Trump vs Zelensky, Epstein List Letdown, Stephen A. Smith for President?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh Episode Title: Trump vs Zelensky, Epstein List Letdown, Stephen A. Smith for President?
Release Date: March 4, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of "Andrew Schulz's Flagrant with Akaash Singh," host Andrew Schulz and co-host Akaash Singh delve into a myriad of contemporary political and social issues with their signature unfiltered and unapologetic style. The discussion primarily revolves around the tense dynamics between former President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the underwhelming revelations from the Epstein list, and the speculative prospect of sports commentator Stephen A. Smith running for the presidency.

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1. Trump vs. Zelensky: A Diplomatic Showdown

Timestamp: [05:53]

The episode opens with an in-depth analysis of a high-profile meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky. Akaash Singh provides a comprehensive breakdown, highlighting Zelensky's animosity towards JD Vance, a U.S. senator known for his opposition to increased military aid to Ukraine.

Notable Quote: Akaash Singh explains, “[...] JD Vance was making a statement about bringing peace, and Zelensky couldn't tolerate it,” emphasizing the escalating tensions during their interaction. [05:53]

Key Points:

• Conscription Controversy: Zelensky's frustration stems from Ukraine's forced conscription policies, targeting older males (ages 25-27), which parallels historical instances like Nazi Germany's militarization.
• Economic Dependencies: Ukraine's heavy reliance on U.S. and European aid is scrutinized, with Akaash questioning the strategic interests of the U.S. in supporting Ukraine beyond ideological motives.
• Diplomatic Failures: The potential pitfalls of peace agreements lacking robust security guarantees, especially in the context of fluctuating U.S. administrations and their foreign policies.

Timestamp: [18:05]

Andrew Schulz and Akaash discuss Zelensky's disrespect towards the U.S. Oval Office protocols, particularly Zelensky's refusal to wear a suit, which Trump publicly criticized. This moment is identified as pivotal, marking a loss of diplomatic goodwill and further straining U.S.-Ukraine relations.

Notable Quote: Andrew Schulz remarks, “That line was where he lost everything,” referring to Zelensky’s aggressive stance during the meeting. [18:05]

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2. U.S. Military Aid to Ukraine: Analyzing the Impact

Timestamp: [15:01]

The conversation shifts to the significant military aid the U.S. has provided to Ukraine, totaling $67 billion. Akaash Singh scrutinizes the effectiveness of this aid, questioning whether it genuinely bolsters Ukraine's defense capabilities or inadvertently strengthens Russia's position.

Key Points:

• Aid Efficacy: Despite the massive financial support, Ukraine's military challenges, including aging soldiers and high casualty rates, raise doubts about the sustainability of prolonged conflict.
• Trade Deals vs. Military Support: Akaash advocates for strategic trade agreements, such as controlling Ukrainian rare earth minerals, as a means to secure U.S. interests without overextending military commitments.
• European Union's Role: The EU's substantial expenditure on Russian oil, surpassing their aid to Ukraine, is critiqued as counterproductive to Western solidarity.

Timestamp: [27:35]

The hosts discuss the broader implications of U.S. foreign policy, emphasizing that America’s actions are often driven by economic interests rather than purely ideological ones.

Notable Quote: Akaash Singh asserts, “All relations between states come down to trade. That is a fundamental insight.” [27:35]

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3. Russia's Strategy and Global Geopolitics

Timestamp: [38:11]

Akaash delves into Russia's persistent military strategies and its utilization of nuclear capabilities as deterrents against Western intervention. The discussion underscores Russia's historical context of enduring massive population losses and its cultural stoicism in warfare.

Key Points:

• Population and Military: Russia's large population and history of resilience in war situations enable it to sustain prolonged conflicts.
• Nuclear Deterrence: The existence of 9,000 nuclear weapons acts as a significant barrier against direct Western military intervention.
• Geopolitical Leverage: Despite economic sanctions, Russia's control over essential resources like oil and its strategic alliances complicate global efforts to counter its aggression.

Timestamp: [42:17]

The conversation highlights the complexities of NATO membership for Ukraine and how it would trigger Article 5, potentially leading to nuclear warfare— a scenario neither side desires.

Notable Quote: Akaash Singh explains, “Zelensky wants full NATO membership, but that would mean Article 5 gets triggered, leading to nuclear war.” [42:17]

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4. The Epstein List Letdown

Timestamp: [133:32]

The episode briefly touches upon the controversy surrounding the Epstein list, critiquing the mishandling and dissemination of information purportedly containing high-profile individuals involved in illicit activities.

Key Points:

• Public Availability: Akaash points out that much of the Epstein-related information was already public, rendering the new releases largely redundant.
• Media Sensationalism: The mishandling of the documents, including misleading links and trivializing serious allegations, undermines the gravity of the situation.
• Call for Accountability: Akaash advocates for granting immunity to key figures like Alex Acosta to uncover the truth behind Epstein's connections and the alleged cover-ups by intelligence agencies.

Notable Quote: Akaash Singh criticizes the release strategy, stating, “They turned this into a meme. The whole point is not a meme.” [133:32]

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5. Stephen A. Smith for President?

Timestamp: [125:49]

The hosts explore the unconventional idea of sports commentator Stephen A. Smith running for the U.S. presidency, considering his communication skills and star power as potential assets.

Key Points:

• Communication Prowess: Stephen A. Smith’s ability to engage and rally audiences is seen as a critical trait for political leadership.
• Outsider Advantage: Similar to how Trump leveraged his outsider status, Stephen A. could use his non-traditional background to appeal to a wider electorate.
• Cultural Resonance: The hosts debate whether Smith's persona aligns with the current political climate and voter expectations, ultimately expressing skepticism about his viability as a serious contender.

Notable Quote: Andrew Schulz muses, “He has the communication skills and he has the star power because you do need the star power.” [125:49]

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Conclusion

Throughout the episode, Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh maintain their characteristic candor, dissecting intricate geopolitical issues with a blend of humor and critical analysis. They challenge prevailing narratives, urging listeners to question the efficacy of U.S. foreign interventions, media handling of significant scandals, and the potential for unconventional candidates in high-stakes political arenas. The discussion underscores the complexities of international relations and the interplay between economic interests and ideological commitments in shaping global policies.

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Note: Advertisements, promotional segments, and non-content discussions present in the transcript have been excluded to focus solely on the substantive topics covered during the podcast episode.

Transcript

[Andrew Schulz]

Flager family. Hello. How are you? I'm very excited for this episode, not only because of our illustrious guests, but also because right now, March 4th, my Netflix special Life is streaming currently right now. You can go watch it. You can watch it right now. You can watch it after the episode, halfway through, however you want, whenever you want. I just want to say thank you so much to everybody who came out to the tour. Thank you so much. Everybody came out to the tapings. I'm really proud of this piece, man. I worked really hard on it, and I hope you go and you get something out of it. You get some laughs, get some feels, and. And if you want to spread the word about it, that'd be amazing. That'd be incredible. Let's blow this thing up, man. Let's blow it the fuck up. Let's set some records. I wanna set some damn records. So spread the word. Scream it from the rooftops. And again, thank you guys so much for all the support throughout this entire process. I love y'all. Now let's start the show. What's up, everybody? Welcome to Flagrant. Today we are joined by, I would say, the perfect guest to explain all the chaos happening around us. We have Sagar in the building.

[Akash Singh]

Thanks for having me.

[Mark Gagnon]

What's up?

[Andrew Schulz]

We have a lot of things we need to discuss. We got Zinsky.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

And Trumpito and Vance. Vance making a big move. The tape. Brothers coming back to Danny. Y brothers coming back to the west. Shout out the West.

[Akash Singh]

Welcome home.

[Andrew Schulz]

Welcome home. They're like the new clip.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Whatever y'all said about Britney Griner, y'all better keep that same energy. Yes or no.

[Eddie]

A weed pen versus human traffic that though they're innocent.

[Andrew Schulz]

What I'm saying is you call Daddy when you get in trouble abroad.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Muslim refugees.

[Akash Singh]

We have enough Muslim refugees coming.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Trump would put an end to this.

[Andrew Schulz]

Another great point. If you got an issue with the Muslim migrants, keep that same energy.

[Akash Singh]

That's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now, what we can say on this pod is that's an American struggling abroad that needs our help, and we got to go protect dual American, though.

[Akash Singh]

He's a dual citizen.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's an American.

[Akash Singh]

He's happy. He's American. He's also Romanian. So it's like, well, which law triumphs?

[Andrew Schulz]

American? What's your American? You always American.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. All right. That's like in Rome, it's like he. If. When you have the ro. When you are a Roman citizen, nobody with you.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Do you guys ever watch the HBO's Rome? Do you know what I'm talking about. No, there's a great. I'm. Spoiler alert. Sorry. I came out 20 years ago. So get where I think it was. It was Pompeii. Got his head cut off by. I think it was Cleopatra or the Egyptians. And Caesar arrived and they're like, we cut his head off and they're expected him to be happy. And they're like, nobody executes a Roman citizen except for another Roman citizen.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's fire.

[Akash Singh]

I love that.

[Andrew Schulz]

I like that. Yeah. So we are the Ghost. So if you're American, you're American always. That's the rule.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. All right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Even if you go get that other.

[Akash Singh]

We are an imposter. Might as well start acting like the room.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yes. Like, let's be honest. If you saw two passports at the airport and one was the American one, and then the other one was like, magenta, whatever colors the other people's passport. Which one are you taking?

[Akash Singh]

I'm taking America. I mean, I don't even believe in dual citizenship, to be clear. So I think. I don't even think it should be allowed.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can I go one further?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, go ahead.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't even believe we need passports.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. Why not? Oh, it's Americans. Yeah, you're right.

[Andrew Schulz]

We're coming back. Don't ask me what I tell them.

[Akash Singh]

You go to Thailand and they're like, you got to hit 45 days. I'm like, I like it know, but I'm coming home.

[Andrew Schulz]

$20. You shut up. I don't want to hear nothing from no official anywhere in the world.

[Akash Singh]

You're totally right.

[Andrew Schulz]

We should be able to go wherever the we want. It's insulting when I show up to even Canada and they ask people about basketball, especially I feel insult. How long are you going to stay? As long as I please. As long as I please.

[Akash Singh]

We are in the 51st state now, so.

[Andrew Schulz]

Listen, Greenland. I don't even know if I want Greenland the way they're acting.

[Akash Singh]

You want Greenland?

[Andrew Schulz]

No, no, no, no, no. But the way they're acting, I did want to give them the opportunity to be the fact that I don't see a lot of, like, tweets on like, Greenland Twitter or whatever like that. I need to see more energy and excitement.

[Akash Singh]

Why not? I mean, they wore their MAGA hats for Trump Jr. How did they really? Well, I mean, there's controversy around it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why not?

[Akash Singh]

Well, because they're saying that they rounded up a bunch of homeless Greenlanders and gave them mag hats. I don't know if that's true. They say I Think there's homeless Greenlanders? That's what I was thinking. I was like, there's only 50,000 of you. It's a huge place.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's not that hard. Greenland. Great. We're going to give a quarter pound of whale blubber to anybody who wants to join America. Okay, you can cut it open with that little.

[Akash Singh]

What is it, 50, 50,000? $1,000,000 each. How much is that? I mean, what is that, like five? Either? What?

[Eddie]

Five?

[Andrew Schulz]

We're not paying anybody.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, all right, all right. That's too much math.

[Andrew Schulz]

We don't pay anybody to be American. Look at that. That's what I'm talking.

[Akash Singh]

There you go.

[Andrew Schulz]

That guy looks American.

[Akash Singh]

He looks great.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's a Greenlander.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's a Greenlander.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. That looks like. He looks like a dagger staining. Wrestling. Anyway, listen, we got a lot. Well, what. No, what else we got? We got a Doge. We need to explain. Doge.

[Akash Singh]

Sure. Well, you're the expert on Doge now, apparently. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, apparently, I'm the expert. I actually. I have no fucking clue what's going on. I really have no clue. But you came in today. Like, I think. What did you say?

[Akash Singh]

What did I say?

[Andrew Schulz]

That I'm going viral.

[Akash Singh]

That you are going viral? Yes. You're. You. And Charlamagne's back and forth on Doge has been. I've seen it everywhere. That also could be my algorithm.

[Andrew Schulz]

We are the top political analysts in the world.

[Akash Singh]

No offense, but when people want to know what's happening. Mma, journalists, you're the top political commentator.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't want to stop everything.

[Akash Singh]

It's just too much now it feels.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like I've been bragging.

[Akash Singh]

You're like a polymast, you know?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yes. I'm.

[Mark Gagnon]

That you and Charlemagne are kind of breaking for points, you know?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. No, it's the same concept. That's true. It's the same concept. I'm liking it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. Dude, did you steal our smart people? You're just brilliant brilliance. Okay. And then we got more. Like. There's a bunch of things that you are absolutely perfect to explain to us. Oh, the gold card citizenship.

[Akash Singh]

I want to know.

[Andrew Schulz]

I want to go, like, why Steve Bannon's back around? Like, I. I just want to know all these things. So where do we want to start? Obviously, the Zielinski thing is the biggest. Probably.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Did you watch the whole.

[Akash Singh]

I watched the who thing.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can you give us your honest breakdown of it? Sure.

[Akash Singh]

I mean, I. Well, let me disclose my bias. I've been very, I've been very against more at Ukraine for a settled, you know, a settlement of the conflict now for quite some time. So my bias, like totally upfront and so seeing that all happen was very, like very pleasing to me. But I'll try and be just like neutral. So it was a 53 minute interaction. It was during something called a pool spray, which is so I used to cover the White House. The way that these things usually work is you have the king chairs, where Trump was in that chair and you have Zelens here. It's like the head of state chair. We usually the camera. So like if you and I were sitting, the people who are watching, there'd just be a wall of cameras right here. And it's supposed to just be diplomatic fineries. Like it's supposed to just be like, yes, Mr. President, we welcome you to our country, blah, blah, blah. For about 40 minutes. It mostly was totally chill. Even Trump was like, you guys have been very brave if you watch a lot of this. He was very much trying to keep things under control. But there was this moment and what happened is that is that Zelensky hates J.D. vance for a variety of reasons. Well, back when J.D. was a Senate candidate, so 2022 had a viral moment where he was like, I don't care about Ukraine at all. He said that on camera, became a huge controversy, obviously became a villain inside Ukraine. But he's also been kind of a chief opponent of more military aid to Ukraine, or what I would call is like the Atlantic religion. Like this idea that the United States and Europe are inextricably linked, that the invasion of Ukraine is not only an attack on democracy, it's an attack on America itself. So that's kind of the Eurocentric Atlantic mindset, very Cold War mentality.

[Andrew Schulz]

Got it.

[Akash Singh]

All right, so advance is somebo who's much more of a realist. Like he thinks that there are checks and balances and that stockpiles are mine are actual trade offs. Right. So he's like, we can't just ship unlimited weapons to Ukraine because we have to worry about our own stuff. Or we need to worry about Taiwan or we need to worry about any other.

[Andrew Schulz]

Pretty reasonable.

[Akash Singh]

I would say it's quite reasonable. But you know, that's that they would say otherwise and that's fine, it's a democracy. But anyway, so put that all together. J.D. i think was making a statement about bringing peace. And it was at that moment that Zelensky really, you could see him lean forward the way I am right now. And he's like, let me ask you question, J.D. and that's when I was like, oh, shit. Because, well, first of all, J.D. was calling him Mr. President. He's calling him J.D. he's got a lot of hatred there. Don't forget either. Zelensky came to Pennsylvania and as JD called gifts for Josh Shapiro. Not only that, he gave an interview here on US soil attacking JD Vance, saying, I forget you might be able to find it. Mark. He either said he was too radical or something like that. So Zelensky's had it out for JD For a long time.

[Andrew Schulz]

I love your comfort, telling Mark to.

[Akash Singh]

Go look some civics.

[Andrew Schulz]

Same last time, you know, soccer's making money. When he's telling White.

[Akash Singh]

That'S our natural state. That's what Vivek showed, right? As Indians, our natural state is to tell you what to do.

[Andrew Schulz]

Exactly. Sell that low cast piece of. Go Google something, man.

[Akash Singh]

What do you got? He's too radical. There it is. All right.

[Mark Gagnon]

Google wallet.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, Zelensky, Google. Oh, man. Zelensky calls Vance too radical, Suggests that he needs to study World War II. Yeah. So that was September, that was right before the election, and they start bickering basically over the terms of the 2014 ceasefire. And it was then that this all starts to get very, very contentious.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can I ask a real quick question? Yeah. This whole meeting was this to present the agreement on the ceasefire? Is that the idea of it?

[Akash Singh]

Well, there's no ceasefire yet, so it's called the minerals deal. So over the last, let's say, couple of weeks or so, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessant went to Kiev basically to negotiate this long term minerals deal. The terms of the deal are, it was kind of complicated but like, basically it would give the United States rights to Ukrainian rare earth minerals. And US companies would effectively have a monopoly over that. In exchange, there would be a interest from the United States in a free and a sovereign Ukraine that would not be attacked. Now, Zelensky wants something called an explicit security guarantee.

[Andrew Schulz]

If you attack us, we start bombing.

[Akash Singh]

You, we start bombing you. Exactly. So he wants his full blown NATO membership. That's not gonna happen because it would mean Article 5 get triggered. That would obviously bring the United States into a nuclear war. He's willing to settle, of course, settle for an explicit US guarantee over what I think Ukraine controls now, although he's never even said that that would be a concession for him. So this was supposed to be a meeting of fineries where we're like, yep, we're here, we're Here to work together. We're here to work towards peace. Zelensky just loses it over a couple of things. One was Trump being like, this guy can't even say anything about peace with Putin, which gives Zelensky the benefit of the doubt. And all this. His country's been invaded, he's been at war, his people are being killed. So that's probably a lot to swallow. But the thing is, is that from a pure diplomatic point of view, there's a template for all of this. The King of Jordan was here two weeks ago. Him and Trump are huge differences over Gaza. Right? Trump controlling Gaza. And Trump says all this, oh, we're going to control Gaza. Yeah. Jordan, they're going to give in.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, that Trump, Gaza IG post was.

[Akash Singh]

I mean, it was wild. It was the fantastic. Even the guys with the women with.

[Andrew Schulz]

Beards, I think were great. Very progressive.

[Akash Singh]

Gaza. That's right. Gaza's gotten woke.

[Andrew Schulz]

Maybe that's why they cover him up. Okay, go on.

[Akash Singh]

All right, so what? But the king sits there, you know, it's all diplomatic, fine. And then afterwards he releases a statement. We had great discussions, but. And he just lays out his terms. So that's an idea of contentious meeting US ally. But Jordan, you know, at the end of the day, receiving a shit ton of US aid. We're a major guarantor of their security. Zelensky just can't take it. And he breaks down, so you can even see his posture. He starts going at JD both over a ceasefire and he starts questioning basic facts. So the fact that really set Zelensky off is when JD said, you are pressing your own male population into forced conscription because you don't have enough manpower on the front lines. That is an objective fact. The average age of the Ukrainian military is somewhere between 40 and 50 years old, which is insane. That's like late stage Nazi Germany fighting in World War II, that's the Civil War, the Confederate military, the Confederate armed forces at the siege of Petersburg.

[Andrew Schulz]

Who's left?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, exactly. But that's actually a key point. Remember, the Ukrainians refuse to drop their draft age from. I think it's 25 or 27. I'm not exactly sure. There's a whole generation of 18 to 25 year olds or 27 that are not currently eligible for the Ukrainian draft. And it's because it's massively unpopular in Ukraine. So out of both sides of their mouth, they're like, we're total war. We're throwing everything. We got this on the other side, they're like, well, we're also preserving our prime age male population to repopulate the Ukrainian state in the future. So they're not really throwing everything that they do have here. And in fact, previously one of the the US demands will say, hey, you guys are gonna drop your fucking draft age down to 18. The reason they don't wanna do that is A, the guys don't wanna fight cuz they've watched probably a million or so people get killed is B, they're just gonna flee. I mean, if you guys go. So I was in Hungary and in Budapest, my guide, we walked past the Four Seasons Hotel and he's like, you see all these license plates? And he was like, ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. These are all filthy rich Ukrainians who've been living in the Four Seasons Gresham palace in Hungary. I go to Vienna and same thing. My guide is like, our strip clubs have never had better business. They've been just throwing. These Ukrainians have been throwing money around. They don't want to fight. I mean a huge portion of their population is gone. So there's all of that came to head when JD was like, you're forcibly conscripting people. Empirically true. There are videos of people, dude, sadly, even people who are mentally who have been pressed into service, probably the strongest. It's horrible.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But I mean they can probably do.

[Akash Singh]

But you can also look at the.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They don't even need a gun. Send them out there. They're just ripping Russians apart with their be.

[Akash Singh]

Think about this is like Soviet Union 1943.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What does a coach do?

[Akash Singh]

Okay, yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Finds the role, you're going to hang helmets on. All right guys, dates.

[Sagar Enjeti]

First of all, thank you everybody who came out to zany six. Sold out show.

[Akash Singh]

So fun.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Nashville, underrated city. March 14th and 15th. I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tickets aren't really moving there. So by buy them. Omaha, Nebraska. March 21st and 22nd, Columbus, Ohio. These tickets will sell out March 20th and 29th. Make sure you buy them. Also April 10th through 12th, we are making up for the shows that I missed in Tampa. Those tickets are already almost gone. Hurry up and buy them. Also 420 shows in Denver. I'm hyped for this. You know what I do on 420? I get high. So for April 17th through April 20th, Denver, Colorado comedy works. We're gonna be at both locations, those dates and more@akash singh.com I love.

[Andrew Schulz]

Thank you.

[Akash Singh]

Hell yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

You'll find somebody.

[Mark Gagnon]

What's up guys? World's fastest ad read Rock New York March 26, April 27, Portland, Maine.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'll be there.

[Mark Gagnon]

That's Portland, Maine, not Oregon.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'll see you guys there.

[Mark Gagnon]

Let's get back to the show. Thank you all so much. Bye.

[Andrew Schulz]

So the feeling or the sentiment is at least online, that the population is fractured in terms of their support of the war.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Which is not uncommon with countries at war. I mean, America, Vietnam. Right. It was probably divided.

[Akash Singh]

Even in an invasion, you have to remember this is a country which as a polity, like, was very torn apart. Like it. A significant portion of their population which spoke Russian had affinity for Russia. That's largely the part that Russia kind of controls. Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

The Donbas region.

[Akash Singh]

But then you also have. Yeah, the Donbas region. You're right, the Donetsk. But also you have this new Ukrainian identity which has really emerged very distinct from how it used to be in the Soviet times and others. So anyway, it's. It's fascinating. No, I've never been to Ukraine. I've been to all around Ukraine, but never actually.

[Andrew Schulz]

Ukraine is awesome. Like Kiev is awesome. Yeah. When we went out, we went during the last war.

[Akash Singh]

Which one?

[Andrew Schulz]

The Crimea.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, okay. So 2013, something like that.

[Andrew Schulz]

But it was like we. I got like, I knew something was up because I got an email from Expedia and they were like, by, by the way, it was something like. It was a. Would you like to rent a car for your trip? By the way, this is an active war zone. Be safe.

[Akash Singh]

But that's cool.

[Andrew Schulz]

We were there and it was, it was unbelievable. Food was amazing. Party or you. The food was incredible.

[Eddie]

Food was incredible.

[Andrew Schulz]

Incredible. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

I don't.

[Andrew Schulz]

Prostitutes were just so incredible. Like the girl I saw, you know.

[Akash Singh]

That'S another sad part of it. What is that just the number of Ukrainian women who apparently are being human trafficked all over Europe, apparently it's a disaster. Like all over Hungary, Vienna, all in terms of prostitution. They're being totally taken.

[Sagar Enjeti]

We're trying to figure out. Trying to figure it out. It's easier with the retards.

[Andrew Schulz]

Listen, that is. That's horrible. But these were in. Do you know how miserable those people in those countries they're going to. Are going to be? Those people are going to be furious. Cuz I saw a girl who had areolas like church wafers. Dude, they were. They were the whitest aolas I've ever seen in my entire life. And I had to go to four different ATMs to get enough money off the platform. No, but salute to her. Salute to her, man. You know, shout out Zielinski. Anyway, okay, so. So it seems like there's waning support. This seems like there's ways. Cuz they're on the strip club with the white nipple chick. 18 to 25.

[Akash Singh]

Strip club. Yeah. Or they want to leave. No.

[Andrew Schulz]

So I had to fake an orgasm.

[Akash Singh]

It's a problem.

[Andrew Schulz]

So I had to fake an orgasm cuz I had sex once and then my boy had a girl, then he had sex and then he went back for number two. And I'm just sitting on the couch with this poor girl. I don't want to hurt her feelings. So I take her back and I got the udon noodle. My is not even close to her. And then I just. I just kind of pumped away for a little bit. And then I was like, ceasefire, cease fire.

[Akash Singh]

Ceasefire. Ukrainians can support.

[Andrew Schulz]

Exactly. Yeah. Okay, so you were saying.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, so in this meeting also been.

[Andrew Schulz]

The Russian strippers too.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Schulz]

I didn't do anything. Didn't touch them at all. Right. Just want to let you know.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, well you probably should.

[Andrew Schulz]

I wouldn't.

[Akash Singh]

All right, so what we have in this meeting is not only all of this beef around conscription, but really what happened is that Vance started to get very frustrated and he was like, you come here to the Oval Office of the United States, you disrespect this office. Yeah. The worst mistake Zelensky made is that as Trump is getting furious. Zelensky, this is the line. This was the line. Yeah. You have no cards. You have. You remember this?

[Andrew Schulz]

The line was the line to me that ended it was, you don't have to worry now. You have an ocean, so you don't have to worry now, but in the future you will worry.

[Akash Singh]

Or something like that. That's right. He was like, don't tell us what to be afraid of. I mean that's. This is Trump like Trump is not only transaction, it's about respect. Apparently they told Zelensky to wear a suit before he came and he didn't wear. Zelensky decided not to. Trump called him out.

[Mark Gagnon]

Did you see Trump?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. He goes, oh, you're dressed. What did he say? He's like. He dressed up.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, it was fantastic. But that line to me is where he lost everything.

[Akash Singh]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because you're threatening, you're basically. He's basically acting.

[Akash Singh]

He's been acting this way for three years. That's the shocking part of it, is he has this false look. I mean, this is where I'm going to put my own bias on the table. Let's look at all of the Arguments for supporting Ukraine, number one, is that we need to defend NATO. And you're like, okay, well, Ukrainians are. Or Ukraine's not in NATO. Okay, got it. Two, we need to defend democracy. It's like, yeah, I mean, it's a democracy in the way that any corrupt Eastern European country is. Zelensky's canceled elections. Their parliament or their constitution says they can't even hold an election during wartime. He has banned opposition parties, censored the media. I mean, doesn't look that democratic to me. And actually, one of the core demands of the United States is like, hey, you need to hold an election. And he's like, no, we can't do that. We can't have that until. Even. Even in his interview on Fox News afterwards, they're like, would you resign? He's like, that is up to Ukrainians. I'm like, how?

[Andrew Schulz]

They can't vote, dude.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. It's like, how does that work? Three was okay. And this is the most sinister and the disgusting one is, well, we need to support Ukraine because we're weakening Russia. Which means what? Which is that we are forcing the Russians to pour millions of men into Ukraine and kill as many Russians as possible. And somehow that's in the national interest of the United States, is that we're weakening Russia and we're making their economy poorer. Here's the thing. Russia's not like here. It's also not a democracy, in a sense. They don't give a shit about a million guys who get killed. Go look at their history. What always happens. The war is a disaster. It's a total shit show. They make up for it with the vast, you know, population that they have. They pour as many people in there very inefficiently. They kill a shit ton. And for some reason, the population, I mean, they don't love it, but they're not rioting in the streets in the way that in America. Yeah, it's like, dude, it's part of their lore. Like, in the Soviet Union, they lost almost 20% of their population. That's a foundational myth of their country.

[Andrew Schulz]

We went to Russia as well. We did comedy and. We did comedy in Russia. Not actually.

[Akash Singh]

Must be hard.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, we did in Ukraine. And so basically, when I was asking them about this, and I think that what they have culturally is a lower expectation of happiness.

[Akash Singh]

Absolutely. You're absolutely right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And the advantage of that is there's, like, a suffering built into the culture.

[Akash Singh]

It's in their story. Like, their story going back to the 1600s is just invasion Is projection. All of Russian national security policy all the way back to the time of the czars is what defense through depth is vastness. Our population, we conquer as much as we can, force the population to come through. I mean, they've had horrible episodes. They were conquered by the Mongols that went through and devastated all the way up to Kiev. I mean, obviously invaded by the Nazis, invaded by Napoleon. Their strength is their vastness is their population and their just capacity for suffering. The Chinese have very.

[Andrew Schulz]

Some capacity for suffering is huge. It's built into the culture, it's built into their literature. There is this understanding that one does suffer. Absolutely one of. And something very powerful about that. And I think this is something that like Americans maybe do not have. Right. Since we haven't seen war on our front lines and I'm talking about actual war since the Civil War.

[Akash Singh]

Oh yeah, that's the closest we ever came. And remember, what was that? 2% of the US population was killed. Remember they got 20% of their population that was killed. They had general orders during Stalin, the not one step back policy. Stalin's son was captured and he threw his daughter in law in prison because they said, any person who gets captured, your whole family is going to the gulag. That is the DNA.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now, I don't know, I don't know if this is like a benefit to this, but what happens when 20% of your population dies and it's men?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Is that any man that's alive is like an absolute. Has six women.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And this is why there was no standard for like not being an alcoholic or not being a piece of shit.

[Akash Singh]

Like that's true.

[Andrew Schulz]

It literally because if you had a. That worked. That was the only way to continue procreating. And I, I spoke to a guy who was like taking us around Ukraine. He was like essentially our f. And that's what he does. He like takes people around these places where you might feel a little uncomfortable. And he's like, yeah, there was a time where like six is an understatement. You could have 12 different girls. If you had a job. You could pay the bills and you could feed them. And the girls had to kind of put up with it. Now they get upset with that. So what happens when they get upset about it? There is a sexual revolution because you have to compete for the guy. You're not in the position to be like, yo, I'm keeping my pussy tight because seven other girls are like, I'll open it up for whatever. So now you have this like, yeah, 20% guys die, but the guys who are alive are like, it's party time.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Not even 20% of the guys. Probably only women, right?

[Akash Singh]

They just lived through the 40% conflict. I actually read a book about what Moscow was like when they thought the Nazis were about to come. And it was the most debaucherous, like, party that the Moscow apparently had ever seen. Like, people were just housing vodka, like, having sex in stairwells.

[Andrew Schulz]

And they were right. They were excited.

[Akash Singh]

They were there was just like, this is it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They're about to die.

[Akash Singh]

We're all about do whatever we got to do. And so they just. It was crazy, man. It's the same way. If you read about how our guys behaved in London, the airmen In World War II, you're like, yo, dude, this is. This is disgusting. You're like, this. This is bad, man. Like, the U.S. army is like, trying to find prophylactic kits that will actually work. The entire Piccadilly Circus was a literal whorehouse for US Soldiers. Do they have. This is part of the World War II.

[Andrew Schulz]

Guys.

[Mark Gagnon]

They've been doing this non stop.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. My grandmother survived World War II. I. British, pow. British barely survived.

[Mark Gagnon]

She was in a bunker.

[Akash Singh]

She's in a bunker. Stockings. Apparently, that's what they really like. Don't you dare.

[Andrew Schulz]

US Soldiers. Stockings.

[Akash Singh]

US Soldiers were paid five times the wage of a British soldier. At that time. The guys had no chance. The Brits were furious about it. They're like, our invasion is here of these Yanks. They're over sexed, overpaid, and over here. That was like.

[Andrew Schulz]

All my family was over there at that time, boys.

[Eddie]

But you said Russia doesn't care about losing people.

[Akash Singh]

But why did they care as much about as much?

[Eddie]

Why did they recruit North Koreans to fight for?

[Akash Singh]

Well, that's actually an interesting thing. So first, I think the North Koreans want battle experience because they have one of the world's largest militaries. But two is the North Koreans have tons of ammunition. They have a stockpile. And actually, this is a useful thing for geopolitics. I saw a tweet today. They're like, why is the world take Russia seriously? Like, smaller GDP than Texas? You know, all of this? And I was like, the answer is like, 9,000 nuclear weapons. It's like the same thing with North Korea. I don't even know what the North Korean GDP is. Like, probably a county in Joplin, Mississippi.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's nuclear weapons and natural resources.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, of course.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because if you just have one, you can't really compete on the global Stage. But when you have nuclear, nuclear weapons and you have oil and gas, of course no one can really tell you what to do. Yeah, bro, I was in Istanbul, Yes. And I saw the Russian oil chips. The ships coming through because they have to go through that.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

What is that? Little Bosphorus. Bosphorus, yeah, I think that's what it is. And they basically took away the Russian lettering on the side of ships.

[Akash Singh]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

So that's like, remember there's like an oil embargo. Nobody's gonna buy Russian oil.

[Akash Singh]

Total.

[Andrew Schulz]

They just painted over the side of the ships. And then Russian oil became.

[Akash Singh]

Well, this is a very useful exercise in like how power works. So America like our economy doesn't do. We don' Produce anything. We're a service based economy. And so we were like, oh well we're cut the Russians off from here and we're gonna them over. And it's like, oh, Russian GDP is exploding. Their war production is incredible. They've increased year over year. Their GDP is expand or their economy is expanding because of war production.

[Andrew Schulz]

We tried to Karen them, we canceled them dare do business with Russia.

[Akash Singh]

That's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

We went woke and they made a.

[Akash Singh]

Lot of money and they made a shit a lot of money. And actually the European Union has spent more in year three just on Russian oil than they have given to Ukraine. So there's a lot of talking. Yeah, it's a lot of all sides of their mouth. But this is a very less useful lesson for America. Guns, bullets, oil. That's the only that matters. That's all that matters. Oh, Nvidia stock or what it's. It means nothing.

[Andrew Schulz]

This market to hold.

[Akash Singh]

Actually I don't think it's going to hold, man.

[Andrew Schulz]

We need this market to hold.

[Akash Singh]

Some bad signs on the horizon. Stop it.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's interesting.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What's happening?

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh goodness.

[Akash Singh]

I mean check the. What's The S&P 500?

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh God.

[Akash Singh]

I don't think it's good. It's been dropping like 1.5%.

[Andrew Schulz]

Big earnings. And they have a new chip that's going to do really well actually.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But there's a lot of bitcoin.

[Akash Singh]

Look over the last month, flat on the month, which is not great, but it's been dropping a little bit from.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, there's some signs that looks like yes.

[Akash Singh]

I mean don't get me wrong, it's like we're still doing fine.

[Andrew Schulz]

I hit up my guy and I was like, are we selling? Say again?

[Eddie]

Crypto's in the tank.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, Crypto's the next guy.

[Akash Singh]

But not really though. It's like when bitcoin crashes from 100 to 80, you're like, come on, bro, like, you know what I mean? It's like two months.

[Eddie]

That's kind of crazy.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, sure. But I'm not saying okay. It's like, what does crash mean? Like, and this is also where we should be honest about the S and P, where it's like, look, it's still up 20% on the. Don't even talk about, like, it's fucking fine.

[Andrew Schulz]

Just talk about Nvidia. Like you got to speak about Nvidia.

[Akash Singh]

What is Nvidia right now.

[Andrew Schulz]

You got to speak about it in the same way as bitcoin then.

[Akash Singh]

Sure, yeah, absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because if you're going to look at that exponential growth over the past decade.

[Akash Singh]

Listen, I'm saying in terms of like national character. Like, for example, I've been thinking a lot about this with cars, with, look, American cars. Like, if we're being honest and if we had a totally free market, I'm buying a Chinese EV yesterday. Like, are you kidding me? They're incredible. There's this guy, Forest, Forest Auto reviews. He's so good. He does all these videos showing byd, the Xiaomi cars. The BYD just rolled out full self driving for even their car that cost fucking $10,000. Like if you buy a Tesla, FSD will cost an extra. No, no, no. I want, I don't want these to be sold here. I don't want them to be sold here. But that's my point, is that we have to recognize our cars even though they suck. This car industry, it's not only jobs. During World War II, what did we do? The Ford factory, that's rolling tanks off of there, right? That's what the Russians have. The Russians don't prioritize economic growth. They prioritize guns, bullets and strategic autonomy. So this is also the problem with Ukraine. Ukraine does not have any of that. They're totally reliant on the United States and on Europe.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why is he pulling up talking shit?

[Akash Singh]

That's, that's my point. I just don't understand.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're giving us the facts. You're giving us like the truth behind it. You're acknowledging your bias. But I think most Americans are just reacting emotionally to this, which the idea, of course, as people do. And it's important to speak to them at the emotional level because that's where most people lie. So, so the idea that we have here is, hey, we've been giving you billions of dollars. And then you came up and you were kind of talking spicy to the person who's feeding you.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now, I don't know why he thinks he can't just come kiss the ring. Does he think he'll lose the support of the people in Ukraine if he does it?

[Akash Singh]

I think he's.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why does he feel like he has leverage? That's what I'm talking about.

[Akash Singh]

I think he's huffing European glue. So the thing is, is that if you look right now. So right now, literally, as you and I are speaking, they're in London crafting a peace agreement which they're going to propose to us. But this is where it' Bullshit. So the France and. France and Germany came up with a peacekeeping plan. We'll have 30,000 troops there. You don't have to do anything. No, no U.S. troops on the ground. I'm like, okay, good. They're like, but you have to pay for it. You have to provide isr, which is intelligence support, you know, and all that. You have to do your isr, you have to provide all the bullets. You have to pay for it. And so what are you revealing to us is that France and Germany don't even have the capacity to forward deploy 30,000 peacekeeping troops in a tiny country like Ukraine. I'm saying, compared to the rest of the. That tell you, these militaries are nothing. NATO's own chief says that the Russians produce more ammo in three months than all of NATO combined in an entire year. That's with the United States.

[Andrew Schulz]

Zelenskyy's acting as if there's another option.

[Akash Singh]

Yes. He thinks that the.

[Andrew Schulz]

He can't be so naive.

[Akash Singh]

He is. Oh, man. I think he is. The rhetoric he's doing, like, is he trying to do a deal? He wants the UK and France and Germany and all the other NATO countries to give him a security guarantee before he will provide or he will sign any ceasefire or any deal. But again, as I did, I just told you guys, any peacekeeping deal signed by France or Germany is bullshit. Without they don't have any.

[Andrew Schulz]

So here's the thing.

[Akash Singh]

Why they're paper tigers.

[Andrew Schulz]

I heard what he said. I heard what he said in it, where he's essentially like, hey, we could do this ceasefire agreement, but they haven't respected ceasefire agreements in the past, which I understand.

[Akash Singh]

No, he's actually correct about that.

[Andrew Schulz]

So he's like, why would this matter if I do a ceasefire agreement if we know for a fact that they don't respect it matters?

[Akash Singh]

Because Uncle Sam is the person who is signing underneath it. That's the fundamental difference.

[Andrew Schulz]

Also, signed protections before for the Ukraine, if I'm not mistaken.

[Akash Singh]

Budapest.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, was it in Budapest that we decided if they would relinquish their nuclear weapons?

[Akash Singh]

Let's talk about that, too. I hear this a lot from the pro before.

[Andrew Schulz]

Before we go back to. Before we get to that again, I'm not trying to, like, catch you here. What I'm trying to do is somewhat understand his perspective. And this is what I thought, because there's a part of me that goes, listen, as long as Trump is in office, Russia is not doing a single thing. If this is agreed upon. Yeah, nothing's. And if Trump was going to be in office for the next 40 years, this version of a ceasefire, where it doesn't guarantee American muscle behind it, this version of ceasefire, Russia is going to respect 100%. Here is my concern. If I am Ukraine or if I am Zelensky, and I think he handled it horribly in the room. There's a much better way to say, like, if I was him, if I did want to litigate in the media, as JD Vance said, what I would say is this. I know I could sign this deal with you and you would protect us. And I know that Russia would not mess with you because they take you seriously and they would not. But what happens if next election, we get the same people back that they did not take seriously and they're not afraid of.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

How do I get security? I'm not worried about the next four years because I know that Putin would not be stupid enough to mess with Donald Trump. I would keep on going. He would be crazy. Because you would do the ultimate thing. Yeah, but in four years, according to your laws, you're not going to have Donald Trump. We don't know what would happen. And now we're left in the dark. And the next administration could have the same sway with Putin as the last one did, which is Putin is not afraid with him. He'll do what he wants. What do you say to them?

[Akash Singh]

You're not wrong at all. And that's why you should have shut your fucking mouth and you should have signed that minerals deal, because in that minerals deal, it was a strategic interest for the United States to have a free, a sovereign Ukraine, a business relation. For example, why do we care about Europe or Taiwan or any of these places? You think we care about fucking democracy? We care about the TSMC chip in Taiwan, Okay? Why do we care about Vietnam? Because they make all of our clothing why do we care about Germany? How many German cars are on the road? All relations between states come down to trade. That is a fundamental insight. The problem of the post World War II order is what's led to this is that we have decided, oh, it's democracy and feelings and all this other. It's like, no. The purpose of a navy.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you're saying a trade deal would incentivize the United States to protect them because if Russia invaded any further and it negatively impacted our economy.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now what if they invaded further but it didn't impact the places where our resources came from?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, well, this is a. Well, that's a bigger question of whether we should even have NATO membership for a lot of these. Look, it's settled. It doesn't matter. The U.S. senate is ratified the treaty. But there were a lot of people in the 90s when they were talking about NATO expansion into Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were like, guys, this is in the traditional, not only sphere of influence, but what compelling interest does the United States have in these three countries? Like, bilateral trade of those three probably does not even equal bilateral trade between us and a single province or a single state in Mexico. Like, and see, this is the thing we don't want to talk in balance sheet terms, and it's important, but coming back to your point, you're right. But here's the problem. Yeah. You have no leverage. That's. At the end of the day, you do not matter to the United States. And this is, this is my bias again. But at the end of the day, the United States has no compelling interest over who compels the Donetsk region of Ukraine. They just don't. In fact, all of Ukraine, even before the invasion, ranked like 50 some billion. Bilateral trade with the United States, that's one fourth of what we do with Brazil. If Brazil was invaded by our Argentina and be like, see ya. Yeah, I was like, good luck. Work it out. I'll buy my coffee from Colombia.

[Andrew Schulz]

Amazing arrogance. He must know something we don't know.

[Mark Gagnon]

By creating a financial alignment, I feel like he loses even more leverage, like by creating an ideological position.

[Akash Singh]

Yo, you're exactly right.

[Mark Gagnon]

It gives him more of a position.

[Akash Singh]

Well, because on that.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can you explain that?

[Mark Gagnon]

In my mind, like, if you're just purely financial, then Russia could now broker it and be like, hey, if we can.

[Akash Singh]

Which they did. They said that they were like, hey, we have rare earths too, by the way. Which they do. They actually have a lot more.

[Mark Gagnon]

So by making it like purely like financial now, Russia could just come in and be like, hey, it's a race to the bottom. We'll just beat them on price.

[Akash Singh]

Or we'll go.

[Andrew Schulz]

Or Russia could go. We're going to invade. We're going to take over those resources and we're going to give them to you for half price. Russia just got a little bigger because he knows this.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's a race to the bottom. So then now he has to say it's ideological. We have to protect democracy.

[Akash Singh]

Yes, you're. That is double click everybody on that one.

[Andrew Schulz]

So we have to. So we have to protect democracy. Even though he is not protecting democracy.

[Akash Singh]

Within his own country, it falls apart on its very own line.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sure. But emotionally he's doing the right thing to protect the longevity.

[Akash Singh]

He's played his cards incredibly. He should.

[Andrew Schulz]

But not this moment. No, not this moment.

[Akash Singh]

Up until this, you will study Zelensky. And I do not like Zelensky. I think he's taking advantage of the United States. I think he's an arrogant prick. All of this the way he handled himself immediately after with the media. By convincing the west and others that there is this compelling interest, he was managed to get $100 billion from the world superpower, more than we spent on 20 years of the Afghan national security forces we have sent to Ukraine in three years. Think about that. That's fucking insane. The greatest transfer of military aid in modern US history. On top of that, he convinces all of these European nations, Germany, France, the great powers, not only to come to his defense, but to tie his borders to their own and say it is the strategic interest of the French, of the German, of the UK people to make sure that we're compelled. And you know, in the beginning, a lot of them did support that, but. And this is where it all starts to fall apart. Now we're watching what will actually happen with the Europe led by. So when we look at the polling, that's in the UK and France and in Germany, they're like, support for Ukraine was sky high. Now they're like, should we continue or should we have a deal? In almost every country, it's flipped. So the Europeans are now in a position where they would probably have to increase military aid to their maximum capacity. Give them everything not stripped down to the ground, and they would still maybe, I don't know, maybe 1/6 or something like that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And it wouldn't matter.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, no, it wouldn't matter. I mean, all already the United States, we have given Ukraine $67 billion in military aid. That's more than every other country in the World combined, Right. The Europeans are like, oh, we've given Ukraine a bunch of aid. It's like, bro, you've become fucking refugee. Yeah, but I'm saying this is bullshit.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But I'm saying you could throws and.

[Akash Singh]

Bullets are the only.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You can throw 10 trillion at Ukraine and Russia will just match it with dead bodies.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, almost certainly. I mean, it's a little more complicated than that. I think the only thing that would really change is nuclear weapons on the ground, which is not happening. But that's actually, let's return to that because one of the ways that the Ukrainians often bring up why Americ has to support them and not just should, is the Budapest agreements and back the Budapest memorandum, which was in the 90s where they agreed to give up their nuclear weapons. And in exchange, the United States was like, yeah, we'll think about protecting it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, it's not. We're going to protect it.

[Akash Singh]

No, no. And even if we had said that, it was never ratified by the U.S. senate. And this is where you have to flip it and think about the Russian justification for invasion where they said, your Secretary of State said we will not expand NATO. That's true. Our Secretary of State burns under George H.W. bush. He was like, look, we're not gonna expand NATO. Don't worry about it. They were like, okay, that's the position of the U.S. government. Well, what changed? They lost the election. Bill Clinton came into office, George W. Bush came into office, they changed the policy. But the thing is, is that the Russians are like, but you said it. And what we would say is, yeah, what you just said, the administration at the time said it. That didn't make it the treaty binding obligation of the United States, where two thirds of the United States Senate ratified. We will never expand NATO. So, no, it's not fair to say that America guaranteed that's not how our system works, nor should it. Right. The word of the president is not a king who sets foreign policy.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's improv time.

[Akash Singh]

Exactly. And so the Budapest memorandum, yes, it was a policy document, but it provides no obligation from the United States to lift one finger for Ukraine. And if we think about again where the Russians are coming in, they're like, okay, so in the post Cold War era, you guys bombed Kosovo. Is that. Was that in NATO? Why was that a NATO operation? You guys, NATO literally took out Gaddafi. You know, one of the things that the North Koreans always tell us because we're like, hey, give up your nukes. They're like, I'm not giving up my Nukes. Gaddafi gave up his nukes. You shoved a rod up his ass and blew the shit out of his own country.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, dumb idea to give up your nukes.

[Akash Singh]

Do you think they would ever.

[Andrew Schulz]

I would never give up your nukes.

[Akash Singh]

Kim Jong Un will never give up his nuke. If I was them, I'd be like, fuck you.

[Andrew Schulz]

If I was never going to fucking free in the world right now, why would you. I would be trying to develop them.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's exactly right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Of whatever agreement is going on, it's the only thing that maintains your security.

[Akash Singh]

You're absolutely right. And Libya proves that. Iraq proves that. The North Korean regime surviving to this day proves that. Like. And Russia, its ability to invade Ukraine and frankly get away with most of it is what, nuclear weapons?

[Andrew Schulz]

Is this an argument?

[Akash Singh]

I don't love that reality, but it's.

[Andrew Schulz]

Just true for Zelensky. Then if we cannot trust the daddy country that is America in this situation, to protect, protect, then why make a deal that you know that they won't reinforce?

[Akash Singh]

So then you're just going to fall apart without us.

[Andrew Schulz]

Don't fall apart. Say, we will say, give us nukes.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, yeah, he could say that and just say no.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. No.

[Akash Singh]

Next question. Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Give us. Give us nukes.

[Akash Singh]

You know what I would say? Develop it yourself. Then if you're so great, you have all these great scientists, all this, go ahead, Nothing's stopping you. You can do whatever you want.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, yeah, usually we do stop them, but if.

[Akash Singh]

Well, I mean, if they're trying to enrich, I'll tell them this. If you guys want to go for it, go for it. I mean, you literally will. First of all, you're being invaded. Second, I mean, your country, their own analysts tell us that they' fall apart in three months after the cutoff of US aid. This is again, just where we have a small nation that thinks it's a great power and can dictate terms.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why do they think that's what I don't understand.

[Akash Singh]

I think it's the European side. I really do.

[Andrew Schulz]

So the Europeans are propping him up and thinking that they're like the last line of defense for democracy. I can't.

[Akash Singh]

How do you not read a spreadsheet? That's where I don't. I'm like, bro, look at the number of bullets coming in. I'm just a moral.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm not even talking about the spreadsheet. I'm talking about, like, what interest does Putin have in expanding Russia into Europe?

[Akash Singh]

Oh, that's. Well, here's the thing. I mean, does he have an interest in tradition? Like, you know, Russia controlled vast swaths of all that territory. Latvia, Lithuania, Georgia. All of these parts were traditional, part of the Soviet or Russian empire. But here's the thing. Three of those countries I just named are in NATO. So the interest you have to not do it is to avoid nuclear war.

[Andrew Schulz]

Also, Russia is a Christian nation.

[Akash Singh]

That's true.

[Andrew Schulz]

So I don't understand why he would expand west into Europe with all these Muslim countries like England and Germany.

[Akash Singh]

Keep talking to him. Go ahead, tell them.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why do you want Muslim nations?

[Akash Singh]

He actually does use a lot of that, though, right? He talks a lot about the Orthodox Church and about how Ukraine is attacking the Russian Orthodox, which is true. It actually has been happening. And, like, they're attacking the Russian Orthodox and how. It's like a defense of Russian. Whatever. I don't. I don't like that stuff.

[Andrew Schulz]

So. So. So, okay, what. So the. How does this. How does this play out in the very near future? What do you think happens near future? So he tuck his tail.

[Akash Singh]

He refused to. He'd had Fox interview immediately. He had hours to think about it. He did it live. It was four hours in between to apologize. He didn't apologize. He just said no. He's like, we had to have honest dialogue. He's huffing the European. He believes that Europeans can protect him. He's in London, literally, as I said, as we speak. And the near future is they're gonna propose some peacekeeping plan. America's gonna say, no, why should we pay for that? Why should we continue to do it? And it'll be, look, it's up to Trump, too. I mean, if I were Trump. To continue weapons flowing into Ukraine when they're actively working against is ridiculous. Like, I think that Zelinsky needs to find out tomorrow what reality. And this, again, this is my personal opinion moving to from analysts. This country, its greatest victory is survival. You get to live. Do you know how lucky.

[Andrew Schulz]

But they don't. That's what I'm trying to say. Somebody's drinking a Kool Aid over there. I don't know what the fuck it is.

[Akash Singh]

I don't get it.

[Andrew Schulz]

But, yeah, I mean, I do get.

[Akash Singh]

It, in a sense. Would I accept that?

[Andrew Schulz]

No.

[Akash Singh]

But I'm an American citizen. We have nukes. We have the greatest military the world has ever seen.

[Andrew Schulz]

I want to hear what you. I do don't get it. Because let's just be honest here. There's only a few countries. Every other one exists based on the relationship.

[Akash Singh]

Spears of influence theory. That's what you're talking about.

[Andrew Schulz]

Exactly. There's like, China is a real country. Russia's a real country.

[Akash Singh]

China, America's a real country. The us, uk, Germany.

[Andrew Schulz]

Uk, Germany. I don't know if they're real.

[Akash Singh]

They have nuclear weapons. So, like, you know. Yeah. It buys you something. Okay. And they have what, G7 economies. Like, they're not. They're not ridiculous, but they are definitely going.

[Andrew Schulz]

If you can't bang on your own.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're not a real.

[Akash Singh]

I agree with you, by the way. I'm totally with you. Yeah. But I think when you have a nuke, you can.

[Andrew Schulz]

Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough, fair enough, fair enough.

[Mark Gagnon]

But now does it real quick.

[Andrew Schulz]

Real quick. So the point I'm trying to say is, like, if Ukraine cannot defend itself.

[Akash Singh]

Yes. Empirically, they cannot.

[Andrew Schulz]

From Russia. There is no chance without the support of these other countries.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

You can't dictate to those other countries what the policy is. That's right. Right. Because you don't have sovereignty.

[Akash Singh]

That's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're not really a sovereign nation.

[Akash Singh]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

You are a sovereign nation. As much as someone else will protect us.

[Akash Singh]

You are a vassal state. Yes. You are a vassal state. If we think about the old. This is the issue with the way that we talk about this stuff is that Americans, and unfortunately a lot of people don't want to speak in reality, is America, the rules break international order. Is that for the benefit of everybody else, or is it the benefit of the United States consumer? Let's all be honest here. That's one of the things I actually love about Trump. Trump is a mercantilist. He says shit where he's like, yeah, we'll protect you. You have to give us 500 million in minerals or billion in minerals. People are like, democracy. All stuff. It's like, guys, oh, we protect democracy, but one of our greatest allies is Saudi Arabia, which kills gay.

[Andrew Schulz]

We don't care. We don't give a.

[Akash Singh]

It's like, oh, you have oil. Okay, let's go.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know, they don't kill gay people anymore. Okay. They're promoting boxing matches. Doing great work over there.

[Akash Singh]

I apologize, Sheikh Mohammed.

[Andrew Schulz]

There you go.

[Akash Singh]

There you go.

[Andrew Schulz]

They're doing fantastic work over there. Okay.

[Eddie]

It's just, we've been told for the longest, Russia is the enemy. Russia's bad. Why all of a sudden are we OK with just like, hey, Russia, you can invade another country and take their land.

[Akash Singh]

I think that's a fair question. And it comes down to, I feel bad for the. I feel bad for the people who really believe that and are now watching how geopolitics works in real time. Like the idea that the United States, who invaded Iraq for literally no reason is going around dictating, you know, legal and illegal. That's one of my favorite things, by the way, is Russia illegally invaded Ukraine. I was like, what's a legal invasion?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, there's just an invasion.

[Akash Singh]

There's just an invasion. There's like, there's just a successful invasion or an instant invasion. But to return to your point, that goes to the religion. That's what I was talking about, the Atlantic religion, this idea that all borders are sovereign, that they do not change from post World War II countries don't just invade each other. And I don't think they're wrong. The real politic answer for that would be invasion. All that is bad for business. But the point that comes down to it is what compelling interest does the United States have in continuing this war, not only for our economy. You know, the United States consumer probably paid an extra buck 50 for gas for two straight years because of Russian sanctions. It was a disaster for our economy. I actually think it's a huge reason Biden lost the election. If you think about a lot of the inflation, where that came from. But even more so, what we, what we know at the end of the day is that we cannot change the reality of this war without direct United States intervention.

[Eddie]

But shouldn't it be the interest of the world to not let countries do that? Russia from. Just keep doing this.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, here's what stops Russia.

[Akash Singh]

Well, NATO actually, is that we have NATO membership around all of these other countries and they're not going invade because we're going to nuke them. But I think every other, I think country in the world is like, we, first of all, we have no obligation to do it. But second, what is the impact on America?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Some deals, I think Russian oil, all this is propaganda. Like, all this. And the US Is kind of a victim of its own propaganda.

[Akash Singh]

It doesn't need to be our enemy. There's no reason.

[Sagar Enjeti]

If we can.

[Akash Singh]

1991. There's literally no reason.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's what I'm saying. Like, why are we at, like, let's, let's. What is that? What is it? The McDonald's theory or whatever? Like, two countries with a McDonald's haven't gone to war, which I think they have now.

[Akash Singh]

Stupid.

[Andrew Schulz]

But yeah, yeah, but the idea is like this mutually assured success. Like, let's get each other's pockets.

[Akash Singh]

Well, actually I disagree with that theory. Really. It's called democratic peace theory. It's the idea that democracies don't go to war with each other. But there's also. Beyond that is like countries that trade and become more westernized. It's like, well, China's got a lot of McDonald's and they've actually become more authoritarian. Like the more.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, but we're not going to war with them.

[Akash Singh]

No, I agree, but my point is that it's. It doesn't lead to democratic outcomes per se.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't care if they have.

[Akash Singh]

I'm done.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm done with everybody else in democracy.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, good. I'm done. Democracy is hard.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, I hate this idea. Like, country got to get a Democracy and within 10 years, figure it out. We had a whole civil war over democracy. This shit takes hundreds of years. And even then every election it's good versus evil.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

And presidents are getting shot at. Like, let's stop acting like they got to figure it out immediately. And if they don't want it, fine, you don't want it.

[Akash Singh]

Whatever.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is what happens. Whatever we say goes. That's the rule.

[Akash Singh]

Correct?

[Andrew Schulz]

That's the rule. That's not happening.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, but I think what soccer is saying is throughout history, it's never actually been about that. Yes, we didn't give a fuck about Vietnam having democracy. There's some other resource we wanted. We didn't give a fuck about communism. We wanted oil.

[Akash Singh]

Yes, but that was a good ideological. See that, that's a very good example is that was when ideology trumped national interests. Ukraine, Vietnam. Ukraine, Vietnam, Iraq, all have three things in common. They are wars not of national interest. They are wars of ideology. That's where the American people see through it clearly. We're good, we're nice. We want to protect and stop bad things from happening.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Is that front facing ideology or is it actually ideological reasons? Because what I'm picking up from you is, is what I'm picking up is we give the American people this ideology and that's why we need to invade. And maybe not Vietnam, I don't see it. But Iraq, it was oil, it was whatever. Get back for George Senior, who knows? There was another real reason. And it's probably what Trump seems to be kind of cutting through is like, I don't give a fuck. Yeah, I'll give you freedom. And not about your freedom. It's about what you can do for us.

[Akash Singh]

That's exactly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And that seems to be what it actually has always been about. What I'm picking Up here.

[Akash Singh]

When you look at liberals and their main concern right now, they're like, America did not vote with the rest of the United Nations. I'm like, so who gives a what the United. So the UN had a resolution condemning the invasion of Russia.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm overall.

[Akash Singh]

And they're like, oh, America did not vote. And I was like, okay, so Montenegro voted for it. I'm like, why should I give a fuck what Montenegro? What are we doing here?

[Eddie]

We got to stop just rolling over and letting.

[Andrew Schulz]

We got to stop letting people.

[Akash Singh]

But what is that? But see, you say UN American where it's like, well, for example, like, what is un American about Russia invading a territory which has been disputed by their own population? You know, it's like, so wait, okay, but we did really. I mean, we didn't have a treaty. Don't have a treaty saying that we care about Ukraine. If we did, I'd say, look, let's go for it. We have to honor our words. But that's not the same thing.

[Eddie]

Now they take over all their resources. Now Russia gets stronger. Is that advantageous to us?

[Akash Singh]

It depends, right? It depends on our relationship with Russia and how. What we want out of it. I want us to reduce our nuclear weapons pointed at each other and actually focus on where the real economic growth of the world is happening. In Asia. So this, this is a very Obama like idea they pivot to. Asia is that Europe is a declining continent. Empirically true. If you look at their economic growth versus ours, 50% of global GDP will be in Asia by 2030. Not that long ago, only five years. If you look at the concern the American foreign policy elite has for Germany, for France, for, frankly, these countries where, you know, they basically have chosen their social welfare state, fine, but they have not backed up their defense or ability to protect themselves. We pay for French health care, you know, whether people like it or not. Like, we protect them so they can have their nice socialist beliefs. Or Germany or any of these economies.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You're saying if they had to pay for their own military, they wouldn't be able to have.

[Akash Singh]

Impossible. Look at, look at the way, I mean, think. Look at their militaries and their inability. They say, this is such a compelling interest. I'm like, well, fucking fight for it then. Go ahead. You won't do it. And you think the average Frenchman will give up his health care to protect Ukraine? No. That's another reason why it's all complete bullshit. But my point is rebalance for what's important.

[Andrew Schulz]

And I think that that like changes. I Think it changes your opinion emotionally. Now, there is. There are certain advantages to having this type of leverage on the world, of course. Right. Like, obviously, if these countries cannot defend themselves, they have nuclear weapons. France. But if they cannot defend their.

[Akash Singh]

They can do it in a. In. In like a. A very dire situation. But I'm saying in a situation like Ukraine, it's like, they're not going to 1 billion euro to Ukraine. It's like, piss off, bro. You have nothing.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

What military do you have?

[Andrew Schulz]

It's a joke.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The ideological thing of, like, how. How can we let this happen? Is like, what do you mean?

[Akash Singh]

I actually think it's kind of chauvinistic to say that we have the ability to conduct all of the affairs of the world, like, rarely what's happened that might have been true in 1991 in what's called the unipolar moment, when the United States was the sole superpower. That's just not the case. We have a total return to multipolarity where you have the rise of China, of India, of. Even Russia continues to punch above its weight. Japan, South Korea, North Korea, all of these countries. This idea that I think is actually un American is that. That we should be conducting all of the affairs of the world. Instead, what we should return to is a hu. Is to lose some of our hubris and actually say, okay, what's actually important to us? What are we gonna do? This is the line right here. And this is traditional American foreign policy going back to the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine was, you guys do whatever the fuck you want. Just don't come over here to the Western hemisphere. This is ours right over here. And we acknowledged the great powers of Europe. And from that point forward, even in the Cold War, we're like, look, it sucks that Hungary is communist, but what the are we going to do? They've got news. Let's not.

[Andrew Schulz]

Let's go.

[Eddie]

Let's not go crazy bending over, right?

[Andrew Schulz]

No, no, it's not bending because we're not taking anything. But, yes, I like the idea. This is what. I like the idea. I like the idea of extending our influence around the world as far as we want to go with it.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Schulz]

But I don't want that influence to be like, plays or whatever.

[Akash Singh]

That's a great point.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't care about identity politics influence. I care about geopolitical influence.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

I care about pushing certain countries to agree with us on certain deals that are advantageous to us.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

I want the best deal that we could possibly have for America with every Single country in the world. I don't care if you're a democracy. I don't care if you're a dictatorship. I don't care if you're pro trans. I don't care if you're anti. None of that. That personal I give a about. I just care about the money. But I do want to exert that influence around the world because that influence benefits Americans and that's what I care the most about.

[Akash Singh]

But that's. I think the problem is that right now we piss all this money and influence away. For example, the United States blue.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, can I say one thing real quick?

[Akash Singh]

Go ahead.

[Andrew Schulz]

I actually think that it reduces our global influence.

[Akash Singh]

Yes, you're right.

[Andrew Schulz]

When we're trying to push these identity politics issues to these other countries that resist it culturally. Where back in the day I think they, we had so much gravitas with these other countries because they looked at the west, especially America as this like beacon of hope. Like when you're seeing a guy on a fucking horseback with a revolver going around and shooting, you're like, oh my God, America looks kind of cool. Now when you see some like neutered cuck telling you that like his four year old daughter is actually a boy, you're like, I don't know if I want to be American, dude.

[Akash Singh]

You're. Well, first of all, you're nailing it. I'll give you a perfect one on this, okay? Our ambassador under Biden to Japan was Rahm Emanuel. Rahm Emanuel inserts himself into a gay marriage debate in Japan because Japan was having a debate about gay marriage. The Japanese conservative party is furious. I go, oh, the U.S. ambassador of Japan has one fucking job. How many Toyotas are we making?

[Andrew Schulz]

That's the irony that Rahm Emanuel was just on Bill Maher show and he said this sentence. He goes, we need to get back into the education of the kids in schools. He says this specifically because they were talking about Chicago and all these Dem cities were like kind of struggling and it wasn't posed as like a lib suck. It was like, what do you think about this? You've run a city. And he goes, he says, he goes, we need to get into the classrooms and out of the bathrooms. The irony.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, right, exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's petitioning for gay marriage. I don't care what you guys do with your gays over there. Matter of fact, if you got some really talented gays over there and you want to kill them, let's bring them over here. We do great shit with our gays. Gays flourish in America. Right.

[Akash Singh]

It's just my point. It's like Japan, third world largest economy in the world.

[Andrew Schulz]

They're all.

[Akash Singh]

Our concern with Japan is one thing, you know, Toyota, Panasonic, any of these other. That's it. That's all we should be caring about. You. Are they coming over here and saying, oh, you guys do this? No, they don't give a.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, they don't have that influence, but that's the influence. And I think that's where it's like we have to have some restriction. I love our influence, especially through, like, cinema, TV shows.

[Akash Singh]

Soft power.

[Andrew Schulz]

I love the soft power. I love it through social media. I love that. As long as it's not. As long as it's not taking away from our ability to. To have advantageous trade deals.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

So if. If you wanting to be American makes you want to be capitalist, makes you want to be an entrepreneur, makes you want to be a hustler, and that in some way gives you empathy for our culture, and now we have some leverage in your country. That's awesome.

[Akash Singh]

Awesome.

[Andrew Schulz]

The second our American influence starts to make you feel uncomfortable like it has in the Middle East. Listen, democracy doesn't work in the Middle East. Let them do what the fuck they want.

[Akash Singh]

I agree.

[Andrew Schulz]

Once they get addicted to money, democracy, it's not going to be democracy, but we're going to get everything that we want out of.

[Akash Singh]

My point is just let them do whatever the fuck they want to do. All right, so, like, I've lived in Qatar or whatever. It's like, yeah, it's a literal monarchy, like an actual religious monarchy. It works for them. It's like, okay, I wouldn't want to live there. I didn't like it there, to be honest. But do whatever you want.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't.

[Akash Singh]

That's. That's. That's all I really. That's how I feel about Japan, about any of these other countries is it's all just about us coming together and this, The. The world order. This was the point of the.

[Andrew Schulz]

When did you have to leave, by the way?

[Akash Singh]

Probably like 2:30.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. We got some time.

[Akash Singh]

We have other topics.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. We got a lot that we got to talk about. Okay, so that's the link.

[Akash Singh]

We can stop this.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's Linsky. Okay. All right, guys, let's take a break for a second. Look, we know that for decades, food companies have been putting all kinds of processed, nonsense, unhealthy ingredients in our food. Yes. It tastes absolutely incredible. Many of us have become addicted to it. And it's probably been harming our health and making us fatter. But one law firm is finally holding them accountable. I need like a dun dun dun. I need like some dramatic music right here. It's very rare that the law firm gets to be heroic.

[Akash Singh]

That's true.

[Andrew Schulz]

But Morgan and Morgan had just filed a first of its kind lawsuit against the food industry behemoths like Kraft Heinz company, General Mills, Coca Cola, chilling them and others, alleging that these companies engineer their ultra processed food products to be addictive. What? And mark market those products towards children, of course, not causing chronic disease in children. They detail the strategic calculated actions that these companies allegedly took to target children with addictive ultra processed foods, including internal memos, strategic meetings, and the extensive research they allegedly conducted to leverage our biology and neurology to create addictive substances. This sounds horrible. Now Morgan and Morgan is committed to fighting for the people and for the families. If your child has been diagnosed with one of these diseases, you may have legal options. They helped thousands of families seek justice against big corporations. And they're ready to fight for you too. Learn [e-mail] flagrant that's f o r the people.com flagrant now let's get back to the guys. I have some fantastic news. After years of our beloved shifty posting our clips on TikTok for absolutely no monetary gain at all, finally, TikTok is paying us. That's right. They are paying us money for me to tell you what I'm about to tell you. See, apparently. Apparently small businesses can thrive on TikTok. I did not know this. We had no idea. I had no clue.

[Akash Singh]

It's true.

[Mark Gagnon]

My wife sends me three different brands every day on TikTok.

[Andrew Schulz]

See what happens.

[Akash Singh]

TikTok shop.

[Andrew Schulz]

TikTok shop. Is that what it's called? TikTok shop.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Look. People are making money on TikTok now we're making money on TikTok. TikTok. TikTok. Okay, now it's happening.

[Akash Singh]

Finally.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think. For five years we've been posting on TikTok. Billions of views. Because shifty's a genius. Yep.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yep.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't know if I got paid a penny. No. Turns out 7.5 million US businesses are on TikTok employing more than 28 million people. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Wow.

[Mark Gagnon]

I'm losing thousands of dollars every month because my wife is buying stuff.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know what I mean?

[Mark Gagnon]

I've been losing tons of money buying stuff on a TikTok shop.

[Andrew Schulz]

If uncle Donald did not save TikTok.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Where would we be?

[Andrew Schulz]

I know where I would be. I'd be talking to my wife before I go to sleep at night. I know that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yucky.

[Andrew Schulz]

Instead of both of us just doom scrolling, now I know this. So Donald, unbeknownst to him, maybe I don't even know if he knows that there's 28 million people employed by this TikTok. It seems like TikTok does good for them.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It seems like it.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think that's what they want us to communicate with this ad. The only thing I care about is TikTok is paying me money to say this.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, they're paying you money.

[Andrew Schulz]

And you money. And you money too.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's good for our small business.

[Andrew Schulz]

TikTok is supporting our small business. Finally, TikTok. We've been waiting for this. But if you'd like to Learn more about TikTok's contribution to the U.S. economy, Economy and most importantly, flagrant, you can go to tiktokeconomicimpact.com did you know that? Now you know. Your data is like gold to hackers. They're selling your passwords, bank details and private messages. McAfee helps stop them. Secure VPN keeps your online activity private. AI powered text scam detector spots phishing attempts instantly. And with award winning antivirus, you get top tier hacker protection. Plus you'll get up to $2 million in identity theft coverage. All for just $39.99 for your first year. Visit mcafee.com cancel anytime terms apply. First thing, just discussing Doge really quickly. I think that there are very few Americans that would say that they do not support a reduction in waste and inefficiency.

[Akash Singh]

Correct.

[Andrew Schulz]

Especially when it comes to government institutions. So this is a bipartisan measure. Yeah, that, that Americans are supportive of. DOGE has become incredibly partisan. First, can you tell me why you think that is?

[Akash Singh]

I think it is about wars of credibility, of institutions and of process. So something I think is what does that mean?

[Andrew Schulz]

And speak to me emotionally, like why? Why does is. I'm not talking about like politically White House. I'm talking about why the average person on Twitter feels compelled to be so critical of Doge. Like what do you think is what being communicated to them and why are they having such a knee jerk reaction to it, knowing that they do want to reduce government inefficiency.

[Akash Singh]

For them, it's about Elon's complete and total judgment over this. They don't trust Elon. I would say that's it.

[Andrew Schulz]

And is that fair?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, I do think it's fair. I do think it's fair.

[Andrew Schulz]

Let's make that argument. What's the steel man against?

[Akash Singh]

The steel man against Doge is that you, you have a person who is unelected by the United States, who is a sole power over what gets cut, which violates the Constitution, because the Constitution, the power of the purse, is within Congress. Congress gets to decide what programs get cut or not. He is, according to them, illegally shutting off and doing these things. And also at times, has conflicts, major conflicts of interest in many of the decisions that he is making.

[Andrew Schulz]

What is an example of those, A.

[Akash Singh]

Perfect example is right now, State Department was my friend Ryan Graham, he works with us at Breaking Points, broke a story about there was a written originally going to be some State Department contract awarded to Tesla for. I forget the number. It was like maybe 4 million or something. After Trump got elected, that contract went up to 400 million for Tesla's armed up cybertrucks. And then they actually took the word Tesla off the website and changed it to electric vehicle.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, it's not great, right? Can we all agree it's not great?

[Andrew Schulz]

So this is good. Before we move on, we gotta appease people emotionally who see things like this and go, hey, this doesn't feel constitutional. This feels manipulative. We feel taken advantage of.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's a pretty steel steel, man.

[Akash Singh]

Pittsburgh steel, Bethlehem Steel.

[Andrew Schulz]

So it's like, that's why, like, I feel like there's a lot of gaslighting going on. And as much as we all agree we want to reduce government inefficiency, I mean, like, Akash hilariously says it every single week here. He's just like, fire them all.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Like, government job, 98% of them can go, yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, yeah, there is that feeling. But we have to give some credence to a situation like that. And there might be more context, there might be a more nuanced take to it. I get it. Maybe Elon could describe it. Sure. But on the surface, people acting, reacting emotionally to it, that does look like corruption in another way.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, like the Charlemagne thing. I heard your argument about this.

[Andrew Schulz]

What was that?

[Akash Singh]

Well, I thought it was interesting where you were like, hey, when if you're a cop and you come to me and I'm like, yo, don't look in the basement. You're like, there's some in the face, there's some in the basement.

[Andrew Schulz]

So. So. But also just the idea of, like, government spending.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Going to certain people. Like this happens on, like, a municipal level where, like, the mayor is friends with the person that has the construction company, and that construction company gets the rebuilding project for the local bridge.

[Akash Singh]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And then he gets the kickback. Right? Now we know that that's a form of corruption. When we see this, it's okay for someone to look at it and be like that kind of feels like the corruption you're trying to scrub out. Now, he might make the best vehicle for that job. Yeah, it might be right to increase that spending.

[Akash Singh]

Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

But I also need some transparency there. And you need to come out ahead of it, not wipe Tesla off the car. You need to come out ahead of it and gain my trust as an American and go, hey, this was the original deal. This amount was going to be spent over here. We think that this is better for these reasons, and that's why more money is spent there. And I totally get why you think this looks like a favor handed over, like, stop, the American. American people are done being lied to. And when we see shit like that, we have such little trust. It's almost like a girl who gets.

[Akash Singh]

Cheated on by everybody kind of should have little trust. They're not wrong. They're correct.

[Andrew Schulz]

The girl that gets cheated on by every boyfriend, the second a dude is talking to a waitress and she's laughing, the knee jerk reaction is, oh, that motherfucker's cheating too.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So that's what we feel like when we see.

[Akash Singh]

Yes, yes, you're right. And I think it is important to talk about it in that way. And that's where it comes back to process. So, like you said, we've got Doge, which is kind of unilaterally deciding what and what is not gets to be spent according to them. And so one of the interesting things I took away from your thing with Charlemagne, and if I were Charlemagne, what I would have said is, Andrew, it's fine to look, but they're not looking. They're actually acting. And the acting is the part where I think a lot of the liberals are, I think, correctly upset. I mean, let's be honest. Like, if George Soros or whatever was deciding what is what not getting spent, I mean, we would freak the fuck out.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay with it. You be not. Not you. But, like, let's say conservatives are more okay with it because your guy trust.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

But if it was George Soros is a perfect example.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, they would.

[Andrew Schulz]

The right would. Would rightfully.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, It'd be. They'd be like, this is a constitutional crisis.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

They're like, we need January 6th again. You know what I mean? Like, it would Be wild.

[Andrew Schulz]

So then maybe the best way to do this is have Doge look into it, share the findings transparently what they are doing, and then hand it over to.

[Akash Singh]

It would be Congress. So Congress, if you want to do this, like, and this is, you know, remember when I said process.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

That is actually a huge part of it. Because the real problem that they have is the unilateral decision making, the conflict of interest possibly being over. I mean, there have been a ton of shit like that, like the NLRB and other things. I've sounded like Crystal right now. She's got a you. He's got a list like 15 pages long of all this conflict of interest. And you know what I have to say, I go, yeah, you're right. I was like, you know, empirically, this is not good. Like, when you look at it in that way now, if he had sold all of his Tesla stock, if he had actually offloaded all of this and he was still doing it now, I would have a lot more trust in that. And I think most people would, too.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Absolutely.

[Akash Singh]

And I think. I don't think that members of Congress and others should be allowed. Anybody in the government should be allowed to be able to even have the appearance of corruption because of the way that corruption is now. So bedrock into our.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I was very hopeful for Doge, and then I feel like, honestly, they just kicked the wrong person out.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Not even.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Just, obviously, I'm biased toward him, but like, his. His entire thing was, I'm going to use the Constitution, I'm going to do this in a way that is palatable, but it's going to be uncomfortable. And he was upfront about all that. The thing is, Elon is just kind of like.

[Akash Singh]

What shocked me about it is Trump's deference to Elon. I think that's the part where maybe you guys can help me understand it, because I don't. First of all, it drives me crazy when Elon's in the Cabinet Room wearing a fucking T shirt and ha. And everybody else, and he's standing in a room where, if you guys ever been in the Cabinet Room, the President's chair is bigger than everybody else's chair. No person ever is supposed to be higher than the President. There's a rule. There's a famous scene in the West Wing. It's like, when the President stands, nobody sits. And in my opinion, when the President sits, nobody should stand. Why is he on standing? Why is he. It just. To me, it's like, this is where the libs are correct, dude. Like there's some weird shit going on here. I don't really get it. I don't like it.

[Andrew Schulz]

I can't viscerally. My fault. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Like I.

[Andrew Schulz]

From talking to Trump.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

If Trump feels like someone has information that he does not have, he becomes a listener.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. He's a differential. You're right, you're right.

[Andrew Schulz]

The second he's like, you know something I don't know. And I think that's what makes him so much better than anybody that the Democrats had in terms of understanding the problems of everyday people.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, sure.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because unfortunately, I think, and the Republicans too, like, remember, he's not like a traditional Republican guy. So it's like politicians in general, there is a snobbishness to them. This feeling of like, we know what you need, let us handle it. And he's the type of person, just from that interaction we had, who's like, the second you have information he doesn't have, he gets quiet and he kind of keys in.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Even if it's what is the life of an everyday American? Because I don't live that life.

[Akash Singh]

You have it.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It doesn't have to be what's the sc Blah, blah, blah.

[Akash Singh]

You see this all the time when he's in the barber shop or whatever. He's, he's a genius. Because what he does is he'll take your problem and he'll turn it around into the campaign. And he's like, that's what the great, the greats always do. This is that they take the question.

[Andrew Schulz]

Listen to what people are struggling.

[Akash Singh]

They go to the essence, like, no, but they, how low is the bar.

[Andrew Schulz]

For politicians that were like, well, unfortunately.

[Eddie]

This guy listens to us then.

[Akash Singh]

Well, what they, what they do is they take you seriously, but not literally. So my favorite moment in a debate is when some lady in the 92 campaign asked Bill Clinton about the national debt and it's like she didn't really know what she was talking about. And he's like, she's talking about the economy. He's like, we've had four years of trickle down economics. It hasn't worked. You know all this. He didn't ask your same question about the national debt. But the point is, is that he's like, she's talking about the economy. Like he can see the truth, the truth behind it. Exactly. And that's what Trump, I think is very good at. That's what all the greats are very good at. And yeah, I mean, continue like the Elon thing to me, I, and this will make me Very unprepared, popular. I think it's becoming a problem. I think that this liberal. No, because right now there's a narrative online which is, in my opinion, cope is that a lot of these liberals, like, cope, as in, like, they're coping. That they're. They're coping. An excuse. Yeah. They're living in denial. There's a cope right now from the right that all of these liberal gatherings are astroturfed. And you know what? You're right. But the thing is that you actually.

[Andrew Schulz]

A lot of terms that some people might not know. Okay, so in astroturf, Astroturf means fake.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, fake grass. Right. So, like, what it means is that a large is people are being paid to protest. I do not think that's true. I think this has happened in the past. This has happened in the past, and it is an integral thing. But that's actually what a lot of liberals said about the Tea party back in 2010. They're like, the Koch brothers are paying for it. I'm like, yeah, bro, but you can't just pay people to show up and be angry. And you still got blown the fuck out in the 2010 elections. What I'm worried about is the perception, perhaps correctly, that Trump is not completely in control of his own presidency. And we do see some of that. Like, in terms of the priority. The priority right now is not only with Doge, it's like the media capture around this Elon as the force where I think it should be on Trump. And Trump has, in my opinion, a ten times better political understanding of America. Like, I think if he. His narrative of the election was about immigration and it was about the economy. What I worry about right now for Trump is he's absorbing all of this pressure where Elon is, you know, slap shot, cutting this, bringing people back. By his own admission, I'm not making this up. Like, he's like, we fired people who were doing Ebola. We brought them back. Right now, they just fired a bunch of people from noaa, the National Oceanic Administration, which. Those are guys who fly into the hurricane and be like, it's a Category four or whatever. And it's like, dude, I've seen politics in the past. Like, the most dangerous thing a politician can do is misinterpret their mandate. So the most recent example we have is 2004. George W. Bush, the last Republican to win the popular vote. Republican. He wins that popular vote for one reason. Keep us safe. Iraq, 9, 11. You know what he does? Let's privatize Social Security. He's like, yeah, the American people voted for me. I want to privatize Social Security. Blown the fuck out in the 2006 midterm election. Not only that, Katrina. And what I'm worried about for Trump is, dude, even if it's not your fault, if there's a natural disaster and the Dems can point to Noah getting. You're about to get fucking crucified, dude. Same with, you know. You know how lucky they are. That crash happened in the first week of the Trump administration. Can. Can you imagine if that happened a year from now after some Doge cuts or whatever with the faa? They would be destroyed.

[Andrew Schulz]

So they will be responsible.

[Akash Singh]

I am very worried for them that they're hitching their entire political reputation. And the most critical part of your presidency, the first hundred days, all history of a presidency is almost certainly the first 18 months. And of those 18 months, always the first 100 days. We're about 30, some seven days or whatever. When you're talking right now, it's not that much longer to go. And in that first 100 days, Elon has been the number one. If I were Donald Trump or whatever, I would want my number one story to be historic or whatever. Executive action on inflation. I'd be having inflation press conferences every single day and Tom Homan and mass deportation. That's all I'm doing. I'm just talking about Mexico. I'm talking about shutting down the border. I'm having Tom Homan on television every single day. Not to say he isn't, but he's drawing away, taking control of the narrative.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Elon has taken control of the narrative.

[Akash Singh]

Right. I think it's brilliant right now to let this happen. So I thought that for a time.

[Andrew Schulz]

Tell me why.

[Eddie]

Tell me why you think that Elon has a shield.

[Akash Singh]

Let Elon.

[Eddie]

Because all these cuts are going to be difficult.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. But of the day, still absorbing all of that, like, energy.

[Eddie]

But right now, everyone's looking at Elon doing.

[Akash Singh]

That's very true. I. I actually thought that for a while. I was like, maybe Elon is the whipping boy to, like, sit there and absorb. But I'm very worried that Trump and losing this is why you were asking about Steve Bannon. There's a reason, dude. I think Bannon is the smartest person in the MAGA movement and is a person. Oh, absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

Talk that.

[Akash Singh]

Absolutely, absolutely. 100. He was Maga before.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Real quick, before we get off this.

[Andrew Schulz]

If.

[Sagar Enjeti]

If I felt like these were Trump's ideas to cut these damn things. And Elon is doing It. I would be on board with you. These don't seem like Trump ideas. They seem like Elon.

[Eddie]

No, no.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And that's why I don't agree.

[Akash Singh]

Can I double click on that quickly? Because there's a very important.

[Andrew Schulz]

I like that. I love that.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. We're talking tech. Yeah, that's right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You said that earlier.

[Akash Singh]

I can't say that early.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, yeah.

[Akash Singh]

All right.

[Andrew Schulz]

For all of our young listeners, back in the day, you had to click something twice in order to open it. Now, I think we just.

[Eddie]

I said he meant that as liking it.

[Akash Singh]

Well, I meant, like, expand.

[Andrew Schulz]

You might be too young. Okay, go, go, go. Open, open that.

[Akash Singh]

This is why I was talking about Bannon. There are multiple theories which intersect. Like, if you think of. What am I thinking? Venn diagram. Like, the Venn diagram is that Elon is part of libertarian right to the end of Cut the Government. Now, Bannon would say attack the administrative state to replace the administrative state, as in the government itself should be the power, the determination of the path of the country, of business, of breaking up the centers of gravity that are non governmental powers. Facebook, Google, et cetera. Elon is somebody who's very against something like that. Much more like an anarcho capitalist. And on top of that is like traditional conservatism, which agrees a little bit with this, but is also obsessed with, like, the religious right, constitution, et cetera. So, like, right now, my fear is that maga, while it definitely agrees with administrative state here, is that they are losing the capacity to make their argument that. No, actually, and this is what Trump and J.D. i think, believe, is that the government itself should have power over the direction of the country, should have the ability to tell social media companies, don't censor, as opposed to having a billionaire buy it. Like, that's a nice workaround. But look, I mean, Zuck went on Rogan and said, oh, we're not gonna fact check anymore. I did a post about Lyme disease. It got fact check the next day, and it's still not down. Right. And, you know, there's no enforcing mechanism within that. Only the government can fix that problem for me or for all Americans. So that's where I would say it's like, there's important theories of government which are very at odds. Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

So there is that, like, Bannon group, like. And again, I don't think Bannon actually cares about the country as much as he likes. Like, rallying people up for attention, really. I think he's surprised about that. I think he's a really I think he's an acute listener, so I think he can, like, spot trends early, and I think that he's a good enough communicator that he can fan the flame, fan the flames of those trends early, and those things can grow to be.

[Eddie]

Bigger things now, like the Nazi salute.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's like a perfect example of, like, he probably knew what he was doing and he didn't do it enough.

[Akash Singh]

He definitely knew.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So it's like. But there's a very example. Like, he's. He's not actually trying to, like, make it. Like, if you really cared about American and patriotism, you're not throwing up a Nazi slew because you would have some respect to all the Americans that died fighting the Nazi.

[Akash Singh]

Well, I think he hates. I think he hates liberals and he wants a media to.

[Andrew Schulz]

Exactly, exactly. But again, I think it's just an attention seeking thing. And, like, he's going to. It's dog whistle. It's like, how can I throw now? I think there are ways. That's why I don't take him, like, seriously as someone who actually cares about America and more someone who just cares about, like, causing ruckus and, like, getting some attention in the midst. Now, what. What I would say is that it's very easy to pacify the base that he's riling up.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So anytime he riles some people up, you just need a headline to be like, Disney cuts all. All DI programs. And then they go, all right. Well, exactly. Anytime they start riling up, you just need a headline that goes, Doge to give back $5,000 every single minute. And then they calm down. It don't matter how many.

[Akash Singh]

It's not even gonna happen, of course.

[Andrew Schulz]

But neither is anything that Bannon says.

[Akash Singh]

Well, I don't think that's true. I mean, like, what, like, what does he say?

[Andrew Schulz]

What's going to be executed?

[Akash Singh]

Well, what about mass deportation, dude? Like, what about Trump literally ran on. He could do it if he wanted to.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, of course.

[Akash Singh]

No, no, I'm not.

[Andrew Schulz]

Again, when I say, like, anything that Bannon says, of course there are things that he's supportive of. Like, I don't know, like, all. Every single belief that he has or anything in his rant on. And I'm sure that certain things, like deportation is not a specifically Bannon thing. Like, there's a lot of support for it.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

What I'm trying to say is there are going to be these people that can rally the support of the disenfranchised. And he's incredibly Good at it.

[Akash Singh]

He is good at it.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is one of the things that, like, I don't want to get away from Doge right here, but this is one of the things I think the Dems really struggle with is that like, they could very easily win the next election if they made this a class issue. Like, they just need to make it a class issue.

[Akash Singh]

Like, it's tough for them though.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. Because they're in the pockets of the rich and all the people that are running the party are these Ivy League trust fund babies. So if Ivy League trust fund babies are the people making the intellectual decisions for your party, you can't speak to the poor. Now, like her or dislike her aoc, it doesn't matter your thought people with her because they think she's trying to help. Yeah, you might disagree with how she's going to help, but she comes across as a working class ass girl that wants to help. That's what demsd burn.

[Akash Singh]

She outran Biden in her district. She's a lot of. I interviewed or on our show, not me, but our team, we interviewed a ton of AOC Trump voters and they were like, yeah, I trust them both to fight for the working class. I thought it was actually fascinating.

[Andrew Schulz]

So the Dem should look at that specifically and be like, oh, wow, she's locked in. And people believe she wants to help them and they don't really. They become disillusioned with these other figures. They're. In my opinion, they're probably in the pockets of billionaire class a little bit too. Too much. So they can't make it about money, which they could make it about money so easily and regain the working class in a heartbeat. They have to.

[Akash Singh]

Sure about that?

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, maybe not. But, but, but they'd have a better chance than making about identity. I agree with you. Make it about before and now it seems like they're even Rahm Emanuel is moving away. Let's get out of the bathroom.

[Akash Singh]

Look, they say a lot. There are political realities that are huge problems for Democrats. Number one, rich white people are now Dems. Right. The base of the Democratic Party.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's not. It's a very. It's more nuanced than that. It's Ivy League educated net.

[Akash Singh]

I was about to get into that.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, there are. There are tons of rich white people that are like, yo, I'm over this shit. It's this specifically Ivy League, like four generation money.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Sheltered.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sheltered. They've never had a real job.

[Akash Singh]

Of course.

[Andrew Schulz]

Those are the people out there that are like telling you what you should feel and how you should vote. And real working class people, like people have actually had a real fucking job in their life, do not want some trust fund kid telling them what they should vote.

[Akash Singh]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's pretentious.

[Akash Singh]

What I was going to get to is when I say rich white people, I mean a very specific class where one of the number one determiners of how you vote and party ID is four year college degree. So if you attend a four year college degree institution which also correlates very much with income, then you are much more likely to be a Democrat. And that's why, you know, even rich white is not exactly the right term because we all know blue collar trucker millionaires down in Florida, they're fucking Republican as shit. Right? But these guys did not go to college necessarily and they have very different cultural attitudes. I think I talked about this the last time I was here. Charles Murray. One of my favorite books of all time time is called Coming Apart. And it's exactly about how Americans with college degrees have concentrated themselves in something called super zip codes. You know, the Whole Foods index. Like if you have a Whole Foods, you're much more likely to vote for a Democrat. If you have whatever generic or Aldi. Right. You know, much more likely to vote Republican. What's happened is that America is culturally separated probably more than ever before. Are we all watching White Lotus? I am. I love White Lotus. That's actually a signifier of like you're out of touch. Right. The most popular, the most popular show in the country is cis. All right. Or Landman, which. Oh my God. Okay, I, I love parts of Landman, but dude, what a disaster.

[Andrew Schulz]

We could talk about, but there's a perfect example. It's like some people, some, it's elitist.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't think women act that way. I, maybe that's just me. I genuinely.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Why are they like rational on the show or what's going on?

[Akash Singh]

They're like, it's like a Billy Bob.

[Andrew Schulz]

You need your dick sucked.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, you need your dick sucked.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why are we recycling when I could be stuck on your dick?

[Akash Singh]

Okay, I'm glad you filmed this.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sounds like a great show. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

For some guy who's like, yeah, this, that women talk.

[Andrew Schulz]

What the is going on here?

[Akash Singh]

29 year old playing a 17 year old in panties. What is happening?

[Andrew Schulz]

Fire. Anyway, yeah, not fire.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, right. Most popular show in the country. So what the do? I know, but like my point is exactly about the cultural separation is why it's hard for Democrats. And I Think even for aoc, AOC and them may speak in the language of the identity politics and also hold class politics. And what I really have come to believe is that we, we live in a cultural moment. So there is a. So previously 2020. Well, I'm fascinated by that election. The highest turnout in modern history. Equivalent turnout not seen since like decades. And if we read about other high turnout elections in American history, it was in something called the Age of Acrimony. That's a book I really recommend, which is.

[Andrew Schulz]

What does that word mean?

[Akash Singh]

Acrimony is. Acrimonious would mean like tension of fighting. It's a very.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's a lacrima, I think means crying in laughing acrimony.

[Akash Singh]

Acrimonious place would be. It would be all of us yelling at each other.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sometimes you're smart, bro. Hit you with the ladder. Google something. Go, go, go.

[Akash Singh]

All right. Age of acrimony is the 1890s. And unfortunately that was also when the Gilded Age. Now why was America all up in arms at that time, bro? It wasn't just. It wasn't really about class. That's when all the rich people really took advantage. It was basically like, should black people have civil rights or not? That was like the number one animating issue of the South. There's an entire thing called Southern populism, which is basically just like whipping up poor white people against blacks so that you can prop up a new plantation class of rich people from the post Civil War and even in the. In the Northeast, like where we are here. That's how the robber barons and all of them came to power. And they funded a lot of this culture warfare and benefited from it. And it wasn't until Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Era started that we said, no, the real problem here is combination is all of these Standard Oil trusts taking advantage of us. And that was a complete reverse of the way things go.

[Andrew Schulz]

Real quick, slow down. So essentially what the Southern populism was doing and the wire bands were doing was central saying, yo, your life was way better back when.

[Akash Singh]

No, they had. They had the population fighting over black civil rights. That's what I'm saying.

[Andrew Schulz]

So. And the way they did it is said, hey, your life was way better when these black people didn't have all this rights. Having all this rights in this upward mobility is taken away from you.

[Akash Singh]

Bingo.

[Andrew Schulz]

And then Roosevelt on some Bernie Sanders came in. Shit came in and was like, yo, it's not about black and white. It's about these billionaires.

[Akash Singh]

These guys came in.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's what I'm saying the Democrats.

[Akash Singh]

I agree, but it's very difficult because the problem is they're in the fucking pockets.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's why it's difficult.

[Akash Singh]

Well, not only pockets. It's not only they're controlled, but they speak in the language. Language of exactly. The gay people.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, they speak gay and. And it is true, they do speak that well.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I mean, they're out of touch.

[Akash Singh]

Everyone should go watch AOC's 2020 DNC speech. He was like, for black indigenous, for, you know, land acknowledgment. Bipoc.

[Andrew Schulz]

And I think I'm a modern Tupac Bipoc. You see him in the ballet recital. That is bipart. What is bipoc?

[Akash Singh]

Oh, black indigenous people of color. Have you not heard of this, man? Come on.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, because old school.

[Akash Singh]

This is old school acting.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. I have never heard about indigenous people of color.

[Akash Singh]

That's right. It keeps people like Akash and I out.

[Andrew Schulz]

Fair enough.

[Akash Singh]

And Mexicans. Oh, yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I thought about color.

[Akash Singh]

Huh?

[Sagar Enjeti]

I thought we were people.

[Akash Singh]

No, it's black indigenous people.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Only that.

[Akash Singh]

Only bipoc. It's not.

[Andrew Schulz]

What's a black indigenous person of color?

[Akash Singh]

No, it's saying black and indigenous people of color, as in like, it's a specific. It's a way to keep people like us out. Like the Asians and the Mexicans. It's a divisional of it. It's like a division.

[Andrew Schulz]

Ye.

[Akash Singh]

So.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is interesting. What this is, this is a mirror image of what you just described with the Robert Barrons populism.

[Akash Singh]

Yes, yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's just.

[Akash Singh]

That was his whole point.

[Mark Gagnon]

Acrimonious, like five clock is an acrimonious of black people.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, good.

[Andrew Schulz]

Got it. Okay, I got that shit now. Okay, so that's genius again. So you're just flipping it and it does feel good. It does satisfy you in that moment you're like, I don't have something, they're the reason why I don't have it. But they're unable to execute the task at hand, which is really, hey, there's a lot of people who got a lot of money. They could be Indian, they could be white, they could be Jewish, they could be whatever the fuck they are. And in order for you to get some money, they're going to have to have a little less of that money and influence. Potentially.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Even if that's wrong.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

If they run on that, it is.

[Akash Singh]

So much more digestible and they need credibility. Now.

[Andrew Schulz]

Where do you get the credit?

[Akash Singh]

That's the problem is that I think that AOC and a lot of these other people are so, you know these statements in the past, this is what Kamala. Kamala has been. So from those 2019 press conferences, we need, we need a health care for all illegal immigrants. I'm like, yeah, why don't we just start with healthcare for America?

[Andrew Schulz]

No, but that's interesting because the second AOC runs for president, they're going to run the bipoc.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. It'll be everywhere.

[Andrew Schulz]

And you know what that will affect Sargo.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is where you're kind of in a primary system where you have to appease the most extreme voters because they'll come out.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

In the say the wildcratic primary support. Yeah. And then as soon as you run general, people are going to be like, look what this bitch said.

[Akash Singh]

That's why I think the next Democrat has to come from fucking. No. Oh yeah, Yeah. I want to know what you guys think.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Stephen, a real quick Miles had a very interesting take from. What was it? Colin Cowherd.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Basically he said picture LeBron. You think about LeBron? No, like great passing, great this, great that. Picture MJ ultimate winner. Picture this guy now he goes, not picture Jason Tatum, nothing. And then you had a point for Gilbert Arenas that you were talking about earlier where he said the league, they just. The league just won't give him. They just won't get behind.

[Andrew Schulz]

And I might be misquoting Gillard, but it seemed like he was trying to say the league won't get behind Jason Tatum despite him having all the intangibles.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like he got the skills, he got the ring.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. I think he's just, he's not likable. There's nothing like you don't like this guy. He is. I think I said this to you.

[Akash Singh]

Oh yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

This is a post game. When he sell. When he won the championship finally.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He didn't play great. And then his championship speech is just like copying everybody else's.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And I think everybody was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just light skinned. You're just like, like.

[Andrew Schulz]

So I agree with everything you're saying, but the league does seem to get behind the guy who was suspended for.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Shooting people because he's exciting.

[Andrew Schulz]

So they don't really care about if you break the law anymore.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I guess not.

[Akash Singh]

I think we don't care and ever.

[Andrew Schulz]

Got a bunch of baby mamas he's trying to abort. Like the guys who are taking over the league, they don't exactly fit the mold of what the league would get behind.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Say whatever you want about Michael Jordan and, like, gambling. Nobody knew any of that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They kept it out of the news.

[Andrew Schulz]

He was the face of the league. And also, he was never in trouble about anything.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Just LeBron.

[Andrew Schulz]

LeBron.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Never model citizen, all things considered.

[Andrew Schulz]

Steph Curry, model citizen. For real. Jason Tatum is a model citizen.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why not give him the league?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Because I. I think the league reflects what we want to support.

[Andrew Schulz]

So they're doing. They're doing the wrestling thing now. David Stern would be like, I'm going with who's the most professional and who's going to be. You know? Yeah. Match the character of the league. Whereas Adam Silver is like, what do the people.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Luca needs to go to the Lakers.

[Andrew Schulz]

All right, we'll push that straight through. Yeah, yeah. That trade might not get pushed through. Back in the day, we were just.

[Mark Gagnon]

Talking about this Vince McMahon.

[Eddie]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

100.

[Eddie]

What is Tatum.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Stupid idiot dude.

[Eddie]

What is Tatum exceptional at?

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's very well rounded. He's a great scorer. Good defender.

[Akash Singh]

Like, well rounded.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's good.

[Akash Singh]

No, no.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's like. He's an unstoppable score.

[Eddie]

But that's what I'm saying.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Eddie]

Oh. If you say he's an unstoppable scorer, then maybe. I just don't feel like he has something in his game that's just so out of this world the way, like, all the other people you named.

[Andrew Schulz]

I think. I think what Alex saying rings true, which is, like, we relate to disruptive play. So Steph Curry was disruptive. Allen Iverson was disruptive.

[Eddie]

LeBron.

[Andrew Schulz]

And Edwards is disruptive. LeBron, like, weirdly, I think LeBron was so disruptive, to be honest, because of his passing ability, too. If he was just, like, a guy who's dunking on you.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Same with Luca.

[Andrew Schulz]

Exactly. Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. But I also think if. I think we're forgetting also Luca's.

[Akash Singh]

Why.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'll be honest with you. Like, if Luca's not white, his style of play. I don't know how marketable he is. I think he's less marketable.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But if he's black, he would be in better shape.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, he would.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Duncan. He'd be leaping.

[Akash Singh]

He'd be leaping.

[Andrew Schulz]

Be LeBron. But do you hear what I'm saying? Like, he's kind of, like, slow and plotting.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Like, it's easier to get behind. That is for a white guy, you don't expect athletics.

[Andrew Schulz]

I mean, do we look at Luca as Tim Duncan if he's black?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

In that. Interesting.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

But Tim. Yeah, yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And they'll both talk. Actually, Tim Duncan Would talk. I guess his talk was funny, but he'd be like, nice try. Have you ever heard Kevin Garnett talk about Tim Duncan would talk. He'd be like, almost got me. Like, little things like that. There you go. That was good effort.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, I will say Tim dunk is in the post, and it's a little bit more boring style of play. Like, Luke is doing step back three. So the game has definitely changed, but in terms of being like, he's not very, like, like, flash and excitement.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's really using speed and the ability to slow down, and he's using his body weight to score. And I'm trying to find a black player that's like that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Harden.

[Andrew Schulz]

Huh? Harden n. Harden athleticism and just.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think as Harden got older and, you know, didn't take care of.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm saying in the heyday of Harden. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just. I hate making that argument, but you have to calculate race in the somewhat. And he's not like, excite, like, I don't want to on Luca, but he's not like, oh, my God. When you watch Steph, you go, oh, my God.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Fun, but not like Steph. But I will say also, I think the reason David Stern cared more about character is the United States was more puritanical and cared more about character. And now, like, now we don't give a if you gamble. And you girls. And Trump has shown us if you were. Are funny and engaging will get behind you.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

In this day and age. So I think the league is like, all right, Jason Tatum, you're a model citizen, but you're not as funny and engaging as these other guys. And that's who the people are getting behind. So that's who we're getting behind.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's interesting.

[Mark Gagnon]

And Jordan's gambling issue, I feel like the only issue is that he didn't do steak.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because if he did stake, like, if he used, like, the leader in global betting in US Social casinos.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, my gosh.

[Mark Gagnon]

He would love a social dude.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's the only reason LeBron sounds better.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's. It is. Wait, no, I'm not. I am not.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, you almost got in his head.

[Andrew Schulz]

You almost got me. Now, I know that Jordan did like to, like, take some time on his own, and I'm sure at that time, Steak would have, like, an antisocial casino. But right now, they are the leader in US Social casinos, and you can bet on top sports and political events and use the promo code flagrant, and you're going to get your welcome bonus. Did you know that? Welcome bonus. You're going to get a welcome bonus welcome. And you're going to get your bonus. Go get your bonus. Go get your bonus. Let's get back to the show.

[Akash Singh]

I want to know what you guys think. Stephen A. Do you think he has a chance?

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, I think he has a chance.

[Akash Singh]

He. He wants it. He's real. He's coming on the show.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He wants it bad.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's coming on the show, he wants it bad. But no chance.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, he's. He's a great communicator enough. Like, he has the communication skills and he has the star power because you do need the star power. He has, like, that centrist. Like, he's relatable because every. All the men that, like, let's say voted for Trump on masculinity will say, see that in him.

[Akash Singh]

I totally agree, 100%.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, but, like, he doesn't have, like, the emasculated g. This is going to drive Democrats crazy. But, like, they do have this deep insecurity about looking emasculated. Like, I said that thing on. On. On brilliant ns where I was like, I don't know, like a guy who identifies as a Democrat over 59, and that riles up. I've never seen so many people. And I think it was just emblematic of this feeling, like people going. They think we're. They think we're.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And. And so deep down they had.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's so funny because Al pretends he's five'eleven Exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

But it is. But that. Here's the thing. That wasn't always the case. Don't get up.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Eddie]

You laughing a lot too hard.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, but think about it. Keywords, list, insult the conservatives. The conservatives. News when I was growing up, got no pussy. They got no pussy. They had gay relationships on the side. They weren't getting anything. They still do.

[Eddie]

They grinder.

[Andrew Schulz]

But Elon got 17 kids.

[Akash Singh]

Like, whereas he just had another one. Exactly. Yeah. You guys see that?

[Andrew Schulz]

Bill Clinton was getting head in the Oval Office, right? Like, Democrats were the ones that were actually cracking cheeks.

[Sagar Enjeti]

They were winning the culture war 1,000%. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So the pool war that is Democrats that is kind of flipped because the Democrats now have to be, like, so concerned. Now. Stephen A doesn't have that. Stephen A's out here like, yo, Latina's got big asses. And I like Latinas. Latinas.

[Eddie]

I don't think he has no chance.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

I just don't think that he doesn't.

[Akash Singh]

Have the same baggage, dude. Like, whoever comes next, it has to.

[Andrew Schulz]

I agree with you.

[Akash Singh]

Came out of nowhere because he didn't vote for Iraq. Like, you have to have somebody who has got credibility or you have to.

[Eddie]

Have somebody who doesn't give a fuck. It's Trump had.

[Akash Singh]

But. Yeah, but let me take away.

[Andrew Schulz]

Let me take away no chance.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, he has a chance.

[Andrew Schulz]

He has a chance. I need to see some. I need to see some credibility. Like. Like, I think what worked for Trump, even if it doesn't even make sense. But we could bridge the gap. Like, the cognitive dissonance in our brain evaporated when we're like, well, he's made these deals. He likes making deals. He could make deals abroad. I need to see Stephen A. I need to believe that Stephen A. Could talk to Putin, talk to Kim Jong, and make some deals go through. And I understand what I'm saying.

[Akash Singh]

That's interesting.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sounds crazy, but a lot of.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, I understand that. What I think could help him in the primary is I think he can beat whoever the. The Republicans.

[Andrew Schulz]

Absolutely.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So in a primary.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's good at arguing.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He doesn't give a. Dude, he goes on.

[Andrew Schulz]

Doesn't give a. Yeah, I like that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And then maybe in the election, the general, you say, I don't know if he can do politics, diplomatic, whatever.

[Akash Singh]

Watching him on Hannity. All politicians need this. You need a love of the game, dude. And Stephen, he likes the love of the game. I mean, think about it. Like, you want to give up, like, your wife, your wife and your children's future to be in a Secret Service bubble. Like, do you know how narcissistic you have to be to actually pursue this? Like, you have to be kind of crazy.

[Andrew Schulz]

I won't do another podcast a week.

[Akash Singh]

That's what I'm saying.

[Andrew Schulz]

I want to go to my daughter's gymnastics.

[Akash Singh]

And that's normal, right? Like, that's what normal people do. I wouldn't do it. But having spent some time around these people, like, the burning needs attention, just like you need a black hole inside your chest that can never be filled. Like, and when you read all these guys, Clinton, you're like, oh, he had four stepfathers. They used to beat the shit out of his mom. And what did he need? He needed affirmation from women, from people. So he's always running. Freshman year, he runs for president, jfk, same thing. He's, like, watching all this insanity at home and all this. He needs women the way that his father needed women. He needed the love of the people as the second son wanted him to be president. His dad wanted the older brother first son. Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Didn't you always say that?

[Andrew Schulz]

No, that was jfk.

[Akash Singh]

Well, it is a lot.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You're so smart that it takes, it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Takes us a second to catch up. Who had four dads?

[Akash Singh]

Clinton had to Kennedy. These guys have going on. If we're being honest with Trump too, like Trump's entire entire desire is what please his father and his mother.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right.

[Akash Singh]

It's like that. Is that edible? Like need is like deep and stuff.

[Andrew Schulz]

What about John Ste.

[Akash Singh]

I think Stephen has that.

[Andrew Schulz]

What about Jon Stewart?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, I would. Yeah, I think he do it, but I, I would love it.

[Akash Singh]

I think he's brilliant and I think he's a great critic. I don' Know if he has that. I don't know if he has that same love of the game. And I mean again, we have to think about what are you giving up every human being. You will give up everything forever. John is a great communicator, but I don't think that he has that same desire to play. I mean, politics is also a coalitional sport. You have to say something and then meet with somebody who totally disagrees with you and then go on a stage and be like, we're the best friends ever. Right. Like that requires kind of some self hatred and like some weird to do like, and absorb all of that. And I think John is almost too honest and like too good of a guy.

[Andrew Schulz]

And that's why, that's why he has our trust. He has, I love John. He has the level of trust that we need. But you're right, he might not have that deep black hole that is needed to go out there and give everything.

[Eddie]

Are you saying he couldn't win or you're saying he would never run?

[Akash Singh]

He might not want maybe either. I mean, I, and, and actually he could win.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I think he.

[Akash Singh]

I don't know, man. I.

[Andrew Schulz]

Democratic nom. Yes.

[Akash Singh]

You have to put. Yeah, yeah, that's different. But like, like, and actually even then I'm still not quite sure, like what you need. You need a fighter. Like, look at the liberal energy right now. I mean, frankly, like, I kind of make fun of them because they're like, these guys are going viral and from town halls. They're like, get up there and get yourself arrested in the Department of Education. I'm like, bro, what the fuck is that going to do? Like, what are we doing?

[Andrew Schulz]

Did that make you feel bad that he like lifted his voice in octaves? Like he didn't even Know he was doing his voice. That's a problem.

[Akash Singh]

That's true.

[Andrew Schulz]

Seriously. And I know obviously you have some bias, but, like, they have to.

[Akash Singh]

And yes, I am very biased, but.

[Andrew Schulz]

I speak about, I speak about this, like, purely culturally. Like, they have to address that issue so that they can become more relatable. And I think Stephen A addresses that.

[Akash Singh]

There's no.

[Andrew Schulz]

That looks at Stephen A. And thinks of like an emasculated.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, he's not a bad guy. I'm just like, you're not.

[Sagar Enjeti]

There's a clip I know you've seen. This is where Johnson, Stewart, I don't think wants to, but he would win.

[Akash Singh]

Tucker Carlson got his 2000.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Got his high voice out talking all this ranting and raving.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And I know that's your boy. I don't like him. But then John just goes, tucker, you wear a bow tie.

[Akash Singh]

Done. I do.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's the Trump does. When Trump is in a debate and he just gets you. Oh, John by occupation.

[Akash Singh]

Yes, we'll do that.

[Andrew Schulz]

A lot of these guys, when John.

[Akash Singh]

Wants to, when, when, remember when he destroyed, Was it Jim Cramer? That was, yeah, O'Reilly, like, devastating takedown. Kramer was like, uncomfortable. He was like, almost crying. He is, I mean, well, yeah, it's.

[Andrew Schulz]

A joke, but still, like, it was like the moment where everyone realized, oh, wow, this guy.

[Akash Singh]

Exactly. I mean, look, I, I, I like John. I think he could do well. Stephen, to me, reads with the liberal base, wants another. Oh, by the way, the, when I said the Democratic base, I didn't get to finish. It's also old black people, like elderly black people, are the absolute, like, most loyal people to the Democratic Party. Remember they showed up for Jim Clyburn and Joe Biden. They saved Joe Biden's ass in South Carolina. They're the people who gave Obama the presidency after he won in the Iowa caucuses. Basically put him on the path to victory. So I think Stephen embodies their, like, want to fight. And like, the fight is the same thing for Trump. Like, Trump animated the Republican base and all of these working class whites who are like, he's standing up for us against these corrupt Ivy League fucks who I fucking hate.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

So his mere existence, his, his occupation, occupation of the Oval Office is enough for me to see these people scream, to tire, to go out to the streets. It's Eric Cartman licking Scott Peterson's tears from south park where he's like, oh, Scott, I'm licking your, he's like, licking his tears. I forget Scott Tenderman Must die. It's a great south park episode.

[Andrew Schulz]

Watch it. They make fun of black women.

[Akash Singh]

Anyway. I just think that's what Trump is to me, and this is part of the problem for the Democrats is when you have a group that is explicitly hatred of your leaders, of your. Of the cultural elite of which you are one, no matter what you think, you have a huge messaging problem. That's part of the reason why I think that Steven could be powerful, though, because he's not connected to that in the same way.

[Eddie]

And he gets some of the sports fans from the other side.

[Andrew Schulz]

Dude.

[Akash Singh]

Of course. Yeah. Think about his name ID forever as well.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's cool as.

[Akash Singh]

You need cool.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, you need cool.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, he's cool. I agree. Yeah.

[Eddie]

You went from no chance.

[Andrew Schulz]

You see, listen, I. I'm a plastic bag in the wind. He gave me two good points. I was like, man, we about to have our second black president.

[Mark Gagnon]

The fact you said no chance makes me think he has a chance.

[Andrew Schulz]

By the way, Netflix is dead. Okay. But if it's alive. March, March 4th, you can watch my stuff. Okay? So, yeah. Wow, that's. That's really interesting. And I think it solves a bunch of problems. It solves the masculinity issue. It solves centrist trust 100. He's the outsider, so you don't have him saying a bunch of other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Wow. Wow.

[Andrew Schulz]

And. And he does want it.

[Akash Singh]

He wants it.

[Andrew Schulz]

He said something.

[Akash Singh]

He has the fire. Yeah. More than when I see his eyes twinkle when he's going at Sean Hannity, I'm like this.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, he loves the game.

[Akash Singh]

And, like, he's just like, Trump. All the greats that they live for those moments, like Clinton said, the most depressed he ever was when he had to leave the White House. Like, that's who they are, dude. Yeah. When he had to stop at a red light for the first time, like, that's. That's what they live, you know?

[Andrew Schulz]

But, like, that's. That's what he crazy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's what he appears before that every day. He was going home to his daughter.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Looking at him as he's having this cheating scandal. He's got to talk to her. He's got to go lie to the entire country.

[Akash Singh]

He's the worst day of his life.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Leave. I have to leave all of that.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I have to leave all of that.

[Akash Singh]

He's like, the first time I walked.

[Andrew Schulz]

In, it's the most depressing. Now I'm going to have to look.

[Akash Singh]

My daughter in the eye to get.

[Andrew Schulz]

My dick sucked by the instant. That was fun.

[Akash Singh]

He's like, I'd walk in a room, they wouldn't play Hail to the Chief. I didn't know what was going on. That's insane. That's who they are. Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

These people nuts, man.

[Akash Singh]

And listen, they're great, you know, that's why we need them. We need somebody else to absorb all.

[Andrew Schulz]

This because the rest of us want.

[Akash Singh]

To go to our daughter's gymnastics class.

[Andrew Schulz]

You need some. Yeah. That's a great observation from obviously being, you know, years in politics and understanding like the constitution of the person that's going to do the job. They do need that burning desire. That's approval and the need to fight.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

That is why I think Steven has that. And that's why when I look at. I don't. I. Kamala, of course never had. She had the narcissism and all of that to pursue it. But she didn't have.

[Andrew Schulz]

She wasn't a star.

[Akash Singh]

She. She just was. She couldn't convey that. She couldn't combine that I guess for. For greatness.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But I think she has the same.

[Akash Singh]

She's got horrible bag. The.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Who else?

[Andrew Schulz]

Is there anybody else? Any other outsider? That's interesting.

[Akash Singh]

I would have made a case for Dean Phillips, the guy who ran against Biden in the primary, only because he has the Obama. He has the same thing Obama had in O2. So in O2, Obama fucking. Nobody literally gives a speech outside the state Senate against the Iraq war. Dean is the only establishment Democrat who can credibly say I called out Biden's age before it was obvious to the world because he ran against Biden in the New Hampshire primary. He's made some weird like moves since then. Dean is filthy rich. So that's. That helps. Right? You can self fund a campaign, you can get your name ID out there. But again, he's the same Obama thing of. I told the truth when it was uncomfortable. He even didn't even run for Congress again. Like he lost his political future and got blown out in the primary on a single message of we cannot win with Biden. And he was empirically correct. So I think Dean, I mean, I don't know if the Democrats will reward him in the sense same way. But Buddha, judge, I mean he wants it. He's desperate. He has the need. He has the black.

[Andrew Schulz]

I like Buddha.

[Akash Singh]

But his problem is he's. He's got the baggage, dude. He's got that 2020 primary stage. Raising my hands for illegal health care and all this. It's like that stuff is just cancer.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Here's what I would say about him. Here's what I'd say about Booty Ji. He will engage the other side. And I think that is refreshing.

[Akash Singh]

You have the appearance of Eng. Have the appearance of and on Fox News. You know what?

[Andrew Schulz]

You're right.

[Akash Singh]

He loves the game, too. He loves to go on Fox. He likes to combat with Sander Smith or whatever.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's smart.

[Akash Singh]

He has the appearance of smart. But. Yes, okay. And that's important. That's important.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, let's talk about that. The appearance of smart is more valuable than actual intellect.

[Akash Singh]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

When it comes to running for public office.

[Akash Singh]

No question.

[Andrew Schulz]

Michael Bloomberg is objectively smarter than everybody on that stage.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

He could not communicate that intelligence in a way that was effective in convincing us now we loved him as mayor of New York. Mayor of New York is second most powerful position in the land. Like, let's just be honest. Like, you are the mayor of New York. You're really the president. Like, I don't really.

[Akash Singh]

Like, Eric Adams is the president.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's doing presidential things, right? Keep it a buck. This is the proof right here, right? Mayor Adams. The entire state comes after him, right? What's happening right now? What happened to that?

[Akash Singh]

What?

[Andrew Schulz]

Nothing.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Charges dropped because you're the real president.

[Akash Singh]

Well, that's good, because the real president part. Because the real president told the deal.

[Andrew Schulz]

President told the second president to part of New York. President. When you're President, when you position. When you're the mayor of New York.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Stop deing the real point because you got to defend New York. Go to the real. He forgot it. He forgot his real point.

[Andrew Schulz]

The appearing, the migrants, the appearance of intelligence.

[Akash Singh]

It would be nice to have, like, shitlib stand up for their city because there is like this weird. Because you guys notice this, I'm sure, too. What's a shitli. Like, just like somebody who's. No, not. I guess shitlib to me is. Is like the classic. The pink hair, the hat like that. But for me, it's like, there is something annoying.

[Andrew Schulz]

We should call them the coffee parties. Like, because they're the barista equivalent.

[Akash Singh]

I mean, doesn't it annoy you when some guy in, like, Alabama's like, man, crime in New York is out of control. And you're like, dude, shut the up.

[Andrew Schulz]

Every time I go on Rogan, I have to tell him New York is still dangerous.

[Akash Singh]

It's always been dangerous. I. I mean, it's also not that dangerous. I'm like, empirically, it's just like not, it's dangerous. It's gotten worse for sure for them. Yeah, fair enough. If you live in a suburb, sure. But any city is dangerous for anybody who lives in a sub.

[Andrew Schulz]

But that's what I'm saying. Like the Delta is minimal.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, absolutely. I, I totally agree. My point is just I do think there would be something people need to stand up for America cities. Because I think what's unfortunate right now is that a lot of Republicans have like psyop themselves, especially younger guys. Like, they don't want to come move to a city anymore. And I'm like, no, like the city is the greatest place should move to. That's where commerce connection. That's where you're going to meet everybody. You're young, you can meet your wife, whatever. Like, that's where you can get done. You can go out, you can have a good time. This is where happens.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is where you compete. This is where you compete against.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's why I moved here.

[Akash Singh]

You guys did the right thing. No, it's a, like I want somebody to stand up. And this is like almost a liberal, but like, I want someone to stand up for America's cities. I want like Chicago.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm doing it. Just call me a cop.

[Akash Singh]

No, I'm saying it's a good thing. I think liberals need to do it in a more credible way instead of being like, actually crime statistics is like, no, like, don't be a awesome. Here's the issue.

[Eddie]

Don't they get identified as city elites and who can't relate?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, we are elite. We're elite. Why are we afraid of being elite? That's nothing that drives me crazy. We think we're better.

[Akash Singh]

We do.

[Andrew Schulz]

And when you move here, we don't even consider you from here. We treat everybody moved to New York like an immigrant. We go. Then you go, I'm from New York. We go, well, when did you move here? And they go, oh, seven years ago. You're from Montana.

[Eddie]

But that pisses off the rest of the country.

[Andrew Schulz]

Until they move here. I would be pissed off if I live where y'all live too. I travel the country, I know what it's like. We are elite. And it's good that we're elite.

[Akash Singh]

I agree.

[Andrew Schulz]

There needs to be this confidence movement again.

[Akash Singh]

That's what I'm saying.

[Andrew Schulz]

100% get the migrants out. When I'm talking about Mar, I mean everybody from Maine. Everybody. Everybody from Pennsylvania. Exactly.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You know, the problem with the coffee party though is self loathing is intrinsic to their existence. That's exactly What I'm talking about cannot exist without hating themselves and everything about.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

So I have to hate New York City even though I live here. I have to hate America even though I live here, because I hate myself.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can I ask you a question? Can I ask you a question about this? Does it come from. I'm curious about this. Does it come from actual self hatred or does it come from a need to be liked and accepted? And the feeling of if I on my existence, these minorities might accept me?

[Sagar Enjeti]

Aren't those kind of one and the same? Doesn't one feed into the other?

[Andrew Schulz]

Again, I don't know chicken or the egg. But I don't think that they're doing it just because they hate themselves. They might hate themselves, but they desperately care about the appro. Because people who ha themselves, they just kill themselves and it's like, you know, solid.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I like.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm not saying suicide hotline, they shouldn't do that. I'm not saying you should do that. But if you just have this pure hatred for self. But I don't you feel like sometimes there's like this like need of approval.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The appearance of self loathing is diametrically opposed to stand up for a big city. When you're like your whole existence appears to be on everything that is of my existence.

[Akash Singh]

I also think it might be education. Like there's this guilt that is like in ingrained in the college system. Right. Like America's bad. You know, it's like the existence of the country is bad. Like the things that we do are awful and there's like this thing that gets embedded within you. Whereas like a working class kids or whatever built with much more patriotism, both in the home and probably just around like the way that they think about things. Like, yeah, we do bad stuff, but it's a great place.

[Sagar Enjeti]

The easiest way to deal with privilege is to apologize for it and not actually do anything.

[Akash Singh]

Great.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Just to apologize for.

[Akash Singh]

It's the mandated point.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah. Whereas people like, I didn't grow up poor by any stretch, but I feel like I worked up. I started in comedy books. So I don't feel like I have to apologize for this.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Sagar Enjeti]

If I my kids, God willing I'm successful, I wanted they might feel a little bit apologic. I didn't earn this. So you know what? Instead of actually like going on doing community service, why don't I just apologize.

[Akash Singh]

All the time for my existence?

[Sagar Enjeti]

And I think that's a lot of times why those guys are the loudest ones in the Democratic party. And they've taken control of the narrative.

[Akash Singh]

Well, a lot of it is also about, like, this, this need for control. Like, that's where I think the. If you were talking about how the right wasn't cool and the mid-2000s, like, because they were trying to tell people what to do, but, like, the modern right has basically become a socialist, socially libertarian. Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

I mean, I don't think he likes when I say this, but for years I've been like, I think Dave Portnoy is one of the most important political figures in the country.

[Andrew Schulz]

He would love this.

[Akash Singh]

No, he would not. I don't think he likes it because I think what I always say is like, barstool Republicanism is the new basically wave of conservatism in America, which is you do what you want to do, but don't tell me how to speak. Right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because I think Dave would love that.

[Akash Singh]

And I don't know, I'm not sure.

[Andrew Schulz]

Republican, Democrat.

[Akash Singh]

That's what I'm saying. He doesn't want it to say Republican, but it feels like they are cultural influence. Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, I think that he would really appreciate that guy could be.

[Akash Singh]

It's like the thing about Portnoy, barstool, whatever, is. It's about. It's about saying you to the man. And like in the 2000s, the man was George W. Bush in the church, trying to tell us or gay people or whatever not to get married. Now it's, oh, you don't know, bipoc, you racist? Or like, you're not just race. You're not just. You can't just be. Not be racist. You have to be anti racist. You read this stupid book by this grifter, Ibrahim Kendi and all this other nonsense. Right. And America is very socially libertarian because we're not really religious anymore. And so now we're like, oh, I'm going to live my life like all the grill, dad. Conservatism. There's a lot of different, like, words for it, but it's like, just fuck off and don't tell my kids about transgenderism or whatever at age 7. And I think that, like, barstool kind of the brand exemplifies what I'm saying, which is saying fuck you to the cultural elite.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, Americans in general love to say fuck you.

[Akash Singh]

Of course we are. That's literally.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, we love rap. Like, and we also love. And this is something I hope Democrats start to understand is we love abundance. You have to sell us on abundance.

[Akash Singh]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

And I think that's one thing that, like, the Democrats haven't done what they're. What, what?

[Akash Singh]

Oh, you would love the new Ezra Klein stuff. They have, they're writing a book about a Ben.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. So I, I want to talk to. I would love to have him. I'd love to go and see his.

[Akash Singh]

Co author is named Derek Thompson.

[Andrew Schulz]

That guy. Him.

[Akash Singh]

No, he's got a great podcast. That is a great podcast. Yeah, it's a great podcast.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's not shout out of the podcast.

[Andrew Schulz]

But he's, he's a, he's, he's a liberal. He's obviously liberal Democrats, like capital D, I think it's, there's one thing like, and again I get away from like Republican Democrats. It's like, let's just talk about like culture because obviously things shift, Right. If the Republicans were the party of censorship and now they're the party of like libertarians, it's not really a Dem Republican thing. It's just like which party is, is accessing the things that Americans need or care about.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

And this idea of like we're dreamers, right. It's like in our DNA we are risk taking dreamers. We need people who are talking shit and willing to take risk.

[Akash Singh]

We're the frontier. That's who we are.

[Andrew Schulz]

Everybody in our family, if you back a generation, left their entire existence to just try to make it here, right. So when a Democrat is coming in, I need them to say some wild shit. I want them to say, listen, there are all these developers in New York and they're trying to put these fucking buildings up. So yeah, we're dead in that. Matter of fact, we're going to take that land over there. We're going to build 10,000 fucking units. That shit is going to be cheap. And now you can live in Manhattan for under $3,000 even if they don't do it.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, people are about. Tell me that. Yeah, absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

If Trump can say we're taking Greenland, you could say you're taking a look little patch of land in Manhattan and building affordable housing. Say some wild. That makes people go, whoa, whoa. That kind of sounds, that sounds fine and don't make it. Yeah, we're gonna, you know, shoot every kid up with the hormone or whatever The. They don't actually say that, but that is the rhetoric.

[Akash Singh]

But there's a tacit. That's pretty wild. There's an acceptance of it.

[Eddie]

Then you have politicians who just make a bunch of bold claims that they never do.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, welcome to America.

[Eddie]

Then we go right back to losing trust in politicians.

[Akash Singh]

Hey, you got to do Some of it zero.

[Eddie]

Trump is at least doing the that he's going to say if you like it or not.

[Akash Singh]

He's doing. I, I wouldn't say that, man. I, I actually am not like the real. That's my problem with Doge is I feel like the whole Doge thing is not really how what's it was sold.

[Andrew Schulz]

What's the Democrat build the wall.

[Akash Singh]

There's no wall. Health care. But for the problem is I go, okay, what about illegal immigrants? They're like. And I go, is it going to cover transgender? Is it going to cover abortion?

[Andrew Schulz]

Give me. It's like low key. You almost got to stay away from health care because they're all in the pockets of health care. Give me the Democrat, build the wall. If Democrats go, yo, eggs are a dollar. Don't even tell me how you're going to do it. Eggs are a dollar. We subsidize corn, we subsidize milk, we subsidize all this other shit. We're subsidizing chickens. Eggs are a dollar. And then have Republicans go oh well.

[Akash Singh]

We'Ll actually price control.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's where do they. And then go you sound gay. A dollar.

[Eddie]

I think tax.

[Andrew Schulz]

Tax the rich.

[Akash Singh]

Call this man.

[Eddie]

I think tax the rich would be.

[Akash Singh]

See I actually think his is better because it's tangible. Like build a wall with something you could point to dollar as opposed Tax of the riches is it could be it's been too coded and it could.

[Andrew Schulz]

Be I've been crying about it for years.

[Akash Singh]

Right here is just like, you're not.

[Andrew Schulz]

Going to tax the rich. They're going to find a way to get out of it. And also just said this is a really important cultural decision. Every poor American, not every but most think they're going to be rich.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's the problem.

[Andrew Schulz]

So if you start saying I'm going.

[Sagar Enjeti]

To be rich one day, why not.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know what Eggs a dollar right now say this in New York. Yo New York, we got a rule. Eggs are a dollar. Just say it. Whoever says that first win. If Stephen A. Smith goes, yo, eggs are a dollar.

[Akash Singh]

Hey listen, Stephen, call and it's that simple.

[Andrew Schulz]

I need to Democrat build a wall. Give me, give me five. Build a walls for Democrats. Eggs are a dollar.

[Mark Gagnon]

But you're touching the class problem and I think part social problem that they've been addressing for the last 10 years. Bring that like they're the, I think the, the internal self loathing we're talking about from like the left comes from this idea of oh we are, we're elitists. So we need to like bring ourselves down and we need to ingratiate ourselves with the disenfranchised, the trans.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Bipocs, all that stuff. When the real problem underlying all of it is the class issue that eggs are too expensive and that there's no affordable housing.

[Akash Singh]

Well, I would say housing is number one. I actually think what you were saying. I would. Mortgages or something like that. I'd be like, all mortgages are 2% percent from now on. J.P. morgan, you done? Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

People be like, what?

[Akash Singh]

Like figure it out. No, that's not. Jamie Diamond's gonna be on CNBC. Like, well, actually I'm.

[Andrew Schulz]

Take all these eggs that are $I'm gonna throw them at your. We had this.

[Eddie]

We had this. You remember the guy that was running yo, the rent is too damn hot.

[Akash Singh]

I do one line. The rent is too damn hot. He was a celebrity.

[Andrew Schulz]

He lost.

[Akash Singh]

He lost. Well, he was part of that fringe party. He became nationally famous. I didn't even live in New York. I know about this guy.

[Andrew Schulz]

He was a homeless guy and almost won.

[Eddie]

He didn't almost. He lost really bad.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's a homeless guy. It doesn't matter. That makes sense. The point of proof.

[Mark Gagnon]

I think that's proof of the point.

[Andrew Schulz]

A guy, Stephen A.

[Mark Gagnon]

Says rent is too damn high and also has some policy and sell and eggs. We're going to make him a dollar.

[Akash Singh]

I love that building. The other thing about Trump and part of the reason they.

[Andrew Schulz]

But like the guy from Squid game that said he was going to give $1,000 to every person.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, that's right. Yeah.

[Mark Gagnon]

Wait, which one?

[Akash Singh]

I mean, not exactly.

[Mark Gagnon]

Andrew Yang.

[Andrew Schulz]

Andrew Yang. The guy said he was going to give a. He said he was going to give a thousand dollars.

[Akash Singh]

I thought you were talking about the actual Squid game in the new season. And I was like, well, they kind of did say no. They were giving. They're going to split all the money.

[Andrew Schulz]

Number 351 was running for president. He said he was going to give a thousand dollars.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, he was never in Squid game.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, I don't think he.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You know why he's bitter? Cuz we wanted him on when he ran for New York and he didn't come. And that's why Andrew. That's why he got killed.

[Akash Singh]

Of course.

[Andrew Schulz]

Come on now. He needs it. When I told him Andrew Yang is. You cannot win. You cannot become mayor of. He's 351.

[Mark Gagnon]

Oh, that was Andrew Yang.

[Andrew Schulz]

That was Andre. You cannot become mayor of New York. Without coming on this podcast.

[Akash Singh]

Okay.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's a simple fact.

[Akash Singh]

Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. Most people that voted for Eric Adams.

[Akash Singh]

Think you got to get Cuomo.

[Andrew Schulz]

Oh, is he running again?

[Akash Singh]

Dude, he just announced yesterday. You got to get him on.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, yeah, I would love that.

[Akash Singh]

That would be incredible.

[Andrew Schulz]

Which, which one is the Cuomo?

[Akash Singh]

Which is Andrew. Yeah, the old governor.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's going from governor. See, that's the thing. Governor of New York.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Chip nipple sauce monkey.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, I call him a chip nipple sauce sauce monkey. Yeah, I did call him a chip nipple sauce monkey, but that he doesn't thing.

[Akash Singh]

Right, yeah, yeah, I forgot about that.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's how powerful mayor of New York is. You go from governor to mayor. That is an upgrade. I don't know who the governor of New York is. I'm going to be completely.

[Akash Singh]

Come on.

[Andrew Schulz]

You know we have a woman running.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy is crazy.

[Andrew Schulz]

You can't be telling.

[Akash Singh]

You know who the governor of. I agree.

[Andrew Schulz]

The last governor I knew was the blind guy that was the last governor.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Of New New Yorker in New Jersey.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, no, no, no. There was a blind guy.

[Eddie]

The black guy, right?

[Akash Singh]

Wait, what are you talking dinkins?

[Andrew Schulz]

No, there was a blind guy that took over after somebody stopped and he was blind and they brought him to the Yankees game.

[Akash Singh]

Are you talking about what his name?

[Mark Gagnon]

David Patterson.

[Andrew Schulz]

David Patterson. Patterson.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, man, do your research.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, I thought, you know, I don't.

[Akash Singh]

Live in New York, dude. I don't think. It's not the capital of the world.

[Andrew Schulz]

Look at that. It is. This is the capital of the world. That was the governor of New York.

[Mark Gagnon]

No, he's Stevie Wonder blond. He's vegan.

[Akash Singh]

When was this?

[Eddie]

Yeah, I remember this.

[Akash Singh]

When was his term? I have no idea. Come on, man, just hit back space.

[Eddie]

The best. Yeah, just back.

[Akash Singh]

God damn.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's.

[Mark Gagnon]

Ouija bag. What the hell?

[Andrew Schulz]

All right, guys, let's take a break for a second. Listen, we talk a lot about freedom on this podcast, okay? A love for America, patriotism, girth. There are many things that are important to us on this podcast. When I say girth, I'm talking about something thick that you could put in your hands, okay? Something you could crack open and give you a jolt. Something exciting. Something to give you energy throughout the day. You just grab it in your hand. You can almost feel the veins in it. What am I talking about? I'm talking about black rifle coffee, energy drinks. Free yourself of exhaustion.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Free yourself of those eyelids slowly closing on you. Free yourself of another thing that basically means you're tired What I'm telling you right now is if you need that 200mg black rifle energy right here. Zero sugar. Why is it zero sugar? Because sugar is from communist countries.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sugar is from tyrannical dictatorships. Okay. They've done unthinkable things to their people. We don't need that in America. What we need is energy. Psalms, sugar. I can't believe I even use a French word. Somebody. I'm not going to say it. I was going to say something, but some of you might take it seriously, so I'm not going to say it. I understand the influence that I have. The point is 200 milligrams right inside this American caffeine. American caffeine have. Look at the girth. You can't even. I can't even touch. Fingers on that. What do you think that goes when you drink that? Where do you think that goes? Yeah, where do you think it goes? Straight to your. Yeah, straight to your. You know what? Come on, guys. Yeah, come on. Stop playing around with me. It goes right to your. Yeah, it goes right to it. Okay. It goes right to your. That's where it goes. 200 milligrams grams of caffeine directly to your.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

And as the great Will Ferrell once said, a river of ejaculate would spray upon whoever sucks it up. Down. Yeah. Let's get back to the action.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

The point that I'm trying to make is if you're exhausted, you need to storm the Capitol.

[Mark Gagnon]

I'm saying if you need to.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, no. For America, Mark. We're not doing that. We're not doing. Have to do it. We're not doing that. But free those people. But we're not doing that. Doing that. The point that I'm trying to make is if you are exhausted someday in January and you want to make a change. You want to make a change for a bet for the better. Do you know what I mean? Go to a voting booth. That's what I would recommend. Yeah. Even if it's January, wait there with a sawed off. Just. Just make sure you vote. Okay? Blackriffle.com you got to use the promo code flagrant. You're gonna get 30 off today. And America, if you really want America. Okay. To win World War three.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

You think we're going to be able to do that without 600 milligrams of caffeine directly to your cock? Do you think that that would be actually possible? What do you think is scary when we, like, take drones over there to Russia? No, when we're walking around with huge fucking five and three quarter inch cocks poking straight out of our military trousers. That's what Russia's going to be afraid of. Point I'm trying to make is black rifle. Energy. Energy you can trust. Energy that makes you free. Energy for America. Energy that will make Greenland ours. Let's get back to the show. All right, guys, you see the lights? You'd already know what time it is. It's hard dick season, okay? We're about to come out of winter guns blazing. Guns blazing. I know some of y'all get that hermit dick in the winter. Maybe you get that seasonal depression D kick. Don't get as hard as it should. And you haven't been blue chewing because you're foolish. Your ego got in the way, okay? But you know who needs it? Your girl needs it. Your side chick needs it. That baby mama who's lonely, behind on her rent. She needs it. Everybody needs it. And you do, too. And you know what? You can get it for free. I don't even know why we're making this a financial issue. All you got to do is pay $5 shipping. You're getting a month free. You go to bluechew.com and use the promo code flagrant. It's really that simple? Hardest dick you've ever had in your life. Same. Same. Active ingredients inside. Viagra, Cialis. Who the hell uses those anymore? Yeah, Viagra or Cialis.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What are we, 95?

[Andrew Schulz]

I know. It's like drinking out of a colored water fountain. You gotta update. You gotta use the new new. Okay? The Blue Chew is the new new. You're welcome. Get after it now. Let's get back to the show. I'm ready for my life to change. Abc Sunday, American Idol returns. Give it your all.

[Akash Singh]

Good luck. Come out with the golden ticket. Let's hear it.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is a man's world. I've never seen anything like it. And a new chapter begins. Carrie Underwood joins Lionel Richie, Luke Bryant and Ryan Seacrest on American idol. Season premieres Sunday, 8. 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu. We have a limited time here, so do we. Do you think that we got to something from Doge? I think we did. I think we fixed the Democrats.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. I also think. I honestly think a lot of Democrats should listen to this. And if you're a Democrat or whatever out there, you should send it to people.

[Eddie]

Because you know what's also funny?

[Andrew Schulz]

I try. Like, I try to. I mean, we had the conversation on Brilliant other time. We talk about Here what I realized is I got to go on more. I was telling you this. I have to go on many more left leaning shows. And I, and I realized this even when I was doing some press for, for the pod. Is that one. Those conversations are so much better because there's, there's a perception, I guess of me. And once they actually maggo. They think.

[Akash Singh]

They literally think you're mad. And here's the thing, people ask me that, of course, I'm like, dude, I don't know.

[Andrew Schulz]

But I have empathy for them. No, I have empathy though, because I'm sure, like the way I think of anybody who I've only seen a headline of and then I see like one little clip of. But in my mind, like we do, we kind of work really hard to make sure that we have diversity in guests here. I'm never a woman, but in terms of the male guests. Right. We have a lot of diversity, but all that does is just reminds our base that we care about these different opinions than we have these conversations. Right. I could be on a podcast with Charlemagne who's literally riding so hard for the Democrats. And comma. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is when you go into their territory and have those discussions and then they get a different sense of you.

[Akash Singh]

That's interesting.

[Andrew Schulz]

And I think that's what works so well with John. I think when John would go on Fox News, it's not about having the Fox News guys on his program. He would go over there because you're.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Going into the lion's den.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. You call the lions den. But then they get a sense of you. So it's something that I realized is I'm going to make more of an effort and we should all do. Going on other pods, I assume just having diverse guests over here, all those people would listen. They don't. No, it's our listeners.

[Akash Singh]

Think about how much content is out there. How much other do you listen to?

[Andrew Schulz]

You're 100, right? Yeah. You're 100, right? Anyway, you were saying.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, man, I don't even remember. I'm trying to think about. Okay.

[Eddie]

How do you feel about Pat Ryan? You think he'll have a chance of running?

[Akash Singh]

Pat Ryan? Yeah. Who am I? I don't.

[Sagar Enjeti]

He's a black guy, probably.

[Eddie]

No, he's actually not really.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, the representative? Yeah. Yeah. No, dude, no. He just.

[Eddie]

I heard a few times. What about.

[Akash Singh]

That's interesting. I think he's got too much baggage. French Laundry is just so. It's so bad. He's Got the same problem.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can you explain that to everybody who doesn't know?

[Akash Singh]

Oh, sorry. He dined at the French, which is like one of the three star Michelin restaurants.

[Andrew Schulz]

I guess Tom is Keller, right?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, he. He dined to the French Laundry. He was indoor dining when all of rest of California had non indoor dining during COVID It was a huge scandal. Rightfully it was ridiculous to shut down all the businesses. I think shit like that. He reads to me as too elitist. He's got too much of the baggage and he's also trying too hard. He just started his new podcast. I'm like, like it get. He gives me the fucking ache, dude. Like you know, with the, with. With how desperate he's contorting himself. It's just too much. That's why again I come back to my. It has to be an outside in the way Trump broke. The Republican party has to come from outside.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's Obama like the state. The perception the state could be flourishing, but the perception of the state from the outside is that it's struggling.

[Akash Singh]

I mean empirically they lost what, half a million people?

[Andrew Schulz]

It's just. But, but even if, even if they were doing really well.

[Akash Singh]

Totally. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

The perception is so important and not being able to control that perception. I guess what he shouldn't be doing is starting his own pod. He should be going on Rogan.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

He should be going on any right leaning pod that he possibly can.

[Akash Singh]

He's afraid like they're, you know, well. And that's the funny thing about that is that Don Rogan, I'm like, dude, he's not going to attack you, like shut down.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's going to fucking talk to you.

[Akash Singh]

And try to understand Fetterman talk and the guy fucking talk.

[Sagar Enjeti]

And to be honest, I think if Fetterman didn't have that stroke, I think he would have a chance for the Democrats.

[Andrew Schulz]

Maybe.

[Akash Singh]

He's. He was hu. Was. He was very talented. And his clothing thing drives me.

[Andrew Schulz]

I know it drives you crazy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It reads.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It reads every man blue collar, not super cucky social. To a Democrat it reads a blue collar Democrat. It reads like that's our guy.

[Akash Singh]

I don't know. Okay. He's like the costume.

[Andrew Schulz]

I thought, I thought that exact thing until I saw him at the inauguration.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Still wearing the sweatpants and the shorts. And I was like, oh, you're just putting on an outfit so that working class people will think that's how I. And now it lost all inauthentic. It lost all.

[Akash Singh]

Glad you felt that way.

[Andrew Schulz]

It Felt so inauthentic. I really believed it until that moment. You knew, the inauguration's happening. You can rent a suit for $50, bro.

[Akash Singh]

He wore a suit when BB visited the Senate. Like, what the. You know, so it's like you can't wear suit. I'm just saying it's true empirically. He wore a suit when BB Came to America. You don't wear a Sue when the United States President is being inaugurated.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, what the conspiracy theorists are saying.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, he can wear the suit when he wants to.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, okay, okay. Okay. We have a very boring reveal about the Epstein list. Yeah, right. Can, can you explain or any of anybody who knows here? I haven't really been keeping up to date on it. Why was it underwhelming? And what is the future of the Epstein list?

[Akash Singh]

Well, it was all publicly available. The rollout was a disaster. Like, let's just, you know, like, can.

[Mark Gagnon]

You start discuss that why it was disseminated in that way.

[Akash Singh]

I, I, According to the people there, they would not expect it to be photographed. Immediate. So let's. For people who haven't even seen. Here's what happened is a bunch of conservative influencers or whatever were at the White House. They were given binders. They said the Epstein files on them. They come out of the White House, they're photographed, and tweets start going around of them holding up binders that say the Epstein files. People are like, hey, hold on a second. Why are you giving this to some conservative journalists? Like, this is supposed to be just posted online for everybody, right? So then they were defending it. The other thing is it starts to leak out that everything in there is already publicly available information. The, the only new thing that came out of the Epstein files was a claim by the Attorney General that the FBI is currently covering things up. But, like, that's just a claim. That's not a file. Right? So there's redacted info. They actually redacted some stuff which is publicly available already, which fucking hilarious in some ways. There's actually less information in this. And they also, the House Judiciary Committee GOP posted a link being like, here's the Epstein files. And it was a literal Rick Roll. Like, they A link to Rick Roll rolling. And it was like, dude, we're talking about children who were sex trafficked. Like a dangerous pedophile. Like, you're turning this into a meme. And the whole point is not a meme.

[Andrew Schulz]

Never joke around about it. Nobody make jokes about.

[Akash Singh]

If you're a professional comedian, you can joke about it. If you're the House Judiciary. Yeah, maybe not. You're like, like, this is actually serious. This is like real shit. So, like, what does all this mean? Like, I mean, first of all, I'm starting to doubt whether the Epstein file is real. Like, whether he even exists. Like, at this point, why would the FBI. I mean, they burned all the J stuff. They burned all the. A lot of the UFO stuff, or they've covered it up. Like, is it even in physical format? Can it be released? But also, do we also. I think we need a lot of. We already know a lot of what we need to know that the Israeli Prime Minister Aoud Barack was like sleeping in this house multiple times, that Bill Clinton's flying on this guy's jet, that Bill Gates is asking this dude for marriage advice or whatever. Why did Epstein have the connection to get Bill Gates a Nobel Prize? I'm like, I think we know the only thing that needs to be declassified is some of the intelligence connection, which they admitted was part of the reason that they pushed through the 2007 plea deal with Epstein. And so anyway, my Epstein files is get Alex Acosta, who was the DOJ, the U.S. attorney, and then the Secretary of Labor who resigned over this. Let's sit him down. We give him immunity. And we're like, what actually happened? Who called you from the CIA? Because he gave a quote back at that time. He said, somebody intelligence called me and.

[Andrew Schulz]

Told me, mossad or CIA.

[Akash Singh]

Nobody knows. I mean, it could be CIA rbi. Nobody knows.

[Andrew Schulz]

What is the quote?

[Akash Singh]

The quote?

[Mark Gagnon]

The intelligence told me to let it go.

[Akash Singh]

That's right. They said, let it go with Epstein. That's what he said that.

[Andrew Schulz]

So we give Alex a Costa immunity.

[Akash Singh]

We go, look, you have total immunity. Just tell us what happened. And Ghisain. We need to get Ghisain. Same thing. We're like, look, you're already locked up for life, whatever. And all of that, you have immunity at this point from prosecution. Tell us everything.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Is this possibility even being discussed?

[Akash Singh]

No, I mean, I haven't heard it. I'm saying this is my solution.

[Andrew Schulz]

But like, yeah, first of all, it's a great solution. I also think. I'm not saying these people are going to be heroes. I don't think there's any world where Gan's a hero. Right? Alex Acosta, there is a version where your entire identity doesn't become hiding child sex traffickers and, and, and allowing them.

[Akash Singh]

To carry this on his chest for 20 years. It cost him the Secretary of Labor.

[Andrew Schulz]

If he does it, if he goes out and does it. And then somebody kills him afterwards. He'll at least die.

[Akash Singh]

He'll die hero, dude. I sat next to him on a plane. I'm still ashamed of myself.

[Andrew Schulz]

And you didn't ask, Dude.

[Akash Singh]

It was like. It was like a night. A 11:15pm Flight from Miami. And it was dead silent. And I was just like. I'm, like, sitting there, like, itching.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Gotta get him some drinks.

[Akash Singh]

But also, I didn't want to be the guy that was like, excuse me. I'm like, so. And all the fan. It's one of the great regrets of my life.

[Eddie]

You don't want to know who's on the list?

[Akash Singh]

No, I don't. I'm not sure the list as we understand it exists, but let's say, I think a lot of the list. Let's say if it does.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yes, he wants to know the list.

[Akash Singh]

Of course. But I'm saying the list. We already know. Leon Black, the head of Apollo Group who had to resign. The most powerful private equity firm in the world. Dershowitz. Like, who else? Aoud, Barack, Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, Ghislaine Maxwell, every person who was ever at the Reid Hoffman. All of these folks. It's like. It's out there. It's public record. And they all give us this. Or Les Wexner, actually, that's another one. He needs to get immunity, too. We're like, les, how old is he? 90 years old or something? We're like, just say it, dude. Tell us what.

[Andrew Schulz]

You bankrolled it. What were you banking?

[Akash Singh]

Why?

[Andrew Schulz]

Why?

[Akash Singh]

Like, what the was going on?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, that's what I think. So Alex Acosta is the key figure if we give him immunity. I don't even trust Ghislaine, to be honest with you.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, fair.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because she's too incentivized to. Exactly. So I think it's Acosta. Acosta says what Intelligence told him or whatever it is. Yes, maybe then you give immunity to Ghislaine to just figure out exactly what's going on. But I think. I think that that would pacify the American curiosity.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, it should.

[Andrew Schulz]

It might not satisfy us, but we'd at least go, okay, we need to.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Get Cash Patel on the show. We need. We need to get him.

[Akash Singh]

But that's my thing is I don't even know if Cash could. It's. People say this. I'm actually. You're a UFO guy, too. People are always like, oh, does the government have the truth about UFOs? I'm like, yes, but not in the way that think, man. Like, it's. There's no smoking.

[Andrew Schulz]

Way more boring.

[Akash Singh]

It's just like it's all within layers. And the radar blip, bro, if you're into JFK stuff too, like, you know this already. You're like, look, we already have it. Like, we know what happened or we already know that the CIA assassin or was complicit in an assassination plot against John F. Kennedy. That's all on the record, all of the official evidence. It doesn't matter. We know about the Bay of Pigs, about the elements within the CIA who are upset about getting caught up. The Bellis brothers, Jack R. All of it. This is. This is like, it's been proven. It's been decades, right, where we can lay out all the holes in the official magic bullet, right? Like, it's all bullshit. But is there a file in the CIA that's like, we kill John F. Kennedy? No, no, you will find what it is, is. You will find a file talking about these Cuban elements or whatever, who had access to stockpiles and maybe just like 9, 11, where the FBI had knowledge or the CIA had knowledge of these people being in the country but didn't do anything about it. That it was more like, yeah, we were aware. We didn't think they were gonna do anything serious or whatever. And then we're like, oh, my God, we're gonna cover this shit up immediately. Immediately. Like, that's kind of how it all went down.

[Andrew Schulz]

So.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, so the information's there, like on Charlie Manson. Read the Chaos book. It's there like we know.

[Andrew Schulz]

What's the Charlie Manson thing?

[Akash Singh]

That'll take me hours to explain, but the Charles Manson Chaos. Highly recommend the book. Tom O'Neill spent 20 years on it. Charlie Manson was a CIA asset. He was part of mind control experiments by the same guy who. Who wiped Jack Ruby's mind. Jolly Swift. That's. Or. Yeah, that's right. He was the LSD CIA advisor on all of those, like, brothel plans. Jolly West. No, Jolly West. Jolly West. Jolly west was the person feed LSD to Charlie. The Manson family and all that was part in an FBI plot to instigate, like a race war. That's one of the things that they wrote on the. On Roman Polanski's wall was trying to instigate this. And it was all part of this crazy that was going on inside of the FBI at that time. We know this. We know all of this, even from the church committee onward. But it's like people think that there's smoking guns. It's just like that's not how it works. Like with mlk, with, with Manson, with jfk, ufo, etc, like it's all covered up. And the real smoking gun stuff, those people are dead. And I think the crazy part about the Manson stuff, that even on their deathbeds they still won't tell the truth. Who is that?

[Andrew Schulz]

Who is that?

[Akash Singh]

The cops involved, the FBI, all there's been. What?

[Andrew Schulz]

Why? Why do you think?

[Akash Singh]

I don't know man. I don't know. I genuinely don't know. I think either the information, it's not that it would be too shocking, it's just that don't let it ever be confirmed. Because only weirdos like me ever read the book and come on a show here and tell you about it. Right? It's like most people just moved on with their lives. Like yeah, whatever Manson, is he still alive? You know what's going on? There is a Tarantino movie, you know, it's like that's it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Is it possible that the like extreme conspiracy theories are. I don't know what the term for this would be, but they're developed by the people that are hiding the truth.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, people think that. Yeah, a lot of people.

[Andrew Schulz]

What is that called?

[Mark Gagnon]

I mean like displacement.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, so the idea is like get people controlled opposition. Yeah. So get people to think, oh, an even crazier thing happened.

[Mark Gagnon]

Well, people say that the term conspiracy theorist is a.

[Akash Singh]

Is a op. Exactly right.

[Mark Gagnon]

As a psyop.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, so, so let's just say people say best case Sc scenario. This is just best kit. No, I don't even know if it's the best case. But a scenario FBI is aware.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Choose not to intervene. Really bad thing happens. Leader. The FBI goes, if people know that we were aware. This is on me, the guy who's.

[Akash Singh]

Only on the job for one week on 9 11. Oh, weird. He's like, why would he have any incentive to cover that up? Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

So we go, if I don't cover this up, it's going to come down to all of us. We're all going to lose our jobs. Correct. And then you go to all your considerations, guys, if we don't cover this shit up, this is on us. So let them think an even crazier thing happened. Or we put that idea out there in the world because the truth is kind of boring and it's ineptitude, which is oftentimes. How can.

[Akash Singh]

That's exactly what happened. That's what 911 was. It was complete cluster. We've had the information since 05. Lawrence Wright, the looming Tower. Everybody should read that book. That book lays out exactly how the FBI and the CIA had everything they needed to stop 911. It didn't happen because of a bureaucracy cluster.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's like what we do with our. Our girls. Like, you know, we'll just be at a strip club, and they'll be like, what are you talking about? And then someone's like, no, you were cheating with a brothel with 40 different people. Like, I don't even know what the.

[Akash Singh]

That didn't even come close.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you just need something crazier for them to fixate on. And then you be like, there's no way I was at a brothel. I don't even know any of these people. What? That. When in reality, you were just at a little Korean strip club in Hawaii.

[Akash Singh]

So you need firsthand knowledge about this.

[Andrew Schulz]

I was just making hypotheticals.

[Mark Gagnon]

This is a scop right here. Textbook.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay, no, now we're into.

[Akash Singh]

Your wife doesn't watch this show.

[Andrew Schulz]

She watches all the time. I love you, baby. I'm a good guy. Or whatever you say when you walk into a Japanese restaurant.

[Akash Singh]

Honey mustard.

[Mark Gagnon]

Honey mustard.

[Akash Singh]

What are you thinking? Simi masen?

[Andrew Schulz]

No, no, it's a.

[Akash Singh]

That means. Excuse me.

[Andrew Schulz]

Honey mustard. We say honey mustard, but it's not that. It's when you walk into a Japanese restaurant.

[Akash Singh]

Cuz that would be a good day. I was just there. Love Japan, by the way.

[Andrew Schulz]

Really?

[Akash Singh]

That's where I got this watch.

[Andrew Schulz]

Beautiful watch.

[Akash Singh]

Vintage watch. I like it.

[Andrew Schulz]

Got to go. Vintage it is.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, yeah. Oh. Ohai Gosai Moss. That means good morning, Ohio. You was off, bro. No, mine is terrible.

[Eddie]

Okay, he was Somerset.

[Andrew Schulz]

Not that. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. All right, what else? Now we're into this. Now we're into this little sphere right here. Oh, yeah, that's it. That's it.

[Akash Singh]

Can you do the. The vocal thing? Do they not have that?

[Andrew Schulz]

But just guessing.

[Mark Gagnon]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Boy.

[Akash Singh]

That was kind of close to us.

[Andrew Schulz]

All right, what else, what else, what else? What else? We can talk about Tate Brothers. We'll leave that to the end.

[Akash Singh]

I actually don't know a ton about the case. I'll be honest. It's one of those. I intentionally. I never did the deep dive.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't care.

[Akash Singh]

Into human trafficking. Because when you get into.

[Andrew Schulz]

They're like. Well, actually. That I don't care about. It's more this idea that, like, they're. They were trashing the west so much.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

And now, at least for me, I'm a patriot. I love America. There's nothing I love more than America. So when people on America, even Americans, I'm a little bit defensive now. As Americans as they are, I want to protect. They got to come back. I don't like this idea that they're not allowed to be here just because they criticize it. If you're an American, we got. Got your back no matter what. And you have the freedom to say whatever the you want to say. But there is a part of me that's also like, I. I need a. I need a little bit of a. Okay, America's not that bad.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Tuck that in a bit.

[Andrew Schulz]

You got. Hey, because. Because when the going got tough, you got America.

[Akash Singh]

The US justice system is nice.

[Andrew Schulz]

That is pretty cool.

[Akash Singh]

Sharia law or whatever.

[Andrew Schulz]

The west has fallen. It seems like the west is up. It seems like we're up with open arms.

[Akash Singh]

Well, stop using the West. America. I will say.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yo, that's what I'm talking about, bro. You know what I mean?

[Akash Singh]

Gets back to our Europe conversation.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Akash Singh]

What's the West? Different values. You're America.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can I just tell you something? When I say the West, I just mean America.

[Akash Singh]

Exactly. Just say America.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. I never met all.

[Akash Singh]

Just say it then. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

The. The Islamic countries in Europe that I.

[Akash Singh]

Traveled to when I was in college.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm not referring to them. I'm referring to America. Only I do love going there for weekends. I mean, it's beautiful.

[Akash Singh]

Nice place. I mean, it's great to visit.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're wrong about the coffee. 100. You're wrong, bro.

[Akash Singh]

You are. We are here in Soho. This is one of the, like, greatest places in the world for coffee, maybe outside of Tokyo. And you think that the better coffee is in some shithole cafe with a doppio espresso in Milan.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, no, I didn't. I didn't say. I didn't say the coffee's better. What? Yes, what I. You said the coffee sucks.

[Akash Singh]

What I will say, because it's bitter. They don't even do drip. Like, America is built on the man drinking his fucking. You know, what is it? Motor oil at 7:11 on his way to work. These fuckers are sitting there with their goddamn wafer in their little ceramic drinking wine at like, like 10, 30 years, to be honest.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That sounds awesome, bro.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, because you don't. They don't do anything. Yeah, yeah, but that's the point is that America's built on 711 coffee, man. On the guys in line with a.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Red Bull 711 at 5:30.

[Akash Singh]

You know, those are the men who built this country I agree with you.

[Andrew Schulz]

Everything around that is better. But an espresso and a beautiful cafe in Europe is 10 times.

[Akash Singh]

It's a vacation. It's not the same thing.

[Andrew Schulz]

No.

[Mark Gagnon]

Okay.

[Akash Singh]

And first of all, again, we're in SoHo every five of the. I literally was walking.

[Andrew Schulz]

What's the machine that they use to make the coffee around here in Soho?

[Akash Singh]

Wait, what do you. What do you mean?

[Andrew Schulz]

It's called a la Marzoca. Yeah, definitely made in America.

[Akash Singh]

That's if you're drinking espresso, I'm drinking drip coffee. Which is an American and a South American thing. Because what we want is like the pour over culture. All of third wave some people call it from here. No, no, they don't call it French for them. I'm not drinking any French press. This is so nice.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you're talking about a understand bro.

[Akash Singh]

But the food quality. You live in the capital of one of the best coffee.

[Andrew Schulz]

Here's one.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Push back Europe. Europe wise, the food quality, and I don't mean the cooking, but the quality of the ingredients is undeniably so much better in Europe because in America you're just allowed to do whatever. This is actually Morgan, Morgan's doing like a lawsuit against. But like yeah, I would say medium.

[Akash Singh]

Food in Europe is better but the high end food in America, if you want the non GMO food, our is better. If you want the pasture raised beef, our stuff is better. If you want like the. The really good stuff. But you're right, the median food of ingredients in Europe for the.

[Sagar Enjeti]

I don't even know if I trust is better. I don't even know if I trust American organic.

[Akash Singh]

Well, yeah, I mean I'm not talking about organic. I'm saying if you want the ingredients in America, in America we're the best.

[Andrew Schulz]

Restaurants in the world are here.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, of course.

[Andrew Schulz]

9:00 here. Stop with the Los Angeles. It's New York only.

[Akash Singh]

No restaurant.

[Andrew Schulz]

Los Angeles is not like a foodie destination. No, I don't think any restaurant that's popped up in Los Angeles started in New York.

[Akash Singh]

Unless it's a taco truck.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, unless it's a taco.

[Akash Singh]

I think the Asian food in Los Angeles might be better in San Francisco.

[Andrew Schulz]

And whose idea was it to bring them?

[Akash Singh]

Oh, it's from. From New York. Someone needs to start the Burmese restaurant in New York.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yes, of course.

[Akash Singh]

Are you sure?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yes, because I used to go to it as a kid.

[Akash Singh]

What is it? Shout it out. Actually I'd like to go.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't know if it's Still. I don't know if it's still Burma.

[Akash Singh]

Superstar. Shout out. San Francisco.

[Andrew Schulz]

It was on the. I'll tell you right now where it was. It was on 7th street between 3rd Avenue and 2nd Avenue. This beautif Burmese restaurant. We used to eat it once a week. I would. I would have it. We would order in from there all the time.

[Akash Singh]

All right, all right, you win.

[Andrew Schulz]

And when we walked in Little Myanmar, I don't know. Is that. Is that the one? It's on second.

[Akash Singh]

City elites over there.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's on second.

[Akash Singh]

Come on, man. Aren't you in native New Orleans? Oh, absolutely, yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

I mean, kind of. They had the tree that you would attach the dollars to.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

And it was to raise money for whatever, like, war they had going on in Burma at the time.

[Akash Singh]

And so you were actually funding, like, Rohingya genocide or something like that.

[Andrew Schulz]

I thought you could take the dollars. I didn't understand what it was. Okay, okay, okay. What else, what else, what else, what else, what else, what else?

[Akash Singh]

Whatever you guys want. Good food.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Cities in America. New York, New Orleans, Austin. I think Philly's underrated. Austin.

[Andrew Schulz]

Stop it with Austin. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys.

[Akash Singh]

Mexican food, bro.

[Andrew Schulz]

Stop it.

[Akash Singh]

We're fucking.

[Andrew Schulz]

I just need.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Listen.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Austin has great food.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Your Mexican food sucks here.

[Akash Singh]

I'm not debating sucks.

[Andrew Schulz]

I'm not debating that. I'm not debating.

[Akash Singh]

And Los Angeles, too, if we're being honest.

[Andrew Schulz]

I just want to. Let's just point this out with the food culture in Austin, okay? Austin has great food. If you come from a place that doesn't have restaurants.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

If you come from middle America.

[Eddie]

Yeah, it's.

[Andrew Schulz]

Most people that move there from middle America are like, holy, what's a sushi roll? Like they have.

[Akash Singh]

No, that's not what we're talking about.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's the most amazing. But the idea, like, I. I don't like that we're, like. We're putting Austin as this, like, food destination. It's not a. I wouldn't say it's.

[Akash Singh]

On the plane of grass there. They're good. Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

But they didn't start in Austin. This is a perfect ex of what we're saying.

[Akash Singh]

No, I would defend Austin for the Tex Mex alone. Like, just because you and I are from Texas.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Tex Mex is.

[Akash Singh]

Tex Mex is the best thing.

[Andrew Schulz]

Nobody.

[Akash Singh]

That's why I would recommend barbecue Texas. I'm not putting it on a New York or la.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's what I'm saying.

[Akash Singh]

I understand.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's very exciting if you've never eaten In a restaurant, and you go there and you're like, wow, this is really good food. But nobody from New York or Los Angeles or Paris or London or Miami goes to Austin. They're like, this is the greatest cuisine I've ever had in my life.

[Akash Singh]

I don't know. So, like, I was like, okay, like.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Vegas get gets all of America's best restaurant together.

[Akash Singh]

Were you actually impressed by the food scene in Paris? I wasn't at all. I did not think the food scene. That's the thing I hate about European cities is that just French food. Fine. In New York, like you just said Burmese. I can go to Curry Hill and have South Indian food. North Indian food. I was. I had sushi last night or whatever. Here in New York, I can eat anything.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Manhattan, not that good.

[Akash Singh]

There's.

[Sagar Enjeti]

There's bungalow was good. Sema, even though I don't really like, the chef was pretty good.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay. But yeah, Tamarind is. Is phenomenal. Go to Tamarind to try that one.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's restaurant.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's absolutely incredible. Shout out tamarind. But yeah, no, I mean, like, yeah, if we're talking about, like, the best food. Look, New York is the greatest city in the world. There's not even a question there. But.

[Akash Singh]

But I don't know, man. It might be Tokyo. After I went to Tokyo, I think it might be.

[Andrew Schulz]

Listen, if you want to live in a loveless city where people walk around like Tesla robots, New York, Tokyo is a place.

[Akash Singh]

New Yorking place.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Most loving, nurturing place in the world.

[Akash Singh]

Wait, have you been to Tokyo?

[Andrew Schulz]

Yes, I have.

[Akash Singh]

Love it, man. Dude, extremes.

[Andrew Schulz]

I actually bipolar.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's right. But that's the thing about Tokyo is not only is the median experience incredible all the time, their food, like, if you look, best pizza is going to be in Tokyo.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sorry.

[Akash Singh]

I know this is. Okay, good.

[Andrew Schulz]

I made this argument. I probably went to the place you.

[Akash Singh]

Best French food in the world, Tokyo. Best Italian food in the world, Tokyo.

[Andrew Schulz]

Japanese. Their culture is refinement built around refinement. So they're done making their. And now they're like, okay, we're going to perfect everybody else. And they do.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. Like, so good.

[Andrew Schulz]

I. There's this Japanese dj, his name is Yosuki Yukimatsu. That was the guy whose boiler room set they were playing. Boiler room set is amazing.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Oh, that was insane.

[Andrew Schulz]

He's incredible. And yeah, and. And here's the thing. The second I saw. And this shows me with my prejudice. The second I saw a thumbnail with a Japanese person DJing I knew it was going to be the best DJ set I've ever heard.

[Akash Singh]

There you go.

[Andrew Schulz]

Because culturally, to put. Put themselves out in front of people with something like that, they would not.

[Akash Singh]

Do it unless five star.

[Andrew Schulz]

The best.

[Akash Singh]

That's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

Whereas, like, every, like, every, like, female, like, model that turns 30 in America is like, I'll be a DJ too. Like, there's no. There's no, like, oh, you could give shame to your family by going to do this. So Japanese refinement, it is incredible. The best of us. But for me, part of culture, like, when I go visit these places is I need to feel the love of people. I need to feel the affection. Like, when I go to Mexico, Mexico is the greatest, like, outside of America.

[Akash Singh]

It's great.

[Andrew Schulz]

The love you feel like in Italy, when you're in Italy. Just the love that you feel. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

Like where you're from, Libya or something like that. Like, you take a boat over here and I'm like, no, it's a US Passport. Actually. I'm like, I own your restaurant.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Selling oranges on the street.

[Akash Singh]

It's like, I'll take two of your limoncellos.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, yeah, there is. So I appreciate the refinement, but in terms of, like, the actual, like, cultural appreciate, like, I got chastised at an illegal bar for kissing my wife. Whoa. The bartender was like, finger waving. Stop that.

[Akash Singh]

No, I love that, dude. Why? Because it's about decor, man. It's about we all act a certain way. When you're on the subway.

[Sagar Enjeti]

That's in New York.

[Andrew Schulz]

I thought you're a libertarian. Get out of my business.

[Akash Singh]

I didn't say I'm a libertarian. I say I appreciate. I'm the most conservative guy.

[Andrew Schulz]

Also, I want to give a couple of quick shout outs. Gramatic, who did one of the songs for the special, and he's also done music for us throughout the tour. He's absolutely incredible. He just dropped an album, so you guys can go check him out right now. He's phenomenal. Seriously. One of the most talented people I know in music. So make sure we go with Grammatic. He did the closing song for the special, and it's. It's fantastic. So go check that, but also go check out his album and matter of fact, go check out some of his live shows. I know he's got Red Rocks coming up, so if you're in Colorado and you want to see a spectacle, go check him out. Also, the garbage boys. Are you garbage? Just put out a really cool piece on YouTube. They. They were on this tour, I think they called the Route 66. Yeah tour, if I'm not mistaken. And they put out this, like, great piece that encapsulates the tour. It's also got, you know, scenes from the. The live shows that they were doing. And, yeah, it's just. It's really awesome. I love what those guys are doing. So make sure you go check that on their YouTube. And. And also our boy Chrissy D. Chrissy D has a new special out on Hulu, so make sure you check out Chrissy special. Chrissy is absolutely hilarious, so check out his special. Check him out on tour as well, and shout out the New York Boys. Man, we' we're doing things, so love you guys. Let's get back to the show. I love. I know. I love it when you're passionate about these things. You're 100% wrong about European coffee. But. But you are right about Japan in terms. If you want that, like, strict culture and you want rules and everybody follows the rules. I get that. I like Third World Loosey Goosey.

[Akash Singh]

I get it. I get it. Look, it would never work here. I'm just saying I appreciate it when I'm there. And when you're on the subway and you're rammed up against somebody and nobody's saying a fucking word, you can hear a pin drop. When people are polite to.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't like that.

[Akash Singh]

I love Nick.

[Sagar Enjeti]

When I get away somewhere, I'm understanding how not Indian you are. It's un.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, you're right.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Things that are common.

[Akash Singh]

These are the things I can't stand when I go to India.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Yeah, it all makes sense.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, it's true.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It all makes sense.

[Akash Singh]

Sorry. India. It drives me crazy.

[Sagar Enjeti]

No, no.

[Akash Singh]

I remember being in a taxi. This guy's going through a red light. He's like. Only the biggest fool not of Agra stops at a red light.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, why are you doing. He's like.

[Akash Singh]

Only the biggest fool in Agra would stop at present. Like, it's where the Taj Mahal is.

[Andrew Schulz]

I gotta go to India.

[Sagar Enjeti]

If you can get past the smell, you'll love it.

[Akash Singh]

I'll tell you what. It's dynamic. It's dynamic. And that's why America has too. We're a dynamic country. I love it.

[Andrew Schulz]

What to do. We don't want restrictions. We don't want.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, but when they all tell each other what to do, it's so pleasant to visit when you. It's so clean and it's orderly and they all stop at their walk.

[Andrew Schulz]

How long were you there?

[Akash Singh]

Stop sign. It was two weeks. Two weeks. I loved it.

[Andrew Schulz]

There I was. I loved it for like the first.

[Akash Singh]

I could have stayed forever. I could have stayed forever.

[Sagar Enjeti]

But that's. He's again. He likes. He's a conservative.

[Andrew Schulz]

No need.

[Akash Singh]

They don't ban. Allow Sudaf Fed in that country.

[Sagar Enjeti]

You know what?

[Akash Singh]

Sudafed, they will confiscate your Sudafed at the airport if you bring it into the.

[Andrew Schulz]

What about the declining birth rates?

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, no, it's a huge problem.

[Andrew Schulz]

I don't know.

[Akash Singh]

And this is one of those things too. They have the greatest place. It's the greatest place in the world to have children. Like they have daycare. They have the incentives. They have everything going for them. Nobody's having kids.

[Andrew Schulz]

Why do you think?

[Akash Singh]

I have no idea. I think. I think what it is is vitality. And it's like the D. Like in America. And actually there's only one.

[Andrew Schulz]

One no primal urges. They remove every primal urge and the culture restricts it.

[Akash Singh]

To back up your point, there's only one western country in the world with an above replacement birth rate. Israel. Among. Even among secular Jews.

[Andrew Schulz]

Really?

[Akash Singh]

I don't know what. Nobody knows why. I think it's because they're at war. And it's about national survival. And like all of this. America, we're low. Korea, Japan, Sweden, Finland. They all have. We all have. Except America. Like pretty generous social welfare. We've got a year of paternity leave. Doesn't make a.

[Sagar Enjeti]

When does a birthday rate in America?

[Akash Singh]

Hungary? Probably. It's been a while. Probably 1960. I think it was the sexual revolution. Contraceptive. But in terms of the current birth, what are we at right now? Like 1.7 or something like that.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Finally get.

[Akash Singh]

Anyway, my point is, is that there's. You can throw all of the money, all of the social incentives that you want. Hungry. They literally pay your mortgage if you have four children. People just don't do it. Like, it's like there's something about it. Oh wow. That's actually lower than I thought. That's not good. One point.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now we're coming back.

[Akash Singh]

But what's Korea at? Korea's like 0.9 or 0.8 so bad.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's South Korea.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, 0.78. Disaster. That's for people who. Who don't know. That's the total. It's the TFR is the total fertility rate, which means the replacement needs to be about 2.2 to be. To grow as a civilization. Japan loses 0.5 of its population every single year. So It's a disaster, right?

[Mark Gagnon]

No immigration.

[Akash Singh]

Well, yeah, and they have zero immigration. But that's the thing. When you go there, it, like, makes sense. They're all like. They Japanese police each other. It's part of their culture. Yeah, that's what makes it.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're. As you describe it, you like that you want to be police.

[Akash Singh]

There's something about it which is so comforting.

[Sagar Enjeti]

Would you raise kids like that, though?

[Akash Singh]

No, I probably wouldn't. Thank you. Dude, I'm American, right.

[Andrew Schulz]

I trip to sport.

[Akash Singh]

I've got this frontier shit inside of me. And as much as I love the rules and all of that, when somebody tries to tell me what to do or I started my own business, just like you, you know, it's one of those. You hate. And you see those salary men walking around Japan. But it's nice. It's a nice place.

[Andrew Schulz]

And then I go and do karaoke alone. It's one of the saddest things you've ever seen.

[Akash Singh]

I don't get that.

[Andrew Schulz]

Well, they. They need outlets for their passion.

[Eddie]

Like one person.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, no, they have.

[Andrew Schulz]

By themselves in their working outfit, and they'll go and they'll sing Bruno Mars until their heart falls out of their chest. That's so sad. No, it's incred. There's. There's elements of. If. The longer you stay in Tokyo, the. The more depressing it becomes, and you start to see, like, the lovelessness of the culture when you first go there. It's the most culture shock you'll ever experience. And it. I want to go back. I want to go back with you guys. It's. You're gonna have the best food you've ever had. You're gonna have the best massage ever had. You're gonna have the best of every anything. Yeah. It's incredible. But when you start to talk to the people there, especially the people who speak English and they. And talk to the women, if it's. It is the most sexist place I've ever been in my entire life.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. It is actually the most sexist developed country in the world.

[Andrew Schulz]

It is. Without a doubt. It's like. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Well, here's. Here's the problem. Women have no upward mobility in terms of. Not jobs, in terms of their, like, sexual identity. So they. They stop sexually aging at like, 13 old. Women can be cute. They can't be elegant. They can't be, like, beautiful or stunning. Everything is cutesy. They're just like. If you go into, like, the. The. The. The nicest stores over There to buy clothing. All the women's clothing are like skirts that come down to their ankle. There's nothing. Now I'm not saying women should be like revealing and slutty, but there's nothing that even wraps itself around that. So the female identity is. I'm a 12 year old little girl with my little cartoon makeup.

[Mark Gagnon]

What do they call it?

[Andrew Schulz]

Kawaii Kawachi.

[Mark Gagnon]

I think that's like the term that they use for like everything.

[Andrew Schulz]

Everything's quiet. Yeah, yeah. So it's all about like cuteness and.

[Eddie]

What about waifus and like that, like, isn't that.

[Akash Singh]

No, it's bifurcated. It's like a barbell culture where it's like you either are extremely sexual or you're very concerned. And they exist in the same.

[Andrew Schulz]

But even in extreme sexual. They're being young cartoons with big tits. Yeah.

[Akash Singh]

It is weird.

[Andrew Schulz]

It's. It's this and then, and then you see like the relationships. You see people out eating together. I'll see a couple out eating together and both of them are on their phones playing Fruit Ninja, not even looking at each other. It is, I'm telling you, it is one of the most tragically sad places you'll ever go to, while at the same time one of the most unique and brilliant and incredible. So there is a cost to that. Brilliantly in the.

[Akash Singh]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

And the cost to me is like the reason I like to travel.

[Akash Singh]

I would never give any of it up, would I ever want that culture here. But there's something I love about it for you.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah, go dip in to come in.

[Akash Singh]

There and just be like, man, I'm so safe, dude. When you watch little 6 year olds go to walk by themselves to school in Tokyo with their backpacks on at night, you're like, this is fucking insane. This would never happen. It's the scene like, they're like, what.

[Andrew Schulz]

You never feel danger at all? Zero.

[Akash Singh]

Nothing.

[Andrew Schulz]

Our boy Ben Huyer got blacked out drunk there. Tokyo fell asleep, woke up, his shoes and socks put next to him. Yeah, socks folded, his sweater put behind his head as a pillow. And people just walking around him to go to work in the morning. Yeah, it's beautiful the way that they care about each other in terms of like protection and respect.

[Akash Singh]

Yes, but everything is about respect. It's all about respecting. But no, there's huge cost to it. But the cost, to me, the cost is high, dude.

[Andrew Schulz]

You go to Mexico and you feel the love in that culture, bro. Like, it's just, it's like vibrating. Like if you have a kid, the way that they, even when I was there, when my wife was pregnant, the excitement about her being pregnant, they want to tell you about their kill and you're just like, ah, it's just, it's magnificent.

[Mark Gagnon]

But the emotional volatility is also bipolar.

[Andrew Schulz]

That is true.

[Mark Gagnon]

You know what I mean? Like, it's, that's the cause, bro.

[Akash Singh]

There's trade offs for everything. That's. That's it. That's all I do think more Americans should experience Japan. I agree that.

[Andrew Schulz]

Agreed. Because there's elements of it that we should.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah. We're like, hey, it's actually pretty nice to live in a city that's pretty fucking safe. Amazing things can happen. Commerce, like you can walk around, you can send your kid there now a wife can work if she wants to take, you know, have to worry about her kid not coming home at night or what we don't deal with.

[Andrew Schulz]

I mean, isn't that like the. I don't want to get into like fucking evolutionary biology. But like, isn't that the. Isn't that what takes humans out of the chimpanzee realm is like safety.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, civilization.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, am I safe enough to develop ideas?

[Akash Singh]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Schulz]

Like, if you watch that chimp show, every second they're worried that the alpha is going to just start a fight.

[Akash Singh]

Either violence or eating. Like that's all you worry about, your base instinct. And then that's what almost the animal kingdom is.

[Andrew Schulz]

Once those are satisfied, we start building skyscrapers. Yeah. So, okay, there is something. Okay, okay.

[Eddie]

What's your take on the economy? Do you think Trump has been good for the economy? Bad or.

[Akash Singh]

It's too early to tell, too soon to say. Obviously there is a problem. There's something called thermostatic public opinion where the idea is, it's like a thermostat, you can push it up or push it down. So the data day, for example, that Trump took office, Democrats flipped from saying the economy was good to bad and Republicans flicked from the economy is bad.

[Andrew Schulz]

To good because they were Biden's economy.

[Akash Singh]

Exactly. So it's like, is it really about the economy or was it about something else? Right. Like this is why it's hard to say. We have some data points. We're talking about the S and P or whatever before. The problem right now is consumer sentiment is going down. People are a little worried about tariffs. The. We have issues.

[Andrew Schulz]

Can you explain what consumer sentiment?

[Akash Singh]

Consumer sentiment is the confidence, confidence in the ability to purchase things. Either consumer sentiment is like to purchase things either cheaply. Or the want to consume in the future. It's actually an index that, and that's.

[Andrew Schulz]

Based on my confidence that my, that I'll have the money in the future to buy and if I don't feel.

[Akash Singh]

Like I'll have the future purchasing power. That's another part. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So if we're at all restrictive in our spending, it's an indicator that's very bad.

[Mark Gagnon]

It's.

[Andrew Schulz]

Got it. Got it.

[Akash Singh]

America is a consumer based economy. We don't build anything. 70 of the GDP is literally just consumption. That's, that's all we do here. We're very good at it. So there's that home prices sky high in January. That was a big reason we had a correction in the market. There was. Mortgage rates remain around like 6,7% disaster. Average home price is still like 400,000 in America, roughly a million in a metro area. That's really bad. Credit card debt is an all time high. The gambling thing doesn't fucking help. Like there's a lot of indicators there where. This is why I think Trump won the election. A big reason. And if people. Here's the thing about the economy. Americans can deal with the economy being bad. They understand that there's no magic fix, but they need to feel as if you're doing everything about it. And this is a key point. One of my favorite books is called Freedom from Fear and it's a history of the Roosevelt administration. Here's what. Nope. Conservatives even said this at the time empirically, the New Deal didn't work. Like it did not work in terms of its immediate, immediate goals of making the economy better. But you know what? People felt Roosevelt is fighting for us.

[Andrew Schulz]

And that was enough.

[Akash Singh]

And that was it. And he was a God for that. He was a king, the last king of America.

[Andrew Schulz]

So real quick, the New Deal, just so you can explain it, there was a lot of government work projects, the.

[Akash Singh]

Wpa, the ccc, these were all the work products Administration.

[Andrew Schulz]

The most extreme example is like digging holes and then other people filling them. But the idea is get people working.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, get people working. Keynesianism, injecting money into the economy. But the point was, is they were like, Roosevelt is fighting for us. He's doing everything. When the Supreme Court tells him no, he doesn't something else. He's an ideas man. He's telling Congress to do this. The rural electrification America did not physically, economically get all that much better, but it was about vigor. That was another thing about jfk. They used to say he had figure like he would constantly be Flying around the country. And even though he wasn't particularly good president in terms of getting anything done or passing any legislation, they were like this breath of fresh air. Confidence, that's what America needs. That's where Biden's ultimate failure was. If you think about his slide, it was about nobody said you have a magic egg button or a gas button. Yeah, you're just like, you're not doing.

[Andrew Schulz]

We don't think you're doing anything. Can I, can I Not doing. Okay, one thing to that, that's the.

[Akash Singh]

Danger that Trump has is with this Doge stuff is if we don't get to vigor dealing with things on a daily basis, then America gives you about a nine month Runway. If we look at Biden, he sank in October with Afghanistan, it was really about a lot of other stuff. Trump's got about eight more months ago.

[Mark Gagnon]

You see that comment on Twitter all the time where it's like Gulf of America. And then the first comment will just be like, are eggs cheaper now?

[Andrew Schulz]

And I'll have a thousand.

[Akash Singh]

That's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

So to this, when I was looking at the market and I know nothing about the fucking market, okay. But I have some money invested, obviously. And my first reaction to someone telling me, hey, this market looks a little suspect, my first reaction was, man, Trump wouldn't let the market fail. Now what is he, can he do anything to keep it up?

[Akash Singh]

No, but a little bit.

[Andrew Schulz]

But yeah, of course, of course. But there's a part of me that goes, he, in my mind, he cares so much about how that would reflect on him that he would do everything in his power to maintain it. Can he? Who knows? But that little feeling, like you were saying about Roosevelt.

[Akash Singh]

Roosevelt, yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Is this feeling is like he wouldn't let. Or he is trying to do it. And that's really important to us. Yes, the idea that that's.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, yeah, no, that's very key. But that's my, what I'm saying, my work worry about Trump is this distraction. And look, America, something's going to happen like every presidency. 9 11, right? Nine months into the Bush administration. 9 11. All of a sudden the whole narrative is different. Under Biden, Afghanistan, it didn't, it wasn't planned. It just happened. The Ukraine, Trump won. Covid literally changed everything. You know, something will happen, Katrina or whatever. And those are the clarifying moments. When the magnifying glass comes on to you and when, if the magnifying glass, if America doesn't like what it sees, they will turn on your ass so quick. George H.W. bush went 91% to losing the election in a span of 18 months. Like you can just get blown the fuck up.

[Andrew Schulz]

So it's your reaction to that cataclysmic.

[Sagar Enjeti]

It's usually when you say George Bush lost, you mean he won the down the Republicans laws in 2008.

[Andrew Schulz]

No.

[Akash Singh]

In 1992. George H.W. bush. George H.W. bush had a 90% approval rating in 1991. Blown the fuck out in the 92 election. Like again.04.

[Sagar Enjeti]

What was it? Was that something happened or was it Ross Perot splitting?

[Akash Singh]

Dude, it was just like there was an economic modest depression at the time. People felt 12 years of trickle down economics like I don't fucking trust you anymore. Boom.

[Andrew Schulz]

You're obsessed with safety was an issue too.

[Akash Singh]

H.W. yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

So remember Clinton ran on that like.

[Akash Singh]

Hey we're going to the Cold War. Whatever they thought is too. My point is just that America is very fickle. They will turn on your ass very quickly almost every president. The biggest danger don't you. Don't you read too much into your mandate and you do something that didn't people quite voted for and then you also under deliver on what you did did. And if you fall into that trap even in a feelings level you. That's. That's a great worry.

[Eddie]

Yeah, that's Canada and Mexico.

[Akash Singh]

Look, I'm very supportive of tariffs because I believe in American manufacturing. But the problem is is that it cannot be something that's a ha. Ad hoc and haphazard. It has to have a plan. We need to feel as if yes, the washing machine will cost more. It's because my cousin is going to get a job at this factory that's going to be coming back to here. And when we feel as if it's like it's coming in and it's off and it's all capricious as in like it's up to Trump's like however he feels that day back and forth and the markets are swinging like this and I'm still don't have the plan yet. That's when people start to. And again still got a lot of Runway. He's got Runway. But you need to be careful.

[Andrew Schulz]

Okay.

[Akash Singh]

I'm worried about Doge. I'm worried about the tariff stuff too. We need plans.

[Andrew Schulz]

Recently Bezos.

[Akash Singh]

Yes. Oh, the Post. Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Yeah. Came out and said that his op ed section of the Post opinion.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Will now is that op ed.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Is op ed or his opinion section of the Post. So the newspaper operates in itself and there's also this section on the news newspaper called the Op Ed. And these the opinion part of a newspaper. And you could probably speak more to this. Maybe you should describe it. It'd probably be better.

[Akash Singh]

Okay. So the opinion part of a newspaper is old school tradition. And it's when guys like William Randolph Hearst and similar oligarchs owned these and they wanted to use their paper to express an opinion.

[Andrew Schulz]

Now when you use the word oligarch, it's like triggering.

[Akash Singh]

Oh, sorry, but they actually wore oligarchs.

[Andrew Schulz]

No, I know, but when we think oligarch, we think like Russian bad guy villain. Just say he was a filthy rich.

[Akash Singh]

Politically connected person who had magnate.

[Andrew Schulz]

He was a journalism magnate.

[Akash Singh]

There, perfect. Okay. That's who William Randolph Hearst was. Yeah. Okay. So Bezos, what he has done is he wants the Washington Post. And it's also. Let me explain this about newspaper economics. The op Ed section is always the most popular. Like the most read thing in the Washington Post is not the news. The news in and of itself has always been subsidized by red.

[Andrew Schulz]

He means consumed, not politically.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's right, exactly. So, for example, the news itself, people. People don't want to pay for it. They want to pay for opinion. They want to pay for classified ads. The news has always been a secondary thing funded by something else. The problem is here is that Bezos is showing us he doesn't actually care about his business because the Washington Post subscription base are people who. What? Their democracy dies in the darkness. That's why 200,000 of them canceled their subscription whenever they didn't endorse Kamala. They just lost 75,000 more by saying we're only going to support free markets.

[Andrew Schulz]

So what did they say? So usually the Op Ed section.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

Has differing opinions.

[Akash Singh]

Yes.

[Andrew Schulz]

Right.

[Akash Singh]

Ish.

[Andrew Schulz]

The idea behind it. Let's just talk about the fair idea behind it. So it could be that your paper leans left, but in the op Ed you would have right wing writers. You have left wing writers, different opinions on these subjects. So the newspaper is like, here's what happened. And then the op ed is. Here are opinions about what happened. And these are potentially differing opinions.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, that's right.

[Andrew Schulz]

And Bezos just. Just announces that the Op Ed is now going to change from that to espousing free market ideas. So essentially like pro capitalism. And then what else?

[Akash Singh]

What is it? Personal liberty. And then personal liberty.

[Andrew Schulz]

So he's basically saying our newspaper is going to take a specific point of view.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah.

[Andrew Schulz]

And share opinions that reflect that specific point of view. Now what you Bring up is an interesting wrinkle. I didn't even.

[Eddie]

Pretty vague though.

[Andrew Schulz]

Say again.

[Eddie]

Personal liberty isn't.

[Akash Singh]

Well, no, it's. Here's the thing. What it really means calling it. But what really means, means is let's fire all the woke people and let's get rid of the people who are Russia gators, which is what the Washington Post op ed page has been for the last basically eight years.

[Andrew Schulz]

And let's promote Bezos's agenda.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andrew Schulz]

Which is free. Free market.

[Akash Singh]

Free market, but not antitrust. You know, it's like that.

[Andrew Schulz]

That's a little.

[Akash Singh]

Not too free enough.

[Andrew Schulz]

So the worst interpretation of it is essentially I'm going to use this as a propaganda tool to protect my business endeavors and the endeavors of my, you know, colleagues.

[Akash Singh]

If you.

[Andrew Schulz]

The other billionaire class. Now that's the worst interpretation of. Might be the truest interpretation.

[Akash Singh]

Well, I think let's take Bezos out of it. Let's look at all of the biggest news companies. That's what they are. For example, they've always been do you know, like look at Bloomberg News. That's one of the most important things its job is to do what is to protect the Bloomberg terminal and the integrity of the US market.

[Andrew Schulz]

So this is really interesting because what I believe most of us have come to learn and I've been incredibly naive about this is is that the billionaires or the people with immense power in America outside of controlling the narrative can fluctuate in that power. Power based on the narrative. So the intelligent ones, like a Bill Gates MSNBC is Microsoft, NBC. What they do is they usually purchase or develop a media platform to protect their interests. Bezos, as he rides to superstardom, purchases the Washington Post. With that in mind, we would imagine. I don't think he's going, hey, I just want the best ideas to be out there. No, you got to protect the fact that you're a billionaire buying a 10 million 500 million dollar yacht which you.

[Akash Singh]

Have to take a bridge apart for.

[Andrew Schulz]

Exactly. So it's like a bridge that was built in 1500. You got to take it apart so it can go out. Now I'm some poor guy that can't afford eggs and I see you walking down the street. I'm not going to Luigi Mangionu, but somebody else might want to do something like that. But what's interesting is before that happened, nobody explicitly said that was the purpose. Everybody operated in this idea. Like hey, we have integrity and this is the news and this is the information. The American people can decide what Is true or false. He straight up said he's not straight up.

[Akash Singh]

Can I just say, please, this is actually a return to normal. And I appreciate this. Can you explain how back in the old days, newspapers were partizan vehicles like.

[Andrew Schulz]

Alexander Hamilton ran the Post or whatever.

[Akash Singh]

And it was like, yeah, the ferals. But actually it's a little bit. I thought it was.

[Andrew Schulz]

I thought it was that out of the Post.

[Akash Singh]

No Alexander Hamilton. Anyway, I'm just gonna move.

[Andrew Schulz]

All right, let me give you an example.

[Akash Singh]

During the Civil War, you would have papers that are like the Kansas City Democrat and the Kansas City Republican. And it was in the name. They were party paper. And what they did is they ran news and op eds that was like, we're fucking Democrats and fuck the other side. That is the history of the American newspaper industry. Now, what happened is basically you had founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, Post.

[Andrew Schulz]

The else.

[Akash Singh]

You think I'm talking in Post.

[Andrew Schulz]

What do I care about? What do I care about? All right, there's one Post, and it's the New York Post.

[Akash Singh]

Okay, all right.

[Andrew Schulz]

He wasn't an orphan.

[Akash Singh]

All right, go. Okay. So in the past, newspapers were explicitly partisan. So I. I mentioned William Randolph Hearst. William Randolph Hearst was like, I want to go into the Spanish American War. That's something I want. And so he used his op ed and his newsmen to push that agenda. But he was very open about it. He was like, this is my agenda. This is what I want. Later on, he wanted to keep America out of World War II. He would run a lot of Lindbergh stuff like that's what his agenda was. What happened is after World War II, we had this very weird moment where you had nonpartisan media, which was still partisan. Where you had. But the problem is the distribution. So you had the big papers and the big networks, the big three channels which all Americans were watching. They had to appear nonpartisan, and so corporations could sponsor them and reach as many people as possible. And that's what created this idea of unbiased journalism. No, biased journalism is the most authentic journalism that has always existed. It's called the yellow journalism industry. And it was born on the streets of a great American city. Here in New York, you had the New York Herald, you had the New York Post, you had the New York Star. And they were all different, competing, both ideologies. And it was one not only just for attention, but it was about pushing agendas. These people were open. People would love, for example, the guy who worked, who loved the Herald. I'm blanking on his name. They liked him. He was a. He was not just an oligarch. He was a. A society figure, a Gilded Age person. People would support him. And it was all. It was about picking teams. And I think that's a good thing. I think it's healthy because it removes the veneer. The news was just as fake and partisan in 1960 as it was today. It's actually worse, in my opinion. And if you think about Vietnam, James Gordon Bennett. That's right, an amazing figure. But my point is, like, when Walter Cronite was seen as nonpartisan, it was easier for us to push into war in Vietnam. And it shouldn't take Cronkite being like, the trust has been broken. America cannot lose here or win here in Vietnam. It's like, no, we needed the grand debate instead of the manufactured consent, which is what pushed us into all of these Bay of Pigs. I mean, this is what. They were very conscious about it. There was this controlled op ed page in the Washington Post, which was nonpartisan, even though, yeah, okay, the guy who was running it, Katherine Graham's husband, is best friends with John F. Kennedy. And it just turns out that Kennedy, one of the very first stops he makes on his inauguration night is to a bunch of Washington Post columnists who later become the chief proponents and defenders of Vietnam policy, which was Kennedy's policy to keep America in Vietnam. But they were seen as nonpartisan. It's like, no, we need to remove the non partisanship. Partisanship is good, actually. You just need to trust what.

[Andrew Schulz]

Anyway, what you're saying is it's good compared to the illusion of non partisan.

[Akash Singh]

The illusion is. Is so dangerous.

[Andrew Schulz]

And that's what we.

[Eddie]

Why is the illusion dangerous?

[Akash Singh]

Because like I said, I mean, when all of America's news was telling us that the war in Vietnam was good and that we needed to go and find it, Americans believed that and they signed up to send their sons and daughters. Dude, Iraq is the perfect example in O3. I mean, we did not have. If we had what we had today just based on the information, somebody like me, Glenn Greenwald, who was actually fighting this fight at the time, I'd be like, yo, yellow cake uranium, complete bullshit. This is wrong. The outcome of this would be a disaster. America didn't even have an option on cable television. And of course they support the Roger.

[Mark Gagnon]

Aile saying, this is the real news.

[Akash Singh]

The real news. Yeah. Did you read that book I recommend, dude, can't recommend it enough. The loudest voice the room, Roger Ailes. And how he. He understood he has a great quote which is people don't want to be informed, they want to feel informed. That's he understood America.

[Andrew Schulz]

He created Fox News.

[Akash Singh]

He created Fox News. That's right, him and Rupert Murdoch.

[Eddie]

But then don't you have way more echo chambers and yes, separation.

[Akash Singh]

You know what though? At the end it's like the printing press. The printing press led to 30 years of war on the European continent and mass death. It was still a good thing we have more information because yes, it led to the Protestantism, it led to civil war, it led to all of these debates. But at the end of the day it was like the Catholic Church no longer controlling the minds of the serfdom. It led to the renaissance, it led to ideas. So look, the Internet is the printing press. We're returning to the mean. Like we have a new form of distribution we can debate. Do we? How long have we been going here? Like three hours. We're sitting here, we're fucking talking and all this. This would never air. 45 years ago America was locked the fuck in to bullshit Echo chamber is already dance. And yet the thing is that echo chamber is 10 times worse than any echo chamber today. Even the most echo chambered Republican is still has access to liberal media. Even the most echo chambered liberal still has access and can go at any time they want to. Ben Shapiro or whatever, somebody's out there. 45 years ago there was no option.

[Andrew Schulz]

So you got, you got to get a train soon. Yes, but I just to button this, like being biased is at least more honest. So it's an improvement on honesty. We're whereas before the illusion of being unbiased takes a reader who thinks he's just getting the news. Now at least I get to look at the Washington Post and I go, okay, this is going to be maybe a more right wing perspective. Yeah, I can look at, give me a good left wing outpost.

[Akash Singh]

Left, like actual left wing Jacobin.

[Andrew Schulz]

Sure.

[Akash Singh]

The socialist newspaper.

[Andrew Schulz]

The socialist newspaper, it's called Jacobin.

[Akash Singh]

Jacobin.

[Andrew Schulz]

So Jacobin. Like and if I want to get that take, I'll read the same story at Jacobin. If I want to get the right, I'll read the Washington Post.

[Mark Gagnon]

Or you could just listen to breaking.

[Akash Singh]

Points and you get. But no, but my point actually.

[Andrew Schulz]

But did you guys notice how when.

[Akash Singh]

I was talking about Ukraine I I was like, hey, I have a real bias because I cannot tell you, I'm honestly, Ukraine is probably one of my top issues like foreign policy. I cannot give you the real pro Ukraine side with the Same enthusiasm that I do. I tried, I tried to do the whole Steel man thing, but I have a. I'm just not going to do it. Like, if you want to hear that, go to David Ignatius, go to Max Boot, go to Anne Marie Slaughter. Any of these people, these real neocons, liberal one, they believe in this shit. Please go read them. Don't just listen to me because you need all your information.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is how you get.

[Akash Singh]

I agree with you. That's what I'm saying.

[Andrew Schulz]

Institutions is. Understand what you're digesting. If you tell me that food is healthy and then I eat it and I get some sort of disease, I stop trusting the people who are telling me it's healthy. If you tell me something is not healthy. Every cookie spot we go to, they go, yo, this is a thousand calories.

[Akash Singh]

Right?

[Andrew Schulz]

When I feel like shit afterwards, I'm like, you better give me that thousand.

[Akash Singh]

Yes. You know what I mean?

[Andrew Schulz]

If I feel healthy after that cookie, then you're lying to me.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, so.

[Andrew Schulz]

So, okay, at first I was like, I was concerned about the bias and information. As long as there are equal, I don't want to know, say equal. But as long as there is information that's accessible out there that shows the opposition and both are being honest about it. Yeah, maybe this is a good thing.

[Akash Singh]

Yeah, I agree.

[Andrew Schulz]

This is great. And I like the fact that you said that the, the original idea of this is the information comes from wanting to sell more.

[Akash Singh]

Dude, it's only a 50 year old idea. It's an aberration in America. America is always been. Do we have the California Democrat, the California Republican, they're at war with their own state. How should we govern gold policy? Should we be in the Civil War? Even in the Confederacy they had different papers being like, we need to do this. No, we don't need to do that. Like it's the bias and the dueling perspective. That's how it's always been. The 1950s was an * in an otherwise like a country that has always been. We've always recognized that news and information in and of itself is not actually all that valuable. As in X, Y and Z happened. People don't want to know that. They want to go X, Y and Z happened. And what did it mean? And that is what the newspaper and the information industry is all about. So I'm still very optimistic because in the Internet age, it's not just about declining trust in mainstream media. It's about an explosion of a new possibility and there'll be a lot of bullshit out there. Just like the invention of the printing press was mostly what, pornography, conspiracy theory, whatever it was starting wars. It was chaotic. But the net benefit was lack of control by singular institutions with their own agendas. And I think the decentralization of this will be very chaotic. And it will not necessarily be comfortable. But I think we'll end up in a better place.

[Andrew Schulz]

Saga Jetty Breaking points Go check it out. Thank you so much.

[Akash Singh]

We love you, brother.

[Andrew Schulz]

We appreciate.