6: them carefully. But let's be honest. We do need banks
- 17:49Speaker 6: in our society. We need a place where we can
- 17:52Speaker 6: pull our deposits and that we can get loans on
- 17:56Speaker 6: everything from building factories or starting a dry crew or pizzeria.
- 18:01Speaker 6: That's what banks do. The banks are arguing that the
- 18:06Speaker 6: crypto companies that are wanting to start these crypto dollars
- 18:10Speaker 6: or stable coins they call it, that they're going to
- 18:14Speaker 6: put money in those coins, and that it is going
- 18:19Speaker 6: to drain the banks of deposits who they would otherwise
- 18:24Speaker 6: use to lend. And so what the battle is about
- 18:27Speaker 6: here is can those stable coin companies or crypto dollars,
- 18:33Speaker 6: can they pay interest on the deposit. The argument if
- 18:39Speaker 6: they pay interest, there will be lots of flight from
- 18:43Speaker 6: banks to those stable coin issuers. And the argument from
- 18:48Speaker 6: the stable coin issuers. Is that the banks they can
- 18:51Speaker 6: just compete and raise their interest rates too. So this
- 18:57Speaker 6: sounds actually like it's a debate about it's really not.
- 19:02Speaker 6: It's really a debate about what is the future of
- 19:06Speaker 6: our banking system. Is our banking system going to be
- 19:10Speaker 6: one where we put money in deposits and that leads
- 19:15Speaker 6: to lending, but we can always get our money back,
- 19:18Speaker 6: as you said, Ryan, or we going to have something
- 19:21Speaker 6: a little bit different. I really worry that this is
- 19:27Speaker 6: not becoming a debate about farm lending and mortgage lending
- 19:34Speaker 6: and national security and sanctions. Instead it seems a little
- 19:39Speaker 6: bit more about a fight that's just jocking between two
- 19:43Speaker 6: big industries shooting.
- 19:45Speaker 5: At each other.
- 19:46Speaker 6: But the truth is is that if you look at
- 19:49Speaker 6: as what is happening about, big questions about the future
- 19:52Speaker 6: of the dollar trade, the financial system, the future of
- 19:57Speaker 6: the FED, these are all linked, and you just don't
- 20:01Speaker 6: see a lot of coverage about this. So we got
- 20:04Speaker 6: to all get smart and make sure this is not
- 20:07Speaker 6: just a lobbying frenzy between industries, but we're choosing what
- 20:11Speaker 6: is right for America.
- 20:14Speaker 1: So what does the world look like if we're doing
- 20:16Speaker 1: crypto dollars instead of.
- 20:18Speaker 4: Dollars, and the stable coin push from the Trump administration,
- 20:21Speaker 4: which is enriching to them as well. By the way,
- 20:24Speaker 4: but remember when with the tariff, Trump's what Trump what
- 20:27Speaker 4: brought him from the brink was the bond market's getting
- 20:29Speaker 4: quote a little yippy. And I don't think anybody totally
- 20:32Speaker 4: understands what they're trying to do with the dollar in
- 20:34Speaker 4: the long term.
- 20:35Speaker 6: Well, here's really one of the best cases they're trying
- 20:39Speaker 6: to make is that by issuing these stable coins, they're
- 20:43Speaker 6: going to attract more demand for dollars, and therefore that
- 20:49Speaker 6: will mean more purchases of US treasuries, which will then
- 20:54Speaker 6: make our debt cheaper. I really I wrote a piece
- 20:59Speaker 6: last year that really questions some of that assumption, because
- 21:04Speaker 6: I do think a lot of the funds that will
- 21:08Speaker 6: power these stable coins will actually just come from US
- 21:14Speaker 6: consumers and businesses. When I send a Venmo or a
- 21:18Speaker 6: cash app, I'm not thinking about is it in a
- 21:22Speaker 6: stable coin, is it in a bank deposit. I just
- 21:25Speaker 6: expect it to work. This is not going to be
- 21:28Speaker 6: so clear to consumers, and I want to make sure
- 21:32Speaker 6: that if something went down, if there is a crisis,
- 21:36Speaker 6: that people will not panic and that they will be
- 21:40Speaker 6: able to get their money back. That is something that
- 21:44Speaker 6: is so key for confidence in our economy. And I
- 21:47Speaker 6: would hate to see those who really live paycheck to
- 21:51Speaker 6: paycheck all of a sudden, or a small business all
- 21:54Speaker 6: of a sudden lose everything because what their money, that
- 21:59Speaker 6: their money is not really stable.
- 22:01Speaker 4: We're so cooked.
- 22:03Speaker 6: No, no, no, it's not, we're cook We just got
- 22:05Speaker 6: to get smarter and we got to get our voices
- 22:08Speaker 6: in the arena. And we can't just be passive observers.
- 22:13Speaker 1: Yeah, who are the smartest, Who are the people on
- 22:15Speaker 1: the right side of this, Who are actually who actually
- 22:18Speaker 1: get it? In Congress?
- 22:19Speaker 6: Now, well, you know what's funny is I think actually
- 22:22Speaker 6: a lot of them do get it, but many are
- 22:26Speaker 6: worried about what they can say out loud. I think
- 22:30Speaker 6: they see huge lobbying interests on those companies. Yeah, and
- 22:35Speaker 6: I think that is something that is something that politicians,
- 22:40Speaker 6: you know, we want them to all be courageous to
- 22:44Speaker 6: do the right thing, but we know the power of
- 22:48Speaker 6: these big arsenals of lobbying money. We're seeing it in
- 22:53Speaker 6: AI as well, where the AI you know, companies are
- 22:57Speaker 6: forming lobbies to really destroy any state legislator or local
- 23:03Speaker 6: politician who is even speaking up against data centers or
- 23:08Speaker 6: trying to put some basic protections on the books. So
- 23:12Speaker 6: this is why we can't just we can't just observe.
- 23:16Speaker 6: We gotta we gotta be in on it.
- 23:18Speaker 1: Rohit Chopra, thanks so much for joining us. Former director
- 23:22Speaker 1: of the CFP, PB, former chairman or former commissioner on
- 23:26Speaker 1: the FTC. Much appreciated.
- 23:29Speaker 5: Thanks raving.
- 23:32Speaker 1: The conservative movements. Woodward and Bernstein turned up in Havana,
- 23:38Speaker 1: both of them. Takes two to match the wits one.
- 23:43Speaker 1: Nick Shirley. Nick Shirley, however, running into a little running
- 23:47Speaker 1: into a few problems in Havanah. Here he is from
- 23:51Speaker 1: a sanctioned Havana hotel. I think through sheer ignorance, Nick
- 23:57Speaker 1: Shirley is confronting the absurd of American sanctions by staying
- 24:02Speaker 1: in a hotel. He is definitely not allowed to be
- 24:04Speaker 1: staying in. So critical support to comrade surely here who
- 24:09Speaker 1: is facing difficult circumstances. Let's roll this video that Nick
- 24:14Speaker 1: Shirley actually produced. This is not AI or made up
- 24:17Speaker 1: or anything. Let's roll some Nick Shirley.
- 24:20Speaker 8: All right, Depending when this comes out or if it
- 24:26Speaker 8: does We are currently being telled by Cuban intelligence here
- 24:33Speaker 8: in habout A, Cuba.
- 24:35Speaker 4: I came here.
- 24:36Speaker 8: I've been wanting to make a video for so long
- 24:38Speaker 8: about life and communism and showing people what communism is
- 24:42Speaker 8: like in a place like Cuba.
- 24:44Speaker 5: For instance, I go out.
- 24:47Speaker 8: At the airport. They sees all of my cameras. They
- 24:50Speaker 8: sees both my GoPros, my metaglasses. These are not my metaglasses,
- 24:55Speaker 8: all my microphones. However, the only thing they don't take
- 24:58Speaker 8: is my iPhone camera. That's what I'm filming. It's on
- 25:01Speaker 8: right now. They don't take my iPhone camera, and somehow
- 25:04Speaker 8: they didn't get this microphone that was in the very
- 25:08Speaker 8: very bottom of my backpack. We're filming this video and
- 25:12Speaker 8: when we're next to the hospital, we see undercover cop
- 25:16Speaker 8: roll up on us and my security guards that are
- 25:18Speaker 8: with me. They detected him, and then all of a sudden,
- 25:21Speaker 8: there's another one. So we hot back in another taxi.
- 25:24Speaker 8: We left the scene and we thought we were good.
- 25:26Speaker 8: They didn't tell us and we left. But since we
- 25:29Speaker 8: left the airport, we had been getting telled or the
- 25:31Speaker 8: word had gotten out that there was a journalist inside
- 25:34Speaker 8: of Cuba. There's only two flats that come in here
- 25:35Speaker 8: every single day, so it wasn't hard to spot out
- 25:38Speaker 8: who the journalist was. And we have a Cuban intelligence
- 25:42Speaker 8: down in the lobby of the hotel right now working
- 25:47Speaker 8: to essentially try to round us up and potentially imprison
- 25:52Speaker 8: us or make it so we cannot leave Cuba.
- 25:56Speaker 1: So the interesting thing about that video, one of them,
- 25:58Speaker 1: at least when I went over there recently, there was
- 26:03Speaker 1: this massive hullabaloo about the fact that we stayed in
- 26:06Speaker 1: a quote unquote five star hotel. For when you have
- 26:10Speaker 1: a giant group of Americans who are traveling to Cuba,
- 26:13Speaker 1: there are only a couple of hotels that you're allowed
- 26:16Speaker 1: to stay, and you can stay in their version of
- 26:18Speaker 1: kind of Airbnbs, but spreading seven hundred people out around
- 26:22Speaker 1: those would be rather logistically difficult. So among the hotels
- 26:25Speaker 1: that you're allowed to stay in, there's only a couple
- 26:29Speaker 1: because they can't have, you know, connections to the Cuban government.
- 26:33Speaker 1: He's staying in one that is fully one hundred percent sanctioned.
- 26:37Speaker 1: I don't think he's deliberately violating American sanctions and supporting
- 26:43Speaker 1: the communist Cuban The argument is by staying there, he's supporting,
- 26:47Speaker 1: you know, the tyrannical communist government, and so therefore he
- 26:50Speaker 1: shouldn't be staying there, and it's a crime. What's the
- 26:54Speaker 1: statute of limitations? Would be funny if like President Platna
- 26:58Speaker 1: rolls in and and like lifts sanctions on Cuba, but
- 27:03Speaker 1: also prosecutes, surely for violating them while they were still
- 27:08Speaker 1: in place. So good for surely for showing the absurdity
- 27:10Speaker 1: of these American sanctions. Now, so he's there doing some reporting.
- 27:18Speaker 1: I think his mom is sort of like his handler, right, she's.
- 27:21Speaker 4: Kind of I thought they traveled together.
- 27:23Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm much anger at his mom than him. He
- 27:26Speaker 1: doesn't have any idea what he's doing. You can't be Yeah,
- 27:31Speaker 1: he is, he's challenged.
- 27:35Speaker 4: We weren't going to make the joke about literacy being
- 27:38Speaker 4: Cuba's one strand.
- 27:40Speaker 1: He's bringing down the literacy rate in Cuba single handedly.
- 27:43Speaker 4: I wasn't going to make the joke, but I was
- 27:44Speaker 4: going to tee you up to make the joke.
- 27:46Speaker 1: But I'm upset with his mom, Like his mom should
- 27:49Speaker 1: have been like, well, you can't just bring in a
- 27:51Speaker 1: whole bunch of equipment and start filming in Cuba, like you,
- 27:56Speaker 1: there's a process you have to go through with the
- 27:59Speaker 1: government to get a visa connected to doing journalism. Chinese
- 28:05Speaker 1: tried to send their leading propagandist to like make videos
- 28:13Speaker 1: here in the United States.
- 28:14Speaker 4: We'd roll out the red carpet.
- 28:15Speaker 1: Well, we would also.
- 28:17Speaker 4: We would follow them.
- 28:17Speaker 1: We would follow them, yes, yeah, and there are way
- 28:21Speaker 1: like you can't just come in on a You're not
- 28:23Speaker 1: supposed to just come in on a tourist visa and
- 28:25Speaker 1: do it when there are processes forms are supposed to
- 28:27Speaker 1: fill out. Right now, obviously Cuba has stacks and stacks
- 28:31Speaker 1: of forms. They are that's what they are.
- 28:34Speaker 4: Well, and nobody except for like maybe I mean, you
- 28:37Speaker 4: can correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe people who
- 28:40Speaker 4: are sort of still avowed Marxists, nobody really tries to
- 28:44Speaker 4: claim that the Cuban government isn't repressive and is not
- 28:48Speaker 4: going to follow forg journalists and that the process.
- 28:50Speaker 1: Everyone would agree they're repressive. The questions like some would argue, maybe.
- 28:53Speaker 4: It's good, yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's a good point, but
- 28:56Speaker 4: it's obviously a repressive country. Again, even some of the
- 28:59Speaker 4: people were arguing against sanctions and the like.
- 29:02Speaker 1: They have tight rules, admit that speech.
- 29:04Speaker 4: Yes, the media, they have artists in political prison, like
- 29:08Speaker 4: I guess.
- 29:10Speaker 1: Wanting to interview somebody at the University of Anna who
- 29:12Speaker 1: is a high profile person, Like that's a government university,
- 29:16Speaker 1: and you have to then get permission from like the
- 29:18Speaker 1: government interview like right, not the kind of system that I,
- 29:22Speaker 1: as a journalist.
- 29:23Speaker 4: Prefer, which when you came back from Cuba, we talked
- 29:26Speaker 4: about all of this, like we talked about the process,
- 29:28Speaker 4: We talked about how you were able to do those
- 29:29Speaker 4: tours of the hospitals.
- 29:31Speaker 1: But it's also not a mystery like what Cuba is
- 29:34Speaker 1: apparently other to anybody other than Nick Shirley. So I hope,
- 29:39Speaker 1: I hope the Cubans governments takes mercy on poor Nick Shirley. Truly,
- 29:45Speaker 1: he doesn't, he knows not what he does.
- 29:47Speaker 4: So Marco Rubio gave a briefing yesterday, and I think
- 29:51Speaker 4: it's worth rolling this side. This is going to be
- 29:53Speaker 4: D four MARCOO did with the White House briefing yesterday,
- 29:56Speaker 4: and both for you and Trump continue to talk about
- 29:58Speaker 4: what could be coming imminently for Cuba. Trump obviously infamously
- 30:02Speaker 4: said that he may have the privilege of taking Cuba
- 30:05Speaker 4: very soon. Here is Secretary of State Rubio at the
- 30:08Speaker 4: White House yesterday.
- 30:09Speaker 9: There's no oil blockade on Cuba, per se. Here's what's
- 30:11Speaker 9: happening with Cuba.
- 30:12Speaker 1: Okay.
- 30:12Speaker 9: Cuba used to get free oil from Venezuela. Used to
- 30:15Speaker 9: give them a bunch of free oil. They would take
- 30:17Speaker 9: like sixty percent of that oil and resell it for cash.
- 30:19Speaker 10: It wouldn't even go to benefit the people.
- 30:21Speaker 9: So the only blockade that's happened is the Cubans have decided,
- 30:24Speaker 9: I mean, the Veneze weddings have decided, we're not giving
- 30:26Speaker 9: you free oil anymore. And you can only imagine nowadays
- 30:29Speaker 9: the way oil prices aren't. No one's giving away free oil,
- 30:31Speaker 9: much less to a failed regime. So the problem with
- 30:34Speaker 9: Cuba is worse.
- 30:35Speaker 4: Okay.
- 30:36Speaker 9: Their economic model doesn't work, doesn't work, and the people
- 30:39Speaker 9: who are in charge can't fix it. And the reason
- 30:42Speaker 9: that I can't fix it is not just because they're communists.
- 30:44Speaker 9: That's bad enough, but they're incompetent communists.
- 30:46Speaker 4: Okay. So he also south Coomb's Twitter. I can't believe
- 30:50Speaker 4: that's the thing I'm even saying. But south COM's I
- 30:52Speaker 4: guess x account posted a very calculated image of Secretary
- 30:56Speaker 4: of Rubio yesterday D two posing in front of a
- 30:59Speaker 4: map of Cuba with General Francis Donovan. Quote. Their discussions,
- 31:04Speaker 4: according to Southcom, focused on US efforts to counter threats
- 31:07Speaker 4: that undermined security, stability, and democracy in our hemisphere. Absolutely
- 31:10Speaker 4: no mistake that they're shaking hands in front of a
- 31:13Speaker 4: giant map of Cuba.
- 31:14Speaker 1: Ran yeah, and he was asked about that in his
- 31:16Speaker 1: press conference. Then he said, yeah, that was to send
- 31:18Speaker 1: a signal. Also, what he said in that clip is
- 31:23Speaker 1: just a flat out lie. Forget Venezuela, Mexico and every
- 31:28Speaker 1: other country that wants to sell oil to Cuba, not
- 31:32Speaker 1: give it away, sell it is told that they're not
- 31:35Speaker 1: allowed to do that by the United States. I don't
- 31:38Speaker 1: know why he keeps telling this lie so confidently, but
- 31:42Speaker 1: he does. The Russia brought a tanker there and Trump
- 31:47Speaker 1: allowed it to go through. The fact that Trump had
- 31:51Speaker 1: to say that he was allowing a Russian tanker to
- 31:54Speaker 1: go to Cuba tells you that there is a blockade.
- 31:57Speaker 1: If there was no blockade, Trump would have nothing to
- 32:01Speaker 1: do with a transaction between Russia and Cuba. Meanwhile, a
- 32:06Speaker 1: little bit of a little bit of news that came
- 32:07Speaker 1: out yesterday, Cuba finalized a massive reform of its immigration system,
- 32:15Speaker 1: a huge loosening of it. Previously, they weren't they didn't
- 32:19Speaker 1: allow dual citizenship for the most part, and if you
- 32:23Speaker 1: were gone for a certain amount of time, that was
- 32:26Speaker 1: kind of a de facto renunciation of your citizenship. Immigration
- 32:30Speaker 1: law is always complex, so it might have the details
- 32:32Speaker 1: slightly off here, but the loosening allow it's going to
- 32:37Speaker 1: allow dual citizenship, and it's going to allow Cubans who
- 32:43Speaker 1: have gone to not just the US, but you know, Brazil,
- 32:48Speaker 1: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, you name it, to go back and forth.
- 32:52Speaker 1: It will also allow them to spend money that they
- 32:57Speaker 1: have earned in you know, Central or South America or
- 33:01Speaker 1: the North American back and back in Cuba and then
- 33:05Speaker 1: to go and then to go again. So it's it's
- 33:06Speaker 1: a it's a huge liberalization of their of their immigration policy,
- 33:13Speaker 1: which is interesting, and it's it comes at a time
- 33:16Speaker 1: as hundreds of thousands of people, as Trump and then
- 33:20Speaker 1: Biden really ratchet it up the boot, the boot on
- 33:25Speaker 1: the neck of the Cuban economy. Hundreds of thousands of
- 33:30Speaker 1: Cubans have millions at this point over maybe five six
- 33:33Speaker 1: years have fled Cuba, and so what this is saying
- 33:38Speaker 1: is that if they want to come back, it's it's
- 33:40Speaker 1: the way I read it. If they want to come back,
- 33:42Speaker 1: they can do so. And they don't have to stay either.
- 33:45Speaker 1: They can come back and visit and go back.
- 33:47Speaker 4: So anyway, that's and bring I guess potentially bring stuff
- 33:52Speaker 4: for people.
- 33:52Speaker 1: Suffering, bring stuff and bring money.
- 33:54Speaker 4: Yeah, because and to just as a flight from Miami
- 33:58Speaker 4: to Avanta it's easy, or.
- 34:00Speaker 1: From Costa Rica or wherever else they are, because they're like,
- 34:02Speaker 1: Cubans are doing pretty well in other countries because they
- 34:08Speaker 1: all got this as they all got this, but Cubans
- 34:11Speaker 1: are particular because they got this really good education in Cuba,
- 34:15Speaker 1: and so they're able to then outperform other people in
- 34:20Speaker 1: like Brazil or Columbia or Costa Rica or whatever. I
- 34:24Speaker 1: was talking. When I was in Cuba, I was talking
- 34:25Speaker 1: to some people there who who were saying it was
- 34:27Speaker 1: ironic that a lot of their friends have who have
- 34:29Speaker 1: left and done really well, have turned right wing, and
- 34:33Speaker 1: they're like they're the ones who staying here, like it's
- 34:35Speaker 1: a little annoying because they got this socialist education and
- 34:39Speaker 1: then use that to do well in these countries where
- 34:44Speaker 1: education is not a priority and have kind of forgotten,
- 34:48Speaker 1: you know, how they got there, but that that's because
- 34:51Speaker 1: there's real genuine animosity towards the sclerotic Cuban government.
- 34:57Speaker 4: Yes, right, well, we'll see, we'll be we'll of course
- 35:02Speaker 4: be paying close attention to Nick, the plight of Nick Shirley,
- 35:05Speaker 4: the education Nick Shirley, and the like. In all seriousness,
- 35:09Speaker 4: though we hope that he's okay and safe, because that
- 35:12Speaker 4: can get hairy very quickly, as you know.
- 35:14Speaker 1: Right, imagine interrogating Nick Shirley about anything about.
- 35:22Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, right, I would like to see
- 35:27Speaker 4: you do that for the record. Nick, come on, Ryan,
- 35:30Speaker 4: we'll talk to you.
- 35:31Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, yeah, let's do it.
- 35:36Speaker 4: All right, we got big election updates to get to,
- 35:39Speaker 4: so let's start now in Indiana. We can talk about this.
- 35:44Speaker 4: We'll just put this New York Times tear sheet up
- 35:46Speaker 4: on the screen because it kind of gives a broad
- 35:47Speaker 4: overview of everything that happened last night, big election results
- 35:51Speaker 4: around the country. Quote. President Trump's efforts to oust Republicans
- 35:54Speaker 4: deemed insufficiently loyal faced a key test on Tuesday's Indiana
- 35:57Speaker 4: voters decided whether to backstates who opposed redistricting, in whom
- 36:02Speaker 4: the president wanted out all right now. The Times also
- 36:05Speaker 4: said his political payback campaign, Trump's is going to extend
- 36:08Speaker 4: later this month to classes in Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana.
- 36:13Speaker 4: But in Indiana, these are primaries. We're not actually even
- 36:17Speaker 4: talking about the general elections yet. The Times says several
- 36:20Speaker 4: Republican led states quickly fell online last year when mister
- 36:23Speaker 4: Trump demanded redrawn maps. You may remember that Indiana Republicans
- 36:27Speaker 4: tried to push back against that, so quote. When lawmakers
- 36:31Speaker 4: returned to Indianapolis in December, the House approved a new
- 36:34Speaker 4: map which would have positioned Republicans to flip the states
- 36:37Speaker 4: to Democratic held congressional seats, but the Senate said no,
- 36:41Speaker 4: and a slim majority of Republicans joined all Democratic senators
- 36:45Speaker 4: to vote the bill down. Those senators who were on
- 36:48Speaker 4: the ballot for reelection, not all of them were, but
- 36:50Speaker 4: the ones who were faced I've seen estimates between eight
- 36:54Speaker 4: million and twelve million dollars from Trump groups like National
- 36:59Speaker 4: True groups basically and not even secretly, but very openly,
- 37:05Speaker 4: who then said Okay, that's it, you're gone, and basically
- 37:09Speaker 4: all of them ended up losing with the exception of
- 37:13Speaker 4: one as of right now losing their primary battles last night.
- 37:17Speaker 4: So brutal day for Indiana Republicans who wanted to push
- 37:24Speaker 4: back against Trump. Basically again as of now, just one
- 37:29Speaker 4: who is clinging to and a high profile race who's
- 37:32Speaker 4: clinging to the seat. But you know the way that
- 37:37Speaker 4: I would describe this, we're in an arms race now
- 37:41Speaker 4: on jerrymandering. There's no question about it. This was after Texas,
- 37:46Speaker 4: which then you saw California, and the redistricting has been going.
- 37:50Speaker 1: On, held by the Voting Rights Act decision because that
- 37:53Speaker 1: opens up, yes, redistricting possibilities everywhere from Alabama, Mississippi to Tennessee.
- 37:59Speaker 1: Right said, you know, because they what they can do
- 38:02Speaker 1: is they can just eliminate the Civil Rights Act or
- 38:08Speaker 1: the Voting Rights Act required basically majority black district They'll
- 38:12Speaker 1: just carve up the black voters and dilute them into
- 38:15Speaker 1: a bunch of white districts.
- 38:18Speaker 4: Right, And so six of the eight who refused to
- 38:23Speaker 4: do the gerrymandering, we're gone.
- 38:26Speaker 1: You have time to do it before November or that.
- 38:29Speaker 1: Well they're still in.
- 38:30Speaker 4: Office, so right, yeah, some of them are.
- 38:32Speaker 1: Yeah, but they'll do it for twenty twenty eight.
- 38:35Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. Yes, And just
- 38:38Speaker 4: to again, the argument from Jim Banks and Trump Republicans
- 38:43Speaker 4: is that you can't do unilateral disarmament or you can't. Yeah,
- 38:47Speaker 4: that's not happening, right, So it's not possible. And the
- 38:50Speaker 4: only if you're going to make like a moral pencion
- 38:53Speaker 4: type stand on the principle against redistricting. At this point,
- 38:57Speaker 4: there is no you're not the bulwark again national redistricting
- 39:01Speaker 4: just because you say Indiana won't do it. And so
- 39:04Speaker 4: Trump people and obviously Indiana voters for the most part,
- 39:07Speaker 4: looked at that and said, yeah, this is bs. You
- 39:10Speaker 4: guys aren't stopping redistricting. It's happening whether you like it
- 39:13Speaker 4: or not. And what you are doing is just saying
- 39:15Speaker 4: we're disarming ourselves and giving Dems more seats in Indiana.
- 39:21Speaker 4: So it's I think that's a pretty compelling argument to
- 39:24Speaker 4: most voters. Everybody hates redistricting.
- 39:26Speaker 1: Maybe everybody hates it.
- 39:28Speaker 4: Everybody hates it.
- 39:28Speaker 1: They lived they started it in Texas, like they didn't
- 39:31Speaker 1: have to do this mid district, a mid cycle redistricting
- 39:35Speaker 1: in Texas, and they chose to do it and then yeah,
- 39:38Speaker 1: once they chose.
- 39:38Speaker 4: To do that, then you're yeah, the cycle was on. Yeah,
- 39:43Speaker 4: it was immediately Gavin Newsom was like, Okay, we're doing it.
- 39:46Speaker 4: And Gavin Newsom's people loved that because everybody knows that
- 39:50Speaker 4: we have we don't have. The stigma around these boundaries
- 39:55Speaker 4: has been blown up during the Trump era and so
- 39:59Speaker 4: it's unfortunate. It's reality. Nobody is unless somebody if these
- 40:03Speaker 4: Indiana Republicans had a real substantive plan to stop redistricting
- 40:07Speaker 4: around the country, they would probably have a better case
- 40:09Speaker 4: with Republican voters. But nobody. Everybody hates jerrymandering, but also
- 40:13Speaker 4: everybody hates not doing it now, like Republicans, Republicans and
- 40:18Speaker 4: Democrats hate not doing it now. It's a it's a
- 40:20Speaker 4: horrible status quo, but it is unfortunately our reality. Right Ohio,
- 40:25Speaker 4: interesting results in Ohio last night as well. We can
- 40:28Speaker 4: put this up on the screen Politico quote Ohio Republicans
- 40:31Speaker 4: fhere former ice official could cost them a battleground house seat. Now,
- 40:36Speaker 4: this is about Madison san who was a very young
- 40:40Speaker 4: and inexperienced deputy to Christy Nome. Her title was I'm
- 40:44Speaker 4: trying to remember exactly what her title was. She was
- 40:46Speaker 4: deputy director at ICE, that's right, and then resigned to
- 40:50Speaker 4: run for congress. Back home and Ohio was the subject
- 40:53Speaker 4: of a salacious Daily Mail hit piece about her sex life. Yes,
- 41:01Speaker 4: about her sex life just a couple of weeks.
- 41:03Speaker 1: Ago, rather aggressive. Was it sexual assault? Even like there
- 41:09Speaker 1: was some pretty pretty serious like hikes.
- 41:14Speaker 4: It was definitely a yikes story.
- 41:15Speaker 1: I don't remember if there's such anyway going on.
- 41:19Speaker 4: Ruled into it, but yes, Madison she and people may
- 41:23Speaker 4: I lose, right, Madison Sheen is. The results are in
- 41:28Speaker 4: lost and lost big as we can look at the
- 41:33Speaker 4: results right now. So this is former state Representative Derek
- 41:37Speaker 4: marin one and now goes up against Marcy Captor in
- 41:40Speaker 4: Ohio's ninth congressional district. Yeah, she lost, she lost. And
- 41:45Speaker 4: the Daily Mail story, the headline was that she was
- 41:48Speaker 4: engaged into year secret relationship with a junior staffer inside
- 41:52Speaker 4: of the Ohio Republican Party and there were just some
- 41:54Speaker 4: private communications and stuff that leaked. Obviously, anytime you have
- 42:01Speaker 4: same sexual relationships within a Republican administration, that is also
- 42:05Speaker 4: equally to like the media a sort of hypocritical. I mean,
- 42:12Speaker 4: it's it's different within the Trump administration. But that was
- 42:15Speaker 4: also the subject of fascination I think in the media
- 42:18Speaker 4: reports or gave them extra little extra fuel because of
- 42:22Speaker 4: course it's from a Republican administration.
- 42:25Speaker 1: So oh and before we go to call one real
- 42:28Speaker 1: quick one on the Ohio Yeah, this is buried down here.
- 42:31Speaker 1: This is Greg Lansman, who held on to a seat.
- 42:35Speaker 1: This is but he is one of the only Democrats
- 42:38Speaker 1: to publicly support the war in Iran and has been
- 42:45Speaker 1: one of the most ridiculously outspoken, unapologetic supporters of Israel
- 42:51Speaker 1: within the caucus. Damon Lynch, the fourth the Progressive, who
- 42:56Speaker 1: spent like five dollars, got thirty two percent of the
- 42:59Speaker 1: voting against this against the incumbent Landsman. So to have
- 43:04Speaker 1: Landsman under seventy is suggests that like he's his type
- 43:09Speaker 1: of politics is vulnerable.
- 43:11Speaker 4: And that actually I just did another point on Ohio
- 43:14Speaker 4: on the she and race. This was seen in I
- 43:17Speaker 4: think some way as a test of whether Trump's Ice
- 43:21Speaker 4: immigration policies would be toxic in a place like Ohio,
- 43:26Speaker 4: and a Republican primary in Ohio. Is it like she
- 43:29Speaker 4: was literally Deputy director of ICE, not some random bureaucrat
- 43:32Speaker 4: but like actually the deputy director behind Christinoman, all of
- 43:35Speaker 4: these photos, those were in the ads. So another thing
- 43:38Speaker 4: just before we move away from Ohio, I wanted to
- 43:40Speaker 4: note that did not work for Mason Shei.
- 43:42Speaker 1: In Yes, indeed, so in Colorado speaking of this redistricting cycle,
- 43:48Speaker 1: they're Democrats are trying to get onto the ballot a
- 43:51Speaker 1: measure to redraw these boundaries in November, which would then
- 43:57Speaker 1: apply to twenty twenty eight, which shows that like this
- 43:59Speaker 1: is a long term thing that would only give them
- 44:02Speaker 1: the advantage in twenty twenty eight and twenty thirty because
- 44:05Speaker 1: it was coming anyway from the from the census. But Colorado,
- 44:11Speaker 1: being one of these Democratic run states, had leaned more
- 44:15Speaker 1: towards fair process and doing a you know, the kind
- 44:19Speaker 1: of commission type of approach where you're fair. Democrats plan
- 44:23Speaker 1: to throw that out for twenty eight and twenty thirty
- 44:28Speaker 1: if if voters approve it according to the new report
- 44:32Speaker 1: and put up B three. The primary donor to the
- 44:38Speaker 1: cause of getting this measure onto the ballot is Hakeem
- 44:41Speaker 1: Jeffries is like super pac basically, and so yes, and
- 44:48Speaker 1: so then moving over to Michigan real quickly, there was
- 44:50Speaker 1: a state Senate race, massive blowout over performance again in
- 44:58Speaker 1: a what was a plus one this is plus one district? Yeah,
- 45:03Speaker 1: what do we have the E seven State.
- 45:06Speaker 4: Senate thirty five Harris plus one district and.
- 45:11Speaker 1: He blew it out by like twenty plus or whatever,
- 45:14Speaker 1: just across the board. I don't think. I think Democrats
- 45:19Speaker 1: have now flipped five seats in special legislative elections.
- 45:22Speaker 4: Yeah, let's throw E nine on a screen. The street
- 45:25Speaker 4: guy Taniel Ryan, who said this is a remarkable analysis
- 45:28Speaker 4: that he did over at Bolts his website, the JUPE
- 45:31Speaker 4: has not flipped a legislative seat in any states since
- 45:33Speaker 4: twenty twenty four. Just read that again, not flipped a
- 45:36Speaker 4: legislative seat in any state since twenty twenty four. Democrats, meanwhile,
- 45:39Speaker 4: have flipped five seats so far in.
- 45:42Speaker 1: Twenty twenty six.
- 45:43Speaker 4: And that's after flipping twenty five in twenty twenty five.
- 45:46Speaker 4: And I would like to remind everybody that the end
- 45:48Speaker 4: of the Obama administration, Republicans took a victory lap that
- 45:52Speaker 4: you may remember. This is a huge Politico story that
- 45:55Speaker 4: came out seats or whatever. Yeah, that was retrospective. This
- 45:58Speaker 4: was towards the end of twenty six on all of
- 46:01Speaker 4: the seats Democrats had lost during the Obama administration and
- 46:04Speaker 4: how he had essentially not. I mean, maybe it's the
- 46:08Speaker 4: Obama brand. Maybe it was a lazy Democratic party under
- 46:13Speaker 4: Obama that tried to kind of coast on vibes and
- 46:16Speaker 4: not really take care of some of these underlying problems
- 46:19Speaker 4: in the economy that was giving rise to Trump and
- 46:21Speaker 4: Bernie populism. Whatever it was, Democrats hemorrhaged seats around the
- 46:27Speaker 4: country over the course of the Obama administration. It looks like,
- 46:31Speaker 4: not to anybody's particular surprise, but after Republicans took that
- 46:35Speaker 4: victory of love about ten years ago very smugly over Obama,
- 46:38Speaker 4: it looks like that is the experience that will probably
- 46:42Speaker 4: be part of the Trump era for Republicans.
- 46:44Speaker 1: Yeah, they're going to flip a bunch of chambers, I
- 46:46Speaker 1: would suspect in November as well.
- 46:48Speaker 4: Seems like it.
- 46:49Speaker 1: Yeah. So, meanwhile, the d Triple C has ticked off
- 46:55Speaker 1: enormous number of Democrats. You can put up e five
- 46:58Speaker 1: here is this was really not the moment for Washington
- 47:04Speaker 1: Democrats to creep into congressional elections around the country and
- 47:09Speaker 1: put their thumb on the scale and endorse a particular
- 47:13Speaker 1: Democratic candidate while there are while there are serious contests
- 47:18Speaker 1: still underway. So they added I think eight new people, yeah,
- 47:23Speaker 1: eight new Democrats to what they call their Red to
- 47:25Speaker 1: Blue list, which mean means they're getting the Democratic parties
- 47:29Speaker 1: basically their endorsement, getting access to their to their donors,
- 47:33Speaker 1: to their vendors, to their consultants, which you know, who
- 47:37Speaker 1: knows what all of that is worth to them in
- 47:39Speaker 1: the end, but also gives them actually gives them both
- 47:43Speaker 1: the sheen of being party endorsed but also the stench
- 47:47Speaker 1: of being party endorsed. And so it'll be interesting to
- 47:50Speaker 1: see how some of these play out. In California twenty
- 47:53Speaker 1: second district, jazz Meat Baines is one of the most
- 47:56Speaker 1: more controversial Red to Blue candidates. Jazz Meat is running
- 48:02Speaker 1: against Randy Viegas. Jazz Meat had been asked if Israel
- 48:06Speaker 1: was committing a genocide, said yes, then said, oh, I
- 48:10Speaker 1: think I heard that wrong, after starting to get support
- 48:13Speaker 1: from pro Israel superpacks, and so, yes, Isra's committing a genocide. No,
- 48:18Speaker 1: it's not. Pro Isral money flows in, and then Democratic
- 48:21Speaker 1: Party money flows in. This is a Latino heavy district,
- 48:27Speaker 1: so for them to go and endorse against Randy Vegas,
- 48:30Speaker 1: who has the support of the Congressional Progressive Caucus boldpack,
- 48:33Speaker 1: which is the Hispanic Caucus. Is an aggressive use of
- 48:38Speaker 1: you Democratic dues money. Like the way that you D
- 48:41Speaker 1: tripleC is funded partly is through other House Democrats paying
- 48:45Speaker 1: dues in So the Progressive Caucus, which represents ninety plus Democrats,
- 48:50Speaker 1: endorsed Vegas, is spending its money and then the detrip
- 48:56Speaker 1: C is using their dues money to then support the
- 48:58Speaker 1: opponent in the race. So a lot of House Democrats,
- 49:04Speaker 1: you know, very upset about this. They did. Bob Brooks,
- 49:09Speaker 1: who's in the news lately because he accidentally outed Josh
- 49:14Speaker 1: Shapiro as having did you see this thing, endorsed this
- 49:17Speaker 1: Republican because he was mad at the Democrats or something
- 49:23Speaker 1: for comptroll or control or some one of those positions.
- 49:27Speaker 1: Bernie backed guy, So D triple C and Bernie on
- 49:29Speaker 1: the same page, which is which is quite fascinating. But anyway,
- 49:32Speaker 1: we will we'll track these red to blue ones as
- 49:34Speaker 1: they get closer to the races and see how well
- 49:36Speaker 1: that D tripleC did and putting its thumb on the scale,
- 49:39Speaker 1: because the only thing more embarrassing than putting your thumb
- 49:41Speaker 1: on the scale. Is putting a thumb on the scale
- 49:42Speaker 1: and still losing.
- 49:43Speaker 4: Well, this is let's let's put E four on the screen.
- 49:46Speaker 4: This is another dub for Graham Plattner. Big dub for
- 49:50Speaker 4: Graham Plattner. He's a K file found an old video
- 49:56Speaker 4: of Susan Collins behind George Bush and Graham Platner is
- 50:02Speaker 4: yelling in the audience, don't attack a rocket two thousand
- 50:05Speaker 4: and two, So before the invasion, let's roll the clip.
- 50:08Speaker 11: I want to thank the grassroots activists who are here.
- 50:11Speaker 11: I want to thank the people who take time, who
- 50:14Speaker 11: work hard to make sure that the democracy is strong.
- 50:19Speaker 11: I want to thank you very much for your efforts
- 50:22Speaker 11: on behalf of all candidates. I want to thank you
- 50:25Speaker 11: for what you have done. I want to thank you
- 50:27Speaker 11: for what you're going to do, and that is to
- 50:30Speaker 11: turn out to vote for these candidates on November the fifth.
- 50:56Speaker 11: When I say that, when I say that I understand
- 50:59Speaker 11: Susan Collins, I do. I've worked closely with her.
- 51:02Speaker 4: So there's George W. Bush pumping up Susan Collins back
- 51:05Speaker 4: in two thousand and two, and you hear Graham Plattner
- 51:09Speaker 4: audibly his voice in the background saying, don't attack a rock.
- 51:12Speaker 4: So the point Ryan was making about going back and
- 51:14Speaker 4: checking how the d trip putting its thumb on the
- 51:17Speaker 4: scales works out just a reminder of establishment Democrats here
- 51:22Speaker 4: in Washington's record of that recently, there was no way
- 51:25Speaker 4: they wanted Platner to be the candidate in Maine to
- 51:28Speaker 4: take on Susan Collins. But here you have unearthed video,
- 51:31Speaker 4: I think, showing exactly why they should have been excited
- 51:34Speaker 4: about Plattner being the guy to take on Susan Collins
- 51:37Speaker 4: rather than Janet Mills, one of the most uninspiring candidates
- 51:41Speaker 4: conceivable in that race in Maine.
- 51:43Speaker 1: And we knew about this protest because it was reported
- 51:46Speaker 1: publicly and he was interviewed by someone, you know, after
- 51:49Speaker 1: he'd gotten taken out of this event, and then people
- 51:52Speaker 1: and then one of the first things I asked him
- 51:54Speaker 1: when we had him on the air was okay, you
- 51:57Speaker 1: did that, but then you enlisted to go fight in
- 51:59Speaker 1: those is like why and what he has what he
- 52:04Speaker 1: said then and what he said he he's actually addressed
- 52:06Speaker 1: this like in Reddit posts, basically says he can't explain
- 52:10Speaker 1: it really, but he had wanted to be a soldier
- 52:14Speaker 1: since as long as he could remember, but that doesn't
- 52:19Speaker 1: mean that he agreed with the policy decisions that were
- 52:23Speaker 1: that were being made. He also made a point in
- 52:26Speaker 1: one of his Reddit posts that that I think people
- 52:28Speaker 1: don't quite understand is that basically in every unit, there's
- 52:31Speaker 1: like not every unit, but a lot of them. There's
- 52:33Speaker 1: there's the lefty and as somebody from rural American type, Yeah,
- 52:38Speaker 1: there's like we exist out in rural America too, Like
- 52:43Speaker 1: there's lefties out there, not as many, but they're out there.
- 52:46Speaker 1: And then there's always like a nationalist right winger in
- 52:48Speaker 1: the unit, and then everybody else is like just a
- 52:51Speaker 1: normal person doing going about their life. He was, he
- 52:54Speaker 1: was the lefty in the unit. It happens. Why I
- 52:58Speaker 1: can't quite explain it, but it happens.
- 53:00Speaker 4: I mean, there's a lot of benefits to enlisting if
- 53:04Speaker 4: you're well, there's that too. Yeah. All right, let's go ahead,
- 53:08Speaker 4: Ryan and bring in our next guest, who's going to
- 53:11Speaker 4: tell us exactly how miserable it is to be graduating college.
- 53:15Speaker 1: Right now, Graduation season is upon us, which means it's
- 53:20Speaker 1: time for students to start hitting the job market. But
- 53:25Speaker 1: if you're like me and Emily, you're hearing from people
- 53:27Speaker 1: around the country that graduates are entering a workforce that
- 53:32Speaker 1: is as brutal and facing headwinds is stronger than any
- 53:37Speaker 1: time perhaps since two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine.
- 53:41Speaker 1: Yet without I hesitate to call it optimism, but the
- 53:45Speaker 1: optimism at the time that at least that would be
- 53:48Speaker 1: a you know, one to two to three maybe four
- 53:51Speaker 1: year hiccup, but that things might recover. Now they're graduating
- 53:55Speaker 1: into a world that is seems like different in kind
- 54:00Speaker 1: than the world that they kind of entered college in.
- 54:03Speaker 1: And by the way, they entered it in difficult time
- 54:06Speaker 1: because you're you know, finishing up with with you know,
- 54:09Speaker 1: finishing high school amid COVID and then entering college minute.
- 54:13Speaker 1: And so what we wanted to do today is talk
- 54:15Speaker 1: to one of those graduating seniors. We're gonna be joined
- 54:18Speaker 1: by Timmy McCallister, who is a computer science uh soon
- 54:22Speaker 1: to be graduate at the University of Central Florida. Timmy
- 54:27Speaker 1: he got on our Timmy, you got on our radar
- 54:29Speaker 1: a couple of years ago because he did kind of
- 54:31Speaker 1: a funny video.
- 54:32Speaker 4: He did some computer science.
- 54:33Speaker 1: Some computer science video, kind of taking the conversation that
- 54:38Speaker 1: Sager and I had had on this program about the
- 54:41Speaker 1: Barbie movie and turning it into a video. And but
- 54:47Speaker 1: now you're now you're headed into into the job market.
- 54:52Speaker 1: A recent video that you did has gotten I think,
- 54:54Speaker 1: you know, enormous numbers for a small YouTube channel, A
- 54:58Speaker 1: one hundred thousand and view viral video about the about
- 55:02Speaker 1: what it's like trying to get into this job market
- 55:06Speaker 1: in this environment. So timmy, first of all, thank you
- 55:09Speaker 1: so much for being here and taking time out of
- 55:12Speaker 1: your kind of graduation schedule. Appreciate it.
- 55:14Speaker 12: Yeah, absolutely, I'm a huge fan of the show, so
- 55:17Speaker 12: I really appreciate the opportunity.
- 55:18Speaker 1: So when when do you? When do you graduate? By
- 55:20Speaker 1: the way, you still finals kicking around.
- 55:23Speaker 12: I finished my last final yesterday, so I'm through pretty
- 55:29Speaker 12: much all of my school work. My actual graduation is
- 55:32Speaker 12: going to be Saturday evening, So just working on that.
- 55:36Speaker 1: Well, bittersweet congratulations. Maybe at the end of the we'll
- 55:41Speaker 1: play some of the Barbie things at the end of
- 55:43Speaker 1: the end of the se He.
- 55:44Speaker 4: Loves it so much. He loves it so much, I'd
- 55:46Speaker 4: go it's great.
- 55:48Speaker 1: So let's let's start with a little bit of the
- 55:51Speaker 1: video of yours that kind of went went viral that
- 55:54Speaker 1: was getting attention about the difficulties of finding work at
- 55:58Speaker 1: this moment, let's roll out for one.
- 56:00Speaker 12: I'm applying to PhD programs because I've pretty much given
- 56:04Speaker 12: up on the idea of getting a job, because even
- 56:07Speaker 12: if I did get a job, I probably just end.
- 56:12Speaker 10: Up doing like annoying.
- 56:14Speaker 12: Work wrangling with AIS for like one or two years,
- 56:18Speaker 12: and then you have AIS that can wrangle themselves and
- 56:22Speaker 12: I'm not even useful anymore. So I'm going into a
- 56:25Speaker 12: PhD hopefully I can do a little bit of research
- 56:27Speaker 12: about AIS, even though I don't have access to the
- 56:30Speaker 12: best AIS.
- 56:32Speaker 1: And so is What was your job application process like
- 56:38Speaker 1: before you made the decision to just pull the plug
- 56:40Speaker 1: on it?
- 56:41Speaker 12: Yeah, so pretty much all of last summer I just
- 56:47Speaker 12: spent like applying to internship positions. I was looking for
- 56:52Speaker 12: some web development positions because I've done a lot of
- 56:56Speaker 12: like full stack web development work. I was also looking
- 56:59Speaker 12: for like, you know, like AI internships stuff like that
- 57:03Speaker 12: because I've experienced like fine tuning large language models to.
- 57:07Speaker 10: Do specific tasks.
- 57:08Speaker 12: But you know, I applied to probably definitely over one
- 57:13Speaker 12: hundred job applications. I did at least like one to
- 57:17Speaker 12: three every day, like I forced myself over last summer,
- 57:22Speaker 12: mostly on like LinkedIn.
- 57:24Speaker 10: But you know, I'm not counting.
- 57:26Speaker 12: Any of those like stupid like easy apply things because
- 57:29Speaker 12: those don't really do anything. No one ever responds to those.
- 57:32Speaker 12: So just counting the ones where you know, I found
- 57:35Speaker 12: the job application on LinkedIn, went to the employer's website.
- 57:39Speaker 12: Definitely over one hundred, and I mean I didn't get
- 57:45Speaker 12: I feel like I'm almost lucky in the sense that
- 57:47Speaker 12: I got probably like thirty to forty rejections. A lot
- 57:52Speaker 12: of people don't hear anything back at all from these
- 57:54Speaker 12: jobs that they applied to. And then I did get
- 57:59Speaker 12: one interview at the unpaid frontend web development position that
- 58:03Speaker 12: I've been doing the past couple semesters, and yeah, that's
- 58:07Speaker 12: what that's what I've been doing these past couple of semesters.
- 58:10Speaker 12: And yeah, I talked to the supervisor there also, and
- 58:16Speaker 12: I mean this was the thing that honestly really like
- 58:19Speaker 12: shocked me is at that unpaid internship position, he told
- 58:23Speaker 12: me that there were two hundred and fifty other applicants.
- 58:27Speaker 1: Wow, and I was I was.
- 58:30Speaker 12: The one who got the lucky unpaid, unpaid job.
- 58:34Speaker 1: So wow, So.
- 58:37Speaker 4: You start, you went into school studying computer science as
- 58:41Speaker 4: an undergrad what in twenty twenty two, and so yeah,
- 58:44Speaker 4: I'm really curious that you could tell us just a
- 58:45Speaker 4: little bit more. You get into this in your video,
- 58:47Speaker 4: which folks can go watch, but tell us a little
- 58:49Speaker 4: bit more just about yourself, about how well you did
- 58:53Speaker 4: in school. You had your pretty good grades, and why
- 58:56Speaker 4: you know, going in, what your expectations were of how
- 59:00Speaker 4: studying computer science would set you up. I'm sure you
- 59:02Speaker 4: believed for success. You're jumping in right before the AI
- 59:08Speaker 4: boom is starting to change absolutely everything.
- 59:11Speaker 12: Yeah, so I mean, yeah, I remember, you know, before
- 59:15Speaker 12: I had, you know, decided on UCF, I was pretty
- 59:20Speaker 12: sure I was going to go into psychology. But you know,
- 59:24Speaker 12: I was always interested in computer science. I've always been
- 59:27Speaker 12: like a coder, always worked on websites, stuff like that,
- 59:30Speaker 12: and I thought that, you know, there's a lot of
- 59:32Speaker 12: great opportunities there. They told us there are a lot
- 59:34Speaker 12: of great opportunities there. The job market was great in
- 59:37Speaker 12: twenty twenty two. But yeah, I mean, now I have
- 59:42Speaker 12: a four point oh gpa. I literally literally straight a's
- 59:46Speaker 12: like my entire time here at college. I've done you know,
- 59:51Speaker 12: I was a teaching assistant. I've done research in various labs.
- 59:55Speaker 12: And you know, another big thing too that, like they
- 59:58Speaker 12: say employers like to look for, is that you know
- 1:00:00Speaker 12: you have sort of a decent number of like personal projects,
- 1:00:03Speaker 12: like not just that you've had good grades, but you
- 1:00:06Speaker 12: know that you were able to actually like work with
- 1:00:08Speaker 12: something like a much larger scale project. And you know
- 1:00:11Speaker 12: I did that, like over my soft sophomore in junior year,
- 1:00:15Speaker 12: I worked on like this very large scale full stack
- 1:00:18Speaker 12: web development project where I like fine tuned large language
- 1:00:22Speaker 12: models to perform like this the specific task of sort
- 1:00:25Speaker 12: of identifying sort of like spin in like language.
- 1:00:32Speaker 10: And yeah, I.
- 1:00:33Speaker 12: Mean nothing nothing back from from anyone.
- 1:00:37Speaker 1: Yeah, what what about? Well what one of the things
- 1:00:41Speaker 1: I I saw people be critical of your video for
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: as well? This guy's not at Stanford, it's University of
- 1:00:47Speaker 1: Central Florida. But well for two things to that you
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: see f is actually when it comes to computer science,
- 1:00:53Speaker 1: you know, pretty strong school. Secondly, we're not an economy
- 1:00:59Speaker 1: just for Stanford, like like we there are millions of
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: people in this country. They all they all need work,
- 1:01:08Speaker 1: and so to say, well, sure, everything's fine. As long
- 1:01:12Speaker 1: as you go to Stanford, you're going to be fine. However,
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: from what I'm hearing, even the people who went to
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: Stanford are deeply struggling to to find the kind of
- 1:01:22Speaker 1: jobs that one year ago even would have been easy
- 1:01:25Speaker 1: for somebody coming out of Stanford. Just anecdotally, among the
- 1:01:28Speaker 1: circles that you run in, the computer science circles that
- 1:01:31Speaker 1: you've run in. What are you what are you hearing
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: from other seniors?
- 1:01:36Speaker 12: Yeah, so you know, I don't I don't know anyone
- 1:01:39Speaker 12: at Stanford, and most of the people I know are
- 1:01:41Speaker 12: just here at UCF.
- 1:01:44Speaker 10: You know, I have you know, one of my.
- 1:01:46Speaker 12: Close friends, you know, he got his first internship freshman year,
- 1:01:51Speaker 12: and so you know, he was able to sort of
- 1:01:54Speaker 12: use those connections at the time and and sort of
- 1:01:57Speaker 12: like continue working through various positions. He has a job
- 1:02:00Speaker 12: offer right now, so I'm very happy for him.
- 1:02:05Speaker 10: I know a lot.
- 1:02:07Speaker 12: Of other people who are going to grad school. It
- 1:02:12Speaker 12: really just kind of seems like a safe option, especially
- 1:02:15Speaker 12: if you've done well in school. You can work towards
- 1:02:20Speaker 12: like a specific project like research something like that, continue
- 1:02:25Speaker 12: getting paid, like if you have an assistant ship with
- 1:02:27Speaker 12: a tuition waiver, and it's like, that's that's an option
- 1:02:30Speaker 12: I've actually seen a very large number of people doing.
- 1:02:35Speaker 12: But yeah, there's I'd say it's mostly that, and then yeah,
- 1:02:41Speaker 12: I do. I do have a couple of people who
- 1:02:42Speaker 12: sort of got those connections early, and like you know,
- 1:02:46Speaker 12: they always tell us like networking is really really important
- 1:02:50Speaker 12: for for like getting a job, but nowadays it feels
- 1:02:54Speaker 12: like that really is kind of the only way anyone
- 1:02:57Speaker 12: gets any job, because if you're trying to wade into
- 1:03:00Speaker 12: that pool of college or not college application job applications,
- 1:03:07Speaker 12: where it really is just thousands and thousands of AI
- 1:03:11Speaker 12: generated resumes that are going to these AI filters that
- 1:03:16Speaker 12: who knows what they're even doing, how many of these
- 1:03:17Speaker 12: jobs are even real? You're not going to be in
- 1:03:20Speaker 12: for a fun time.
- 1:03:22Speaker 4: Can you talk us Talk to us about the response
- 1:03:24Speaker 4: you've gotten to your video. Again, we mentioned it's over
- 1:03:26Speaker 4: one hundred thousand views, and that's I think interesting in
- 1:03:30Speaker 4: and of itself. I think it probably speaks to you
- 1:03:32Speaker 4: capturing something that other people are then sending around and
- 1:03:35Speaker 4: saying this is what my experience is. Like, it's resonant.
- 1:03:39Speaker 4: So talk to us a bit about what you've heard
- 1:03:42Speaker 4: from other people is you've shared your own experience publicly.
- 1:03:46Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. There's sort of a
- 1:03:49Speaker 10: couple of different sets of responses.
- 1:03:51Speaker 12: I mean, there's a lot of people who are you know,
- 1:03:56Speaker 12: even like earlier along the path than me, who are
- 1:04:00Speaker 12: either like just graduating high school right now, or they're
- 1:04:02Speaker 12: like a freshman or a sophomore, and you know, they're
- 1:04:05Speaker 12: just trying to like figure out what should they even
- 1:04:07Speaker 12: be doing right now in this economy. And you know,
- 1:04:11Speaker 12: I try to give advice as best I can, but
- 1:04:15Speaker 12: you know, I honestly don't really know like what the
- 1:04:19Speaker 12: best option would be for for someone going through that.
- 1:04:23Speaker 12: I mean, honestly, the best piece of advice I could
- 1:04:25Speaker 12: give to someone like that is just to keep working
- 1:04:27Speaker 12: on like personal projects. You can you can use Claude
- 1:04:30Speaker 12: code to like spin up an interesting idea pretty quickly
- 1:04:35Speaker 12: and maybe you can put that on a resume or
- 1:04:37Speaker 12: get some sort of connection or something from that.
- 1:04:41Speaker 10: And then there's sort of like this other set of people.
- 1:04:45Speaker 10: I don't know.
- 1:04:46Speaker 12: I got this email from someone who's like just just
- 1:04:50Speaker 12: like move to the Bay Area, bro. There's a bunch
- 1:04:52Speaker 12: of like AI AI engineer physicians. XAI is paying like
- 1:04:57Speaker 12: four hundred thousand dollars a year if you're willing to
- 1:04:59Speaker 12: sell your soul. But you know, not everyone can can
- 1:05:03Speaker 12: live in San Francisco, So I don't really.
- 1:05:06Speaker 10: Know about that.
- 1:05:07Speaker 4: Yeah, that might not be the best of us it.
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that is, you know, when you combine
- 1:05:11Speaker 1: it with the idea that networking is the only way
- 1:05:15Speaker 1: to get a job at this point, Like, I get
- 1:05:18Speaker 1: the idea, like just move to the Bay Are Like
- 1:05:20Speaker 1: when you wanted to be an actor, you move used
- 1:05:23Speaker 1: to be moved to La You want to be a
- 1:05:25Speaker 1: country musician in this or you want to be a
- 1:05:27Speaker 1: folk musician in sixties you moved to you know, the village.
- 1:05:31Speaker 1: You want to be a country singer, you moved to Nashville.
- 1:05:33Speaker 1: Like so I get it. But as you think about that, what,
- 1:05:39Speaker 1: like is that possible? Like are there affordable group houses
- 1:05:44Speaker 1: for people moving out there or like because if it's
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: five thousand dollars for an apartment, you better network immediately
- 1:05:53Speaker 1: and you're also not going to get the apartment.
- 1:05:55Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean that is the issue.
- 1:05:57Speaker 12: It's like I don't know anyone in cal and like
- 1:06:00Speaker 12: I can't just get a job, like I need to
- 1:06:03Speaker 12: have a job lined up there already, and then you
- 1:06:07Speaker 12: know the ability then to move knowing that I have
- 1:06:10Speaker 12: like some sort of stable income, Like I could never
- 1:06:12Speaker 12: just move to San Francisco, Like that's not financially feasible.
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: That's bleak unless you're in the street.
- 1:06:19Speaker 4: Right And to me, you go through this in the video,
- 1:06:22Speaker 4: but tell us a little bit more about why you've
- 1:06:24Speaker 4: landed on the path that you've landed for your future,
- 1:06:27Speaker 4: Like why are you taking the bet that you are?
- 1:06:32Speaker 4: What is it? I mean it actually it's a story
- 1:06:34Speaker 4: that reminds me a lot of well people were making
- 1:06:37Speaker 4: the decision to do during the Great Recession, kind of
- 1:06:39Speaker 4: the stay in school. So talk to us a little
- 1:06:42Speaker 4: bit about why you're thinking what you're thinking right now,
- 1:06:44Speaker 4: why you're taking that kind of gamble. It's a sort
- 1:06:48Speaker 4: of safer bet. Why do you think it's a safer bet?
- 1:06:51Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean there's sort of like two reasons.
- 1:06:53Speaker 12: I mean the first one is kind of just purely financial,
- 1:06:56Speaker 12: Like I'm very lucky that I don't have any like
- 1:07:00Speaker 12: I had a very good scholarship, so I'm debt free
- 1:07:04Speaker 12: and I don't have to really worry about immediately making
- 1:07:07Speaker 12: income to try to pay that off, so I have
- 1:07:09Speaker 12: a little bit more time. I managed to land a
- 1:07:14Speaker 12: graduate assistantship position, so you know, they'll pay me for
- 1:07:17Speaker 12: doing research and I get tuition waves, so you know,
- 1:07:21Speaker 12: it's not like.
- 1:07:22Speaker 10: It's not like I'm.
- 1:07:24Speaker 12: Going into two more dire financial straits by doing this.
- 1:07:29Speaker 10: And then the other reason is I really.
- 1:07:32Speaker 12: Am just sort of interested and worried about sort of
- 1:07:36Speaker 12: the consequences of AI on society. I've always been been
- 1:07:41Speaker 12: worried about this, Like I think social media is an
- 1:07:44Speaker 12: example of a sort of very very simple AI system
- 1:07:49Speaker 12: that just runs from like the one rule of maximizing engagement,
- 1:07:54Speaker 12: and I think it has had catastrophic consequences, like on
- 1:07:58Speaker 12: the mental health.
- 1:07:59Speaker 10: Of my generation.
- 1:08:02Speaker 12: And I can't imagine like what the consequences could be
- 1:08:05Speaker 12: for for something way way smarter if we don't like
- 1:08:08Speaker 12: take this really really seriously and get this right. So
- 1:08:10Speaker 12: you know, I'm hoping to be able to do some
- 1:08:12Speaker 12: sort of research with AI safety alignment, figuring out how
- 1:08:16Speaker 12: we can actually make these things do what we need to.
- 1:08:19Speaker 12: But I understand that it's it's not going to be easy,
- 1:08:23Speaker 12: but hopefully I can make at least some sort of
- 1:08:25Speaker 12: contribution there.
- 1:08:27Speaker 1: Hopefully nobody else is taking it very seriously, that's for sure.
- 1:08:31Speaker 1: Let's finish up with some Barbie we can roll Timmy's
- 1:08:35Speaker 1: all right production from a couple of years ago put
- 1:08:38Speaker 1: up F three. One reason okay with her getting Stubb, though,
- 1:08:42Speaker 1: is because she really flopped the landing with this like
- 1:08:46Speaker 1: ratification of neoliberalism at the very end, with this you
- 1:08:49Speaker 1: are you are enough like nobody nobody's kanough. You need,
- 1:08:53Speaker 1: you need community, you need socialization, you need friends, you
- 1:08:56Speaker 1: need family, like you need loved ones around you. Nobody
- 1:08:59Speaker 1: is enough. And the idea that you would try to
- 1:09:01Speaker 1: tell a whole bunch of kids that they don't need
- 1:09:03Speaker 1: anything other than themselves, I thought was just a like
- 1:09:06Speaker 1: horrific message at the end. So, and the.
- 1:09:09Speaker 5: Idea that you would try to tell a whole bunch
- 1:09:11Speaker 5: of kids that they don't need anything other than themselves.
- 1:09:15Speaker 1: Nobody's enough, nobody's enough. You need, you need community, you
- 1:09:19Speaker 1: need socialization, you need friends, you need family like you
- 1:09:22Speaker 1: need loved ones around you.
- 1:09:23Speaker 4: Nobody is enough.
- 1:09:25Speaker 1: No, nobody is enough. You need community, you need socialization,
- 1:09:31Speaker 1: you need friends, you need family, you need loved ones
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: around you.
- 1:09:34Speaker 4: Nobody is enough, it's pretty good stuff to me.
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: That's pretty funny.
- 1:09:38Speaker 10: Thank you, thank you.
- 1:09:39Speaker 12: It's uh, it worked pretty hard on it.
- 1:09:44Speaker 1: Yeah, and must must be probably a lot easier now
- 1:09:47Speaker 1: with Claude. That was that was this was like pre
- 1:09:49Speaker 1: claud coding, right.
- 1:09:50Speaker 10: Yeah, that is a that's.
- 1:09:53Speaker 1: A that's artismal problem.
- 1:09:55Speaker 4: Yeah, Tommy mcgautha. Where can people follow you? Where can
- 1:10:00Speaker 4: they find find your work, whether it's lo fi or
- 1:10:04Speaker 4: graduation videos?
- 1:10:06Speaker 12: Yeah, so I'm on YouTube, Timmy McAllister. I've been trying
- 1:10:11Speaker 12: to upload like about a video every week talking about.
- 1:10:14Speaker 10: AI society stuff like that.
- 1:10:18Speaker 12: If anyone wants to try to support me financially, I
- 1:10:22Speaker 12: just started a Patreon. I don't have anything really on
- 1:10:25Speaker 12: there yet. I have like a couple of videos, but
- 1:10:27Speaker 12: if anyone is able to that would be awesome.
- 1:10:31Speaker 10: But yeah, that's about That's about what I'm doing right now.
- 1:10:33Speaker 1: That's about all we got left to offer as an economy.
- 1:10:37Speaker 1: So well, we'll we'll stay in touch. Curious how your
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: how your journey goes over the next you know, months
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: and years. So thanks for thanks for being here and
- 1:10:47Speaker 1: good luck.
- 1:10:48Speaker 10: Yeah, absolutely, thank you so much for having me.
- 1:10:51Speaker 1: All right, enjoy graduation day. Well, Emily, I am sure, sure, glad,
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: I'm not graduating right now. I'm god, I'm sorry for
- 1:10:59Speaker 1: all these people that are graduating into this disaster.
- 1:11:02Speaker 4: No, it's brutal. I pulled up a New York Times
- 1:11:04Speaker 4: article while we were talking to Timmy, and the New
- 1:11:07Speaker 4: York Times is describing this as quote the most dismal
- 1:11:11Speaker 4: and unpredictable job market in years. Employers overall are hiring
- 1:11:15Speaker 4: fewer workers, dimming the prospects in particular for first time
- 1:11:18Speaker 4: entrance into the into the labor market. And then also
- 1:11:21Speaker 4: obviously mentioning the rise of AI, which we just heard
- 1:11:23Speaker 4: from Timmy who thought computer science would be a safe
- 1:11:27Speaker 4: major going into school in twenty twenty two, how quickly.
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: They learned to code. And yeah, and the harder that first,
- 1:11:34Speaker 1: the higher that first obstacle is, then the more it
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: helps to be rich to be in with and the
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: further we get from a remotely meritocratic level playing field.
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: M hm.
- 1:11:45Speaker 4: Yes, that's a good point, because.
- 1:11:46Speaker 1: Like, if your parents can send you to the Bay Area,
- 1:11:48Speaker 1: you can do the end for six months, pay your.
- 1:11:51Speaker 4: Rent, unpaid internship ypes that type of.
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: Thing which apparently possible to get too anyway.
- 1:12:00Speaker 4: Really like I mean. That was the theme of today's show,
- 1:12:02Speaker 4: with the exception of maybe Ron. We we may, we
- 1:12:05Speaker 4: may have an end of kinetic fighting. We may there
- 1:12:09Speaker 4: may be an end in sight. I don't know, we'll see,
- 1:12:12Speaker 4: but bleak all around. Indeed, So thanks for watching Freakingpoints
- 1:12:18Speaker 4: dot com. I'm get a premium subscription if you like
- 1:12:20Speaker 4: being tortured by bad news like we do.
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: Indeed, talk to you later.