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Trump Joins the Streaming Wars · Pod Save America

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1:54
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
1:56
Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
1:56
Speaker 1: I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about how
1:58
Speaker 1: Republicans are about to let your health care premiums double
2:01
Speaker 1: or triple and what Trump has decided to do about
2:03
Speaker 1: all the economic harm he's inflicted. We'll also get into
2:06
Speaker 1: the politics of the next big media merger between Netflix
2:09
Speaker 1: and Warner Brothers Discovery, where Trump has, of course, inserted himself.
2:14
Speaker 1: Then we'll hear Lovett's interview with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw, who
2:17
Speaker 1: reported out the story of Netflix buying Warner's and why
2:21
Speaker 1: it matters. But let's start with this week's big push
2:23
Speaker 1: from the White House on the issue Trump calls a
2:26
Speaker 1: con job and a hoax, affordability. Even though the administration
2:30
Speaker 1: has been trying their best to keep potentially bad economic
2:33
Speaker 1: news to themselves, they just announced the report on a
2:36
Speaker 1: key measure of inflation will be delayed until next month.
2:39
Speaker 1: The data we do have hasn't been great. Consumer sentiment
2:42
Speaker 1: is down 28% from last December. Big retailers keep warning
2:46
Speaker 1: that they're about to increase prices because they can't continue
2:48
Speaker 1: to absorb the costs of Trump's tariffs. Private companies cut 32,000
2:53
Speaker 1: jobs last month, uh, led by small businesses, which can't
2:56
Speaker 1: absorb the cost of tariffs as well as big companies.
2:59
Speaker 1: Total layoffs this year topped 1.1 million, the highest since
3:03
Speaker 1: 2020 in the pandemic. And, uh, another pandemic error phrase
3:07
Speaker 1: has returned this holiday season. K-shaped economy where the richest
3:11
Speaker 1: people are doing great, but those with lower incomes are not.
3:16
Speaker 1: Trump's preferred strategy to deal with this, of course, is to, uh,
3:19
Speaker 1: Just keep denying reality. But it seems like some combination
3:22
Speaker 1: of his advisors and nervous Republicans in Congress have convinced
3:26
Speaker 1: him to at least try pretending he cares. He issued
3:30
Speaker 1: an executive order last week to develop a task force
3:34
Speaker 1: to investigate potential price fixing in imported food. The report
3:39
Speaker 1: is due in just six months. And on Monday, he
3:42
Speaker 1: announced a $ 12 billion bailout paid for by all of us.
3:47
Speaker 1: for farmers who are struggling because of Trump's tariffs, which
3:50
Speaker 1: are also being paid for by all of us. Here's
3:53
Speaker 1: Trump at that event.
3:54
Speaker 3: You know, Biden made none. He didn't make any trade
3:56
Speaker 3: deals having to do with the farmers or any of it.
3:59
Speaker 3: It's crazy.
4:01
Speaker 4: China committed.
4:01
Speaker 3: He was the worst president in the history of our country,
4:04
Speaker 3: by the way, in case anybody has any questions. We
4:07
Speaker 3: inherited a mess. Democrats caused the affordability problem. They have
4:11
Speaker 3: a tendency to just say, this election's based on affordability.
4:16
Speaker 3: and nobody questions them, John. Nobody says, oh, well, what
4:19
Speaker 3: do you mean by that? But they just say the word.
4:22
Speaker 3: They never say anything else because they caused the problem,
4:25
Speaker 3: but we're fixing the problem.
4:27
Speaker 1: I wonder why nobody says, what do you mean by that?
4:30
Speaker 1: Is it because they're not fucking idiots? What does the
4:34
Speaker 1: word affordability mean?
4:36
Speaker 2: It's funny, too, that there's two things going on at once,
4:38
Speaker 2: which is that costs have never been lower and the
4:41
Speaker 2: economy's completely fucked up because of the Democrats.
4:44
Speaker 1: Those are the two things. happening at the same time.
4:46
Speaker 1: Trump's also heading to Pennsylvania on Tuesday for the first
4:49
Speaker 1: big economic speech of his nationwide affordability blitz, which I
4:54
Speaker 1: can only assume he'll treat with the kind of message
4:57
Speaker 1: discipline he's known for. You think we'll see a lot
4:59
Speaker 1: of these events? You think he'll stick to the script?
5:02
Speaker 1: I'm excited to watch. It's funny that we're back. It's
5:05
Speaker 1: just a normal thing. It's like.
5:08
Speaker 2: We got to do a fucking tour.
5:09
Speaker 1: You got to go out.
5:10
Speaker 2: We're going to do an affordability tour. We're going to
5:11
Speaker 2: put the word affordability behind you. It's like the most
5:13
Speaker 2: old school, normal political reaction from a White House.
5:17
Speaker 1: No way the word affordability is behind him, right? Because
5:20
Speaker 1: he's called it a con job. He's going to call
5:21
Speaker 1: it like.
5:21
Speaker 5: It's going to be like best economy ever. It's going
5:23
Speaker 5: to be like aspirational marketing.
5:25
Speaker 1: Or like working class tax cuts. Yeah, exactly. That's the
5:27
Speaker 1: new name for the stupid bill. So do we think
5:30
Speaker 1: that farmers will be appropriately grateful to the president for
5:33
Speaker 1: easing the pain he continues to inflict on them?
5:35
Speaker 2: Probably.
5:37
Speaker 1: Potentially.
5:37
Speaker 5: I mean, this is just the completely predictable outcome of
5:39
Speaker 5: this trade war. It happened in the first term. Remember,
5:41
Speaker 5: he slapped a bunch of tariffs on China. Then he
5:43
Speaker 5: had to give U.S. farmers a bailout and it's happening again.
5:45
Speaker 5: But this time it's worse because the Chinese were better prepared.
5:48
Speaker 5: They'd already built these relationships with farmers in Argentina and Brazil.
5:51
Speaker 5: They bought soybeans from them. They didn't buy them from
5:54
Speaker 5: the U.S. farmers, which devastated American soybean farmers. I talked
5:57
Speaker 5: about this with Rob Sand, who's running for governor of Iowa,
6:00
Speaker 5: in the episode before Thanksgiving. And Trump is claiming that
6:03
Speaker 5: the Chinese are going to buy 12 billion worth of
6:05
Speaker 5: American soybeans, but it hasn't happened yet.
6:07
Speaker 1: Either way, it has completely screwed.
6:09
Speaker 5: Up the ability of these farmers to plan, manage crops,
6:11
Speaker 5: do all the things they need to do. So I
6:13
Speaker 5: just want to tell you some stats, though, guys. Meanwhile,
6:15
Speaker 5: over in China, in the first 11 months of this year,
6:18
Speaker 5: China's exports increased by 5.4%.
6:20
Speaker 1: That's $ 3. 4 trillion in exports.
6:21
Speaker 5: And they have a trade surplus of over $ 1 trillion
6:23
Speaker 5: in even with an average US tariff of 37%. So
6:32
Speaker 5: exports to the US are down close to 29% from
6:35
Speaker 5: the year before. So the Chinese sold more to Africa,
6:37
Speaker 5: Southeast Asia, Latin America, what a surprise. So maybe this
6:40
Speaker 5: cycle of like bankrupting American farmers and then paying.
6:43
Speaker 1: Them off will work again.
6:45
Speaker 5: My guess is ultimately these farmers would rather just like
6:48
Speaker 5: run a business and not deal with this shit.
6:50
Speaker 1: But- Making China great again. We'll see, yeah. Trillion dollars
6:54
Speaker 1: trade surplus.
6:55
Speaker 2: The bailout also is a fraction of what, His policies
6:59
Speaker 2: have cost farmers, one estimate put it at $ 44 billion
7:02
Speaker 2: for this year. And I want to imagine what it
7:06
Speaker 2: would be like if there was a Democratic policy to
7:09
Speaker 2: tax an industry into oblivion and then send a check
7:14
Speaker 2: for roughly a third or a quarter of that amount
7:16
Speaker 2: to the people impacted and what Republicans would do with
7:19
Speaker 2: that mix of protectionism and winner choosing.
7:24
Speaker 1: Stupidity? Yeah, and idiocy. I mean, Trump said it himself.
7:27
Speaker 1: He said, at that event, he goes, this money would
7:30
Speaker 1: not be possible without tariffs. Because of tariffs, this is possible. Yes,
7:34
Speaker 1: we know. Yeah, that's the whole problem.
7:36
Speaker 2: And part of, I would say, like, to me, my
7:39
Speaker 2: bigger question in all of this is, why isn't there
7:41
Speaker 2: more political fallout among farmers in this moment and, like,
7:47
Speaker 2: more of an effort to figure out how to build, like,
7:50
Speaker 2: support for Democratic candidates or Democratic policies in these states?
7:54
Speaker 1: Because this is ridiculous.
7:56
Speaker 2: I mean, this is, these are people that are being decimated,
7:59
Speaker 2: the amount Trump is going to send as a bailout
8:01
Speaker 2: is no match for the cost that he's incurring on
8:04
Speaker 2: their economies. And we will also, and then someone like
8:09
Speaker 2: Rob Sand, who's a great candidate, will struggle as hard
8:13
Speaker 2: as possible to overcome the disadvantage of being a Democrat
8:17
Speaker 2: running in a state as red as Iowa.
8:19
Speaker 1: I will say I did an event last month with
8:21
Speaker 1: a one-house candidate from Iowa and from Wisconsin, And they
8:26
Speaker 1: were saying it's all they hear everywhere from farmers and
8:30
Speaker 1: people in rural America.
8:30
Speaker 5: There's a lot of consolidation in these big agribusinesses that
8:33
Speaker 5: ultimately probably like tax cuts and deregulation in other places.
8:36
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's terrible.
8:37
Speaker 4: Yeah.
8:37
Speaker 1: Better way to maybe say it is like, how can
8:39
Speaker 1: we turn this into an opportunity? The other challenge with
8:42
Speaker 1: doing it this way, aside from it just being stupid
8:44
Speaker 1: to slap tariffs on people that hurt them and then
8:49
Speaker 1: use taxpayer dollars to help.
8:51
Speaker 2: Defray some of the pain is It's punching someone in
8:54
Speaker 2: the face and then giving.
8:55
Speaker 1: Them an Advil. The program is going through this bridge
8:59
Speaker 1: program at USDA, the agriculture department. And when they did
9:03
Speaker 1: this in the first term, because I think he gave
9:04
Speaker 1: $ 20 billion back in the first term, independent analysis from
9:08
Speaker 1: the New York Times found that the payments that they
9:10
Speaker 1: made disproportionately went to the largest and wealthiest farms. So
9:15
Speaker 1: it's not really, there's no good way to target the
9:19
Speaker 1: bailout to the people that are being hurt worst by
9:22
Speaker 1: the tariffs. Right. Which is a real fucking problem. We
9:24
Speaker 1: love our farmers, though. One of those larger and wealthier
9:28
Speaker 1: farms might belong to a soybean farmer, Scott Besant, who's
9:34
Speaker 1: somehow still out there saying this. This is from the
9:36
Speaker 1: Sunday shows.
9:37
Speaker 4: I'm involved in the agriculture industry.
9:39
Speaker 1: I run a soybean farm. And I can tell you—
9:42
Speaker 1: You own one. You invest in it. Sorry? You own
9:44
Speaker 1: or invest a soybean farm. And people in my family
9:45
Speaker 1: go out and work on it. I actually just divested
9:47
Speaker 1: it this week as part of the— via my ethics agreement,
9:50
Speaker 1: so I'm out of that business. People in his family.
9:54
Speaker 1: You think we're going third, fourth cousins? What do you think?
9:56
Speaker 5: Botox his personality. That makes cadavers look loose. He's really
10:01
Speaker 5: gotten worse.
10:01
Speaker 1: He's gotten worse. Some of my best friends. By like 2027,
10:08
Speaker 1: he'll just be like. I do.
10:11
Speaker 2: I do.
10:12
Speaker 5: I am grateful that he decided to deal with a
10:13
Speaker 5: massive conflict of interest in December of 2025. Glad we
10:17
Speaker 5: got there after months of negotiating deals, agriculture deals.
10:21
Speaker 1: Unbelievable. And of course, you know, there was the bailout.
10:24
Speaker 1: He's also Trump has sort of finally, I guess this
10:27
Speaker 1: is like a couple weeks ago, maybe last month, lifted
10:30
Speaker 1: the tariffs on all the food. that we don't actually
10:34
Speaker 1: grow here. He finally realized that we don't make bananas
10:38
Speaker 1: in the United States and coffee. So a little late
10:41
Speaker 1: on that.
10:42
Speaker 2: Not with that attitude.
10:44
Speaker 1: The other challenge is, and I mentioned this at the outset,
10:47
Speaker 1: that a lot of the pain from the tariffs still
10:51
Speaker 1: hasn't hit because these big companies have been absorbing the costs,
10:56
Speaker 1: like these retailers. And they're all saying, or a lot
10:58
Speaker 1: of them are saying, that come January, February, they're going
11:02
Speaker 1: to finally increase prices. So just as Trump and the
11:05
Speaker 1: administration are starting to hope that, you know, inflation hits
11:10
Speaker 1: the Fed's target and things start to settle down and
11:12
Speaker 1: people start to feel the effect of the tax cuts
11:15
Speaker 1: come April when they get their return, like retailers are
11:18
Speaker 1: going to, you know, the tariffs that still exist, retailers
11:20
Speaker 1: are going to start raising the prices.
11:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's also like, there's so many ways in which
11:24
Speaker 2: this is unfair. You know, we say tariffs as a shorthand,
11:29
Speaker 2: but like, why are farmers struggling? Like it's, the higher
11:33
Speaker 2: cost for inputs that they need. It's the trade war itself,
11:37
Speaker 2: making it so they can't sell what they're growing around
11:41
Speaker 2: the world. How do you measure that? How do you
11:42
Speaker 2: measure the cost of someone not being able to sell
11:45
Speaker 2: some of their income going down? They're not paying a
11:49
Speaker 2: tariff on something they can't sell. So it all ends
11:51
Speaker 2: up being a bailout that, yes, goes to the wealthiest companies,
11:58
Speaker 2: but more broadly, there are plenty of people that are
12:01
Speaker 2: deserving of relief in the same way these farmers are
12:03
Speaker 2: deserving of relief that will receive nothing. They're people whose
12:06
Speaker 2: businesses have been decimated by Trump's haphazard and chaotic tariff policies,
12:10
Speaker 2: and they're not getting a dime from him.
12:12
Speaker 1: You heartened by the bold executive order on price fixing, Tommy? Yeah.
12:20
Speaker 5: It's not a bad idea. I mean, it's a bad, well,
12:23
Speaker 5: do something about it. Like, I don't think we need
12:24
Speaker 5: a blue ribbon commission. Like the ag industry is unbelievably consolidated.
12:27
Speaker 5: There's like four companies. They control 85% of the beef market,
12:30
Speaker 5: 70% of pork, half the poultry industry. But I have
12:34
Speaker 5: zero confidence that Donald Trump will go after any of
12:36
Speaker 5: these companies because they are big fans of Republicans and
12:39
Speaker 5: are probably pouring money into his ballroom and his coffers. And,
12:42
Speaker 5: you know, it's just like, great. Announce a blue ribbon
12:45
Speaker 5: commission that'll give us a report in six months.
12:47
Speaker 1: And then we'll do what?
12:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminds me of whenever gas prices would go
12:51
Speaker 2: through the roof, Chuck Schumer would do like a Sunday
12:53
Speaker 2: press conference in front of a gas station being like.
12:55
Speaker 1: We got to stop this gouging. Yeah, yeah. I got
12:58
Speaker 1: a bill. As long as I've been alive and in politics,
13:01
Speaker 1: I've never noticed any kind of gouging actually be taken
13:05
Speaker 1: care of by a political policy.
13:07
Speaker 5: No, I'm also, I'm excited in this speech to see
13:10
Speaker 5: the delta between the prepared remarks and what he actually says,
13:13
Speaker 5: you know, because, you know, he's got smart people in there.
13:15
Speaker 5: They know that they need to like, he needs to,
13:18
Speaker 5: be like, I feel your pain.
13:20
Speaker 1: I'm listening. I'm going to do something about it. We
13:22
Speaker 1: owe you more.
13:23
Speaker 5: But his instinct is going to be, stop your bitching.
13:26
Speaker 5: I gave you the best economy in the world.
13:28
Speaker 1: This is a hoax. Prices are down. Remember eggs? All
13:31
Speaker 1: you guys were talking about is eggs. How about your
13:33
Speaker 1: eggs now?
13:34
Speaker 5: And I think we're just going to hear all these
13:36
Speaker 5: demands for credit and repetition and accomplishment. It's going to
13:38
Speaker 5: sound like Joe Biden yelling about AUKUS.
13:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe he'll be yelling about AUKUS. Maybe Trump will.
13:45
Speaker 1: Whatever he says, it seems like we're going to be
13:46
Speaker 1: hearing this for a whole year. Good luck. Susie Wiles
13:49
Speaker 1: was on some MAGA podcast today that I couldn't quite recognize.
13:53
Speaker 1: And she said that they're going to flip the script
13:56
Speaker 1: in this midterm and they're putting, she's putting Trump on
13:59
Speaker 1: the ballot. She's usually the president. They don't want to
14:02
Speaker 1: put the president on the ballot, but she's putting Trump
14:03
Speaker 1: on the ballot and that he's going to, she wants
14:05
Speaker 1: them to campaign in 2026, quote, like it's 2024 again. Okay, cool.
14:11
Speaker 5: Oh, she's on Pod Force One. The one that, it's
14:15
Speaker 5: like the New York Post.
14:16
Speaker 1: Oh, there was something that was Maga Moms, too. She
14:19
Speaker 1: was on that one recently. Okay, good for her. Oh, no,
14:20
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. This was July 10th.
14:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
14:21
Speaker 1: It was something called Maga Moms. Maga Moms. But not
14:24
Speaker 1: Katie Miller. Not Katie Miller. The Hegseths were on that.
14:27
Speaker 1: And she got a big Elon interview. She got a
14:29
Speaker 1: big Elon interview. Oh, she did? Well, I saw it previewed,
14:31
Speaker 1: but I didn't actually watch it because she is painfully boring. Anyway,
14:33
Speaker 1: we're doing promo for her. We're doing the ones. Yeah,
14:35
Speaker 1: I don't know why we're doing that. One thing Trump
14:36
Speaker 1: and Republicans in Congress likely won't be doing anything about,
14:40
Speaker 1: the massive premium hikes that are set to hit in
14:42
Speaker 1: a few weeks for more than 20 million Americans who
14:45
Speaker 1: buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. John Thune
14:49
Speaker 1: is keeping the promise he made as part of the
14:50
Speaker 1: deal to end the government shutdown and will give Democrats
14:53
Speaker 1: a vote this Thursday on a three-year extension of the
14:57
Speaker 1: ACA subsidies. We did it. Yeah, we did it. We
15:00
Speaker 1: did it. Got that vote. Republicans will be voting no, however.
15:03
Speaker 2: Yep. Ah.
15:05
Speaker 1: But they also, they can't seem to agree on any
15:07
Speaker 1: kind of alternative. Some have proposed a two-year extension with
15:11
Speaker 1: new income limits. This is a proposal by Bernie Moreno
15:15
Speaker 1: and Susan Collins. Others, I believe Bill Cassidy and someone
15:21
Speaker 1: else whose name I can't remember right now, have proposed... Crapo. Crapo. Crapo.
15:25
Speaker 1: He's still around?
15:26
Speaker 6: Yeah.
15:27
Speaker 1: Crapo. There's Crapo and the other one, right? Crapo and...
15:30
Speaker 1: That's the other C word from the stick. Not Craig.
15:33
Speaker 1: Remember Larry Craig? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, not him. It
15:35
Speaker 1: was Craig Bell. With the foot tapping? Wide stance. Wide stance.
15:39
Speaker 1: Wide stance.
15:40
Speaker 2: Man, remember there was always rumors about that guy and
15:43
Speaker 2: there were stories about him doing that and then all
15:45
Speaker 2: of a sudden it was reported? You know what?
15:46
Speaker 1: That was wild. You have to poop one time.
15:48
Speaker 2: Standing there with his poor beleaguered wife at that press conference.
15:51
Speaker 2: That poor wife standing by the side of the press conference.
15:54
Speaker 1: None of this is true.
15:56
Speaker 2: It's a conspiracy to stop me, America's greatest legislator, Larry
16:01
Speaker 2: Craig of Idaho.
16:02
Speaker 1: If you're too young or offline to know what we're
16:05
Speaker 1: talking about, just ask ChatGPT. They'll let you know about
16:07
Speaker 1: Larry Craig. Maybe they'll also tell you about the proposal
16:11
Speaker 1: by Crapo. Uh-huh. Crapo? Crapo. Did I just say Crapo?
16:16
Speaker 4: It's Crapo.
16:18
Speaker 1: You want to say Crapo. You want it to be Crapo.
16:20
Speaker 1: If he ended up being like a real figure that
16:22
Speaker 1: pissed people off, he'd be called Crapo. Trump would call
16:25
Speaker 1: him Crapo. But no one even cares. I thought you
16:26
Speaker 1: were doing a blue sky joke. Anyway, their proposal is
16:32
Speaker 1: no extension, and all they're going to do is give
16:35
Speaker 1: people below 700% of the poverty line $ 1, 000 in a
16:38
Speaker 1: tax-free savings account. So crazy. But all of this is
16:43
Speaker 1: sort of moot since Senate Republicans reportedly won't be, as
16:46
Speaker 1: of this recording at least, coalescing behind a single alternative.
16:49
Speaker 1: Doesn't seem like House Republicans are doing much of anything.
16:52
Speaker 1: I think the House Republican Problem Solver Caucus is probably
16:57
Speaker 1: working with Democrats on something that won't go anywhere, but
16:59
Speaker 1: Just it doesn't seem like anything's happening. And this is
17:02
Speaker 1: also probably the last week to do anything before January
17:06
Speaker 1: 1st hits since everyone's, you know, leaving for the holidays.
17:10
Speaker 1: And and that's that. So on the Moreno Collins two
17:15
Speaker 1: year extension with limits, which that is similar to what
17:19
Speaker 1: the White House. Remember, they were about to announce that
17:21
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago and then they backed off
17:23
Speaker 1: because Republicans got nervous. Why do you guys think that
17:25
Speaker 1: Trump and Republicans couldn't get their shit together on a
17:27
Speaker 1: single alternative so that at the very least, when Susie
17:30
Speaker 1: Wiles is making Donald Trump campaign like it's 2024, he
17:34
Speaker 1: and other Republican candidates have something to tell people that
17:38
Speaker 1: they tried on healthcare?
17:39
Speaker 2: So here's what's confusing to me about this. So John
17:43
Speaker 2: Kennedy from Louisiana, who always is good for a great quote,
17:46
Speaker 2: said this, Politico, have you ever heard of a Rorschach test?
17:48
Speaker 2: Let's smear it all over the wall. That's where the
17:50
Speaker 2: negotiations are at internally among the Republicans. So what's going
17:56
Speaker 2: on in the House makes sense, which is there's a
17:59
Speaker 2: small number.
18:00
Speaker 4: Nothing.
18:01
Speaker 1: What?
18:01
Speaker 2: Nothing.
18:01
Speaker 1: Which is nothing. That always makes sense.
18:03
Speaker 2: Because there's a number of Republicans, I think, that would
18:05
Speaker 2: vote for some sort of compromise extension to try to
18:08
Speaker 2: save their seats. But the vast majority of House Republicans
18:10
Speaker 2: don't want to do that, which means we're in a
18:12
Speaker 2: situation that doesn't look that different from previous.
18:15
Speaker 1: Votes like this.
18:16
Speaker 2: There's a majority that would pass an extension. But if
18:18
Speaker 2: Johnson allows that vote to take place, he will lose
18:21
Speaker 2: the speakership. He can only lose two or three at
18:23
Speaker 2: this point. So that makes sense. In the Senate, I
18:28
Speaker 2: actually don't understand what's happening because there is this compromise
18:32
Speaker 2: proposal that, given it already has two Republicans on board,
18:36
Speaker 2: would have a majority in the Senate. And I don't
18:39
Speaker 2: see why a bunch of them don't just get on
18:41
Speaker 2: board and send it over to die in the House.
18:46
Speaker 2: So I do think it's a genuine ideological objection to
18:50
Speaker 2: the extensions.
18:51
Speaker 1: And it's because they fucked up.
18:53
Speaker 2: Because if they had put in place limits on the
18:56
Speaker 2: extensions and allowed those extensions to go forward, they would
18:58
Speaker 2: have made Obamacare more conservative. They would have been able
19:01
Speaker 2: to put in place a bunch of reforms. What they've
19:04
Speaker 2: done is allow it to lapse. And so anything they
19:06
Speaker 2: do is reviving the subsidies that currently will not exist
19:10
Speaker 2: on January 1st. And a lot of them just don't
19:12
Speaker 2: want to do that. And so, you know, Rick Scott
19:14
Speaker 2: is also somebody that's been in favor of just doing
19:15
Speaker 2: this sort of money in people's pockets for health care.
19:20
Speaker 2: which doesn't do anything to resolve the problem, which is
19:22
Speaker 2: if you don't have a health insurance and you have
19:23
Speaker 2: a medical event, you will go bankrupt. That's why people
19:26
Speaker 2: need insurance. So I don't understand what's happening in the
19:30
Speaker 2: Senate because they would obviously be served politically by just
19:34
Speaker 2: sending something to the House.
19:35
Speaker 6: Yeah.
19:36
Speaker 5: I mean, the health savings account plans would not only
19:38
Speaker 5: not solve the problem for most people, it would make
19:40
Speaker 5: the problem much, much worse because healthy young people would
19:43
Speaker 5: just not get health insurance. They would spend down the
19:46
Speaker 5: HSAs whenever they needed healthcare and then premium would go
19:50
Speaker 5: up for everyone else and the ACA would go into.
19:53
Speaker 1: A death spiral.
19:54
Speaker 5: I asked a Republican who worked on the Hill on
19:56
Speaker 5: healthcare a bunch and said, why isn't there an alternative?
19:58
Speaker 5: And this person said, either they don't care about healthcare
20:00
Speaker 5: and give no thoughts to policy or they live in
20:02
Speaker 5: 2014 when just being against the ACA is all they
20:05
Speaker 5: know to say on the issue. And that sounded about
20:06
Speaker 5: right to me because there's a couple dozen Republicans in
20:11
Speaker 5: swing districts, they are completely freaked out. They know they're
20:14
Speaker 5: going to lose. Tony Fabrizio said they'd be down 15
20:16
Speaker 5: points if they fail to extend these tax credits and
20:19
Speaker 5: they're likely to lose their seats. But the rest of
20:20
Speaker 5: them are in crazy gerrymandered seats or safe states. And
20:24
Speaker 5: they just don't want to vote for Obama anything for
20:26
Speaker 5: ideological reasons or for policy reasons. And Trump was asked
20:29
Speaker 5: about it today and he tried to do like a
20:31
Speaker 5: Luigi Mangione impression. He was like, Democrats are in the
20:34
Speaker 5: pocket of the health insurance industry.
20:35
Speaker 1: What are you talking about, dude?
20:37
Speaker 5: And then he seemed to endorse an HSA plan, but
20:40
Speaker 5: he still doesn't have his own.
20:42
Speaker 3: Yeah.
20:43
Speaker 1: They're trying to say that because technically the expanded subsidies
20:49
Speaker 1: go to the insurance companies, that somehow it's making the
20:52
Speaker 1: insurance companies richer, which is them not realizing that people
20:56
Speaker 1: can easily just look up the fact that the money
21:00
Speaker 1: is paid to the insurance companies and then they are
21:01
Speaker 1: required by law. pass the savings on to the consumer.
21:06
Speaker 1: That's the whole point of the subsidies. Also change them.
21:09
Speaker 2: If you, if you have a problem with how lucrative
21:11
Speaker 2: they are for the insurance companies, you have the ability
21:13
Speaker 2: to legislate anything you want to extend the subsidies to
21:15
Speaker 2: address your concerns.
21:15
Speaker 1: But it's really, it's just a pass through, through the
21:17
Speaker 1: insurance companies. It's not a, it's nothing else. They have
21:20
Speaker 1: a problem, right?
21:21
Speaker 2: They claim to have a problem with the fact there's
21:22
Speaker 2: a lot of people that sign up for Obamacare and
21:25
Speaker 2: never use it over the course of the year. There's
21:27
Speaker 2: a lot of like, they have genuine ideological and policy questions.
21:30
Speaker 2: There are people that actually think about healthcare and on
21:32
Speaker 2: the Republican side, they're just not willing to actually put
21:36
Speaker 2: anything forward because they just have never in 20 years
21:39
Speaker 2: of talking about healthcare aligned on any kind of a vision.
21:41
Speaker 1: I imagine that the Collins-Moreno proposal is one for, I mean,
21:47
Speaker 1: Collins is the only one in a truly vulnerable seat
21:52
Speaker 1: right now who's a Senate Republican. I mean, you could
21:55
Speaker 1: also say that- Moreno's like close enough. Yeah, like the
21:57
Speaker 1: guy that's running against Sherrod, whatever his face is, Hurston something.
22:02
Speaker 1: He's John Hurstead. Who knows? He'll probably say he's for that. Husted. Husted. Hey,
22:10
Speaker 1: pretty good. So, you know, you can imagine the people
22:13
Speaker 1: in vulnerable seats in the House, too, saying they were
22:15
Speaker 1: for two year extension and the Democrats just wanted to
22:17
Speaker 1: give the subsidies to rich people. You know, they could
22:20
Speaker 1: run a campaign like that. But I do think Republicans
22:24
Speaker 1: control the White House and Congress. And most voters would say, well, gee,
22:28
Speaker 1: since you controlled everything, why didn't you make your little
22:30
Speaker 1: plan happen? if you controlled everything. Senator Josh Hawley, he
22:35
Speaker 1: said to Burgess Everett, a reporter at Semaphore today, Republicans
22:40
Speaker 1: had better offer something. I mean, what signal will it
22:42
Speaker 1: send if Republicans say we're going to say no to
22:44
Speaker 1: the Democrats' plan, but we're not going to offer anything?
22:46
Speaker 1: The message that will send is good luck to the
22:48
Speaker 1: American people. We don't really care. And Hawley said he
22:51
Speaker 1: wouldn't even rule out voting for the three-year extension on Thursday.
22:55
Speaker 1: I had a question about this.
22:57
Speaker 2: I wonder if you thought about this, which is I'm
22:59
Speaker 2: glad we got a discharge petition through on the Epstein files,
23:02
Speaker 2: which is obviously making a difference for.
23:04
Speaker 1: Everybody this Christmas.
23:05
Speaker 2: But presumably there are a majority of House members that
23:09
Speaker 2: would sign on to an extension, maybe an extension with
23:12
Speaker 2: some kind of cap, some version of the Senate proposal.
23:17
Speaker 2: Make them decide not to support that because you'd instantly
23:19
Speaker 2: get every Democrat to sign some kind of a compromise.
23:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, they tried, apparently. And even the Don Bacons of
23:26
Speaker 1: the House... We're like, we're not signing a discharge petition
23:29
Speaker 1: on the three-year extension. We will come up with our
23:32
Speaker 1: own bipartisan compromise.
23:34
Speaker 2: Right, but do one of these– I think it's out there.
23:37
Speaker 1: It's happening.
23:37
Speaker 5: Because they're trying to work in some politically damaging things
23:40
Speaker 5: like it has to cut funding for states that provide
23:43
Speaker 5: healthcare to undocumented people or like further reductions in payments.
23:47
Speaker 1: For abortion services. They just want to make it politically painful. Yeah,
23:51
Speaker 1: Hyde Amendment stuff, they wanted to include in that.
23:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, but like, man– But I agree with you. I mean,
23:56
Speaker 5: it's the obvious smart thing for them to do is
23:58
Speaker 5: pass it.
24:00
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that they are, this is one
24:02
Speaker 1: of the stupider fucking moves from the public. I mean,
24:04
Speaker 1: aside from being awful on policy and hating that, like
24:07
Speaker 1: it's just politically a real head scratcher because I think
24:11
Speaker 1: they feel maybe they've avoided the pain so far, but
24:14
Speaker 1: the pain hasn't really hit yet. And when they're campaigning
24:19
Speaker 1: and healthcare premiums are up and the tariffs are still
24:21
Speaker 1: there and Big companies are raising costs again. Like, I
24:24
Speaker 1: don't think it's getting better for them.
24:25
Speaker 2: No. No.
24:26
Speaker 1: And this is their voters, too.
24:27
Speaker 2: Yeah.
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25:53
Speaker 1: slash Crooked. Monday also brought more exciting news in the
25:59
Speaker 1: war over which mega corporation will achieve total control of
26:03
Speaker 1: the entertainment industry. Hell yeah. You probably saw that Netflix has,
26:06
Speaker 1: at least for now, won the bidding war for Warner
26:08
Speaker 1: Brothers Discovery, agreeing to pay $ 72 billion in a deal
26:12
Speaker 1: that would give them the Warner Brothers half of the company,
26:15
Speaker 1: which includes the TV and movie studios, as well as
26:17
Speaker 1: HBO Max. The Discovery half, which includes CNN and other
26:21
Speaker 1: cable networks, would split off on its own, though they
26:24
Speaker 1: could always go after that half later. But none of
26:27
Speaker 1: this is final. On Monday, David Ellison's Paramount Skydance, which
26:31
Speaker 1: recently absorbed what's left of CBS and CBS News, was
26:34
Speaker 1: reportedly preparing to launch a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. Ellison,
26:39
Speaker 1: whose father Larry is the billionaire founder of Oracle and
26:42
Speaker 1: friends with Trump, called the Netflix offer, quote, inferior. and
26:46
Speaker 1: told CNBC on Monday, quote, we're really here to finish
26:49
Speaker 1: what we started. Love it. People are going to hear
26:52
Speaker 1: your interview with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw on this in a bit,
26:54
Speaker 1: but any headlines from that that we should know about?
26:57
Speaker 2: Hollywood is pretty freaked out. The Ellisons are pissed, but
26:59
Speaker 2: could put together more money, and Trump has a lot
27:03
Speaker 2: of power.
27:03
Speaker 1: And Paramount is bringing some pals along if they go
27:09
Speaker 1: forward with the latest bid. They're making the offer along
27:11
Speaker 1: with sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar,
27:15
Speaker 1: and of course, No gang of golf autocrats trying to
27:18
Speaker 1: curry favor with Trump would be complete without the involvement
27:21
Speaker 1: of the man who was the president's second choice to
27:23
Speaker 1: marry Ivanka after Tom Brady, Jared Kushner. He's like a chaperone.
27:28
Speaker 1: Jared's private equity firm, Affinity Partners, going in on the
27:30
Speaker 1: bid could help grease the wheels with regulators, especially because
27:33
Speaker 1: the Trump administration has already indicated it views the Netflix
27:36
Speaker 1: offer with, quote, heavy skepticism. But because Trump is also
27:41
Speaker 1: a messy bitch who loves drama, he posted a statement
27:43
Speaker 1: on Monday saying, that was quite critical of Paramount for
27:46
Speaker 1: allowing CBS News' 60 Minutes to air an interview with
27:49
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Greene in which she dared to criticize Trump. Quote,
27:53
Speaker 1: from The Truth, My real problem was that the new
27:56
Speaker 1: ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like
27:59
Speaker 1: this to air. All caps, they are no better than
28:02
Speaker 1: the old ownership who just paid me millions of dollars
28:05
Speaker 1: for fake reporting about your favorite president. Me. Since they
28:09
Speaker 1: bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten worse. Tough review
28:13
Speaker 1: for Barry Weiss. I wonder if there's a lesson there
28:14
Speaker 1: for everybody else. And here's Trump fielding a question on
28:17
Speaker 1: the deal during his White House event on Monday. You
28:21
Speaker 1: spoke about Netflix last night saying you have concerns about them.
28:25
Speaker 4: I know the companies very well.
28:26
Speaker 3: I know what they're doing, but I have to see.
28:28
Speaker 3: I have to see what percentage of market they have.
28:30
Speaker 3: I mean, none of them are particularly great friends of mine.
28:33
Speaker 4: Paramount is supported.
28:34
Speaker 6: By Jared Kushner, Mr.
28:35
Speaker 1: President. Would that impact your decision?
28:38
Speaker 3: If Paramount is?
28:40
Speaker 2: I don't know.
28:40
Speaker 3: I've never spoken to him. He's really trying to work
28:44
Speaker 3: on Gaza. I think Gaza is his primary thing.
28:48
Speaker 1: Tommy, do you think this deal is... Is this hostile
28:51
Speaker 1: takeover bid could work now that the man who negotiated
28:54
Speaker 1: the Abraham Accords is on the case? Yeah. First of all,
28:57
Speaker 1: way to bribe him there, CBS. You guys nailed that. Also,
28:59
Speaker 1: the lighting there was so bad. Very, very yellowy. Very amber.
29:02
Speaker 1: Golden dome.
29:03
Speaker 5: I mean, Jared's participation is pure, uncut corruption. Like the
29:09
Speaker 5: paramount is just like, okay, let's bring this idiot. Maybe
29:12
Speaker 5: he can grease it from the inside. Maybe he can
29:14
Speaker 5: make this deal happen. And remember that the money Jared
29:17
Speaker 5: is investing is is almost entirely from investment funds controlled
29:20
Speaker 5: by the Saudis, the Emiratis, and Qatar. It's 99% of
29:24
Speaker 5: the $ 5 billion in assets yet. So he is a
29:26
Speaker 5: middleman with zero experience in streaming or studios. It's just
29:30
Speaker 5: political ties and corruption. And you have to ask, OK,
29:34
Speaker 5: at the same time, so the Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari
29:38
Speaker 5: sovereign wealth funds have put up $ 24 billion to help
29:42
Speaker 5: finance this deal. So those sovereign wealth funds paid Jared.
29:46
Speaker 5: So they're paying him a fee to be part of
29:48
Speaker 5: an investment that they're also a part.
29:50
Speaker 1: Of on their own. Very interesting. Nice work if you
29:52
Speaker 1: can get it. Great business.
29:54
Speaker 5: Also, the sovereign wealth funds have agreed to have no
29:56
Speaker 5: say in the governance of of the future company. So
29:59
Speaker 5: no board seats, no voting rights, presumably to get around
30:02
Speaker 5: the national security process that could block the deal, the
30:05
Speaker 5: CFIUS process. So you have to wonder, like, why are
30:07
Speaker 5: these guys excited to be part of a deal that
30:10
Speaker 5: this merger, where they're wildly overpaying for assets to create
30:14
Speaker 5: a company they can't control? And like, I think it's
30:17
Speaker 5: about control, right? It's like changing the cultural conversation. I
30:20
Speaker 5: think they just love journalism. Yeah, they love cinema. It's about,
30:24
Speaker 5: you know, like, washing their reputation. I mean, the whole
30:27
Speaker 5: thing is just pretty gross.
30:28
Speaker 1: Yeah.
30:29
Speaker 2: So we don't even, I talked to Lucas about this
30:32
Speaker 2: a little bit and actually it's, we don't totally understand
30:34
Speaker 2: their motivation, right? Because they do claim to be giving
30:37
Speaker 2: up control. They do like the idea of diversifying into
30:40
Speaker 2: these other areas at the same time, like, because it's
30:44
Speaker 2: such a big Netflix, there's so many pieces to this.
30:48
Speaker 2: CNN is at stake in this as well. Netflix has said,
30:52
Speaker 2: they don't want the cable business. So that Discovery Global
30:56
Speaker 2: would spin off. Ellison has said he would want it,
30:58
Speaker 2: he would keep it.
30:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, they want it all.
31:00
Speaker 2: And would make CNN and CBS a kind of Barry
31:03
Speaker 2: Weiss Gundam that she would control, probably. Now, I asked
31:08
Speaker 2: actually Lucas about this, about would Ellison acquire CNN anyway
31:14
Speaker 2: if Netflix spun it off? And he actually thought he might,
31:17
Speaker 2: but didn't actually think that anybody... That the cable business
31:20
Speaker 2: is something you get if you do this deal, but
31:22
Speaker 2: nobody would want it independently, which may be a possibility.
31:27
Speaker 1: It does seem like... First of all, we should talk
31:29
Speaker 1: about the power Trump has to stop this deal because
31:33
Speaker 1: it's not as clear-cut as I thought, at least, when
31:35
Speaker 1: I first started reading about it. Because, first of all,
31:37
Speaker 1: the FCC has no role here because there's not local
31:40
Speaker 1: television stations at stake. DOJ. And so it's DOJ. DOJ
31:45
Speaker 1: could ask a judge for an injunction. So they could...
31:49
Speaker 1: They could maybe delay it for a couple months, but
31:51
Speaker 1: then the judge would have to grant the injunction. So
31:54
Speaker 1: they can try to block it, but it's not completely
31:56
Speaker 1: in the hands of Trump's DOJ. I do think he
32:00
Speaker 1: is playing coy and like, you know, maybe it's too
32:04
Speaker 1: much market share for Netflix, but also Ted Sarandos is fantastic.
32:07
Speaker 1: And also I might be pissed at Paramount because 60
32:09
Speaker 1: Minutes and Barry Weiss aren't. Yeah, it's leverage. And if
32:12
Speaker 1: this takes, what, 18 months to close? You know, that's
32:16
Speaker 1: like a good part of the rest of Trump's term.
32:18
Speaker 1: And he can have all these companies, all three of
32:20
Speaker 1: these companies just kissing his ass and giving him all
32:23
Speaker 1: the content, all the rush hour movies he wants. He's
32:26
Speaker 1: already got Rush Hour 4 coming out now.
32:28
Speaker 2: He's got another cameo in a Batman movie.
32:31
Speaker 1: He's coming his way. But not enough movies. Home Alone. Yeah,
32:34
Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
32:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he doesn't have the ability to, he doesn't
32:38
Speaker 2: have the singular ability to stop it, but he does
32:40
Speaker 2: have the ability to approve it. I do think also
32:43
Speaker 2: all this, you know, him sort of going after Paramount
32:46
Speaker 2: today is a way of saying for the next 18 months,
32:49
Speaker 2: everybody better be so nice to me.
32:51
Speaker 1: It's my birthday. It's my birthday until one of these
32:53
Speaker 1: deals is approved. Yeah. I talked about this with Lucas
32:58
Speaker 1: as well.
32:59
Speaker 2: I've seen a bunch of people come out against these
33:01
Speaker 2: deals and I understand why. And people have genuine concerns
33:07
Speaker 2: about what this consolidation would mean. But I also do
33:10
Speaker 2: wonder what happens if people come up with what they'd
33:13
Speaker 2: want Trump claims he wants to save Hollywood, right? He comes,
33:16
Speaker 2: I'm going to be the guy that saves Hollywood. Well,
33:20
Speaker 2: if Trump wants to be the savior of Hollywood, there's
33:22
Speaker 2: billions and billions of dollars Netflix has put on the
33:24
Speaker 2: table if this deal gets stopped, right? That's leverage Trump
33:27
Speaker 2: has to make all kinds of demands, even though in
33:29
Speaker 2: any other administration, it wouldn't happen that way.
33:31
Speaker 1: Are you guys rooting for Netflix because Sarandos isn't as
33:34
Speaker 1: tight with Trump as the Ellisons? Or is it still just,
33:37
Speaker 1: I mean, Netflix controlling Warner Brothers, that is a big
33:42
Speaker 1: market share right there. Yeah, I think it's complicated.
33:44
Speaker 5: I think the best outcome is no merger at all,
33:46
Speaker 5: but there are political equities and there's like business and
33:48
Speaker 5: Hollywood equities. I think from a political perspective, I'm not
33:51
Speaker 5: excited about Paramount because you don't want like a Trump
33:54
Speaker 5: aligned billionaire and his annoying kid having an even larger
33:57
Speaker 5: amount of market share and power in Hollywood. Antitrust advocates
34:00
Speaker 5: might say though that a supersized Paramount could create a
34:03
Speaker 5: streaming competitor to Netflix that might be a good thing
34:06
Speaker 5: for consumers or for Hollywood if, you know, trying to
34:08
Speaker 5: get more buyers out there in the market who make
34:11
Speaker 5: TV and film. The pushback to that though is like,
34:14
Speaker 5: I don't know, even if a deal goes through, like
34:15
Speaker 5: no matter what, there's one less buyer and that's not
34:17
Speaker 5: a good thing for people selling stuff. And then if
34:19
Speaker 5: Netflix wins, like there are a lot of potential downsides.
34:22
Speaker 5: It gives them a huge chunk of the streaming business.
34:24
Speaker 5: Paramount says it's 40%. I don't know how to vet that,
34:27
Speaker 5: but like they're the number one and number three biggest streamers.
34:30
Speaker 5: It means one less buyer in the market making stuff.
34:32
Speaker 5: It could kill the movie theater business because Netflix wants
34:35
Speaker 5: to get movies onto its streaming platform faster, and that
34:38
Speaker 5: could drastically shorten theatrical release times. And then there's just
34:42
Speaker 5: a question of like, okay, so how is Netflix going
34:44
Speaker 5: to pay for this? Like, what costs are they going
34:46
Speaker 5: to cut? Are they going to fire people? Are they
34:47
Speaker 5: going to shut down lots? Are they going to raise prices?
34:50
Speaker 5: There was one analyst who said, where's my numbers? There's
34:52
Speaker 5: one analyst estimated that the deal needs to increase Netflix's
34:55
Speaker 5: cash flow by 8 billion per year for the next
34:58
Speaker 5: 20 years to justify itself. That's a lot of money.
35:02
Speaker 5: And then there's like a third theory out there that
35:03
Speaker 5: just like actually Netflix doesn't really care if they close
35:06
Speaker 5: the deal. They just want to freeze Warner Brothers Discovery
35:09
Speaker 5: for 18 to 24 months while the process goes on
35:11
Speaker 5: and keep them from getting sold elsewhere and then just
35:14
Speaker 5: like press their advantage in streaming. Who knows if that's true,
35:17
Speaker 5: but it's an interesting theory.
35:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
35:19
Speaker 2: The other side of it though is according to the proposal,
35:24
Speaker 2: there's even more cuts if Warner Brothers and Paramount merge
35:27
Speaker 2: because those companies have more overlap. There's this idea that
35:31
Speaker 2: Netflix is the death of movie theaters. Maybe it is,
35:36
Speaker 2: but when Fox and Disney acquired 20th, there were 44%
35:43
Speaker 2: fewer releases because there's just one less studio. And those
35:46
Speaker 2: are both companies that believe in the movie business. And
35:48
Speaker 2: I do worry about what happens if CNN comes under
35:50
Speaker 2: the control of a Trump loyal family. It's one less
35:56
Speaker 2: independent media company. So I I don't think there's really
35:59
Speaker 2: any great outcomes in either acquisition. I guess the hope
36:02
Speaker 2: would be that this gets dragged out, the Netflix deal
36:05
Speaker 2: gets killed, and somehow in the interim, the Paramount deal
36:09
Speaker 2: falls apart too. But if right now the people are
36:11
Speaker 2: being a little too cavalier about saying the Netflix deal
36:14
Speaker 2: should be stopped without accepting that the downwind consequence of
36:19
Speaker 2: that is the Paramount one happens, and there's a ton
36:21
Speaker 2: of bad outcomes for that too.
36:23
Speaker 1: I will say one of the arguments Netflix is making
36:27
Speaker 1: is that their, you know, their real competition is not
36:30
Speaker 1: with just other streamers, but TikTok, YouTube. And it is a,
36:35
Speaker 1: it is a bleak argument that may, that, that may
36:39
Speaker 1: or may not be true, but like the idea that they,
36:42
Speaker 1: they see themselves at least as competing for eyeballs with
36:47
Speaker 1: all the wonderful stuff that we see on TikTok. I mean,
36:50
Speaker 1: they're absolutely right. I mean, and they are, and it's
36:52
Speaker 1: just like, that is, that is, and if it tells
36:54
Speaker 1: you something about the future of where they.
36:56
Speaker 5: Want to go, I do think that all entertainment is
37:01
Speaker 5: losing time and mind share to TikTok.
37:05
Speaker 1: Mostly TikTok.
37:06
Speaker 5: But the idea that that doesn't make it like a
37:08
Speaker 5: monopoly issue is absurd.
37:11
Speaker 1: No, for sure. I was raising it because some of
37:15
Speaker 1: the Netflix shows you see look like just a couple
37:18
Speaker 1: TikToks strung together. For sure.
37:19
Speaker 2: Well, look, I think the TikTok argument is a little
37:23
Speaker 2: bit of a stretch. I don't think it's unfair to
37:25
Speaker 2: say that they're competing with YouTube. They are competing with YouTube.
37:28
Speaker 2: And also, by the way, YouTube spends a ton of
37:30
Speaker 2: money on original content now. It's not prestige scripted television.
37:37
Speaker 2: There's a way in which I feel like a lot
37:38
Speaker 2: of people that are really worried about this and are
37:40
Speaker 2: rightly worried about this. I always feel like we're just
37:44
Speaker 2: sort of following behind these sort of inexorable changes and
37:46
Speaker 2: complaining about them. And And also not really dealing with
37:52
Speaker 2: what I do think are complexities, which is these companies
37:54
Speaker 2: do spend huge amounts on original content. And I want
37:57
Speaker 2: movie theaters to survive. But then you look at the
37:59
Speaker 2: numbers and the entire movie business this year is maybe
38:02
Speaker 2: going to be $ 9 billion, the domestic box office. And
38:06
Speaker 2: it is dwarfed by the amount of money like Apple.
38:08
Speaker 2: Apple alone is going to spend what, like almost $ 5
38:10
Speaker 2: billion on content this year. Netflix is around 17 or 18.
38:14
Speaker 2: YouTube is $ 30 billion. Like they're spending huge amounts of money.
38:18
Speaker 2: and making incredible television shows that we would say are
38:22
Speaker 2: some of the best television shows ever made. So I
38:25
Speaker 2: guess I would like to, I feel like the conversation
38:28
Speaker 2: needs to turn to what does it look like to
38:31
Speaker 2: put pressure on these companies and maybe put pressure on
38:33
Speaker 2: a deal like this to get to a better version
38:37
Speaker 2: of where we're heading as opposed to constantly having a
38:40
Speaker 2: conversation about the dangers of consolidation and of Silicon Valley's
38:46
Speaker 2: invasion of Hollywood.
38:56
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Speaker 1: it in time for the holidays. Support the show by
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Speaker 1: mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. While we're
40:09
Speaker 1: talking about the economy, business, and regulations, it's worth touching
40:12
Speaker 1: on the latest in artificial intelligence with a post on
40:15
Speaker 1: Truth Social. Monday morning, Trump promised to sign an executive
40:18
Speaker 1: order this week that would attempt to sweep away any
40:22
Speaker 1: state regulations that try to guardrail AI. Here's some of
40:27
Speaker 1: what Trump wrote. There must be only one rulebook if
40:30
Speaker 1: we are going to continue to lead in AI. There
40:32
Speaker 1: can be no doubt about this. AI will be destroyed
40:35
Speaker 1: in its infancy. You can't expect a company to get
40:37
Speaker 1: 50 approvals every time they want to do something. That
40:41
Speaker 1: will never work. What do you guys think? Think there's
40:43
Speaker 1: anything else behind Trump not wanting states to pass any
40:47
Speaker 1: AI regulations?
40:48
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just think all these AI companies are racing
40:51
Speaker 5: as fast as they can to build the most powerful product.
40:53
Speaker 5: And they believe that this is going to be, if
40:55
Speaker 5: not a winner takes all, a winner takes most industry.
40:58
Speaker 5: And the difference between being like number one and number
41:00
Speaker 5: two will be trillions of dollars. So they are trying
41:02
Speaker 5: to compete. They're trying to train models. They're trying to
41:04
Speaker 5: buy all the chips. They're trying to, they're competing for power,
41:06
Speaker 5: like literally like physical power from.
41:09
Speaker 1: You know, electricity.
41:10
Speaker 5: And they're spending billions of dollars. The stakes are so high.
41:13
Speaker 5: And they just don't want any guardrails in the way.
41:14
Speaker 5: And they want the status quo. And I think they're
41:19
Speaker 5: willing to pay for it. They're paying off the Trump administration.
41:22
Speaker 5: And you have AI safety experts pointing out that restaurants
41:26
Speaker 5: now face more regulations and safety standards than AI companies.
41:30
Speaker 5: And the companies involved don't care. Sam Altman doesn't care.
41:33
Speaker 5: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, they don't care. And so they
41:36
Speaker 5: know that Washington is broken. Congress won't get anything done.
41:40
Speaker 5: And that often the way regulation gets done in this
41:42
Speaker 5: country is California passes a law and then that becomes
41:45
Speaker 5: the de facto standard because we're so big that every
41:50
Speaker 5: company follows it. And Trump is pretending that this executive
41:54
Speaker 5: order will preempt that. I don't think it's going to
41:56
Speaker 5: work in any way in practice. But these companies are
41:59
Speaker 5: all kissing his ass and pouring political favors in his
42:01
Speaker 5: pocket and showing up at the White House all the
42:03
Speaker 5: time and going to dinners and paying off to build
42:05
Speaker 5: the ballroom and whatever.
42:07
Speaker 1: And I think that's why he's doing this.
42:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the only positive in it is hoping
42:13
Speaker 2: that the reason he's doing this is because it looks
42:15
Speaker 2: like the hopes for passing something through Congress are falling apart.
42:19
Speaker 2: And the people were really worried about that, that a
42:21
Speaker 2: provision was going to get snuck into this must pass
42:23
Speaker 2: defense bill because Congress is barely able to govern. If
42:29
Speaker 2: that barely is generous, they end up sticking really important
42:33
Speaker 2: random bills attached to must pass bills like a defense,
42:36
Speaker 2: a military bill. So if that has fallen out, they're
42:39
Speaker 2: doing this as a cope. And to Tommy's point, yeah,
42:43
Speaker 2: won't have nearly the same impact, if any impact. So
42:46
Speaker 2: it seems like he's doing it as a favor to
42:47
Speaker 2: his pals. And while there are also people who genuinely
42:50
Speaker 2: believe that we are in a race against China and
42:53
Speaker 2: anything that limits America's sort of rapacious building of server
42:59
Speaker 2: farms and data centers and power plants to support them
43:05
Speaker 2: will mean we don't create the singular AI god before
43:09
Speaker 2: China does, at which point we'll all work for the
43:12
Speaker 2: Chinese version. Yeah.
43:15
Speaker 1: These people all paid for access, right? And they've got
43:18
Speaker 1: their access. They're best buddies with Trump now. And I
43:22
Speaker 1: think persuading him on this is quite easy and his staff.
43:26
Speaker 1: I think they sit down with them and they say, okay,
43:28
Speaker 1: look at the economy right now. We have an economy
43:31
Speaker 1: that's built on data centers and private prisons. Nothing else
43:35
Speaker 1: is really good. And healthcare, I guess. The healthcare sector
43:37
Speaker 1: is growing. Nothing else is growing. And so if you
43:40
Speaker 1: want to be a successful president, you want the economy
43:43
Speaker 1: to continue to chug along as it is, you're going
43:46
Speaker 1: to have to support development of AI as fast as possible.
43:51
Speaker 1: Then there's the beat China thing. There's also the, by
43:52
Speaker 1: the way, you don't want, and Trump has said this
43:55
Speaker 1: in truth posts before, you don't want these blue states
43:58
Speaker 1: like California, you don't want this commie California to to
44:01
Speaker 1: develop some woke AI that we're gonna have to contend with, right? Now,
44:06
Speaker 1: the challenge is a whole bunch of states have already
44:08
Speaker 1: started passing regulations on AI around political deep fakes, non-consensual
44:15
Speaker 1: sexual imagery. They have passed regulations to try to prevent
44:19
Speaker 1: AI from being used to discriminate. But it is a
44:23
Speaker 1: complete fake order. Like it doesn't do anything. What's gonna
44:27
Speaker 1: happen is if a state has a regulation that the
44:30
Speaker 1: Trump administration doesn't like, the Trump administration can then decide
44:34
Speaker 1: through the DOJ to try to sue the state and
44:37
Speaker 1: see if that works. They'll probably say it's, you know,
44:39
Speaker 1: interstate commerce clause that the feds are supposed to be
44:42
Speaker 1: able to regulate interstate commerce. The challenge is they're going
44:46
Speaker 1: to make the argument that like we need one federal
44:51
Speaker 1: set of regulations on AI because you can't have a
44:53
Speaker 1: patchwork set of like 50 different regulations, but they don't
44:56
Speaker 1: have a federal set of regulations. So it's hard to
44:59
Speaker 1: tell the state's You can't do anything until maybe someday
45:02
Speaker 1: we do something in the federal government. Like, it's one
45:05
Speaker 1: thing to say the federal regulation takes precedent over the
45:08
Speaker 1: state regulation. Like, you have a good, maybe a good
45:10
Speaker 1: legal argument there. I don't know that you do by saying,
45:14
Speaker 1: we're getting around to it, but in the meantime, you
45:15
Speaker 1: can't do anything. It's not like, it's like the healthcare vote.
45:18
Speaker 2: They are, they want to veto any legislative effort they
45:21
Speaker 2: don't agree with or that restricts these abilities company to
45:24
Speaker 2: operate across states. different states, but they just don't have
45:27
Speaker 2: a policy that they can coalesce around to regulate AI
45:30
Speaker 2: in the way that it obviously needs to be regulated.
45:32
Speaker 2: So they cannot govern. They cannot put together a proposal
45:38
Speaker 2: to pass something. So they're going to do this instead.
45:40
Speaker 1: You're right.
45:40
Speaker 5: I mean, the stock market is entirely propped up by AI,
45:42
Speaker 5: and he has a huge incentive to keep that bubble
45:45
Speaker 5: from bursting because it would be catastrophic. I do think
45:47
Speaker 5: also the crypto example is very instructive. Donald Trump hated
45:50
Speaker 5: cryptocurrency until a bunch of crypto executives came to him
45:53
Speaker 5: and they dumped money on him and created super packs
45:56
Speaker 5: and all of a sudden now he loves it. He
45:58
Speaker 5: also hated big tech until they kind of bowed to
45:59
Speaker 5: the altar and now.
46:00
Speaker 1: He's a fan.
46:00
Speaker 5: So I just think the China thing is just such
46:02
Speaker 5: bullshit to me because today Trump advanced that we, he
46:06
Speaker 5: will allow the sale of the H 200 NVIDIA chip
46:09
Speaker 5: to China, which is like they're, they're just below their
46:12
Speaker 5: Blackwell series. It's like the best of the last generation chips,
46:15
Speaker 5: a very powerful chips. And so we're going to send
46:18
Speaker 5: like our second best chips. We're going to get rid
46:20
Speaker 5: of export controls on, AI chips because we want to
46:24
Speaker 5: beat China, that makes absolutely no sense.
46:26
Speaker 1: And when you push them on that, it'll be.
46:27
Speaker 5: Like, well, if we don't give them our chips, they're
46:29
Speaker 5: going to make chips through Huawei. You guys don't think
46:32
Speaker 5: that they're going to subsidize their biggest tech company anyway?
46:36
Speaker 1: I just don't find it at all believable. It's a
46:38
Speaker 1: very weird argument. Basically, the argument is we want to
46:41
Speaker 1: get them hooked on American technology so that they're dependent
46:45
Speaker 1: on the Nvidia chips. But it's also unclear whether China
46:50
Speaker 1: will actually say yes and buy the chips because they
46:54
Speaker 1: might think that it's like a backdoor security risk, in
46:57
Speaker 1: which case, what is the purpose of this whole thing?
47:00
Speaker 1: It's like, if they buy them, but they're also subsidizing Huawei,
47:05
Speaker 1: then how are we getting them hooked on NVIDIA technology?
47:08
Speaker 1: And the Chinese are going to be like, you know
47:09
Speaker 1: what we're going to do? We're going to buy Taiwan
47:10
Speaker 1: with these warships. That's what we're going to do. That's
47:13
Speaker 1: our policy. It's a David Sachs brainchild, right? And the
47:16
Speaker 1: other argument they're making is like, well, By allowing Nvidia
47:19
Speaker 1: to sell some of these to China, it'll just make
47:21
Speaker 1: Nvidia more money. And if Nvidia has more money, they'll
47:24
Speaker 1: be able to help the United States beat China to
47:28
Speaker 1: the AI super god again. We don't know what we're.
47:30
Speaker 2: Racing towards is the other thing.
47:33
Speaker 1: Is it AGI, right? Artificial General Intelligence? But there's no
47:37
Speaker 1: specific goal here. We're just racing.
47:39
Speaker 2: How many fucking dogs do you attach to the bobsled
47:41
Speaker 2: before it goes to speed of sound? It's like, I like, don't,
47:44
Speaker 2: I'm like, I like, I'm really get, it's like a
47:46
Speaker 2: terrifying thing what's happening. And maybe like the, the, the
47:49
Speaker 2: idea that, that they all have, like, there's like genuine,
47:52
Speaker 2: like old school kind of competition going on, trying to
47:55
Speaker 2: make the best product and get there first. And that
47:57
Speaker 2: we have seen over the years that in, um, like
48:00
Speaker 2: technology that there are all these economies where one wins
48:04
Speaker 2: and the rest fall, Google, there's other examples. Uh, but
48:07
Speaker 2: then it's like, so you're all racing because. You have
48:11
Speaker 2: to get there first. There is some sort of super
48:14
Speaker 2: intelligence that you don't understand and that will be smarter
48:17
Speaker 2: than us. And then, oh, by the way, we've spent
48:19
Speaker 2: the last decade building how many fucking data centers and
48:24
Speaker 2: server farms that are currently of inflated value that they
48:29
Speaker 2: all are pretending have more value than they do because
48:31
Speaker 2: the things burn out and they have to replace them.
48:34
Speaker 2: It's like the like awareness of the bubble as we're
48:38
Speaker 2: in the bubble is very reminiscent of several previous terrible
48:42
Speaker 2: financial catastrophes that we've very recently been through.
48:45
Speaker 1: It is notable that a lot of the opposition to
48:49
Speaker 1: sort of the AI industry going at breakneck speed and
48:52
Speaker 1: specifically Trump's move today is coming from some people in
48:56
Speaker 1: his base, prominent people. Marjorie Taylor Greene. This is this
49:00
Speaker 1: is one place where she diverged from Trump. Ron DeSantis.
49:04
Speaker 1: has been leading the opposition to this move as well.
49:06
Speaker 1: He was out today with a statement critical of Trump's EO.
49:09
Speaker 1: What do you think? Is this like another sort of
49:12
Speaker 1: wedge issue with Trump's base that Democrats should be taking
49:15
Speaker 1: advantage of here and maybe building new coalitions? I think so.
49:18
Speaker 1: I mean, look, I think he's a fake populist.
49:20
Speaker 5: And we should hammer him for it. And it's this issue.
49:22
Speaker 5: I mean, it's tech companies showering him with money and
49:24
Speaker 5: compliments and they get what they want. The president of
49:26
Speaker 5: Argentina kisses Trump's ass at CPAC. They got a $ 40
49:29
Speaker 5: billion bailout. The crypto assholes get their special favors and policies. Like,
49:34
Speaker 5: was it the crypto National Reserve?
49:36
Speaker 1: Remember that moment? Whatever happened to that? Yeah, I don't know.
49:38
Speaker 2: Hey, somebody follow up on the crypto National Reserve.
49:40
Speaker 1: How are we doing? How are we doing? How are
49:42
Speaker 1: we doing? How much is in the reservoir?
49:44
Speaker 5: We're pardoning all the people whose crypto we are going
49:47
Speaker 5: to seize. Cuts Medicaid, does nothing when healthcare prices go up,
49:50
Speaker 5: as we talked about a minute ago. I mean, so yeah,
49:52
Speaker 5: like I do think this is like a piece of
49:54
Speaker 5: the puzzle of just how rather than drain the swamp,
49:57
Speaker 5: it is just that Washington is more bought and sold
50:00
Speaker 5: than ever. And you're hearing this case being made by
50:02
Speaker 5: a conservative, like, you know, Nick Fuentes was just unloading
50:05
Speaker 5: on Trump on all these grounds too. So it's coming
50:08
Speaker 5: from the left and the right, and I think it's
50:09
Speaker 5: a case worth making. I think it's also, corruption is
50:13
Speaker 5: a piece of it. I think for AI, it goes
50:15
Speaker 5: like well beyond that as well. I mean, it is the, DeSantis,
50:20
Speaker 5: Marjorie Taylor Greene have voiced concerns about the job loss.
50:23
Speaker 5: I mean, you've heard, you know, Tucker Carlson has had
50:26
Speaker 5: this debate with like Ben Shapiro like a year ago
50:28
Speaker 5: or something where I think Tucker said, you know, he would,
50:33
Speaker 5: if you could stop, we're gonna have.
50:35
Speaker 1: These driverless cars. And if you could have a regulation
50:38
Speaker 1: stopping the creation of driverless cars because it's going to
50:41
Speaker 1: get rid of all the truckers and all the trucking
50:43
Speaker 1: jobs in this country, he would do it. And so
50:45
Speaker 1: there's going to be this massive potential job displacement that
50:48
Speaker 1: a lot of folks on the right in a more
50:50
Speaker 1: sort of protectionist way are going to say like they
50:53
Speaker 1: don't like. There is like what it's going to do
50:56
Speaker 1: to our kids. It's sort of the social media phone
50:58
Speaker 1: argument on steroids. So you get a lot of some
51:01
Speaker 1: of the more religious conservatives concerned about that. So there
51:03
Speaker 1: are a host of reasons beyond that. just corruption that
51:08
Speaker 1: like the Republican base or the MAGA base is like
51:10
Speaker 1: really worried about when it comes to AI. And the
51:13
Speaker 1: polling bears this out as well. Like, you know, Harvard
51:16
Speaker 1: just did their big youth poll. And for among young people,
51:19
Speaker 1: only 14% said that AI will create more opportunities and
51:25
Speaker 1: 44% said that it will take away more opportunities. That's
51:27
Speaker 1: young people. We're usually, you know, kind of enamored with
51:31
Speaker 1: new technology. Emerson just did a poll in Pennsylvania where
51:34
Speaker 1: 48% of voters think that AI will have a negative
51:38
Speaker 1: impact on the economy. Only 25% said positive. 55% of
51:43
Speaker 1: people in Pennsylvania believe that AI will decrease jobs in
51:46
Speaker 1: the industry they work in. Personal thing. And then only
51:49
Speaker 1: 16% said increase. And then there was a big, huge
51:52
Speaker 1: pew poll from the summer. AI will worsen our ability
51:55
Speaker 1: to think creatively. 53% believe that. Only 16% disagree. And
51:59
Speaker 1: form meaningful relationships. 50% agree with that. Only 5% disagree.
52:03
Speaker 2: One challenge is... how many different kinds of technology AI represents,
52:08
Speaker 2: because it is both something that will drive cars. It
52:13
Speaker 2: is something that will replace writers. There's so many implications
52:20
Speaker 2: of it, some of which are awesome and great that
52:22
Speaker 2: we should be very much excited about.
52:23
Speaker 1: Some of which are- Biomedical sphere specifically, I think.
52:27
Speaker 2: Some of which are great tools for artists to do.
52:30
Speaker 2: to use in ways that help their productivity. Some are
52:33
Speaker 2: purely parasitic and some that can only exist because they
52:37
Speaker 2: are drafting off of stolen art or using art to
52:41
Speaker 2: kind of replicate what an artist might do in a
52:44
Speaker 2: world where this technology didn't exist. Friends, all of this
52:47
Speaker 2: stuff has all these sort of negative consequences, but we're not,
52:52
Speaker 2: because Trump is in the pocket of these industries, there's
52:54
Speaker 2: so many ways in which we're not having those debates
52:56
Speaker 2: and there's no hope of any kind of real reforms
52:59
Speaker 2: or regulations to rein that in. They've already trolled and
53:03
Speaker 2: stolen so much information to make their database of language
53:08
Speaker 2: to turn around Super Google.
53:11
Speaker 5: So yeah. It's totally unsettling. I mean, parents are also
53:14
Speaker 5: just watching their kids use AI to cheat at school
53:16
Speaker 5: all day and they're not learning anything. And meanwhile, Australia
53:18
Speaker 5: is banning social media for kids under 16. And we're
53:20
Speaker 5: sitting letting the same companies run by the same assholes
53:24
Speaker 5: figure out AGI.
53:25
Speaker 1: Like this is a terrible setup.
53:27
Speaker 5: Everyone, you don't really have to explain that to a
53:29
Speaker 5: lot of people.
53:29
Speaker 1: And it's going to happen so much faster than any
53:32
Speaker 1: other technological development. I think that is one of the
53:34
Speaker 1: big differences here. I mean, it is more powerful than
53:36
Speaker 1: past technological developments, but that's usually the case. But just
53:39
Speaker 1: the speed, like we're all like, oh, well, Trump's here now.
53:42
Speaker 1: Maybe we can figure this out, you know, in 2028.
53:45
Speaker 1: Like it's happened, like you said, The stuff is being
53:47
Speaker 1: stolen right now. The technology is being developed right now.
53:50
Speaker 1: It's all happening.
53:52
Speaker 2: The other thing, too, is all these sort of costs
53:54
Speaker 2: that are not being incurred by these companies that are
53:56
Speaker 2: being incurred by people who never signed up for them.
53:59
Speaker 2: I saw a teacher being interviewed talking about how a
54:01
Speaker 2: big part of a teacher's job now is trying to
54:03
Speaker 2: figure out if AI wrote something. And a student will
54:06
Speaker 2: generate an essay in 10 seconds. that will take hours
54:11
Speaker 2: for that teacher to untangle. They didn't train to figure
54:14
Speaker 2: out what AI is.
54:15
Speaker 1: You know what the proposed solution for that is? Develop
54:18
Speaker 1: an AI that can help tell you whether the college
54:20
Speaker 1: essay was written by AI. That's seriously what they're doing.
54:23
Speaker 2: It exists.
54:25
Speaker 1: One thing for sure is that whatever happens, we would
54:27
Speaker 1: never want some commie blue state to pass any kind
54:30
Speaker 1: of regulation that would deprive our right-wing influencers from using
54:33
Speaker 1: AI to anthropomorphize dead presidents for the sake of content.
54:37
Speaker 1: as Glenn Beck has apparently done with George Washington, guys.
54:41
Speaker 1: Let's listen.
54:43
Speaker 6: If I may, speak plainly. My countrymen, the danger, the
54:48
Speaker 6: greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms
54:52
Speaker 6: or political faction, but.
54:54
Speaker 1: In the decay... May I just interrupt you for a second?
54:56
Speaker 1: Could you just dumb it down just a little bit?
54:58
Speaker 4: Okay.
54:59
Speaker 6: Let me speak to Americans.
55:02
Speaker 1: If I'm honest....
55:05
Speaker 6: America's biggest problem isn't political or economic, it's on moral.
55:10
Speaker 6: Where are the citizens who value duty over comfort, principle
55:13
Speaker 6: over popularity? America was built to be a moral and
55:17
Speaker 6: self-governing nation.
55:20
Speaker 1: So are you guys more or less worried about AI
55:22
Speaker 1: after that?
55:24
Speaker 2: That's George Washington with some testosterone gel who's like a
55:26
Speaker 2: big fan.
55:27
Speaker 1: Of looks maxing. Why am I wearing the same shirt
55:30
Speaker 1: as George Washington? Why is George Washington wearing the same
55:32
Speaker 1: shirt as you? Yeah, he's got sick hair. He's got
55:34
Speaker 1: nice flow. Well, it's interesting that George Washington, they made
55:37
Speaker 1: him talk like we do today, but they didn't fix
55:41
Speaker 1: the hair. The hair is still this old. He looks
55:44
Speaker 1: like an Oompa Loompa is what he looks like. He
55:46
Speaker 1: does look like an Oompa Loompa. An Oompa Loompa that
55:48
Speaker 1: sounds suspiciously like Glenn Beck? You know, this is such a,
55:51
Speaker 1: like a, this is AI. It's like, this is what
55:54
Speaker 1: I mean.
55:54
Speaker 2: It's like, it can drive a car. It can find
55:57
Speaker 2: new molecules to cure diseases. It also functionally is the
56:00
Speaker 2: same as brainyquotes.net because you can just make it say, like,
56:03
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, reach for the stars, Gandhi. You know,
56:06
Speaker 2: like that's what this is. Just somebody putting their own,
56:08
Speaker 2: it's like, let's, we can make a face of George
56:10
Speaker 2: Washington saying whatever we want.
56:12
Speaker 4: Exciting.
56:13
Speaker 1: He left the Blaze, I.
56:15
Speaker 5: Think was his publication, to do this full time, I think,
56:18
Speaker 5: this AI George.
56:21
Speaker 4: This is his job.
56:22
Speaker 1: AI George just got nominated for a Golden Globe. So
56:26
Speaker 1: that's exciting. Really worked those refs. And just so everyone knows,
56:32
Speaker 1: Glenn Beck has put that out as the preview, the
56:34
Speaker 1: full conversation. There's a full conversation that is not out yet,
56:37
Speaker 1: at least as of this recording. And a pretty intimate
56:39
Speaker 1: sex scene with Martha, which is exciting. Just like couldn't
56:43
Speaker 1: be less compelling, whatever that was. Also like him having to,
56:47
Speaker 1: it's not like he just throws AI George Washington up
56:50
Speaker 1: on the screen and lets him go. Like he's interviewing him.
56:52
Speaker 1: It's like, no, no, no, slow down, slow down. And
56:55
Speaker 1: also speak like today, come on, dumb it down for us.
56:58
Speaker 1: AI George. What else will he have him do? It
57:00
Speaker 1: was just funny.
57:01
Speaker 2: You generated an AI George Washington. He's like, I will
57:03
Speaker 2: not proceed with this interview for even a moment longer
57:05
Speaker 2: until you let me see one of your magic dentists.
57:07
Speaker 1: Please help me. Please help me. I have, Oak teeth.
57:12
Speaker 2: I haven't had a good night's sleep in several years.
57:14
Speaker 1: And I still have slaves at home. Yeah. And I
57:17
Speaker 1: do have those slaves. That's my thing. Anyway, stuff like
57:22
Speaker 1: that makes you like, okay, maybe we shouldn't worry about
57:25
Speaker 1: AI killing us all because it's doing that. But I
57:27
Speaker 1: do think that's deceiving because so many people, their first
57:31
Speaker 1: encounter with AI is, slop garbage like that. And they're like, yeah,
57:34
Speaker 1: maybe it's not so bad. But like, meanwhile, like you said,
57:36
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other things going on with AI
57:38
Speaker 1: that are a lot scarier than that.
57:39
Speaker 6: Yeah.
57:39
Speaker 1: Can I make one, one pitch on how we talk
57:41
Speaker 1: about this? Cause I do this too. Everyone does this.
57:43
Speaker 2: AI will not be the thing that destroys our jobs
57:45
Speaker 2: or takes over our economy. It will be the people
57:47
Speaker 2: that own the company.
57:48
Speaker 1: It is a tool. It is not a person. It
57:51
Speaker 1: is a tool. And it's a very powerful tool. It's
57:52
Speaker 1: a tool that can displace whole parts of old jobs
57:55
Speaker 1: and industries being created by very powerful tools. Very powerful
57:57
Speaker 1: tools are in fact in charge. Yeah.
58:00
Speaker 2: So there's this way in which we feel like kind of,
58:02
Speaker 2: I don't know, like kind of strapped to this thing
58:06
Speaker 2: and we can't stop it.
58:07
Speaker 1: It's like, no, no, no. Like it is an important technology.
58:10
Speaker 1: It will have great uses.
58:12
Speaker 2: We decide that. We have some say over it. And
58:14
Speaker 2: we should like, I think, take more agency in.
58:15
Speaker 1: How we talk about it. In a theoretical democracy, for sure.
58:17
Speaker 1: In a theoretical democracy.
58:19
Speaker 2: But when we say AI is stealing the jobs, there
58:21
Speaker 2: will be a person who presses the button, who controls
58:23
Speaker 2: the company that makes the money.
58:25
Speaker 1: Those are the people who are taking the jobs. Yeah.
58:27
Speaker 5: So Glenn Beck acquired a bunch of historical documents, which
58:30
Speaker 5: he says he's now created a digital vault to put
58:33
Speaker 5: them on the blockchain to ensure that they're not tampered with.
58:37
Speaker 5: Who is tampering with historical documents?
58:38
Speaker 1: They're historical. Yeah. Aren't they in the public domain? Isn't
58:41
Speaker 1: that why they're historical documents?
58:43
Speaker 2: I think he's bothered by the fact that at the
58:44
Speaker 2: Library of Congress it now says they them hold these
58:47
Speaker 2: truths to be self-evident. And I think that was the
58:50
Speaker 2: part that really.
58:50
Speaker 1: Drove him crazy. And if you want to take a
58:52
Speaker 1: book out, the librarian is Marco Rubio, and so you
58:54
Speaker 1: have to get his permission.
58:55
Speaker 2: Right, and I think there's that part where it says
58:59
Speaker 2: that Jefferson was checking his privilege towards the end of
59:02
Speaker 2: the Declaration of Independence, and King George III was not
59:06
Speaker 2: creating enough space for liberty.
59:08
Speaker 4: Bad luck, Hamilton.
59:10
Speaker 1: Bad luck, Hamilton.
59:11
Speaker 2: So I have to understand why that is confusing. But sorry, Glenn,
59:13
Speaker 2: that's what's always been there.
59:15
Speaker 4: He's so weird.
59:16
Speaker 1: All right. When we get back from the break, you'll
59:18
Speaker 1: hear Lovett's conversation with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw about the battle
59:20
Speaker 1: for Warner Brothers, what it actually means for all of us.
59:23
Speaker 1: Two announcements before we get to that. Big news, guys,
59:27
Speaker 1: for our listeners down under. We are bringing Pod Save
59:30
Speaker 1: America live to New Zealand and Australia for the first
59:33
Speaker 1: time ever. Join us for the 2026 Pod Save America,
59:38
Speaker 1: hopefully just visiting tour. I do like that name. You
59:42
Speaker 1: want to give them any ideas over in the White House.
59:45
Speaker 1: We're headed to Auckland on February 11th and then three
59:47
Speaker 1: shows in Australia after that. Melbourne on February 13th. Brisbane
59:52
Speaker 1: on February 14th, and Sydney on February 16th. Already getting
59:55
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59:57
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Speaker 1: Dan's coming.
1:00:22
Speaker 2: Whoa.
1:00:23
Speaker 1: Easy. Okay. Oh, that's the line? That is the line.
1:00:28
Speaker 1: Got it. Arbitrary line. I hadn't gotten there yet, but
1:00:31
Speaker 1: I'm glad. The point is, Australia, we're coming. Dan's glad
1:00:35
Speaker 1: you got there, too. He didn't hear it. Down under.
1:00:37
Speaker 1: Down under. The newest also, this is another announcement. The
1:00:40
Speaker 1: newest book from Crooked Media Reads is coming out January 27th, 2026.
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Speaker 1: our favorite political journalists, New York Times Magazine writer Jason Zengerle.
1:00:56
Speaker 1: Why a book about Tucker Carlson? Why not? In a
1:00:59
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1:01:01
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Speaker 1: I've read it.
1:01:13
Speaker 5: It's a fantastic book. It is such a great, like,
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1:01:17
Speaker 5: of the MAGA movement and how it's kind of lost
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Speaker 5: it a little bit lately.
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Speaker 1: You think? Really, a little bit. A little bit. Book
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Speaker 2: Joining me now is managing editor of Bloomberg News and
1:03:18
Speaker 2: author of Bloomberg's Screen Time newsletter and the reporter who
1:03:20
Speaker 2: broke the story of Netflix's successful bid to buy Warner Brothers.
1:03:23
Speaker 2: Lucas Shaw, welcome to the pod.
1:03:25
Speaker 4: Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
1:03:27
Speaker 2: Why is Netflix, which has never grown via acquisition before,
1:03:32
Speaker 2: interested in buying Warner Brothers?
1:03:35
Speaker 1: Two reasons.
1:03:36
Speaker 7: One offensive, one defensive. I think for offensive reasons, look,
1:03:39
Speaker 7: it's a great asset, right? It's got one of the
1:03:42
Speaker 7: The great film and television studios, one that's been around
1:03:45
Speaker 7: for more than a century, has shows that Netflix knows
1:03:47
Speaker 7: are popular already with its customers, like Friends, which used
1:03:50
Speaker 7: to be on Netflix, now.
1:03:51
Speaker 1: On HBO Max, a bunch of movies.
1:03:53
Speaker 7: It's got HBO, which is a premium brand to which
1:03:56
Speaker 7: Netflix once aspired and has since sort of eclipsed. And
1:03:59
Speaker 7: so if it can buy that, feed it in, get
1:04:01
Speaker 7: all of these hit shows that it can offer to
1:04:03
Speaker 7: its customers, it makes.
1:04:04
Speaker 4: Its proposition much stronger.
1:04:06
Speaker 7: And then defensive, it's got this new kid on the block,
1:04:09
Speaker 7: David Ellison, spending money like crazy because he's got it
1:04:12
Speaker 7: from his dad. And he's already swallowed Paramount and they
1:04:18
Speaker 7: don't want to risk him adding Warner Brothers as well.
1:04:22
Speaker 2: So it seems as though Paramount was caught off guard
1:04:26
Speaker 2: because they thought this was theirs to lose. Now Paramount
1:04:30
Speaker 2: is launching a hostile bid. But Paramount is a smaller company.
1:04:36
Speaker 1: Forget Netflix.
1:04:37
Speaker 2: It's a smaller company than Warner Brothers. So this is
1:04:40
Speaker 2: only possible because Ellison has his fortune. Plus there's cash
1:04:45
Speaker 2: from the Saudis, the Qataris, the Emiratis. There's funds from
1:04:49
Speaker 2: Jared Kushner's investment firm. Twice as much of the money,
1:04:52
Speaker 2: at least from the bid that we heard about last week,
1:04:57
Speaker 2: comes from the Middle East as comes from The Ellison.
1:05:01
Speaker 7: Family, as well as this company, Redbird, which is a
1:05:04
Speaker 7: private equity firm, they would be the controlling shareholders, have
1:05:09
Speaker 7: a lot of the economic interests. But it was interesting
1:05:12
Speaker 7: on Monday morning where they issued one press release that
1:05:15
Speaker 7: didn't mention some of this other financing. And then in
1:05:17
Speaker 7: the filing that they had to put out, it did disclose. Look,
1:05:21
Speaker 7: I can't fully explain the thinking behind why Middle Eastern
1:05:25
Speaker 7: petro-states do what they do. They have been spreading their
1:05:29
Speaker 7: money around and investing and diversifying beyond oil, trying to
1:05:33
Speaker 7: gain also, I think, soft power through investments in sports
1:05:36
Speaker 7: and media. There's a Saudi-affiliated group that just bought or
1:05:40
Speaker 7: is the primary acquirer of Electronic Arts, the big video
1:05:43
Speaker 7: game publisher that makes Madden and other things. So I
1:05:46
Speaker 7: think they see an opportunity to buy an interesting, sexy
1:05:51
Speaker 7: asset that will hopefully make money for them in the
1:05:54
Speaker 7: long run and give them more influence on a global stage.
1:05:56
Speaker 7: It also means that they're closely tied in business with
1:06:00
Speaker 7: the Ellison family, which is good people to be close to,
1:06:03
Speaker 7: with the Kushners. And if Trump blesses it, also gets
1:06:08
Speaker 7: them another sort of point of contact with the Trump administration.
1:06:12
Speaker 2: So let's talk about that, whether Trump blesses it. It's
1:06:16
Speaker 2: been interesting seeing it taken as a given that Jared
1:06:18
Speaker 2: Kushner being associated with the Ellison bid is a sign
1:06:21
Speaker 2: that it would have a smoother path to approval, the
1:06:24
Speaker 2: kind of acceptance of the fact that there is so
1:06:27
Speaker 2: much sort of interpersonal relationships and just old school corruption here.
1:06:32
Speaker 2: At the same time, the Ellisons have spent a year
1:06:37
Speaker 2: doing a fair amount of bootlicking.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: And then Trump is asked about this. He says, oh,
1:06:41
Speaker 1: we got to see. We got to see.
1:06:43
Speaker 2: It would be quite a shame for them to have
1:06:45
Speaker 2: spent a year doing all that sucking up and end
1:06:48
Speaker 2: up with nothing to show for it.
1:06:50
Speaker 7: Well, look, Ellison's got something already from Larry Ellison's close
1:06:54
Speaker 7: relationship at the White House, which is they got Paramount, right?
1:06:58
Speaker 7: They went after Paramount very aggressively and got the deal
1:07:03
Speaker 7: approved immediately. Reasonably quickly, all things considered. Now I think
1:07:09
Speaker 7: you've got the president in a pretty good situation for
1:07:12
Speaker 7: him where he has two different companies, both of which
1:07:16
Speaker 7: want to do this deal. And even though he does
1:07:18
Speaker 7: not have the official power to say yay or nay,
1:07:22
Speaker 7: he obviously can have a tremendous amount of influence between
1:07:26
Speaker 7: his relationship with the DOJ and other regulatory agencies where,
1:07:32
Speaker 7: you know, Netflix is going to want to make sure
1:07:34
Speaker 7: that he's happy with their bid. And the Ellisons, who've
1:07:37
Speaker 7: already been very friendly to him in a lot of ways,
1:07:40
Speaker 7: are going to do the same. So it positions him
1:07:42
Speaker 7: as something of a power broker, which he obviously likes.
1:07:46
Speaker 2: So in your own reporting, you found that Sarandos had
1:07:49
Speaker 2: done a lot to work on his Trump relationship. Can
1:07:52
Speaker 2: you talk about that and how strategic that was in
1:07:56
Speaker 2: advance of this?
1:07:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:07:57
Speaker 7: I mean, look, the Netflix, I think if you look
1:07:59
Speaker 7: at the management of the company, is one of the
1:08:02
Speaker 7: more democratic, by which I mean supportive of the Democratic Party,
1:08:08
Speaker 7: media companies, companies in the country, right? Reed Hastings, the co-founder,
1:08:11
Speaker 7: former CEO, has invested a lot of money, especially of
1:08:15
Speaker 7: late in political causes, has been a very vocal critic
1:08:19
Speaker 7: of President Trump. Ted Sarandos' wife, Nicole Levant, was an
1:08:23
Speaker 7: ambassador in the Obama administration to the Bahamas. So obviously,
1:08:26
Speaker 7: as a result of that, I mean, the Obamas had
1:08:29
Speaker 7: a I guess, continue to have a production deal with
1:08:32
Speaker 7: Netflix and Sarandos is close to them. And my understanding
1:08:36
Speaker 7: is that when Trump came back into power in 2024, 25,
1:08:40
Speaker 7: Netflix looked around and said, we don't have a lot
1:08:44
Speaker 7: of relationships in his inner circle and we need to
1:08:47
Speaker 7: fix that. We are one of the biggest and most
1:08:49
Speaker 7: influential media companies in the world. Netflix has done a
1:08:51
Speaker 7: really good job over the years of largely evading kind
1:08:55
Speaker 7: of intense regulatory scrutiny. Now that they are at the
1:08:58
Speaker 7: size that they are for that to continue, I think
1:09:00
Speaker 7: they couldn't be seen as sort of an enemy of
1:09:04
Speaker 7: the state, if you will, in the way that Trump
1:09:05
Speaker 7: is routinely attacking NBC or Disney and ABC.
1:09:11
Speaker 4: Netflix doesn't want to be in that position.
1:09:12
Speaker 7: And so Ted Sarandos, the co-CEO of Netflix, who's kind
1:09:16
Speaker 7: of the The more charming schmoozy of the two co-CEOs
1:09:22
Speaker 7: and the Hollywood one had a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with
1:09:25
Speaker 7: President Trump last December, which was reported about at the time.
1:09:28
Speaker 7: It was a very long dinner. My understanding is they
1:09:31
Speaker 7: got along quite well at the dinner and had remained
1:09:33
Speaker 7: in touch since then, texting, talking, meeting somewhat regularly, including
1:09:40
Speaker 7: most recently in mid-November where Ted had a meeting of
1:09:44
Speaker 7: more than an hour with Trump at the White House. Now,
1:09:46
Speaker 7: keep in mind, they're not just talking about this deal, right?
1:09:48
Speaker 7: Donald Trump has been talking a lot about tariffs on
1:09:51
Speaker 7: the film business that don't make a lot of sense,
1:09:53
Speaker 7: that people in Hollywood want to influence in some way.
1:09:57
Speaker 7: There was some concern, I think, early in the administration
1:10:00
Speaker 7: that he might revisit the idea of net neutrality, which
1:10:02
Speaker 7: is something that Netflix has strong opinions about. And in
1:10:07
Speaker 7: the most recent meeting, obviously, they wanted to talk about
1:10:09
Speaker 7: this deal because Netflix was in the middle of what
1:10:11
Speaker 7: it knew would be a kind of a contentious process.
1:10:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's just, you know, you make the point that,
1:10:17
Speaker 2: you know, this ostensibly should be in the hands of
1:10:20
Speaker 2: regulators and there's a sort of a formal process and
1:10:22
Speaker 2: the president is not necessarily directly involved. Trump himself is
1:10:26
Speaker 2: saying it's up to him. And clearly the actors in
1:10:29
Speaker 2: this are very concerned of the ways in which he
1:10:33
Speaker 2: will get involved. So let's talk about what the administration
1:10:38
Speaker 2: could do. The head of the theater lobbying group called
1:10:41
Speaker 2: this an unprecedented threat to the global exhibition business. The
1:10:44
Speaker 2: WGA said the world's largest streaming company swallowing one of
1:10:47
Speaker 2: its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent.
1:10:51
Speaker 2: Roy Price, who was the former head of Amazon Studios, said,
1:10:54
Speaker 2: The long prophesized death of Hollywood may finally arrive. These
1:10:58
Speaker 2: are dire, dire warnings about this. What are you hearing
1:11:03
Speaker 2: about why people are so much more concerned about this
1:11:08
Speaker 2: deal than if the Paramount deal had gone through.
1:11:11
Speaker 7: So I actually don't think that that's the case. It's
1:11:13
Speaker 7: just Netflix won, right? Or won the initial auction. And
1:11:18
Speaker 7: so people came out strongly against Netflix. I think some
1:11:21
Speaker 7: of the same people that you mentioned, not all of them,
1:11:23
Speaker 7: would have been concerned about Paramount, right? I think the guilds,
1:11:26
Speaker 7: for example, WGA, DJ, representing writers and directors, They don't
1:11:30
Speaker 7: like the idea of a studio going away, which could
1:11:32
Speaker 7: happen if Paramount won.
1:11:33
Speaker 4: I think you're probably right.
1:11:34
Speaker 7: I think it's the theatrical business, the movie theaters, wouldn't
1:11:38
Speaker 7: be as worried about Paramount because David Ellison has been
1:11:42
Speaker 7: very clear that he is a champion of movie theaters
1:11:45
Speaker 7: and wants to put movies in theaters, whereas Netflix has
1:11:48
Speaker 7: a long crack record of releasing movies straight to the
1:11:51
Speaker 7: internet and not wanting to have long stretches of movies
1:11:55
Speaker 7: being exclusive to theaters. Now, Netflix is saying in this
1:11:58
Speaker 7: case that they will kind of run Warner Brothers as
1:12:01
Speaker 7: it has been. And that means putting movies in theaters,
1:12:03
Speaker 7: but a lot of folks just don't believe them.
1:12:05
Speaker 4: Um, and then as for, as for.
1:12:07
Speaker 7: You know, what you, you brought up Roy Price, um,
1:12:10
Speaker 7: you know, he used to run one of the biggest
1:12:12
Speaker 7: competitors to Netflix. And I think there's a lot of concern.
1:12:15
Speaker 7: And certainly the argument that Paramount has made is that
1:12:17
Speaker 7: in streaming Netflix, which is already the biggest player would
1:12:20
Speaker 7: get even bigger and stronger. Um, so I, but I look,
1:12:26
Speaker 7: The entertainment business is freaked out about Warner Brothers trading
1:12:28
Speaker 7: hands no matter what. I think if you ask the
1:12:31
Speaker 7: average person, they just say, don't sell it.
1:12:33
Speaker 4: Stay independent.
1:12:34
Speaker 7: You don't need to do a deal. But it's one
1:12:37
Speaker 7: thing to sort of believe that philosophically. It's another thing
1:12:41
Speaker 7: when David Ellison comes and starts throwing money at you,
1:12:43
Speaker 7: at a certain point, the shareholders do have an obligation
1:12:45
Speaker 7: to consider a deal.
1:12:46
Speaker 4: Because if your stock was at $ 12.
1:12:49
Speaker 7: And now someone wants to give you $ 30, that's a
1:12:52
Speaker 7: pretty good deal.
1:12:53
Speaker 1: Right.
1:12:54
Speaker 2: And I take your point that I agree that a
1:12:55
Speaker 2: lot of these, a lot of people that are being
1:12:57
Speaker 2: critical of this deal would also be critical of an
1:13:00
Speaker 2: Ellison deal. But if this deal gets blocked, that is
1:13:02
Speaker 2: likely what happens. You know, when Disney acquired Fox's studio,
1:13:08
Speaker 2: the number of releases theatrically went down, even though those
1:13:11
Speaker 2: are both companies that believe in the movies.
1:13:14
Speaker 1: Paramount and Warner.
1:13:16
Speaker 2: Brothers look a lot more alike than Netflix and Paramount
1:13:20
Speaker 2: look alike. So I'm The reason I ask that is
1:13:23
Speaker 2: only because Trump has a lot of leverage in this moment.
1:13:28
Speaker 2: And I've seen a lot of talk about block this deal.
1:13:30
Speaker 1: This deal is better. This deal is worse.
1:13:33
Speaker 2: I wonder what happens if if people start thinking of
1:13:37
Speaker 2: the ways in which Trump could through kind of regulators,
1:13:41
Speaker 2: the government, let's describe it as the federal government, not
1:13:43
Speaker 2: the vehicle of the Godhead. But if the federal government
1:13:47
Speaker 2: decided to make some demands upon Netflix and its acquisition,
1:13:51
Speaker 2: is there, are there changes to the deal that the
1:13:55
Speaker 2: WGA might like to see made that the theaters would
1:14:00
Speaker 2: like to see made that would make it more appealing?
1:14:03
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's, you know, you brought up a point that
1:14:06
Speaker 7: was interesting because it's sort of the argument Netflix has made,
1:14:10
Speaker 7: which is that we have less obvious overlap or fewer
1:14:13
Speaker 7: kind of redundancies, synergies than Paramount. So we don't own
1:14:18
Speaker 7: a big studio, so we will continue to operate it
1:14:21
Speaker 7: as is. Whereas if Warner Brothers and Paramount came together,
1:14:24
Speaker 7: they can say that they're going to release more than
1:14:25
Speaker 7: 30 movies a year, but they probably won't do that.
1:14:28
Speaker 7: To your point about Disney and Fox, the numbers come down.
1:14:34
Speaker 7: There are the conditions that Netflix could agree to in
1:14:38
Speaker 7: the deal that would placate people in the entertainment business.
1:14:41
Speaker 7: And then there are those that I think would placate.
1:14:45
Speaker 4: Regulators.
1:14:45
Speaker 7: And I think they're not necessarily the same. You know,
1:14:50
Speaker 7: if Netflix sort of contractually committed to putting movies in theaters,
1:14:54
Speaker 7: now I'm not sure they're going to do that, but
1:14:56
Speaker 7: let's say they did, that would certainly, you know, assuage
1:14:59
Speaker 7: the concerns of something like Cinemas United, which is I
1:15:02
Speaker 7: think the CEO you referenced earlier of kind of a
1:15:04
Speaker 7: theater lobbying group. If they committed to increasing overall spending
1:15:09
Speaker 7: of which again, these are all things that they've already
1:15:11
Speaker 7: publicly said they're going to do. They will continue, Warner
1:15:14
Speaker 7: Brothers Television Studio will continue to produce shows for third parties.
1:15:18
Speaker 7: Those are things that would make people feel.
1:15:20
Speaker 4: A little bit better.
1:15:21
Speaker 7: You know, those aren't the most normal conditions for a,
1:15:26
Speaker 7: you know, The case against Netflix, from a federal government standpoint,
1:15:31
Speaker 7: wouldn't be what's going to happen to the movie theater business, right? Unfortunately,
1:15:35
Speaker 7: certain businesses rise and fall over time, and it's not
1:15:38
Speaker 7: the federal government's job to intervene. This is not like
1:15:40
Speaker 7: a business that matters for national security.
1:15:43
Speaker 1: We all love movies.
1:15:44
Speaker 7: We want theaters to continue to exist. The federal government's
1:15:47
Speaker 7: biggest concern when it comes to this deal would be
1:15:49
Speaker 7: antitrust and whether Netflix has too much power in streaming.
1:15:52
Speaker 7: And so I think to make streaming, to make people
1:15:55
Speaker 7: more comfortable on the streaming front, I could see Netflix agreeing.
1:15:59
Speaker 4: To sell or not acquire.
1:16:02
Speaker 7: HBO streaming business in other parts.
1:16:04
Speaker 4: Of the world, like if they had to appease.
1:16:06
Speaker 7: Regulators in Europe or Latin America. Here, it's hard to
1:16:11
Speaker 7: see what they could do on that front. Their argument
1:16:13
Speaker 7: is just going to be, you combine Netflix and HBO
1:16:16
Speaker 7: and we still account for less TV viewing than YouTube.
1:16:19
Speaker 4: That's going to be the crux of their argument.
1:16:22
Speaker 2: Right. No, well, it's funny because I guess where I'm
1:16:25
Speaker 2: at is We see all these sort of extraordinary interventions
1:16:30
Speaker 2: by the Trump administration and ways in which people treat
1:16:32
Speaker 2: Trump abnormally, right?
1:16:33
Speaker 1: They lobby him personally.
1:16:35
Speaker 2: Jared Kushner being part of the deal makes the deal
1:16:37
Speaker 2: more attractive. And yet, when it comes to how we
1:16:40
Speaker 2: talk about what the remedies could be, we all redound
1:16:42
Speaker 2: to the old style of remedies. But Trump seems to
1:16:46
Speaker 2: have been taking at least some kind of an interest
1:16:49
Speaker 2: in reviving Hollywood. He'd like to be seen as somebody
1:16:52
Speaker 2: that does that. Like, I wonder what happens if people, like,
1:16:57
Speaker 2: if people put their heads together and say, what if
1:16:59
Speaker 2: we put together what we would like Trump to see make,
1:17:02
Speaker 2: what demands we would like to see Trump make of Netflix,
1:17:05
Speaker 2: irrespective of what these deals have traditionally look like.
1:17:09
Speaker 7: Right, so if you said, okay, Donald Trump, you want
1:17:11
Speaker 7: to be seen as a savior of Hollywood, you have
1:17:14
Speaker 7: a bunch of folks lobby him and say, You know,
1:17:17
Speaker 7: you talked about tariffs, but what about this?
1:17:19
Speaker 4: Because tariffs don't actually make sense.
1:17:21
Speaker 2: Right, right.
1:17:21
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, here's the thing.
1:17:22
Speaker 2: Netflix has put $ 5. 8 billion on the table if this
1:17:25
Speaker 2: falls apart. For scale, the domestic box office in the
1:17:28
Speaker 2: United States is maybe going to hit $ 9 billion if
1:17:31
Speaker 2: people go see.
1:17:31
Speaker 1: Avatar, right?
1:17:32
Speaker 2: Like they put a ton of, but I'm serious, like
1:17:35
Speaker 2: they've put a ton of money on the table, right?
1:17:37
Speaker 2: Like that is leverage, not just as between the parties
1:17:41
Speaker 2: making the deal, that's leverage the federal government.
1:17:43
Speaker 1: Has in this situation.
1:17:44
Speaker 6: Right.
1:17:45
Speaker 7: I guess my question is, do you think that Donald
1:17:48
Speaker 7: Trump actually cares about some of those initiatives?
1:17:53
Speaker 2: I think Donald Trump cares about things in front of
1:17:59
Speaker 2: him and in how it reflects on him. And Donald Trump,
1:18:05
Speaker 2: here's how you can save Hollywood, is a story he
1:18:08
Speaker 2: would love to read.
1:18:10
Speaker 1: And I.
1:18:11
Speaker 2: Guess like stepping back, I saw the WGA's statement and
1:18:15
Speaker 2: I agree with the sentiment.
1:18:16
Speaker 1: I understand where they're coming from.
1:18:18
Speaker 2: But I just look at the last few years and
1:18:20
Speaker 2: there's this kind of unaddressed contradiction in how people outside
1:18:24
Speaker 2: of the streamers have reacted to changes in the industry,
1:18:28
Speaker 2: which is on the one hand, you see a lot
1:18:30
Speaker 2: of the arguments that have a lot of validity and
1:18:32
Speaker 2: then the Roy Price arguments about consolidation. And then on
1:18:36
Speaker 2: the other hand, these companies are criticized for the ways
1:18:42
Speaker 2: in which they're damaging the industry and yet they are
1:18:47
Speaker 2: spending extraordinary amounts of money on content every year. We
1:18:53
Speaker 2: are not where the peak was two or three years ago,
1:18:56
Speaker 2: but far more money will be spent making scripted television
1:18:59
Speaker 2: shows this year than, say, 10 years ago, right? So
1:19:03
Speaker 2: there's an unaddressed conflict here or a contradiction here about
1:19:08
Speaker 2: what's actually happening to the industry. And I don't know
1:19:11
Speaker 2: if you, if, if you feel that in talking to people, uh,
1:19:15
Speaker 2: about the ways in which these companies have brought a
1:19:17
Speaker 2: lot of money in while at the same time, the
1:19:19
Speaker 2: concentration has unintended consequences. Yeah.
1:19:22
Speaker 7: Well, I think you're also getting at why just from
1:19:26
Speaker 7: an entertainment industry perspective, there's so much resistance to the
1:19:29
Speaker 7: Netflix deal in particular because Hollywood remains an incredibly insular
1:19:33
Speaker 7: community and it has never try as Ted Sarandos has.
1:19:37
Speaker 7: And he is in many ways like the, the, the
1:19:40
Speaker 7: mayor of Hollywood, but he's never been able to quite
1:19:43
Speaker 7: take that mantler position because Netflix has always been viewed
1:19:46
Speaker 7: as a little bit of an outsider, right? And you
1:19:48
Speaker 7: have a lot of people who work for the various
1:19:50
Speaker 7: studios who still resent Netflix for the changes that have
1:19:54
Speaker 7: happened rather than going, oh, well, maybe we fucked up
1:19:59
Speaker 7: in like not recognizing what was going to happen and
1:20:02
Speaker 7: better positioning ourselves. So, I think that's definitely where some
1:20:08
Speaker 7: of it comes from. And to your point about the contradiction, yeah, look,
1:20:10
Speaker 7: I got a call from a very successful producer late
1:20:14
Speaker 7: Friday who was like, why is everyone freaking out about
1:20:17
Speaker 7: the movie business? Netflix doesn't have duplication with Warner Brothers
1:20:22
Speaker 7: in this area. It will continue to make movies. And
1:20:24
Speaker 7: by the way, Netflix's movie business has been pretty crappy
1:20:27
Speaker 7: for the last many years. Them buying a studio that
1:20:30
Speaker 7: actually makes good movies and putting it on the platform
1:20:33
Speaker 7: could be a good thing. They were actually more worried
1:20:36
Speaker 7: about the television business because Netflix has more kind of
1:20:39
Speaker 7: overlap there with Warner Brothers and thought there should be
1:20:42
Speaker 7: some job losses. But if you are looking at it,
1:20:46
Speaker 7: Netflix has promised to make smaller cuts than Paramount has.
1:20:52
Speaker 7: Netflix has two to three billion in cuts. Paramount says six.
1:20:57
Speaker 7: That's a pretty big difference.
1:20:59
Speaker 1: How much of that is personal?
1:21:00
Speaker 2: How much of that is Zaslav just not wanting to
1:21:02
Speaker 2: do a deal with a Nepo baby?
1:21:06
Speaker 7: I think personal egos always matter in this stuff. I mean,
1:21:10
Speaker 7: like we like to say it's all about the numbers
1:21:12
Speaker 7: and that's where boards make their decision. But the fact
1:21:16
Speaker 7: that David Zaslav likes Ted Sarandos probably helps him. I mean,
1:21:21
Speaker 7: during the process of the sale, if you're in a
1:21:25
Speaker 7: room where And you sort of got like Ted Sarandos
1:21:27
Speaker 7: on one side and David Ellison on the other. There's
1:21:29
Speaker 7: no question that Ted is going to come off as
1:21:31
Speaker 7: smoother and a little more charming.
1:21:33
Speaker 1: And that matters.
1:21:34
Speaker 7: I do think push comes to shove, like money talks.
1:21:38
Speaker 7: And so if the Paramount deal were clearly better than
1:21:41
Speaker 7: the Netflix deal, Warner Brothers would have taken it.
1:21:44
Speaker 2: And what happens to CNN and all this? So Netflix
1:21:48
Speaker 2: doesn't want the cable companies. Ellison was interested. in the
1:21:53
Speaker 2: cable companies, including some kind of a way of putting
1:21:55
Speaker 2: CNN and CBS together.
1:21:58
Speaker 1: But if the Netflix.
1:21:58
Speaker 2: Deals go goes through, that would mean a new company
1:22:02
Speaker 2: would exist that David Elson could potentially acquire anyway.
1:22:06
Speaker 7: He could, but I don't think he's interested in just
1:22:08
Speaker 7: the cable networks are like the tax to get the
1:22:10
Speaker 7: stuff that he wants. So I don't think that he
1:22:13
Speaker 7: would go and buy them. Yeah, if the Netflix deal
1:22:15
Speaker 7: is going to happen, they would spin off CNN and
1:22:18
Speaker 7: a bunch of other cable networks into a separate asset first.
1:22:21
Speaker 7: And then what remains, the studio and streaming, would be
1:22:24
Speaker 7: acquired by Netflix. Comcast already did a version of this
1:22:27
Speaker 7: where they spun out a bunch of their cable networks
1:22:29
Speaker 7: into something called Versant, which has MSNOW, formerly known as MSNBC.
1:22:33
Speaker 1: MSNOW, yeah. MSNOW. Yeah.
1:22:37
Speaker 7: But so no, I don't think David Ellison would go after...
1:22:39
Speaker 7: I don't think David Ellison wants CNN. It's like nice
1:22:40
Speaker 7: to have, but he wants the studio. He wants Warner
1:22:43
Speaker 7: Brothers Studio. He wants the HBO streaming service. Of all
1:22:45
Speaker 7: those things, the networks are the third most appealing part.
1:22:49
Speaker 1: So that's interesting because if.
1:22:51
Speaker 2: I've not seen that talked about enough because I see
1:22:53
Speaker 2: a lot of people saying how bad this deal would be.
1:22:56
Speaker 1: Right. But I do think there's something.
1:22:57
Speaker 7: People are already assuming that Barry Weiss is going to
1:22:59
Speaker 7: be in charge of the whole thing.
1:23:01
Speaker 4: And yeah, there's been a lot.
1:23:02
Speaker 2: Of Well, I just, what happens, like, you know, the
1:23:06
Speaker 2: Netflix deal gets killed. People that have said it should
1:23:09
Speaker 2: be stopped get what they want. The Ellison deal happens.
1:23:12
Speaker 2: I do think there's whatever, like, whatever approval problems there
1:23:16
Speaker 2: could be, it seems clear that, like, because it's smaller,
1:23:20
Speaker 2: the argument against antitrust is stronger for Warner Brothers and Paramount.
1:23:24
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden you have.
1:23:27
Speaker 2: Middle Eastern petro-states, to use your words, own a big
1:23:31
Speaker 2: chunk of not just Warner Brothers, but also CNN.
1:23:34
Speaker 1: Right.
1:23:36
Speaker 7: You know, it's the kind of fact that in almost
1:23:42
Speaker 7: any other time would likely be disqualifying for a bid.
1:23:47
Speaker 7: And even, you know, there was a point at which
1:23:49
Speaker 7: the Paramount bid had Chinese money in it too.
1:23:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tencent pulled out like a couple weeks ago, right?
1:23:53
Speaker 7: Because Tencent had been an investor in Skydance, David Ellison's
1:23:57
Speaker 7: initial company. All that stuff would normally be disqualifying. But obviously,
1:24:01
Speaker 7: the current administration really likes the relationships in the Gulf region.
1:24:07
Speaker 7: Jared Kushner does a lot of business in that area.
1:24:11
Speaker 7: And they don't seem too concerned about the presence of
1:24:15
Speaker 7: Middle Eastern money in the bid. I've certainly spoken with
1:24:18
Speaker 7: people who are, but.
1:24:22
Speaker 7: That doesn't seem like something that President Trump is going
1:24:26
Speaker 7: to kill a deal over.
1:24:28
Speaker 2: Well, two great options for a great American company.
1:24:33
Speaker 4: What would be your preferred outcome?
1:24:36
Speaker 2: To have Kamala Harris give a different answer about why
1:24:41
Speaker 2: she'll be different than Joe Biden on the fucking view.
1:24:43
Speaker 2: But no, my actual feeling about this, I have no idea.
1:24:48
Speaker 1: I have no idea. But I do feel like.
1:24:52
Speaker 2: Post, even into the strike, post-strike, there's a way in
1:24:56
Speaker 2: which I just constantly feel like the people inside the
1:25:00
Speaker 2: industry are kind of running behind the ways it's changing
1:25:04
Speaker 2: and asking it to stop. And I would just say,
1:25:08
Speaker 2: I don't know what it looks like, but I would
1:25:10
Speaker 2: be interested in people who really feel passionately about why
1:25:13
Speaker 2: a deal like this is dangerous to say, this deal
1:25:16
Speaker 2: should be stopped. But if it goes through, here are
1:25:18
Speaker 2: the things that that we would, we would hope an
1:25:20
Speaker 2: administration trying to save Hollywood, uh, would propose. And I
1:25:24
Speaker 2: would be interested in that conversation because right now it's, uh,
1:25:28
Speaker 2: you know, uh, which, which, you know, like we're, you know,
1:25:33
Speaker 2: at the bus stop with a bindle and it's like, which,
1:25:35
Speaker 2: who's going to, which, which terrible ride are we going
1:25:37
Speaker 2: to take? But I'd be really interested in like what,
1:25:40
Speaker 2: what it would look like for someone to come up
1:25:41
Speaker 2: with creative ideas for what a company with the scale
1:25:46
Speaker 2: of Netflix could do for, uh, um, theatrical releases and
1:25:52
Speaker 2: for bringing more production back to California, New York, the
1:25:56
Speaker 2: United States. So that to me is what I'm interested in.
1:26:00
Speaker 7: Yeah, no, look, I think you have identified something that
1:26:05
Speaker 7: bothers me a lot in my coverage of the entertainment business,
1:26:08
Speaker 7: which is that the people who complain about the ways
1:26:10
Speaker 7: in which the industry have changed are not really offering
1:26:14
Speaker 7: proactive solutions. They're just sort of trying to make it
1:26:17
Speaker 7: go back to the way things were, and that never works.
1:26:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's hard to grapple with, like, there's nuance here.
1:26:26
Speaker 2: I Netflix has made extraordinary movies and shows. Some of
1:26:30
Speaker 2: the best shows are being made by Apple, a company
1:26:33
Speaker 2: that was not in this business till a few years ago.
1:26:36
Speaker 2: If you need to change the subject over the holidays,
1:26:41
Speaker 2: you'll say, are you watching Pluribus?
1:26:43
Speaker 1: That's made by the phone company.
1:26:45
Speaker 2: So it's just, to me, I feel like I am
1:26:49
Speaker 2: long on people talking about how dangerous all this is
1:26:53
Speaker 2: and short on the practical... changes that would recognize that
1:26:59
Speaker 2: we're not going back. And could you go find some
1:27:02
Speaker 2: of those? Can you go talk to some of your
1:27:03
Speaker 2: people and come back with some of those?
1:27:05
Speaker 4: I will work on that.
1:27:06
Speaker 7: I'll put together some bullet points and get a one-er
1:27:09
Speaker 7: for the president.
1:27:11
Speaker 1: Lucas Shaw, thank you so much for your time. Good
1:27:12
Speaker 1: to talk to you.
1:27:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me.
1:27:19
Speaker 1: That's our show for today. Thanks to Lucas Shaw for
1:27:21
Speaker 1: coming on. Thanks to AI George Washington for lending us
1:27:24
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1:27:25
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