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A
Foreign.
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You're listening to American Power. I'm your host, Nat Town, stand up comedian, speech writer, prose writer, comedy writer, and most likely to get me past St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, podcast host. I'm joined as always by our panel of experts. Up first, our expert on foreign policy and the military, Chad Scott. Chad, where are you coming from?
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C
I'm in the Portland, so I'm technically in Vancouver, Washington, but it's in the Portland metro. We're just across from the Columbia river from Portland. So basically I just say I'm in Portland, so visiting some in laws, having a good time. Really love Portland. It's a great city.
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B
And that's some beautiful hotel art you've got behind you.
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C
I know the standard generic hotel art.
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B
They really did it for you.
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C
It's either a mountain or a sailboat. That's usually.
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B
Yeah, you've got a nice landscape there, I assume. And joining us as always, our expert on energy of all forms, back from Washington into his home state, Mr. Global, Matt Randolph. How's it going, Matt?
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A
It's going good. I was just pondering because I haven't thought of this before. Is two people a panel?
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B
Okay. I feel like you're challenging me pretty early in the episode. No, I've never thought about it before.
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A
I was like, is two people a panel?
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B
Like that's like. I'd say so like, let's say you have a panel of three and one of them drops out. That's a panel. I think more than one person can be a panel. Otherwise it's a buyer side chat.
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A
Yeah, yeah, the dynamic duo.
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B
I've worked some corporate events and if there's, if they're interviewing a bunch of people, they say panel discussion. And if they're sitting down with one guy who's too important, they say coffee chat or Fireside chat.
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A
Yeah, the Fireside chat.
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B
So this is somewhere between a Fireside chat and a panel. I would say very cozy podcast one way or another. Coming from literally opposite, not at all. Nasal voice people love. Yes, we're a Fireside Chat from all across the country and it's been an interesting week in this country. A lot of ups, a lot of downs, Some amazing news on a local level, some horrific news on a national level, and inverted in many cases. We want to talk first about some international news, though. I want to focus on, if we can just start the situation in Ukraine. And I was hoping, Chad, that you could give us a little bit of an update on what's going on there.
- [02:45]
C
Yeah. So really fascinating situation taking place as Ukraine has gained a lot more capability. We're watching almost in real time. It's going to be this real time study in, once again, the collapse of a nation. And, and a lot of us were alive during the collapse of the Soviet Union. And we're watching this take place, and we're starting to see things that we wouldn't have seen just even six months ago. Putin has admitted that, yes, there are now fuel lines in Russia because of these Ukrainian strikes. We're seeing them almost come to the forefront, begging the US with this idea that we can go back to the Anchorage summit. So if you remember, back in August of last year, August 15, 2025, they had that summit. Putin came to Alaska, met with Trump, and nothing was agreed upon. There was no ceasefire agreed upon. There was no written agreement whatsoever. And now we're seeing that the Russians are saying, well, there was the spirit of Anchorage. They're claiming that Washington and Trump had privately accepted Russian control of all of the Donbass in exchange for freezing the rest of the front line. So, really, Russia is just trying to grasp at straws. They're trying to find something that they can count as a win, and they're not getting it because Secretary of State Marco Rubio came out on 25 June and said, There was no agreement. We would have ended the war if there was an agreement. There was never an agreement. There was not a deal. Whatever they're saying is not the case. And fascinatingly, Trump is also. He's not as forceful as Rubio right now, but he is expressing his own frustration. He went to the G7 summit and told officials he's going. He's probably going to abandon all of the understandings that were made in Anchorage entirely. So he admitted that Ukraine is doing pretty well, said their drone campaign is doing well. And so we're now seeing this compounding effect on the front lines where Russia is struggling. It's a stagnated war. They're not making any gains that are meaningful. They're losing thousands upon thousands. I mean, in three months, the Russians are losing as many troops as we lost in the entirety of Vietnam. Every three months, it's a new Vietnam for Russia. That's. That's a wild number. That is an incredible number. And we're seeing the Ukrainians embarrass Putin on the international stage, and they're starting to become this. This concern that what happens if Putin is backed into a corner? What happens if he's. He's having to look at a losing war. This is going to be political suicide for him. For him. The people in Russia are now starting stand up. They're, they're furious because of the, the gas lines. Crimea people are fleeing Crimea. It's a bad situation. And will Putin react kind of as a cornered wild animal and lash out with tactical nuclear weapons? The, the broad spectrum understanding is that he probably won't because there's not just the US Is, Is there counterbalance? But yeah, that few. Well, so, but, and I say that I, I say that with the understanding that we don't necessarily know what's going on in the mind of Putin. This is, this is an aging, despotic, authoritarian leader who may be on his last hurrah of what he can have as a legacy. So he may make the decision no matter what, but what happens is we have China. That's who he's more concerned about. And Xi Jinping has flat out said multiple times Russia will not engage in any kind of nuclear war. That would be an immediate problem for Russia across the globe. They would immediately isolate from everyone. And they're, and that's coming on the heels of already being isolated because Belarus, their staunchest ally in this whole thing, who has been helping them by allowing the Russians to launch drones and missiles from their territory, who has placed radars in their territory, who has allowed Russia to train their troops in Belarus, Belarus, so that they're safer from. Because Ukraine won't attack. Belarus is backing away. And Lukashenko, who is the president or really just the dictator of Belarus, has come out and said we're not gonna. He, he basically said we're not going to help Russia as much as we used to because Zelensky told him, you're gonna, you keep helping them, we're gonna strike you next. You're part of this war now. You are going to become a co. Belligerent. And when Zelensky came out and said that Lukashenko, the president of Belarus apologized to Zelensky, which is unheard of in international affairs, foreign leaders, our leader doesn't matter. No one ever apologizes for anything. It's just kind of just let it go. He came out and said he was sorry and he ended up start. He started shutting down Belarusian radars that were, were feeding information to Russia. So Russia is losing even their closest allies on the international stage. And this, this gas yule problem is going to be. I think the, the, the what is. It's that crack that's going to have the damn break. And I just don't know if it's going to happen in a way that devastates the global economy, because before they do that, they have to internalize the diesel and stuff. And Matt can talk about this, but for all intents and purposes, this is. We are looking at any. Anywhere between a few months to. Sometimes by the end of 2027, I'm thinking we're going to see a major collapse in Russia and it's going to be. It's going to be ugly. And the. I'll just say this final thing before I let Matt talk about the fuel stuff. When it comes to a dictatorship, when it comes to authoritarian regimes, they always seem stable until they are immediately, catastrophically not out of nowhere. That's how. That's what we have. We saw the signs kind of building up with Afghanistan when the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan in 89. And that started to become a catalyst of the kind of the roll downhill. But we're starting to see that very same history starting to repeat itself in Russia. And so we're all kind of like, is this going to be one of those things where Putin's going to stand in front of a camera and say, everything's fine, everything's cool, and then suddenly a day later, Swan Lakes playing on their screens because some massive catastrophic collapse is taking place? I don't know, but that's likely what it's going to look like. And they're running out of time.
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B
Matt, you just have something speculate. What's the strategy behind admitting. It doesn't seem like Putin to admit any kind of defeat or any kind of weakness. What's the strategy behind admitting.
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C
Well, his oil reserves, his Duma was turning on him. The Duma, which is the, essentially the Congress of Russia is turning on him. The people are starting to turn on him. And so him admitting it becomes a relief valve because at some point, no matter how, how powerful you are and strong you are, whether it's Russia, China, you have to show that you acknowledge the, the problems. I mean, it's kind of the, the relief valve of. We understand Xi Jinping did the same thing during COVID when he acknowledged that the zero coveted policy was causing bank problems and also massive uprisings in his country. So he acknowledged that, okay, we're gonna relieve, we're gonna reduce the, the zero COVID policy, and a lot of people are gonna get Covid because they just weren't ill equipped. And that's what actually did happen. But him acknowledging it immediately released the, the tension within China. And so I think Russia is trying to use the same playbook where if he can acknowledge the fuel problems or the fact that Moscow's getting struck consistently. He can say, hey, we are aware of it. We are going to try and do something about it. And then. But he, to be clear, he immediately pivoted and said, it is the west trying to destabilize Russia. It is the west that's doing this. He didn't blame his own idiocy in attacking Ukraine. He didn't blame even Ukraine at that point. He's just saying NATO in the West. So that's largely the reason why with
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B
these authoritarians, it's still a change in status quo when they acknowledge anything beyond the original propaganda line. Right. Like, having to acknowledge these things internally shows that to some degree the cultish nature of the, of their governmental structure isn't functioning. Right. Like, I don't, I don't know about the response from the Russian people, but you're talking about response from within his administration.
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C
Absolutely. That's a weird. What's interesting is, is this is a playbook that Putin has almost written because he and Xi Jinping operate under the understanding that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a model to never follow. And what happened in the collapse of the Soviet Union is they started to admit that their system was problematic. They started to admit that we screwed up in Afghanistan, we screwed up with our closing off to the West. And that is what Putin and Xi Jinping originally saw as the start to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. And so they basically swore they would never do that again. Xi Jinping is still in that territory in China. Vladimir Putin is not. He abandoned that playbook and is now once again going down the same 1980, late 1980s, early 1990s playbook as the Soviet Union. And it's an eerily similar situation where history is replaying itself, where you have the, the Yeltsins and things who were he. He said was absolutely the, the reason the Soviet Union collapsed, not because of their internal problems, but because they started to Westernize. And now that they're admitting that, as of right now, that there's problems because of this war, it's interesting because Putin is now backing out of his own playbook that has kept him in power. And I think it's going to be a catastrophic problem for him in the future.
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B
Yeah. So that is a pretty severe departure. That's interesting. Matt, can you speak a little bit to the energy perspective on this?
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A
Sure. But before that.
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B
Oh, go ahead.
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A
I read. I don't know how accurate it is, but I Read that the, the average lifespan of a new Russian recruit is 12 days. Did you read that, Chad?
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C
I've heard that it's varied between 10 and 20, but yeah, yeah, that's the
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A
average lifespan of a new Russian soldier, or conscript or whatever they call them over there.
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C
Soldier is doing a lot of work there too. Yeah, that, that, that word. They, they're, they get two weeks of training. They're basically.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Civilians that get. Here's a rifle here.
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B
12 days later, on average they're dead.
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C
And then 12 days later, they're basically
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A
like, if I went over there.
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C
Yep. And I mean, and Matt Jones, army of Mr. Globals, they'll, they, they'll send people that are like sick. I don't know, I'm not saying you're 65, Matt, but they'll send people that are like 65 years old, 15 year olds.
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B
We've never said his age on the air.
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C
Yeah, no, he's, he's like, Matt's Mr. Global is 32. That's how old he's.
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B
But anyway, we're sending the Global Corps over to Russia to fight.
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C
That's what, that's, it's, it's wild because yeah, they are, they're, they're, it's, it's all just cannon fodder. It's the same Russian playbook that we've seen in World War I, World War II, Afghanistan. Yeah.
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B
So.
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C
But yeah, your thoughts on the energy though? Because that diesel situation is wild.
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A
So it's, and look, this is my opinion, people can agree with me or not agree with me. This is where politics has been removed. So for the longest time, especially under the Biden administration, they did not want Ukraine hitting any of Russia's energy infrastructure. And that is because we were already dealing with really high gas prices in the United States. And politics was playing a huge role, US Politics was playing a huge role in the war between Russia and Ukraine. At the end of the Biden administration when gas prices had fallen enough, he basically said, okay, do what you want, because we were given Ukraine a ton of weapons. I don't remember, 100, $200 billion, whatever. We gave them worth of weapons that us helping them with all those weapons gave us a bit of leverage over Ukraine where we could say, you know, under these conditions, we will help you. And so they weren't hitting Russ. Energy, infrastructure. And the whole time I was screaming, that's the only way they can win this war. And so at the end of the Biden administration, that started and it has been progressing all the way up to now. And they are hammering Russia's energy infrastructure. 86 different regions in Russia right now have fuel shortages. They're rationing fuel. They've had to stop all gasoline exports out of the country. They've stopped all jet fuel exports out of the country. And there are signs that they may stop diesel exports, which would have a huge impact on the United States because Russia is basically tied with the US as the number one diesel exporter in the world. So that would cause a global diesel shortage if that occurs. And Ukraine is not going to stop. And I'm actually enjoying watching this because I am seeing it unfold. Ukraine's going to win. Russia's going to fall. The bully, the aggressor is. Is getting their ass kicked by the little country. You know, geographically, Ukraine's not little, but they're viewed as a little country.
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B
You know, comparatively, they are.
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A
Yeah. They're not viewed as a powerful nation. And they're kicking the out of Russia right now. And I think it's great, like. And plus all of the pro Russia propaganda and we had to listen to since this war started right here in the United States, people supporting Russia and people supporting Putin. I have a feeling we're not going to hear from those people anymore. But as far as whether Russia completely falls, I kind of agree with Chad. It really looks like they will. But whether they do that or not, they're going to lose this war because Russia is kicking the shit out of them. And I celebrate it.
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C
Yeah, for sure.
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B
I've said a number of times on this podcast, I'm a war as an absolute last resort person. It's very hard to convince me that any war is justified. However, an authoritarian, imperialist nation trying to take over a smaller country is one of those times. And it, quite frankly, has shocked me the degree to which I know this is what, asymmetrical war. But the asymmetrical stakes of this seem remarkable. Like, I. Going into it, I truly my take, you know, and again, I'm a. I'm a AP Times reading American. I was reading the headlines and the articles as it was coming out, but I'm getting my information, you know, from mainstream news sources about that. It felt bleak at first. It felt like, oh, this is inevitable. Russia can do this and Trump will let them, because we are the. You know, we set ourselves up as the world police and then handed the keys to the police department to a sociopath who loves power. So it's like, oh, he's gonna love this. And it's kind of fascinating to see. Also fascinating to see Trump navigate this now where it's like, obviously, we know personally. He, I've said this in most episodes, the guy loves Autocrats. Like, it's not, he's not even hiding it. I mean, I wouldn't, you know, if you're, if even if you're a Trump fan, you can go look up his true social posts where he says he loves Autocrats. Like, this isn't a controversial opinion. Yeah. Oh, love Strongman. Yeah. Maybe he'll say. But like, I think he's come out and said, oh, yeah. I mean, he's even said, so I'm a fascist. Okay, so I'm a fascist.
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C
Like, yeah.
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B
And about his. And about his allies, too. So it's fascinating to see in a world in which, you know, strongman fascists have taken up the two biggest nuclear arsenals in the world, for example, have the control to those two, you know, nuclear footballs or maybe soccer ball. I'm not sure what they call it in Russia, but it's fascinating to see that the underdog is really pulling through in this situation and is sort of redefining that narrative.
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C
Yeah, for sure. I mean, the.
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A
At work.
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C
No, go ahead.
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A
I was going to say, like, we're in this time where there's been a growing acceptance and sort of an affinity for strong men and authoritarian figures right here in the United States. This, this sort of love of these authoritarian leaders has been growing here in the United States. And right in the middle of all that, the entire world is about to watch the biggest one fall.
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C
Yeah, the alpha male. Huge. Yeah, yeah.
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A
The alpha male about to fall, which I think is. Is going to be globally, is going to have a lot of impact about how people really feel about, you know, this just come out of nowhere, this love affair that people suddenly have with these authoritarian leaders. It's going to get crushed by Ukraine defeating Russia. That's why I'm so excited about it.
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B
And I think this is uncomfortable for a lot of men to admit, but part of how it came out of nowhere is like, these authoritarian leaders are just bullies. Right? Like, these are the kind of guys a lot of men wanted to be all along, and then Trump showed up and gave him permission. Right. They're belligerent, they're sexist, they hate women. I mean, he's literally a rapist, you know, and who's the best Trump copycat? Brett Kavanaugh. He's the guy who got it to work for him the most. He. He did the Trump playbook. He got on the Supreme Court, and he is the second most famous rapist in the world after Trump. Right?
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C
Yeah.
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B
These guys, I mean, I, you know, I hate to say it, but, like, the con men don't target innocent people. They target people who are already compromised. And if you kind of liked this stuff but didn't have permission to, if you were a guy who was like, why can't I say the R word and hit women anymore all of a sudden, you know? Or like, why can't I be disrespectful to women because I'm still mad at my mom for the rest of my life. Whatever your motivation is, all those guys, like, they thought they had permission, and they did. They got massive permission. And. But it's fascinating to watch it in our politics because, I mean, I was worried about, you know, there was that. We've talked about it before, that brilliant article that was, you know, the next Trump will be more dangerous. And it was about what if a politically competent Trump replacement came in. And I thought that was going to happen for years. But quite frankly, no one has been able to copy the Trump playbook. Like, he is our ultimate belligerent sociopath. Kavanaugh, I think, is the most successful. But you've seen a lot of politicians try to sound like him. And like, Matt Gaetz is gone. You know, like, Desantis proved himself a total fool. Like, these people who all wanted to be the next Trump. Do you even remember who was running, you know, for president? Who y', all? You know, Vivek. Like, I don't even remember these guys. Half of half of them. And I don't think that that bombast that. And I say it neutrally or negatively, but that, that power that Trump has has really translated into American politics. Even if the American electorate has kind of gone mask off that about 70 million of them like it. So it's going to be interesting to see the global ramifications of. I mean, these strongmen are at their pretty, like, at their lowest approval ratings for both of them. So it's going to be kind of fascinating to see what happens.
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C
Yeah, the approval ratings for Russia is. What's surprising for Putin is surprising because that's a manipulated poll. Like. But even then, even then, we're seeing his polling drop below 60%, which has never happened. Never that usually the lowest it was was like 62% was his lowest polling. And now we're seeing numbers come in again, funnily enough, way higher than Trump's approval rating. But I say that knowing that they do Manipulate heavily in Russia.
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B
Even so, I know I shouldn't cite that statistic in a closed state media response, but it is fascinating that they are even letting that. So, wow, Putin's polling below 100%. That's crazy how that happens.
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C
Yeah, I mean, it's, it is, it's pretty, the situation, it's just hard to ignore for the average Russian. I mean, the Russian GDP is, is, was slashed to 0.5%. It was 4.9% in 2024. And when I say there's even GDP growth whatsoever in Russia, it's because of their wartime economy. They're building bombs and, and, and drones and missiles and things like that which fund into their economy because it is, People have jobs, they're making money, so it's technically counted. But that doesn't drive an economy into the future. It's not like they're building the next level of tech, the next level of computers. They're not building cars. And what's happening is they are. Their, their economy is based on this wartime spending and it's, it's all falsely propped up. And so even when we say there's going to be 0.5% growth, it's all because they're building things that aren't going to serve the Russian people in the future. It's all just so that they can attack the Ukrainians. And when this war ends, not if, when this war ends, that funding, those missiles stop being made. And then you have a population of Russians losing their jobs, their GDP crashes and goes negative, they go into a recession. And at the same time, you have hundreds of thousands of angry veterans who are like, why did this happen? Angry family members who they've lost millions of, of, or they've had millions of casualties. Whether it's dead, wounded, deserted, captured, all of those people and their families, that's going to be a massive wave of anger that's going to turn on Russia. And we're going to see the, the Kremlin trying to manage not only a negative economy, a war they lost. Angry veterans, angry people. And all of those signs point to the last time that happened. It wasn't, it wasn't the, the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was the Bolshevik Revolution when leaders were killed in basements. And that's how direly serious I think we're starting to get into where Russia's problem is. And that brings up questions of what happens to their nuclear weapons. Because when the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States kind of stepped in as this, this kind of mediator and arbiter of like, hey, we'll go ahead and kind of provide some top cover to make sure that your nukes are taken care of so that at the time the Chechens or whatever don't take over them. We don't have that this time. They. I don't think there's that in place. I don't think Trump and his administration have enough foresight to worry about that. And if we're dealing with a Trump administration that's still in power in 28, and I'm saying that I could see this collapse in Russia happening before then, I have huge concerns about what exactly is going to take place with some of the second and third order effects when a collapse takes place. Do what happens to their nuclear codes? What happens to the weapons physically themselves in the tubes? And does. Do we see Ramzan Kadyrov, who is the Chechen leader, who is an absolutely evil person, decide, I'm going to take my Chechen military and I'm going to rise them up and take control of these nukes, which is extraordinarily dangerous, even for Russia. So I just. It's a very interesting situation because we're starting to see the cracks. We're even seeing mill bloggers that were absolutely. And by mill bloggers, I mean military bloggers who traditionally were the mouthpieces of the Kremlin, reporting on all their successes and they consistently lied. They're turning on the Kremlin themselves and saying, this is not happening. The front lines are collapsing. We are seeing. And I'm glad you pointed this out, Matt, because you talked about the bots and the Russian army of social media manipulators that come on and like to say, oh, we're winning, no matter the fact that we can tell they're not. Understand that every little gain that is made, for instance, Kostya and Taniva, the Russians still are moving incrementally. It's a few meters a day. But they're going to, they're going to enhance that and say, we're winning because of this territory gained. Understand that that's Ukraine's tactic. Ukraine is a massive landmass country. So they're trading. It's a war of attrition. They're trading land for Russian lives. You can take a few meters, but we're going to kill 10 Russians as you do it. You can take another. You can take a kilometer. Thousand Russians are going to die over time. That's going to weigh on the Russians and that human wave tactic that Russia loves to use, it's going to fail. And so I just, yeah, again, this is a bad, bad situation. And I'm worried that we are looking at an administration in the United States that might not be prepared. I'm hopeful, I'm hoping that the very smart people in Europe are, though, because they, they are equipped now to, to respond as France is a nuclear power, so as the United Kingdom and such, so they can maybe step in and help where the United States either can't or will be unwilling to because of
- [27:50]
B
the Trump administration and in addition to the nuclear concerns, which are massive and obviously extremely chilling. But also, I mean, what you're describing, and we've talked about this a bit before, but this is administration not in the U.S. i mean, the Putin administration is really willing to inflict pain on its populace. I mean, as we said, they're willing to throw people as effectively a wave of bodies at Ukraine. But as you're describing this, you know, public opinion shifting in Russia, I think what I'm afraid of is just like, how much, how much pain gets inflicted on working people before. Like, I hope there's an uprising. I hope that people within the administration turn on him and it doesn't take a full worker revolution before there's some kind of collapse there. But Russia as it is currently structured is such that a collapse would inflict enormous pain on their working class. And I think that's kind of what's scary about this, is that, like, I would love to see a restructuring of that dictatorship, but the path there looks like a lot of death to me.
- [28:51]
C
Well, it's not only in domestically, because that's an abs. That's a given. Unfortunately, Russians will die. Either they'll die because we'll see a similar situation in the, in the post World War I era where there was massive hunger and problems with that. I'm hopeful that the world will step up and realize that the Kremlin is turning over a Putin regime, but it just depends on who takes over after him. I mean, if we get someone in Putin's inner circle and we just get kind of the status quo continuing, then people are going to, are going to suffer in Russia. But, and Matt can maybe speak to this, if Russia collapses that, at least for a few months, takes their entire energy industry off the global stage as they re restructure, rebuild. What does, what does that look like? What does that look like if we lose the first or second biggest diesel producer, the. What is it like the fourth largest oil country in the world? Like, and they just. Because already we have the Moscow refinery That's not coming back online for six months and that's going to hurt everyone. I can't imagine what happens if the whole country shuts down for a year as they deal with collapse.
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A
Yeah, the, the inflationary effects mostly of the diesel would be tremendous when you take that. You know, diesels run economies, right? They, people say, oh, I don't buy diesel. Why do I care about the price of diesel? I'm like, yeah, everything you buy is transported with diesel. Like it has, when, when, when we have problems with diesel supply, it causes major economic problems.
- [30:33]
B
So spell it out for the listeners. What is diesel used for domestically or, or in terms of importing, what exactly do you mean?
- [30:40]
A
Well, you know, gasoline is for cars and diesels runs economies. Every single thing that is shipped or bought, you know, cargo ships crossing the oceans, it's either bunker fuel or diesel. Diesel transports everything. Diesel is used for power generation, diesel is used at factories and manufacturing. Diesel is the single most important fuel in the world when it comes to keeping the economy running by far. And shortages in diesel can cause manufacturing to shut down, factories to shut down outrageous shipping costs. Like, it has massive inflationary impact globally. This isn't just in one country, this is a global economy. So, and even just this diesel ban that may happen, you're looking at a 50 cent a gallon jump in diesel prices. That trickles down to food costs and just the everyday items you buy just to live it, it impacts everything. It is the one input that has the largest impact on inflation is not having diesel or diesel being really expensive. It's the worst thing that can happen other than losing all your fertilizer, which
- [31:52]
C
is, you know, also Russia, Middle east, like a lot of the inputs for fertilizer come out of Russia as well as out of straight of Hormuz. So we're kind of double whammy that.
- [32:05]
A
Yeah, they produce a lot of natural gas, they produce a lot of urea, a lot of sulfur. So I, I hate to predict what that would look like because does a fall of Russia mean all fossil fuel exports stop? Like, like what exactly would happen there? You know, if they could keep some stuff going, it would be huge. And I, I don't think everything would just stop, but it would be greatly reduced. And I think that would have a huge impact mostly on the global economy.
- [32:37]
B
What would it take for us to be less reliant on diesel? Obviously that's a massive global effort, but for the US to be in any way less affected by this in decades to come, what would that look like? Is There. Is there any world in which we gradually decrease our dependency? Just curious out of the international impact of it or geopolitical impact of it?
- [33:02]
A
Yeah, I mean from an industrial standpoint, renewable power is the greatest thing that can replace diesel. It's going to be hard to replace diesel fired semi trucks anytime, even begin to make a dent in that. But renewable energy can absolutely replace a lot of the power generation that's required in an industrial setting and factories. Yes. And displace a lot of diesel. It's huge. Even the data centers are putting massive diesel generators as backup power. We're so reliant on diesel and it's so connected to oil even more than gasoline. So renewable power is a huge counter to our reliability on diesel.
- [33:51]
C
So I guess I have a question then that falls in line with that. I keep hearing this, this notion and I think we briefly touched just slightly on this in one of our first episodes. But if the United States is such a powerhouse in, in diesel, natural gas, oil, why, why is Russia coming off the. And I know the answer. I'm just setting you up so that you can explain to some of our listeners why exactly is this a problem for us if we are so star spangled awesome and self sufficient in building in our own oil infrastructure and our own gas and diesel infrastructure, especially with potentially Canada if we quit being assholes to them. I mean we have a great partnership with them usually. Why is this such a problem for us if Russia comes? Yeah, exactly. But yeah, and I'm hoping that, that it buffers us, but I don't think it will. Russia coming off the market is going to hurt everyone. Even if it's, even if it's like 25%. Why, why is that a problem?
- [34:58]
A
It's going to hurt. Why is it a problem? It would hurt.
- [35:02]
C
No. Yeah, but why, why can't.
- [35:03]
B
Why?
- [35:03]
C
Well, no, I'm saying why is it a problem for us? Why is Russia a problem for us when we're so energy independent? Is what I keep hearing from people all the time.
- [35:13]
A
Ah, yeah. Energy independence doesn't mean you have the right kind of energy. It just means your total energy portfolio is greater or production portfolio is greater than your total energy consumption portfolio. And it doesn't take into account the different types of energy you produce. The reason we're energy independent is because we produce an enormous amount of natural gas, a lot of which we don't use. We just send out of the country. We don't produce enough oil. We produce or we don't conserve enough diesel. When I talk about, you know, diesel usage in economies. How many homes, like especially in the northeast corridor of the United States, upper Midwest, how many of those homes are heated with heating oil and why? I mean, millions and millions. You know, that's basically diesel. A lot of people don't understand, don't realize that heating oil is just diesel fuel. And imagine if we were a country that made it easier for people to acquire solar at home. You know, a lot of things Nat works on and talks about a lot. Just imagine the, the amount of conservation and, and what we could save just in diesel fuel with just a little bit of solar. You know, especially in the northeast part of the country where everyone's reliant on heating oil, which is a very volatile fuel. You know, people message me all the time, when do I buy my heating oil? I'm like, I don't know, like that's totally a local supply and demand dynamic. Like that's not something you speak about on a national state. There's, there's an enormous gap there where we can take enormous strides towards reducing our diesel demand and you know, getting more people on solar energy just at home. You know, even if you're not talking about big renewable projects that, that power cities just at home, solar, especially in those areas or you know, things like that and batteries would have an enormous, put an enormous dent in our, in our diesel demand here in the United States. But we don't have a comprehensive energy policy here. We, we cater to whoever has the most money and is willing to give it to the politicians. So we're destroying renewable energy. We're trying to lift up coal, the, the most dying source of energy.
- [37:37]
C
Yeah, I just heard.
- [37:38]
A
Trying to lift up oil and gas. Yeah.
- [37:40]
B
Didn't just give another carve out for fossil fuel companies like today. We're recording this on Monday, June 29th, by the way.
- [37:49]
A
Yeah, it makes no sense to me that you wouldn't use all the tools in your toolbox when you're trying to fix something. Right? So we have this toolbox and it's full of tools. Some of the tools are good, Some of the tools are better than some of the other tools, but you need all of the tools to, to fix the thing that's broken properly. And we've thrown out half the tools in the toolbox. We've thrown out wind, we've thrown out solar, where our government is anti renewable energy. You know, they're trying to shut down existing projects and new projects. And it just makes no sense to me, especially during a time that the heat dome you know, passing over the upper Midwest and the Northeast corridor, and they call it the Mid Atlantic. It's going to hit the East Coast. People's electric bills in the Upper Midwest and Mid Atlantic and East coast are about to go insane with this heat dome. I'm telling you, they're going to be nuts. And I've made content today warning people how to prepare for that. There's no reason for that. There's absolutely no reason for that to be occurring in the United States right now.
- [38:48]
B
Yeah. And I don't want it to be incumbent on every consumer, but even, you know, we talked about this in the utility episode with Patrick Robbins, but the utilities are even fighting us on battery storage now. I think a lot of people don't understand this, but, I mean, people still say, oh, well, what do you. What do you do with solar energy at night? And it's like, buddy, that that era of, of solar failure is. Or, you know, solar having that weakness is gone because battery storage has gotten so much denser and more useful that, you know, we can charge these batteries during the day and then use them at times when the grid has a lot of stress on it or, you know, or use them at night or use them, you know, offset grid stress with batteries or power things at night with battery. And, like, obviously, solar isn't the only form of renewable, but it's becoming so much more feasible. And you made a great point in a previous episode that I keep thinking about, which is just, you know, we act like all these different sources, like, let's say nuclear and solar are somehow, yes, use every tool in your toolkit, but not every tool has the same ticket price, and not every tool is sitting on the shelf at the store ready to roll out. And, like, we don't have new nuclear plants ready to roll out. We have solar panels that are built already. We have solar panels that other countries are building. The. The sources of these renewable or sources of energy are not all equal in that, say, but of course, you know, we have an administration that is now literally just giving, you know, payouts to the fossil fuel industry in order to preserve it because they're Trump's donors. It's always been this way to some degree, but it seems a lot more transparent lately.
- [40:17]
A
Yeah. Have you ever wondered why there's not so, you know, there's a lot you can go to Rent a center. Have you ever heard of rent a center? Do they have.
- [40:26]
C
Yeah, we got. We have those here.
- [40:28]
B
Yeah. I could drive about 30 minutes outside of the city and C1 if we
- [40:31]
A
like, you can literally go rent furniture, right. And we can build solar farms with millions of solar panels. There's, there's an enormous amount of solar panels in this country. Why isn't there a country that just has a subscription model for solar where anyone can just say, hey, can you bring some solar panels over to my house for like 50 bucks a month and I'll just, you know, like a rental thing. Like it should be that easy. And that's not a thing that exists.
- [40:57]
C
You know, probably regulation. I bet you that's out regulated. That's why we can't like administrations like Trump say don't.
- [41:05]
A
Yeah.
- [41:05]
B
Solar bills are happening on a state level because obviously the federal government's not going to pass balcony solar. But apparently, you know, a lot of the utilities are getting in the way of the legality of letting people roll out. And again, I don't think it should come down to the individual consumer, but at this point normalizing solar is more important to me. Or having the, not just normalizing, but having the effects and taking the pressure off the grid and hopefully we can, you know, invest in that more people see it works. But yeah, no, I mean there is a. Talked about this. There's a program in New York that'll that basically lets you rent a battery for the summer. Some people are combining that with, with solar. But that's literally just plug it into your wall, charges at night, runs your AC during the day, take pressure off the grid. But these are, that's like an individual org that's doing that. These are not exactly, these aren't like even, even that big of a business. This is like one small New York org doing it. And I should find their name. But what I'm saying, that should be a service. Yeah, I mean, yeah.
- [42:03]
A
What I'm saying is the cost of solar is the lowest it's been in history yet if you want to install solar on your house, do you think that's the lowest it's been in history?
- [42:15]
B
No, it pays off in like 14 years or something.
- [42:18]
A
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like how is it possible that this has gotten so cheap for utility companies yet at the retail level? I still gotta, I still gotta write a $40,000 check, you know, and, and a lot of people can't connect the dots where, wait, I gotta write a $40,000 check to save money on my electric bill, which is, you know, and unless you're one of those forward thinking people that looks ahead and is like, hey, in five years I'll Start saving money. One, most people can't afford that. And two, the people that can don't care if they're thousand, if their electric bill's a thousand dollars a month because they have all kinds of money. Right. Like that's the, the big barrier. It's just the cost when it's currently cheaper than it's ever been. And I don't know how much cheaper it's going to get. Like it's really cheap right now, but to get it at home is still prohibitively expensive. And that's what doesn't make any sense to me.
- [43:13]
B
It'd be an interesting place for some policy of like where can a municipal or statewide government step into offset some of those costs even temporarily? Like, you know, like is it a loan that allows you to pay back in the amount that you save on your utility bill? Is there a program where we can get these into the hands of people without that initial investment? Because like you said, it is. It's expensive upfront. And I'll say my father has spent the past few years green ifying his, his home and has, you know, gotten rid of his oil heater and put in heat pumps which are just electric ac and heat. People don't necessarily know if it's just an electric heater. Yeah, basically a big space heater is what we, why, I don't know why we call them heat pumps. It's electric heat, but they also cool. So they're cooling pumps too. But he's putting heat pumps out the heat. Yeah, so does my body. I'm not a heat pump. But, but you know, and also I can't get cool. But, but the point being like he's installed all this stuff he put in solar panels. He got rid of his, his oil tank, you know, his, his oil burning furnace. And he did that stuff because he wants to save money eventually. But he's well aware of the fact that like the actual savings are a decade away. And he's doing it because it's the right thing to do. He doesn't want to burn oil to, you know, heat this whole house all the time. And I think that's great. Dad, if you're listening, good job. But like he is well aware of the fact that he's able to do that. And I walked down his street and his neighbors are not doing that. You know, maybe some of them have already, but I don't see any solar panels. And these are not necessarily people who are against green energy. But I don't blame them because this is either their it's either their only home and they don't want to make a huge investment in it, or they're older and maybe they won't see a profit for a long time, or maybe they just don't want a huge homeowner project. You know, there's a lot of, a lot of hurdles that are not philosophical, that are not disbelief in renewable energy that prevent people from doing this stuff. So I, I mean, I agree there has to be some. Not has to be. But I think a forward thinking Democrat perhaps could propose like a way to make this more feasible for consumers. If it's not a rental, you know, a loan, a stipend, something that makes it more possible for people to do this in a residential area. I mean, I live in an apartment building. It had to be on a balcony or a porch. But in a lot of cases, people have rooftops.
- [45:30]
A
Yeah. Or even little community solar projects that cover a couple of blocks. Right. Like they have those little local gardens, like community gardens, communities, solar. You know, there's a thousand ways to do it. But the thing is, we don't talk about it, we don't think about it, we don't, it's not a priority for us to save, to either conserve energy or to help and, and help make it cheaper for people to buy. And it's literally one of the things that we need the most, energy and water to just survive and keep breathing. And we have no discussion about it. It makes no sense to me.
- [46:08]
C
We're actually going backwards too. And I think what's interesting is I think the Trump administration is starting to see the writing on the wall of the danger of Russia coming off the, off the global stage, at least temporarily when it comes to their energy inputs, whether it's oil, natural gas, whatever they provide. And they're, we're seeing Trump talk again about coal, and that's so wild to me because that should not be our default. Coal should not be what we rely on when we have a major crisis. And the thing is, is like this is the only thing Russia can do. They produce nothing the world wants except for the crap they dig out of the ground. That's really all they have. And, and so I just, I think that instead of leaning on, on coal and saying, oh, we're gonna, we're gonna find an alternative to the potential Russia collapse, I think the Trump administration could lean forward and actually get some goodwill here by saying we're going to help Ukraine and also help Russia manage a potential catastrophe. They don't have to do it up front, they don't have to come out into the papers. And I know that's going to be real hard for Trump not to do, come out and say he was, he did something and get a headline. But that's kind of how diplomacy with Russia and to some respect, China works, is you, you go and we help Ukraine defeat Russia. But in the background, kind of like the Cold War, we say, hey, this is going to be a problem for you. You got yourself into this mess, but we're going to help you through it so that the world economy doesn't have problems, so that your nuclear weapons don't fall apart and end up in the wrong hands and things like that. And we have disasters there. And I think that would be a, at least the side where we're helping Ukraine would be a win to help people get over the debacle that is Iran. Because when you look at the, the polling on Iran, no one likes that. Like, the Republicans are the only ones that are over 50%. It's like 52% support Trump on Iran. His broad support is like 32%. It's so bad, Independents and Democrats just can't stand this, this war with Iran. Whereas Ukraine support for Ukraine is like 62% across the country. And I argue that it would be higher if Trump just said, I'm now going in all in for Ukraine, because there's those that are in his camp and we see it over and over again, that will just follow him, no matter. It's like 15% of people. Trump could say that, like, I'm going to eliminate the entirety of the vaccine program world or in the United States, and all of them will be like, cool. We agree. If he were to come out and say Ukraine is now a priority for us to win, that 15% will flip that switch. And so he'll instantly have above 75% support for that. And what'll happen is, I think if he can show that we're supporting Ukraine, that we're but in the background helping Russia, that he can manage this and come out before the 2028 election. There's not enough time for the midterms before the 2028 election. And say, and this is not me giving advice to Trump to get him elected. Let me just say that up front, this is just for the betterment.
- [49:24]
B
I mean, he listens.
- [49:25]
C
Yeah, he listens to this podcast. I got a phone call from the other day. But he's so, yeah. So if, if we can do that, he will actually earn some true foreign policy goodwill with our European Partners with our Canadian, partners with, with everyone on the global stage and domestically, the support is there as well. I just, he, I just don't think he can get over the fact that one, he has this love affair with Putin and two, whatever strange leverage Putin has over him, whether it was through his real estate deals that the Russians did before he became president, even his first term, or even if there's some kind of weird Epstein thing going on. So if he, I, I just feel like this is such a stupid, easy win for him. And I don't know why I feel like Rubio is probably telling him this, but he's just not doing it for his own personal reason. So, I mean, do you have any,
- [50:18]
B
do you guys have anything to do the thing he's never willing to do, which is admit being wrong?
- [50:22]
A
Right.
- [50:22]
C
Yeah.
- [50:23]
B
You have to navigate it in a way where he would say, as I've always been saying, we're backing Ukraine or something like, like there's no framing in which he can go even times have changed. I am now taking a different task. That's not usually within his vocabulary either.
- [50:37]
C
So he did it with Iran.
- [50:39]
B
I agree with you.
- [50:40]
C
But he, he, he went a 180 on Iran.
- [50:43]
B
True. Like he did at least a couple times actually.
- [50:46]
C
He's like, people take to the streets. Guess not. Never mind. He's like, we're going to overthrow this government up. Never mind. So I mean, and he, he, I mean, you're right. I think Russia.
- [50:56]
B
It just has to be that he continues to claim he's been right all along. He does constantly change messaging. You know what, he doesn't like flip on that kind of thing.
- [51:04]
C
If it means the U or if it means the US Helps Ukraine win, I'll be like, good job, Trump. Pat on the back. I'll give him that. Whatever. I mean, I guess I'm kind of bigger that way. I, I, I cut that out.
- [51:17]
B
If he does that out of the episode, please.
- [51:19]
C
Yeah, exactly. But I'm just saying if it leads to a Ukraine win, the world will be objectively safer. If that's the case and if it means poo or if it means Trump gets to do a small victory lap or even gets a stupid Nobel Peace Prize because he actually truly, not just half assed helped, but actually truly helped Ukraine. I think that that makes a difference because he does, he has the support from his, his, the country and MAGA will do whatever he, his, his like rabid MAGA following. We'll just do whatever he says anyway. So you're, it's going to be a win. He just isn't doing it.
- [51:54]
B
So, I mean, some percentage of that and also in addition to everything you're saying and how important that would be, the longer this lasts, those downstream, those second and third, fourth order consequences of this conflict on Russia, on Russia losing their energy supply, on, you know, as I said, all these consequences that are going to be felt mostly by the Russian people, those are multiplying, right? Like, the sooner this ends, that is a exponentially smaller effect on those people. Because a collapse is to some degree eventually inevitable. Russia won't last forever. But prolonging the current situation and exhausting their oil reserve, their diesel reserves, and, you know, further destabilizing, it's not, I don't think it's going to be proportionate. I think the longer that lasts, it's going to be an exponential pain on the Russian people when that inevitable collapse does happen.
- [52:44]
C
Yeah, Russia had the same problem as many of these types of countries. They get such. The country becomes so terrible that people don't want to have kids. So they were headed for a demographic collapse already. They, they have the. This is a country that had before this war and them killing a bunch of young men had the same population as they did 30 years ago. Their population just simply has not grown. And that is unsustainable as those people age out. It was going there, and you're right, they were going to collapse eventually. It's just Putin is accelerating it. And in the future, there could have been a managed collapse because Japan had a similar situation where it was, they were aging out, but they had a transition with the support of many nations because they, they went to their problem in a diplomatic, democratic way instead of just, the only way we can solve this is let's steal people from other countries. And so, yeah, I think you're right. It would have been a bigger problem. It would have been a problem down. Down in the future, but it would have probably been more manageable than what we're going to see. And unfortunately, you're right, it's going to cause way more suffering potentially on the same level as we're seeing in, in Middle Eastern nations as well.
- [53:55]
B
So. Well, if you guys are all right, I'd love to move on to our final segment, but does anyone have any closing thoughts on this before we move on?
- [54:07]
C
No, I just, I'll just say this. I think we are going to, we're going to see a lot more desperation out of the Kremlin. We're gonna. And I, again, I don't think it means nuclear weapons, but I do think it means terror, and I don't necessarily mean terror in the, in the aspect of, on the Ukrainian people. This. You have to remember that the Russians are a country that have conducted assassinations in other countries in the United Kingdom and Germany. This is Russia tried to firebomb a weapons plant in Germany. Russia is a country that supports cyber attacks on the United States. So as we get down this path of desperation, I think those are going to increase. And I truly, I truly hope that the United States manages it and Europe manages it in a way that is not just find a way to hit him back because that will excel if, if the, if NATO, the west gives Putin justification, I think he will find a way to. It's almost like the rabid dog in a corner situation just start biting everyone and that'll be atrocious for the Russian people and the global economy.
- [55:29]
A
So.
- [55:29]
C
But yeah, that's, I'll just kind of close on that not great note, which I guess transitions into that least worse, which is. Yeah.
- [55:37]
B
So a lot of things in our current climate end on a not great note, but that's why we're talking about them and leaving them open ended for whatever reason. Or not open ended for whatever reason open ended because whatever is yet to play out is all we can do is frame it right, right now. And I mean, I think you're right. I think that this is unlikely to be solved entirely through diplomatic solutions. But I hope that we are able to, I hope that the US Is able to be flexible in any way about this and minimize damage if we can. Because like I said, you know, the longer this conflict lasts, even with Ukraine winning, which I think we're all, you know, we're all excited and rooting for, it's still a war and it's still going to have these massive consequences on the civilian populace the longer it lasts. And on that cheerful note, as I always say, it's time to go to our final segment of the show where we highlight a slightly less negative, if not positive part of our week. And it's called the least worst part of my week. Well, it's been a big week in New York. It's hard to even focus on my favorite thing that happened. We are recording this on Monday. So for me, technically, in the past week, we have both had our primary day here in New York City, New York State, and we've both also here in New York City, had the Rent Guidelines board pass a historic rent freeze. Historic in that it is two years. It's for all rent controlled units here in New York. But I think, you know, it was great to have that momentum coming off the election. I want to focus a little more on the results of the election. I'm sure you're hearing because it's making national news, if not international news here. Zoran Mamdani's three candidates of choice at the congressional level all seized congressional seats. Also his endorsements down ballot in smaller races won and perhaps more importantly, I would say New York city DSA won nine out of 10 races and two more seats upstate, which is pretty incredible for an organization that has really only made national news in recent years. Obviously around Bernie Sanders and there was a lot of when he was running for president, DSA would get brought up a lot. But New York City DSA specifically has grown to 15,000 members in the past week. And I think what I want to say is not about the power of the organization, but I think my takeaway, the least worst part of my week, the thing that's giving me hope in all that, is that it's not only a rejection of ICE and AIPAC at the ballot. All these candidates who took AIPAC money were defeated. Espaya, who was both an AIPAC candidate who voted to fund ICE while a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, were all defeated. On the issues, there were a lot of traditional establishment Dem identity politics arguments against them. There are a lot of bad faith attacks on them. And ultimately people came out on the issues. They said, I don't want to send our money to Israel when we're starving at home. I don't want to fund cruel immigration laws. And a lot of them ran on energy specifically. A lot of them ran on building renewables, public utilities. You know, we talked about the Valdez campaign. Claire Valdez defeated Antonio Reynoso, not a horrible guy. But Claire Valdez, as we talked about on the show, had a plan for a federal public power utility and defeated him by, by, you know, a double digit margin by, by over 20 points. And I think what we're seeing specifically is not just that you can run on these issues and that people actually care about them and that framing them via affordability is important, but also that things like climate change and even socialism aren't a bad word. And you know, I, I listened to our, our flagship podcast on the network Find Out Media had an episode just this week where they talked about socialism and whether socialism is still a bad word. And I, I do have to respectfully disagree with their effort with their expert who they had on As a guest, David Fenton, because you know, he was quoting Don't Think of an Elephant, which is a 22 year old book with a pretty sexist frame of work, in my opinion, but talks about, oh well, when you say this thing, you know, people can't help but fixate on it. And I think we've, we've learned that when you try to describe democratic socialism, when you try to describe communitarianism, collectivism as from first principles and you're afraid of saying the words, you end up explaining the whole thing anyway. And I think what a lot of these candidates have done really well is said they don't deny being socialists, they don't deny being democratic socialists, but they say yes. And that is, that means that I want everyone to have a dignified life. I want everyone to be able to afford energy, health care, clean air. And it's not one or the other, it's not saying Democrats, as I think Democrats at this point have been so scared to advocate not only for socialism or socialist policies, but for like egalitarian policies, for anti climate change policies, for renewable energy. They just decide that everything's a bad word. They meet the, you know, they're so afraid, they think the electorate are babies. But you see these people running without backing down on the issues that people care about and all of a sudden voters are going, wait, we like this. And there's record voter turnout. So I think that for me, the least worst part of my week is not just that all these candidates won, but that they ran on renewable energy. And, and by, by specifically not backing down on these issues that establishment Democrats are just afraid to talk about and have capitulated on again and again. They just meet halfway. They meet halfway and the Overton window shifts so far to the right that we don't even recognize the party anymore. It's nice to see people running on effectively New Deal policies for the modern era and winning, winning elections. And I had a question that's the least work part of my week.
- [61:20]
C
I have a question. So do you, do you think this is a New York specific? Like this is an anomaly in New York because let's be honest, New York, I'm in Portland, Seattle, those are extraordinarily progressive cities relative to let's say like a Dallas or even like a Denver or something like that. Do you think this is, has staying power to go past New York? Because you're talking about. Yeah, like Democratic, social, the, the, the dsa, these, these, the socialist policies and things like that. Do you think it can explode outside of, of New York and move more mainstream into like the heart of the country. Be largely because people just are like, what was happening just isn't working anymore.
- [62:09]
B
Obviously, I think we're at a moment where that is more feasible than ever. I'm not going to pretend every city is like New York. I'm not going to pretend, oh yeah, what works here works everywhere. I think what does work here that will work everywhere is a focus on pragmatism and the idea that pragmatism and ideals are not mutually exclusive. A lot of the times Democrats will go, oh, those are great ideas, but they're just not pragmatic. And I think what, for example, the Mamdani administration has done well, is said, here are some pragmatic solutions to accomplishing our ideals. You know, some of them, making childcare affordable for people makes affordability greater overall because those people can suddenly afford to have a life and they have more free time. And they, you know, they're, they're not draining their costs into these day to day, you know, just the cost of living. And I think that we are at a rare point where Americans are go, you know, Trump ran on affordability and everything's gone up.
- [63:06]
C
Yeah.
- [63:06]
B
So Americans are becoming uniquely aware of the fact that they're being screwed left and right, that corporatism is just not working for us, that it's concentrated the wealth in an increasingly small number of people. Granted, I don't think that you can be like, oh, I'll run a Muslim socialist in rural Oklahoma necessarily, but it has given me a lot of faith. I personally, we have a podcast about global news. I pay attention to national and global news. But I personally, as an activist, try to focus on as local a level as possible with the faith that creating a functioning model somewhere is something that will inspire people to copy it elsewhere and figure out their version of it. That takes a lot of faith. When it feels like the presidential election has way more effect on the world than a state assembly member. I would say that the past two years of elections in New York or the past two elections, so basically a year, have given me a lot more faith that that strategy works, that we are building something here that people are gradually seeing, can work elsewhere, and people are going to. I think, you know, one of the most common responses to Mamdani is, wait, the mayor could have done this. The whole time people in other cities are going, wait, your mayor can provide these things. You can, you don't have to kowtow to real estate investors. You don't have to kowtow to the corporatists funding the party. And I think. And you can also openly reject AIPAC and still win as a Democrat. I think that is creating a blueprint that can work outside of New York. And can it work in red states? That's a different question. I will say that Mamdani won in districts that voted for Trump and I think probably what spoke to those people is the practical affordability agenda. I think in a lot of cases, you know, we talked about this on the show. Energy efficiency, conservation, these are not crazy left wing values. I mean conservation used to be a conservative value. It's right there in the, in the name, you know, the idea of like corporations ruining the land that you're entitled to should offend conservatives as well. You know, like the idea that Tesla Space X rather has taken over a wild is trying to take over a wildlife preserve. That should anger you as a Republican whose tax dollars pay to preserve the wildlife in your country. America. You know, so I think yes, obviously there's going to be a huge amount of corporate and conservative and establishment Dem hand wringing about oh my God, these are communists taking over. But to loop back to David Fenton on find out he said people will shut down if you say socialism to him. 57% of Democrats have a positive impression of socialism right now and that's grown in the past year and it's trending upwards. It's not true with Republican voters yet. But shying away from these terms and shying away from these policies hasn't worked. It hasn't worked for 50 plus years. And so I do think it gives me hope that no, this exact model can't work everywhere, but these issues matter everywhere. And I think people are learning that addressing the issues head on rather than telling voters as Democrats always do, you're being unrealistic that actually saying no, we are going to fight for you, we're going to fight for your exact concerns and we hear them. That's the winning model. That's what actually works. So that's what gives me hope for other more conservative or non New York areas because New York is unique. But this model can work elsewhere.
- [66:27]
C
Yeah, I only asked because I kind of got raked over the coals by some of the comments. Yes, I do read the comments. I don't know if everyone else does, but I actually try to respond.
- [66:36]
B
I never do.
- [66:37]
C
I know, but I try to respond to the comments.
- [66:38]
B
No, no, no, no, no, Chad.
- [66:40]
C
So someone on Spotify left a comment that I need to get off the fence. On capitalism, like either I'm a capitalist or I'm not. And I'm like, I don't think it's binary. I think if you look up Nordic models, they have social democracy with welfare capitalism. And I think if I'm saying that if I'm looking at the Mamdani model, it's not the boogeyman socialism. What he's essentially describing is what we see in these Denmark, Norway, Sweden models where it is you have the welfare support, but they have privately owned businesses, they have market economies. These are country or the countries that are democratic, but it is a social democracy so the people have more power. And there is a welfare capitalism so that you don't have people lie in the streets. And what ends up happening is you have some of the happiest people on the planet live in those countries. Some of the most productive people on the planet live in those countries. People that are secure in their lives. And so I just, I think a good way and I try, I try to reframe it and I'm not an expert in this. I'm newly moderate to the left because I've seen the light, so to speak, over the last 10 years, roughly. And I try to frame it to people as it's not socialism, it is a combination of social democracy with welfare capitalism. And I know welfare can be a boogeyman word as well, but I think that's more palatable where it's like, yeah, we're all still capitalists, we all still have our own businesses. My wife has her tea business, all of my friends have their businesses. But we make sure that people aren't lying in the street, that veterans don't need SNAP benefits, that veterans are taken care of and are able to get SNAP benefits that trying to take away things like that. So I just, it was, it's just fascinating to see. I just, I, I, I just hope that it does expand like you're saying, because I do think that this Nordic model, this, where they still have their businesses and they still have their millionaires, they don't have nearly the propensity of billionaires probably for that's probably good. But they still, you can still get rich.
- [68:46]
B
Parity. We have by. No, yeah.
- [68:49]
C
That you can still get rich with famous people. Yeah. And you can, but you can, but the average person is happy and not scared of starving or losing their home, essentially. So yeah, I think that's a good way to frame it.
- [69:03]
B
I would prefer to go farther left than a basic social democracy, but this isn't some sort of like sleeper Manchurian Candidate effect to get us to turn into communists all of a sudden. This is like again like bringing America back to the pre1970s tax code. Right. Like we want, we want people Eisenhower a Republican corporations to pay their fair share. Yeah, I mean, exactly. And you're talking about like you know, social welfare and all these things. We already have welfare, we just only have it for the upper tax bracket. If a corporation fails, we give them money. Even if they don't fail, we, corporate welfare is massive. I mean, I don't know if people realize this, but we give corporations money to do R and D for the idea that they'll develop, you know, products that will stimulate the economy. We constantly bail out failing corporations, but we also give millions if not billions in corporate welfare to companies just to, you know, Reagan style trickle down economics. Even though we know that doesn't work. That's the cronyism in our, in our system. So we're not even talking about going to like a worker owned model of economics. We're talking about evening things out so that people have a safety, have a social safety net, have the, you know, I wonder if people realize that the work week in France is 34 hours and that you get paid overtime mandatory. Like we've all adopted in america this like 40 to 80 hour work week. The idea that like benefits are a blessing if you get any benefits whatsoever. And like no, your job shouldn't be tied to your health insurance. You should be able to afford health care no matter what because you're a human being, not just because you live in the wealthiest nation in the history of nations, but or wealth, but because you're a person and you know, being, living a dignified life should be a right that we can provide to everyone. So I don't think like, I mean you say the Nordic countries, most, most Western European countries have some form of social democracy and they're not all sitting on the oil and gold that the Nordic countries are sitting on. It does help them to have natural resources. But a lot of Western European countries have a functional model of this. They're not anti capitalist. I am, I'll tell you right now, I'm anti capitalist. Capitalism is the thing that got us in this situation, but structuring it can provide, you know, prosperity to an entire population.
- [71:08]
C
Yeah.
- [71:09]
B
And we, the idea that we need to just let things run wild I think has proven, we've seen what the end result of that is and there's no, you know, it's not going anywhere any other Direction all of a sudden. If we take our hands off the wheel again.
- [71:21]
A
Yeah. May I retort?
- [71:24]
B
Go ahead. Yeah.
- [71:25]
A
Are you sure you're anti capitalist?
- [71:29]
B
Yes.
- [71:30]
A
Okay. Because here's my take on this.
- [71:32]
B
Okay.
- [71:32]
A
This is just my take. I think most people in this country believe that we live under this capitalist system. And we don't. We are.
- [71:42]
B
I think we have a socialist system for the upper class.
- [71:45]
A
We are. We are looking. Yeah. We are looking at a corporatocracy and we're calling it capitalism.
- [71:52]
B
Okay. That I will accept. Yes, I see what you're saying.
- [71:54]
A
A corporatocracy can be born from capitalism, but it is not capitalism.
- [72:00]
B
I would argue it's the adult.
- [72:02]
A
Yeah, we are 1,000%. A corporatocracy is what we are. That is where the corporations have enormous political influence over the government. And that is exactly what we have. People get scared and they're like, what's the matter? You're not a capitalist anymore? And I'm like, no, I'm still a capitalist. I just don't believe in corporatocracies where you give the corporate corporations so much power that they literally wield that power over the government and oppress the people. And that is exactly what this country is right now. We can argue the details of that till the cows come home, but you cannot argue if. If you just look up. Let me just read it for you real quick, because I wanted to get a good. A corporatocracy is a situation where large corporations have outsized influence over the government and public policy. Is that what we have?
- [72:57]
B
Yeah, I mean, that's where large corporations
- [73:00]
A
have political influence to reduce competition. Is that what we have? Yes. It's where the government and major corporations often have a close, mutually reinforcing relationship. Musk. And it's also where. Yeah, it's also.
- [73:16]
B
I'm raising my eyes for the audio listener.
- [73:19]
A
It's also where established corporations gain advantages through lobbying, regulation, subsidies, and preferential treatment.
- [73:27]
B
I think that's.
- [73:27]
A
I just named you the four pillars of a corporatocracy, and I described the United States economic system to a T. So. And I. You know, we've been taught our whole lives that. That socialism, communism, all those things are horrible. I'm a capitalist, but I'm not a corporatist. And that's what we have now. You know, people can't come to terms with that. People don't want to admit that we've given the corporation so much power that this is literally like this bastardized version of capitalism. We Live in. But that's exactly what it is. We don't live in a capitalist system the way it was intended to be. We, this is something totally different than what we had in the 40s and 50s.
- [74:14]
B
Oh absolutely. I would just argue that this is what capitalism eventually does. Like.
- [74:20]
A
Oh it certainly may. Yeah.
- [74:22]
B
That invisible hand Adam Smith. Not our Adam Smith, not our former podcast guest Adam Smith. That invisible hand theory of everything equalizing the invisible hand is high fiving all the rich guys right now. Like that's. I, I totally agree with you. We live in a corporatist system and it's what happens when you don't regulate capitalism and you can look to Western Europe and like you know, like Chad said the Nordic States, Scandinavia to go oh. And that's what happens when you do regulate it. You can create prosperity.
- [74:50]
C
Yeah. It all goes back to this. Oh, go ahead, Matt.
- [74:55]
A
No, I was just going to finish with. I would tell people that are so afraid of socialism if you don't want that and you're afraid of that, then don't create conditions that makes people want that and need that. And that's exactly what this corporatocracy has done. The corporatocracy has enabled the dsa, the Democratic Socialists of America. That is what has enabled them to have these victories in New York. People are fed up with the system and they're confusing it with, with this sort of old capitalism which is not what we are anymore. Go ahead.
- [75:33]
B
No, I mean even the idea of like upward mobility doesn't really exist anymore unless you go viral on TikTok or something. And even that doesn't really work.
- [75:44]
C
They, they, they like lead. Yeah Matt.
- [75:48]
B
Except for prime example.
- [75:50]
C
But it's, and they do a good job of conflating what is the truly democratic socialism and the welfare capitalism with what was ostensibly atrocious Soviet communism that was. But that it's almost like what we have on the capital side with corporatism where it's this these corporations are dominant in our system is similar to how the Kremlin ran the communist system on the complete pendulum. When you talk about socialism in the modern era, it's actually more moderate, it's actually more in the middle than what we experience here in the United States versus what they experienced in communism which is what the, the, the right will use as the boogeyman, the Trojan horse to say well you can't, you don't want anything with the word socialist in it because you will eventually end up with the Berlin Wall collapsing and, and gulags I mean it's so extreme. And I think a lot of this stems back to unfortunately a singular point in our, in our government when the Supreme Court decided Citizens United States and that Citizens United where they allowed political speech. Now to be clear, it does. Citizens United did not allow corporations to donate directly to candidates, but they're allowed to form these massive unions together where they just pile their money in and
- [77:20]
B
it effectively does the same thing.
- [77:21]
C
Yeah, it's the same, it's the same thing. Let's be honest. It's the same thing. And it gives them their quote unquote air quotes on the video first amendment protection to, that's free speech for them to form these unions and dump money. And this is why we're about to see elon Musk dump $500 billion or excuse me, $500 million into Pro Maga candidates for midterms. We're going to see him and it's a bargain for him. Of course he's going to dump that much money because you know what happens? These candidates turn around and go, here you go, here's Your, here's your SpaceX contract, here's your. Teslas are going to be all of our government vehicles. Here's your subsidies, here's your. And that's what happens. And I think this singular point with Citizens United has driven so much terribleness and in what Matt is describing, this corporatist, this corporation driven system, economic system we have because corporations are going to have more money than the average citizen. That's just the way to get. They're just filthy rich. But when they have that, unfortunately it means that they can dump money into candidates as they're going to promise them the contracts and the tax breaks and the, and all this stuff. And unfortunately the only way out of that is to find a way to like do the Mamdani effect, show the people with a good ground game that this, these models that are coming out of Western Europe or the Nordic models, they help the people. The corporations aren't. And I think you're right, Ned. I think that it is going, we are getting to a point where the eyes are opening and it's just simply because the pain is becoming too great on the average American. The middle class is being destroyed and that just can't happen forever.
- [79:06]
B
So yeah, I mean it's the first downwardly mobile generation of middle class Americans. Right. And my generation, our generation. And I think, yeah, what works in New York, works in New York to a certain degree. You have to find a version of it that works elsewhere. But yep, I think a lot of the hand, you know, when, when mom Donnie won the primary, everyone was like, oh, he's, you know, he's a communist jihadist who's going to do 9, 11 and also hates capitalism. Okay. These are not, these are kind of conflicting ideologies. You're spitting at me. But sure, sure, he's gonna, he's gonna tank our economy. He's gonna do all these things. Well, you know, why do I think this can work elsewhere? Because six months in, a lot of his haters have become defenders. Six months in, people are seeing the material results very quickly. I mean those major, I talked about the rent board guidelines, you know, the, the signature campaign promises, child care and the rent freeze have been accomplished. They're opening, you know, they're working on the city run grocery stores. Obviously the platform was much broader than all that stuff, but I think they were right to be like, hey, here's a few things we can accomplish for the people in the short term that are going to make a big difference. And there are. And you know, the potholes thing is so funny to me because it wasn't part of the campaign. One of the first things they did was just a major quality of life improvement. They filled in about 30,000, 40,000 potholes and it made life in the city better. A lot of the people who are in driving parts of the city are not the most progressive left leaning parts of the city driving. Brooklyn, Queens, Staten island are generally more conservative voting places. And you know, they did this thing that improved their lives too. Improved my life as well. But it all, you know, it's not just for leftists, it's for everyone in the city. It's for everyone. You know, there's parts of New York City that you would look at and say are suburbs. They're not on the public transportation, you need a car to be there. They're still part of the city. But I think for the average person who doesn't live here, they wouldn't read that as what New York City looks like. A lot of these people live in houses, have cars and their lives are being improved. Their lives are not that far that different from your life in a car culture. I think looking at how do we materially improve circumstances versus how do we sell people on a term. We shouldn't back down linguistically. I think these rhetorical tricks are insulting to voters. But I also think you can't just be like, well, we're Democrats, so we're right. We are socialists, so we're right. No we're socialists, so we are doing these specific steps to make material change. And I think that's, you know, that's. That's more of an effective strategy. And people are slowly waking up to this idea that, you know, anytime you say socialism, people go, oh, it's communist Russia. Well, first of all, socialism and communism are two different things.
- [81:37]
C
Yeah.
- [81:37]
B
But second of all, there's always that argument of like, oh, did it work in Venezuela? Did it work in Cuba? And it's like, no, because the US Imperialism directly manipulated and ruined communism in those countries. I'm not saying communism is the perfect system, but the examples are always places that the US has intervened in. And, like, you want to be like Cuba. I'm like, do I want to have universal health care and high literacy rates kind of, you know, in spite of American intervention? Do I. Do I want to have good rum, high literacy rates and universal health care? I mean, cigars. Yeah, a little cigars.
- [82:11]
A
Can we have cigars?
- [82:13]
B
Cigars. You know, I know that's the thing
- [82:17]
C
is it's like, you look at Mom Donnie, and, you know, how I can.
- [82:20]
B
Communism so bad. How come it produces so many good baseball players?
- [82:22]
C
I know, exactly.
- [82:23]
B
Sorry.
- [82:24]
C
Well, how I talk about, like, Mom Donnie. You know how I can tell Mom Donnie's doing well. He's getting the Obama truck treatment. He's getting the brown suit selfie stick, is what it is. Like, instead of. Instead of hitting him at policies like, they could never really hit Obama on policy. So they're like, he wore a brown suit which undermines the president. Yeah, yeah. He's using a. He's using a selfie stick, which is embarrassing. And now the latest thing was mom Donnie's jumping into a pool. And then we're just like, just.
- [82:52]
B
Just shut up. Like this, too. That's so funny.
- [82:54]
C
I know. And I'm like. And that's where they're at, is like, he's doing things that. And the only thing they can do is talk about how he weirdly jump. He jumps into a pool. And one person even froze and was like, who jumps into a pool like this? And I'm like, shut up. Like, this is stupid. So, yeah. No, Yeah.
- [83:12]
B
I try not to give too much attention to the detractors because they're. I mean, it's fun. They're spinning out. But I think, much like the administration, the strategy is to not get caught up in the dialogue or the terminology. No. Don't let your enemy set the terms. You know, he's not going. Actually, here's why it's good that I wore that suit. He's going, well, I want New Yorkers to go to the pool, and I wanted to show them that the pools are open. You know, you just stay on message. And I think that's. That's how you win back the terminology, too. You know, socialism became a bad word again. Not anymore. Not among Democrats. And it's trending that way with Republicans. Even so, I think you just stay the course and you focus on meeting people's needs. Seems pretty obvious.
- [83:52]
C
What you got?
- [83:53]
B
That's the least worst part of my week. Matt. What is the least worst, worst part?
- [83:56]
C
25 minutes later. But yeah.
- [83:58]
A
Oh, man. Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel. Is that his name? It's been so long, I forgot who it was.
- [84:08]
C
And his wife an hour ago.
- [84:10]
A
Miranda. No, I'm just kidding. Evan Spiegel and his wife, Miranda Kerr, who is apparently a supermodel, paid the medical debt for over a quarter million people in California to the tune of $550 million. And so I wanted to say that's pretty cool. And it's proof that not all billionaires are monsters, if that's what you. I think Nat probably still thinks he's a monster, but I certainly appreciate the fact that this man don't know his background, don't know where he came from, but I know he's a billionaire now. The fact that he would pay off the medical debt, which is a huge burden for Americans. Medical debt is massive for a quarter million people in California. I thought that was really cool and so cool. Kudos to that guy.
- [84:59]
B
I'm not going to be against him doing that.
- [85:02]
A
No, I don't think you're against him doing that.
- [85:04]
B
No, No. I mean, I like when Bill Gates tried to end malaria, even if he turned out to be in the Epstein files. But, you know, it's great when billionaires do great things. There's no way that an enormous amount of power means they do other evil things. I think that's. No, I think it's awesome. I think anyone who received that is going to be happy. And yeah, I guess his. His wife is a supermodel. I'm also hearing about this for the first time.
- [85:22]
A
And if you just do the math on the number of people and the amount of money, this was an enormous amount of debt for these families.
- [85:29]
B
Oh, my God.
- [85:30]
A
Yeah, an enormous amount of debt. Like, the average is thousands of dollars. You know, I think the average was what, over $2,000 per person. But, you know, a lot of those were like 20, $30,000 bills, and a lot of people had smaller ones. So I think that's.
- [85:47]
B
Well, not only that, but like for the debt. Forgiven debt can be purchased for less than it can. And this isn't always true, but medical debt, you know, the rolling debt jubilee did this. It's a little misleading because they were buying expired debt, but a lot of people, it is possible to pay. You know, the way our broken system works, if you don't understand, you can buy other people's medical debt as an investment, but usually it doesn't. You don't actually get the full bill back. So $550 million actually goes farther than that in paying off people's medical bills. It could go five to ten times as much because you can actually buy debt for cheaper than the amount the person owes. So it probably actually had a multiplicative effect.
- [86:22]
C
Yeah.
- [86:22]
A
And what he did was he gave this money to a nonprofit called Undue Medical Debt and they distributed it out. So you're probably exactly right. It was probably debt that was purchased for pennies on the dollar and was actually a much larger amount than what was originally owed. So he likely wiped out billions of dollars worth of medical debt with that 550 million, like you pointed out.
- [86:45]
B
That's amazing.
- [86:46]
A
Yeah.
- [86:46]
B
Well, good for him, Chad. Well, mine is part of your week.
- [86:50]
C
Mine is a personal item. Many people who follow me know that I have four kids. I'm a blended family. My wife brought her two kids to the relationship, and they've been my kids for I. They were one and two when I got. I started. I met my wife and they've called me dad ever since the beginning. And we made it legally official in the courts on Thursday. This past Thursday, I officially adopted my two stepchildren. And they are now my absolute children through and through. I actually made sure that on the. In Idaho. And I don't know if this is how it works everywhere, but on the form, we're allowed to check a box that says, I don't want it to show that they were adopted on the birth certificate. So I made sure that I wanted them to be equal with my biological children because I have two biological children that are mine. So we added two new little Scots to the. To the household. And my broader family is over the moon about that. My parents, her parents, were all very excited. So not a. Not a big world altering thing for everyone, but it was a world altering thing for myself, those two little kids, my wife and my entire family. So I just super excited for that. And that was not. It wasn't even the least. That was the best part of my week, so
- [88:14]
A
congratulations.
- [88:15]
C
Well, thank you.
- [88:16]
B
Yeah. And no need for the caveat, even to make it philosophical. Making your corner of the world important is the most, you know, better is the most important thing you can do for yourself, for everyone around you and even to multiply outward. But I, you know, you. No need to say this doesn't have an impact for it to be important. Chad, that's awesome. Congratulations.
- [88:35]
C
Yeah, thank you very much. We're excited.
- [88:38]
A
Adoption is the greatest gift. And I didn't know that they were
- [88:43]
C
Scottish, so, funny story. We're not. We are not. So my father was adopted, and we
- [88:50]
B
have not married a Scottish woman. I didn't know that.
- [88:53]
C
We have not a lick of Scottish in us whatsoever. It's where last name is Scott.
- [88:57]
B
That'd be a 1T, right?
- [88:59]
C
Well, it's so funny because. Well, no, there is the Scott clan, and we have the Scott crest, but my father was adopted, so he was adopted into the Scott. So it's. There's this irony of us being the Scots and not having any Scottish whatsoever as a heritage. Pretty and like. It is. It's pretty, like. So even though we are the Scott family, we are not Scottish whatsoever. Not even a little bit.
- [89:23]
B
So maybe you need to invent your own tartan, though, I'm thinking.
- [89:26]
C
There you go. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, we stay colors. There you go. Yeah. We claim the Scott clan part of it because we were adopted into it through my father. But we'll figure something out.
- [89:38]
B
Yeah.
- [89:39]
A
Yeah.
- [89:40]
B
Well, congratulations, Chad and Blank Scott and other Blank Scott whose names I won't say on the air.
- [89:46]
A
Okay, sounds good.
- [89:47]
B
So, Nat, because I don't know them,
- [89:49]
A
Nat will be expecting a sort of similar announcement next week from you, because my announcement was last week. Chad had an announcement.
- [89:58]
B
You're right. I got to expand the family.
- [89:59]
A
So you got to do something. You gotta. You gotta step up.
- [90:03]
B
All right, well, I'm gonna adopt two children by next week. You heard it here first on the podcast, but of course, that's Monday, so it'll actually be done by the time you listen to the podcast. It'll be only five days from the point of this recording. So if you're listening to this, I have five days to find two children. And if anyone has any they don't want, you can leave a comment on our YouTube video. I won't read them, but Chad will. And you have listened to the American Power podcast. I'm Nat Townsend, your host for Chad Scott and Mr. Global. We'll see you all next week. And always remember, power corrupts, but American power corrupts Americanly.