Latest / Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar / 10/13/26: MBS Cowers Amid Houthi Attacks, Paxton Caught Partying w/Fugitives, Truth About Chinese AI

Transcript

10/13/26: MBS Cowers Amid Houthi Attacks, Paxton Caught Partying w/Fugitives, Truth About Chinese AI · Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Indeed we do. Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia continue and
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Israel is actually itching to join the fight. But Saudi's like, yeah, no, thanks.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: We're good. Lots of updates there of things that are
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: going on. We've also got Elon all in for Republicans
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: largest political donation in history. Also, with regard to the midterms,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: we're going to break down this whole James Tallarico alleged
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: mental hospital thing that completely blew up. And we now
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: have new revelations about Ken Paxton, who was caught in
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: a video partying with fugitives from justice alongside his girlfriend.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: At the time, he was still married. A lot to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: say about who this guy is and the way that
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: he operates. We're going to have a guest on, an expert,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: to do a deep dive into how China is viewing
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: the AI race, something we've paid a lot of attention to.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: We're going to be looking at Hegs' plan to live
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: stream an execution by firing squad. Apparently, Trump is not
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: so hot on that idea. A federal raid yesterday targeted
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Ilhan Omar in what appears to be a politically motivated attack.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: And we have an author and historian on to talk
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: about his new book. It's a history of Eugene Debs.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: He connects it to the modern day socialist movement. A
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: lot to learn from Debs' time and the way that
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: he operated. And interesting to see some of the parallels today.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I agree. We're loving this new Breaking Points thing where
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: we just have a historian on at the end of
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: every show. I feel like that's how it should be.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: We missed you in our Victor Sebastian interview yesterday, Crystal.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Thank you to everybody who has been subscribing to the show, BreakingPoints.com.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: We did have about 100 or so people sign up yesterday,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: so we are roughly 10% of the way there. To
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: reiterate for everybody watching, who is out there. If a
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: thousand people sign up by election day, Ryan Grimm gets
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to go to the Madison Square Garden show. And then
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: one person who have signed up will be offered the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: opportunity to go. I did get an email from some
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: longtime subscribers who were upset that they could not also
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: be included because they've been around for so long. So
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: we're going to go ahead. I have decided to throw
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: in a ticket and a guest for them as well,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: which genuinely ups the stakes financially. So I really need
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of these people to sign up. So there
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: you go for our existing subscribers, for our new subscriber,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: as well. Everybody gets to go and have a good
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: time at the fish show if they want to. So
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: go ahead and sign up breakingpoints.com. You get to go.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: A friend gets to go. One of our existing premiums
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: gets to go and their friend gets to go as well.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: All to Madison Square Garden with Ryan Grimm to watch fish.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So enjoy that. Also, you can't support our work here
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: at breakingpoints.com as well, if that's a good enough pitch
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: for you. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel if you're
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: watching this there. If you're listening to the podcast, please
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: share an episode with a friend. It really helps other
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: people find the show. But let's go ahead and start. A1,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: we'll put it up here on the screen. This is
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: by far, I mean, a portrait of how bad things
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: are in Saudi Arabia. Honestly, shocking. I mean, here the
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal details how Iran-backed militants are now tightening
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: the screws on Saudi Arabia's crown prince. And it is difficult, actually,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: to describe how much the entire Houthi campaign has from
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: 2015 onward, was the brainchild of MBS. It's really the
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: way that he was able to consolidate power, find himself
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: as the crown prince inside of the system, and really be,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: you know, the chief architect of all of their foreign policy.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It was meant to be a military campaign to showcase
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the strength of the Saudi military and to check Iran.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: What has turned out to be is just like many U.S. boondoggles,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: to be genuinely a quagmire, where They have caused genuine
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: humanitarian disaster in Yemen. They eventually are forced to a ceasefire.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: They violate the ceasefire in the course of the U.S.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and Iran war. You also had MBS himself actually encourage
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Trump to try and decapitate the Iranian regime. What they
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: see now is behind the scenes in Riyadh, MBS is
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: now basically being shuttled between heavily guarded palaces, which include
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: doomsday bunkers where he's spending his Some of this time
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: and a handpicked group of guards who are loyal to
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: him only. I mean, he's basically you've got a Middle
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Eastern leader with his own like handpicked janissaries and Praetorian guard,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: which are shuttling him between palaces in bunkers while his
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: city remains under attack and its own population is being bombarded.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: with notifications day and night about incoming ballistic missile attacks
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: or drone attacks, all while they are rationing their remaining interceptors.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Now some 14 people are dead at the Riyadh airport.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: You have hundreds of people who have been killed. Airport itself, Crystal,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: is now shut down at a minimum until October 17th.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: And the more that we learn about the devastating attacks,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: In Saudi Arabia, we are also learning about the devastating
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: shutdown of information out of this country, which basically is
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: turning itself into some sort of a garrison state while
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Israel remains on the sidelines and wants to come in.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: And that report from The Wall Street Journal also details
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: all of the business impact. that this is already having
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: on Saudi Arabia. I mean, if we back up for
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: a bit, and keeping in mind that the conflict with
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: the Houthis and the conflict with Iran are nominally separate,
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: although they're increasingly tied together, and I think this wouldn't
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: all be happening if we didn't get back into this
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Iran war, Saudi Arabia reportedly was enthusiastic about the idea
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: of the U.S. and Israel attacking Iran. Now, it's not
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: entirely clear whether that reporting is correct, but there are
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: some indications, and Trita Parsi, for example, takes seriously the
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: notion that the Saudis were enthusiastic about the Iran war
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: because they're thinking, oh, these are our regional, you know,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: this is our regional adversary. If they're weakened, then surely
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: the U.S. and Israel with their combined firepower can do
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: the job. We're going to be strengthened as a regional hegemon. Obviously,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: that has turned into a complete and total disaster for them.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: You know, initially, even with the Strait of Hormuz more
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: or less closed down, they were able through the East-West
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: Pipeline and through the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandab Strait
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: to more or less continue business as usual with regard
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: to their oil production. Now that is all a complete
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: mess and disaster. So they've lost all kinds of revenue there.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: They've already had to pull back, and they talk about
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: this in this Wall Street Journal piece. They had planned
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: this futuristic city of Neom, They planned an enormous cube-shaped
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: building in Riyadh and a desert ski resort. The total
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: cost was going to run to the trillions of dollars, aggressive,
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: they say, for a government with an annual budget of
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: around $ 350 billion. Obviously, now that is all dead and
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: gone and off the table. We talked yesterday about this
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: major oil conference that was supposed to happen. Now the
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: CEOs are like, I don't think I'm going to be
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: flying into Riyadh anytime soon. By the way, the airport
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: is shut down, so they couldn't really get there even
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: if they wanted to. And there's a major investment conference
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: at the end of this month that increasingly looks unlikely
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: to happen. We think this is all going to be
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: wrapped up and safe in two weeks' time. I certainly
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: don't think so. So this has turned into a complete
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: disaster for the entire country, for their financial situation, for
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: their prestige, for their sense of stability, and for the
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: brand of the country as this sort of oasis for
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: foreign investment that they've really been building up. We've talked
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: here about the live golf ventures and all the sports
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: washing and the comedy festival. They've really been spending a
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: lot of money to make this push to change their
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: global image and make themselves this sort of destination for
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: capital and events. That is all dead and gone at
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: this point. I mean, live golf itself has completely collapsed
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: with their lack of investment.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Exactly. I mean, don't forget this also included, you know,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Expo 2030, FIFA World Cup 2034, the Riyadh Air. I mean,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: they had multi billions, hundreds of billions that have now
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: been erased probably in just a two week time period.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: It's really shattered the image of the country, which wanted
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: to turn itself into the new headquarters of Davos. I mean,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: they have their own World Economic Forum that they've been doing.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: over there. On top of that, you know, you really
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: also see the changing geopolitics of everything. Let's put A2
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: up here on the screen. Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: always looking to bomb something ahead of an election, saw
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: an opportunity here. He apparently, from Haaretz, has, there's just
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Israeli media reporting, Prime Minister Netanyahu is seeking Saudi approval
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: through U.S. mediation for Israel to join the campaign against
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Yemen's Houthis, adding that the Saudi crown prince currently opposes
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: Israeli military involvement because of the likely backlash among the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: kingdom's public. And, you know, one of the ways that
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Bibi is apparently selling this behind the scenes is like, OK, well,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: because the United States can't come into the war, then
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the great Israeli military can come in and can bomb
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Yemen on your behalf. But I mean, it does show
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: how much of a bind MBS is in. He cannot
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: do this himself. He needs the United States military. The
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: United States military can't come to his aid because they
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: can't help him. They're completely strung up in the Strait
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: of Hormuz, and they've got three carriers and tens of
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: thousands of troops all just operating there. They don't want
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: anything to do with another war in Yemen. At the
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: same time, while MBS cannot do any of this via
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: firepower alone, he is looking to his erstwhile allies– I
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: was just looking this morning– Remember, we had covered the Pakistan,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia, Turkey, so-called defense pact. It's like, well, where
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: have they been? You know, Pakistan, I'm reading this morning,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: they're internally deliberating. They're like, well, you know, technically we
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: are on their side. Should we go all in? But
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: then that would invite problems of its own because of
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: our own, you know, LNG and other things that we
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: get out of the region. And the Turks obviously are
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in the same position. So it just shows how weak
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia has actually been. They've lost their so-called new alliance.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: It's not come in just yet, as of least. They
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: also had the traditional ally, the United States, which just
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: really is unable to do much of anything for them.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: And they're taking real hits. One of the things that's
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: come out this morning is there's a lot of questions,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: fury in Saudi Arabia. How did- Nobody stopped this attack
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: on the airport. It turns out that so many incoming
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: drone alert and missile attacks were coming on people's phones
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: that they turned off the alert system ahead of that
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: attack on the airport. People were complaining that the alerts
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: were waking them up in the middle of the night.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And so it was a reminder also for the people
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia of just how much this is disrupting
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: your overall daily life. So they turned the emergency alert
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: system off. Now, 14 people in that airport are killed.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, you and I played the video here yesterday.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: You saw everybody on their phones. It's very obvious nobody
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: who was there on their phone got an alert like, hey,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: seek shelter. You've got a missile coming your way. And
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: that's if they were even able to track it. So
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: that shows you how devastating things are. At the same time,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: we're lucky to get that video out of the airport.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Let's put A3 up here on the screen. Buried in
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a warning from the United States Embassy in Riyadh was
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: this very interesting line. Security alert from the U.S. mission
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Interior continues to warn, filming, publishing,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: or sharing information related to counter missiles and drones and
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: their impact sites exposes you to legal liability. American citizens
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: have been detained for taking photos of recent events. Visitors
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: and residents are subject to local laws. in Saudi Arabia. So,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, you have our own embassy now, which is
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: basically telling Americans, of which I'm assuming there's probably, what,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands probably working or living in Saudi Arabia.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: They're like, hey, just so you know, like, we can't
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: save you if you're out there taking pictures and more likely,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: maybe not even posing on social media, sending them to
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: your family, just being like, oh my God, look at
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: this missile attack. You know, I'm living, you know, a
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: couple of blocks away. Do you have any idea how
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: many American oil executives, workers, and others are I mean,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: these people have been present in Saudi Arabia since the 1960s.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: I went to school with many of these people. It
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: really is crazy. And, you know, all of this is spiraling.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: It's not just we can't save you. It's they also
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: are interested in not having these sorts of videos come
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: out because they certainly could save you if they wanted to.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: They absolutely could. But they're not going to. They want
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: you to avoid it. these images as well, because look
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: at how the U.S. has responded to attacks on our
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: bases and our assets. We've hid all the damage as
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: long as we possibly could. So, you know, we're very
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: much this is a oh, well, you know, this is
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: local law. You've got to abide by local law. But
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: the truth of the matter is they also do not
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: want these sorts of videos and images coming out because
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: it's you know, this is a top ally of the U.S.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: It's humiliating for us in a way that they're able
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: to be attacked like this. And we're not doing anything.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: We're not likely to do anything. Trump, yesterday we covered
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: him saying, maybe I'll get involved after he had flat
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: out rejected MBS's previous request for help. Now the Houthis
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: are putting out a warning saying that any U.S. involvement
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: will result in swift and painful response from Ansar Allah. So,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: and obviously they have a lot of credibility. So I
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: don't think the U.S. is too excited about getting entangled
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: in any of this. And Saudi Arabia appears to be
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: sitting duck. They talked about, Sagar, how they may have
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: used like a drone swarm also to throw off any
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: sort of missile defense system. But, you know, it's horrible. Like,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: you read about the people who were killed in this attack.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: It's absolutely horrifying. 28-year-old Egyptian flight attendant. Like, these are
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: civilians who were killed here, and it's a terrible situation.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, these are just normal people. You're trying to go
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: about their everyday lives, and they're literally being killed. What
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: we see in the Houthi attack, interestingly enough, is there's
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a decent amount of speculation, Crystal. You'll remember that Claude
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: report about how they basically caught Houthis and others uploading
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: their targeting data to Claude and being like, hey, help
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: me refine this. It's like, well, do you and I
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: both see some pretty refined strikes that are currently happening?
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to say it's all just AI. I'm
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: sure Iran is helping them out as well. They love
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: seeing all of this. Let's put A6 up on the
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: screen just to show you, because there are big questions
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: inside Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Defense right now. How the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: hell did this happen? And they're looking at this investigation
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: of the barrage and the missiles. I mean, basically, it
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: is the same story that we've seen now over the
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: last six months or so, is that what the Iranians
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and the Houthis had done is they would do these
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: probing attacks. So they'll send one, they'll send two, they'll
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: send a mix, and then they're slowly testing the defenses.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And as they start to figure out the response time,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: where these things come from, They adjust. They obviously have
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: a cost on their side because these are dramatically cheaper
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: than what the Saudis are firing at them. And then
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: that's how you are able to pull off a seemingly
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: spectacular attack. I would also note, you know, just last night,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: three separate explosions were heard in the capital city of Riyadh.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: No explanation currently as to what was hit or where.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Some indications that the airport was even hit again because
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the Houthis want to completely shut that down. They have
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: told all international airlines to go ahead and cancel the
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: on that cancel flights and that airspace over Saudi Arabia
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: is closed. Currently, all of the international airlines are showing
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: similar cancellations, basically saying we're not flying to this country
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: till the airport is open. And even then, we'll be
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: monitoring the situation. So I do think that that is
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: similarly really important because you are watching now, you know,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the breadth of the empire from the United States was
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: not just our own ability to shoot things down, which
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: obviously has failed dramatically in this war, but it was
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: also selling all of this technology. to the allies from
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia to the UAE, you know, to Bahrain, to
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: South Korea, to Taiwan, any of these countries. I mean,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: how can any of them have any real faith after
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: watching what's happened here, especially including our own troops who
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: have been killed in the war and now watching how,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you know, when these countries are in the lurch and
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: they have their handout and they even have money, right?
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: They have cold, hard cashing. Please sell me more. We're like, oh, sorry,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: we can't. You know, delivery timeline is 2029. If you're
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: lucky to be able to get any of these.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: And not only that, but I mean, the whole concept
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: was that our security umbrella would extend to Saudi Arabia
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: and they'd be our great ally.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: In the region.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: And now we're like, no, sorry. Good luck. And I,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: you know, we really haven't grappled yet with what it
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: means that we're in this totally new era of warfare where.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: You know, the Houthis couldn't like invade and take over
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia, but can they cause a tremendous amount of pain? Absolutely.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And that's crazy. Yemen is one of the poorest countries
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: on the planet, and they are able to bring this very,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: very wealthy nation to its knees. That's the new world
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: that we're living in here. It's not that, you know,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: with Iran, it's not that Iran could win directly, head
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: to head war against us and invade us and not
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: take it over.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: No.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: But can they cause incredible pain to us? Can they
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: destroy the facade of our empire? Yes, they've done it.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: And so right now, the U.S. mainland is protected by geography.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: You have to ask how long that is the case,
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: because the the asymmetric nature of this warfare is such
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: that if you are a wealthier country, that means you
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: have more to lose. You know, what is what does
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Yemen have to lose? At this point, I mean, Saudi
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: and the previous government and we have been bombing them relentless.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: The amount of civilians we've killed, the infrastructure that we've attacked.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: But they just have a lot fewer things. They have
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: a lot less to lose than Saudi Arabia does. So
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: that's the extraordinarily asymmetric nature. Of this warfare, not to mention,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: you know, for the Houthis, for the Yemenis, this is
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: existential for Saudi Arabia. They're like, oh, my God, our investments,
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: our investment conference. They're used to a very, very, very cushy,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: plush life. They are not used to bomb alerts on
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: their phones, which is why they're just like, you know what?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: We're just going to turn these off. These are disturbing
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: people's sleep. So we're just going to turn them off.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: That is such an incredible statement on the differing states
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: of mind between these two populations.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: It's such an important point because for many people, they're
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: just waking up. I mean, they may not even know
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the term Houthi. I mean, these are people who have
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: been bombed in the desert for over a decade, 11 years,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: where almost, what, a million people were starved to death
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: in a famine or subject to cholera and diphtheria outbreaks.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're living in literal caves and launching missiles
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and drones. I mean, these are some of the most hardened, battle-tested,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: people on the planet right now. You know, you were
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: talking about asymmetry, and I think your point is very important.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I remember reading a lot of this in 2017, and
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: I just looked up to confirm the cost. You know,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: you were talking there. Let's take the most extreme example,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a North Korean ICBM, which is capable of hitting the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: United States homeland. North Korea's cost basis for one of
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: those missiles is $ 20 to $ 30 million. The United States
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: Sentinel missiles is 200 million.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: So literally 10 times the cost of what the what
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the North Koreans are able to spend just to threaten
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: existentially our homeland. Well, the same math. happens to happen
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: whenever it comes to the drones, the missile attacks. And
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: in some cases, the math differential is 20, 30, 40,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: 50 times of what it is to shoot down some
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: of these things. So I just think that people, like
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: you said, have not grappled with this. And also, you know,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: we're seeing this projection across the globe. Let's return now
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: to this UK attack where we've been keeping.
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: Our eye on.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: We will always note, you know, I remain very skeptical
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of the story. It doesn't seem to make a lot
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: of sense that five guys who are in an Iranian
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: alleged terror plot on the UK soil to try and
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: bomb US bombers are released on bail after the woman
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: catches them in the middle of the night and they're
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: wearing masks and one of them calls 999, the equivalent
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: of their 911, to basically report that they're doing something sketchy. So,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Lots of questions remain, but nonetheless, the UK is treating
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: it effectively as a state-sponsored act of terror. Here is
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, yesterday in the House of
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Commons detailing it. Let's take a listen.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: But I can confirm our assessment that it is highly
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: likely to have been coordinated in Iran, almost certainly directed
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard. We will not tolerate these
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: threats on our soil. We will crack down on Iran's
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: use of criminal networks, using our full range of powers
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: to target them and their funding streams. And we will
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: bring further sanctions to restrict the capacity of Iran and
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: the IRGC to do us harm. Since UNGA, Mr. Speaker,
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: we have been in close contact with the US about
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: protective security at our shared bases. I want to thank
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: our police and military personnel for their swift response to
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: the incidents at RAF Fairford and RAF Molesworth.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: So obviously the big headline news is that it's almost certainly,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: you know, some Iranian-backed attack. And I will say, you know,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: you and I said from the beginning, Trita Parsi, he
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: immediately kind of took it seriously. He's like, look, the
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: IRGC did say that you are basically liable to be
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: bombed or attacked. wherever you are. And the reaction of
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: the United States, pretty humiliating, regardless of what it was,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: where the B-1 bombers were removed from the UK under
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: the cover of darkness and were even launched while their
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: aerial refueling tankers were not even in the air. That
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: was the level of panic that happened at the Pentagon.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: So nonetheless, that's how they were And it shows a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: similar style of retreat where you're not even able to
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: keep planes in the UK at very least with total
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: safety and not even thinking about it, which you and
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I know before the war on February 27th, nobody in
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: the in the United States or the Pentagon is thinking
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: our bases are going to be blown up and we're
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: going to have to withdraw from the region in the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Middle East.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: None.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And especially even if they thought that perhaps that some
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: attack might happen on the bases. There was no universe
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: where they said, oh, something might happen at our base
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: in the UK. It was not even, you know, in
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the realm of thought that something like that was going
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to happen.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. I mean, at the very beginning when Iran
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: was blustering, oh, we're going to push the U.S. out
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: of the region. And I was like, OK, yeah, sure.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Whatever.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Good luck with that. All of our bases there have
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: been there forever and we're totally dug in and committed
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: to not happening. Oh, well, guess what? It did happen.
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: It actually did. And so, look, I still don't know
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: what to make of this freaking thing. It's weird to
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: me that they're still holding on to the story, you know,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: after because the guys remember they had like fuel siphoning
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: and they were in these like fuel trucks. The explanation
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: that they were just trying to like steal petrol from
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: this farm kind of made some sense to me, especially
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: when they're released on bail. that would be consistent with
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: a lower level, more petty crime like that. If there's
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: even a suspicion of attempted terrorism, then you would be
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: able to hold them. So I remain skeptical, but who
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: the hell knows what's going on with this one? None
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: of it really adds up or makes any sense, no
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: matter which story you, which direction you go in here.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Totally agree. Last thing in the straight of our moves,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: just want to give people an update. Let's put the VO,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I think we have A4 up here, Brett Erickson. Highly
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: recommend people follow him if you're on Twitter, he does
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: a very good job of kind of aggregating all of
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the different attacks. This came out yesterday where he numbered
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the where he showed the number of vessels that were
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: struck in the Strait of Hormuz. This actually came a
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: little bit early because it appears that the total number
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: was four at the end of the day. So what
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: we have now is six vessels were were struck in
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the Strait of Hormuz. That is the highest number of
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the entire war. That is I mean, literally the highest
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: number for the entire war in the Strait of Hormuz
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and not a single response from CENTCOM. I mean, this
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: again shows the problems with Trumpian bluster and how the
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Iranians are able to push without any real reaction, because
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: for months they had a tanker for tanker policy. This
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: was announced with great fanfare. Remember Economic D-Day, Crystal, that
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: was going to happen? Economic D-Day from Scott Best. I mean,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: they really did it up, right, in terms of what
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: we're going to do and the bluster and the chest thumping.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: And the Iranians are like, yeah, that's cute. We're just
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: going to keep bombing this because that's what we do.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And we don't really care whether you bomb us or not.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And so you have got now tanker traffic plummeting in
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the Strait of Hormuz after what had previously happened. been reported.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: It just seems like the Iranians were holding back, not
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: just in terms of the strikes, but the specific type
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of strike. As we have showed everyone in a lot
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: of the video that we've been able to see out
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of the Strait of Hormuz, they're striking directly at the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: engine room, in some cases sinking, damaging, and I mean,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: it's causing genuine chaos and panic in the region. And
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: it looks like the number of barrels per day has
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: approximately halved just in the last week. Remember, it's all
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: going by a dark transit. It's very difficult to say.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: The convoy system and all of that remains intact. But
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: this is according to some of the same independent analysts
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: who previously had been touting some of the success of
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: running the blockade by these systems. And so all of
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: that's currently reflecting. I'm looking right now. The price of
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: oil remains roughly where it was yesterday. But the whole
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: point is it's not coming down meaningfully in any way.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: And if anything, the crunch will continue to go up
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: as we get closer and closer to election day.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So according to HFI research, oil flows through the
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Strait of Hormuz, I'm reading through from a drop site
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: tweet right now, have fallen to roughly eight to nine
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: million barrels per day, down from 13 to 14 million.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: They further expect flows to drop to six to seven
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: million barrels per day over the next 10 days. So
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: The Iranians may have been, since they were going to
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: be in town for the UN General Assembly, they may
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: have been holding back. There may have been actually some
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: hope that, OK, maybe Trump will actually want to capitulate
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: in advance of the midterms so he could declare some
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: sort of mission accomplished moment. Now that that hasn't happened,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: it seems like they are willing to escalate and ratchet
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: up the economic pain, seems to be the plan here.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: So that's the direction we're heading in, as best we
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: can tell.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: That's right. All right, let's get to midterms and the
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Tallarico saga.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: All right, let's turn to Texas, where all manner of
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: things are going down. We've got Elon Musk dumping millions
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: on the side of Republicans. We've got a fake hoax
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: about Tallarico and a mental health hospital. But let's start
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: with the very latest with regard to Ken Paxton, who's
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: the current attorney general of Texas, which will become relevant.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: Let's put this video up on the screen. So this
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: is him in Dubai on January 1st, 2025. You can
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: see him there. This is his girlfriend. Keep in mind,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: I believe he was still married at the time. This
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: is a wanted criminal, fugitive alleged, fugitive from U.S. justice,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: one of two who he was apparently partying with in Dubai. Again, remember,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: attorney general, top law enforcement official in the state of Texas,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: caught on video. partying with not one but two separate
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: wanted fugitives from justice who were accused of multi millions
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: of dollars in health care fraud. Let's go and put
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal report here up on the screen.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: You can see some of the details because it gets
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: even worse. Ken Paxton partied in Dubai with fugitives ahead
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: of high stakes Texas race. Lo and behold, not only
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: was he hanging out with them, they had both donated.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Lots of money to him. One of them, Ahmed, a
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: healthcare executive, donated $ 190, 000 to Paxton, according to campaign finance records,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: including $ 25, 000 days after he was indicted. And what exactly
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: are they accused of? Are these some low-level, petty crimes?
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's all a misunderstanding. Of course, everyone is innocent
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: until proven guilty. However, this is what they have been
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: indicted for. It says the two fugitives at the Dubai
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: event had been both indicted in federal court in Illinois
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: in 2024 on charges they embezzled $ 15 million from a
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: Chicago hospital where Ahmed was chief financial officer. A businessman
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: with interest in Texas, Ahmed was later charged in a
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: much larger scheme involving at least $ 195 million in alleged
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: payments from the government for fraudulent COVID-19 tests. to which
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: he has pleaded not guilty. Both men are now back
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: in the U.S. to face the charges. Ahmed is in custody.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: His attorneys have said in court filings he was abroad
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: at the time of the first indictment. His return to
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: the U.S. was delayed by a health issues. Suhail's attorney,
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: Adam Shepard, said civil matters in Dubai affected his ability
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: to travel after the indictment, and he returned voluntarily when
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: they were resolved. Sagar, it would be hard to find
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: a video that more precisely and perfectly encapsulated All of
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: the disgusting issues with Ken Paxton. You've got he's the
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: top law enforcer. You've got the hypocrisy, you know, top
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: law enforcement official running on lock him up. And also
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: as this as this Christian man. And here he is
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: with these wanted criminals and his girlfriend, by the way.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: And you have the obvious corruption angle. He had been
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: turned in by his own aides for corruption allegations that
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: he was using his office to give them political favors,
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: was impeached by Republicans. in the Texas House, was not convicted, however,
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: in the Senate, was under federal criminal investigation for similar allegations.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, this pretty much sums up this
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: man that Trump, by the way, endorsed and made sure
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: to push over the finish line in the Republican primary.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Also just addicted to fireworks whenever he's out of the country,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: because remember, 4th of July, he was in the U.K.,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: so America 250. He's in the UK. Here, he's in Dubai.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, that basically tells me anything I need to
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: know about someone. If they unironically visit Dubai for fun,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I'm like, OK, I got you. I've got you clocked
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: all the way. It's like I don't really need to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: know anything else. If you're partying in Dubai on the
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Burj Khalifa, I literally know everything I need to know
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: about you. As you said, it does encapsulate the biggest
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: problems here because the thing is what people need to understand.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: is if you watch these ads against Tallarico in Texas,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: these are not positive ads for Paxson. The Paxson campaign,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: they know he has a problem. In fact, I mean,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I try to spend as much time as I can
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: gathering info from some of the GOP operatives in Texas.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Everybody acknowledges he doesn't work hard. He's always part, you know,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: he's always on the trip or he's out of the country.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: He's hanging out with his girlfriend. He's got his own
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: personal problems. Obviously, he's got his checkered past with all
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: these crazy financial transactions, like, you know, getting a bride,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: alleged bride, by the way, Mr. Paxton, you know, to
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: hire his girlfriend at the time of his mayor. I mean,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: the whole thing is just so preposterous. And so a
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: story and a video like this is exactly the type
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: of thing to go viral. And it's going to go
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: viral in Texas at a moment of, look, this is
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a level of seriousness and of problems that we have
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: in our country. Can you really trust this guy? beyond,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: you know, even policy. And I think that's what it
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: gets to. They're going all in on negative attack ads
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: on Tallarico. Their real strategy, as I understand it at
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: this point, they just need the Republicans to come out
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: and vote. They have given up on the independents. They've
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: given up on, you know, trying to switch any Democrats.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: The number one priority of the Texas GOP is get
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: everybody urban and rural to come out and vote in
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: normal-ish numbers. They believe that they can win. But this
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: is exactly the problem. that is going to hurt them
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: actually with that traditional John Cornyn type demographic, the Texas
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: oil men, the country club Republicans, the Bush era type
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: people who have been around for decades. They vote straight
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: ticket GOP. They hang out at the governor's mansion with
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Greg Abbott. Some of them will hold their nose and
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: they will vote for Abbott. A lot of them will
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: not be able to do so for Paxton. And it's
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: specifically because of stuff like this, even though, yes, there's
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of money on the line. They find him
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: so distasteful. They hate that type of Republican. And traditionally,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: they would just come along and vote no matter what.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: But Paxton is like tailor-made in a factory, you know,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: to create the exact type of problems for the GOP
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: that exist. And Tallarico, obviously, I mean, has had some
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: success to be able to bring people over. As I
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: understand it, he's actually tremendously successful with white women in
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the state of Texas. And then if you got people
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: mad enough also about the Republican Party, you just get
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: those people to come out and vote negatively polarized against
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Paxton and This is all in the factory that we
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: see right now.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: White women and Latino women is what I've been seeing.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: And he had a strength with Latinos overall in his
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: primary run. The polls seem to continue to bear that out,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: although it is a very difficult demographic to poll. I
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: just saw another poll this morning of, you know, it
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: was one of these where it's polling a particular congressional district,
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: but they also poll the Senate race had him well
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: ahead of where Beto was. And remember, Beto came within
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: a couple of points. So even though Ted Cruz is
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: like really odious in his own ways, Ken Paxton is
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: worse as a candidate. So when you have Tallarico, you know,
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: with an appeal, I don't think there's any doubt about
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: it at this point. He's run a strong campaign. He's
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: been an appealing candidate to a lot of people. And
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: then you couple that with a disastrous political environment. And
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: then you triple that with a disastrous candidate selection from
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: the Republicans. You can see how this thing is in play.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: Let's put B1 up on the screen. Elon is going
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: all in for Republicans in general. He's actually given more
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: money Then he gave to Trump and famously gave a
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: quarter of a billion dollars to Trump. Now, this is
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: just what we know of. Remember, there's all sorts of
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: ways to funnel money in under the radar where it
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: doesn't have to be disclosed. But in terms of publicly
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: disclosed money, Elon is now in for $ 275 million. The
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: place where he's spending the most is Texas. He lives there.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: He has a lot of business interests there. That's where
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: SpaceX is. He has restarted his canvassing and door knocking
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: program that had some success in places like Pennsylvania last
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: time around. And to your point, that's really what they're
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: trying to do. They're trying to drag out every last
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Republican that they possibly can. Apparently, he's a lot less
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: hands on this time. I mean, you'll remember he really
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: made himself the center of attention. He was doing these rallies,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: giving away a million dollars, probably illegally. jumping around on
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: the stage, all this sort of antics. He's a little
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: more hands off this time and letting, I guess, the
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: consultants just kind of do their thing. But tons of
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: money blowing into this. And while the polls do not
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: look good. For Republicans, what they're saying is between Elon
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: and Republicans have a massive fundraising advantage across the board
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: over Democrats, that this is maybe help to staunch the
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: bleeding and keep the bottom from falling out even further.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: You can also tell those soccer that they're getting a
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: little desperate in Texas by the antics of some of
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: the right wing influencers that we have seen in recent days.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: So.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Let me break down this story for you. Tallarico was
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: apparently sick, had the flu, did a fundraiser like in
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: New York, appeared on some Zoom call where he told
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: people he had the flu, was looking unwell. And then
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: he was off the campaign trail for I think the
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: number of days was nine days. Long time to be sick.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: And so the Republicans started to seize on this like, oh,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: my God, where is James Tallarico? What's going on with
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: James Tallarico? Then and I'm not even really sure what
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: the genesis of this is. They got it in their
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: mind somehow that that he had secretly flown out of
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Texas to a mental health facility, a particular mental health
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: facility in Ohio. Again, I don't know where the origin
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: of this is, where this original idea came from, but
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: you had a right-wing influencer who called up this mental
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: hospital in Ohio and is pretending to be a relative
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: of James Tallarico, by the way, illegal, and pushing to
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: get information about whether or not James Tallarico was at
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: this facility. So we now have access to the entire
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: call where the lady on the phone continues to be like,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: I have nothing in my system. No, he's not here.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: He hasn't been here. But at the very end, she
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: says effectively, well, I think maybe he checked out today
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: and that's why I'm not seeing him here. They pulled
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: just that part and they put it out on Twitter
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: and pushed out by Nick Sortor. Let's go ahead and
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: take a listen to the audio that they had here
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: that they used to present that James Tallarico was at
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: this mental health facility.
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: Okay, so nothing for James Tallarico?
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: Yes, it looks, well, this is what it's today.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: It looks like he was just discharged this evening.
• 37:51
  Speaker 6: That's why I don't have it.
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: Oh, he was discharged then?
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 37:57
  Speaker 5: And this is the hope.
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: They should be.
• 37:59
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: This is, let me make sure I have the right.
• 38:01
  Speaker 5: This is hope blender.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: And you're in Hamilton, Ohio.
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: No, we're not in Hamilton.
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: Oh, we're in Mason.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: So that's why he's on a system.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: He's a recent. Okay.
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 38:16
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Bye.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: So soccer to begin with, I mean, very sketchy. And
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: the timeline of this never made sense because she says, oh, well,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: he was just about discharged this evening. That evening, he
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: was already back in Texas at an event with some
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: like pop singer. So already the timeline didn't make sense.
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: But that did not stop from any number of conservative
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: conservative influencers jumping in. On this story, put B3 up
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: on the screen. You've got all kinds of, you know,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: the usual suspects, I'm sure, who are all on some
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: signal thread together, putting out very similar messaging. Shame on
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: the media covering this race. Shame on the Tallarico staffers
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: who covered up this lie. Laura Loomer jumping in, DC Drano,
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: Eric Daugherty. I mean, the list went on and on
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: of they all were, you know, buying this hook, line
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: and sinker, completely taking it at all. face value. Meanwhile,
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: like I said, the timeline never really made any sense.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: And it's an audio, like very easy to manipulate. We
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: don't know if it's out of context. We've got Benny Johnson,
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Megyn Kelly, Andrew, what's his name, Colvay, who's with the
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: Turning Points USA, all of them, you know, buying this hook,
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: line and sinker, even though the thing didn't really make
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: sense from the beginning. Then we have the original guy.
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: What's his name? Raihan something like that. Raihan. Raihan's good.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Raihan who was doing a Twitter, what do they call
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: their thing now?
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: Spaces? Whatever.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: He's doing one of these Twitter audio gatherings where they're
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: talking about these explosive revelations. And while this is happening,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: by the way, while this Twitter space is unfolding, the
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: mental hospital itself comes out and says, guys, James Tallerego
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: has never been a patient here. But he also revealed
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: during this Twitter spaces that he had shopped this story online.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: to a number of right-wing outlets who were like, we
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: have to take a pass because this doesn't come close
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: to meeting our scrutiny, which is why he passed it
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: to a right-wing influencer who had far lower standards. Let's
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: go and take a listen to him talking about that.
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: But even like Sarah Gonzalez, like she really wanted to
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: post it, but her legal team just said, Hey, hold on.
• 40:31
  Speaker 7: Did that not give you pause, you know, or any
• 40:34
  Speaker 7: cause for concern when all of these outlets are telling
• 40:37
  Speaker 7: you that we have to go run this through our legal, um,
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: But the influencers are not kind of telling you that.
• 40:43
  Speaker 7: I mean, to me, that would, if I'm hearing that
• 40:49
  Speaker 7: from everybody, I would probably take a step back and
• 40:53
  Speaker 7: see what the lay of the land looks like.
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, that's normal. Influencers are not held to
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: the same journalistic standards as people like yourself in the
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: news industry. We're not held to that same standard.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, Sagar, influencers are not held to that same standard.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Have to agree with him on that particular point.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, literally admits it, you know, out in the open.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, this is one of those where
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: I often wish that these people would suffer the same
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: consequences that you or I, whenever we do editorial review,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: should be subject to as well. If you post false information,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: you do no due diligence, you don't contact the Tallarico campaign,
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: you are opening yourself up to serious consequences in the
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: legal system. For some reason, a lot of these people
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: just end up getting a pass, but that's exactly why.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many times do people send you something?
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: This happens to me every day. Hey, you should post this.
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I go, okay, what is it? And they go, it
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: says this. And I'm like, all right, well, I need
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: to reach out to, you know, it says that why
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: saying this, all right, I need to go and reach
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: out to why and see what they have to say. Oh, well,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: they'll probably deny it. And I go, okay, well then
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: maybe it's not a story. Like maybe you're just not
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: as trustworthy. And then they go dark, right? I mean,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: that is basic journalistic standard of which you have to do,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: especially if you want to just beyond ethics, morals, you
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: should be able to cover your ass legally. It's like
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: the United States legal system is incredibly permissive. As long
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: as you're just doing the absolute basics of being like,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: here's their side of the story. And here's the other side.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: of the story. I mean, that's it. That's all you
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: have to do. And the guys out here being like, yeah,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: influencers will just post anything. And look, I mean, I
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: will say it is a problem. I mean, it is
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: a genuine problem because not enough people distinguish between the
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: two and people know I'm not for censorship. You know,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you shouldn't be allowed to post
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: or any of this, but I am for people abiding
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: by the United States legal system. The U S legal
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: system is quite clear. Like If you just take information
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: that's being fed directly to you, I mean, who even
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: knows if money or any of that is being exchanged?
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: If you're coordinating a campaign, it turns out to be
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: outright false and you don't post a correction, you have
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: a real legal problem on your hand if the Tallarico,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: if James Tallarico wants to make problems for you. He
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: probably won't.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Or this mental hospital too, by the way. I mean,
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: and very possible that this was a HIPAA violation. You
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: can't pretend to be someone's relative to try to get,
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: you know, confidential medical information. And the fact that Tallarico
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: was never there is not a defense. That is illegal.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: That is a violation of law. And then the other
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: thing soccer is like putting the legal piece aside, where is,
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: where are people shame? Like, where's the shame? When I
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: say something that's even slightly off in the show, I
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: agonize over it. Like, if I misstate something that even
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: just sounds like it's maybe not exactly the way I
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: want to portray it, like, that really bothers me. We
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: make corrections all the time to make sure that we're
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: being as accurate as we possibly can. I can't imagine
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: just putting out some totally fake, invented bullshit and doubling
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: down on it. By the way, Nick Sortor, who, you know,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: is the one who posted this audio that the Ryan
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: dude had obtained... He had posted this thing. Oh, don't worry.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Tomorrow morning, I'm going to post more videos. So just
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: wait for this to drop. Of course, the whole day
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: passed and nothing ever. He never posted anything whatsoever. And
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: like I said before, a couple of outlets, including the Bulwark,
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: got their hands on the entire audio because we only
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: hear this ending snippet. It was six minutes of the
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: woman being like, there's no Tallarico here. Let me search
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: this other system. Nope, not here. Nope, hasn't been here. Nope,
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: has never been here. But he like pushes the issue enough.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: So at the end, I think she's persuaded like, oh, well,
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: he must know that the guy was here. So I'm
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out why I'm not seeing him in
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: the system. But this guy is so convinced that he
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: was here. That's when she says this thing about, oh, well,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: he must have checked out today. Only after six minutes
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: of her being like, He's not here. He's never been here.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: I don't have him anywhere in my system. And that's
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: what they post and what they run with. As I
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: mentioned before, I put B6 up on the screen. The
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: hospital came out and said, he's never been here. This
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: happened while they were on that Twitter spaces. Hilarious. And
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Jesse Signal, who was on that call as well, said
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: that there were a number of people on there who
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: continue to try to invent reasons why it may still
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: be true. They said very simply, he has never been
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: a patient for treatment here. Tallarico B7 says, not only
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: have I never been a patient there, I've literally never
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: even been to Ohio, which if you had any inkling
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: that someone might have some proof that you'd ever been there,
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: like you wouldn't post something so definitive. Because then all
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: you need is for one person to have one security
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: camera footage of you walking down the street in Ohio.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: And he's lying. He's like, I've literally never been there.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Then you have the New York Times, B9, who were
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: given security camera footage from Tallarico's own home that shows
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: him at home because he had the flu. They confirmed that.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: There is, you know, door or nest or whatever footage
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: of Tallarico at his home during those dates. It was
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: all a big hoax and a lie. And so there's
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: a lot to say here about the media about. But
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: I also think it's just like the desperation of Republicans
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: seeing the polls and realizing that this race may be
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: slipping away from them. And their last hope is that
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: something crazy might happen in the last two weeks that
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: would totally change everything. And they were hoping this would
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: be that thing.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: You know, the thing is, is you were talking about Elon.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: Elon was one of the people who was really boosting this.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: And you could say, oh, it's just because he cares
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: about the Republicans. I don't think it's true. Don't forget,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Elon has got Giga Texas, Giga Austin. I mean, one
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: of the largest manufacturing facilities, SpaceX headquarters down there as well.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is where I was talking about earlier.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: People do not appreciate what the Republican machine means to
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: the multibillion dollar, you know, oil, gas and all of
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: these other business executives. They rely on these offices to
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: get them tax breaks, to work on their behalf, to
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: lobby the federal government. I mean, there is maybe even trillions.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Texas GDP is $ 3. 5 trillion. I mean, it alone would
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: be one of the largest economies on earth. So just
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: consider what that means, because those people are tied up
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: deeply in the Republican machine. Whether Ken Pax is an
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: idiot or not, they don't care. They need him to win.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: And that's part of the reason why a lot of
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: this is happening.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really glad you mentioned Elon because it's such
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: an important point. Because not only, obviously, is he very
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: self-interested and business-interested in the Texas race, but in addition, obviously,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: he runs Twitter. And so he's able to amplify whatever
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: he wants to. I mean, he himself... We know from
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: the backstories that his own account is juiced to get
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: in front of many more people than it organically would
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: if you had a neutral algorithm. But then there was
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: an account that did an analysis and said, hey, this
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: audio is AI generated. Now, I don't actually think that
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: it was. That account was immediately suspended. Meanwhile, the community
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: note on the actual audio took forever to come up.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: There's just there's all kinds of game playing that he
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: can do with Twitter. So you have this just really
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: poisoned media ecosystem. And then to Ryan's point, influencers who
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: are willing to basically just post whatever, whenever, if it
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: serves them either financially or politically.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: Right. And, you know, it's fine. All right. You want
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: to post? Well, are you going to post about this
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Paxton video? Because the video is real. It actually looks
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: pretty bad. What do you think about that? You know,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: all of these. Yeah, I just think I think it
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: comes down to desperation. It also, you know, just yeah,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: we have a second or two. I've been wanting to
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: talk about this. The Twitter problem on the right is now,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: I would say, worse than it was even for the
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: left whenever it came to the, you know, woke one
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: era where people mistook Twitter for reality. I think they
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: have now fallen and are susceptible to the same thing.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: And it's because of the sheer amount of literal bullshit,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: you know, that circulates. Not only do they amplify, agree,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: but it becomes the same literal ecosystem. where they're completely
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: out of touch with the reality of polls and the
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: other signifiers from the activists or from the operatives who
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: are on the ground. If you look on Twitter today
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: about Tallarico, they're like, oh, Paxton's wiping the floor with him.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody actually believes that in Texas. I know people who
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: worked out. I mean, this is their job literally to
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: try and get Ken Paxton elected. They're despondent. And because
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: they have access to the real data, they have to
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: go to the events and they actually see the stuff
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: that's happening down there. I just think, you know, all
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of this, it will really, really come back to bite them.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And I think the midterms, a lot of the reason
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: the whole Trump presidency has gone the way it has,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: I think is actually downstream of a lot of what's
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: happened on Twitter. And I think that they will see
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: similar electoral consequences for believing the bubble, you know, that
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: they live in.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Well, and it's administration full of posters who are themselves influencers,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: like the, you know, secretary of war is media figure
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: and a poster JD Vance deeply into all of these
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: online worlds. You know, he appears to have pulled himself back,
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: but remember the beginning of the administration, he was in
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: like fighting with Zed Jelani during the campaign, fighting with
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: me on Twitter. Like, what are you doing? That is
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: the DNA of this administration. Um, so it's not surprising that,
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: especially with so much right-wing control now, not only of Twitter,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: also of Tik TOK, That they really have sort of
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: drank their own Kool-Aid about what is actually going on
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: and what the actual sentiment in the country is.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Last thing. It's funny here because, you know, you're
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: you're right. And you could see, though, why it happened
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: is they rode the online vibes to literal victory.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: And so but the thing is, and this is what
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I try to emphasize to them. behind the scenes is
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you guys still mistake Twitter for the YouTube
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: and the podcast ecosystem. Why don't you go and take
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: a look at how you're doing on TikTok and YouTube
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: or Instagram and actually see what the vibes are like
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: outside of the platform that your friend controls. Because at
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: that time, you and I remember 2024. I mean, it
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: was everywhere. Trump was, you know, riding high, not just
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: the podcasters, a lot of other different platforms. It's undeniable.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: And obviously it showed up in the in the votes.
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: That's not how it looks like today. And, you know,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: but they they want to decide to believe the one
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: platform left where things are actually still doing well for them.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: And they don't pay attention to the rest because if
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: they did, they would have woken up a long time ago.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: But hey, that's fine.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: Maybe Twitter is in real life, but maybe YouTube is.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, look at the statistics in terms of
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: literal screen time, of which, you know, I'm a critic,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: but I guess I'm a beneficiary as well. You have,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, at any one time, probably like one out
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: of every two Americans who is watching YouTube or Instagram
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Reel or TikTok, Every single day of every single hour, depending,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I guess, maybe at 3 a.m. Eastern time, they're not.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: That's about it in terms of how much they're engaged.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Not the case whenever it comes to Twitter. Never has
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: been the case. It's for elites. Always has been. And
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: so that shift is something they just refuse to recognize. OK,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: we've got Christy standing by. Let's get to it. Very
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: excited now to be joined by Christy Loke. She is
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: a research fellow at the MATS program, an expert on
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Chinese A.I., Christy, you and I originally connected because I
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: decided to explore this question. People keep saying, we need
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: to beat China. And I was like, okay, at what?
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: And what do they actually think? Very few people actually
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: read their documents. You're one of the few people who do.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: This is literally your area of expertise. Let's actually start
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: with C1. This was your original response to Dario Amadei
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: in his essay last month about pacing the frontier. You say,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: I've been researching China's AI strategy and pathways recently. for
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the better part of the last five years. Dario Amadei's
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: recent advocacy is going to fail because it's disingenuous. Sam
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Altman's call for international cooperation is similarly unconvincing. If they
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: want to coordinate China, they have to grasp the actual
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: strength of the Chinese AI ecosystem, admit to themselves and
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: others instead of just deliberately misleading the public, and resist
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: the temptation to use AI safety to justify commercial competitive decisions.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: So I know it's quite a bit to throw at
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: you for our first question here. But how do the
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Chinese perceive the American AI industry, and how do they
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: think about AI itself as a technology?
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think the Chinese government has been thinking about
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: AI for actually a very long time. So if we
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: trace back to 2017, Xi Jinping himself gave rise to
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: this concept of unseen changes of a century, where he
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: talks about emerging technologies, and this is post-AlphaGo moment, in
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: the context of... something of geopolitics significance, but also it
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: comes with great opportunities and risks when it comes to
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: approaching these technologies. And so they've always been thinking about
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: AI in terms of a great opportunity, but also potentially
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: a great risk and peril. And I think this is
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: actually very helpful for them when it comes to the
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: age of generative AI and post-Methos and Hugging Face open
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: AI incidents. Yeah. And I think in terms of Dario's
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: positioning of himself, it's always Coming across a little bit disingenuous,
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: he has written many an essay about the need to coordinate,
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: the need to do AI safely, but also the need
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: to beat China. And I think at some point, as
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: Chinese companies become so capable and so close to the
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: global frontier, it gets a little bit dicey for the
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: American top AI CEO to say, you know what, we're
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: going to try to develop AI safely, but we don't
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: really want to work with China. And in terms of
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: working with China, maybe we can just work on export
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: controls and take that as the main route to success.
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: It hasn't worked before, and it's basically creating this environment
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: that makes it really hard to negotiate.
• 55:14
  Speaker 6: In good faith with China.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Dario has been very hawkish with regard to China
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: for a long time. It's very core to his ideology
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: in particular. Christy, there's any number of things one could
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: be concerned about with regard to AI. There's the sort
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: of like social-cultural issues. There's misinformation concerns. You know, what
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: is this going to do to people's psychology if they
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: increasingly are like friends with an AI chatbot instead of
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: real world people? There's the job displacement concerns and there's
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: the existential risk or loss of control scenarios ending in
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: some sort of disaster, even potential extinction of the human
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: race or all of creation. How would you rank those
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: various concerns and others that, you know, in terms of
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: the viewpoint of the Chinese government?
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think they.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: Actually care a lot about immediate societal risk, you know,
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: in terms of human disempowerment.
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: That's true.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: But they also care a lot about risks that are
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: a threat to internal social stability, but also critical infrastructure security.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: And so on that front, they're absolutely concerned about post-metho
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: security implications. So, yeah, depending on the way that AI
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: risks are emerging, The Chinese government is actually very responsive
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: and very on top of understanding where the risks are heading.
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: Also very curious in general about what the rest of
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: the world is saying and doing and thinking on that front.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's put C4 up here on the screen. You
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: had an interesting story here which you sent our way.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: China isn't racing to artificial general intelligence, but U.S. companies are.
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: China's AI strategy prioritizes long-term developmental goals in contrast to
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Silicon Valley's super intelligence pursuit. Something that we hear from Trump,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: from Sam Altman, from Dario, is we have to build
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: it because the Chinese are going to build it first.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: You're basically saying that's not really true. What do you
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: mean by that? What do the Chinese actually want to
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: use AI for? What does long-term development mean?
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's actually a bit of a distinction here, right,
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: between the Chinese state and Chinese frontier AI companies. If
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: you ask Lan Wenfeng from DeepSea, He kind of has to,
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: but also think it perhaps is something he believes in.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: He actually wants to build AGI, but also diffuse it
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: globally so that.
• 57:33
  Speaker 6: Everyone can access it.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: So some AI CEOs in China are indeed very AGI-pilled,
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: and I would say maybe one or two of them are,
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: and that's it. And then in terms of what I
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: was writing there in 2025 about the Chinese state versus
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: the vision that.
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: Is often painted in the U.S. and also executed on
• 57:52
  Speaker 6: in the U.S., I think the.
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: Chinese state doesn't really think that AGI is necessary, that desirable.
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: Advancing AI capability is of course important for economic reasons,
• 58:06
  Speaker 3: for security reasons, for maybe even geopolitical strategic reasons. What
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: is really important, and they actually have a turn of
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: phrase for this, they call it four orientations to help
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: them figure out which science and technology actually stuff needs
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: to be prioritized versus others.
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: They think about AI very comprehensively.
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: And the reason why they do that is because they
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: think AI is primarily an economic growth engine that by
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: trying to get better at technologies that are emerging, that
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: are core, that are like AI, they can get the
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: innovation system to move a little bit faster, to move
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: a little bit more efficiently. And so China gets to
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: become a more mature economy. And so that is primarily
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: what they're focusing on. And so one of the prong
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: of the four orientations is getting close to the global frontier.
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: The other prong is actually the one that they really,
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: really care about in writing and doing, which is to
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: make sure that productivity gains emerge from these near frontier capabilities. Otherwise,
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: what's the point of technology as they would write? And
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: then the third prong is about technological sovereignty, because if
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: you can't control the supply chain, then that can become
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: a problem in the long run. And the fourth prong
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: is something that they consistently do, even though a lot
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: of naysayers thought they wouldn't once ChatGP happened. which is
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: to figure out what are the red lines for human
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: well-being when technology keeps increasing and growing and advancing? And also,
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: how do you distribute some of those technological gains in
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: society so people don't feel disempowered? Most people also feel
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: like their lives are getting better, but also safely as
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: the tech emerges.
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: And what is your sense of how close to the
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: frontier the best Chinese models are? And also, is there
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: a possibility of those models surpassing and taking over the lead,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: or is what they're doing primarily what you call fast following?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think probably a good sign of how good
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: Chinese models are beyond the benchmarks is the responses coming
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: out of the top AI labs from OpenAI and Anthropic,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: and also people who look at the frontier very closely.
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: So in July with GLM 5.3, we're starting to see
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of mini panicking around.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: Some in the US.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: And I think it's because for the first time, China
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: built a cyber capable model that is very, very close
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: to mythos in terms of capability. And it seems like
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: the writing is on the wall that China's just basically,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: the divide between the US when it comes to funding
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: capability is almost negligible. I think Stanford's AI index also
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: wrote something similar So the Chinese catch-up is happening.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 6: It's very real.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: At the same time, I think the Chinese state is
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: starting to become very concerned about how the AI risks
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: are emerging, where they are emerging, and also around questions
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: that we've been talking about a little while here, which
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 3: is like controllability of AI and alignability of AI. And
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: without securing those, I think the state can ultimately act
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: quite drastically against to either stop the technology from moving
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: as fast or to mandate more oversight or just really
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: going into meaningful agreement with the US on the AI front.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: Because at the end of the day, if what you're
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 3: after is sustainable economic growth and getting out of the
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: middle income trap through mastery of certain technologies, you don't
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: need AI to be a cyber weapon, right? You don't
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: need AI to become an AGI or an ASI for
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: you to love it and to benefit from it.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Christy, can you talk to us about why open source?
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: They seem ideologically committed to it from a business and
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: a state level. Why would they want open source models?
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: Is it about efficiency like you've laid out competition because
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: they believe that that's kind of their comparative advantage? And
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: how do they square that with their, you know, genuine
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: need for state control over everything?
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's a lot of serendipity with open
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: models because it came from a place of adaptation and
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: also a place of weakness. So in, well, originally, right?
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: So in 2023 and 2024, a lot of Chinese companies,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: like AI companies, saw ChatGPT being very successful and said,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: we also want in, right? We also want to build
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: these seemingly powerful AI models. And as they went into it,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: because of these chip shortages and chip supply issues in China,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: especially on the frontier in advance, you know, bleeding edge side,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: they really struggle to do this. And so what happened
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: is that it took them a while. Initially, it was
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: like two to three years away from the US frontier, right?
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: And so in order to differentiate themselves, they need to
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: offer the best price. And ultimately, as the AI industry evolves,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: they realize that being more open in terms of making
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: their model accessible, but also manipulable and customizable, and also
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: being able to be downloaded and also fine-tuned on private
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: company data really sells, right? Really is popular. And so
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: that resulted in the emerging open model ecosystem where more
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: and more companies went in. But what really changed the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: open model space and the AI kind of industry in
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: China was the deep-seek moment. When I spoke to some
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: of the Chinese researchers when I went there earlier this year,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: they also told me that it was very surprising for
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: them that the Chinese models got so good. And so
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: what that led to was just like capital interest, but
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: also a lot of a sudden search of self-confidence. And
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: so you get more and more companies kind of entering
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: the space, importantly, because it's open. these model companies are
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: able to build on the new secret sauces from other
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: companies and make their models keep getting better. It's almost
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: like a collective project in some sense. And so it
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: just caught up very quickly because of this. And the
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: state has always been interested in getting better at open innovation,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: you know, with China having models and not models, but
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: like having technology that can go abroad and learn from
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: abroad and like.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: Bring businesses home. Like they're always interested in that.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: And because open models are downloadable, it kind of overcomes
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: some of the China trust issue that a lot of
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: people in the West.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Might have, right?
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: And so it happened very successfully. The Chinese state was like, okay,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: this is great. We're going to continue with this. And
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: so Xi Jinping's speech in July this year at the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: World of AI conference very much is basically a stamp
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: of approval and also saying the risks are getting really wonky.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: So maybe we should work together with the rest.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Of the world.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: Christy, that's actually a great point because what you hear
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: from a lot of folks here in the U.S. who
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: don't want any regulation on AI is basically like, well,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: even if we did, well, there's China. And so we
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: have to be China. We're locked in this death match.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: You know, if they get it first, then it's all
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: over for us. Trump says whoever wins the race, the
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: AI race wins. And meanwhile, what you're indicating is that
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: there is every possibility of working out some sort of
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: an agreement with China, something that those types of people
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: would say was an impossibility and you could never trust them, etc.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: etc.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: So what gives you that hope? And also, what did
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: you make of the meeting that Trump and Xi just
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: had and some of the deliverables from that?
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was actually very promising because I've
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: been in the field for so long.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 6: So the fact that for so.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: Long, even under Biden, when a lot of people thought
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: he would be softer in China, he wasn't. A lot
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: of people thought that, you know, maybe something would happen
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: from the US-China dialogue there and nothing really happened. And
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: I think there were two main reasons, right? So the
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: US-Chinese AI disparity was much larger. And so China felt like,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: you know, it.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 6: Should be catching up.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: It shouldn't be talking about AI safety per se. It
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: hasn't seen any of the safety risks yet. And so
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: the climate for talking really didn't exist. for real talk,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: didn't exist. And because the Busan summit of last year
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: hasn't happened then, and so chip was still very much
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: a point of contention between the two countries, lots of
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: contention there. Whereas after the Busan summit, basically, Xi Jinping said,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: you know, we.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 6: Got soybeans and we got rare earth, right?
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: And then the US and China start to have to
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: stop weaponizing these dependencies as much, or they do, but
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: at least, you know, there is a tenuous ceiling in
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: terms of their tension over chips and AI.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 6: And so because of.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: The pace of AI development and risks, and because of
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: these tenuous ceiling, they're able to then proceed. And so
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: what happened is that they agreed to continuing AI dialogues,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: like AI safety dialogues, and also an incident hotline or
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: reporting mechanism where if something horrible like mythos, but like
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: gone bad or hugging phase AI incident, but like on
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: mass and against critical infrastructure, they can talk to each
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: other and let each other know, hey, I didn't mean it,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: that wasn't me. And so that is going to be
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: increasingly important going forward. The fact that they got those
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: two done, I am proud of them. And I think
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: those are very, very good starting points. I also tend
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: to think about US-China air coordination as a ladder, right?
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: If you jump from now to straight up pacing, If
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: you jump from now to just a ban on AI,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: then both sides have costs that they are perhaps not
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: willing to take on. And the cost can be asymmetric
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: if you ask for common standards around open models when
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: the U.S. doesn't have the frontier open models right now.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: Whereas the things that they've agreed on, I think, makes
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: sense and can help them climb up that ladder of.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 6: Trust and coordination.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: Christy, my last question for you is kind of on
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: the social impact of AI within China. And that was
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: a big question. It's a huge country with literally over
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: a billion people. But let's put C7 up here on
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: the screen. I'm sure you've watched the data center backlash
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: in the West and in the United States specifically. I
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: was reading this recently. China is racing to build data
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: centers in a bid for AI supremacy from the Financial Times.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: They have 10 national data center clusters based on demand
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: and energy resources. significant portion being built in Inner Mongolia
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: and in some of the other more remote areas of
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: the country. Obviously, public opinion is very hard to gauge
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: inside of China. But how do the Chinese people feel
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: about the AI infrastructure build out? How do they feel
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: about AI, you know, more generally? Because it's very negative
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: here in the United States. What do they think?
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so China has a long-standing strategy, I think, since
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: 2022 around compute build-out. And it primarily has to do with, okay,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: so the East coastal side are the very wealthy cities
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: like provinces like Shanghai and all that. And so how
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 3: do they make sure that these places are able to
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 3: access energy and compute from other parts of China that
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: are very vast in their geography but less densely populated?
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 3: and it's perhaps colder and so can do, you know,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: like AI training with less of an environmental damage, but
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: also less environmental impact on the residents as well.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 6: And so they've thought this through pretty well.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: And I think the challenge here is about making sure
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: that they can, you know, help companies or have companies
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: coordinate compute or like energy access a little bit better
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: as they have already built out a lot of these facilities.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: So that's almost a good problem to have.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: And partially because they've thought this through, and partially because
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: I think state market trust in the Chinese context is
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: oddly still very much there. So people trust that the
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: government is able to manage security risk, right? Nobody's really
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: asking the government if they can deal with X risk,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: because they know that that's in the purview of the government,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: and the government is taken to their kind of duty
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: to tackle things like that. And there's also this different
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: relationship between the state and market in China. So if
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: you're a big tech platform and you run a ride
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: sharing app and your algorithms are very risky that it
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: starts hurting drivers, well, there will be public backlash. And
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: in the case of 2018 to 2020, that's exactly what happened.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: And the government, I think, just started passing some laws
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: to protect this. But, you know, in terms of like,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: holding these companies accountable. China's done the big platform crackdown
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: a while back, right? So the state has shown time
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: and time again that it's willing to rein in some
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: of these private sector incentives in a way that I
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: think the U.S. government might struggle to at this moment
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: in time.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: Good point. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you for
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: your time, Christy. We really appreciate it. We learned a
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: lot and hope to see you again. Thanks for joining us.