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Episode Three Hundred Eighteen: The Lamest Duck · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode 318 of the Death of Journalism podcast.
0:04
Speaker 1: My name is John Ziegler. I'm your host on this
0:06
Speaker 1: week's show. The midterm elections are a total wipeout for
0:10
Speaker 1: Republicans and President Trump, even worse than I predicted. I'll
0:14
Speaker 1: have a full and in-depth analysis with as few I
0:19
Speaker 1: told you so's as possible. Plus, what is the real
0:22
Speaker 1: reason behind the sudden parity in minor league professional football
0:26
Speaker 1: and basketball? the latest in the Shane Conlon-Jerry Sandusky as
0:30
Speaker 1: innocent interview drama as we reach the 15th anniversary of
0:34
Speaker 1: that fake scandal, and some personal notes about what's been
0:38
Speaker 1: going on in the Ziegler family. Well, the midterm elections
0:44
Speaker 1: are pretty much over, although there are still some key
0:46
Speaker 1: races to be decided as we tape this episode of
0:50
Speaker 1: the podcast. And things turned out even worse than I
0:55
Speaker 1: had anticipated and predicted. In case you missed it, my
0:59
Speaker 1: final prediction, which I adjusted slightly from last week's podcast
1:04
Speaker 1: online because of some new polling, specifically from the New
1:07
Speaker 1: York Times, which turned out to be almost 100% accurate,
1:10
Speaker 1: that was horrific for Republicans all over the country. My
1:15
Speaker 1: final prediction online was that Democrats would end up with
1:19
Speaker 1: 53 seats in the Senate and 240 seats in the House.
1:22
Speaker 1: I gave a range, the top of that range, would
1:28
Speaker 1: have been 55 seats in the Senate, 245 seats in
1:33
Speaker 1: the House. Now, as we speak, 55 to 45 is
1:38
Speaker 1: the exact projection of a couple of the AI bots,
1:43
Speaker 1: specifically ChatGPT and Grok, although I'm not convinced that those
1:48
Speaker 1: numbers are going to end up being accurate. They're certainly
1:50
Speaker 1: going to be in the ballpark. It looks to me
1:53
Speaker 1: as if Democrats are going to have at least 55
1:55
Speaker 1: seats which was at the very top end of the
1:58
Speaker 1: range that I provided on the day of the midterms
2:03
Speaker 1: in the Senate. They could have 56, depending on what
2:06
Speaker 1: ends up happening in Mississippi, of all places, and Alaska.
2:12
Speaker 1: I think 240 in the House is pretty much a
2:14
Speaker 1: done deal. It could be 245. It could be even
2:17
Speaker 1: more than 245. So bottom line, even though I was
2:22
Speaker 1: among conservatives- one of the more pessimistic predictors, if not
2:27
Speaker 1: the most pessimistic predictor. I was trying to be, believe
2:30
Speaker 1: it or not, optimistic. And I've always said that that's
2:34
Speaker 1: when I'm most likely to be wrong. And while I
2:36
Speaker 1: was certainly more accurate than the vast majority of people,
2:40
Speaker 1: especially on the right, I did miss a few things
2:43
Speaker 1: about this. This is much worse for Republicans than I
2:46
Speaker 1: had anticipated. And not just in the numbers. Numbers wise,
2:51
Speaker 1: I wasn't very far off. but it was in the
2:55
Speaker 1: magnitude of the loss as well as the locations of
3:00
Speaker 1: the loss that were so devastating, not just for this year,
3:07
Speaker 1: but for the future of the country. And that's always
3:10
Speaker 1: been my major focus is how are we going to
3:13
Speaker 1: keep this thing together? And look, I realized that in
3:16
Speaker 1: the modern media, especially when people are paying for content,
3:21
Speaker 1: the number one job of the content provider is to
3:24
Speaker 1: generally make your audience feel good or at least feel
3:29
Speaker 1: better about the news of the day. That's the new
3:32
Speaker 1: business model, which I can't stand. That's not what I do.
3:37
Speaker 1: That's not my MO. So if that's what you want,
3:41
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. This is not the place for you this week.
3:44
Speaker 1: I mean, there are a couple of little bright spots
3:46
Speaker 1: along the way that I'm going to try to point out,
3:49
Speaker 1: but they're not many. And if you're someone who cares
3:53
Speaker 1: deeply as I do about the future of the country,
3:55
Speaker 1: the results of this midterm election are extremely daunting and depressing.
4:04
Speaker 1: I think even worse than the numbers suggest. But just
4:07
Speaker 1: to be clear, it looks as if the Democrats are
4:12
Speaker 1: going to have at least 55 seats in the Senate,
4:13
Speaker 1: at least 240 in the House. That is... a dominant
4:20
Speaker 1: majority by modern standards in both houses of Congress, and
4:25
Speaker 1: the Donald Trump presidency is effectively over. That's the fact. Now,
4:30
Speaker 1: there's certainly things he can do on the edges. His
4:34
Speaker 1: executive orders are not going to be taken seriously by anybody.
4:38
Speaker 1: He'll pass absolutely nothing unless he decides to make deals
4:41
Speaker 1: with Democrats, a subject I'll get to a little bit
4:43
Speaker 1: later on. Militarily, he still has options, but the funding
4:48
Speaker 1: for that will dry up very, very quickly. So ending
4:52
Speaker 1: the war with Iran in any sort of clearly victorious
4:56
Speaker 1: fashion seems to be a pipe dream at this point
4:59
Speaker 1: because Iran knows that Trump's balls have been cut off
5:04
Speaker 1: by this election result. And clearly the Iran war played
5:07
Speaker 1: a huge role in that, specifically its impact on the
5:11
Speaker 1: price of gasoline. But before we get into the real
5:14
Speaker 1: world impact of all this. Let's just go through what
5:18
Speaker 1: actually transpired. The biggest mistake I made was I actually
5:22
Speaker 1: thought Republicans would hold on in Texas. I wasn't sure
5:25
Speaker 1: about it at all. I certainly was open to the
5:27
Speaker 1: idea that Texas could fall, at least on the Senate side,
5:32
Speaker 1: but I had no idea. I was completely wrong about
5:36
Speaker 1: the concept that Democrats could dominate Texas, take the governor's house,
5:43
Speaker 1: take the Senate seat, and do so in dominating fashion
5:49
Speaker 1: in Texas. Texas has fallen much like the Alamo. We
5:55
Speaker 1: now have a Latina governor of Texas. We now have
6:00
Speaker 1: a extremely socially liberal U.S. senator from Texas. Now, that
6:08
Speaker 1: was 100% Trump's fault. Now, these margins are so great.
6:12
Speaker 1: I'm going to as I always am, try to be
6:15
Speaker 1: as fair as possible to Trump. He made a massive
6:17
Speaker 1: mistake enforcing this horrible candidate, Paxton, on Republicans in Texas. Cornyn,
6:26
Speaker 1: the incumbent, certainly would have had a much better chance.
6:29
Speaker 1: Steve Cortez, in our last episode of the podcast, said
6:32
Speaker 1: if Cornyn's the candidate, he wins based upon the margins.
6:35
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that's the case. I mean, Abbott, the governor,
6:37
Speaker 1: who's been a very successful long-term governor there, he got
6:40
Speaker 1: shellacked too. And it's very obvious, another thing that Steve
6:44
Speaker 1: Cortez was concerned about in last week's episode of the podcast,
6:48
Speaker 1: that Hispanic voters flipped in historic fashion from the way
6:52
Speaker 1: they voted in 2024. Now, why they did that is
6:56
Speaker 1: a very interesting and open question. I don't know that
6:59
Speaker 1: anybody knows. Of course, the left is going to say, oh,
7:02
Speaker 1: it was immigration. It was ICE. The right is going
7:05
Speaker 1: to say, well, no, this is about affordability, the price
7:07
Speaker 1: of gasoline. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle,
7:13
Speaker 1: but the incredibly fragile coalition that Trump put together in
7:17
Speaker 1: places like Texas in 2024 completely and totally collapsed. And
7:23
Speaker 1: Texas has fallen. And for Texas to fall so dramatically
7:29
Speaker 1: is incredibly depressing and daunting. Because once that happens on
7:36
Speaker 1: the national stage in a presidential election, it doesn't matter
7:41
Speaker 1: about you know, the next census and doesn't matter about
7:45
Speaker 1: population shifts into allegedly red territories, you lose Texas, there's
7:52
Speaker 1: absolutely positively no way to win a presidential election. None.
7:57
Speaker 1: It cannot happen. I mean, barring like the most amazing
8:03
Speaker 1: inside straight of all time, you can't lose New York, Illinois, California,
8:08
Speaker 1: and Texas, and somehow still win a presidential election, even
8:14
Speaker 1: if you get some sort of advantage from the next census.
8:18
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm not sure that Republicans are
8:20
Speaker 1: even going to get an advantage from the next census
8:22
Speaker 1: because the places that used to be red based upon
8:25
Speaker 1: this week's results are no longer really red, including South Carolina.
8:32
Speaker 1: So Texas and South Carolina fall. Trump takes, or at
8:36
Speaker 1: least should, of course he doesn't in real life, should
8:39
Speaker 1: take an enormous amount of blame and responsibility for those
8:42
Speaker 1: two Senate losses because he chose the candidates. It's his brand.
8:47
Speaker 1: It's his brand that's dominating the Republican Party. That's how
8:51
Speaker 1: every single voter sees the Republican brand through the prism
8:54
Speaker 1: of Trump, 1,000%. And he chose the candidates, terrible candidates,
9:00
Speaker 1: both of whom lost in places that a year ago
9:03
Speaker 1: would have been impossible to even conceive of having them lose. Texas,
9:09
Speaker 1: and South Carolina. And as I already said, Mississippi might fall.
9:13
Speaker 1: In fact, at this taping, it looks like even though
9:16
Speaker 1: the vote is exceedingly close in Mississippi, that the remaining votes,
9:21
Speaker 1: the couple percentage points that are left, are seemingly much
9:25
Speaker 1: more favorable to the Democratic candidate. So it hasn't been
9:29
Speaker 1: called yet. It could theoretically somehow break the Republican way,
9:34
Speaker 1: but wouldn't surprise me at all if Mississippi falls and
9:40
Speaker 1: Alaska falls, which would get Democrats to 56 Senate seats.
9:45
Speaker 1: But Mississippi, potentially. South Carolina, gone. Texas, gone. Georgia, so
9:52
Speaker 1: far gone, it's not even competitive. So you've seen this historically.
9:58
Speaker 1: The Southeast Coast, has completely fallen to Democratic hands in
10:06
Speaker 1: the last couple of election cycles, all under the watch
10:11
Speaker 1: and the branding of Donald Trump. Florida, under the branding
10:16
Speaker 1: of Ron DeSantis, is the only real exception. And we're
10:21
Speaker 1: seeing now almost literally the walls closing in, if you
10:24
Speaker 1: look at a map. Almost literally the walls closing in
10:27
Speaker 1: on the middle of the country. The edge of the country,
10:30
Speaker 1: other than Florida, is basically all blue now. And it's
10:36
Speaker 1: the middle of the country that's being squeezed out. And
10:41
Speaker 1: we are in Ohio Falls, of course. So now it's
10:45
Speaker 1: even eating into the middle of the country. Apparently, Donald
10:50
Speaker 1: Trump's praise of the Republican senator's ass in Ohio didn't work.
10:54
Speaker 1: It's like his praise of the ass of Nicki Minaj
10:56
Speaker 1: didn't work as a closing argument. I told you this
11:01
Speaker 1: is going to be a rough sled here, folks, because
11:04
Speaker 1: we're all about the truth on the Death of Journalism podcast.
11:08
Speaker 1: But this is where we are. And maybe the most
11:13
Speaker 1: depressing of all of the defeats, it's hard to pick,
11:16
Speaker 1: but because symbolically of what it means, in Michigan, Abdul
11:21
Speaker 1: Al-Sayed is going to be the new Democratic senator from Michigan.
11:28
Speaker 1: Abdul Al-Sayed, this despite the fact that his Democratic opponent,
11:34
Speaker 1: Haley Stevens, I believe far too late and under circumstances
11:38
Speaker 1: that were far too easily discounted by the news media
11:42
Speaker 1: and by Democrats, the Congresswoman Haley Stevens endorsed El-Sayed's Republican opponent.
11:52
Speaker 1: And boy, did that cause a massive amount of consternation.
11:55
Speaker 1: Oh my God. Democrats went batshit crazy. And boy, did
12:00
Speaker 1: they expose themselves. The media exposed themselves on that entire situation.
12:06
Speaker 1: If the exact opposite had happened, and it has happened
12:09
Speaker 1: many times before. I mean, look at the way Liz
12:12
Speaker 1: Cheney was praised as a, as an alleged Republican going
12:16
Speaker 1: against Donald Trump and so many others like her, and
12:20
Speaker 1: I'm an anti-Trump Republican, and I can see this as
12:23
Speaker 1: clear as day, the hypocrisy, the double standard here is extraordinary,
12:29
Speaker 1: where we now have the situation where if you're a
12:33
Speaker 1: Republican who betrays your party, you're a hero. If you're
12:38
Speaker 1: a Democrat, you're crazy. You're insane. There's something wrong in
12:43
Speaker 1: your life. You're unstable. You're being paid off. That's literally
12:52
Speaker 1: the way the Democratic Party and the legacy news media
12:55
Speaker 1: reacted to Haley Stevens. Unfortunately, it wasn't just the left-wing media.
13:00
Speaker 1: Megyn fucking Kelly attacked Haley Stevens. This is where I
13:04
Speaker 1: knew we were no longer anywhere near the gravitational pull
13:09
Speaker 1: of the rational earth. How the fuck did we get
13:12
Speaker 1: to a place where Megyn Kelly is attacking Haley Stevens
13:17
Speaker 1: for endorsing a Republican Senate candidate against Abdul El-Sayed? How
13:27
Speaker 1: did we get here? But that's what happened. And the
13:32
Speaker 1: alliance of lunacy, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson claiming that Trump's
13:37
Speaker 1: going to start a nuclear war that's going to kill
13:39
Speaker 1: millions of people. And Candace Owens, all of them clearly
13:43
Speaker 1: being motivated, at least at some level, by anti-Semitism, absolutely
13:49
Speaker 1: played at least somewhat of a role in what happened
13:52
Speaker 1: here because the MAGA base has fragmented. It has dissipated.
13:58
Speaker 1: It clearly did not have the energy, anywhere near the
14:01
Speaker 1: energy that it had in 2024. And while I don't
14:03
Speaker 1: want to give Kelly, Carlson, and Owens, the Alliance of Lunacy,
14:10
Speaker 1: too much credibility. On the margins, they had at least
14:14
Speaker 1: some sort of impact. And I don't think they gave
14:17
Speaker 1: Abdul El-Sayed the victory, but they didn't help. And they
14:22
Speaker 1: really exposed themselves. I mean, what the fuck? I mean,
14:26
Speaker 1: I'm the biggest Megyn Kelly cynic on the right that
14:28
Speaker 1: there is. And even I was like, how can this
14:31
Speaker 1: be real? I was like, is this AI? How can
14:34
Speaker 1: this possibly be happening? But the liberal media really exposed
14:39
Speaker 1: themselves as well, less surprisingly, when it came to rallying
14:44
Speaker 1: to Abdul Al-Sayed's behalf when his primary opponent endorsed the Republican.
14:51
Speaker 1: The New York Times even went to the extraordinary. I mean,
14:55
Speaker 1: this is really amazing. This is going to get lost
14:58
Speaker 1: in the midst of the blue tsunami. But this is
15:02
Speaker 1: a normal week. This would have been a hell of
15:03
Speaker 1: a a media story that would have gotten a lot
15:06
Speaker 1: of attention. So the New York Times basically decides in
15:10
Speaker 1: the wake of the Haley Stevens endorsement of Al-Sayed that
15:13
Speaker 1: we have to rush to his defense. And they put
15:18
Speaker 1: out this story, Jewish leaders in Michigan urge support for
15:23
Speaker 1: Al-Sayed's Senate bid. The public petition comes after other Michigan
15:29
Speaker 1: Jews registered their discontent with Abdul Al-Sayed, the state's Democrat
15:35
Speaker 1: Senate nominee. Now, first of all, how the fuck is
15:39
Speaker 1: this even a story? Because what you have here is
15:42
Speaker 1: allegedly 500 Jewish people who are signing a petition saying
15:47
Speaker 1: that they're voting for Abdul Al-Sayed. Who cares? That is
15:52
Speaker 1: not a fucking story in the New York Times. the
15:56
Speaker 1: day before a midterm election. It's not. 500 allegedly Jewish
16:02
Speaker 1: people signing a petition for a candidate. That's a campaign
16:05
Speaker 1: commercial that the New York Times did in what they
16:08
Speaker 1: thought was an emergency situation where they had to come
16:13
Speaker 1: to his aid because his primary opponent that he barely
16:17
Speaker 1: beat was endorsing the Republican. But the hilarity came when
16:22
Speaker 1: people just did a rudimentary survey of the list of
16:26
Speaker 1: the 500 Jewish people who had allegedly endorsed Abdul Al-Sayed.
16:33
Speaker 1: Forgetting for the fact that this is not a news story.
16:36
Speaker 1: This is not a story worthy of being in the
16:38
Speaker 1: New York Times. It might be worthy of like a
16:41
Speaker 1: local Detroit newspaper doing a small story on it, but
16:44
Speaker 1: that is not worthy of a New York Times story
16:48
Speaker 1: about a Michigan Senate race. But the hilarity came in
16:51
Speaker 1: when people looked at the list and they found that
16:55
Speaker 1: Some of the people were dead, apparently. Some of the
16:58
Speaker 1: people couldn't be found. And one of them was quite
17:02
Speaker 1: literally named Jack Meoff. The New York Times actually published
17:12
Speaker 1: a list where one of the names was Jack Meoff.
17:21
Speaker 1: Like it's an episode of South Park or something. Jack
17:25
Speaker 1: Me Off. And nobody in the New York Times looked
17:27
Speaker 1: at the list and said, hmm, guys, maybe we should
17:30
Speaker 1: check this one. Has anyone talked to Jack Me Off?
17:36
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the fucking New York Times. And
17:42
Speaker 1: nobody checked the list and wondered about Jack Me Off.
17:48
Speaker 1: but this is where we are, the death of journalism,
17:51
Speaker 1: the fucking New York Times. But this is how desperate
17:54
Speaker 1: they were, or they thought they were. In the end,
17:57
Speaker 1: it probably wouldn't have mattered because I think Abdul El-Sayed
17:59
Speaker 1: won by a large enough margin where it didn't really
18:02
Speaker 1: matter what Haley Stevens did or the New York Times did.
18:05
Speaker 1: I frankly think Stevens' endorsement was way too late. Had
18:09
Speaker 1: it come earlier, I think it could have maybe had
18:12
Speaker 1: an impact, but It clearly did not. I mean, she
18:16
Speaker 1: made one of those strangest career moves of all time.
18:19
Speaker 1: I mean, within a couple of days, she goes from
18:21
Speaker 1: being a Democratic congresswoman in good standing to now someone
18:26
Speaker 1: with no career in the midst of a Democrat tsunami.
18:31
Speaker 1: That's wow. OK, that's a hell of a fumble. I mean,
18:34
Speaker 1: I respect what she did. I really do, because it
18:37
Speaker 1: seemed as if she was making a stand on principle,
18:39
Speaker 1: which is exceedingly rare these days. But it also shows
18:42
Speaker 1: why people don't stand on principle, because it rarely works out.
18:46
Speaker 1: And oftentimes it turns out disastrously. And that's what happened
18:50
Speaker 1: with Haley Stevens. And then we have what's going on
18:53
Speaker 1: in Alaska. And can you imagine if this had not
18:57
Speaker 1: been a complete and total wipeout, which it is on
19:01
Speaker 1: the Senate and the House side? Can you imagine if
19:04
Speaker 1: the control of the U.S. Senate was coming down to
19:08
Speaker 1: Alaska right now? Because Right now, as of this taping,
19:13
Speaker 1: it's effectively tied with the Democrat winning a very complicated
19:19
Speaker 1: system by, last I checked, less than 1,000 votes or thereabouts.
19:25
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. The Republican incumbent is a guy
19:28
Speaker 1: by the name of Dan Sullivan. Democrats recruited a fake
19:33
Speaker 1: Dan Sullivan to siphon away votes from the real Dan Sullivan.
19:39
Speaker 1: And the fake Dan Sullivan has far more votes right
19:43
Speaker 1: now than the real Dan Sullivan is losing by. And
19:49
Speaker 1: the New York Times. this again shows how completely fucked
19:53
Speaker 1: journalism is. The New York Times a few days before
19:55
Speaker 1: the election did a story about this. Now, This was
19:59
Speaker 1: already known, but there were some details that were not known.
20:02
Speaker 1: The level of the conspiracy within the Democratic Party was
20:06
Speaker 1: not known. The New York Times revealed the whole thing. Actual, legitimate,
20:11
Speaker 1: good journalism. On the eve of an election, the Democratic Party,
20:15
Speaker 1: total hypocrites when it comes to the issue of democracy,
20:19
Speaker 1: because they are playing fast and loose with Democratic principles.
20:24
Speaker 1: They're trying to fool voters. They concocted this fake Dan Sullivan.
20:29
Speaker 1: They recruited this fake Dan Sullivan purely to try to
20:33
Speaker 1: fool voters. And the New York Times reported on it. Well,
20:38
Speaker 1: the backlash among New York Times subscribers was so strong,
20:43
Speaker 1: the New York Times basically had to apologize for having
20:46
Speaker 1: done journalism because they did something that might not be
20:50
Speaker 1: helpful to their team. This is a classic example of
20:55
Speaker 1: why journalism is dead. You cannot, if you're the New
20:58
Speaker 1: York Times, do anything that's going to piss off your
21:00
Speaker 1: subscriber base because your job, as I said at the
21:03
Speaker 1: beginning of the podcast, is to make your subscribers feel
21:06
Speaker 1: better about what's going on in the world. It's not
21:09
Speaker 1: about to tell the truth. It has nothing to do
21:11
Speaker 1: with telling the truth. It's about making them feel better.
21:15
Speaker 1: That's the only way you can make big money in
21:16
Speaker 1: this day and age, in the current business climate of
21:20
Speaker 1: the news, broken business model of the news media. So
21:24
Speaker 1: the New York Times basically had to, they didn't say apologize.
21:27
Speaker 1: They had to explain and, you know, basically do penance
21:32
Speaker 1: for having committed a sin against the Democratic team. When
21:38
Speaker 1: in reality, the story was incredibly, one, accurate and two, important.
21:43
Speaker 1: And we may see this go, who knows where this
21:47
Speaker 1: is going to go. If the current margins stay where
21:50
Speaker 1: they are, and my view, rudimentary look at the numbers
21:53
Speaker 1: indicates that they will. This is going to be exceedingly close.
21:57
Speaker 1: If the real Dan Sullivan loses, I think it's going
22:00
Speaker 1: to be by less than by the amount of votes
22:03
Speaker 1: that the fake Dan Sullivan got. And if that happens,
22:07
Speaker 1: I mean, who the hell knows how it all turns out.
22:09
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's going to be court battles over it.
22:12
Speaker 1: And what the New York Times reported was incredibly important.
22:17
Speaker 1: And in a rational world, would have resulted in the
22:22
Speaker 1: Democratic candidate losing, but we don't live in that world anymore.
22:27
Speaker 1: So journalism is dying. The New York Times is proving
22:33
Speaker 1: it with both the El-Sayed and the Dan Sullivan stories. Now,
22:37
Speaker 1: the numbers here are horrific if you're someone like me
22:41
Speaker 1: who does not want Democratic control. And there are very,
22:45
Speaker 1: very few bright spots. But even though I'm pretty well
22:49
Speaker 1: known as a pessimist, I am always trying to find
22:52
Speaker 1: some sort of bright spot. And there were a couple
22:56
Speaker 1: within the massacre of this midterm election. One tiny bright
23:02
Speaker 1: spot actually almost turned out to be maybe the most
23:06
Speaker 1: depressing result of the night. I've been one of the
23:09
Speaker 1: very few people that has been focused on a congressional
23:12
Speaker 1: race in Arizona where the Democrat Bernadette Greene-Palencia made an
23:17
Speaker 1: allegation of having been brutally raped by two men while
23:20
Speaker 1: on the campaign trail for which there's absolutely no evidence.
23:24
Speaker 1: And the authorities about which have gone completely silent and
23:27
Speaker 1: the media has gone completely silent. And it's a very
23:31
Speaker 1: red district. It was obvious to me that she was
23:33
Speaker 1: doing this as a look at me moment, maybe throw
23:38
Speaker 1: a Hail Mary. I didn't think it was going to work. Well,
23:41
Speaker 1: she was actually leading when I went to sleep last night.
23:45
Speaker 1: It appears as if she's going to lose. But this
23:48
Speaker 1: is a very red district and it almost worked. This
23:52
Speaker 1: fantastical fake rape allegation that even the media has decided, well,
23:57
Speaker 1: let's not focus on that. Let's better left that one
24:00
Speaker 1: unsolved because we might not like what we find out.
24:04
Speaker 1: And yet this woman was not crushed by the election
24:08
Speaker 1: results in a very red district. That to me might
24:12
Speaker 1: be in a low key fashion, the most telling congressional
24:16
Speaker 1: result of the entire night. When you have a red district,
24:21
Speaker 1: a woman who's underqualified, unknown, makes a fake rape allegation
24:26
Speaker 1: and she almost wins. That's how large the blue tsunami
24:32
Speaker 1: was throughout the country. Now, there were some good aspects
24:37
Speaker 1: of the Blue Tsunami, one of which was the fake
24:41
Speaker 1: Obama-Swami is done, it appears. Now, he's so young and
24:46
Speaker 1: he's got enough celebrity that you can never say for
24:48
Speaker 1: sure in this day and age. But it appears, having
24:52
Speaker 1: lost the race for Ohio governor, that the fake Obama-Swami's career,
24:57
Speaker 1: at least in the short run, is totally over. By
25:00
Speaker 1: the way, it wouldn't shock me at all since he
25:01
Speaker 1: is a complete fake. That's me naming him the fake
25:05
Speaker 1: Obama Swami, as opposed to the fake Ram Swami. I
25:11
Speaker 1: think it's one of the better nicknames that certainly I've
25:13
Speaker 1: ever come up with. And maybe anyone's ever come up
25:15
Speaker 1: with in the history of modern politics. It would not
25:18
Speaker 1: surprise me at all. The fake Obama Swami ended up
25:21
Speaker 1: becoming a Democrat. That would be very telling to see
25:24
Speaker 1: what happens because he is the ultimate shape shifter. And
25:29
Speaker 1: I don't have any idea what he really believes. but
25:32
Speaker 1: he lost the governor's race in Ohio. And meanwhile, you know,
25:37
Speaker 1: and there's been an inherent rivalry between the fake Obama
25:40
Speaker 1: Swami and Ron DeSantis. I believe that whether by design
25:45
Speaker 1: or by coincidence, the fake Obama Swami presidential candidacy was
25:50
Speaker 1: intended to damage Ron DeSantis in 2024. And Ron DeSantis
25:56
Speaker 1: is about the only major Republican figure who who comes
26:01
Speaker 1: out of this midterm election looking good. Now, I am
26:04
Speaker 1: not delusional enough to believe that that's somehow going to
26:08
Speaker 1: create enough momentum for him to have a real good
26:11
Speaker 1: shot at the Republican presidential nomination for president in 2028.
26:16
Speaker 1: I wish that it would, but I don't think we
26:18
Speaker 1: even come close to living in that world. But Florida
26:22
Speaker 1: was able to hold the line, barely. They held the
26:27
Speaker 1: line in the governor's race, the Senate race, a property
26:33
Speaker 1: tax provision. They did okay in the congressional side of things.
26:38
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis has built a fortress in Florida that was
26:43
Speaker 1: able to withstand, for the most part, this blue tsunami.
26:49
Speaker 1: And he deserves an enormous amount of credit for that.
26:51
Speaker 1: He will not get that kind of credit. Obviously, you
26:55
Speaker 1: probably remember, I was one of the strongest Ron DeSantis
26:59
Speaker 1: supporters ever since basically the middle of 2020 when he
27:02
Speaker 1: stood up against the COVID panic and turned out to
27:05
Speaker 1: be right. And without Ron DeSantis, I'm not sure we
27:09
Speaker 1: ever get out of the COVID panic. But of course,
27:13
Speaker 1: we had the opportunity in 2024 to fix history, get
27:16
Speaker 1: rid of Donald Trump, take a new path, find someone
27:21
Speaker 1: who was incredibly competent, someone who's young, someone who knows
27:25
Speaker 1: what he's doing. someone who cares about conservatism, someone with
27:29
Speaker 1: a track record of courage and accomplishment. But no, no, no.
27:33
Speaker 1: We went with the four-time indicted celebrity who's a lot
27:38
Speaker 1: of fun. That's what we did. We had the perfect
27:41
Speaker 1: marriage material in 2024 and Ron DeSantis, but we went
27:44
Speaker 1: with the bad boy because we weren't done with our
27:47
Speaker 1: bad boy era. And how'd that turn out, guys? How'd
27:51
Speaker 1: that turn out? It turned out just like I told
27:54
Speaker 1: you it fucking would. Now, it took a lot longer
27:56
Speaker 1: than I expected. I thought it was going to first
28:00
Speaker 1: happen in 2016, then 2024. I knew this was all
28:06
Speaker 1: going to come to a head. But even I was
28:09
Speaker 1: probably a bit surprised by how dramatically it has come
28:12
Speaker 1: to a head in 2026. But Ron DeSantis was the
28:15
Speaker 1: right choice in 2024 for president, and he proved it
28:19
Speaker 1: by creating a situation where Florida... has withstood, far better
28:25
Speaker 1: than anybody else did, the tsunami that occurred on behalf
28:29
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. So I thought that was a positive. Now, again,
28:33
Speaker 1: it's being over interpreted. There's people that are way too
28:37
Speaker 1: optimistic that somehow Ron DeSantis is now the favorite to
28:41
Speaker 1: win the Republican nomination in 2028. Look, is it possible
28:47
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis runs? I guess so. I don't know who
28:50
Speaker 1: funds that campaign because as I've said many times before,
28:54
Speaker 1: you got to worry about who Trump's going to nominate
28:56
Speaker 1: or who's going to endorse. That was a Freudian slip,
28:59
Speaker 1: not nominate. Although, and Trump talked about this last night
29:03
Speaker 1: on Fox News Channel when he called in to take
29:06
Speaker 1: absolutely no responsibility for a loss that 100% was almost entirely,
29:12
Speaker 1: due to him and the branding that he has created
29:15
Speaker 1: for the Republican Party. He talked about how he clearly
29:18
Speaker 1: knows that his or thinks his endorsement is going to
29:21
Speaker 1: be the only thing that matters in the 2028 Republican
29:25
Speaker 1: presidential nominating process. And I'm someone who up until today,
29:28
Speaker 1: 100% believe that. I'm not as sold on that. Look,
29:36
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that it's not true, but I'm now
29:39
Speaker 1: more open, and this could be one of the few
29:42
Speaker 1: silver linings to all of this disaster. I'm now open
29:46
Speaker 1: to the idea that maybe Trump's endorsement doesn't seal the deal.
29:53
Speaker 1: And by the way, for the record, because whenever I
29:56
Speaker 1: make these statements that are nuanced, they're easily misinterpreted, I
30:00
Speaker 1: never said that Trump's endorsement couldn't be defeated in the
30:07
Speaker 1: 2028 Republican nominating process. My whole point was no one
30:12
Speaker 1: would bother to try because the risks would far outweigh
30:17
Speaker 1: the likely rewards. So it was going to be a
30:20
Speaker 1: self-fulfilling prophecy. But we've now reached the point, and this again,
30:25
Speaker 1: under the silver linings category here, I'm stretching, but I'm
30:30
Speaker 1: trying to figure out some way to at least get
30:33
Speaker 1: through the day here and not commit Harry Carey. If
30:38
Speaker 1: you're looking for silver linings, one of them is that
30:41
Speaker 1: you can make a strong argument that somebody like Iran DeSantis,
30:45
Speaker 1: if he can find the money, might say, you know what?
30:48
Speaker 1: I don't give a shit about Trump's endorsement. Trump's endorsement
30:52
Speaker 1: is defeatable. It is possible to defeat Trump. a Trump-endorsed candidate.
30:59
Speaker 1: Let's say if it's J.D. Vance. Now, I got in
31:03
Speaker 1: a fight with Steve Cortez. It was a very cordial
31:05
Speaker 1: fight on last week's podcast where I don't think J.D.
31:09
Speaker 1: Vance has any chance at all of beating anybody but
31:12
Speaker 1: AOC or maybe Kamala Harris in a 2028 presidential campaign
31:17
Speaker 1: because he can't separate himself from Trump. Ron DeSantis doesn't
31:21
Speaker 1: have that problem. So, Look, if you're trying to be
31:26
Speaker 1: as optimistic as possible, I can see a path where
31:30
Speaker 1: it's possible. It's not likely. It's possible. But you would
31:35
Speaker 1: have to have everything go right. Like, for instance, you
31:38
Speaker 1: would have to get, if you're a DeSantis supporter, you
31:42
Speaker 1: would have to get DeSantis versus Vance and Trump botches
31:49
Speaker 1: his endorsement. And if DeSantis had enough money and there
31:56
Speaker 1: was no Rubio, because Rubio would obviously destroy any chance
32:01
Speaker 1: for DeSantis being a former senator from Florida and being
32:05
Speaker 1: in the same age, they're basically running in the same lane.
32:10
Speaker 1: So the reality is Rubio would have to take a pass.
32:16
Speaker 1: Vance would have to run. DeSantis would run. I'm talking
32:22
Speaker 1: myself into this as we go here. And Trump botches
32:28
Speaker 1: the endorsement. It's not a great endorsement because he wants
32:32
Speaker 1: to create the apprentice situation where there's a primary. He
32:36
Speaker 1: wants there to be some drama. And Vance is caught.
32:40
Speaker 1: because he can't get away from Trump being his vice president.
32:45
Speaker 1: And Trump keeps critiquing him and criticizing him or praising
32:50
Speaker 1: him in a way that's not helpful. And DeSantis somehow
32:54
Speaker 1: is able to break away enough of the Republican Party
32:57
Speaker 1: where he wins a long, very protracted battle to win
33:02
Speaker 1: the Republican presidential nomination. That's possible. I kind of convinced
33:09
Speaker 1: myself that's possible. But I don't know where DeSantis gets
33:13
Speaker 1: the money for that, because that effort would take a
33:15
Speaker 1: lot of money to be able to withstand a sitting
33:19
Speaker 1: vice president, presumably with the endorsement of a president that's very,
33:25
Speaker 1: very unpopular nationally, but not within the Republican Party, within
33:30
Speaker 1: the Republican base, those that are going to actually vote.
33:33
Speaker 1: in a Republican presidential primary, Trump is still very, very popular.
33:37
Speaker 1: And his endorsement, while it may not decide things nearly
33:41
Speaker 1: as easily as once presumed, including by myself, it's still
33:45
Speaker 1: going to be very, very difficult to defeat. So I
33:48
Speaker 1: want to table that for later, because obviously this is
33:53
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of time to discuss this,
33:55
Speaker 1: especially as we get into 2027 and things start to
33:59
Speaker 1: shape out on the presidential side. But since we're looking
34:04
Speaker 1: for positives here, that is one positive. The Trump endorsement
34:09
Speaker 1: for 2028 no longer has nearly the same power that
34:13
Speaker 1: it did even 24, 36 hours ago. And Ron DeSantis
34:18
Speaker 1: is looking pretty good. Unfortunately, we don't live in a
34:21
Speaker 1: world where rationality rules the day like it should. In
34:25
Speaker 1: a rational world, we would have been in the exact
34:27
Speaker 1: same situation in 2024. Oh, look, Ron DeSantis just won
34:31
Speaker 1: a huge victory. He defeated COVID. He won reelection for
34:35
Speaker 1: governor in 2022. Trump's indicted several times. Let's go with
34:39
Speaker 1: this DeSantis guy. That would have been rational, but we
34:44
Speaker 1: don't live in that world anymore. Other areas where things
34:48
Speaker 1: turned out better than feared, weirdly, I turn here to California. Now,
34:54
Speaker 1: you may recall that a couple of months ago, I
34:56
Speaker 1: went on CNN and I really let loose. I really
35:01
Speaker 1: let loose on Proposition 40, which was the billionaire theft proposal.
35:07
Speaker 1: And this thing really was theft, where the proposal was
35:12
Speaker 1: supposedly one time, which was a lie, they were going
35:15
Speaker 1: to take 5% of assets, unrealized gains even, from all
35:21
Speaker 1: billionaires in the state of California. And when I went
35:25
Speaker 1: on CNN, I unleashed on the air, but off the air,
35:30
Speaker 1: was even more interesting because in the green room, they
35:34
Speaker 1: had the guy who was sponsoring Proposition 40, a guy
35:37
Speaker 1: by the name of Don Regan. And I had never
35:40
Speaker 1: met Don Regan. He was on the other side of
35:43
Speaker 1: the green room, about 12, 15 feet away from me.
35:47
Speaker 1: We were not introduced. His assistant happened to be sitting
35:50
Speaker 1: next to me. This is before I ever went on
35:52
Speaker 1: the air to discuss Prop 40. I had done another
35:56
Speaker 1: segment on a different subject, came back into the green
36:00
Speaker 1: room to wait for the second segment, which was going
36:03
Speaker 1: to be dealing with Prop 40. And this Don Regan's assistant,
36:07
Speaker 1: who looked like a hippie, I introduced myself very politely.
36:13
Speaker 1: He told me he was with the pro Prop 40 team.
36:17
Speaker 1: And I very casually said to him, well, you know,
36:19
Speaker 1: that's theft, right? You know, something to that effect. You know,
36:22
Speaker 1: you guys are stealing, right? Very calmly. Very calmly. And
36:26
Speaker 1: this asshole Regan from the other side of the room,
36:28
Speaker 1: and I say asshole on purpose because without ever having
36:31
Speaker 1: been introduced to me, he just basically almost shouts across
36:36
Speaker 1: the room, you're an asshole. And then he says, you're
36:39
Speaker 1: a professional asshole. You're a professional amateur asshole. I don't
36:43
Speaker 1: even know what that means. But I've been called an
36:45
Speaker 1: asshole a lot, but I've never been called a professional
36:47
Speaker 1: amateur asshole. And I'm like, wow, okay. This is before
36:52
Speaker 1: I went on to talk about Prop 40. And he
36:54
Speaker 1: was going to come on after me. And I went on.
36:57
Speaker 1: I was very classy about it. I didn't say anything
36:59
Speaker 1: about the confrontation that had occurred in the green room.
37:03
Speaker 1: I laid it all out. I attacked Prop 40, I thought,
37:07
Speaker 1: in a very substantive and passionate fashion. I avoided any
37:13
Speaker 1: further conflict with Reagan because I wanted to get the
37:15
Speaker 1: hell out of there. But boy, did I want Prop
37:18
Speaker 1: 40 to lose, not just because of the practical and
37:21
Speaker 1: philosophical aspects of this, because I think it would have
37:23
Speaker 1: been a complete total disaster, not just for California, but
37:26
Speaker 1: for the country, because had this passed, it was coming
37:30
Speaker 1: for the rest of the country. Well, thankfully, it did
37:34
Speaker 1: not pass, and it was not that close. California is
37:39
Speaker 1: a really weird state. I mean, we have these propositions,
37:43
Speaker 1: which is a completely scam system, and part of why
37:48
Speaker 1: I was actually fairly optimistic that Prop 40 would not pass,
37:52
Speaker 1: is that over time, there is so much cynicism, understandably so,
37:58
Speaker 1: by the electorate, by both Democrats and Republicans, that all
38:02
Speaker 1: these propositions are bullshit, that there is a certain percentage,
38:06
Speaker 1: and I don't know what that vote is. It's probably
38:08
Speaker 1: in the 5% to 10%. There's a certain percentage of
38:12
Speaker 1: voters who, it doesn't matter what party they're affiliated with,
38:16
Speaker 1: they will vote no. understandably so, on almost any proposition.
38:22
Speaker 1: It's just a knee jerk. They know the system is bullshit.
38:25
Speaker 1: I'm not voting for any of these things. And because
38:28
Speaker 1: the anti-Proposition 40 elements were well-funded, obviously, when you're defending billionaires,
38:37
Speaker 1: you're going to have access to a lot of money.
38:41
Speaker 1: That's partially why I was optimistic that Prop 40 would lose.
38:44
Speaker 1: Because of the built-in no vote, It makes it much
38:48
Speaker 1: more difficult to pass anything, thankfully, on the proposition side
38:53
Speaker 1: here in California. Plus the fact that the opposition to
38:57
Speaker 1: 40 had way more money than the proponents of 40.
39:00
Speaker 1: That's one of the few benefits of the situation where
39:04
Speaker 1: you're proposing socialism. Well, going to the socialists, they don't
39:07
Speaker 1: have a lot of money to give you for this effort.
39:09
Speaker 1: But the billionaires, they have a lot of money to
39:12
Speaker 1: try to defeat it. So, That's what ended up happening
39:16
Speaker 1: by a fairly healthy margin. Wasn't really that close. I
39:20
Speaker 1: don't think we're going to see it back on the
39:21
Speaker 1: ballot anytime soon here or elsewhere. That's how sound the
39:25
Speaker 1: defeat was. But what's so weird about California is that. yes,
39:31
Speaker 1: we're absolutely Looney Tunes left statewide. But people don't understand
39:37
Speaker 1: that most of the counties in California are actually, quote unquote,
39:40
Speaker 1: red counties. Now, unfortunately, there's no population there in comparison
39:44
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles or San Francisco. But it's really two
39:49
Speaker 1: different states. And on these statewide propositions, I see this
39:53
Speaker 1: every single cycle. Inevitably, there are results that are not
39:58
Speaker 1: nearly as liberal as you would expect from a state
40:02
Speaker 1: that just elected Javier Becerra as governor by a two
40:06
Speaker 1: to one margin. It's just a weird phenomenon. Philosophically, yes,
40:11
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to claim that California is not really liberal.
40:14
Speaker 1: 100% really liberal, but not nearly as philosophically liberal as
40:18
Speaker 1: they are or we are voting Democrat. It's a weird deal.
40:23
Speaker 1: I don't understand why the loyalty to the Democratic brand,
40:26
Speaker 1: especially how unsuccessful the Democratic brand has been here in
40:29
Speaker 1: California and making lives any better, why there's so much
40:33
Speaker 1: loyalty to the California Democratic brand as opposed to in
40:37
Speaker 1: comparison to how philosophically liberal most of the state is.
40:41
Speaker 1: And once again, philosophically, the state has proven it's not
40:45
Speaker 1: that liberal. I mean, maybe the most amazing example was
40:49
Speaker 1: that when Barack Obama was elected in 2008, California actually
40:54
Speaker 1: passed a proposition that was perceived as anti-gay marriage, 2008. Now,
41:01
Speaker 1: of course, the courts, as they always do, whenever a
41:03
Speaker 1: good proposition gets passed in California, the courts eviscerate it.
41:07
Speaker 1: because that's when popular rule doesn't matter. Well, wait a minute.
41:12
Speaker 1: The liberal side didn't win, so propositions no longer have
41:15
Speaker 1: any validity or credibility or any real legal impact to them.
41:20
Speaker 1: That's the insanity that is California and how our court
41:23
Speaker 1: system has completely destroyed this entire state and is going
41:28
Speaker 1: to do so for the rest of the country, I fear,
41:30
Speaker 1: moving forward. But that to me, is just one of
41:34
Speaker 1: many examples of where California philosophically is not nearly as
41:40
Speaker 1: liberal as it thinks it is. And thankfully, Proposition 40 lost. Now,
41:45
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, Nithya Raman, it appears, has won the
41:51
Speaker 1: race to be the next mayor of Los Angeles. Interestingly,
41:55
Speaker 1: I predicted on CNN right after the primary. Remember that
41:59
Speaker 1: primary where right-wingers told us that Spencer Pratt was going
42:04
Speaker 1: to at least qualify for the runoff and he was
42:07
Speaker 1: going to be the next mayor of Los Angeles. Oh,
42:09
Speaker 1: wait a minute. He finished third. How the hell could
42:12
Speaker 1: Rahman possibly have beaten him? It must have been rigged.
42:15
Speaker 1: It was rigged. It was rigged. How could these votes
42:18
Speaker 1: possibly come in so dramatically for Rahman at the end
42:23
Speaker 1: of the vote counting process? And why is it taking
42:25
Speaker 1: so long to count these votes? Well, I went on CNN,
42:29
Speaker 1: mocked the entire Spencer Pratt which was always an Elizabeth Holmes,
42:35
Speaker 1: Theranos-level fraud, and I was 100% right about that. But
42:40
Speaker 1: then I also predicted, I thought that Rahman was going
42:43
Speaker 1: to beat Bass because of a lot of factors, but
42:48
Speaker 1: one of which was the entire mood of the country.
42:51
Speaker 1: And we've seen it all over the place where these
42:54
Speaker 1: Democratic Socialist candidates, especially if they have an exotic name,
42:59
Speaker 1: they end up beating the so-called mainstream, allegedly, absurdly, in
43:04
Speaker 1: this case, moderate Democrat candidate, where Mayor Bass was also
43:09
Speaker 1: in a situation where she was having to defend the
43:11
Speaker 1: reaction to the wildfires in early 2005. So I turned
43:17
Speaker 1: out to be correct about that prediction. And by the way,
43:20
Speaker 1: you know, I get in so many different fights on
43:24
Speaker 1: social media and so many people indicate that they have
43:26
Speaker 1: no fucking idea what the hell they're talking about and
43:29
Speaker 1: yet they think that they do. And most of these
43:31
Speaker 1: people are Trump supporters. Because I kind of blamed MAGA
43:35
Speaker 1: or Trump for the fact that we now have the
43:39
Speaker 1: Los Angeles mayor, where we're having a Super Bowl in
43:43
Speaker 1: 2027 and an Olympic Games in 2028. The mayor of
43:48
Speaker 1: Los Angeles is now Nithya Raman. Thanks, Spencer Pratt, by
43:52
Speaker 1: the way. Mayor of Los Angeles, Nithya Raman. Mayor of
43:57
Speaker 1: New York, Zoran Mandani. Next, Senator from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, right?
44:07
Speaker 1: That's pretty daunting. That's not the America I grew up in.
44:12
Speaker 1: I know that's going to sound, I don't know what
44:14
Speaker 1: it's going to sound like, xenophobic or racist or whatever.
44:16
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with that. I'm sorry. That
44:21
Speaker 1: is incredibly telling. And there's absolutely... an anti-Trump aspect to this. Now,
44:28
Speaker 1: it takes a little bit of thinking. It takes a
44:30
Speaker 1: little bit of thinking, and this is where MAGA has
44:33
Speaker 1: really blown it in their political analysis over the last decade.
44:39
Speaker 1: But this is what happens. You only get a Nithya Raman,
44:44
Speaker 1: an Abdul Al-Sayed, and a Zoran Mandani in a world
44:50
Speaker 1: where Democrats are so pissed off and so hate Trump
44:57
Speaker 1: that they have to turn it up to 11. And
45:02
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting this is conscious. A lot of this
45:05
Speaker 1: is subconscious. But within the mindset of the crazed anti-Trump
45:12
Speaker 1: Democratic socialist voter, the more exotic the name, the more
45:18
Speaker 1: pigmentation in the skin, the stronger the repudiation of Trump is.
45:24
Speaker 1: And so that's how these people win their primaries. Because
45:29
Speaker 1: within the Democratic base, there's no real fucking difference between
45:34
Speaker 1: Karen Bass and Nithya Raman. But Rahman is going to
45:40
Speaker 1: be seen and feel like a greater repudiation of what's
45:44
Speaker 1: happening nationwide with Trump because of her name. The same
45:49
Speaker 1: deal with Al-Sayed beating Haley Stevens in Michigan. The same
45:53
Speaker 1: deal with Zora Mondani beating Cuomo in New York. It's
45:59
Speaker 1: a greater repudiation of MAGA. That's what MAGA unleashed. You
46:05
Speaker 1: unleashed a fucking monster, you idiots. And now we don't
46:10
Speaker 1: have the numbers to fight it. All because you couldn't
46:14
Speaker 1: fucking do math. All right, I'm going to try to
46:20
Speaker 1: contain myself here. But this is the whole fucking country
46:23
Speaker 1: at stake now. Because MAGA people couldn't fucking do math.
46:28
Speaker 1: That's always been my number one point from the beginning
46:31
Speaker 1: of the entire Trump phenomenon. which is that the Republican
46:37
Speaker 1: Party doesn't have the fucking numbers to play offense. If
46:44
Speaker 1: we want to save the country, we have to play defense. Yes,
46:48
Speaker 1: it sucks. But you have to go to war with
46:52
Speaker 1: the army you have, not the one you wish you had.
46:56
Speaker 1: And the Trump gambit worked. defeated the Wicked Witch of
47:00
Speaker 1: the West, Hillary Clinton, and then lost to frickin' Joe Biden,
47:05
Speaker 1: shit the bed during COVID, lost to Joe Biden, and
47:08
Speaker 1: then somehow got lucky enough to run against Joe Biden
47:11
Speaker 1: and Kamala Harris, where she gets thrown into the race
47:14
Speaker 1: at the last second. And oh, by the way, Trump
47:17
Speaker 1: survives barely an assassination. All those things had to happen
47:22
Speaker 1: for the Trump gambit to appear to work in the
47:24
Speaker 1: short run. But in the long run... The math has
47:28
Speaker 1: finally worked its way out. The chickens have come home
47:35
Speaker 1: to roost. Whatever cliche you want to use, it's all
47:41
Speaker 1: coming back now. We're going to pay for this drug-induced
47:46
Speaker 1: party for the last decade or so that MAGA World
47:50
Speaker 1: has been on. And what do we get out of it?
47:53
Speaker 1: What do we get out of it? We got a
47:55
Speaker 1: couple of decent Supreme Court justices. Not great. Very frustratingly,
48:02
Speaker 1: not great to some people. Better than average, fine, but
48:06
Speaker 1: nowhere near great. Nowhere near great. We got illegal immigration enforcement.
48:14
Speaker 1: Very few real deportations, but we've stopped the flow of
48:18
Speaker 1: incoming illegals. Great. Fantastic. Positives.
48:21
Speaker 2: 100%.
48:23
Speaker 1: Has there been... Less regulation in some areas, maybe, I guess.
48:29
Speaker 1: But we haven't seen the price of gasoline go down.
48:31
Speaker 1: In fact, it's exactly the opposite because of the war
48:34
Speaker 1: in Iran. I think the price of gasoline is probably
48:37
Speaker 1: eventually going to go down pretty significantly. But prices in
48:41
Speaker 1: general have not gone down, specifically gasoline, which drives virtually everything.
48:46
Speaker 1: But there's very, very few. There are a lot of
48:48
Speaker 1: things that MAGA feels good about that Trump has done.
48:51
Speaker 1: Bullshit executive orders that have no real impact. getting rid
48:55
Speaker 1: of some DEI on the fringes, which will have no
48:59
Speaker 1: real long-term impact. But the victories have not been great,
49:05
Speaker 1: considering the fact that you had a Republican president, a
49:08
Speaker 1: Republican House, and a Republican Senate, and all you got
49:11
Speaker 1: through in the first two years was the big, beautiful bill,
49:15
Speaker 1: which was, frankly, a monstrosity. from a big government perspective
49:23
Speaker 1: so what we got here and what we fended off
49:29
Speaker 1: was a horrible deal in the long run a horrible
49:32
Speaker 1: deal because now there's no way to stop the oncoming
49:38
Speaker 1: locomotive of socialism and maybe anti-Americanism. That's what's coming now.
49:47
Speaker 1: And my number one thing has always been, do we
49:50
Speaker 1: have some way to slow it down? Can we stop it?
49:55
Speaker 1: Can we create some sort of a bulwark to create safety?
50:00
Speaker 1: And the safety has always been in the U.S. Senate.
50:03
Speaker 1: Because if you control the U.S. Senate, you can control
50:07
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justices And if you can control Supreme Court justices,
50:12
Speaker 1: you have a goaltender. You have a goaltender that can
50:15
Speaker 1: stop things from getting completely out of control. Well, now
50:22
Speaker 1: that goaltender is in grave jeopardy because Clarence Thomas and
50:29
Speaker 1: Samuel Alito will have to live and be functional to
50:33
Speaker 1: until 2033 at the earliest. 2033 at the earliest for
50:46
Speaker 1: Republicans to ever get through a conservative Supreme Court justice.
50:52
Speaker 1: And that's presuming all sorts of positive things. That's presuming
50:58
Speaker 1: that a Republican wins the presidency in 2032 and that
51:02
Speaker 1: all of these losses in allegedly red areas are up
51:06
Speaker 1: for reelection in 2032. I mean, I'm actually trying to
51:11
Speaker 1: be optimistic here. I think there's a pretty good chance
51:14
Speaker 1: that in 2032, Republicans retake the Senate because Democrats are
51:20
Speaker 1: gonna so overplay their hand and things are gonna go
51:25
Speaker 1: so shitty And with all these races back up again
51:28
Speaker 1: in six years, you got to believe South Carolina, Texas, maybe,
51:35
Speaker 1: who the hell knows where Texas is going in the
51:37
Speaker 1: next couple of years. If Mississippi falls, maybe North Carolina, Ohio, Alaska,
51:45
Speaker 1: we don't know yet, Iowa. I mean, all these places
51:48
Speaker 1: are going to be in six years, if things are
51:52
Speaker 1: not going well, seemingly very doable pickups. But how the
51:58
Speaker 1: hell do Thomas and Alito survive for six years? Plus,
52:05
Speaker 1: and we get a Republican president. I mean, the chances of,
52:09
Speaker 1: here's the bottom line. The chances of Thomas and Alito
52:14
Speaker 1: being replaced by conservatives is now almost zero. I don't
52:20
Speaker 1: know what it is. It's, I'm going to, you know,
52:22
Speaker 1: best case, 10%. Let's just say it's 10%. The same
52:28
Speaker 1: chance of AI is going to destroy us by then anyway.
52:32
Speaker 1: So maybe this is all academic. But in my mind,
52:36
Speaker 1: there's a 90% chance now, thanks to Donald Trump losing
52:41
Speaker 1: the U.S. Senate, that Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are
52:46
Speaker 1: replaced by at least liberals, potentially full-on socialists. And that's
52:55
Speaker 1: on Trump. because that would never have happened. And I
53:00
Speaker 1: know there's three conservatives in the country that agree with
53:04
Speaker 1: me on this, but if Trump had never won in 2016,
53:07
Speaker 1: we would not be in this situation right now. We
53:11
Speaker 1: would not be in this situation right now with 1000% certitude.
53:17
Speaker 1: Would there have been more losses and fewer victories in
53:22
Speaker 1: the ensuing 10 years? Yep. But we would not have
53:26
Speaker 1: lost the goalkeeper. We would not have lost the bulwark.
53:32
Speaker 1: We would have still been in a situation where we
53:34
Speaker 1: could hold things together. And I would maintain that the
53:37
Speaker 1: Democratic Party would not have lost its fucking mind. And
53:42
Speaker 1: you would not have Mondani and Al-Sayed and Rahman in
53:48
Speaker 1: positions of major authority within the Democratic Party. That is
53:53
Speaker 1: all a reaction to Trump. And of course, Trump doesn't
53:56
Speaker 1: accept that. And Trump fans don't accept that. They think
53:59
Speaker 1: he's the one that was trying to save America. And
54:02
Speaker 1: if it hadn't been for him, this all would have
54:04
Speaker 1: happened sooner. Bullshit. That's not where we were headed. But
54:09
Speaker 1: now they have to revise history to feel better about
54:12
Speaker 1: themselves because they're a bunch of fucking idiots. And no
54:16
Speaker 1: one fucking listened. I hope you enjoyed this whole Trump
54:21
Speaker 1: experiment thing. It was funny. It was fucking funny. Fucking
54:25
Speaker 1: hilarious at times. But we lost the country over it.
54:32
Speaker 1: The country is gone. It's over. I'm sorry. I mean,
54:40
Speaker 1: how long it's going to take, I don't know. In
54:43
Speaker 1: what form and fashion, I don't know. But there's no path.
54:47
Speaker 1: There is no path. There's none. I mean, barring just
54:55
Speaker 1: an unbelievably fortuitous series of events that never seems to
55:00
Speaker 1: happen in real life. I mean, I'm always open for hope.
55:04
Speaker 1: I hold on to hope way longer than I should
55:06
Speaker 1: in most situations. So I'm actually not, I'm trying not
55:10
Speaker 1: to be pessimistic. I'm trying to be as optimistic as possible.
55:14
Speaker 1: If someone has a hopeful scenario, I'm all ears. But
55:19
Speaker 1: I just don't see it. Because once the Supreme Court
55:22
Speaker 1: is gone and there's a Democratic president, because that's the
55:26
Speaker 1: first thing a Democratic president is going to do, they're
55:30
Speaker 1: going to get rid of the Supreme Court. And then
55:33
Speaker 1: all bets are off. The floodgates are open. Then they
55:37
Speaker 1: can do whatever the hell they want. And there's nothing
55:41
Speaker 1: that's going to stop it. And frankly, once Trump is gone...
55:47
Speaker 1: There is a significant portion of his base, it's not
55:51
Speaker 1: large enough to govern with, but there's a significant portion
55:54
Speaker 1: of his base that's probably going to be gone too.
55:58
Speaker 1: That's part of, you know, that's why we're in such
56:01
Speaker 1: a no-win situation. Because in getting rid of Trump, you're
56:06
Speaker 1: going to lose a certain percentage of vote. That's why
56:09
Speaker 1: he kept winning at least two out of three of
56:12
Speaker 1: the presidential elections, but he got slacked. in 2018, effectively 2022,
56:19
Speaker 1: and absolutely in 2026, because it doesn't work in a
56:24
Speaker 1: midterm election. Look, as far as where we're going in
56:32
Speaker 1: the short run, I know a lot of people are
56:34
Speaker 1: wondering about this. Steve Cortez and I talked about this
56:39
Speaker 1: situation because I knew that Democrats were going to take
56:42
Speaker 1: the Senate and the House. I didn't know by how much,
56:44
Speaker 1: but I knew that that Trump was going to be
56:46
Speaker 1: facing a very unique situation, at least for him, in
56:50
Speaker 1: the last two years of his presidency. He was going
56:52
Speaker 1: to be a super lame duck. Now he's the lamest
56:55
Speaker 1: of lame ducks in the history, at least the modern history,
56:59
Speaker 1: of the American presidency. Because, I mean, he has nothing.
57:04
Speaker 1: He can't run for reelection. He has a prohibitive majority
57:11
Speaker 1: for the Democrats in the Senate and in the House.
57:14
Speaker 1: They're going to be investigating the hell out of him.
57:17
Speaker 1: It's not just a situation where Democrats happen to win.
57:20
Speaker 1: They won because of anti-Trump sentiment. That is important because
57:29
Speaker 1: the Democrats are going to have to give their base
57:31
Speaker 1: what they want, which is investigations and attacks on Trump
57:36
Speaker 1: and probably impeachment. Now, the number one question is, do
57:40
Speaker 1: we head towards impeachment over the next two years or
57:44
Speaker 1: Or does Donald Trump become Arnold Schwarzenegger? And there were
57:48
Speaker 1: some signs last night in the interviews that Trump did.
57:52
Speaker 1: There was some Arnold Schwarzenegger signs. He didn't go full Schwarzenegger.
57:57
Speaker 1: For those who don't remember, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected in
58:00
Speaker 1: a special election here in California over 20 years ago.
58:05
Speaker 1: Very Trump-like celebrity figure. He was going to come in
58:08
Speaker 1: and blow up all the boxes and change the world.
58:11
Speaker 1: He realized quickly that wasn't going to happen. And he overnight,
58:15
Speaker 1: and I predicted it far sooner and more presciently than
58:19
Speaker 1: anybody here in California, because I was a Los Angeles
58:22
Speaker 1: radio talk show host at the time. He completely flipped
58:25
Speaker 1: into a Democrat, which was hardly shocking given the fact
58:28
Speaker 1: that he was married to Maria Shriver, a Kennedy. I mean,
58:31
Speaker 1: it was the most obvious political transformation of all time.
58:36
Speaker 1: But that's what Schwarzenegger did. And California has never been
58:38
Speaker 1: the same. California often, unfortunately, tells us what the future is.
58:45
Speaker 1: And politically, this is looking really ominously similar situation, where
58:52
Speaker 1: the Republican Party in California never recovered from Arnold Schwarzenegger flipping.
58:57
Speaker 1: Will Donald Trump do an Arnold Schwarzenegger in his last
59:00
Speaker 1: two years because it's in his self-interest to do so?
59:03
Speaker 1: Quite possibly. Frankly, the only thing that keeps me from
59:08
Speaker 1: thinking that that's the most likely situation because it's not
59:12
Speaker 1: because it's not in Trump's self-interest or in his philosophical DNA,
59:16
Speaker 1: because it absolutely is. He's inherently a dealmaker, right? The
59:21
Speaker 1: only part of this that makes me think that's not
59:24
Speaker 1: the most likely scenario is that Democrats can't possibly have
59:30
Speaker 1: that much self-discipline. If there's one thing I'm positive about
59:36
Speaker 1: regarding the modern Democratic Party, it is that they will always, always,
59:40
Speaker 1: and I mean always, overplay their hand. Every single time.
59:47
Speaker 1: Every single time. And winning this large a majority in
59:53
Speaker 1: the Senate and the House and having this much energy
59:57
Speaker 1: among the anti-Trump wing faction majority of their party, there's
1:00:03
Speaker 1: no way they're not going to be able to satiate that.
1:00:05
Speaker 1: There's no way they're going to be able to hold
1:00:07
Speaker 1: that at bay. They're going to have to give the
1:00:11
Speaker 1: base what they want. And while the base might like
1:00:15
Speaker 1: some really juicy liberal socialist deals, and there may be
1:00:21
Speaker 1: some of that, they're not going to be able to
1:00:24
Speaker 1: to keep away from attacking Trump. And Trump, that's what
1:00:29
Speaker 1: Trump's going to want. Trump's not going to be making
1:00:31
Speaker 1: deals on behalf of the country. Trump's going to be
1:00:33
Speaker 1: making deals on behalf of him and his family. Hey,
1:00:38
Speaker 1: you don't impeach me, then I'm going to give you
1:00:40
Speaker 1: what you want on the budget, that kind of stuff.
1:00:43
Speaker 1: I don't know that Democrats are going to be willing
1:00:46
Speaker 1: or able to do that kind of deal-making that Trump wants.
1:00:50
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm being naive, but that's the number one question.
1:00:54
Speaker 1: I don't have a solid answer. My instinct is we're
1:00:57
Speaker 1: heading towards impeachment. And for those that say, well, John,
1:01:01
Speaker 1: what are they going to impeach Trump for? Donald Trump
1:01:06
Speaker 1: is in violation, blatant, obvious, clear-cut violation of the emoluments
1:01:11
Speaker 1: clause of the Constitution every fucking day. So if you
1:01:15
Speaker 1: want to impeach him, you can impeach him. All right?
1:01:20
Speaker 1: So the most interesting question is, If in fact he's impeached,
1:01:26
Speaker 1: what do Senate Republicans do? Because at this point, you're
1:01:31
Speaker 1: only going to need a dozen at most Republicans in
1:01:38
Speaker 1: the Senate to flip and vote Trump out of office. Now,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: there aren't as many senators to pick 12 from as
1:01:48
Speaker 1: there used to be. And a lot of the ones
1:01:50
Speaker 1: that were anti-Trump are now gone. People like Mitt Romney
1:01:53
Speaker 1: and maybe Mitch McConnell, that kind of thing. But it's
1:01:58
Speaker 1: not impossible, especially when you consider the fact that it
1:02:01
Speaker 1: would really be in the Republican Party's self-interest to get
1:02:05
Speaker 1: rid of Trump. Because you would replace him with J.D. Vance.
1:02:09
Speaker 1: You'd now have an incumbent president heading into the 2028 election.
1:02:14
Speaker 1: And in theory, you'd be done with the Trump problem. Now,
1:02:16
Speaker 1: of course, Trump would go out kicking and screaming and
1:02:19
Speaker 1: cause all sorts of other problems and sabotage J.D. Vance.
1:02:22
Speaker 1: I'm not naive on that. I'm just saying that if
1:02:24
Speaker 1: you're in the Republican camp, it's at least worth considering.
1:02:30
Speaker 1: So much so that if you're in the Democratic camp,
1:02:33
Speaker 1: you almost have to think, wait a minute. do we
1:02:36
Speaker 1: really want to go down this path either? And the
1:02:40
Speaker 1: Republicans might be saying, don't throw me into that briar patch.
1:02:44
Speaker 1: Please don't throw me into that briar patch when that's
1:02:47
Speaker 1: exactly where they'd like to go. I mean, that would
1:02:49
Speaker 1: be the best way to get rid of Donald Trump,
1:02:52
Speaker 1: you know, and cleanse the party of this toxicity, at
1:02:56
Speaker 1: least to some degree. Now there would be pain involved.
1:02:59
Speaker 1: You'd lose the 2028 presidential election almost certainly. But, you know,
1:03:06
Speaker 1: It's at least something to think about. Do I see
1:03:08
Speaker 1: that happening? No, I don't. Inertia is incredibly powerful. I'm
1:03:14
Speaker 1: not sure the Democrats are going to be dumb enough
1:03:17
Speaker 1: to really pursue this to the full extent. I think
1:03:20
Speaker 1: we might have a sham impeachment where Democrats in the
1:03:23
Speaker 1: House get to have their orgasms over impeaching Trump. And then,
1:03:28
Speaker 1: of course, the Democrats in the Senate have to have
1:03:30
Speaker 1: a trial because otherwise they'd get destroyed by their own base.
1:03:34
Speaker 1: They do a sham trial. they don't really push that
1:03:37
Speaker 1: hard for Republican votes. They, you know, everybody with Fetterman
1:03:41
Speaker 1: on the democratic side votes in favor of convicting him.
1:03:45
Speaker 1: You maybe get one or two Republican votes and then
1:03:48
Speaker 1: you just move on. That's probably the most likely scenario
1:03:52
Speaker 1: for what's happening with Trump and impeachment. But I'm not
1:03:58
Speaker 1: sure about that. I'm not a hundred percent sure. That's
1:04:01
Speaker 1: my guess as to where we're heading on all this. But,
1:04:05
Speaker 1: The bottom line, this is all about Trump. Yes, there
1:04:10
Speaker 1: are things that Trump did that made it far worse
1:04:13
Speaker 1: than it should have been. Price of gasoline, the war
1:04:16
Speaker 1: in Iran, the complete and total corruption within his administration
1:04:23
Speaker 1: and his family, the focusing on trivial issues like the
1:04:27
Speaker 1: reflecting pod and Nicki Minaj's ass and Bill Maher in
1:04:34
Speaker 1: the closing days. of the midterm election, yes. But when
1:04:39
Speaker 1: I look at this in the very biggest of pictures,
1:04:43
Speaker 1: this is a vindication for those of us, and there'll
1:04:46
Speaker 1: be no joy in this. By the way, to be clear,
1:04:49
Speaker 1: I take no joy in this at all. I wish
1:04:53
Speaker 1: I was wrong. I really do. But it is a
1:04:57
Speaker 1: vindication for the three or four people that are still left.
1:05:01
Speaker 1: And I don't even know who the other three might be.
1:05:04
Speaker 1: who in 2016 said, let's not do this. This is
1:05:09
Speaker 1: going to end very badly. And it's going to end
1:05:12
Speaker 1: very badly. It just took longer than I anticipated. But
1:05:16
Speaker 1: that view has been vindicated. And I am exceedingly sad
1:05:20
Speaker 1: for the country because it has been vindicated. I was
1:05:24
Speaker 1: actually hopeful that maybe some way, somehow, I would be wrong,
1:05:29
Speaker 1: and that we could somehow thread this needle and get
1:05:32
Speaker 1: through the Trump era without complete and total destruction. But
1:05:37
Speaker 1: we didn't do it. And we didn't do it, and
1:05:42
Speaker 1: we've lost the Senate, and the Supreme Court will be lost.
1:05:46
Speaker 1: And once the Supreme Court is lost, barring Thomas and
1:05:51
Speaker 1: Alito living to an extraordinary age and being able to
1:05:55
Speaker 1: be functional and stay in their positions, like I said,
1:05:59
Speaker 1: until at least 2033, then that is the last nail
1:06:05
Speaker 1: in the coffin. That's the last nail in the coffin
1:06:08
Speaker 1: because we've seen where the Democratic Party is headed. Couldn't
1:06:12
Speaker 1: be more clear cut. Democratic socialists are where the energy is.
1:06:16
Speaker 1: Even Gavin Newsom has acknowledged that That's the future of
1:06:20
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. Once they have the presidency, both houses
1:06:23
Speaker 1: of Congress and the Supreme Court, it's all over. It's
1:06:30
Speaker 1: all over. So Clarence Thomas, I love him. How the
1:06:37
Speaker 1: hell he didn't retire this year is a mystery to me.
1:06:41
Speaker 1: Sam Alito also should have retired. I said it at
1:06:45
Speaker 1: the time. I think I said it as soon as
1:06:47
Speaker 1: Trump won the 2024 election. It's time for Thomas and
1:06:51
Speaker 1: Alito to retire because you're not going to be able
1:06:55
Speaker 1: to hold on to this moment for very long. Now,
1:06:56
Speaker 1: did I think we'd end up in a situation where
1:06:58
Speaker 1: Democrats had 55, maybe 56 senators in 2027? No, even
1:07:04
Speaker 1: I wasn't that pessimistic. But unfortunately, the egos of Thomas
1:07:09
Speaker 1: and Alito, that's really what it is. Old people don't
1:07:13
Speaker 1: want to give up power. We're going to pay as
1:07:16
Speaker 1: a country. The country they clearly love. a country they've
1:07:19
Speaker 1: done a great job in defending, will end up ending
1:07:23
Speaker 1: in some way, shape, or form because they refuse to
1:07:25
Speaker 1: retire this year when they could have been replaced by
1:07:30
Speaker 1: reasonable facsimiles. And now that scenario is almost impossible to
1:07:36
Speaker 1: conceive of. Like I said, 90% chance it doesn't happen. Now,
1:07:41
Speaker 1: I realize that's all rather depressing. I don't know what
1:07:47
Speaker 1: to tell you, folks. I'm here to tell you the truth.
1:07:50
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to be as optimistic as possible, but
1:07:52
Speaker 1: it's really, really, really difficult to do so. And it
1:07:56
Speaker 1: really angers me, as I'm sure you can tell, that
1:08:00
Speaker 1: this didn't need to happen. There were two major off-routes, off-ramps.
1:08:07
Speaker 1: Hillary would have been painful. She would not have been fatal.
1:08:11
Speaker 1: The biggest off-ramp that obviously was missed was Ron DeSantis
1:08:15
Speaker 1: in 2024. Ron DeSantis in 2024, we're in a completely
1:08:20
Speaker 1: different world if he wins the Republican presidential nomination. And
1:08:24
Speaker 1: we tried, people like me, tried to explain why this
1:08:29
Speaker 1: was the right path and the dangers of the other path.
1:08:32
Speaker 1: But the other path was too fun. And the morons
1:08:36
Speaker 1: took the fun path. And now we're all fucked because
1:08:39
Speaker 1: of it. All right, I got to move on to
1:08:42
Speaker 1: other subjects. There's kind of an interesting situation going on
1:08:48
Speaker 1: with regard to AI and the AI bubble that I've
1:08:51
Speaker 1: talked an awful lot about over the last year or so.
1:08:54
Speaker 1: Our current AI fear factor rating is at 8.5, if
1:08:58
Speaker 1: you're keeping score at home. and on the rise. And
1:09:02
Speaker 1: one of the things that I've talked about many times
1:09:04
Speaker 1: before with regard to the AI bubble is that it's
1:09:08
Speaker 1: clearly an economic bubble and that we may be headed
1:09:10
Speaker 1: for the worst scenario possible, which is the economic bubble bursts,
1:09:14
Speaker 1: but that AI still ends up dominating our society in
1:09:18
Speaker 1: a way that is extremely negative And one of the
1:09:21
Speaker 1: things that I've said that I think has been now
1:09:23
Speaker 1: vindicated is that I was really confused by something that
1:09:28
Speaker 1: Google did recently with regard to the way that they
1:09:34
Speaker 1: do their search results. Now, I talk a lot on
1:09:38
Speaker 1: this podcast about when you have magic, that you must
1:09:43
Speaker 1: maintain that magic at all costs, because getting it back
1:09:47
Speaker 1: is almost impossible. And of all the technology companies, the
1:09:52
Speaker 1: internet companies, to me, Google by far had the most
1:09:56
Speaker 1: obvious magic. The Google results in their heyday were absolutely amazing.
1:10:03
Speaker 1: And you could understand why it was such a tremendous
1:10:05
Speaker 1: business model. And why you would fuck with that unless
1:10:09
Speaker 1: you were forced to do so is a complete mystery
1:10:12
Speaker 1: to me. But I don't know when exactly this happened.
1:10:16
Speaker 1: It noted on this podcast that I thought this was
1:10:21
Speaker 1: a mistake. And that Google, by going to AI instead
1:10:25
Speaker 1: of internet links, effectively, creating an AI answer to whatever
1:10:31
Speaker 1: your Google search was, instead of providing the actual links
1:10:34
Speaker 1: to the source material on the internet, was one, going
1:10:38
Speaker 1: to have a negative impact on Google, but also going
1:10:41
Speaker 1: to have a massively negative impact on the internet. And
1:10:46
Speaker 1: because you're essentially fucking up the entire ecosystem. The analogy
1:10:52
Speaker 1: that I've used is that Google is kind of like
1:10:57
Speaker 1: if a grocery store somehow had the ability and made
1:11:02
Speaker 1: the very bizarre decision of shutting off massive amounts of
1:11:06
Speaker 1: access to water to all the local farms, or if
1:11:10
Speaker 1: there was a national grocery chain that somehow had the
1:11:14
Speaker 1: ability to cut off water to the farms across the country.
1:11:19
Speaker 1: Of course, that would be insane because the grocery stores
1:11:23
Speaker 1: get their produce from the farms. The farms can't create
1:11:27
Speaker 1: the produce without access to water. Well, in this analogy,
1:11:31
Speaker 1: the internet traffic is water. And Google is shutting off
1:11:37
Speaker 1: traffic to huge portions of the internet, which is going
1:11:42
Speaker 1: to kill off the incentive to create the very content,
1:11:47
Speaker 1: ironically enough, that AI is using. I mean, we've talked
1:11:53
Speaker 1: before about how the finances of this are a circle jerk.
1:11:56
Speaker 1: This whole thing is a negative circle jerk where everyone's
1:12:00
Speaker 1: cutting off their own noses. You're destroying the source of
1:12:05
Speaker 1: your own content, including on these chatbots. Interestingly, Reddit is
1:12:11
Speaker 1: collapsing because there's no traffic to Reddit, yet Reddit is
1:12:16
Speaker 1: a huge source of content for ChatGPT. And maybe for Grok, too.
1:12:22
Speaker 1: I haven't checked recently. By the way, I think it's
1:12:26
Speaker 1: wrong that Reddit would be a source of content because
1:12:29
Speaker 1: I don't think Reddit's particularly credible. But the point here
1:12:32
Speaker 1: is when you cut off the internet flow of traffic,
1:12:37
Speaker 1: you kill the business model. You kill the incentive to
1:12:40
Speaker 1: create the content, the very content that you're stealing from
1:12:44
Speaker 1: for your own chatbots, and you're doing so in a
1:12:47
Speaker 1: way that's now apparently negatively impacting your own bottom line
1:12:52
Speaker 1: because people don't like the AI search. Now today, bizarrely,
1:12:58
Speaker 1: the stock market is doing exceedingly well in the wake
1:13:01
Speaker 1: of the Democratic victory, at least last I checked it was.
1:13:04
Speaker 1: But before that, Google was having its worst period that
1:13:09
Speaker 1: it's had in a very long time from a stock perspective.
1:13:14
Speaker 1: massive losses because of the perception of what's happening with
1:13:18
Speaker 1: regard to the AI searches and the impact that it's
1:13:22
Speaker 1: having on their quarterly income statements. Now, to better explain this,
1:13:30
Speaker 1: I want to play a clip from CBS This Morning,
1:13:33
Speaker 1: a reporter by the name of Kelly O'Grady. She's kind
1:13:37
Speaker 1: of a dingbat, but she wears intelligent looking glasses and
1:13:41
Speaker 1: she's pretty. So you know, the persona works. But she
1:13:46
Speaker 1: recently explained what was going on here with regard to
1:13:50
Speaker 1: what's happening to Google and their parent company, Alphabet, because
1:13:55
Speaker 1: of the transition to using AI when it comes to
1:14:00
Speaker 1: Google searches. And I thought this was a pretty decent
1:14:04
Speaker 1: explainer in the most simple of terms.
1:14:07
Speaker 2: This very broadly is another example of investors getting skittish
1:14:11
Speaker 2: about the AI race. The reason this time is that
1:14:14
Speaker 2: Alphabet missed its earnings estimate significantly because its search advertising
1:14:18
Speaker 2: business slowed down. I'm going to give you a very
1:14:19
Speaker 2: specific example. When you have a question, right, you would
1:14:22
Speaker 2: go Google something and all of these links would pop up.
1:14:24
Speaker 2: Some of them were sponsored and you'd click through and
1:14:27
Speaker 2: you say, I'm going to read this one. I'm going
1:14:28
Speaker 2: to read this one. That was how Google made a
1:14:30
Speaker 2: lot of its revenue from that advertising that it sold
1:14:33
Speaker 2: against it. But now you probably see this AI summary
1:14:36
Speaker 2: at the top. And you just read that and you
1:14:38
Speaker 2: don't click through it.
1:14:39
Speaker 1: I have been doing that.
1:14:40
Speaker 2: Yes, that's Gemini's chatbot.
1:14:42
Speaker 1: I swipe out of that. You do?
1:14:44
Speaker 2: Well, that's just you. A lot of us are doing it.
1:14:47
Speaker 2: And what's happening is that Google is not only spending
1:14:51
Speaker 2: billions of dollars on developing its AI, but this AI
1:14:54
Speaker 2: is now cannibalizing a major part of its business. So
1:14:57
Speaker 2: investors are concerned about that. And then how does this
1:15:00
Speaker 2: affect you and me? If you're not invested in Alphabet,
1:15:02
Speaker 2: I bet you your 401k is. And when the AI
1:15:05
Speaker 2: trade goes like this, it affects our 401k.
1:15:08
Speaker 1: Now, to be clear, what Kelly O'Grady was talking about
1:15:11
Speaker 1: there is only part of this equation. I actually think
1:15:16
Speaker 1: the bigger part is this element where now Google, whether
1:15:22
Speaker 1: by design or by accident or somewhere in the middle,
1:15:26
Speaker 1: has basically killed The internet. I mean, the internet business
1:15:32
Speaker 1: model was already very fragile. But now you cannot survive
1:15:38
Speaker 1: on Google traffic anymore. There were businesses, major businesses that
1:15:43
Speaker 1: were surviving via their internet traffic that they got from
1:15:47
Speaker 1: Google searches. So once that dries up, and I really
1:15:51
Speaker 1: do think that the grocery store industry and farm water
1:15:56
Speaker 1: analogy is a pretty good one. Not perfect, but it's
1:15:58
Speaker 1: pretty good. You're killing your own product. And I would
1:16:05
Speaker 1: love to know if Google understood what they were doing.
1:16:08
Speaker 1: Was this part of some larger evil plan, maybe to
1:16:13
Speaker 1: kill off competition? Cause clearly Google can afford to do
1:16:17
Speaker 1: whatever the hell they want to do. I don't know.
1:16:19
Speaker 1: My knee jerk is always incompetence. And, A lot of
1:16:24
Speaker 1: times people make changes simply because they feel, especially in
1:16:27
Speaker 1: the world of technology, they have to keep making changes
1:16:30
Speaker 1: because if they're not changing, somehow they're losing. It's got
1:16:34
Speaker 1: to be change all the time. I hate change in general,
1:16:37
Speaker 1: but to me, if something's working, the threshold for changing
1:16:43
Speaker 1: ought to be very, very high. And clearly the way
1:16:46
Speaker 1: that Google used to do their searches was working exceedingly well.
1:16:51
Speaker 1: not just for them, but for the internet as a whole.
1:16:55
Speaker 1: Now all that's changed. And oh, by the way, the
1:16:57
Speaker 1: search results suck ass. A lot of them aren't even
1:17:01
Speaker 1: accurate because AI is nowhere near perfect as of yet.
1:17:05
Speaker 1: And trying to find the actual source material is becoming exceedingly,
1:17:10
Speaker 1: not impossible, but exceedingly difficult. And oh, by the way,
1:17:14
Speaker 1: Google's also got a problem where these chatbots, ChatGPT, Grok,
1:17:20
Speaker 1: and others, Because of what Google has done, I use
1:17:24
Speaker 1: them far more now for things that I used to
1:17:28
Speaker 1: use the Google search engine for. While I'm no expert
1:17:34
Speaker 1: in this realm, my gut is that Google has completely
1:17:38
Speaker 1: screwed the pooch here. They have destroyed their magic. They're
1:17:43
Speaker 1: doing a Disney, basically. Disney destroyed their magic. Getting it
1:17:47
Speaker 1: back is almost impossible. There could be massive ramifications for
1:17:54
Speaker 1: not just Google, but for the entire internet and the
1:17:58
Speaker 1: economy as a whole. Because again, today the stock market
1:18:03
Speaker 1: is doing very, very well because of the Democratic victory,
1:18:05
Speaker 1: which I'm baffled by. Clearly a very short-term look at
1:18:09
Speaker 1: the economy because I guess they like gridlock. There already
1:18:13
Speaker 1: was gridlock. We're not getting any more gridlock now. In fact,
1:18:16
Speaker 1: we might get less gridlock if Trump decides to become
1:18:19
Speaker 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger. But the reality is that this is going
1:18:24
Speaker 1: to cause and is causing massive economic problems that are
1:18:27
Speaker 1: going to further exacerbate this AI bubble, which is showing
1:18:31
Speaker 1: very significant signs of bursting. Thanks for listening to today's
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