Zuckerberg Admits Censorship, Pavel Durov Arrested, RFK Jr. Endorses Trump | PBD Podcast | Ep. 463
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I'm the one.

Alright, so listen, episode 463. We're starting early today, folks. 9.07. It's super early. Typically, we're 9.18, 9.22. You know the traffic coming up from Miami is not good, as well as the traffic from Bay Colony to here is horrible, but we figure it out. Look, there's a lot of stuff going on. Mark Zuckerberg decides to write the greatest love letter he's ever written in his life last night, and we're going to read it to you because...

I think it truly is a love letter to the people that said, you know, there's got to be some kind of election interference. There's got to be something going on here. To those people, he wrote it to you. And to everybody else who didn't want the world to know, is furious that Jim Jordan made him write the letter. We're going to read it and we're going to have some commentary on it. But there's a bunch of other stories. RFK.

decides to go out there and endorse Trump. Then after he endorses Trump, he has one of the greatest walk-ups of all time, which we reacted to last week with Brett Weinstein. And then afterwards, a couple days later, this Avenger, what do you want to call her, Rob? What can we call her here? She comes out of nowhere...

A Wonder Woman decides to endorse Trump. And this is RFK's post of Tulsi Gabbard. Look at that picture right there. That's Tulsi right there. All right, Tulsi. Leader Tulsi. She's got a few ribbons there, man. That's right. Wonder Woman just joined the Justice League.

It's been a rough week to say for the Harris. Is it Walt's campaign? Is that the is that the Walt's campaign? The guy. What? Don't you just love the way he pulled his son? I mean, you can tell how strong he is, right? The power. Maybe we have to have that clip ready as well to show his power. I mean, if a man's got that kind of power over his young son in his house, you got to know he's going to run the rest of us. If he gets elected. Just look at this highlight reel. I play this clip. What a beautiful. Just look at this here. Look at that. Hey, hey, come here.

Well, that's nothing compared to a Trump handshake. I mean, Trump will rip his shoulder off real quick. Adam, to your son, I mean, one day when you have it, you'll see that this is a different story. Maybe when he's six years old, eight years old. Hey, the BizDoc babe is a teacher, as you all know, and she says when she sees that, that is a sign of long-term impatience and a lack of empathy for the condition of the child. She sees it. No, Tom, you can't say that. Watch your language. It's called love when you're the vice president and you're running for what you're running for. I think you are reaching. So...

A couple other stories. I don't think so. Boeing employees humiliated that upstart rival, this company called SpaceX, ran by this... What's the guy's name? Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, will rescue astronauts stuck in space. It's shameful. Can you imagine...

NASA, Boeing can't do it, but SpaceX, we're going to come and rescue your guy. Quite embarrassing. And then you have Vance says that he expects Trump would veto a national abortion law. And then there's a story about joy, guys. I mean, I don't know if you're pretty joyful or not. Joy Reid? No, no. Joy is not a strategy. It says New York Times opinion will react to that.

high rent forces mom of two to move family into a hotel. Hope and joy is not paying my bills. However, Harris at her DNC speech...

drew 28.9 million viewers, a half a million more than Trump political says. And the one story that they don't say is there was a rumor circulating about Beyonce and Taylor Swift maybe being at the DNC. That definitely fooled the world. And that was a WAPO story. So maybe they were waiting for Beyonce, not Kamala. But who knows? Maybe it's both. We'll talk about that. And then we have Telegram messaging app CEO Durov arrested in France. We

We've got a few other stories here. Windman says Musk should be nervous after Telegram CEO was arrested. Free speech absolutist. Weirdos. And then gold hits record high. Five ways to prepare for lower interest rates story by Barron's because Powell officially just came out and said what he's going to be doing with interest rates.

Unemployment is the Fed's biggest enemy now, Powell says. Hangover, Star wishes DNC had fewer Hollywood celebs, reminds Dems to focus on rural America. Crypto industry counts for almost half of corporate donations in 2024. And then you got Starbucks. They hired this new guy, Brian Nickel. They took away from Chipotle, who took Chipotle from $7 to $71 billion. And on the day of them signing this guy, Starbucks' valuation went up $20 billion in a single day.

After they announce he's the CEO, we'll talk about that. California weighs sweeping reforms in insurance and regulations amid mounting wildfire risk. Australian.

employees now have the right to ignore work emails and calls after hours. We have an Australian, Amy Dangerfield, in the house. - Hello. - You've seen her on Sauce Gas, Unusual Suspect, and The Decision 2024 with you and Tom. - Yes, sir. - Which is a show that's starting to get a lot of popularity. We're getting a lot of messages about it. Amy's gonna give us her perspective on what's going on with Australia.

And then Judge Hands Transgender Woman win against female-only app in landmark case. And last but not least, a little weird.

Financial Times says, Italy opens manslaughter probe into a lynch super yacht sinking. Okay, and that's another story that we have. Now, a couple things before we get into the podcast here. Of course, we got these stories we'll get into. For 13 and a half years, I know this sounds kind of weird, I've been working on a fiction book. I've never written a fiction book before until now. It's called The Academy. Damn. I've been working on this thing since 2011. Okay.

It's a story about a kid who gets recruited into a secret society that's been on for a long time that develops the greatest leaders in the world. And you get a chance to go into this vault to learn from different leaders. Imagine having a one-on-one conversation with people that have been dead for many years. But this technology allows you to have a conversation with them, ask them about any issues that's going on. There's 10 characters in this book. Tupac's one of them. Marilyn Monroe's another one.

Who else can I tell you? Ayn Rand's in it. Karl Marx is in this book. There's a lot of tense moments. There's one character in the book that's going to be very controversial. The whole idea for these guys in this book is, I've never written a parenting book, but for some of you guys that like a Divergent meets Atlas Shrugged meets maybe those two books, this is a book you're going to enjoy reading specifically if you have kids ages 14, 15,

14 to 18, as well as adults. You'll enjoy it as well. This comes out next month, September, The Academy. Rob, if you can put the link below, you can go to Amazon to place the order of this book. We'll be talking more about this here. But for those that order early, you'll get your copies. These things sell out fairly quickly. Can I see this thing? Yes, The Academy. It kind of reminds me of the painting, your most famous painting, kind of come to life. So that painting is the book. So you'll see some of the conversations that's being had here. Anyways, let's get right into it. Rob, first story.

Zuckerberg writes a love letter to a lot of people that claimed he was censoring them in 2020 election. So this is, if he can show the logo all the way at the top so they know it's meta. Okay, so it's to the Honorable Jim Jordan, Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary.

And then he says, Chairman Jordan, I appreciate the committee's interest in content moderation on online platforms. As you are aware, Meta has produced thousands of documents as part of your investigation and made a dozen employees available for transcript interviews. Further to our cooperation with your investigation, I welcome the opportunity to share what I've taken away from this process. There's a lot of talks right now around how the U.S. government interacts with companies like Meta, and I want to be clear...

about our position. Our platform, our platforms are for everyone. We're about promoting speech and helping people connect in a safe and secure way. As part of this, we regularly hear from governments around the world and others with various concerns around public discourse and public safety. Okay, we're good so far. In 2021, senior officials from Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor

Certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn't agree. Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of

of this pressure. I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it. So he mans up and takes responsibility for it, right? The fact that, look, they forced us, but we could have said no, but we said yes.

I also think we made some choices that with the benefit of hindsight and new information we wouldn't make today. Like I said to our teams at the time, I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any administration in either direction and we're ready to push back if something like this happens again.

In a separate situation, the FBI warned us about a potential Russian disinformation operation about the Biden family and Burisma, and it leads up to the 2020 election. That fall when we saw a New York Post story, we all remember this story,

reporting on corruption allegations including then Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's family. Guys, this is pretty bad. I mean, it doesn't get worse than this. We send that story to fact checkers for review and temporarily demoted it while waiting for a reply. It's since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation.

And in retrospect, we shouldn't have demoted the story. We've changed our policy and processes to make sure this doesn't happen again. For instance, we no longer temporarily demote things in the U.S. while waiting for fact-checkers. Rob, if you can go to the next story.

Zoom in a little bit more. There you go. Apart from this content moderation, I want to address the contributions I made during the last presidential cycle to support electoral infrastructure. The idea was here to make sure local elections jurisdictions across the country had the resources they needed to help people vote safely during a global pandemic. I made these contributions.

through the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. They were designed to be nonpartisan. Of course, they were partisan, spread across urban, rural, and suburban communities. Still, despite the analysis I've shown otherwise, I know that some people believe this work benefited only one party over the other. My goal is to be neutral and not play a role one way or another, or even to appear to be playing a role. So I don't plan on making a similar contribution this cycle. So Rob, go back to the tweet. And Tom, I'm going to go to you first. Here's what I said.

I said, so Zuckerberg just admitted to working with Biden and Harris administration to censor Americans. He's either admitting to this because he's being honorable, he's done with the Democratic Party, or he's getting ahead of a whistleblower. Either way, this is a very hard letter for him to write. Tom, your thoughts on the story? Well, I think he's getting ahead of...

whistleblower because I think there's going to be people that testify because there's going to be hearings. Trump wins. There is going to be hearings and he knows it. How does he know? Well, words talk, numbers scream. And if you're Zuck, how do you scream? You scream with lobbyists. Rob, you have that chart real quick. So lobbying is how he talks to the government and then he knows what's going on. He hears from people. Take a look at this.

The social media people, which is Meta, ByteDance, which is our good friends at TikTok, right? X, Discord, and Snap. This is what they all spend. And if you take a look, Snap, Discord, and X, they hardly spend anything, not even 8% of it. The majority is ByteDance and Meta.

Of the $30 million it spent, look at that blue bar. Meta spends by far the most. Of 142 registered lobbyists on social media, Meta has 71. Get out of here. 50%. 50% of them. ByteDance is 45. And X, Discord, and Snap, they only have 25 with Snap and Discord having 17. So that means that Elon's got eight lobbyists, like us.

Ten, 11 percent. How do you process that? I process it is that Zuck is writing this to us, to Jim Jordan, who is going to chair the hearings. He knows what's coming and he has the lobbyists up there that they have their ears on the ground. Lobbyists don't only talk to our lobbyists.

Our elected officials, they listen to them. And I think Zuck knows exactly what's going on. There are stories out there and there are statistics out there that Instagram had and still has a pedophile problem. Pedophiles use coding and they try to beat the systems on Insta to have their postings and that he still has that issue going on.

And I wish in the last part of that letter that he didn't say, I won't be making a similar contribution this year. I wish he said he won't be making any because people popped up immediately. Similar, you mean the same dollar amount similar? Or if it's 5% less, you're saying it's not similar. So there's a lot of words that people like me looked at with kind of a legal eye and picked things out in this letter. This letter is Zuck getting out ahead of it.

Okay. Amy, what do you think? I completely agree with Tom's sentiments. And even if it's not the last thing and maybe he is being honorable, in my opinion, it's a little too late. I feel like COVID is one of those things that was really memory hold upon people. We forget the level of...

The PSYOP that we went through, like this is probably the biggest PSYOP of my generation, at least that I've lived through, where they were literally convincing you that you're a granny killer if you left your house. Like the amount of psychological warfare that was utilized, people who are kept away from their families. So for him to come out and state all of this now, even if you are being honorable, I'm sorry, it's too little too late.

anybody who was trying to use the advent of social media to actually share the truth and to correct the total psyop that was occurring during that time were completely suppressed. Their accounts were suspended. They were pushed off the platform. And so in my opinion, it's,

It's too little too late. And to Tom's point, I'm going to actually bring up that story a little bit later with the pedophiles on Instagram. It's rampant. And they've actually run experiments and simulations to determine when a brand new user is on the platform, how quickly are they exposed to sexualized and pedophilic content?

And spoiler, it's really fast and it's really creepy. So for me, it doesn't cut it. So I got questions for you guys. This is good, but I'm going to go to Adam and I got questions for you. Go ahead, Adam. So there's a similar theme that we're seeing pop up left and right. And that is the

conversation that is very much needed about freedom of speech. I mean, the biggest story over the weekend was this guy, Pavel Durov, the CEO, founder of Telegram, that gets arrested in France. So Mark Zuckerberg, if you want to use Tom's thing, words talk, numbers scream, look at where Facebook's done in the last two, three years. October of 2022,

bottomed their stock price basically pummeled. It was below $100 for the first time. He was the top five richest man in the world. Boom, he was down somewhere around $20. Now this guy's in the top five again. Their stock price is somewhere around $520 because basically they changed the name from Facebook to Meta. They put in different protocols. If you kind of want to think of what you remember from Mark Zuckerberg in the last few years, there's a few things that pop up to me. Number one is his whatever alleged fight with Elon Musk that never transpired. Number two, when he had to

in front of Congress and basically got chastised. He had to turn around and apologize to the families. I mean, you want to make a robot look human. Good luck doing that in front of people of Congress. But, you know, it's funny because I remember you had a conversation. This would have been 2021 in the Boca office with this very young, naive, some call him very attractive young man. And he was asking you,

Yeah, why would Facebook pick a side? Like, I don't get, like, I guess that young man was me. But I said, and we got into it. Do you remember this meeting? Not that PBD and I would ever disagree or you'd ever yell at me. For those of you listening at home, Adam has attempted to call himself young.

Thanks, Tom. As always. That was an Australian accent. No, that's the BBC. They do that. Oh, I got you. Okay. Go ahead, Tom. That was good. So I remember we had a very interesting conversation and it was probably the first awkward moment we had. And I was sort of naive to the fact that I was like, well, why would Facebook censor things? Like genuinely, do they have a horse in this race? Lo and behold, they did.

But a lot of things happened during 2020, you know, like the whole World Economic Forum, the whole thing was the Great Reset. Yeah. And that was their plan. But in reality, there was a Great Reset and everyone had to basically reveal their hand, whether it's the Twitter files, whether it's the Facebook files are coming out now. Everything is surfacing. Like, really, what were you doing? So at this point, where do you think even Zuckerberg is even voting at this point? Because the other thing I'll say that I remember about Zuckerberg is him.

I don't know, a month ago, basically saying, listen, how regardless of you feel about Trump, him getting up with the blood sporing out of his ears, like was the most badass thing I've seen in my lifetime. This thing right here with my actually my good friend, Emily Chang. But you have that clip. I do. There you go, Rob, on the ball. Watch this. Which one is this? I've done some stuff personally in the past. I'm not planning on doing that this time.

And that includes not endorsing either of the candidates. Now look, there's obviously a lot of crazy stuff going on in the world. I mean, the historic events over the weekend. And I mean, on a personal note, it's seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I've ever seen in my life. But look, I mean, it's...

That's pretty much it, Rob. But the point is, what we're starting to see is this. The Silicon Valley big tech companies

you know, VC big money, we're starting to see them, whether slowly or even rapidly in some cases, like the All In podcast, are all gravitating towards Trump. So Zuckerberg's running toward the middle to avoid where they're going to be in front of congressional hearings. So let me ask this question. Let me ask this question. Let me ask this question. So is it okay for, you know, how old is Zuckerberg right now? 39? Has he hit 40 yet? How old is Zuckerberg? Over or under 40?

Okay. I mean, he's... 40. Okay. He's 40 years old. So 2016, he's what? 32. 2020, he's 36. One of the smartest guys in the world. Worth a couple hundred billion dollars. Okay. Okay.

Does he have the right to change his mind and sincerely be wrong? Yes. Does he have the right to do that? Yes. Not only the right, but the obligation like all of us. Okay. Everyone should. But the point is like he can still change, right? He can still change and say, hey, I effed up. I effed up with my move on what I did. He can still do that.

Correct, but we don't have the obligation to forgive him. That was my point. I'm totally with you. So, okay, that's great. We don't have the obligation to forgive him, which is kind of the part about we can maybe forgive, move on, don't forget. He's capable of doing it again. Maybe you don't trust him. His trust score is lower with us right now. Okay, no problem. But if a person's going through this phase...

In our own lives, the longer you live, you're going to make mistakes in your relationships, business, company, people you do business with, whoever you're with, your marriage, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You're going to go through this. And one may come and say, hey, here's what happened. Now, the individual has the choice in a relationship to say, nope, I'm not. This is the line you cross. We're done, right? We're done with this relationship. I'm never going to be with you again. We're moving forward, okay?

Or you can say, all right, the fact that you admitted to it, I'm going to give you a chance. Let's move on. So that's one category. Let's set that part aside. Let's go to the next one. The other side is, could there be a possibility that he is doing this? Because to me, the way I read this is either he's now no longer a Democrat. He's no longer center. He's seeing all the guys that he admires and

okay, maybe an Ellison. I'm not even saying Musk. I'm saying an Ellison. A lot of these guys now moving to the center right, maybe a Peter Thiel who gave him some money many, many years ago. Thiel gave this guy $500,000. They asked Thiel, what's one of the biggest mistakes you ever made in your life? You know what he said? Not giving Facebook more? He says, not giving Facebook more money on the second round that they came up to me because I would have, I would have eaten more money. He says, I should have given to them. He was the very first. He was the very first guy that gave half a million dollars. Peter, uh-huh.

He's watching Thiel that goes in this position. He's watching Ellison right there. He gave a half a million in August of 2004. Nothing. That half a million dollars were 10% of the state. Nothing. What is Peter Thiel's net worth today, by the way? Tap in Peter Thiel net worth. I'm guessing $10 billion. $9.2 billion. So there's a part of these guys that Zuck watches closely to see where they're going. So maybe...

He is slowly becoming Team Trump. Now let me go to three. Maybe he's not Team Trump, but he's sitting there and watching, and a part of the way you write this letter is to say, guys, listen, I'm telling you, Trump's winning. It's over.

It's over. Trump's winning. We have to find a way to be friendly with these guys because if we don't, they're going to make our life a living hell. So why don't we just get ahead of it? So during his four years while he's in office, they don't bother us. There's so many different ways they can make our life a living hell. Guess what? Musk is now close to him. Here's what's going to happen. X is about to whoop

are ass because Musk got smart and got close to Trump and I have not. Maybe I need to do a Facebook Live with Trump, me and Trump. So maybe don't be surprised if in the next two weeks the right move for Zuck to do is maybe to do a Facebook Live with Trump. And you ask him some questions, okay? I don't know about that, Pat. By the way, let me tell you. What do you mean you don't know about that? By the way, let me tell you. If he doesn't, I'm telling you right now, if he...

If he doesn't do it, if he doesn't do it, if anybody at Facebook executives watch and send it over to the team and let them hear this, if you don't do this, and Musk did that, what X shows to the rest of the world is they're willing to hear opposing ideas and you're not.

If you, Zuck, invite publicly, this is how you do it. I'm inviting Kamala Harris and Trump individually, one-on-one with you separately, to have a conversation with me on Facebook Live.

And you can say Kamala's campaign declined, Trump's campaign accepted, so they won't say, now you're playing the right card. I think that's the one move that he has to play. If he doesn't do it, Musk's got such a big advantage. For anybody that owns the X stock,

From 2024 to 2028, you're going to have a good time if you're a shareholder in the X stock because I think that's going to be a season where he's going to play in a way that he's never played before. The whole freedom of speech concept is going to get to a whole different level. He's going to have the backing administration. Don't be surprised if during that four-year period, by the end of the four-year, by 2028, do not be surprised if X is not worth a half a trillion dollars.

And I know what you're going to say, where it's at right now, all this other stuff. I'm telling you, do not be surprised by the end of 2028 if Trump is in office that this takes place. I don't disagree, Pat. I just have one question. How the hell do we get in on the Twitter stalker and the X stalker? It's private. You can't because it's private. Now you're getting my emotions worked up. Those who try to get in, they got in. Those who deny try to get in, 10 million, they won't let me do it. I called Morgan Stanley. I called Goldman. You want me to make a call for you?

If you could, that'd be great. By the way, you got the friends that could make that happen. So let me go last but not least to this one here. You know what the last but not least message is? To all the people, imagine the people right now who were...

Who were the ones who said, well, you know, you know, this is disinformation. You mean to tell me there's anything in the Hunter Biden laptop? These guys are so dumb. 50 Secret Service agents, people signed off and said there was nothing in that laptop. To those of you, there's a part of me, Tom, and please push back. All three of you push back. OK, you mean to tell me in the span of a week, this is Trump's greatest week he's had on this run.

That's the greatest week he's had. And last night I had a conversation with Kevin McCarthy. Good conversation. He says the next 70 days in the political life cycle is 10 years. Anything can change. Don't be fooled. But during this one week, RFK, Tulsi, Zuck, all in a week, you're having something like this happen in a single week. Guess what this means? Maybe, just maybe, this is not going to be a small victory, Tom.

maybe this is gonna be a type of a victory that we saw

where only Minnesota didn't support Reagan. Maybe this is going to be something like that the next 70 days. What are your thoughts? I think it's possible. We are, first of all, Amy and I on the decision 2024 brought to you by Valuetainment. One of the things we look at is the real numbers. And we are seeing that there was not a crazy bounce for Kamala Harris, even out of the hard left polls, like Trafalgar, who is known to be a hard bias left poll. And you look back at the history.

It's the bounce wasn't there. And remember what was supposed to happen from Friday to Monday. It was supposed to be like winning the world series, like winning the world series. What do you do downtown? You have a victory parade. That's not what's happening. There's not a victory parade happening right now. Instead,

In the middle of getting their parade ready, what happens is RFK walks on stage. And they did it in Arizona, a major, major state that's a huge battleground state. And so...

What has happened here, all of this has happened. Is there a possibility of a massive sweep? Yes. What do you think, Amy? Is there a possibility of a massive sweep? When you consider the circumstances that took place during that Reagan election, I would say yes. Many of the circumstances are very much in line. And when I look at

You know, the idea of Zuckerberg possibly reversing course because he fears the implications. That makes sense because think about it. He has all of the back end data. He can see how much the Biden Harris campaign is spending on these ads as well compared to Trump. He can see the way the algorithm is manipulating information to spread a narrative. And so he actually probably sees the true state of the situation, what the true picture actually is versus the media narrative that everybody's receiving on the other end.

And so I do think that is possible. And for that reason, I think that's why Zuck is coming out and writing this love letter, so to speak, not again out of anything genuine, but because his hand's kind of being forced now. And we're at 75 percent 287 right now on Trump, 75 percent probability on 287 VT analytics. Not our opinion. We dive into the crosstabs. We're just a heartbeat now from 300.

And that is a huge tipping point when you look at things like Virginia and other states that are very close. Trump can take the blue wall very easily. Rob, can you play that clip of RFK on Tucker? I think he was just on Tucker a couple of days ago. Here's what he had to say.

So I have an injunction right now against the Biden White House to enjoin them from censoring me, which they've been doing. The 155-page decision by Judge Doty details everything that happened. 37 hours after he took the oath of office, President Biden's White House opened up a portal

for the FBI to begin to have access to social media posts on all the different social media sites. And they, the FBI then invited in the CIA, DHS, the IRS, and CISA. CISA is this new agency that is the center of the censorship industrial complex that is in charge of making sure Americans don't hear things that their government doesn't want them to hear.

And those agencies and other agencies, including the health agencies like CDC, were given access to go into the social media sites and change posts and slow walk things and shadow ban things.

It was part of that effort, and they removed my Instagram account. I had almost a million followers. They say it was for misinformation, but they could not point to a single post that I ever made that was factually erroneous. And they actually – Facebook pushed back in the email chain. You can see Facebook pushing back at the White House and saying –

wait a minute, he's not, this isn't misinformation. This is not factually erroneous. What they're saying is actually true.

And they had to invent a new word, which is called malinformation, which is information that is factually true, but nevertheless inconvenient for the government. And that became disinformation, misinformation and malinformation. That's what that is. By the way, here's one thing he said yesterday. He said Ross Perot, when he ran as an independent, he the mainstream media invited him to be on 34 times. He says, I've only been invited twice.

Okay. Think about that. 34 times. And he's a Kennedy. So he's a Kennedy. You only get invited 34 times. So this leads to, this leads to...

All of this leads to one thing. Okay, let me transition into this next story. Obviously, he announces that RFK, Trump, announced that he's joining the campaign. And then he says, you know, more people, more Democrats are joining the campaign. RFK said over the weekend that he'll be campaigning for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the days and weeks to come, that he expects that more Democrats will soon be joining the campaign. RFK made remarks.

Sunday interview on Fox News Sunday with host Shannon Bream after he announced last week that he was suspending his campaign to endorse Trump. I'm going to be campaigning actively. I think President Trump is going to make a series of announcements about other Democrats who are joining the campaign. And, you know, I want to make America healthy again. And so does President Trump. So those are objectives. So, Adam, when you hear a story like this, Bobby says what he says, OK?

And other Democrats are getting ready to join. They're putting together the unity team. How much worse is this going to be for the opposing party when you're talking about Kamala Harris and what they have going on on the other side? So the question was always, who does RFK hurt more, Trump or Biden at the time, and then now essentially Harris? And there was no clear answer. There was a lot of people saying, well, you know, he's taking away votes from Trump. Well, he's a former Democrat. He's taking away votes from

From the Democrats. And there's two schools of thought. Well, if you know, he's he's been trending at basically what, five percent. Rob, what's his number? If you scroll down to the bottom five percent, I want to say.

Bingo. 4.7. You know, if you look at if you want to trust these polls, what is this? Five thirty eight. If you want to just go. And this is national state by state. He's four to seven, depending on the state. Thanks, Tom. Harris is about 47. Trump's about 43, 44. Right. So Trump is always, always, always big, bold, highlighted letters, always somewhere in the mid 40s when he beats Trump.

Hillary Clinton in 2016, she was basically, you know, mid to 47 and she won the popular vote and he beat her in the electoral college. Now, what happened with Biden was Biden, ironically, had 51 percent of the vote. And then basically after six months, his numbers completely plummeted. What was the number here, Rob?

45.7% Clinton, 41.8% Trump. All right. So Trump's, and that's his approval rating. That's not the amount of votes because I think the amount of votes was obviously higher. But the point is Trump has a ceiling and he has a floor and it's the mid 40s. They're not leaving. They're not coming. That's what his story is.

The Democrats, whether you like it or not, they've reached 50 with Joe Biden and they're starting to reach almost 50. If you look at that number right now, 48 with Kamala. So we'll see what happens with that. So 47.2. So I'm in the school of thought that in theory, getting RFK's endorsement is a great thing. Obviously, he's going to jump out of the drop out of the race. Let's get his vote.

But I don't think Trump really fares well in a binary race, unfortunately, because what happened is in 2016, there was a guy, Gary Johnson, who was the libertarian candidate. You remember that? And he took, I don't know, four or 5% of the vote. And what is the number there? 4.8%. Okay. So it turns out my numbers are right. And those people, uh,

Those people essentially took votes away from Clinton, it would seem. In 2020, as you know, you interviewed the powerhouse beast, Joe Jorgensen, who did she even get one greatest debater of all time? We all know. Did she even get one percent? And so all those people broke towards Biden. So what's going to happen right now is the following. There's a lot of people out there, especially the vocal people who have been hiding behind the RFK vote. I have a lot of friends in the crypto world. I'm like, who are you going to vote for?

And they're like, well, you know, you know, I can't really do the Kamala thing. And, you know, Trump, I can't say RFK. I think I'm gonna go with RFK. Well, now you don't have that option. And you certainly don't have that option to say out loud. So there's a lot of people out there, me at one point included, that's like, ah, it's sort of like run and cover. And now you have no option to do that. So the reality is. There's one option. Yes. And it's going to be the heist. You know what the one option is? Let me tell you what the one option is.

I'm at Angelo's and one of the guys is there with his friend who's a lawyer. The lawyer goes on a 15 minute rant about how much he hates Trump. Okay.

And then I say, so how do you feel about Kamala? He goes on another whatever on how much he hates Kamala. I said, so what the hell are you going to do now? You're screwed because you don't even have the Bobby option. You know what the third option is? Sitting it out. It's a lot of people that are going to sit this one out. And by the way, the people sitting this out are not the people on the right or the people on the left.

This may be one where a lot of people on the left sit this one out. Now, we heard the news, Rob, about Secret Service, right? Secret Service comes out. The announcement was made on Sunday. And the fact that Bobby is no longer going to be getting Secret Service protection. And so because he's announced what he announced two days later, there's no more Secret Service. Is this the one with...

Is this him saying that? Well, this is him speaking with Glenn Beck yesterday after they've removed his Secret Service protection. And he tells Glenn Beck that his life is now in God's hands. Go ahead and play this clip. You've had Secret Service pulled from you now by this administration, which I think is reprehensible. How uncomfortable are you with that decision? I'm OK. I'm going to do what I'm going to do.

My life is in God's hands. And I'm okay with, you know, I'm going to do what I'm going to do, whether I have that or not. You can pause that right there, Rob. So the way I process it is the following. And I talked about this over the weekend. I think them doing what they're doing here, I mean, one...

You go quiet skies with Tulsi, right? You target her and you put her on a terrorist watch list? What? What are you talking about? Then you take RFK's Instagram account out when he calls out Fauci with that book he wrote.

Then you shut him down. CNN doesn't invite him. MSNBC doesn't invite him. ABC doesn't invite him. CBS doesn't invite him. So he gets as high as he did purely because of independent podcasts. That's how Bobby gets up.

And then now you're pulling his Secret Service protection. You gave it to him on July 15th, two days after Trump's assassination, because Trump said Bobby should get it. He gets it. Then you drop it. Look at this coincidence. You give it to him two days after Trump gets assassinated. You take it away from him two days after he endorses Trump. And now you're just forcing Bobby, RFK Jr.,

to only be in one place to be safe, which is campaigning with Trump. So now imagine the next 70 days, whatever this is going to be, they're going to go on the road show, right? Which Glendale, Arizona, that opening was wild. And you're going to go on the road and every event that you go to, now you mean to tell me I'm going to hear from Tulsi? You can just play this clip, Rob, if you want to.

Now you need to tell me I'm going to hear from Tulsi, I'm going to hear from Bobby, and I'm going to hear from Trump at all these events? I mean, this is insane to me, right, when you see this. Okay, now Vivek's with his camp. You know, Dana White came in, obviously, with his camp. He was at the RNC. The group they've put together while this is going—you can pause this, Rob. You know, the group they've put together with the direction this is going—

I think it's just a lot of mistakes back to back to back. Now, they, the DNC side, comes out and say, you know, joy is their campaign slogan, right? We're just so happy. We were just so joyful. We were just so, it was so much joy at, you know, the event that we had. The DNC was so awesome. Rob, you want to play this clip? Sure.

This is just, you know, there's a montage of a bunch of joyful things being said. Correct. OK, go ahead. The one thing that I will not forgive them for is they're trying to steal the joy from this. Oh, that's right. Joy felt by Americans from Joy. Harris Wall's ticket. We are joyful warriors. Being joyful is part of the American identity. The joy factor campaign of joy. You're talking about radical joy. It is downward joy.

It looks like a joyous rally. It looks like a joyous occasion. A real zeal and joy in the campaign. The joy that you're bringing back to the country. Joyful, exuberant rally. Thank you for bringing back the joy. Power of joy. Hope and joy. Something incredibly joyful. She does it all with a sense of joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Joy. Imagine that.

I have so much to say. Well, let me just read this to you and then I'm going to come to you guys. I'm going to come to you guys. Let me just read this to you. So the story comes out while they're doing this. New York Times, who's on their side, all these people's sides.

Comes out, and here's an opinion that says, joy is not a strategy on August 23rd. So can you imagine they're all being excited? Hey, we have such a great marketing campaign. It's joy. That's what we're all about. New York Times says, no, it's not a good strategy. During the Republican convention, Trump was exalted.

by delegates as a near divine figure, repeatedly describing as having been spared to save the country after the assassination attempt. However, Trump squandered the goodwill from skeptical voters by delivering this same old rant in his nomination speech, failing to capitalize on a moment when people expected him to act like a changed man. Now, this is what they're saying. The Democratic Convention heavily focused on Kamala as a symbol of joy.

with the word being used so often that it felt overbearing. Bill Clinton even dubbed her the president of joy. But this emphasis on joy overlooks the reality that joy is not a political strategy. Voters are more concerned about

with practical issues like lowering household costs and improving access to housing, not just a feel-good rhetoric. Amy, what do you have to say about this? Oh, this next line is great. Sorry, the Mean Girls reference. I don't know if you guys get this where they say it's the new fetch for Mean Girls. Guys, Democrats, stop trying to make joy happen, okay? It's not going to happen. Anyone who knows Mean Girls reference would laugh at that.

This is absolutely ridiculous. And you can see the way this messaging is being utilized, both to prop Harris up and also to bring down Trump and to bring down J.D. Vance as well, because their messaging for the Republican side is that they're weird. So all in all, the messaging is that Republicans are weird. The Democrats are weird.

And I just want to know what group chat are all of these people a part of where all of a sudden they just get the message, hey guys, this is the main strategy that we're going to be focusing on. The word of the day is joy. Exactly. Like it's, it's just, it's, it's so ridiculous. You know, one,

One thing that I found very interesting when looking into this slogan is that a lot of the people who write these speeches appear to not really do their research because strength through joy is actually a slogan that was utilized before during a very particularly interesting part of history, Pat, which is actually Nazi Germany.

This was their main slogan utilized during Nazi Germany. Strength through joy. The same line, strength through joy. A Nazi-operated leisure organization uses a tool to promote the advantages of Nazism to German people champion this as their slogan. And what's interesting... Are you joking? And what's interesting is by 1939, it had become...

The world's largest tourism operator. This exact same company. Did you hear that? Sorry, guys. 1939, Strength Through Joy was the largest tourism operator. Wow. It says it right there. Yeah, so KDFO is composed of several departments with their own specific goals, but each department organizing different leisure activities. Okay, so now obviously, how much of this do you think is coincidence? How much do you think it's intangible?

intentional? How much of it do you think is just a pure screw up that they didn't pay attention to this? Yeah, I think the speech writers aren't doing their research. They don't know their history and they don't care to know their history because all they care about is propaganda and all they care about is messaging. But had somebody done their research for two minutes...

They would have found this. Are we sure we want to go up the strength through joy thing? So this is once again, Democrats running on feelings versus the hard work of policies and promises and the feelings tax the rich. Oh, I feel so. It's so unfair. Tax the rich feelings.

We're throwing joy at you. It's all of these feeling monikers that they're throwing at the American people, not throwing them at real things that can work, such as the policy things that she threw out over the weekend that even Obama's economist was backing up going, yeah, I don't think that's a really good policy. Even Obama's chief economist was saying, look, these things you're talking about are not a sensible policy. They may get people emotionally aroused, but it's not sensible policy.

Adam, thoughts? Well, look, the reality is Democrats are way better at marketing than Republicans, period. And if you want to go pound for pound, Trump is a way better marketer than anybody as an individual. So you have Trump versus the entire DNC, mainstream media, Hollywood versus basically Trump and Truth Social. And they're in a neck-to-neck race. I think it's complete...

fabrication that the joy of the Nazis is equivalent to the joy of the Democratic Party, but you do you. What I will say is this. There's a famous phrase from our friend Mario Cuomo, where he said, you campaign in poetry and you govern in prose. Yes, I'm quoting your father, Chris Cuomo. And basically what that means is, yes, during the

convention, you don't have to have deep, deep policy specifics. That's not what people are there for. They're there for raw emotion and call it joy and inspiration and emotions. And obviously in your book, you talked about the marrying of emotion and logic and why it's important to

Now, what I'll say is when you govern, you kind of got to get emotion out of the system and be stoic and be practical and be pragmatic and use logic. So the joy part or whatever the emotional poetry part that you're using during a campaign strategy, go for it. But unless Kamala Harris actually lays out policies that are actually helpful to the American family, unlike sort of this Marxist approach.

socialist agenda lipstick on a pig where she's going to give the opportunity economy and everyone's going to be happy and joyful now. Yeah, show me the numbers because I'm not buying it. So even the story right here, high rent forces mama to move family into hotel, hope and joy ain't paying my bills. And I totally agree. So it's fine for now. And there's a lot of people

People who could just go on raw emotion, they're going to fall for it. But I want to see a policy and I want to see an action strategy from Kamala Harris. Are you overlooking the collusion of the mainstream media? Have you ever seen the mainstream media repeat a Trump point like this? Of course, of course, of course. Well, we've seen the whole talking point, talking point, talking, but obviously they got the memo. Yeah. So check this out. So when you look at this, Harris DNC speech drew 28.9 million viewers, a half a million more than Trump political says. Okay.

And if somebody could look at that who doesn't really follow stories closely, they could say, oh, my God, that's pretty crazy. Maybe, you know, she has more excitement. You know, Kamala Harris' DNC acceptance speech, 28.9, Trump's 28.4. The speech was notably high for DNC with MSNBC reporting 7.2 million viewers during the 40-minute address. It's the highest ever for DNC, the 2024 DNC average.

21.8 million viewers over four nights, outperforming the RNC, 18.9 million viewers. The DNC final night drew 26 million viewers overall, including 6.7 million in the 18 to 54 category, substantial increase compared to the RNC. Despite the strong viewership showing, the 2024 DNC average viewership was 200,000 more than the 2020, but 8.2 million less than 2016 viewership.

Hillary Clinton's get beat up. Where Hillary Clinton's nomination drew 30 million viewers, oh, it was 8.2 million more. The 2024 convention saw significantly celebrity involvement and network viewership with MSNBC leading in total audience. Okay, sounds good. Now, the story, though, was how WAPO says there was a rumor about Beyonce as DNC that fooled the world. Rob, do you have this clip? Do you have this clip about, yeah, go ahead and play this clip, Rob.

Oh, it's such a clutch off-season pickup, Dave. I was worried we'd bring back the same team. I meant those blackout motorized shades. Blinds.com made it crazy affordable to replace our old blinds. Hard to install? No, it's easy. I installed these and then got some from my mom. She talked to a design consultant for free and scheduled a professional measure and install. Hall of Fame son. They're the number one online retailer of custom window coverings in the world. Blinds.com is the GOAT. Shop Blinds.com right now and get up to 45% off select style.

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There are rumors, there are rumors that Beyonce might make an appearance. I personally think that that's true, but we shall see. There are... Oh, we're going to say this now. Weird way to promise. Can I say this? Well, let's couch it in rumors and rumbling. Okay, let's just say... So, I mean, that's out there, the Beyonce talk. You have to stay tuned, but I...

I have it on really good word. The beehive is buzzing right now because the preparation for the beehive, it has to start early. Sources come from backstage. That's all I'll tell you. TMZ and The Hill reporting that she will indeed be making a surprise performance on stage here. Congressman was just dancing along and he's excited that he's hearing rumors, which a donor confirmed to me that she's also hearing that Beyonce is in president of Allstate.

All things music and fashion and style. She said, oh, my God. Beyonce is going to show up. Queen Bey. Bride's guest tonight.

Beyonce. I know Beyonce's got to be in town, right? My gosh, is that what we're in for? A Beyonce show tonight? There are rumors that Beyonce may be there this evening. We may see Beyonce. Is the United Center going to be turning into the beehive tonight? Earlier today, we spoke with Christy George, the executive director of the DNC host committee. Hold not hope for Beyonce. Is that going to happen? I don't know. Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. How much of this...

was leaking to get viewership or how much of it was last minute? Beyonce's like, yeah, no, I'm not doing it. We're out. Which one do you think it is, Tom? I,

I think the way they manipulate the media, like with word joy and everything else we've saw, I think this was an intentionally placed rumor. They knew exactly what they were going to doing. They were getting the ratings. And I'll say I did some group chat and I was tweeting with some friends at the same time this was happening and we were watching. So there was a lot of Republicans that were watching, just wondering, OK, what is Kamala actually going to say as she coming out in public? But I think this was an intentional leak and I think it was strategic.

Yeah, I agree. When they teased a special guest, they were talking about Harris. That was the plan all along. I don't think they ever intended for Beyonce to come out. Again, this is just a little bit of a media spin. What I will say, though, is the...

Beyonce did allow the Harris campaign to use Lemonade, one of her songs, as well as there's one other song, Freedom, as a campaign song. So she hasn't officially disassociated herself with the party or anything. But was she there to support? Was she ever going to be there to support? I don't think so. So how about Taylor Swift? Was there rumors about Taylor Swift as well?

I heard the name mentioned, but not like that. Yeah. Was there rumors or no? There was rumors about it, yes, but I haven't seen anywhere near the amount of media attention given. But to go this far and you use, you know, Beyonce, Tom, a Beyonce has to be furious about

Or give permission for you to be able to say something like this, right? Wouldn't you, if you're Beyonce, sitting there saying, hey, guys, stop saying that. No, no, I'm not going to be there. You're confusing everybody. Because there's no way you can even circulate a rumor like that. If I'm a figure like Beyonce, that big of a name, there's a part of it that as a businesswoman that she is. She is a business, right? She's a business herself or brand is.

I don't know if I would appreciate it. Even if I'm like, let's just say that's my wife and I'm Jay-Z. I'm like, yo, what are they doing? What's this all about? What do you think about it? Fully agree with you on that one, Pat. Well, what's the reality? There's only a couple of people that actually know the answer here. And that is the actual DNC and Beyonce and her people. The chances of her on her way to the convention and then like makes a wrong turn and doesn't show up, zero. She was either planning on being there or she was not.

And this is another example of the media just taking a story and being like, all right, let's go with this one, right, honey? And just feeding the narrative. And then the next company, and I'm sure they're all owned by the same few companies. Boom. Now they're running with a narrative and they're off to the races. But Beyonce knows the truth that she was either never scheduled to be there or she was 100% scheduled to be there and something happened. So the DNC is doing probably something called damage control and

where maybe they leaked it and who knows what happened but the chances that the dnc leaked this and then she decided not to come i think is very little and i think this is the media just sort of making a story but i will say this the chances of of beyonce voting for kamala harris or trump i mean 100 i don't want to say 199.9 like she's not voting for trump

She stumped for Hillary in 2016. Her and Jay-Z, I remember doing like seeing a concert. If my memory serves me right, 2016, Jay-Z, Beyonce, they get out there with Barack Obama. I was like, damn, they're bringing out the big guns. Hillary's still lost. What's the point?

I don't think a lot of people are swifting or shifting their votes based on Taylor Swift or Beyonce. Kamala had 28.9. Trump had 28.4. Then a question becomes, how much of the reason why Kamala got 28.9 is because everybody was expecting for Beyonce to perform? And how much of it was...

people hadn't heard her say anything. They're like, let me just see what she has to say because there was no primary. There was no debate. This was pretty much the first democratic debate essentially, right? To see on the big screen. How much do you think was that?

I would say a bit of both. But what I also think it is, which hasn't been mentioned, is that Republicans are people who oftentimes like to educate themselves about what the opposition is saying. And so for me, I know I watched the speech. I know so many people within my network and my group watched the speech as well, all of which were Republicans.

So what percentage of that figure contributes to her getting more views as well? Whereas when it comes to Trump, I don't know any Democrats. And I do have some Democratic friends. I do run it. I, you know, intentionally try to surround myself in circles that aren't always echo chambers. So I like to engage in debate. But those people didn't watch Trump's speech.

At the RNC, you know, so I think that that's a very big point of difference as well that we may be overlooking here. What do you think? I think the audience was about 70 percent legitimate and the other 30 percent was, you know, anticipating Beyonce or wanted to do from new independents and Republicans wanted to hear what was going on. That's my cut. Got it. I don't think. Listen, at this party, at this point, the Republican Party is Trump and then whatever.

random people he hodgepodge is together. Who are the biggest celebrities there? Hogan, who was my hero in 1992, Kid Rock, who was awesome in 2004. And then who else? Marjorie Taylor green. So Republicans don't have the celebrity factor. Democrats do.

If regardless of Beyonce, who else did they have? They had Stevie Wonder. They had John Legend. They had Mindy Kaling. They had multiple Hollywood celebrities. Democrats have that edge, but I don't think it actually moves the needle.

Like, because, like, you know, there was a famous phrase back in when the big three, CBS, NBC, ABC, was basically trying to win the three-legged media war. And they said, win the central time zone. Don't forget that. There's a reason that they picked Tim Walz in the central time zone Midwest. Same with Mike Pence. Same with J.D. Vance, who's from Ohio, Kentucky. So, yeah.

At the end of the day, and I think it was the great philosopher Zach Galifianakis, I think we have a thing from that. But yeah, if you want to go down the Hollywood Beyonce thing, that's not moving the needle. What's moving the needle is can you win the Rust Belt? Can you win the Midwest? Can you win the Central Time Zone to average?

Average, hardworking Americans who are living paycheck to paycheck and are looking for a better solution. So let me ask this. Go ahead. I was going to say, did you guys see the performers from day one? Or Adam, did you see the performers that they had on day one? So it was all country music artists.

And they're not really well-known country music artists, but a lot of people are saying that they tried to utilize this as a way to kind of normalize and sympathize with the average everyday person. But the Democratic Party has already so separated themselves from anything country or anything relatable to that, that it definitely did not work.

But I think that was definitely a way for them to try to get to the average everyday person because to, you know, Zach's point, which I think we're going to get into celebrity stuff doesn't always work with the Dems. I got a question for you. I got a question for you. So, okay. Is it fair to say the biggest pickup that actually moves the needle in the 2024 election was RFK? Is it fair to say that he was the number one draft pick? Tom.

Would you say he was the number one draft pick, the biggest pickup? Absolutely. Okay, I put him number one. Is it fair to say Musk is two? Absolutely. Okay, so now. I'd say Musk above RFK. I don't agree with that. No. I think it's RFK above Musk because I believe Musk's following was already going to go that way anyways because that's the side. I think RFK has an actual 4% to 7% chance

of people that are not gonna vote for Trump. I had Brett Weinstein here. - They're not gonna vote for Trump, they're not gonna vote for Kamala. - No, they're not gonna vote for Trump. Their vote was RFK. They wanted to vote for, they were not gonna do Kamala. Brett Weinstein's here. He says, "Patrick, as a lifelong Democrat,

I was not gonna vote for Kamala. He says, now that I know Bobby is in the Trump administration, that means the values that I value is gonna be represented by someone like him. I'm now more comfortable to have Trump, you know, the vote of Trump, right? So who is left? Who is left that if right now you're recruiting, okay, and you're sitting there, if I'm on the team right now, either team, I'm looking at people that we have to go recruit and get. Mm-hmm.

And by the way, some of these guys are going to be strategically based on the battleground states. Some of it's going to be celebrities. Some of it's going to be influencers. Some of it's going to be who are some of the people that I want to go get on that list? Tulsi and do not underestimate Tulsi's impact on a national scale. We're seeing stuff that there's a half a point of women that really,

really lined up with Tulsi. And if Tulsi had been an independent, she would have pulled one and a half on election day nationally. Okay. So, but Tulsi already endorsed Trump. So she's already part of the team. But this week, well, what did she do this week where she kind of amplified her position, right? She's been there, but the amplification this week is very real. For sure. So she made that announcement. So she's on that list. You're saying people who have not endorsed her. I'm saying who else who hasn't said anything.

Who else is on the roster? If we're going to use the Elon Musk thing, the guy that we talked about at the beginning, Mark Zuckerberg, who basically already came out and said he's not picking a side. But if you can kind of strike a deal with Mark Zuckerberg, he's on my list. Who else?

Who else? Nikki Haley, but she's already endorsed Trump, but she would move some numbers. You're talking about whoever can move the numbers 1%, 2%. I'd say half a percent is a lot. Half a percent, 1%, you know, some areas top. I'll tell you one that would move it is Joe Rogan.

Okay. So Joe Rogan, who else? Well, Joe Rogan, he said that he endorsed RFK and there was that whole contentious issue with Trump over that. So now, obviously, he's going to be favoring that side of things. I think that like they're pretty set when it comes to Dems. Like if anybody is going to change their mind purely on the basis of Dem leadership, then that's already been established or independent leadership, right? When it comes to Tulsi, when it comes to RFK.

Because at the end of the day, you can throw criticisms at Dems all day long. It hits differently when it comes from an actual Dem. And I think even with these couple of people alone, it's kind of set this narrative. We're now at a point where at the end of the day, this election comes down to like normal people versus extreme far left fringe people. Damn near communist at the end of the day, in my opinion. It's the difference between globalists.

and patriots. It's the difference between, you know, war and peace. And already with those two people, I'd say that they're already sending that message to the Dems who would have been open to hearing it. Anybody else you think? Think Hollywood. Think, you know, like, you know, think...

Big followership, big influence. Think Manchin. If Manchin all of a sudden comes out and supports Trump, think names like that. I think other than the big podcasters and the social media people, I think it has to be women, specifically women of color, who are like, you know what? I'm not going to do the identity politics thing. I'm going to come out and vote Trump. So if you noticed...

What's the slut walk girl? Amber Rose came out and spoke at the RNC. She's literally known for being a slut, the slut walk. And she came out and spoke at the RNC, gave her the platform. Why? Because she's a woman of color who basically came out and said, I fell for it. I thought Trump was a racist. My dad told me to do my research. I did my research. Voila. Here I am.

And can they get more people that are vocal like that? Because as much as Amber Rose... Who else do you think? Do you have names? Who do you think? I'm asking names. The Rock has kind of been neutral, but if he came out with a full volume, clear, obvious,

I am behind Trump and RFK Jr. I think that would be big. He did an interview where he said, well, I'm not going to vote like that again. But he kind of kind of stayed in the middle of that conversation. But if he came out with a definitive statement, I think that moves numbers. Kim Kardashian, if she came out and supported Trump, that would move numbers.

Ariana Grande, if she came out doubtful, came out and supported Trump, that would move numbers. Who are the biggest celebrity females, especially women of color? Has to be. Because, listen, here was the most poignant example of what the hell's going on in America. You ready? Elon Musk retweeted this. You saw this flaming gay guy run around the DNC. And it's amazing what humor and satire can do.

When he's like, hey, all right, let me ask you a question. And he goes up to this girl and he's like, if you had to pick one, what would you pick? Democracy or abortion? And it's like, are we freaking kidding me right now? Like democracy or abortion? And she's like, oh, that's a tough one. You really put me on the spot.

He's like, I know, I know. And she's like, there it is. There it is. And she's like, I got to pick abortion. You know he's trolling, right? One million percent trolling. But he killed it. He's incredible. But this is the hypocrisy that I'm talking about. Played rap. And the delusion. Would you rather have a democracy or access to abortions? Either or. Oh my God, this is a tough one. I feel like that's a very tough question to answer. I feel like that's almost...

Not possible to answer. I feel like there's, I couldn't pick one or the other. Even if you had to choose? I had to choose. Can we get a final answer? I know it's hard.

I guess access to abortions. Yeah. So there we are. There you go. Well, guess what? I'm going to Siberia where I'm going to live in a Soviet gulag, but at least I can get abortion if I happen to be impregnated by a guard. But here is the prime example of what you're debating at this point. Democracy or killing some babies.

And good luck. And this is why I'm saying you need to get women of color on your team to basically say, hey, listen, honey, I know how much you value, you know, the abortion thing. I get it. I love you. I'm with you. We kind of need a democracy. But unless and they're not going to listen to me. They need women. That's my point. All right. So here we go. So what's more important to you, Pat? Democracy. That's a tough one. I mean, think about it. I mean, that's a tough one.

Let me go to this because you want to say a few things about Vance. Vance says he expects Trump to would veto a national abortion ban. Right. That's pissing a lot of people off. And it's something that they're putting on the left as a fear that here's what he's going to be doing. So Vance stated that he expected Trump would veto veto a federal abortion ban if he reaches this saying, I think he would. He said that explicitly that he would.

He emphasized Trump believes the states need to have control over the issue rather than the federal government. Trump's stance on abortion has been criticized by both anti-abortion advocates and Democrats, Trump posts said.

My administration will be great for women and their reproductive rights, which drew criticism from activists. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris accused Trump of wanting to enact a nationwide abortion ban with or without Congress. This is a political story. Adam, one, thoughts on Vance and then two about this specific conversation. Do you want to play this clip or do you want me to give him a... Oh, if you got the clip, play the clip first. Go for it.

Democrats made the case this week and beyond this week that Donald Trump, if elected, will impose a federal ban on abortion. Rob, is this pretty much the same thing I just read? Don't worry about it. Adam, go ahead and react to it. So basically he came out and shut that down real quick. And look, if we learn anything about the abortion thing from Trump and the Republicans is they just want to turn it over to the states, states' rights. Now, in my opinion, respect to you, Governor DeSantis, six weeks is extreme, bro.

But if you want to go to like sort of socialist, Marxist, communist Europe, whatever you want to call them, they're at 15 weeks. Trump has sort of been quoted at what, 16-ish weeks? So listen, the reality is this is a culture war issue. It's a contentious issue. J.D. Vance is going to walk the party line. Trump has never came out and said that he's not going to basically do a federal abortion ban. I don't even know if they can do that at this point. So states' rights, totally understand. And...

Florida six. It's extreme. There's certain states like California, New York, where you can rip the baby out up to the day before it's born. So there's extreme methodologies on each state. And but I don't think that Trump has ever come out and said that he's going to do a federal abortion ban.

Amy. Well, to be fair, Adam, and I know we've had debates about this before. I think only one of those two things are extreme. And that's just my personal opinion. But I do agree that right now it is very it's a strategic and agreeable move for Trump to leave it to the states. I think that this is the least contentious way that he can go about this issue. Obviously, it's not going to be enough for the Dems at the end of the day. They're going to want him to, you know, overturn Roe versus Wade. They wanted things to go back to the way that they were.

and they're not going to be happy until that happens. So I think playing to that base is honestly a little bit of a lost cause. What can we do other than assuring them that it's gone back to the states? I think that ultimately Republicans are going to have to really win on other issues, but certainly assuring them that, yeah, there's not going to be a national abortion ban. Sure, go ahead and assure them of that. Tom?

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I really struggle with this. And what I struggle with is that, um,

Things like this, you end up on a slippery slope. And the slippery slope you end up with is all the way down to partial birth abortion. And those are living citizens attempting to be born and being struck down at the moment of birth. And I can't go with that. But this is the slippery slope you go on. And there are people that say six weeks is extreme. People that say 15 weeks is extreme. I look at it as a deeply personal choice for that woman.

But it's a we are a nation that if you really look at it is abortion is the avoidance of responsibility because there is a personal responsibility and there's a financial responsibility that comes with raising a child. And, you know, we're stepping away from our responsibilities as a charitable nation to say, you know.

Children can be put up for adoption. We have systems to do that. We have foster child systems here in America. Why can't we be a nation of love and caring and to reach out and to help people that say, you know what, I'm going to have a baby. I don't think I'm economically capable. Will you take care of me? And will you assure that this child gets full care? I don't.

That's where I want to be. Where where's why can't we get the heart of a nation there now during the election somewhere around now my logical side just analyzing the election somewhere around six and 15 weeks people are going to say OK that's you know we're good. You know as long as you give me six to 12 weeks we're good. Give me six to 12 weeks so if something happens we can take care of this.

And and that's it. And I think that's going to be the point that the majority of American voters, 51 percent, are going to want to see. They're going to want to see six to 12 weeks. Now, then I'll go somewhere else and I don't want to relate it only to abortion. Trump is correctly pointing back to what the founding fathers had established as the rights of the state.

And if you don't like the state, live in that state. You live in Texas because you don't want the, you know, certain things with school. What's the argument against that? Because to me, that's very common sense. That makes sense to me. Right. Even if, you know, some states have the gun laws that you can be tougher, you can be this, you can be great. Guess what? It's up to the state. I would never live in Chicago.

I just would never live in Chicago. I wouldn't feel safe living in Chicago. And your kids wouldn't get good education and you can choose a state you like. That's right. I wouldn't live in a place like that. So I'm choosing to live in a place. So what's wrong with putting it back to the state? I want to know the counter argument to that. Adam, what is the counter? Because they can't control you on a national socialist platform. And the socialist platform is to put national control on programs to make single signature decisions. Too bad. They want the

The power, the difference between an executive order to a socialist and dictatorship is zero. You cannot put a cigarette paper between an executive order and the socialist desire for presidential ultimate control. I think you're looking for like, what's the counter argument here? Yeah, that's what I'm asking. Yeah, let me help you out.

Well, the reality is I think— I really need your help. I know, Pat. Please. I don't want you to— Without you, God forbid, what would I do? I was giving you the counterargument that a socialist will say, we have to control and we'll do it nationally. We have to hear it from an abortion expert. Go ahead, Adam. Despite popular opinion, I know that people like you and me can't have babies. I know that's a controversial situation. Watch your language. I know. I don't want to upset the audience right now. Rob, on the other hand, we'll see what happens with this guy. But men—

But the reality is 90 to 95 percent of abortions happen within the first 16 weeks period. So like these extreme things that happen along the 40 weeks, 50 weeks is are absolute anomalies. But the reality is there's a similar theme, whether it's the covid mandates or whether it's the abortion. And that is essentially people saying, hey, government.

Stay the hell out of my body stay the hell out of my bedroom my body my choice. That's the irony right here We're on the right you have dude. I don't I don't want to take this job. Why do I have to do this? It's crazy. Okay, stop Let me stop you right now because I don't want this to me a long answer. No, I was done I want to know no, no that that's not the answer that because to me it's the state Right. It's not don't do it. It's if you believe that

You ought to have the freedom to have an abortion up until the whatever, 38th week. Let's just say some states decide to, which is insane to me, right? But if a state says that, I can't live in that state. If you want to live in that state, go for it. What's the argument for trying to make it national where it's a federal, not a state law? What's the argument towards that? That...

Obviously, Roe versus Wade was codified in what year? 1972? 52 years ago. Okay, whatever the number was. 53 years ago, yeah. So it's a deeply personal and emotional issue. Like, throw logic out the window here. Just think about that for a second. Got it. It's a deeply, I mean, we just saw the last clip where the woman struggled picking democracy or equity.

For access to abortion. Rob, is there a logical argument to this, Rob? No. Rob, for you, like Tom, is there any logic to this? Or is it just purely my body, my choice, make it a federal ban, make it a federal law, not a state law? There's nothing logical to it. Well, they...

The left wants... There is nothing logical to it. The left wants the signature to be in the executive order so they could make a national this and a national that. Why, though? Because it gives them control. It gives them single-pen control.

Rather than allowing, oh my gosh, who's talking about eliminating the Electoral College? The Republicans or Democrats? The Democrats. They want to eliminate the Electoral College. Of course. I saw a post last night that this guy wrote, and this was legit. He wrote, you know,

You know, Wyoming has 600,000 people and two senators. California has 41 million people and two senators. How is that fair? And I'm like, oh, my gosh, did you not take civics in school? So those those people are out there. Meaning it's in the Constitution is what you mean.

No, no. The civics lesson is that he said that's unfair, that California should have more senators. And that's exactly why the House of Representatives was set up. Correct. The point is, what they're arguing against, Pat, is the states having control over their people. They're arguing against the independence of the states, which the founding fathers said was critically important. Because the founding fathers...

Listen, why is it called New York? Why is it called New Hampshire? Because they were referring to districts and areas that were somewhere else and that people kind of thought a certain way. And they were giving the states their independence to live as they choose. But they were giving people to move around the borders of the states inside these United States, these 13 colonies to live where they wanted. And the founding fathers got it right.

And now people want to take it away so that they have. Look, when you look at globalists, they want one world control. What does Klaus want? Control over green laws globally. Well, now you just draw a line from that, Pat, right back down to liberal, the hard liberal limbs that want a single pen. Do you think AOC wants the new green bill to be passed?

by states like Texas with all of its oil? Hell no. She wants the power of a single pen. Too bad is what I'm trying to say. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. That's how America was founded. Precisely. So it doesn't have to be abortion. It could be anything like green energy. They want to control us with a single pen and...

Win one election for president and then control the rest. Good luck debating with women about who are filled with joy and are more focused on emotion of why they should think logically about why Roe versus Wade should be turned to the states. Good luck out there, guys. Well, that's why they're doing it with this particular issue. They do want to control the pen overall. And this is a much easier issue to do it with than, for example, going green or any type of policies like that, because it's deeply emotive. It's very, very easy when you look at this, the psychological implications of this.

this, the way it affects women. I've never seen women so emotionally invested in any issue, even when I'm just having everyday conversations with them. Like this is something that really fires people up because for them, it's about autonomy over their body. And when they live in a world where they're constantly told they don't have the freedoms and the liberties to be able to make decisions about their life and the last line of defense that they have is autonomy to their own body. That is

so deeply ingrained in their psyche right now that that's like the last thing that they're holding on to and they're grasping it with everything. And you know what I say to that? I respect it. Move to a different state. Move to a different state. I moved to Florida because guess what? I moved to Texas. It's California didn't like me. If California is going to say, you know, we're going to, we think we make better decisions with your money than you do.

Stay here. We know what's best for you. I said, no, I think I know what's best for my family. We moved. No problem. If you live in a state that doesn't allow you to do that, guess what? Move to a state that allows you to do that. That's what's great. I understand what you're going to say. You're going to say, you're going to say good luck dealing with women, emotions and trying to get them with this. Go ahead. What are you going to say? I was going to say, uh,

Nobody is going to move states, at least from what I perceive, just because on the hypothetical reason that if I get pregnant, this may happen. Yes, maybe some people. So I think a lot of people are going to say, well, I'm in Alabama right now. They've got a sort of archaic abortion rules. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go fly to California or New York or Illinois, get my abortion done there. Yeah. If I can afford it.

And because a lot of people who are getting the abortions are sort of low socioeconomic people. I lived in LA. And then that's what they're going to do. I lived in LA. For people that didn't have a lot of money to get their teeth done or stuff that they have to do, guess what they would do? They would drive five hours and they would go to Mexico to go see a dentist and they would say one-fifth of the cost. Is that what we want women to do? No, no. Wait a minute. No. What do you mean? Is that what we want women to do? No. Guess what?

In every person, the other day we went to dinner. What question did I ask you guys at dinner? What was my first question I asked all you guys? Rob, do you remember the opening question? Yes. What hill, that one? What hill are you willing to die on? Yes. Okay. You know how many people have asked that question? A lot of people. A lot of people. I ask everybody that question. Why? I want to know what's your crusade? What's your cause? Yeah. So if somebody sits there, like for example, when you're living in Texas, for a guy like me, what do I lose being in Texas? Right?

Water? Yeah, exactly. Living in Dallas. What else do I lose living in Dallas, Texas? What do you not get in Dallas, Texas? Anything other than freedom and guns. Yeah, but you're not going to like 100% of every policy in every state you're living in. If I'm living in Florida, you're not going to like 100% of the policy. There's a law in Florida. I'm not even going to talk about it. There's a law in Florida that...

That's pretty much the only state that has this. When it comes down to, Tom, you know what I'm talking about. Like certain people you employ, it's the only, it's ridiculous. In a good way or a bad way? No, it's not a good way. It's a terrible way. But guess what? You take the good with the bad. That's not the hill that I'm willing to die on. So if somebody sits there and says, but that's my hill. If it is, move to the state. That's that. If it's not, guess what? Decide what your top three hills are and go die on it if that's your choice.

For me, it was very simple. I'm a business guy. I'm a capitalist. I don't like to be told what to do on the way I'm raising my kids. You're not going to sit there and tell my kids about what sexuality and all this other stuff. That's the hill I'm willing to die on. I can't live in the state of California. I'm out. If that's not a big problem for you, go for it. Stay there. I actually love the fact that this is being pushed back to the states and let the emotions happen. Let the frustrations happen. Look, as a business owner...

Just 100 and something years ago, 20 years ago, what was taxes in the U.S.?

Next to nothing. No, it was zero. Okay. In 1899, 1900s. What was taxes? Zero. Correct. As a business owner, you think I like that when I find money and I can rebuild the business and reinvest the business and I create hundreds of jobs, you think it's comfortable knowing that the government is telling me they can do better with my money than me? That's a form of a reproductive right. Are you kidding me? I'm giving up that right to you. Who the hell are you? But guess what? I don't have a choice for that.

And this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to live in a state like this. So does it piss off a job creator? Do you think Elon Musk this year when he gave his tax bill, what do you think he thinks about when he's paying $11 billion in taxes? Exactly.

He's thinking about him arguing with Elizabeth Warren back in 2020 about how she's basically saying how billionaires need to be paying more taxes. It's like, I paid more taxes than anybody in the history of the world. But you know what that means? When you're paying $11 billion to the government, you know what you're thinking about? This $11 billion I just gave to the government is going to get wasted. Yes. If I had that $11 billion, you know what I would do with that for my business? I would do X, Y, Z and create more jobs than the government's going to do. But guess what? Here we go. Go waste the money. Let me make one quick point. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm with you because abortion is 0% the hill that I'm going to die on. But I would say the vast majority of women, it is definitely in their top three. I know it is. And what I'm saying to you is I think it is going to be an issue, but I do think it needs to go back to the 50 states.

I also don't think a hundred percent ban is the right move because, because the hunt forcing everybody that it's gotta be a federal thing. What's the opposite of that? The opposite of it is not 50 States. Leave it to the States. What's the opposite of what the Dems want? If, if the Republicans fought to do the complete opposite of what the Dems are doing, what would that be?

You mean like a complete ban on abortion? Exactly. And that's not what they're fighting for. Guess what, though? That's extreme. But that's how they're making them feel. They're not going to let you get your abortions, ladies. But we're not in the business. We're bringing the bus to come get your vasectomies, guys. Let's go. That's a problem. By the way, let me go back to it. It's a problem if you're causing policies just because of feelings. You're not leading policies.

You're walking on eggshells. That's what you're doing. You've got to take a stand and have a policy and get the knives and everything that's going to come after you and just say, okay, we're moving on. This is my position. You don't like it, vote accordingly, but I'm going to move on. But that was a perfect transition into a – have you ever seen this movie, Pocahontas? Elizabeth Warren Sparks with CNBC anchor over Harris price gouging plan. Rob, if you got this clip, it's confusing because they're going back and forth.

And he's not letting her speak. She's not letting him speak. And he eventually gets frustrated. You just have to see this exchange. Go ahead, Rob. That's sophistry. Your example on craft is even worse. You finished first.

in any of the states around the country that already have price gouging laws in place. Can I tell you why those are fallacious and misleading at best? And your craft analogy is even... Why can't I tell you? Please let me tell you. Craft, you say...

was 440% profit increase. The example you used, the prior quarter from the year before, they had a charge of $1.3 billion, an accounting change which wiped out profits. Then they earned what they normally... Let me finish now. You didn't let me finish.

Look at the data. Come on. We have economic study now after economic study. When there is more concentration. 40 million eggs were destroyed because of avian flu. When there is more concentration in an industry, we have seen much greater increases in the profit margins. Do you attribute the inflation? That's what you think we need to do to solve it? They're not random. They are not random one-offs.

It is part of the problem when you've got

companies that are gouging consumers on prices. Consumers need to know they've got somebody on their side. Senator, we're trying to help. Where are you in the 36, 37 states that currently have price gouging laws? And have used them quite effectively. Can I just clarify how this would work? This is the way you never lose an argument because no one can ever say anything back to you, Senator. The state price gouging laws take a...

Wow. By the way, Joe Kernan, what a beast. And here's the point. Who owns, what channel are they on right there? They are on CNBC where Joe Kernan and Sarah Eisen are on an island surrounded by this crap. There you go. And you know, the same day or the same weekend, she was also on MSNBC owned by the same parent company, NBC. Tale of two cities right here.

You know that, you know, we just showed the JD Vance interview with Kristen Welker. Do you know who Kristen Welker interviewed directly afterwards? She interviewed Elizabeth Warren. Softball interview. They're talking about abortion and trade. Basically that. And again, same parent company, NBC.

MSNBC softball interview. She's giving her rebuttal to JD Vance. And then she goes on CNBC and Joe Kern is like, nah, dude, I'm going to get, I want to know the reality here of the, and let's follow the numbers as Tom likes to do. And there you see contentious. And I got two things to say, watch interviews like this, America point. Number one, listen for companies or numbers that came out of Elizabeth Warren's mouth. You won't hear them. Point number two,

It says, listen to what she's really saying under it. What is she saying? You need someone on your side. She's trying to create a feeling underneath that. We need to be on your side while not mentioning any facts. So take those two home and watch these things and be informed and make your choice accordingly. Mm-hmm.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and a lot of manipulation as well. It's true though, right? It's so true. And they're trying to appeal to people who at this point, they feel hopeless. They don't see how they can financially make it out of the place that they're in, a place that the Biden-Harris administration put themselves in.

And the other Democratic parties prior. And so to me, it's just it's so ironic and coming from a country that does have a little bit of a mixed economy. We do have some more socialist policies there. I've seen firsthand the negative implications it can have. And yeah, I just again, like Tom said, just educate yourself. Don't listen to the words. Look into the policy first.

behind them and the effect that these similar policies have had throughout history. And look at the wealth that she and other senators have accumulated. She herself, Elizabeth Warren, has traded and accumulated great wealth thanks to her public service. By the way, she got emotional at the DNC when they were cheering her on. I don't know if you saw that or not. She was getting emotionally crying, which was very sentimental when you see that. Well, Pocahontas is human, but.

All right, so let's go through this. By the way, gold hits record high as investors bet on rate cuts. I think a kilo right now is $81,000. Gold price hits a record high, $2,500 an ounce, driven by Western investors positioning for U.S. interest rate cuts and boosted by a flurry of...

of institutional investment and bullish hedge fund bets. The surge added more than 100 tons in bullish bets on the Chicago complex market in just one week. Holding and physically backed gold ETF have increased by 90.4 tons, worth $7.3 billion since May, with net inflows positive and seven and...

Eight weeks as Western investors wake up to what Asia has been tracking earlier this year. And Tom, so this is all conversations around rate cuts. Nearly $90 billion pours into U.S. money markets funds ahead of expected rate cuts. Everything is rate cuts. Unemployment is the Fed's biggest concern.

Enemy now, Powell says, not inflation. So Powell said something, OK, about what he's going to be doing. They're saying four or five rate cuts between now and end of 2025. How many rate cuts does it mean this year, Tom? Has he clearly come out and said what they're going to do this year? He has clearly come out and said we're going to see a rate cut in September. And he's clearly indicated that it's a nominal level. When he says nominal, he means a quarter point.

Right now, I think the 30-year mortgage is 6.25 to 6.5, which is a full 0.5 down from the 8% that it touched last year. So this is good. People that are refining right now...

on a typical mortgage, you're getting about a $500 relief, Pat. Imagine if you get a $500 relief per month on your payment, that's six grand a year. That's $8,500 pre-tax. That's real relief for people that are able to refi right now. And that should go down to 6.0 to six and a quarter by the end of the year. So we may see highly qualified individuals get like a 5.875 mortgage by the end of December, but it's one cut this year of a quarter.

unless unemployment really pops and then he'll make one more cut in November. But if it stays where it is with the economy right now, we expect one cut now. And then next year, approximately a cut per quarter. There's your four cuts. Now, what's really interesting is what have we been saying is the issue with housing prices, not enough for sale or keeping the price up, right?

I have a chart. I dove into this. I want to know how have the home builders been responding this year? Not this one, Rob. Yep. It's...

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No, it was in a group text this morning. The one you're talking about in the PBD podcast group text? Yep. So it's the... What's it showing, Tom? What it was showing was the home builder ETF has just now, with the stock market, crossed over 100% up.

So you've made, so if you put $100 in, you come back to, I think it was a- Right there, Tom. He has it. Go for it. Yeah. So this has to do with the housing bubble. But right now, the stock index for the home builders is up 100% year over year. So if you put $100 last year into the ETF that covered home builders like DLF,

DR Horton, Toll Brothers, Lanier, KB Home, Pulte, and we know a guy. All of those together are in like a little ETF. And it's up 100% year over year, which means home builders are doing well and they're building supply. And so right now, there's going to be some relief in home prices next year, coming along with those cuts from next year. But

It'll happen faster if unemployment jumps past the 4.3, 4.4% right now. So if you're refining right now,

You got some good news coming between now and the end of the year. And home builders are continuing to build, but it's going to take them another year to really get that supply in to help bring prices down unless you have like a real economic tremor that artificially brings them. Not artificially, but that kind of crashes the market. And by the way, Rob, can you pull up the Bloomberg story I texted you this morning? Watch this here, Tom, which is absolutely wild.

A $557 billion drop in office values eclipses a revival of cities.

Steve Avetian texted me this first thing in the morning, five o'clock in the morning, wherever he's at. Yeah, the MJ of Glendale. So let me just read it. He literally is that guy. But let me read this to you. Point guard. So the sun splashed streets of LA. So it's going through the whole thing about what's going on. The names of the stars, CAA, all this stuff. Keep going lower. Keep going lower. Keep going lower. He's going to give a name right there. Check this out. It's a starkly different scene 10 miles to the east in LA downtown core. Buildings are losing tenants and going into foreclosure.

with the area's biggest commercial landlord and affiliate of Brookfield Corp. We know Brookfield, Tom. They just bought...

Anaco, American Nationals, an insurance company that they just bought. Started squeezing it. Yeah, let me continue reading that, Rob. Brookfield, defaulting on $2.2 billion of mortgages since last year. 10 camps dot the streets in the epicenter of the city's homelessness crisis. Oceanwide Plaza, graffiti-covered project abandoned by Chinese developers headed for bankruptcy auction in September. If you go a little lower...

Look at those. Look at those buildings, by the way. That's embarrassing what's going on over there. Keep going, Lorap. I want to read the one chart. If you can zoom in on that chart. Look at this chart, by the way. This is core business districts, how they're being hit versus outlying areas. If you go to 2016, look where it was. Office prices plunged 52% from its peak.

Okay, 52% from its peak. The peak is, what year do you want to put the peak? 22, Rob? Okay, let's just say 22. Yeah, the bounce out of COVID. Look, and the suburbs are how much lower? 40%, 37% less, right? Then all of a sudden, now go to today. Look at the flip right there.

suburbs are now selling, have dropped the value they've maintained over actual major cities. And even if you go a little lower, the additional stats, it tells you about who else has stopped. This Bloomberg thing is really, Rob, what it's telling you is either freaking claim the offer or get off the side. That's what it's telling you. Office rents have grown more slowly in central districts, changing the asking rents from

from start of 2018 through the first quarter of 2024. New York Financial District, Plaza South, minus 4%. The main office district, outer area, 27%. Same with Seattle, same with Dallas, same with downtown LA, and same with Miami. Tom, what do you think is causing this? Is this getting smaller businesses or even bigger companies to say, like, we can keep a fancy building, like even Goldman Sachs, the building we got a tour in, right?

Beautiful building. Right next door to the brand new number one World Trade Center. That's right. Beautiful building right next to you. You're sitting looking outside the office. You're looking at the World Trade Center, right? Yeah.

And then now they're building in Dallas. So you're seeing a lot of companies saying, I need an office in Miami just to say we're in Miami, but we're getting really an office 20 miles outside of Miami. I need an office in downtown just to say we're in downtown, but we're really going to get an office 20 miles outside of that. Do you think this trend is going to continue or do you think it's going to go back to being the downtown model?

The trend will continue, and this is what's going on. Where are those home builders building homes? In outlying areas. So more home supply means workers are finding homes further from downtown. That doesn't mean the boonies, to use a word.

For instance, Buckhead is thriving. Downtown Atlanta is squeezed. That chart you just show. Galleria area where we used to live, two miles from that, thriving. And downtown Dallas was also thriving, but Dallas was kind of an exception. But

That's exactly the dynamic you're seeing. You're seeing these main old downtowns, some of which have been revitalized, but it takes people forever to move down there. If you have a family, you don't have a condo downtown. You don't live in a cool apartment downtown. You live outbound where you get schools and other services and things like that.

And so this is the commercial real estate is directly related to work from home when, where, and where the homes are and where the workers can afford to buy a place to live. That's what's happening.

And if you're young and single like Adam, you could live downtown and work in Brickell. Thanks, Tom. But if Adam had two kids, where would you... We'll do this test. Tom, leave my kids out of it. Okay, leave my kids out of it, Tom. No, but if Adam had two kids, I'll be not going to live there. I see what you just did right. It was going smooth until that this you just made. What's happening here, bro? No, but if Adam was living in Dallas and...

I would only live in Addison. Stop. You know what? Addison is the outlying area right there by Galleria, and you'd have schools, services, and beautiful shiny offices to call your own.

But that's what's going on. This is related to the home building, and it's related to work from home. And remember, what have companies been doing? Closing offices and squeezing costs for two years, which has led to the S&P 500. One third of its run-up, they say, is cost savings and efficiencies. So you do have a BET voice. Did you see what just happened at the top? So what have they been doing?

They have been. Did you hear that voice? That's how he talks to Kim. I was trying to be less. We got to be PG-13, Tom. Don't go there. Go ahead, Adam. Tell us. The BizDog babe is chill. Well, look, Pat. She likes the voice. You know I'm a team player. You know I read the book Barbarians and Bureaucrats. Here's what I'm willing to do for you. Let's hear it. I'm willing to be a barbarian. I'm willing to be a flag carrier. Yeah. I'm willing to be the guy to move down to Miami and set up shop.

and open up our Miami office. I will carry that burden. And I don't, it's a scarlet letter on my chest. I don't want to do this, but I'll only do it for you. But we can, we can potentially talk about that. But,

You know, you guys, Tom did a great job of sort of discussing sort of the macroeconomics of the reality here. You know, on my side, I handle a little bit more personal finance. I don't hear the average everyday person running around being like, hey, you hear Jerome Pally's? I think he might be making four cuts next year. I don't know. What do you think, buddy? They have no clue the difference between a Fed fund rate and a target rate and a prime rate. They got no clue. They just know that they're living paycheck to paycheck and they're just looking for a better life.

economic situation here in America, because 50% of the people in America don't invest in the stock market. But if you're of the other 50%, don't look now, but you're probably richer than you've ever been. I certainly am. The stock market was up, what, last year, Tom? 24%. If you look at the S&P this year, I think it's closer to 20%. So if you're playing the market...

Life's pretty good. If you're playing the crypto game life's pretty good if you're doing the hodl strategy So, you know, I remember that you talked about gold is the initial part of this I'll never forget the first time that I felt I think it was an ounce of gold Was it a kilo of gold that you were giving out? Yeah. Okay. Let me tell you something you think like everyone grab your iPhone right here Like alright, it's pretty heavy. It is ten times as heavy as this. Oh

I was like, oh, damn, this is a heavy thing. I think it was trailing at somewhere around 50 grand in 2020. That's right. We talked about this yesterday. Okay. Yes. 50K. And I'm like, all right, how well do I know PBD? Do I just make a run for it right now? So it was like, wow. And you were giving them out as like gifts in like stocking stuffers at PHP, not a bad company to work for. And now it's worth what? 80K? 81K. Okay. Listen, you're the numbers guy. I'm sort of the round numbers guy, but-

Here's the reality. I remember one thing you told me about gold. Gold won't make you rich. It'll keep you rich. But gold is now at an all-time high. If you invested in gold in 2020 when everyone was kind of crashing and people are like...

kind of scared, you'd actually be doing pretty well right now. Less than 5%. Gold is something you do less than 5%. But you're making a point. As far as your asset allocation strategy. But for the longest time, gold hasn't had a positive story. Like this is the first time where gold people can brag a little bit and say, yes, I told you so. I mean, not comparable to crypto or Bitcoin, but they do have an argument now. The crypto community obviously has been running circles around the gold community and there's an answer for that. But

My final point is don't look now, but the economy is actually not doing too bad. You know, unemployment is at what? 4.3%. The target is usually between three and 5%. Inflation. I think it's right around 2.93%. There it is. 4.3 target is between three and five. So it's,

You remember it kind of went up a little bit. That's when the market crash happened a few weeks ago because that was that whole blinking light. But inflation is somewhere around 2.93%. Rob, you can fact check me. Target is 2%. Not bad. And again, the stock market is at all time...

All right. 2.9%. But the reality is if you're an investor and you have money, life is pretty good for you. If you're a paycheck to paycheck person, you're struggling. And as we talked about earlier, it's emotion over rational. The last two minutes that this was a whole statement to make sure everybody knows Adam is rich. That's what Adam was. No, no. This was, this was like, listen, I say this, this might be on my tombstone. You ready? Here we go.

$150 million ain't what it used to be. It's not what it used to be in Bidenomics in the end. Kamala Harris. That's funny. All right, let's go to this next one here, which is Boeing employees humiliated that upstart rival SpaceX, how dare, will rescue astronauts stuck in space. It's shameful. This is a New York Post article.

Let me read this whole thing to you. So, Boeing employees are humiliated after NASA decided astronauts stranded on the ISS due to Boeing's troubled flight

Starliner spacecraft will be rescued by Iramba SpaceX. One Boeing worker candidly expressed the company's frustration, saying, We hate SpaceX. We talk shit about them all the time. And now they're bailing us out? It's shameful. I'm embarrassed. I'm horrified. The Boeing Starliner, which suffered from helium leaks, said,

And thruster issues was initially meant to return the astronauts after an eight-day mission, but NASA decided it was safer for them to wait for SpaceX's crew drag mission in February 2025. Despite Boeing's belief that Starliner could bring them home safely, NASA's opted for SpaceX. That is so embarrassing. With the Boeing employee noting they have their own PR issues and don't need two dead astronauts. Tom, thoughts on this story? Well, first of all, let's

Play forward what happened. The Boeing capsule, the thrusters don't work. So if you've ever seen pictures when they reenter, they reenter on one side because it has what's called a heat shield. Yeah. And you see there's all this friction and this fire and almost molten on the bottom of the spacecraft. Then it crosses through that part of the atmosphere, comes into the clouds where it cools off, and then lands in the ocean safely. Okay.

Boeing says, yeah, we've been having problems with the thrusters turning off. So if that thing's coming to reentry and the thrusters turn off, it turns over and you go from reentry to cremation ceremony. That's what happens. And that's what they don't want to do, especially those pink spongy things, you know, the astronauts inside, don't do well above 140 degrees. And so Boeing is saying...

We don't think we're really worried about it. We don't think it'll work. And NASA is saying, well, what are you going to do? And they're like, can our guys hang out at the space station? We got enough water, food and all the stuff up there. And they're like, yeah, but what's your plan? It says, we'll get back to you. Boeing doesn't believe they can do it. They want to send their capsule back empty and they wanted to do it without news coverage or notice. Why is that, Pat? Why is that, Pat?

Because if it comes back in and it flips over because the thrusters fail, it burns up. And basically a few pieces of metal land on the ground. They're like, boy, I'm glad the astronauts weren't in there. Right. That's terrible for Boeing. Boeing's in a no-win situation. So do they take the trap? Well, it comes back safely. And he said, well, you know, we could have put our guys in there, but we didn't want to risk it. So it's just more Boeing suffering from making something that's not full capacity.

And whether you've got a big company and you're trying to build a software system or you're trying to build a capsule to bring people back safely, QA and getting it right the first time is important. So now Elon Musk is, well, I've got really high safety records and NASA likes it. And NASA told the Boeing board, the Boeing board said, we really don't want to take this risk. And NASA says, well, we like the safety record of SpaceX. We'll have them do it. And Elon Musk, the entrepreneur, and matter of fact, we could be there a week from Tuesday if that's okay. Yeah.

And now the Boeing people are just like... They're worried about all this stuff. They're not at all worried about her hair. Don't they think that's like a bad publicity? That's the Korean Jean-Pierre look. I think that's how hot these days. By the way, you know what I can say about these two guys? I've watched many clips of them. The fact that they're calm, relaxed, chilling, knowing their employer may not bring him back anytime soon and another guy named Elon Musk may...

And they're careless about it. You know what it tells me? It just tells me they're having a blast being out there. Okay. They probably enjoy each other's company. They're, they're, I mean, I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of different thoughts that went through my mind on, on,

what happens out there in space. Well, let's go there. Let's go deep into the abyss. That's your show, but that's not the show here. But when I think about it, I just really, I looked at these guys and said, listen, they're enjoying each other's company. Maybe they're playing Monopoly, which is you lose money in air, right? How do you play that game? Maybe they're playing Scrabble.

Right. The letters are like flying. There is my letter. Maybe they're playing dominoes. I don't know what they're doing, but what are your thoughts on this? I'm curious. Do you guys know what's the longest somebody has been in space for? Because these guys are due to come back in when? 2025. Yes. Correct. I think it's 251 days. Okay. Is the record. So they can't get them to like February, March, right? So this will. 437 days. Okay. I was way off, but I had a guy on that was on 251 days. Okay. So this will not be the longest anybody's been in space. No. Okay. I,

I was just curious to really know, like, the health implications, like, you know, everything like that. That's so funny you said this. I had a guy on who was out there for 251 days, astronauts. And my interviews with astronauts crush. Rob, our young ones, when I interview astronauts, they crush. No, but they say when you go in space and you come back, you grow two inches taller.

They did the comparison with the twin brother. Does anybody know what I'm talking about, where they had an astronaut who went into space? Yeah, that's who I had on the podcast. Oh, that was him? Okay, exactly. Yeah, they grew two inches. There was other differences as well, you know, that they can point to. So I don't know. It's really interesting. Obviously, very, very embarrassing for them. I'm also curious to know, when did this take off? And was that already after the Boeing whistleblowers came out for the planes on, like, the stratosphere on Earth? Like, you know...

How much do we need to establish these policies on Earth before they also realize they apply to space too? It's just insane to me. By the way, Scott Kelly's the one, Rob, if you want to pull it up. Scott Kelly is the guy. His height after coming back, that's the one she's talking about. He's not the senator. No, he's the brother. Mark Kelly's the brother, but Scott Kelly is the one that...

Was in space. And then Mark Kelly was on the short list for being a VP. Yes. Hey, listen. So most of the results were mixed, good and bad. Kelly's health breakdown and turnover of bone actuality increased 50 to 60% during the first six months, but that failed after during six and the skeletal system resumed a normal replenishment rate of

after he was back in gravity environment interesting look these brothers you know regardless of where they're at politically kind of awesome one became an astronaut one became a senator it's like what's the what's the brothers who run um um it's the rahm emmanuel and his brother ari emmanuel i mean these are these are beasts right here back to the initial point about boeing has any company tarnished their reputation legacy worse than boeing over the last few years

Pre-COVID, they were at an all-time high stock price, $370. Now it's cut in half. And the most ironic part, because we've covered this, is they were so focused on keeping their stock price up that they forgot to keep the planes up. And look what happens when you forget your customer, so to speak, and now they're paying the price. So we'll see if Boeing...

can recoup from this. And then meanwhile, you have, I think Airbus was their biggest competitor on the flights. I think they're based out of France. I want to say who is, I think their, their stock price must be doing great these days. Let me read this next story. So telegram messaging app, CEO Dura arrested in France. This is a Reuters story. And then there's a followup story with it, with a threat being made to Musk. So hang tight here. I'll read both of them to you. So,

Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, was arrested at Le Bourget Airport in France, reportedly due to preliminary investigation to Telegram's alleged role in facilitating crimes by lacking moderation and cooperation with authorities. The arrest has sparked backlash from Moscow and criticism from Elon Musk, who claimed free speech in Europe is under threat. Durov, a Russian-born billionaire with French and UAE citizenship, created Telegram as a neutral platform to protect...

privacy and avoid political entanglement, leading to tensions with governments, including Russia, where the app was banned in 2018 for refusing to provide access to encrypted messages. The arrest has intensified scrutiny of Telegram, particularly in Europe, as it's growing influence. Now, at the same time, there's another story that came out with Vindman says Musk should be nervous after Telegram CEO was arrested. Free speech absolutist weirdos is what he calls him. So,

In this story, retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman issued a warning to Elon Musk after telegram CEO Pavel was arrested in France for allegedly failing to limit criminal activity on the platform, stating Musk should be nervous due to the growing appetite for accountability and increasing intolerance for platform. This malign influence, Vindman comments, drew significant backlash, leading him to double down by criticizing free speech absolutists, weirdos, and suggesting that

Enforcement against such platforms is only likely to increase while others like Elon Musk, RFK, a Rumble CEO, Chris Pavlovsky rallied in defense of free speech, labeling the arrests as dangerous move against freedom. Amy, thoughts on the story?

Oh, man, this is what really grinds my gears about this is the hypocrisy when it comes to the way Mark Zuckerberg was treated versus this particular person and versus Elon Musk. So as I alluded to at the beginning of the podcast, there was a situation where they tested a simulation within the Instagram algorithm and they determined that it was being utilized to connect predators, right?

and pedophiles to children for sale on Instagram. And they were also aware, many people within the Meta staff were aware of this, and it seems like they did nothing to stop it until it became a very, very public story. They also ran real-life simulations with this where they created brand new accounts. They had designated task force and tested this across other platforms as well. Only happened on Instagram where a brand new account, what content is displayed to this brand new account? V.

very, very sexualized and disturbing content. And within a matter of, I believe it was 26 minutes, it took a brand new Instagram account

Between the ages of, I believe it was 13 to 16. So it is intentionally pushing this type of sexualized content to people on Instagram. And this is something that was proven. So how is something like that? Okay, possible. Maybe we hear about it now and then. Yet the CEO of Telegram is literally being arrested. I just can't reconcile the difference between these two things. Quote.

Failing to limit criminal activity on the platform. That is the core charge against him. If that's the case, then what's up with Instagram? And also the guy from Silk Road is still in prison. And they say that he will be released and pardoned by Trump as soon as Trump is elected, assuming Trump is elected, that he will be out of prison.

So what do you say on Instagram, which has a back channel that's very similar to Silk Road? You can get coke and marijuana in the states where it's not legal. You can get it quickly on Instagram, contacts on Instagram. So how is Zuckerberg failing to limit criminal activity on his platform? If he vacations in France, are they going to tap him on the shoulder?

So you guys basically touched on the tip of the iceberg here. I get it. But there's a way bigger story that's going on here. And this comes down to the first story we talked about today, which is the essence of freedom of speech. This guy's been you talked about Zuckerberg and Instagram. This guy is basically the Mark Zuckerberg, quote unquote, of Russia. He's worth about 15 billion dollars. He's arrested in France. So, Pat, you remember the story. In 2015, there was a terror attack in San Bernardino.

You know where I'm going with this? Of course. When Tim Cook didn't give up the phone information. Bingo. So Apple said, nah, you're not getting in here. Yep. Sorry. So that same year, this gentleman right here, Pavel Durov, he, you know, he, he fled. He was born in Russia. He left in 2014 because the app that he was basically building at the time, it was a different app, not telegram, uh,

It was basically anti-government sort of exposing corruption. And he had to leave, obviously, with Putin. And he left, moved to the EU, it looks like, and then started Telegram. But right after the San Bruno terrorist, I think it was 14 people died, 20 people injured. Big news. This is right at the height of ISIS. Now, it turns out that ISIS was using Telegram and they contacted him.

And he they said, yeah, we we need to get into these phones. And he said, no, sorry. This is a free speech at the apps encrypted. He wouldn't let law enforcement in. There's a whole conversation with that, whether the FBI in San Bernardino or whether the law enforcement in the EU should be able to get in phones, especially due to terrorism activities. You know, I understand completely that.

So he's being accused of his mission in life, as they say, is he's allowing others to have free speech and express their freedoms. You know, coming from Russia, I can understand that. But he's being charged with failing or not moderating speech.

Criminal activity, illegal activity, drug trafficking, human trafficking, child pornography, which you talked about, hateful and insightful rhetoric, far right extremism, however you put it that way, promotion of terrorism, which you just talked about, organized crime. And, you know, the question I asked, which Tom poignantly brought out, was what platforms are able to operate under Section 230?

And which people get arrested like Ross Ulbricht of Silk Road are now Pavel Durov of Telegram. How do you where do you draw the line here? Because we know Section 230 is the content moderation platform where Facebook or YouTube or Twitter, what have you, basically are unable to say, listen, that's not on us.

I can't control what somebody tweets or says or does or thinks. That's not on us. So they can hide behind Section 230. Publisher or just an enabling technology. Exactly. So, you know, Daily Wire kind of had to deal with this, with Candace, whatever that was. You know, Section 230, publisher versus being an owner of it. But then you have people like RFK who he's resounding like his number one thing above all is free speech, despite everything else he talked about.

Ed Snowden came out and said this is an assault of basic human rights of speech. RFK, the need to protect freedom of speech has never been more urgent. You know how Elon Musk fails. And our friend Chris Boblovsky at Rumble turns out to be one of the more necessary people in the world at this point.

But the actor, you know, so, oh, yeah, let's shut this guy down. Well, who else was using Telegram? Apparently, Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine has been using this to basically escape whatever that was. Journalists reporting from the front lines in Russia and Ukraine, everything with that. Protesters in Iran are using this. Protesters in Hong Kong. So it's a very slippery slope where they're basically saying that he's the bad guy. Is this a 2016 interview? It is. Can you play this clip, please?

Well, again, this is the world of technology.

You mean create their own telegram? Exactly.

Since Paris, Dorof has been purging ISIS propaganda from Telegram, but says if asked to unlock any private messages, he would tell the authorities that the encryption code makes it mathematically impossible, using a similar argument as Apple.

So you're basically saying, even if you wanted to, your hands are tied. Yes. You can't do it. We cannot. By the way, how big is Telegram valuation wise? Rob, can you type in? It's estimated because they haven't gone public yet. So whatever number you get, it's going to be Telegram valuation. Okay. Let's just see what it says.

$15 to $30 billion. Okay. More than $30 billion valuation. You know how many employees they have in this $30 billion company? I'm guessing not a lot. 102 employees. That's crazy. That's it. What percentage does he own of that? I think it's 100%. 100%? I think it's 100%. Wow. So 102 employees that they have. Very small. And by the way, you know who his direct competitors are? WhatsApp and Signal. And guess who started those two?

Same guy. It's the same guy? Yeah. It's the same guy. So type in, go up there. It's a guy like... So he sold WhatsApp to... So go to a guy named Brian. To Facebook? This guy started WhatsApp and Signal. Okay, not... One of them is apparently a for-profit. I think the other one is a non-profit, if I'm not mistaken. We dug into this. Go type in... WhatsApp obviously sells. Signal...

Maybe also profit, but there's an element. The same guy started both. Okay, so what makes you think these guys like the Pavel guy?

What makes you think they're happy about what Pavel is doing? What makes you think they're going to sit there and be like, yeah, we love this Pavel guy. You go, Pavel. You're a great guy, right, on what you're doing. And then WhatsApp is owned by who? Facebook. Meta, right? So you have to realize, man, this is, let me tell you, this story of this guy getting arrested and what's happening to them in Europe, it's actually a terrible look for Zuck.

Because Zuck owns WhatsApp. So if anybody wants this guy to be free, to get less hate and agitators to come after him, it's got to be Zuck. Zuck has got to get out there right now and talk about the fact that this guy's got to be free. Zuck's got to make a statement and saying, hey, because that would be a way of saying, wait a minute, so here's a direct competitor, a guy that owns WhatsApp is coming out there and not defending him. That's kind of weird. Good for him for doing that.

If Zuck's PR guys and publicity guys are good people, tell Zuck to come out there and give a quick defense of Pavel and we support competition and what he's doing, et cetera, et cetera. This is a very good time to Zuck to say a few words. Rob, maybe he said something. Can you check to see, put Mark Zuckerberg on Pavel's arrest? Has he said anything? I have not heard anything. Maybe he said something. Yeah.

Can you pull that up real quick? I have not heard him say anything. Telegram CEO. Nope. Go a little lower. Does it say anything there? Nope. He's not said anything about it. Want to know why? Why is that? Because he's got nothing to worry about. He has a lot to worry about. Well, I don't think he is anywhere in jeopardy of getting arrested. That's not the point. He has a lot to worry about. I think the guy that should be the most worried is the second gentleman that you brought up. Brian, what's his name? Acton. Yeah. The guy that owns Signal? Yeah.

Okay, yeah, I'd be very worried right now. So if you want to eliminate competitors, what do you mean? Brian, he's got nothing to worry about. He's protected. He's on the side. Why is he protected? Because he just arrested his biggest competitor. If you want to get information from him, he'll give it to you. The difference between the two is... So if you talk to a lot of people in the marketplace who are communicating, I'll talk to CIA guys. I'll talk to guys that are FBI guys. I'll talk to guys that are former Fed, former CIA guys.

They don't use Signal. They don't use, what do you call it? WhatsApp. If they have to choose between the three, the ranking is Telegram first, then Signal, then WhatsApp. They don't even want to touch WhatsApp because WhatsApp is under Facebook's jurisdiction. So, you know, you have to know that part. But people trust Telegram. They're safest to communicate. So why does this guy, Alexander Vindman, saying that Musk should be nervous after Telegram, because...

I've interviewed this guy, Vindman. If you remember when you had Gary Kasparov at the vault, by the way, vault coming up next week, you can check to get your tickets now. And then Gary Kasparov, who spoke at, this was a little bit in 2021. And then he did the freedom forum. Alexander Vindman was there. Not a fan of Trump. Why would he say that? So if Zuck doesn't have anything to worry about, why should Musk? Are you following the entire podcast today? Yeah.

Like, where were you? I am. But what I'm establishing is the fact that what's the reality? No, bro. That they're going to arrest Elon Musk or Zuck. Zuck has been protected for the longest time. And Zuck, the moment he is kind of getting to the point that the left no longer owns him, now the left is going after him. So trust me, Zuck right now is in a weird position that he's hated by the left and the right. He doesn't have any friends right now.

Zuck doesn't have any friends. Not even on Facebook. Not even Facebook. Come on. That's horrible. Hear me out for a second. Zuck has no allies right now. No, he doesn't have any allies right now because his, he just, that letter through the entire left establishment under the bus.

That was a spit in the face to the left. That was a spit. You do that. You know what? That's kind of like, let me tell you the closest comparison you can make to that. The closest comparison to what Zuck did yesterday is when Comey said what Hillary was doing with the emails. That's how bad that is. That is like the worst. The only thing would have been worse is if Zuck would have written this letter to

On November 3rd. Not today. Because by November 3rd, people are going to forget about it. The fact that he wrote this letter today in August instead of November 3rd helps the life. You mean November 3rd, a couple days before the election? Two days before the election. It would have been catastrophic if he wrote it on November 3rd. Yeah, because when Comey did it, I think it was a week before the election. That's exactly the timing of it. So for me, Zuck has zero friends right now. Zuck has to be friends with Telegram right now. Zuck has to find a way to get close to...

uh musk right now that's going to be problematic zuck has to find a way to get close to trump right now zuck has zero allies right now period he's on an island by himself zuck has to be seen in the next 30 60 days by people from the center right or else zuck has zero allies today zero allies today and those who do don't trust him on that so say you're on the left you sit down to have a meeting with zuck what percentage do you believe he's going to do what you want him to do

Probably not high at this point. If you're on the right, you're sitting with him. What are you doing? Yeah, they've never trusted him. Hey, man, you better start making some allies because you ain't got no allies right now. I don't know, but I think that's kind of a good position for him to be in. I agree. I don't want Zuck being on one side. I agree. But still, he needs allies today. He needs allies today because people don't trust him today. The fact that he made that letter, as much shit as people are saying about him, the fact that he's getting ahead of a whistleblower, all this other stuff...

Guess what? How many times did Hillary knew people were going to say about her? What does she do? Nothing. How many times do people know that a whistleblower is going to come out and they're going to say something? What do they do? Nothing. They're like, screw you. Yeah, we did it. What do you want to do about it? Nothing. We're not going to respond. And a week later, the story is going to go like this. It's election year, guys. You're going to forget about this in three days. Do you realize...

How long ago the assassination attempt was? It was like two months ago, a month ago. No, it's not two months ago, bro. It was six weeks ago. What is today's date? Rob, what's today's date? August 26th. Yeah, 27th of August. 13th. It was exactly six weeks ago. It feels like it's a year and a half ago. It feels like a year and a half ago. It was just six weeks ago. Of course it feels like it. Because they had the RNC, they had the DNC. Everybody just moved on. So no, I think in a situation like this,

Zuck would be in a good place to say something good about Telegram. Go ahead, Tom. I completely agree. I mean, and Zuck right now is on an island, but it's not an island he wanted to be on. It's where he ended up. Zuck ended up on this island because he sees and he had no choice. He had no choice but to put out that letter, Pat, or some statement because congressional hearings are coming. And when they when they arrive, by the way, what just happened?

Google is waiting to find out how it's going to be broken up or moderated.

Do you see that? It's a multi-billion dollar decision about Google and its monopolistic power over search. Exactly. So Google is heading now to arraignment. Arraignment, not arraignment, is heading to sentencing what they're going to do. You don't think Zuck is thinking about that. You don't think he's thinking about all these things as well. He had to make a statement knowing full well that right now is...

They want him to manipulate the election right now. He's not doing it. He says he's not doing it. If he's really doing it, why make a statement like that and then go behind the doors and actually really be doing it? It's the worst thing if he does, Tom. Zuck actually made the right move writing this letter. He did. He had no choice to do it. This was the hardest thing to do, but I believe he made the right move writing this letter.

The sect that doesn't believe him or forgive him, don't. Totally understand it. Don't do that. The part that's sitting there saying, hey, so now that you said this, what do you want to do about it? Do you want to have a conversation? So maybe an RFK is now, imagine if RFK does a sit down with Zuck. What does that look like if that were to take place?

What is that, Sean? What if he does say, hey, man, we made a mistake, like I said to you earlier? I think there's a very interesting play with what Zuck's going to be doing. But I want to go to Australia's story and what's happening over there. Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails. Guys, if you like this, move to Australia. It's only a few minutes away.

Call after hours. Let me say it one more time. According to Reuters, Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails and call calls from after hours. Australian employees have the legal right to disconnect from work emails and calls after hours with the new law stating that workers cannot be punished for refusing to read or respond...

Two contacts outside of work hours addressing for grown intrusion of work into personal life. The law, which came into force on Monday, aims to curb the trend where Australians worked on average 281 hours of underpaid overtime in 2023, a value of $130 billion. A problem exasperated...

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, blurred work-life balance boundaries. Oh, here we go with this language again. While the law includes exceptions for emergencies and jobs with irregular hours, refusals must be reasonable with the Fair Work Commission having the authority...

to issue cease and desist orders and fines up to $94,000 for companies. Amy, thoughts on this story? So for example, let's say Humberto, my supreme leader, shout out Humberto, I appreciate you. Let's say for example, let's say for example, Humberto called me after work hours. He calls me at 7 p.m. We have a conversation.

And I don't like that. I can then go ahead and file a cease and desist order against him. And from there, if he chooses to violate again and call me after hours again, he can then be fined up to $19,000. Wow.

or the company could be fined up to $94,000. So my question is, how is this going to be weaponized? Because we know that people take things to the absolute extreme. I actually got into a very contentious debate with my friend about this last night. She's a lawyer. She thinks that this policy is actually good. She'd like to see more of this over here in the USA. And I disagree.

I personally disagree. And I think maybe it comes down to the difference between whether you're looking for a job or you're looking for a career. But I know for me, the majority of my professional development and where I have grown in the roles that I've been in and how I've excelled have come from outside of work hours, from mentors who've poured into me and given me their time after work, which I also appreciate. Right. So I think that this is a very, very damaging policy to the mindset of the Australian people where it's

already a very entitled society, a very lazy society, which is the whole reason why I came to this country in the first place, for the American dream. That's why I love this country. And it saddens me to see Australia moving further and further and further away from that. Your friend, a lawyer, what was her argument? What was she saying? She's just saying that for the average person, it's not fair that they're contacted outside of work hours. They should be able to switch off for their mental health, their work-life balance. But my arguments were, what about

Business flexibility. You know, what about when you're working with people who live in different time zones? How is that going to correlate then? Reduce collaboration. You know, it could stifle spontaneous collaboration and innovation. I can't tell you the amount of times where I've had ideas outside of work and I just...

spam text Humberto. We'll spam text somebody from the studio because it came to my mind right then and there. And I have to share it, you know, and, and also just damaging to, to work ethic in general. And by the way, just so you know, here's how this works. So Amy, you started off here with us at Bedeba Consulting, right? Then you wanted to be on the creative side. So you want to creative and you kind of working over there with distribution, with Humberto, with all those guys. Then you get invited to be on, I think Saucecast. Then you get invited to be an unusual. Then you're doing a show with Tom, uh,

you know, the decision 2024, the two of you guys together, which does very, very well. The audience loves it. The review on that is in a 98 percentile of love, likability. Then you get invited to be on the podcast. but if you don't do this kind of stuff,

And then how are you going to be identified? But if you do, people take notice. You're here because of what people behind closed doors are saying about you. I'm not there watching how you work. They'll tell me, let me tell you what she's doing. Here's what she's doing. Let me tell you what it is. And the more you hear that, the more opportunities come. So if somebody doesn't do that, that's an opportunity loss for them. Tom, what are the chances that somebody in U.S., a political leader, is going to hear this idea in Australia and say, I think we need to do something like this in the States? Okay.

Well, I think it's coming. I think this is exactly the kind of anti-employer sentiment that comes from the left in the United States. Now, first of all, let's break it down. 281 hours. You know what that is? 5.4 hours a week. 5.4 hours a week.

a week. So like one hour a day, one hour a day, like a half hour of text at lunch, a half hour of a quick response to an email in the evening. That's all we're talking about here. And they, so what they do is they cleverly say it 281 hours a year to make it sound like that. Watch for that kind of rhetoric coming from the left in this country to say, Oh, employers are bad. This is what the unions did to get union member. There were two sides to unions in the United States, both

before a lot of the worker safety laws and OSHA's inside factories and then after.

unions happen to get benefits for people, to make factories safer, as there was a moment of good intention. But once they were done, they weren't going to let go of the union dues that they were collecting from people, and they had to make the employer sound bad. So what we're going to have in the United States, we're going to have people, and I could see AOC doing this, your employer is bad, 281 hours a year. We're going to see it. It's coming to the U.S. because...

Australia is about a decade ahead of us on worker socialism. And I get lessons from Amy. She talks about what's going on in Australia, what's happening, the laws that happen there, how they actually abusively had secret police treating people during COVID. All of that's coming to the U.S. if we don't want to get in front of it. And you are going to see laws probably coming from a Bernie or an AOC exactly like this. So you know what it is. I want to go into this last story and then we'll finish it up, the podcast story.

So you know who this hurts? You know who this law hurts that you can't communicate after 6 p.m.? Very simple. Let me ask the question. You ready? Does it hurt the new startups or does it hurt the too-big-to-fill established companies? Startups. Of course it hurts startups. So let me get this straight. In America, 45% of people, give or take, work for small business owners. What happens...

If you stop innovation and new startups from being created, who are you helping? The bigger guys, the establishment guys. What they don't realize is what makes America great is startups. And if you ever work in a startup, one of the, I had an HR meeting last week and a big part of it was predicated based on this, based on this Starbucks move that happened last week. So Howard Schultz,

Runs Starbucks. He's looking for a replacement for CEO. He finds this guy named Laxman who, you know, was a former 22-year McKinsey and I think he worked as a leadership on Pepsi and a couple other companies. But he was a McKinsey consultant. They end up hiring him. He shadows Howard Schultz for a year. April of last year, he becomes the effective CEO of Starbucks. When he became the CEO of Starbucks, Starbucks was worth roughly $114 billion, give or take. So again,

Again, April of last year, that's 17 months ago, he, this guy Laxman, becomes the CEO. Starbucks at the time is worth $114 billion. Fast forward to the day he gets fired or replaced, whatever you want to call it. Starbucks goes from being a $114 billion company to $74 billion company. They lost $40 billion during that time spent. Now watch this.

When they interview this other guy named Brian Nicol, Brian Nicol was the former CEO of Taco Bell and a former CEO of Chipotle. Chipotle hired him and they took him away from Taco Bell in 2018.

At 2018, Chipotle was only worth $7 billion. Chipotle, when he was done and he went to Starbucks, that day, Chipotle was worth $71 billion. He increased the valuation of Chipotle 10 times in six years. Wow. While Laxman cost Starbucks $40 billion. By the way, the

They announced that this guy's going to be the CEO of Starbucks. Everybody was talking about how much Starbucks paid him. You know how much Starbucks paid him? $113 million. Rob, can you pull up what they paid him? Over how many years? He got a $113 million contract, which I believe, give or take $75 million of it is stocks.

And everybody said, I cannot believe they're paying this guy $113 million. The annual salary, $1.6 million. $23 million shared bonuses. You know, $3.6 million depending on performance and the rest of it is stock, right? Everybody's bitching about it. This is too much money to pay the guy. You know how much Starbucks made the day they announced he's the CEO that day? $20 billion. Starbucks paid him $100 million. Starbucks that day made $19.9 billion.

billion in a single day. But let me tell you where I'm going with the story. The former CEO of Starbucks is being interviewed on Forbes about schedule. And they ask a question about work-life balance. As a Fortune 500 CEO, look at the answer he gives. Go for it.

I

I do schedule about 150 to 250 minutes. You can pause that right there. You can pause it right there. That's probably the reason why he got fired. You cannot be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company and your people are afraid of calling you. Do you know what happens when you do that? You know what happens when you do that? So imagine you are the CEO and you said this to us. Me, Rob, Amy, and Tom are direct CEOs to you. Rob's the CFO because he's great with numbers. I'm your chief operations officer. Tom's your CTO and Angelo's

and Amy's your CMO, okay? We try to get a hold of you after six o'clock. You're like, no guys, I'll talk to you tomorrow. Guess what we do with our direct reports when they try to reach out to us after six o'clock? Yeah, you're gonna do the exact same thing. It's a trickle-down effect. Trickle-down economics. Guess what happens to the company in 17 months? You lose $40 billion of valuation, give or take. So this is the part

That goes off of the Australia story of what they did, where Australia is saying there's a fine if you reach out to people after hours of based on what Amy said, 19,000 up to 90 to 93 thousand dollars. But this is exactly why Starbucks lost 40. You know what I find funny about this guy? What's his name or what was his name? So there's a zero percent chance he got to where he is now by implementing that attitude.

You don't graduate from wherever you graduate. Where do you go to school, Rob? I'm sure some Ivy League school. And get where to go? Co-op Technological University. One of the best universities in India. Everyone knows that one. And get to the point where you're becoming the CEO of Starbucks after Howard Schultz. And basically do everything you can. You're probably working the midnight oil. You're working, you're grinding. And all of a sudden you get to this position and you're like...

Let's implement socialism, guys. Let's get this work-life balance thing going on. It's like Mark Benioff.

It always just completely bewilders me how someone who builds a company, a CEO, a founder, man, this is what we're implemented. We're around and surrounded by at BDC and the companies in the vault and all these people and these entrepreneurs and, and grinding and building the life of an entrepreneur. And then they reach the pinnacle and they're like, let's do the socialism thing, guys. Like the one guy you interviewed who wanted to get everybody a $70,000 salary. What was his name? I don't remember.

Whatever it is, because you don't remember because the company's probably out of business. It's defunct. The reality is this.

most people are most people. If you want to be most people go down that, Hey, don't text me after six route, four day work week, 32 hours a week, like go for it guys. But if you actually want to make something for your life, you have Dan price, 70,000. If you actually want to make something for your life and actually be great or amazing or become a millionaire, you're going to have to text and respond after six o'clock, eight o'clock, 10 o'clock. This thing right here, change the game.

Yes, sir. Because not too long ago, PBD, you remember this. 25 years ago, we were using beepers, bro. 143. I love you, Pat. And now you can reach anybody. I was going to say other numbers, but you went 187. 187 on an undercover cop. What do you want to do here? That's great. I mean, I'm good with that. I know you know the code very well. I love the police. I'm not saying that. I know it. I know it. But the reality is this changed the game.

And now you can reach anybody, anytime, anywhere, anyhow, anywhere. Do you have any thoughts on the Starbucks story? And it's a tough situation. Yeah, I think there's an irony here that was between the lines. I love it. I read deep down into it. I got nothing to say about the ex-CEO guy. He said enough by himself, by his own words. He got fired for a reason. He failed to lead. He failed to keep the company growing. And he failed to set an example for all of his people. Fail, fail, fail. You got fired. Okay, that's the easy part. But Brian Nichols...

Part of it, I was reading between the lines here. Not reading between the lines. I was reading deeper than there is things between the lines. They so badly wanted Brian Niccoli says, listen, I got a place in Newport Beach, California. That's my home. I don't have 20 houses. That's where I live. I live in Newport Beach. And they said, look, we'll get you a plane. Fly up on Monday morning, fly back on Thursday afternoon. You're late Thursday. Will you do that for us? Will you be for four days here? And he said, OK, well, here's a plane. Well, it's going to cost them $1,000.

ridiculous amount of money per year. And employees were already saying, but what about our green initiative aiming to reduce waste and sustainable packaging? Go to coffee bean. Go to seven 11. Dunkin' Donuts. Go to Dunkin'. To which I'm going to quote this. I didn't see this, but I think this was the letter from the board. We do have a green initiative. We need to make more

That's right. We're going to make some money here. That's the green initiative we're after. Yeah. So listen, I mean, this is, I was thinking about going, you know what we're going to do for lunch. We're going to have Chipotle and some coffee. You promise? Starbucks. Yeah. No, I'm joking with you. But by the way, this is the cost of bad leadership, the price of bad leadership and somebody that, you know, Hey, I am so important. Who are you to reach out to me and all this other stuff. Anyways,

So this is the first PVD podcast we do with Amy. By the way, guess what, guys? Amy is on my neck. Rob, if you can go to her QR code and just pause it right there. So if you want to get a hold of Amy, something she said. If you're from Australia, I know who's going to message you from Australia. Our friend Cook is going to be coming to the podcast next week. Anybody from anywhere, for what you heard Amy talk about today, you agree or disagree with. You're like, I disagree with what you said about this or agree. Send her on my neck as well as everybody else on here today.

Adam, myself, and Tom are here. There's one week left for the Manette contest. It's getting so flipping close, Rob. Go to the Leaders Bulletin. A couple categories going crazy. By the way, Ryan Montgomery, who was on the podcast last week, and he talked about all this stuff, the ethical hacker stuff. He all of a sudden zoomed in a little bit. Number one is still Caleb, Pastor Caleb Altmaier. Then he got Lorenzo. Then he got Bryce Mitchell. But look at fourth place, Rob.

This guy got 82 minutes that he's gotten back to in 32 reviews. The ethical hacker is at fourth place. And he got the rest of the guys. And then go to middleweight. We got middleweight Martins at the top. But Cecilia's coming up. Ceci, we see you, Houston. Yeah.

Hey, Sessy. And then look at third place, Samuel Riley. And fourth place, husband and wife duo. Yeah. Rolo Tomasi is still on there. Tim Arden, good for you, Tim. And then go to heavyweight. Heavyweight got Dennis Panev is up there. Candice up there. Dustin up there. And then Calvin, Rob. There's a competition between those three on who's going to get to 1,000 first, whether it's going to be Dennis, Dustin, or Calvin. Looks like Dennis is on his way.

And then go to the super heavyweight. Vinny's dominating that category. Then it's myself, Tom, and Adam. And then let's go to the connectors. You got Reese Queen first place. Then it's Mark Cook and then Justin Beiler. And then if we go to last but not least, the newer people on the app using it, Chris Musgrove, user zero.

And Veronica Bowmaster. It's going to be interesting. You guys are going to get recognized at the vault. Some of you guys will get a chance to meet The Rock. And then some of you guys will come and have a private meeting with me. But go back to the Manechta QR code. Manechta folks, especially the first-timer on PBD Podcast, give her some love on Manechta. Amy Dangerfield officially here with us. Thank you for having me. Yes, this was great. Phenomenal job. You did very good today. Thank you. Take care, everybody. We'll do this again, I believe, on Thursday. Bye-bye, bye-bye.