Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 8/13/26: US Loses War Games To Ukraine, Israel Behind Iran Threat Intel On Trump, Kalshi Humiliated In Wisconsin Elections

Transcript

8/13/26: US Loses War Games To Ukraine, Israel Behind Iran Threat Intel On Trump, Kalshi Humiliated In Wisconsin Elections · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here.
0:01
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0:33
Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, Happy Thursday. I have an amazing show
0:36
Speaker 1: for everybody today.
0:37
Speaker 2: What do we have, Crystal, indeed we do. We went
0:39
Speaker 2: on John Stewart that was kind of cool. Got a
0:41
Speaker 2: little little clip there for you so we can do
0:43
Speaker 2: a little self promotion, but us very exciting experience.
0:46
Speaker 1: It's gonna be fun.
0:47
Speaker 2: More importantly, Trump is saying that the US has full
0:50
Speaker 2: control over the strait of horror moons. We will do
0:52
Speaker 2: a little fact check on that. One. One thing we
0:54
Speaker 2: learned this week from the elections with the was that
0:56
Speaker 2: these prediction markets really really suck and are pretty useless.
0:59
Speaker 2: Of course, they another story. We'll give their side of
1:01
Speaker 2: the story as well and dig into all of the
1:03
Speaker 2: data and the cope. Nate Silver is saying that James
1:06
Speaker 2: Tallerco is favored to win that Texas Senate seat and
1:10
Speaker 2: that Dems are favored overall to take back the Senate.
1:14
Speaker 2: So we will look at his numbers and give our
1:17
Speaker 2: own analysis on what is likely to happen. Big companies
1:20
Speaker 2: are getting tariff refunds while we are all stuck holding
1:23
Speaker 2: the bag for the higher prices that we paid. And
1:26
Speaker 2: you will remember we covered this Ecuadorian prosecutor who was
1:29
Speaker 2: murdered because she had been investigated appears linked to her
1:32
Speaker 2: investigation of these US linked boat strikes and allegations of torture.
1:36
Speaker 2: The reporter who blew that story open is going to
1:39
Speaker 2: join us today from an undisclosed location because she herself
1:41
Speaker 2: is concerned about threats. But there is new reporting about
1:45
Speaker 2: what is exactly going on with these boat strikes, new
1:47
Speaker 2: indications that these are US hired mercenaries. So we'll get
1:51
Speaker 2: her to break that down for us. And then the
1:53
Speaker 2: Lakers just sold to Jared Kushner's brother. There's a lot
1:57
Speaker 2: that is going on here, and Pablotory is going to
2:00
Speaker 2: join us to explain it all to us sports illiterate types.
2:03
Speaker 1: That's right. I'm excited for that one.
2:05
Speaker 3: And before we get to any of that, just wanting
2:07
Speaker 3: to play a little clip for you from John Stewart
2:09
Speaker 3: about why he loves Breaking Points so much.
2:11
Speaker 1: Let's take a listen.
2:12
Speaker 4: I wanted to bring on a couple of folks that
2:16
Speaker 4: I feel like have been doing the kind of I'm
2:19
Speaker 4: on the left, I'm on the right discussion. I feel
2:22
Speaker 4: like they do it in a way that engenders good faith,
2:24
Speaker 4: and so I wanted to highlight them on today's program.
2:28
Speaker 4: I think the thing you said, Crystal that resonates the
2:30
Speaker 4: most with me is best faith, good faith, I think,
2:34
Speaker 4: and Saga maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
2:36
Speaker 1: I think that's what you're picking up on.
2:38
Speaker 4: It might not be a convergence of opinion, it's that
2:41
Speaker 4: it's a good faith discussion, a Crystal Ball and Saga
2:44
Speaker 4: and Jetty of Breaking Points. Please check out the show
2:47
Speaker 4: because it is and I don't say this lightly good faith,
2:53
Speaker 4: good faith conversation that you may not agree with some
2:57
Speaker 4: of it you may have arguments, but it never feel cynical,
3:02
Speaker 4: it never feels manipulated, and it never feels performative.
3:08
Speaker 3: Well, that is the best endorsement we could ask for.
3:10
Speaker 3: That's why you should sign up for Breaking Points dot com.
3:13
Speaker 2: Har all right, we had to do it.
3:15
Speaker 1: Got it.
3:16
Speaker 3: It's gotta happen, all right, the bill's got to be paid,
3:19
Speaker 3: and we got a free month trial.
3:20
Speaker 1: That's happening.
3:21
Speaker 2: There is no better time.
3:22
Speaker 1: There's no better Now. Listen to John, what are you like?
3:26
Speaker 3: You know, send that to anybody that you need to
3:28
Speaker 3: to convince him that the show is actually worth paying
3:30
Speaker 3: for Breaking points dot com.
3:31
Speaker 1: You a free month trial now.
3:32
Speaker 3: In all seriousness, it was a great experience and actually
3:36
Speaker 3: very surreal to be able to get to.
3:37
Speaker 2: Talk totally totally but no for real. The guy who
3:40
Speaker 2: did crossfire would be like, oh, this is a good
3:43
Speaker 2: faith right left discussion was.
3:44
Speaker 3: Like yeah, come on, I mean that's that's the best
3:48
Speaker 3: endorsement that could possibly exist.
3:50
Speaker 2: But it was. It was a super cool experience to
3:53
Speaker 2: talk to him. We got into a bunch of different stuff.
3:56
Speaker 2: He was very interested in delving in with you to
4:00
Speaker 2: like your evolution, what you think about Trump, and how
4:02
Speaker 2: you came to the critical place you are now and
4:05
Speaker 2: how come you didn't get there sooner? And you know,
4:07
Speaker 2: push you on some things too. We talk some about
4:09
Speaker 2: the rise of the populace left and why there's been
4:12
Speaker 2: a different orientation between the quote unquote populace right versus
4:15
Speaker 2: populous left. So there was a lot of very interesting
4:17
Speaker 2: discussion there. But I have to say I was like
4:19
Speaker 2: very nervous going and just because I mean, this guy
4:22
Speaker 2: like politically raised me basically. And one of the things
4:26
Speaker 2: that came up that I'd been thinking about and that
4:28
Speaker 2: we've talked about on this show is that some of
4:31
Speaker 2: the same people that were villains on the John Stewart
4:35
Speaker 2: Show back when I was like a child and you
4:37
Speaker 2: were literally a child, are still around to truly this war. No, Like,
4:42
Speaker 2: it's so disturbing to think about that full circle moment
4:45
Speaker 2: that we're in now, where if you want to talk
4:47
Speaker 2: about any sort of accountability and we're having this whole
4:49
Speaker 2: conversation about like Hassan Piker said something bad about nine
4:51
Speaker 2: to eleven, Like Ajila Side is running against a guy
4:54
Speaker 2: who was involved in the actual nine to eleven response.
4:57
Speaker 2: But that's not you know, that's not Side the mainstream, that's,
5:01
Speaker 2: you know, a moderate guy that we can work with,
5:03
Speaker 2: et cetera. It's just the moral logic in DC is
5:06
Speaker 2: so twisted, and so I was excited to get to
5:08
Speaker 2: talk to him about that, given you know, where he
5:10
Speaker 2: has been in the media landscape.
5:12
Speaker 1: Totally. I mean, yeah, same thing.
5:13
Speaker 3: I literally watched the show, probably my parents as well,
5:16
Speaker 3: during the Iraq War.
5:17
Speaker 1: Like I said, especially where I grew.
5:19
Speaker 3: Up, and a lot of our you know, even positioning
5:22
Speaker 3: towards elite media is derivative of the original kind of
5:26
Speaker 3: framework he created, the satire, the humiliation, the like pointing
5:30
Speaker 3: out the hypocrisy. So to be endorsed by somebody like that,
5:34
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, yeah, it's a big deal, but
5:36
Speaker 3: it was a fun convote. You guys should check it out.
5:38
Speaker 2: Kyle told me going in. He was like, you have
5:40
Speaker 2: to tell him that I want him to run for resident.
5:43
Speaker 2: He's like, you have to do it, you have to
5:45
Speaker 2: do make sure to do it on air because I
5:46
Speaker 2: want to see its reaction. I was like, all right, fine,
5:48
Speaker 2: and then the conversation was wrapping up and I was
5:50
Speaker 2: like wait, wait, wait right, and.
5:51
Speaker 3: He was like, sorry, it's not going to happen. He
5:54
Speaker 3: lives a pretty good life. Yeah, next to me, I'm
5:57
Speaker 3: not sure. It's not sure exactly that's what he wants.
5:59
Speaker 2: Doesn't see like there's a hunger there for that.
6:01
Speaker 3: No, it certainly doesn't. But anyway, check it out. He's
6:03
Speaker 3: got his obviously. Check out his YouTube channel, The Weekly Show.
6:07
Speaker 3: It's available on all podcast platforms as well. My only
6:11
Speaker 3: gripe is that when we were talking about how we
6:13
Speaker 3: don't do adres as they cut to an ad read,
6:15
Speaker 3: I thought.
6:15
Speaker 1: That's crazy work man. In my opinion, that was crazy work.
6:19
Speaker 3: But Comedy Central, I guess they got to pay their
6:21
Speaker 3: bills somehow, just like we do with.
6:24
Speaker 1: The breaking points.
6:24
Speaker 3: So take advantage of your free month trial available at checkout.
6:28
Speaker 3: Watching this on YouTube, also, please hit subscribe to our
6:30
Speaker 3: YouTube channel. Listening to the podcast, share an episode with
6:33
Speaker 3: a friend. Let's get to Iran. Turning now to Iran,
6:38
Speaker 3: let's put this up here on the screen from President Trump.
6:41
Speaker 3: Here's his latest declaration. The USA has total control over
6:45
Speaker 3: the Strait of Hormoves.
6:46
Speaker 1: I think we will keep it.
6:47
Speaker 3: Our naval blockade is being called by everyone a wall
6:50
Speaker 3: of steel.
6:51
Speaker 1: There's nothing Iran can do about it.
6:52
Speaker 3: They have no navy they have no air force, the
6:54
Speaker 3: remaining soldiers are unpaid by RGC, is decimated fleeing. Their
6:58
Speaker 3: leadership is uncertain at best. They have no money, Their
7:01
Speaker 3: country is shot. All they have is fake news and
7:03
Speaker 3: three hundred percent inflation getting worse. Iran is all talk,
7:06
Speaker 3: no action, the bully of the Middle East. No longer
7:09
Speaker 3: praise be to Allah. President Donald J.
7:11
Speaker 1: Trump.
7:11
Speaker 3: So what do we actually see inside of this? You know,
7:15
Speaker 3: to the extent that it is just the you know,
7:17
Speaker 3: lunatic ravings of our leader. What it actually is is
7:21
Speaker 3: no war, no peace, is forever blockade, forever war.
7:25
Speaker 1: We will keep up the pressure.
7:26
Speaker 3: It is actually indicative of a strategy, even though he
7:29
Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily see it that way, which is, we have
7:32
Speaker 3: to keep the pressure up economically on Iran to make
7:35
Speaker 3: sure that they will eventually buckle to our terms. And
7:39
Speaker 3: right now our terms are just reopen the strait of
7:41
Speaker 3: hor moves. Iran is saying, we're not going to do that.
7:44
Speaker 3: All of that is predicated basically on all this fake
7:46
Speaker 3: data that the intelligence community and specifically Israel continues to
7:50
Speaker 3: feed Trump, which is that Iran is right on its knees.
7:53
Speaker 1: It's just this.
7:54
Speaker 3: One last sanction even though it was already one of
7:56
Speaker 3: the most heavily sanctioned on Earth places on Earth.
7:58
Speaker 1: This one's going to do it well. Oops. A two,
8:01
Speaker 1: let's put it up here.
8:02
Speaker 3: Iran is defying US pressure by becoming a survival economy.
8:07
Speaker 3: Tehran's leaders focus on subsistence in a bid to outlast
8:10
Speaker 3: sanctions and a naval blockade. They specifically say they are
8:13
Speaker 3: taking all of these different steps to keep their chronically
8:16
Speaker 3: battered economy functioning just enough to resist a drawn out
8:20
Speaker 3: campaign rationing scarce goods, limiting access to foreign currency, slashing investment,
8:24
Speaker 3: shifting the burden onto households, while preserving the strategic importance
8:28
Speaker 3: and essential machinery of the state. The results will be
8:30
Speaker 3: a deepening economic malaise that eventually would lead to rising
8:34
Speaker 3: poverty and dysfunction, but also more room for Iran's leaders
8:38
Speaker 3: to stall talks with the US. I don't know how
8:40
Speaker 3: many times we have to learn this lesson. Just this
8:43
Speaker 3: one strike will take out their economy.
8:45
Speaker 1: Oops. They're in a total war situation right now. Oh.
8:48
Speaker 3: Actually, it's going to last years and years and years,
8:50
Speaker 3: and we have to occupy them to make them buckle.
8:52
Speaker 3: I mean, come on, you know this has been over
8:54
Speaker 3: one hundred years now of more than that, honestly, of
8:57
Speaker 3: lessons whenever it comes to warfare, when a state wants
9:00
Speaker 3: to sustain itself and you don't occupy it, it can
9:03
Speaker 3: they will figure it out. And that's the story. And
9:07
Speaker 3: that means they will outlast as much longer than we can.
9:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean how long have we been playing this
9:11
Speaker 2: game with Cuba for example? I mean this is the
9:13
Speaker 2: same same concept. And yeah, Iranians have been dealing with
9:18
Speaker 2: sanctions for years. They have methods to do it. Life
9:21
Speaker 2: is difficult for people in the country. Inflation is up,
9:25
Speaker 2: unemployment is rising, there is you know, it is taking
9:29
Speaker 2: a major economic hit. Their GDP is likely to shrink
9:31
Speaker 2: by the estimate was five percent this year. It's not
9:34
Speaker 2: fun to live in a society where GDP is going
9:37
Speaker 2: in the wrong direction. But five percent is also not
9:39
Speaker 2: something that is going to completely destroy them and force
9:42
Speaker 2: them to capitulate. Now, I think from the Trump perspective,
9:45
Speaker 2: and I just saw a new analysis from Javy Air
9:48
Speaker 2: Bliss over at Bloomberg that there is a good amount
9:53
Speaker 2: of oil that is flowing through the straight of hor moves.
9:56
Speaker 2: These dark transits are occurring, and so I think there is,
10:00
Speaker 2: you know, a sense from the Trump administration of Okay,
10:03
Speaker 2: we're not going to be Herbert over. This isn't great
10:06
Speaker 2: for US either economically, but nor is it complete and
10:08
Speaker 2: total catastrophe the way that there have been warnings about,
10:12
Speaker 2: and so perhaps we can muddle through for days, weeks, months, years.
10:17
Speaker 2: That's where they are now. The other question from the
10:19
Speaker 2: Iranian perspective is are they just going to sit back
10:22
Speaker 2: and take this, because I think there's a lot of
10:25
Speaker 2: large logic that argues in the direction of them responding
10:28
Speaker 2: to the blockade with their own escalation, especially because they
10:32
Speaker 2: know of the dire situation that the US is in
10:35
Speaker 2: in terms of our weapons stockpiles and interceptor stockpiles. They
10:40
Speaker 2: learned that over the course of this war, and you know,
10:43
Speaker 2: part of the way that they were able to kill
10:45
Speaker 2: our service members in Jordan is they knew that we
10:48
Speaker 2: had expended so many of these interceptors. They said, listen,
10:51
Speaker 2: if we just send drones and missiles wave after wave,
10:54
Speaker 2: if even on one or two get through, that's going
10:57
Speaker 2: to have deadly consequences. It did, and shorts after that
11:01
Speaker 2: that Trump stops bombing, pulls back, and now moves into
11:05
Speaker 2: this sort of muddle through strategy that he's in right now. Similarly,
11:09
Speaker 2: we previously saw when Iran was able to shoot down
11:13
Speaker 2: and one of our fighter jets over its own territory,
11:16
Speaker 2: and remember the whole thing about the pilot. We got
11:18
Speaker 2: one and we had to rescue the other. In that
11:19
Speaker 2: whole situation. It was right after that too that Trump
11:23
Speaker 2: threatened civilizational destruction and then tacoed and we end up
11:28
Speaker 2: with the MoU So as Iran has been able to
11:30
Speaker 2: demonstrate their capabilities, that has really driven the pace of
11:33
Speaker 2: the conflict and forced Trump to retreat to the negotiating
11:37
Speaker 2: table or in this instance, to this muddle through strategy. So,
11:40
Speaker 2: if you're Iran, you're looking at this uned sanctions relief.
11:43
Speaker 2: Your people are suffering. Yes, you can survive. It is
11:47
Speaker 2: far from an ideal circumstance. Do you just sit there
11:50
Speaker 2: and take it, or do you say, okay, well, we
11:52
Speaker 2: know we can target your bases. You still have a
11:54
Speaker 2: lot of service members in the region. We're going to
11:57
Speaker 2: up the ante here and force you to have to respond.
11:59
Speaker 1: I'll give a good example. Ya. History actually aligns with
12:01
Speaker 1: my more recent obsessions. U boats.
12:04
Speaker 3: Well, okay, So in the First World War, the British
12:07
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom imposed naval blockade on Germany, and it
12:11
Speaker 3: actually lasted for almost two years. What I mean by
12:14
Speaker 3: that is that at the time Germany was still abiding
12:17
Speaker 3: by the prize rules at the time, which is like,
12:19
Speaker 3: when you want to shoot a ship, you have to
12:20
Speaker 3: like surface and be like, excuse me, what are you carrying?
12:23
Speaker 3: And I have to board you and make sure that
12:25
Speaker 3: you're carrying weapons. And only after that and all this
12:27
Speaker 3: complicated nineteenth century stuff are you allowed to sink it.
12:30
Speaker 3: After a while, in nineteen sixteen, they're like, look, you
12:34
Speaker 3: are blockading us. You are literally starving our people in
12:37
Speaker 3: the war effort. We now are going to make the
12:40
Speaker 3: choice to have unrestricted as in, we're not going to
12:42
Speaker 3: search you, we're not going to board you, we're not
12:43
Speaker 3: going to give you warning.
12:44
Speaker 1: We're just going to shoot you.
12:45
Speaker 3: And by doing that it escalated the conflict dramatically, brought
12:49
Speaker 3: the United States eventually into the war. It's seen as
12:51
Speaker 3: a major strategic error, but it's an example of what
12:54
Speaker 3: a desperate power under blockade can do when they still
12:57
Speaker 3: have the ability to turn things up a notch. As
13:00
Speaker 3: you just said, Dark Transit is still happening in the
13:02
Speaker 3: straight up horor movies. You think Iran can't read the
13:03
Speaker 3: financial times, they know because it's to their.
13:06
Speaker 1: Advantage as well. The UAE.
13:08
Speaker 3: Notice they haven't taken any shots lately. So yeah, lettle
13:11
Speaker 3: few oil go through the strait keep things. You know,
13:15
Speaker 3: they have to manage their regional alliances. They're kind of
13:18
Speaker 3: instilled in a situation as well. They're not starving yet
13:21
Speaker 3: on the streets. But what if we get to that
13:23
Speaker 3: point a year from now, then yeah, the calculation will change.
13:26
Speaker 3: They like, let's go, you know, completely unrestricted, let the
13:28
Speaker 3: drones fly, let the ballistic missiles fly, close everything.
13:31
Speaker 1: Oil will go to two hundred.
13:33
Speaker 3: So that is the point though about how a long
13:35
Speaker 3: sustained blockade can lead a power to take extraordinary steps,
13:40
Speaker 3: and that's exactly what I think this eventually will lead to.
13:42
Speaker 3: But it does also bleed into the same problem of
13:45
Speaker 3: we are now in a protracted, in my opinion, years
13:48
Speaker 3: long conflict. I do not think that this will end
13:50
Speaker 3: by the time Donald Trump is present. It ends his presidency.
13:54
Speaker 3: Whoever our next president, you're inheriting a real shit sandwich.
13:58
Speaker 3: And to that point, let's actually put the next one
14:01
Speaker 3: up there on the screen, which demonstrates exactly what I
14:04
Speaker 3: was talking about about the potential to be able to
14:07
Speaker 3: escalate even more so, obviously if they want to. Iran
14:10
Speaker 3: takes more robust military stance with the US. As the
14:14
Speaker 3: talks are frozen, they just go through various different things
14:18
Speaker 3: that they have done, both in terms of the mollistic
14:21
Speaker 3: missile attacks for example, that happened on our basis, some
14:24
Speaker 3: of the strikes to continue in the Strait of hor Moves.
14:26
Speaker 3: I mean there's so many we don't even report all
14:29
Speaker 3: of them. There's fire there every day. In addition to
14:32
Speaker 3: the Bab al Mandeb straight, I also just checked oil
14:35
Speaker 3: if the White House really believes it's sustainable. The national
14:38
Speaker 3: tast price average is four dollars and seven cents a gallon,
14:40
Speaker 3: and that is where when things are okay, I mean
14:44
Speaker 3: that's bad, right, I mean at the height of the war,
14:46
Speaker 3: what was it four fifty I think it was something
14:48
Speaker 3: like that, and Brent crude is at eighty seven. Whenever
14:51
Speaker 3: it crosses ninety, that's usually considered relatively very high. And
14:55
Speaker 3: if we get back to one hundred, one hundred and
14:57
Speaker 3: ten or something like that, you could easily foresee that
15:00
Speaker 3: especially going into the winter months.
15:02
Speaker 2: You know, I live, as you guys probably know, in
15:04
Speaker 2: a very conservative town votes for Trump like sixty some percent.
15:08
Speaker 2: There's actually a whole controversy. It's being middle schools being
15:11
Speaker 2: sued by the ACLU because they rejected gay straight A lines.
15:14
Speaker 2: Just to give you a sense of how conservative is,
15:16
Speaker 2: there's signs all over the town now that say, if
15:18
Speaker 2: you love high gas prices, think a Republican.
15:20
Speaker 1: Wow.
15:20
Speaker 2: So I mean, look, Republicans are not still are still
15:24
Speaker 2: going to win King George County in the upcoming midterm elections.
15:28
Speaker 2: But you know, yes, it's very demoralizing. And when you're
15:31
Speaker 2: paying listen, you're paying four dollars a gallon for a month,
15:35
Speaker 2: maybe you've got that in your budget. When this just
15:37
Speaker 2: becomes a new part of your reality, that's a major
15:39
Speaker 2: hit your quality of life. And it's something you are
15:42
Speaker 2: reminded of every single time you drive by a gas
15:45
Speaker 2: station or go to the gas pump. So it continues
15:48
Speaker 2: to be you know, they sort of feel like, and
15:50
Speaker 2: I do think this is part of this administration just
15:52
Speaker 2: being completely costed, you know, surrounded by a bubble of
15:56
Speaker 2: extremely wealthy oligarchs. To them, this is nothing but for
15:59
Speaker 2: ordinary people. This is really it's already a massive problem.
16:04
Speaker 2: Debt levels are skyrocketing in almost every category, so you
16:09
Speaker 2: know there's already a major economic hit happening here, even
16:11
Speaker 2: if it's not as severe as what the Iranians are
16:13
Speaker 2: dealing with. Let's go ahead and put a four up
16:17
Speaker 2: on the screen here, because this is a pretty important
16:20
Speaker 2: piece of information to add to the mix. As well.
16:24
Speaker 2: The US did this military game with Ukrainians to see
16:28
Speaker 2: how they would do against this modern Jerne warfare that
16:31
Speaker 2: the Ukrainians and the Russians, by the way, had become
16:34
Speaker 2: expert in on the front lines in Ukraine. And we
16:37
Speaker 2: got clobbered. And a bunch of other NATO allies did
16:40
Speaker 2: similar wargames with the Ukrainians also got clobbered. We did
16:44
Speaker 2: several rounds. I said, well, by the last one we're
16:46
Speaker 2: doing a little bit better, but yeah, we are not
16:50
Speaker 2: really prepared for the modern landscape of warfare. And meanwhile,
16:56
Speaker 2: I mentioned before that fighter jet that was shot down
16:59
Speaker 2: by the the Iranians that cause Trump to to freak
17:03
Speaker 2: out and make all these big threats and then ultimately
17:05
Speaker 2: sign the MoU which John Mayr Scharimer calls I think
17:08
Speaker 2: accurately a surrendered document. The way they did that is
17:12
Speaker 2: they used a drone swarm to detect the location of
17:16
Speaker 2: it and also I think to cause problems for them
17:19
Speaker 2: in their flight path. And then ultimately they used it
17:22
Speaker 2: shoulder fired missile in order to take the spider jet down.
17:25
Speaker 2: And this is all These are all techniques that have
17:27
Speaker 2: been pioneered in Ukraine in that war versus Russia. So
17:32
Speaker 2: this again, the Iranians know all this stuff. So if
17:36
Speaker 2: you're looking at the landscape and you're saying, hm, am
17:38
Speaker 2: I going to let my people just darve and suffer
17:40
Speaker 2: indefinitely and let the US call the shots here about
17:44
Speaker 2: what happens next, or am I going to take the
17:46
Speaker 2: initiative because I know where the weaknesses are and over
17:50
Speaker 2: time we will get better at that level of warfare.
17:52
Speaker 2: We will, you know, we will manufacture more drones, we
17:55
Speaker 2: will learn the techniques that the Ukrainians are using. So
17:59
Speaker 2: we're sort of well, never be as vulnerable as we
18:01
Speaker 2: are right now at the second.
18:02
Speaker 3: And I want to pick up on the Ukrainian front
18:04
Speaker 3: because obviously that article is meant to be like Luco
18:07
Speaker 3: incredible Ukraine is just so we all understand that means
18:10
Speaker 3: that we would also lose to the Russians because there
18:11
Speaker 3: are also experts in warfare.
18:13
Speaker 2: And by the way, basically like a stalemate right now,
18:15
Speaker 2: they're both kind of frozen in place.
18:17
Speaker 3: Yes, but actually Ukraine is losing ground. So by this standard,
18:20
Speaker 3: if the Ukrainians could beat us with their drones, then yes,
18:22
Speaker 3: the Russians could as well. So just in terms of
18:25
Speaker 3: what it looks like for a not even a peer
18:27
Speaker 3: competitive army, but what an actual superpower army would be
18:30
Speaker 3: able to do. In addition to China, Oh, I don't know,
18:32
Speaker 3: the largest drone manufacturer put a five on the screen.
18:35
Speaker 1: Just to hammer some of this home.
18:36
Speaker 3: Really important story here, Eric Schmid, he's one of the
18:39
Speaker 3: moost tapped in Pentagon journalists in the US, same with
18:42
Speaker 3: Helene Cooper. So when I write this stuff, to pay
18:43
Speaker 3: attention because he literally has got sources all over the building.
18:46
Speaker 3: He says how Iran adapted its attacks as US.
18:50
Speaker 1: War munitions dwindled. Here is what he writes.
18:53
Speaker 3: During the five and tense days last month, Iran launched
18:56
Speaker 3: waves of drones and missiles at US troops on those
19:00
Speaker 3: three bases in Jordan, hoping to break through the formidable
19:04
Speaker 3: air American air defense using advanced missiles that can suddenly
19:07
Speaker 3: change course. Iran's pummel up the bases defensive systems, forcing
19:12
Speaker 3: the Americans to burn through scarce supplies of patriots. Then
19:16
Speaker 3: on the fifth day, the Iranians broke through a missile
19:19
Speaker 3: struck the prefabricated housing unit. Because specifically, they show that
19:24
Speaker 3: they use the exact same tactic that we just lost
19:26
Speaker 3: in that wargame. To to the Ukrainians, this is literally
19:29
Speaker 3: what the Russians do. You flood the place with drones
19:31
Speaker 3: and or missiles, You try to distract all the air defense,
19:34
Speaker 3: and you get a few through. It's actually very smart.
19:37
Speaker 3: You take all this very cheap stuff and make them
19:39
Speaker 3: expend all the very expensive stuff and get one through.
19:42
Speaker 3: Even though you do waste a lot, it's kind of
19:44
Speaker 3: built in. It's costomic a machine gun, you're you know,
19:46
Speaker 3: you spare a lot of bullets. One or two needs
19:48
Speaker 3: to hit their target. You don't look at the hundred
19:50
Speaker 3: that didn't.
19:51
Speaker 1: As a loss. You look at it as part of
19:52
Speaker 1: the strategy.
19:53
Speaker 3: So as long as the cost is effective for you, you
19:56
Speaker 3: don't have a problem with you know, creating all with
19:59
Speaker 3: all of those losses. So They specifically say that what
20:02
Speaker 3: they've done is use this combination strategy that they learned
20:06
Speaker 3: from the Russians and that they wanted to put into
20:09
Speaker 3: effect after the Twelve Day War. They saw what happened
20:11
Speaker 3: after the Twelve Day War and they were humiliated by it.
20:13
Speaker 3: They were like, Wow, it didn't work. We allowed ourselves
20:15
Speaker 3: to just get bombed. We had this ridiculous twelve ballistic
20:18
Speaker 3: missile attack on Doha. Every single one of them got
20:20
Speaker 3: shot down. We need to completely readapt and that's what
20:23
Speaker 3: they did. So they sat with the Russians, studied the
20:25
Speaker 3: Ukrainians even more, ramped up their drone Remember they're the
20:29
Speaker 3: ones who even make the drones, and in very quick fashion,
20:33
Speaker 3: they were able to defeat this one base. Now imagine
20:37
Speaker 3: that they have all of this different stockpile. Remember they're
20:40
Speaker 3: not using stuff just like we're not. Well, they're ramping up,
20:43
Speaker 3: studying and making sure to look at the different week points,
20:47
Speaker 3: both of the F thirty five of all the other aircraft.
20:50
Speaker 3: I think it was two different aircraft. Right, They were
20:52
Speaker 3: able to hit the tankers with the drones, and they're
20:56
Speaker 3: seeing each week point for if major combat operations were
20:59
Speaker 3: to resume. Also they're able to do that in the
21:02
Speaker 3: scenario that laid out before, where it's very possible that
21:04
Speaker 3: they're like, we're not just going to sit here and
21:06
Speaker 3: take it anymore. I think when you put that stuff
21:08
Speaker 3: together and then you look at the American response, you
21:10
Speaker 3: should be terrified because all we're doing is doubling down
21:14
Speaker 3: on the failed technology. Let's put a six up here
21:17
Speaker 3: on the screen. The Pentagon right now is seeking to
21:20
Speaker 3: buy ten times more PAC three and that interceptor missiles
21:24
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty seven than in twenty twenty six. This
21:26
Speaker 3: is the new twenty twenty seven budget that has just
21:28
Speaker 3: been reviewed by a few news outlets. The budget shows
21:32
Speaker 3: that the Army plans to buy three than six hundred
21:34
Speaker 3: and fifty five interceptor after years of much smaller buys.
21:37
Speaker 3: But here's the problem. As you and I know the
21:40
Speaker 3: production timeline for THAD, I actually have the numbers. The
21:44
Speaker 3: production timeline for THAD is fifty six months, fifty six
21:51
Speaker 3: months from appropriation to or sorry, fifty three months from
21:54
Speaker 3: appropriation to delivery. The SM three delivery timeline is sixty
21:59
Speaker 3: four months. Pack three is forty two, so three and
22:03
Speaker 3: a half to five point five years from contract to
22:06
Speaker 3: lot completion.
22:07
Speaker 1: So that's what when they say.
22:08
Speaker 3: Seeking to buy, they literally mean it seeking to Yeah,
22:12
Speaker 3: not by seeking to eventually in five years get and.
22:16
Speaker 2: They have a stranglehold on this town. Oh my god,
22:20
Speaker 2: I was telling you I went hiking the other day.
22:22
Speaker 2: I was driving through McClain and the number of new
22:25
Speaker 2: palace getting called mansions palaces that are going up in
22:30
Speaker 2: McLain is jaw dropping. So by the metric that really
22:35
Speaker 2: counts to a lot of people around here, the war
22:37
Speaker 2: is a great success. Guys. Don't worry. Your tax dollars
22:41
Speaker 2: are making some people fabulously wealthy if you go out
22:44
Speaker 2: and take a look. I'm sure you probably also saw
22:46
Speaker 2: this story from a few days ago that didn't make
22:48
Speaker 2: it into our show, but there was an idea in
22:52
Speaker 2: Zelensky has been asking Trump for the ability to themselves
22:55
Speaker 2: manufacture patriots, and Trump was like, maybe, you know, possibly,
22:59
Speaker 2: raytheon comes in, They're like, hell no, because they're worried
23:01
Speaker 2: they'll be able to do it better and cheaper and
23:04
Speaker 2: more quickly.
23:05
Speaker 1: Almost certainly anyone could, and they.
23:06
Speaker 2: Certainly will, right, I mean they know that they will
23:08
Speaker 2: be able to do that, And I mean Ukraine is
23:11
Speaker 2: not some like great world power. But it just exposes
23:14
Speaker 2: how much of the trillions of dollars that we spend
23:17
Speaker 2: on the military just goes to literally those mansions in
23:20
Speaker 2: McLean Like that's when you look at this whole thing,
23:23
Speaker 2: You're like, wait a second, we don't have enough munitions
23:25
Speaker 2: to last beyond the first few days of war. What
23:27
Speaker 2: is going on? Where's the money going? Drive through mcclaim
23:30
Speaker 2: Virginia and you will see where that money is going.
23:34
Speaker 2: So that is, you know, that is the state of
23:36
Speaker 2: affairs there. And then one other thing that I wanted
23:38
Speaker 2: to just bring to everybody's attention. We cover this extraordinary
23:41
Speaker 2: situation with Trump and the decoy Air Force one and
23:45
Speaker 2: leaving the reporters in most of his aids on the
23:47
Speaker 2: plane that he thought might get shot out of the
23:49
Speaker 2: sky because of some supposedly credible Iranian threat against his life.
23:54
Speaker 2: He was there golfing with the golfing with the missile
23:57
Speaker 2: defense system right there to make sure in case there
23:59
Speaker 2: was any sort of a sh range attack on him
24:01
Speaker 2: that he'd be fines high levels of paranoia. Put a
24:03
Speaker 2: seven up on the screen, lo and behold, where do
24:06
Speaker 2: you think that intelligence came from? Came from? The Israelis
24:10
Speaker 2: in our own intelligence agencies said they had low confidence
24:15
Speaker 2: in this intel. This is according to a Washingt Post report.
24:17
Speaker 2: They say US intelligence officials were skeptical of an Iranian
24:21
Speaker 2: assassination threat against President Trump that was relayed by Israel
24:24
Speaker 2: and prompt an extraordinary clandestine maneuver that saw him secretly
24:27
Speaker 2: fly on a Turkey in an alternate military aircraft. The
24:30
Speaker 2: assassination threat was relayed by the Israeli government to the CIA,
24:35
Speaker 2: where analysts did not view the intelligence as compelling and
24:38
Speaker 2: conveyed that skepticism to Trump administration officials. Another official called
24:43
Speaker 2: the reports of threats against Trump's life is Raeli derived,
24:46
Speaker 2: not US generated, and viewed as low confidence. The doubts
24:50
Speaker 2: in some quarters about an imminent threat to the president
24:52
Speaker 2: at a new element to the White House's decision last month,
24:54
Speaker 2: first reported by The Washington Post, to shield Trump's whereabouts
24:57
Speaker 2: as he departed a NATO summit in Okara on July eighth.
25:02
Speaker 2: Not surprising at all, and so I knew it from
25:05
Speaker 2: the being. They are playing these psychological manipulation games with
25:09
Speaker 2: Trump and it's working. And it's working because our own
25:13
Speaker 2: intelligence agents are like no Lily.
25:16
Speaker 3: Bullsha the Turks are furious. By the way, I was
25:19
Speaker 3: talking to a Turkish guy yesterday. The Turks are like,
25:22
Speaker 3: how dare you think that we would allow you to
25:23
Speaker 3: be assassinated on They're like, are you saying that as
25:26
Speaker 3: a NATO military we can't protect you?
25:28
Speaker 1: Like we take great pride in that. So they're pissed
25:31
Speaker 1: in Turkey at this.
25:32
Speaker 2: But and this is very similar to the lead up
25:35
Speaker 2: to this war to begin with, where Trump took more
25:38
Speaker 2: seriously the intel that was being provided by the Israelis
25:42
Speaker 2: about the Iranian nuclear timeline and all of this. He
25:45
Speaker 2: took that more seriously than what our own intelligence agencies
25:48
Speaker 2: were saying. And so now they know he was shook
25:51
Speaker 2: by the you know, multiple attempts against his life. They
25:55
Speaker 2: know this is a potent card to play, and so
25:57
Speaker 2: they're planting this new quote unquote intel legence of oh,
26:00
Speaker 2: Iran is going to assassinate you and shoot your plane
26:03
Speaker 2: out of the sky or force one out of the sky.
26:06
Speaker 2: So you've got to be afraid, and you got what
26:08
Speaker 2: are you going to do about that? Like, you can't
26:09
Speaker 2: let them just threaten your life like that. These are
26:12
Speaker 2: the sort of games that they're playing, and that he
26:14
Speaker 2: is falling for clearly.
26:15
Speaker 3: And I saw it literally on the timeline. Alon Levy,
26:18
Speaker 3: one of those Zionas, he was like, Israel just saved
26:21
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's life.
26:22
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
26:22
Speaker 3: This is why Israel is such a vital ally. Do
26:25
Speaker 3: you see how it all fits together? And so look
26:30
Speaker 3: the ground is all all you need is one Israeli
26:32
Speaker 3: BS thing to get into Trump's head, to convince him
26:35
Speaker 3: or push him in one direction. And that's why you
26:37
Speaker 3: put all these things together. The interceptor math like, yes,
26:40
Speaker 3: they know that now, but he's irrational. He could make
26:42
Speaker 3: a decision at any moment that he wants to. And
26:45
Speaker 3: you combine that with the economy situation in Iran being
26:49
Speaker 3: what it is, which is mostly hardened and able to
26:52
Speaker 3: sustain this. Now that we're in this for the long term,
26:55
Speaker 3: the variance of the outcome is I mean, it could
26:58
Speaker 3: go well, but it could also go really bad. That's
27:00
Speaker 3: why we should never have gotten into this in the
27:02
Speaker 3: first place. That's where things stand as of right now.
27:05
Speaker 2: That we're going to start getting new reports about Iranian
27:07
Speaker 2: sleeper cells and you know how they're they're after Trump
27:10
Speaker 2: because that also you always pointed to this and Emily
27:13
Speaker 2: too that his belief that the Iranians were trying to
27:18
Speaker 2: kill him and mayor get involved in previous assassination attempts,
27:21
Speaker 2: that that was very influential in pushing him into this war.
27:24
Speaker 2: So they're trying to play that card again.
27:25
Speaker 1: Correct. All right, let's get to prediction markets. Turning out
27:30
Speaker 1: of prediction markets.
27:31
Speaker 3: So if you watch cable news, you probably hear a
27:33
Speaker 3: lot about these people prediction markets, Calshi odds. That's predictive
27:37
Speaker 3: about what's going to happen in these races. Right, Oh,
27:41
Speaker 3: actually wrong.
27:42
Speaker 1: Let's put this up.
27:42
Speaker 3: Here on the screen. So the day of the election.
27:46
Speaker 3: This is from Calshi August eleventh, twenty twenty six. They
27:49
Speaker 3: put out this tweet today Wisconsin Democratic governor nominee odds
27:54
Speaker 3: Francesca Hong ninety five percent, David Crowley five percent.
27:59
Speaker 1: Chris, remind me one that.
28:00
Speaker 2: Race turns out five percent.
28:04
Speaker 1: Guy won the election.
28:05
Speaker 3: Interesting, So if they're so predictive, why did they not
28:09
Speaker 3: predict it? Why also did Abdul Sayad similarly have massive
28:14
Speaker 3: odds of winning, except only to clinch it by what
28:17
Speaker 3: less than one percent? I believe whenever it came to
28:20
Speaker 3: the overall odds, maybe one percent. But definitely not the
28:23
Speaker 3: overwhelming blowout that was predictive. You may, in fact have
28:27
Speaker 3: to deduce that prediction markets are just amplifying whatever the
28:31
Speaker 3: polls are, and if the poles themselves have built in errors,
28:35
Speaker 3: then the prediction market will also have an era. Ir Go,
28:39
Speaker 3: the prediction market has no edge over whatever the quote
28:42
Speaker 3: conventional wisdom of. In fact, if all it does is
28:46
Speaker 3: commodify conventional wisdom, then it's not predictive at all if
28:51
Speaker 3: you are somebody who's been watching conventional wisdom here in
28:54
Speaker 3: the United States. But what I find very galling about
28:56
Speaker 3: it is that it becomes a self reinforcing mechanism for
29:00
Speaker 3: built in problems, which said conventional wisdom. So when the
29:03
Speaker 3: polls are off, then the prediction market by definition is
29:06
Speaker 3: also going to be dramatically off. And it is now
29:09
Speaker 3: being whitewashed into basically sinew washed as some sort of
29:13
Speaker 3: actually predictive force by many of these large news organizations
29:17
Speaker 3: which explicitly partner for benefit with these same companies, CNN
29:22
Speaker 3: being a good example, using Calshi odds as part of
29:25
Speaker 3: its coverage of this race. Let's take a listen.
29:27
Speaker 1: What do we see.
29:28
Speaker 5: You know, we've seen those Democratic Socialists really thrive in
29:31
Speaker 5: big urban areas, right New York, Pennsylvania, you go out
29:35
Speaker 5: to Colorado. Well it's no longer just in the urban
29:38
Speaker 5: areas anymore, at least the corner of the Calci prediction markets.
29:41
Speaker 5: We got a Wisconsin Democratic primer going on. We got
29:44
Speaker 5: hung who is running. Who is now, in my opinion,
29:48
Speaker 5: the clear favorite to win that Democratic nomine She is
29:51
Speaker 5: a Democratic socialist. Her chances up like a rocket. On
29:54
Speaker 5: June thirtieth, it was just forty one percent. Now a
29:57
Speaker 5: ninety six percent chance to be the Democratic nominee in Wisconsin,
30:02
Speaker 5: a Democratic socialist according to the cash prediction markets. So
30:06
Speaker 5: this is not just happening now with New York, Philadelphia, Denver.
30:10
Speaker 5: It looks to me like it's going to be happening
30:13
Speaker 5: in a place like Wisconsin, which of course is a
30:15
Speaker 5: very purple state.
30:18
Speaker 1: Looks to me like it's going to be happening. Ninety
30:21
Speaker 1: six percent chance. So maybe we should stop doing this,
30:26
Speaker 1: shouldn't we?
30:27
Speaker 3: Because as I just said, it turns out they're only
30:29
Speaker 3: as good as the polls. And if they're only as
30:31
Speaker 3: good as the polls, then let's just rely on the
30:33
Speaker 3: damn poles and not milk, all this different, all this
30:35
Speaker 3: money from random traders, and I mean, and that's the
30:38
Speaker 3: biggest problem I have with this is that bye, because
30:40
Speaker 3: it's seen as predictive. There's all these memes. I'm sure
30:43
Speaker 3: you've seen them online. Oh they're selling dollars for ninety
30:46
Speaker 3: five cents, you know. Oh, it can just go on
30:48
Speaker 3: there quick five percent profit?
30:50
Speaker 1: Why not?
30:51
Speaker 3: I just saw a story today, huge number of gen
30:54
Speaker 3: z men on robin Hood are actually using the money
30:57
Speaker 3: that they traditionally would have invested in the S and
30:58
Speaker 3: P five hundred to do we's betting in the same app, okay,
31:01
Speaker 3: And it's because it's sold as a financial not as
31:04
Speaker 3: a sure thing but a little bit riskier, but with
31:07
Speaker 3: not a guaranteed return, but a return. Stops are just
31:10
Speaker 3: gambling anyways, right, Actually, no, they're a little bit different. There,
31:13
Speaker 3: it is, but it's not the same.
31:17
Speaker 2: There's gradations of this, there's gradation exactly. I will say.
31:20
Speaker 2: I was thinking about the oil markets, you know, and
31:23
Speaker 2: how so much of it is fake and like just
31:25
Speaker 2: based on like, oh, what do I think Trump is
31:27
Speaker 2: going to say? And he did say something, what do
31:30
Speaker 2: I think that's going to mean? Not on the actual
31:32
Speaker 2: physical flows but there are gradations here. At the end
31:36
Speaker 2: of the day, there is at least something real that
31:39
Speaker 2: is backing theoretically stocks and you know, trading in oil
31:42
Speaker 2: markets and things like that. You know, I think it's
31:45
Speaker 2: just been very illuminating. And I'm guilty too. On the
31:48
Speaker 2: night when we were doing the live stream on Abdulla side,
31:50
Speaker 2: you're waiting for votes to come and you're like, all right, well,
31:53
Speaker 2: let's see what the what the betting markets have it at.
31:56
Speaker 2: And that was when it really set in for me,
31:58
Speaker 2: because going into that night, Abdulla ad ninety eight percent
32:02
Speaker 2: or something like that.
32:03
Speaker 1: You can be at it.
32:04
Speaker 2: We can show you yeah, ninety okay, three ninety three
32:07
Speaker 2: percent chance of victory. Now, on the one hand, you
32:09
Speaker 2: can say, well I did win, so yeah, that's correct.
32:12
Speaker 2: But I think that it is reasonable for people to
32:16
Speaker 2: look at a candidate that has a ninety three ninety
32:18
Speaker 2: five ninety eight percent chance and say they're not just
32:21
Speaker 2: going to win, it's going to be a blowout. Because
32:23
Speaker 2: if they're that, if the markets are that certain, then
32:25
Speaker 2: this thing is not even close. Whereas if it's like
32:28
Speaker 2: a sixty forty kind of proposition, you're like, all right,
32:30
Speaker 2: it is close. You know it's going to come in
32:32
Speaker 2: single digits. It could go either way. So I don't
32:35
Speaker 2: think it's unreasonable for people to look at something like
32:37
Speaker 2: this and be like, Oh, it's going to win by
32:39
Speaker 2: the ten plus points that were predicted in the polls.
32:44
Speaker 2: So now the other thing that you could say is, well,
32:47
Speaker 2: the polls were wrong too, So if you were just
32:49
Speaker 2: looking at the polls, you also would have been wrong.
32:51
Speaker 2: But at least you have transparency around knowing where the
32:55
Speaker 2: information is coming from. So if you're looking at an
32:57
Speaker 2: individual poll, you can number one, look at the track
33:00
Speaker 2: record of that pole. You can look at the track
33:01
Speaker 2: record of poles in recent weeks and see which groups
33:05
Speaker 2: they're tending to understate, and you have some risk that
33:09
Speaker 2: you can yourself intellectually factor in of the likelihood that
33:12
Speaker 2: this poll is going to ultimately be accurate. So, for example,
33:15
Speaker 2: when we were covering the Hong Crowley race that day,
33:20
Speaker 2: we both had a lot to say about, like, hey,
33:22
Speaker 2: the poles were really off.
33:23
Speaker 3: You actually said it more than I do, and I
33:25
Speaker 3: was thinking back to it, I was like, thank god
33:27
Speaker 3: she did that.
33:29
Speaker 1: I was like, I think you're gonna win, and you.
33:31
Speaker 3: Were like, look, the poles are just off, and I
33:32
Speaker 3: was like, holy shit, thank god Crystal Pool qualifier in there,
33:35
Speaker 3: because otherwise somebody's going to clip that and make us
33:37
Speaker 3: look like idiots.
33:38
Speaker 2: Well, the funny thing is that she actually got roughly
33:41
Speaker 2: the percent of the vote that the polls predicted. It's
33:43
Speaker 2: just that there were a lot of undecided and they
33:45
Speaker 2: all pretty much went to Crowley. But in any case,
33:48
Speaker 2: we just had had that experience, so it wasn't you know,
33:51
Speaker 2: it was not crazy to look at it and go, listen, guys,
33:53
Speaker 2: maybe she wins, but I wouldn't say that she only
33:56
Speaker 2: has a five percent chance of losing. There's a lot
33:59
Speaker 2: that could be going on here, including I think there
34:01
Speaker 2: is a polling non response bias that we're now picking
34:04
Speaker 2: up with the DSA coalition versus the establishment coalition. In
34:08
Speaker 2: any case, if you're watching these prediction markets as I
34:12
Speaker 2: did on the Abdollah Siet night, and you're seeing like
34:15
Speaker 2: the vote drops come in, the thing was bouncing around
34:18
Speaker 2: all over the place. This is not providing any additional information.
34:23
Speaker 2: It's just providing, like you said, it sort of amplifies
34:26
Speaker 2: the stupidity of the crowd, just based on whatever the
34:31
Speaker 2: latest piece of information is. Whatever the vibes are, etc.
34:34
Speaker 2: So do not rely on these things because they look
34:38
Speaker 2: most political races, you expect a winner to be something
34:42
Speaker 2: and that winner or something that is the way that
34:44
Speaker 2: both things go. But if you're using these to try
34:47
Speaker 2: to figure out something that is not being picked up
34:51
Speaker 2: in the mainstream press or not being detected by the polls,
34:53
Speaker 2: that's under the surface, that's happening, that's going to shift
34:55
Speaker 2: the result. These are not going to provide you with
34:57
Speaker 2: anything useful in that realm. It's just going to provide
35:01
Speaker 2: you with, like, what is the consensuses of the conventional
35:05
Speaker 2: wisdom magnified by however much.
35:08
Speaker 3: Present exactly And to that point, here's Calci's defense.
35:12
Speaker 1: Let's put B four up here on the screen. There's
35:14
Speaker 1: a lot to say about this.
35:15
Speaker 3: Yesterday cal she priced the wiscon This is the CEO
35:18
Speaker 3: of Tark Monsur, who, by the way, has an open
35:20
Speaker 3: invite to the show, despite repeatedly declining it the Wisconsin
35:23
Speaker 3: Democratic primary and ninety five to ninety five to five
35:27
Speaker 3: the five percent candidate one before the predictions market got
35:30
Speaker 3: it wrong headlines roll in a five percent probability doesn't
35:34
Speaker 3: mean it won't happen. It means it should happen one
35:37
Speaker 3: in twenty times. If five percent candidates never won, the
35:40
Speaker 3: markets would be broken. The Washington Post analyzed prediction market
35:43
Speaker 3: calibration on hundreds of primary races and here's what they found.
35:47
Speaker 3: And it said in that Post analysis quote among all
35:52
Speaker 3: candidates given a fifty to sixty percent chance on prediction markets,
35:55
Speaker 3: fifty eight percent one. If prediction markets are accurate, they
35:58
Speaker 3: fall in the shaded area because of the share of
36:01
Speaker 3: candidates who win roughly match the chance that they're given
36:03
Speaker 3: on the prediction market. So again that's in the step
36:06
Speaker 3: graphic that was created, and the source of that graphic
36:09
Speaker 3: is the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin Madison. However,
36:13
Speaker 3: let's steal man a little bit of this. First of all,
36:17
Speaker 3: this has not been around for that long, so to
36:20
Speaker 3: say they are accurate is literally confining yourself to a
36:25
Speaker 3: very small sample size.
36:27
Speaker 1: Right.
36:28
Speaker 3: You know, we have better data on sportsbooks than we
36:31
Speaker 3: do on prediction markets, because Vegas has been around Betton
36:35
Speaker 3: and you know, doing lines on sports for I don't
36:37
Speaker 3: even know for decades, right, And so we actually have
36:39
Speaker 3: very good data on the Vegas sports book line and
36:42
Speaker 3: its predictive ability not bad, and a lot of it's
36:44
Speaker 3: complicated because they offset favorites with different action to create
36:49
Speaker 3: you know, a fifty to fifty chance for the line,
36:51
Speaker 3: but prediction market itself is very different, and so we
36:55
Speaker 3: have an immense recency bias because what happened is is
36:58
Speaker 3: that the prediction markets, let's be fair, did get it
37:01
Speaker 3: correct in the presidential election. They all had Trump roughly
37:07
Speaker 3: favored and specifically priced, you know, the all seven swing
37:10
Speaker 3: states and all that stuff pretty much correctly if you
37:13
Speaker 3: go back and you look at it. So that led
37:14
Speaker 3: to this grand narrative of like, oh, look, the prediction
37:17
Speaker 3: markets got right. But it turns out, of course, in
37:19
Speaker 3: a one off event, you cannot make a dispositive like
37:24
Speaker 3: actual conclusion for thousands of races that they have to
37:27
Speaker 3: be battle tested for decades. I actually wonder what the
37:31
Speaker 3: price would be. And then let's take it even further,
37:33
Speaker 3: he said, primary races. The vast, vast, vast, vast vast
37:37
Speaker 3: majority of primaries are not contested, So no shit that
37:39
Speaker 3: it's easy to predict.
37:40
Speaker 1: Yeah right, It's like, did.
37:42
Speaker 2: You get it correct that Amy Klobashar was going to
37:44
Speaker 2: win her primary by ninety five points? Most political contest,
37:49
Speaker 2: period are obvious what the outcome is going to be.
37:52
Speaker 2: It's the extreme outliers where you have some sort of
37:56
Speaker 2: unexpected result. But that's exactly the place where you would
38:00
Speaker 2: want this to provide you with some insight that you
38:03
Speaker 2: couldn't just get from a poll or from you know,
38:05
Speaker 2: obvious conventional wisdom. And we've now had two highly consequential
38:11
Speaker 2: races in a row, back to back where they did
38:14
Speaker 2: not provide useful information, even as yes, you could say
38:18
Speaker 2: ultimately Abdul did win, right, but did it justify a
38:22
Speaker 2: ninety three percent No, because it ended up being razor thin.
38:25
Speaker 2: It could have easily gone the other way. So technically, yes,
38:30
Speaker 2: that provided you the information she was going to win.
38:32
Speaker 2: But if you're looking at that high of a percentage chance,
38:36
Speaker 2: you are definitely thinking it's going to be a blowout,
38:39
Speaker 2: it's going to be a large amount, and that is
38:41
Speaker 2: not remotely what happened. And then with Hong, they just
38:43
Speaker 2: completely got it wrong. She had a higher percentage chance
38:46
Speaker 2: of winning than and.
38:47
Speaker 3: You know, I even want to say, like in terms
38:49
Speaker 3: of the graphic that our team pulled, so they pulled
38:51
Speaker 3: it from Twitter. So I'm looking at the tweet and
38:53
Speaker 3: it's just some random open source Z one Twitter account
38:56
Speaker 3: and guess what if you look at its bio, it
38:59
Speaker 3: says you're twenty four to seven source for breaking news
39:02
Speaker 3: and insider insights powered by Calci.
39:05
Speaker 1: And the post that.
39:06
Speaker 3: He made, which is intended again for news purposes, says
39:09
Speaker 3: paid partnership underneath it. Now, how many political influencers, others, podcasters,
39:15
Speaker 3: et cetera. Are sponsored by polymarket and or Calci? So
39:18
Speaker 3: do they have zero incentive to do the covery? Do
39:22
Speaker 3: you have people here have no idea the amount of
39:25
Speaker 3: money that we could take for not doing this segment.
39:28
Speaker 3: It's a lot, right, It's a lot more than the
39:30
Speaker 3: predict than whatever they're bringing them subscription and all that
39:33
Speaker 3: is bringing in.
39:33
Speaker 1: I don't care. I think these people are scum, honestly.
39:35
Speaker 3: I think in normalizing gambling, so whatever you know, your
39:37
Speaker 3: money might as well be blood money to somebody like me.
39:40
Speaker 3: But there's not a lot of people out there with
39:42
Speaker 3: those same scruples or with those same beliefs.
39:44
Speaker 1: If you don't think about it much, you're like, oh,
39:45
Speaker 1: well they got it right in twenty twenty four. That's fine, Oh.
39:48
Speaker 3: Just will it adults, they're doing whatever they want to
39:51
Speaker 3: do a fool and his money must be easily parted whatever.
39:53
Speaker 1: Not my business.
39:54
Speaker 3: But that's the problem is that this is now being
39:57
Speaker 3: normalized across the nation, and we are right about ahead
40:00
Speaker 3: into football season. The amount of money that you were
40:03
Speaker 3: going to see calci ads. If you thought FanDuel and
40:06
Speaker 3: DraftKings ads were annoying, get.
40:08
Speaker 1: Ready, folks.
40:09
Speaker 3: The World Cup was the preview of what it's all
40:11
Speaker 3: going to look like. It was all over the sidelines,
40:14
Speaker 3: every TV commercial, The amount of influencers they're going to
40:18
Speaker 3: be paying big bucks, all of these people. And I
40:21
Speaker 3: just saw they got made four billion last year. They
40:25
Speaker 3: got a forty billion dollar valuation. They're raising even more money.
40:29
Speaker 3: Why for advertising they need to advertise. It's the same
40:33
Speaker 3: same model that the sportsbooks do advertise addict get you
40:38
Speaker 3: on the platform. Normalize this as an a as a
40:41
Speaker 3: you know, is the same thing as buying or selling
40:43
Speaker 3: the S and B five hundred, which is nuts and
40:46
Speaker 3: what's even more nuts B five. I cannot let this
40:49
Speaker 3: one go unscathed. This is the Trump administration's response to
40:53
Speaker 3: all of this kind of technical So everybody stick with me.
40:56
Speaker 3: So recently, as you guys all probably saw the New
40:59
Speaker 3: York Attorney General Letitia James filed a complaint against CALSHI
41:04
Speaker 3: in the State of New York. Lots of complicated, different stuff. Basically,
41:07
Speaker 3: what it came down to is that New York sought
41:10
Speaker 3: a temporary restraining order prohibiting Calshie from offering event contracts nationwide.
41:16
Speaker 1: And more than thirty six billion dollars in damages.
41:19
Speaker 3: The CFTC, which again is run the Commodity Futures Trading
41:22
Speaker 3: Comission by the Trump administration. Mike Sellig is the guy's name,
41:25
Speaker 3: is a libertarian explicitly picked by Donald Trump, who head
41:29
Speaker 3: this agency to heat on August eleventh, two days ago,
41:32
Speaker 3: exercise quote emergency authority in response to the calshi's notification
41:38
Speaker 3: of a market emergency and ordered the exchange to continue
41:42
Speaker 3: to operate in accordance with the Commodity Exchange Access Core principle.
41:46
Speaker 1: So think about this.
41:47
Speaker 3: Mike Sellig declared a CFTC emergency over the fact that
41:53
Speaker 3: calshe might have to go down. That's what our government
41:56
Speaker 3: is doing. That is what our regulatory authority is doing.
41:59
Speaker 1: They said.
42:00
Speaker 3: It is an attack on the federal government and on
42:03
Speaker 3: its authority to have the audacity of New York State
42:07
Speaker 3: just try to bring Calshi in compliance with their same
42:11
Speaker 3: gambling regulations and just to show you how crazy it
42:14
Speaker 3: all is. So Calshi desperately tried to avoid this lawsuit
42:18
Speaker 3: by the State of New York. They came to the
42:20
Speaker 3: State of New York and they said, all right, look, yeah,
42:23
Speaker 3: it's you know, I get it. I get where you
42:25
Speaker 3: guys are coming for. Why don't we just pay six
42:28
Speaker 3: percent in terms of the transaction costs? And New York said, no,
42:32
Speaker 3: all sportsbooks pay twenty percent. You have to pay twenty
42:35
Speaker 3: like every other gambling company. Cal she said, yeah, no,
42:37
Speaker 3: we're not going to do that. We're just going to
42:38
Speaker 3: have the federal the Feds come in and backstop us.
42:41
Speaker 3: And the worst part is eventually this will probably go
42:43
Speaker 3: to the Supreme Court, and this shit's going to be
42:45
Speaker 3: nationwide legalized. Every state in the nation effectively already has
42:50
Speaker 3: sports gambling. The amount of people now, I mean, the
42:53
Speaker 3: last bastions that we had were California and Texas. California
42:57
Speaker 3: because of the tribals casino it's basically kept it out,
43:00
Speaker 3: and Texas because of the evangelicals. God bless them in
43:03
Speaker 3: this one instance, but that is a massive portion of
43:06
Speaker 3: our country. Just watch and see how much money is
43:09
Speaker 3: going to be poured into this football season. It's going
43:11
Speaker 3: to be insane. And remember, gambling already eclipses all of
43:16
Speaker 3: the other entertainment industries in America. That's without California and Texas.
43:21
Speaker 3: It is going to be I mean tens, if not
43:24
Speaker 3: hundreds of billions of dollars that are going to be
43:26
Speaker 3: spent on.
43:26
Speaker 1: It's tragic.
43:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, it honestly makes it makes me so upset thinking
43:30
Speaker 3: about the opportunity costs of how many of these guys
43:33
Speaker 3: out there are going to be pissing their money with
43:35
Speaker 3: their famili's future, their children's future, their four to one
43:38
Speaker 3: gays eventual you know, education, got groceries.
43:41
Speaker 1: It's just so bad.
43:43
Speaker 2: Well, and we cannot ignore the corruption angle here because
43:45
Speaker 2: Don Junior has a role at both Calshie and Polymarket.
43:49
Speaker 2: So at Polymarket he is a member of their advisory board.
43:53
Speaker 2: Correct he also invested in the company via his venture
43:56
Speaker 2: capital firm. At Calshie, he serves as a pays strategic
44:00
Speaker 2: advisor and also has a non investment equity stake in
44:05
Speaker 2: Calshi that he obtained upon joining. So President soon has
44:11
Speaker 2: financial entanglements with both Calshi and Polymarket, and then surprise
44:16
Speaker 2: surprize CFTC. Trump's CFTC rides to the rescue to make
44:20
Speaker 2: sure that there's no even you know, possibility that in
44:24
Speaker 2: the short term there might be some repercussions about the
44:27
Speaker 2: against these gambling companies coming from you.
44:29
Speaker 3: And you know, even right now there's this insane This
44:32
Speaker 3: is where.
44:32
Speaker 1: I feel crazy.
44:34
Speaker 3: Calshi is offering odds on flight cancellations, and there's this
44:38
Speaker 3: whole lawsuit which is going on between flight Aware, which
44:41
Speaker 3: a lot of people use, you know, to track their
44:43
Speaker 3: flights and stuff like that, and between Calshi. I think
44:45
Speaker 3: they just dropped it yesterday, but previously had gone in
44:48
Speaker 3: and basically Calshi said, well, what we're going to do
44:51
Speaker 3: is for the data to resolve yes or no, We're
44:54
Speaker 3: just going to use flight Aware's data.
44:55
Speaker 1: Now they didn't.
44:56
Speaker 3: I don't think they paid flight Aware or they're using
44:58
Speaker 3: their likeness, and that's what fly to Where is actually
45:01
Speaker 3: upset about. But I mean, what are the incentives here?
45:03
Speaker 3: Like some you don't think about it if you were
45:05
Speaker 3: a crew. From what I understand, you tell me. From
45:08
Speaker 3: what I understand is that they don't get paid until
45:10
Speaker 3: they push off, which is part of the reason why
45:13
Speaker 3: a lot of them are really upset because whenever there's
45:15
Speaker 3: massive delays, they all tell the passengers. They're like, look,
45:17
Speaker 3: we're just a screw as you. We're not even getting
45:19
Speaker 3: paid because we're sitting here on the tarmac. What a
45:21
Speaker 3: guy making fifty five thousand dollars a year you push
45:24
Speaker 3: things a little bit more, you want to make a
45:25
Speaker 3: little bit more money. I mean, how do you know
45:27
Speaker 3: that that's not going to happen? There are thousands of
45:29
Speaker 3: flights every single day air traffic control. All I hear
45:33
Speaker 3: about air traffic control is how overstressed and underpaid they are.
45:36
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, like, the incentives here are insanity.
45:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, to be to be gambling on like cancelations.
45:43
Speaker 2: You can't trust like anything in society to actually be real. Right,
45:47
Speaker 2: Everything is gamified, Everything is potentially rigged, the same way
45:51
Speaker 2: that there's now mass skepticism, justifiably so about every sports
45:55
Speaker 2: league gut and how it applies even to your flight cancelation,
45:58
Speaker 2: like with someone on the take to make sure that
46:00
Speaker 2: this flight got canceled.
46:02
Speaker 3: Even in the polling companies, I mean, do they now
46:04
Speaker 3: have a fund if I'm a poller. But what I do
46:06
Speaker 3: is I put out some bullshit poll and then I
46:08
Speaker 3: take the under so that I make Because inside, if
46:11
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, ninety five to five, I mean, think
46:13
Speaker 3: about that's a twenty to one. So if you put
46:15
Speaker 3: in Crowley, you made twenty to one on your that's
46:18
Speaker 3: a shitload of money. Yeah, that is a serious payday
46:21
Speaker 3: for somebody out there.
46:21
Speaker 2: That's a great point. Maybe that's why the polling this
46:24
Speaker 2: has been so big.
46:25
Speaker 3: You never know, I mean, you really want to tell
46:27
Speaker 3: me some guy's Sesskahanna University who's calling people all day
46:30
Speaker 3: on the folks brother sounds like a shit job to
46:32
Speaker 3: me to go out there to call to six hundred
46:35
Speaker 3: and fifty people and actually get them to answer the phone, like, sir,
46:37
Speaker 3: can I please ask you about your thoughts on the election?
46:40
Speaker 1: Yeah? What, that guy's not going to want to make
46:41
Speaker 1: a few extra bunks.
46:43
Speaker 2: Anybody would or a bunch of these you know super packs.
46:45
Speaker 2: They do their own polling and oftentimes they put it
46:48
Speaker 2: out publicly. Yes, but let's say they have a poll
46:50
Speaker 2: that shows something that is very different from what the
46:52
Speaker 2: public polling is. Oh well, it was just hanging out
46:54
Speaker 2: to this one and we'll make sure we you know,
46:56
Speaker 2: we take the other side.
46:57
Speaker 3: And to the point about stocks earlier, and I'm sorry
46:59
Speaker 3: to belabor this, but yes, stocks are a quote gambling,
47:01
Speaker 3: but we do have a well regulated SEC and on
47:04
Speaker 3: insert does it happen?
47:05
Speaker 1: Sure?
47:05
Speaker 3: But to your point just now, there's no even regulatory
47:09
Speaker 3: authority over the guy at the super pac who has
47:12
Speaker 3: inside information on the race, as you know. And that's why,
47:16
Speaker 3: like this is so socially corrosive and destructive. You shouldn't
47:20
Speaker 3: be betting on this stuff period. And yet, I mean,
47:23
Speaker 3: it is going to be my prediction this company will
47:26
Speaker 3: IPO for hundreds of billions of dollars already. The woman
47:29
Speaker 3: who co founded it is like some girl boss who's like,
47:32
Speaker 3: I'm the youngest female billionaire and I'm like, does society
47:36
Speaker 3: not grapple with that? Like that is the ultimate lean
47:39
Speaker 3: in feminism, The youngest female billionaire. How did you make
47:42
Speaker 3: your money? How did you make your money? There's no
47:44
Speaker 3: scruples about that. It's sickening