Republican Senator Bill Cassidy Loses Louisiana Race in Win for Trump

Summary

---

Bloomberg This Weekend: Republican Senator Bill Cassidy Loses Louisiana Race in Win for Trump

Date: May 17, 2026
Hosts: David Gura, Christina Raffini, Lisa Mateo

---

Episode Overview

This episode explores the political ramifications of Republican Senator Bill Cassidy's loss in the Louisiana primary—an outcome widely seen as a win for Donald Trump and his influence over the GOP. The hosts break down what Cassidy’s defeat means for intra-party dynamics, Trump’s sustained power, and the upcoming elections. Other segments analyze President Trump's vast personal trading activity, current US-China tensions, and the evolving concept of aging and self-image for men. The episode features in-depth interviews with political strategists, a national security reporter, a student journalist with a blockbuster book, and a culture writer, providing diverse perspectives on politics, economics, and trends shaping society.

---

Key Discussions & Insights

1. Bill Cassidy's Defeat and the Triumph of Trumpism

[02:32–07:56]

• Trump's Reaction: Trump celebrates Cassidy's fall, criticizing his past vote to impeach and painting his political demise as just.
  • Quote: “His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend. It’s nice to see that his political career is over.” — Christina Raffini, reading Trump's statement [02:49]
• Expert View – Leslie Shedd (Republican Congressional Adviser):
  • Trump’s base remains powerful and vindictive toward perceived disloyalty.
  • The next Louisiana senator will almost certainly be a Trump-aligned Republican.
  • Memorable Moment: Leslie jokes about looking forward to the "Cassidy YOLO era":
    “I’ve got my popcorn ready. I am ready, very ready for the Cassidy YOLO era.” — Leslie Shedd [03:41]
• Impact on GOP:
  • Trump actively shapes candidate selection in red states—his endorsement is make-or-break.
  • Criticism of military redeployments in Europe from other GOP figures gets limited traction, mostly outside the Republican base.

2. Voter Dynamics and the Role of Affordability

[05:16–07:26]

• Democratic Strategist Amisha Cross:

  • Trump’s high disapproval ratings don’t prevent his endorsed candidates from winning in deep-red states where his base is “immovable.”
  • For Democrats, turnout and appealing to independents and young voters are critical, especially due to aggressive redistricting.

• On the Affordability Crisis:

  • The panel discusses how economic issues (gas, groceries, housing, childcare) dominate American concerns.
  • Both parties expected to frame these issues as central in the next campaign.

  “Democrats need the base to come out, but they also need to expand the base… Affordability is the name of the game.” — Amisha Cross [06:35]

3. National Security, Foreign Affairs, and Presidential Priorities

[07:26–11:25]

• Affordability vs. Security:

  • Republicans are attempting to frame Trump as a leader focused on national security, while Democrats accuse him of ignoring domestic affordability.

• Ethics and Self-Enrichment:

  • Amisha Cross accuses Trump of policies benefiting the wealthy and neglecting the middle class.
    “This is a president who has enriched his family… developed a tax strategy that would put money in the pockets of the wealthiest Americans, meanwhile crushing out the middle class and eradicating the poor.” — Amisha Cross [09:09]

• Democratic Agenda:

  • Attempts to articulate concrete policy goals on healthcare, childcare, food insecurity, and housing.
  • Debates whether Democrats have a cohesive plan to oppose Republican efforts amid state-level voting rights restrictions and potential Supreme Court changes.
  • Memorable Moment: Amisha Cross reflects on the ongoing struggle for civil rights, noting personal generational continuity:
    “The same fight that my grandparents lived through in Mississippi is the fight that we’re fighting right now.” — Amisha Cross [10:43]

4. President Trump's Stock Trades: Ethics and Precedent

[15:14–22:58]

• Context: Public filings show President Trump made over 3,700 stock trades in Q1, involving many tech giants whose executives accompanied him on a China trip.

• Expert Interview: Jess Menton, Bloomberg Senior Equities Reporter

  • The volume and timing of Trump’s trades are highly unusual even among high net worth individuals; it’s unclear who is making or directing the trades—Trump, his sons, or a third-party firm.

  “You normally don’t see that frequency and that type of volume of transaction even just in a quarter alone.” — Jess Menton [15:52]

  • Raised ethical questions: Trump Organization claims holdings are managed by a third party via automated processes; nevertheless, transparency is lacking compared to past presidents, who used blind trusts or avoided trading.

  • Specific concern: Some trades (e.g., Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft) happened concurrently with presidential policy moves impacting those companies, raising suspicion—even if not technically illegal.

  “If you’re a stock guy, you see him getting onto the plane with all these execs, you just start clicking through… It’s just there, plain and simple for you to see.” — Christina Raffini [21:05]

  • Ultimately, the filings raise more questions than they answer; volume, timing, and lack of full disclosure leave unresolved concerns about conflicts of interest.

5. Geopolitics: U.S.-China, Iran, and Troop Movements

[23:13–28:38]

• Guest: Missy Ryan, National Security Reporter (Washington Post/The Atlantic)

  • Trump’s use of Taiwan aid as a bargaining chip is seen as a win for China’s Xi Jinping, worrying U.S. partners in Asia.
  • China unlikely to expend significant political capital to end conflict in the Middle East; China’s position may even benefit from U.S. military entanglements elsewhere.

  “China… desires an end to this conflict, but they’re not willing to go to the mat on Washington’s behalf.” — Missy Ryan [25:04]

  • The U.S. repositioning troops out of Europe is mostly symbolic but signals declining commitment, which could embolden Russia.
  • Persistent patterns in the Pentagon shaping information to present a rosier view of the ongoing war.

  “The Pentagon… really seems to be trying to present a favorable picture of this war to an extent that is arguably misleading in many cases.” — Missy Ryan [26:47]

---

Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “I am very, very ready for the Cassidy YOLO era. You know, those Cajuns are quite feisty already on their own. And when you’ve got a Cajun who’s got nothing left to lose, you just know it’s going to be really entertaining.”
  — Leslie Shedd [03:41]

• “Trump knows his base. He speaks to his base. These people are immovable. And I don’t think that’s going to change.”
  — Amisha Cross [05:36]

• “Democrats are for health insurance and health coverage that will carry Americans through who won’t have to worry about trying to afford prescription drugs versus keeping the light bills on.”
  — Amisha Cross [09:09]

• “You normally don’t see that frequency and that type of volume of transaction even just in a quarter alone.”
  — Jess Menton [15:52]

• “It really goes to show that the United States is not necessarily going to stick to its traditional alliances and is willing to at least consider reneging on the military support... that it has provided to countries that rely on U.S. counterbalance to China.”
  — Missy Ryan [23:54]

• “The Pentagon... does really seem to be trying to present a favorable picture of this war to an extent that is arguably misleading in many cases.”
  — Missy Ryan [26:47]

---

Other Highlights

Theo Baker on Academic Power and Stanford’s Silicon Valley Connection

[30:59–38:29]

• Baker, a Stanford student and journalist, discusses his exposé that led to the resignation of Stanford’s president, and broader issues of power, privilege, and the blurring of lines between academia and tech entrepreneurship.
  • “Stanford, which really is sort of Silicon Valley’s theater school… this relentless focus on perfection, on appearance, is… the best way to explain the entire institution.” — Theo Baker [33:03]
• Stanford's role as engine of tech and ethical questions about its influence.

Millennial ‘Hotspan’ and Changing Views on Aging for Men

[40:31–46:43]

• Culture writer Chris Rosser discusses rising pressure on men to maintain fitness and youthful looks as they age, paralleling longstanding pressures faced by women.

  • Trend fueled by “manosphere” influencers, longevity medicine, and even celebrity “transparency” about procedures like hair transplants.

  “Actually staying healthy through your retirement and beyond, like, will make you feel better and, like, incidentally, look better.” — Chris Rosser [41:29]

  • Money and medicine now shape this new ‘hotspan’—the desire to “look good at any age.”

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment Topic | Timestamp | |---------------------------------------|-------------| | Cassidy loss & Trump’s influence | 02:32–07:56 | | Voter dynamics, affordability | 05:16–07:26 | | National security vs. affordability | 07:26–11:25 | | Trump’s stock trades & ethics | 15:14–22:58 | | Geopolitics (US-China, Iran, troops) | 23:13–28:38 | | Stanford, academia, and big tech | 30:59–38:29 | | Aging & image pressure on men | 40:31–46:43 |

---

Conclusion

This episode unpacks the lasting hold Trump maintains in the GOP and the consequences for party insiders who cross him, like Bill Cassidy. It delves into the economic anxiety shaping the electorate, questions of ethics in presidential finance, and seismic shifts in global politics. Rich interviews and in-the-weeds reporting provide listeners with sharp analysis, memorable commentary, and a multidimensional view of American political and cultural life in 2026.

---

Transcript

[Narrator/Announcer]

Being a small business owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. Manage all your business finances, from banking to payments to credit cards, all in one place with Chase's digital tools. Plus access online resources designed to help your business thrive. Learn [e-mail] business chase for business make more of what's yours the Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply JP Morgan Chase Bank Naomi Member FDIC Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase Co. Sonesta Travel Pass

[Sonesta Travel Pass Advertiser]

Makes traveling more rewarding Designed to help you get more out of every stay. Sign [e-mail] to enjoy instant savings, bonus points and valuable perks like early check in, late checkout, room upgrades and free stays over time. With Sonesta TravelPass, every stay brings you closer to your next reward. Choose from more than 1100 hotels across 13 distinctive brands and unlock the best available rates when you book direct with Sonesta TravelPass here today, Rome tomorrow. Join [e-mail] terms and conditions apply when

[Chase/Business Advertiser]

you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford the the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering and claims experience. Learn [e-mail] Riskmitigation policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates. Hartford, Connecticut

[Narrator/Announcer]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News welcome to the Bloomberg this Weekend podcast with David Gura, Christina Raffini and Lisa Mateo.

[David Gura]

Thanks for joining us for today's selection of conversations from the show.

[Christina Raffini]

You can listen to our favorite discussions right here on the podcast, but also make sure to join us live every Saturday and Sunday morning starting at 7am Eastern.

[Lisa Mateo]

We're on Bloomberg Television Radio and the Bloomberg Business Apple, bringing you unique takes and in depth interviews on news, politics, lifestyle and culture.

[David Gura]

President Trump is taking a victory lap this morning following breaking news that Republican incumbent Senator Bill Cassidy failed to secure one of the top two spots in his Louisiana primary. Cassidy has been in Trump's crosshairs since he voted to convict the president in his 2021 after January six impeachment while he was a member of the House

[Christina Raffini]

President Trump took to social media this morning saying, quote, bill Cassidy, after falsely using his relationship with me during his political career and winning elections because of it, voted to impeach me on preposterous charges that were fake then and now are criminally insane. President continues his disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend. And it's nice to see that his political career is over. Joining us now, former Republican congressional adviser Leslie Shedd and Democratic strategist Amisha Cross. Leslie, let me start with you, and let's go to Louisiana first. And the outcome of that primary yesterday, Bill Cassidy, as Christina mentioned just a moment ago, very much in the sights of the president for a long while, his Health and Human Services secretary training his sights on him as well, displeased with the way that Bill Casti, a doctor, has treated him over the course of the last many months. What is your takeaway from the outcome of that primary election in Louisiana yesterday?

[Leslie Shedd]

My takeaway is this. I mean, the president can get involved in, you know, whatever primaries and elections that he wants to get involved with. He is incredibly popular with Republican voters, and he's going to use that power accordingly. I think whoever wins in this runoff, whether it's Florida, Fleming or Ludlow, they will absolutely be the next United States senator from Louisiana. I don't think that is at all a question. But most importantly, I mean, I've got my popcorn ready. I am ready. I am very, very ready for the Cassidy YOLO era. You know, those Cajuns are quite feisty already on their own. And when you've got a Cajun who's got nothing left to lose, you just know it's going to be really entertaining.

[David Gura]

Yeah. Leslie, I'm going to come to you just a sec. But I do want to get your. Speaking of men in their YOLO era, we were talking earlier, David was mentioning Thom Tillis, who had some very strong tweets out. I think it was last night was when I saw them criticizing this redeployment of troops out of Europe and some of the decisions made at the Pentagon. But does that have any impact on the Republican base? Is anybody besides Democrats and maybe a couple independents listening to these guys?

[Leslie Shedd]

I mean, it depends, right? It depends on the argument. It depends on the topic on something like US Troops in Europe and people's dislike of Russia. I think that is something that a broad swath of of Republicans and Democrats of Americans as a whole would tend to agree with. So I do think in instances like that, it's very helpful. He's calling out a question he, he doesn't fully understand why it is that they've suddenly decided to not deploy this, these troops to Poland, why it is we're pulling troops out of Germany. You know, it's Congress's job to get answers on that from the executive branch.

[Christina Raffini]

Misha explains something to me. We look at the president's polling. It is extremely low. The disapproval rating, extreme, extremely high. And yet, as we saw in Indiana, as we saw in Louisiana last night, candidates who embrace him or who are embraced by him are seemingly doing very well in these elections. What do you make of that seeming disconnect or discord between two things?

[Amisha Cross]

Well, I think that those are very different types of races. First and foremost, this is not midterms yet. In addition to that, those are both states that voted for Trump by double digits, not once, twice, but in many cases, three times. If we're talking about Louisiana, at the end of the day, Americans writ large are very upset about the cost of gas. They're upset that the cost of food continues to increase, lack of childcare, you name it. Health care expenses shooting through the roof. However, in some of our much more red states, Trump knows his base. He speaks to his base. These people are immovable. And I don't think that that's going to change what we are and should be paying attention to more. So is those independent voters, how they're going to come out, younger voters? Trump did have a stronghold on younger voters in the last election cycle, which surprised a lot of people. But I think that that tide is turning as well.

[David Gura]

Is this midterms really about turnout? I mean, midterms are always about turnout. But it seems to me, especially some of those demographics you've been talking about and we've been talking about that surprisingly went for Trump the last time. Do Democrats just need them not to show up or do they have to win them over?

[Amisha Cross]

No, Democrats need them to show up and they need to win them over. And in large part, it's also because of these strict redistricting efforts that you talked about in the last segment. Democrats are going to need every single vote. Yes, I think that there is some enjoyment with the fact that Trump just keeps getting everything wrong. He ran on no more endless wars, just, you know, walked us into one that could last the next two generations, especially with the reverberating effects. But with that being said, Democrats need the base to come out, but they also need to expand the base. We know that in 2020, a lot of voters showed up who had not shown up since the Obama election. We need those same people to come out again. A lot of it will be driven by frustration for some of the economic things we just talked about. But the other thing is you have to have somebody that you believe in, a candidate that people want to support. I think Democrats have shown in a lot of the off year elections thus far that affordability is the name of the game. They need to run with promises and tactics to move affordability forward.

[Christina Raffini]

Leslie, we talk about affordability and this is a president who doesn't seem to want to engage with it. Before he left for China, he had that kind of astonishing remark about how that's not front of mind for him as he looks at this war continuing to widen and last a lot longer than he initially said it would. He's not talking about affordability. Even if representatives party say that that's going to be the marquee issue for Republicans as well. Is that bleeding through? Is it going to pose a challenge for him as I ask you this on the heels of that trip to China where a lot has been kind of thrown up in the air, including the relationship between the US And Taiwan?

[Leslie Shedd]

Well, look, I am certain that Democrats are going to cut up what the president said and use that against him and other Republicans in ads. But you really have to ask yourself, right, don't you want a commander in chief, the commander of the US Military to only take US national security interests in mind when he is talking about using military force? That's what he was saying here. That's what he meant. The president has taken, taken substantive actions in order to try to make life more affordable here. He's been lowering taxes in general. A lot of prices of things, including eggs and other staple grocery items have dropped. My favorite thing that he's done so far, the Trump accounts. This is something that can help to create generational wealth for young Americans. So the campaign season is just now getting started. We're six months away. That is a lifetime when it comes to campaigns. And I think that once we get out there with ads, with messages, with just reminding voters of all of these things that Republicans are doing, it's going to help. And keep in mind Democrats have no agenda to run on whatsoever. What are they for? It just seems like they're against the president and anything that he is for, even if it was something that they supported before, but now they're against it.

[Christina Raffini]

You should jump in here.

[Amisha Cross]

Democrats are for health insurance and health coverage that will carry Americans through who won't have to worry about trying to afford prescription drugs versus keeping the light bills on. Democrats are for access to childcare. Democrats are for ensuring that regardless of where you live in this country that you will be able to afford housing. Democrats are for not reducing food stamps. We know that those snap cuts across the country have led to hundreds of thousands of people with young kids not being able to feed them. We also know that Americans are crushing under the weight of the affordability crisis, a crisis that the president refuses to acknowledge even exists and has said just over the past few days that he doesn't really care. He doesn't care that Americans can't afford to live. He doesn't care that Americans are pushing against this war. He doesn't care that it's extremely unpopular. He doesn't care about the crisis that Americans are dealing with every single day. This is a president who has enriched his family. This is a president who's enriched his cronies. This is a president who developed a tax strategy that would put money in the pockets of the wealthiest Americans, meanwhile crushing out the middle class and eradicating the poor. I think that Democrats definitely have something to run on and we're watching them do it every day.

[David Gura]

But I do, I do want to push back a little bit and ask you the question that I ask almost all Democrats. I mean, we just had Representative Clark on and I asked her, okay, so what do you do in response to these things? And she said, well, we're going to protest. We're going to make our voices heard. What I hear from even some senior level Democrats is they do not sense a cohesive plan among Democrats. What are you going to do about this? Can you do anything about this? Even if you take back one of these chambers, can you really stop the agenda of this president?

[Amisha Cross]

Well, I think we have to think outside the box here because this is more than just the agenda of the president. These voting rights restrictions that we've seen taken in place, the majority of those start at the state level. This is the agenda of also state legislatures. Democrats have to move beyond just elections and also focus on what's happening in the states. And I also think that for Democrats, they have to, and it was mentioned, I think, in your last segment, they also have to look towards what court packing could look like during the last administration, the Biden administration, he was strictly and staunchly against court packing. The Supreme Court has showed us what they can and what they will do up to and including erosion of civil rights. And as a black person, I, for one, am extremely bothered by what we're seeing there, but also that the same fight that my grandparents lived through in Mississippi is the fight that we're fighting right now.

[Christina Raffini]

Leslie, I want to ask you about this issue of the president enriching himself. And I'm going to raise the reporting that we were talking about a little earlier in the show that our colleagues report on the ethics release that the president made a little earlier this week showing he made 3,700 trades in the first quarter, just a huge number even outside the office of the presidency. A number of people who are investors, professional investors on Wall street saying that's just an incredible amount of trades to have made in a one quarter period. Does it make you as Republican at all uneasy to see that the president maintaining the White House, maintaining the president doesn't have direct control of his investments, but this is an extraordinary amount of trading happening. Yes. Involving a lot of companies with whom the president deals, interacts with on a regular basis.

[Leslie Shedd]

So you think the President of the United States is what, like checking his Robin Hood app in between his meetings with the King of England and getting briefed in the Situation Room? Look, it's no surprise the president is wealthy. Everybody knows that. I've worked for wealthy officials before. And just like other wealthy people, they own stocks. And you know what else they do? They have experts that manage their money, that are making these stock trades, that are helping them decide. That's how they get wealthy and that's how they stay wealthy, not by managing these things on their own. This is incredibly common. The idea that the president is like trading stocks is some kind of a sign of corruption. It's just, it's a silly argument. I've been dealing with them for years. When you deal with other officials that have money, it's, it's ridiculous.

[David Gura]

So you don't have any problem with members of Congress or people in the executive branch being able to trade stocks?

[Leslie Shedd]

No, not at all. In fact, I used to work for one of the, quote, unquote, most prolific stock traders in Congress. And I can tell you right now that like, he doesn't know how to trade a stock. He has no idea what's going on in that portfolio. Stocks get traded. This is something that people that have money do. It's how they, they make their wealth. It's how they grow their wealth by not doing this themselves, by having experts manage it.

[Christina Raffini]

Leslie Shedd, former senior advisor, senior staffer, current political advisor, thank you very much for joining us on this night. Thanks to Amisha Cross as well for joining us here. In New York. Great to see you on set. And Christine, as I said, I think the interesting thing about this no, the President probably doesn't have his Robinhood app out, but he does wield an incredible amount of power to influence our perception of these companies, how they're doing both directly and indirectly. Having Jensen Huang sit on the plane is surely a sign that he is embracing the efforts of Nvidia. Stay with us for more. More on Bloomberg this weekend right after this. So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300,000 can

[Chris Rosser]

use AI to fill their HR questions,

[Christina Raffini]

resolving 94% of common questions, not noise.

[Chris Rosser]

Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work

[Christina Raffini]

that moves the business.

[David Gura]

Business.

[Christina Raffini]

Let's create smarter business.

[Lisa Mateo]

IBM Sending a file is easy. Making sure your clients understand the file is the hard part. But with PDF spaces in Adobe Acrobat, you can give your clients the full picture with custom intros, audio summaries, and a helpful AI assistant to your docs. So if you want to stop the endless follow ups, do that with Acrobat. Need to make your docs crystal clear. Do that with Acrobat. Want to make sure your clients get everything they need to hear? Do that with Acrobat. Learn [e-mail] do that with Acrobat.

[Christina Raffini]

This coffee shop running smooth thanks to genius from Global Payments, Instant transactions, effortless

[Chase/Business Advertiser]

inventory and synchronized operations. Big league reliability for any business, that's genius.

[David Gura]

This past week, as the president traveled to China, a group of executives from the world's largest tech companies went along for the ride, literally gaining high level access to officials in both the Trump administration and the Chinese government.

[Christina Raffini]

On Thursday, ethics filings made public by the president revealed he made thousands of purchases of tech stocks from some of the same companies. Digging into the numbers, Bloomberg senior equities reporter Jess Menton here with us on set in New York. Just great to see you. I'm drawn to a quote in your piece by Matthew Tuttle. I've talked to him before. He's kind of an ETF guy and he says to you, this is an insane amount. As you leafed through those hundred pages of filings, what stood out to you immediately about what was therein?

[Jess Menton]

And this is a story I worked on with Bill Ellison in our Washington, D.C. bureau as well as other reporters in D.C. and so when you're looking at this amount of trades, over 3,700, typically you wouldn't see that for someone's personal account, even though it is of course, President Donald Trump, leader of the free world.

[David Gura]

The other part that flagged me was that that's like over 40 per day.

[Jess Menton]

And also even if you include just trading days, it would be even higher than that, probably in the 50s. And so when you're talking to people who are running RIAs, and I want to be clear here, because you don't know exactly behind this, even if it is an RIA that was making those transactions, because the Trump Organization said that they have an independent third party that's managing this and that it is an automated process. But when you're speaking with people who are managing money, especially decades on Wall street for even high net worth individuals, you normally don't see that frequency and that type of volume of transaction even just in a quarter alone. Typically they have things set in place to where you wouldn't have to make that many transactions because your portfolio is supposed to be more bulletproof, despite what happens if there are gyrations in financial markets.

[Christina Raffini]

Before we dig into this more, read a statement here from the White House. They dismissed questions about potential conflicts. David Engels saying the Trump only acts in the best interest of the American public. He added, there are no conflicts of interest. We have a spokesperson at the Trump Organization saying the president's holdings are independently managed, as you mentioned, by a third party. Financial institutions have control over all of these investment decisions with trades executed through automated processes. That aside, what kind of trades did we see here? We mentioned those tech companies at the top. What stood out to you in terms of what was actually traded?

[Jess Menton]

Well, these are typically companies that the Trump administration is well known to have business dealings with, especially on the back of his visit in Beijing, especially within video is obviously listed in here as well as metamicrosystems, Microsoft, Amazon as well as you see other things with Costco and Dollar Tree. But what's interesting about this, and you go through the filings, it's hard to distinguish whether specifically for some of these trades, whether it was specifically toward a stock, whether it's municipal bonds. Because we've seen other disclosures from this past year where, say in the fourth quarter of last year it was around 380 different trades. So you went from that at the end of last year, many fewer, but still elevated.

[David Gura]

Right.

[Jess Menton]

If you think compared to what people typically would do in high net worth individuals for those types of movements there. So it's hard to distinguish specifically if it was unloading specific stocks, whether it was Nvidia or Metta. But even if when I'm speaking with people managing money, some of it doesn't quite make sense because some of those stocks and how they've performed since the end of March, say Amazon on a stellar run, especially in April, I mean we've seen it up double digits at this point. But then Metta a bit more mixed. So say if you talking to people managing money, why not just buy and hold something? And so maybe that raises a lot of their questions because they're wondering, well, is it more like an algo, Is it multiple money managers and financial advisors? We don't necessarily know that just yet.

[David Gura]

Okay, I'm going to step back and ask a series of stupid questions. Why don't we know who or what is exactly making these trades? Is this legal, is it precedented? And there's information that doesn't show on this disclosures. What is that?

[Jess Menton]

Typically when you see prior presidents, it's normally a blind trust and an independent financial.

[Leslie Shedd]

Right. I have the thing, I think Obama

[David Gura]

did Treasury bills and a diversified mutual fund. And Biden apparently didn't trade stocks.

[Jess Menton]

Right. And Bill Clinton also had a blind advisor as well as President Herbert Walker Bush. So what's interesting here, there was a stock act, I believe it was back in 2012, and it would be triggered particularly by a certain amount. And President Donald Trump is the first one to do that. So he started disclosing that. We started seeing that beginning in last, the last August. So most of the rule has been you have to disclose it as far as if it triggers it by a certain amount. So he's the first one to do that. And most of it's been more toward municipal bonds. I mean we saw that toward the end of last year. This is a little bit more question because we're wondering, well, is it still municipal bonds that they're doing? And you can't necessarily, when you're going through all of this, see specifically whether this is a derivative, whether this is a stock, whether this is a bond. So there are those questions about just the volume of those trades, what exactly is going on there? And if it's, it is automated process like the Trump Organization was saying. But people still are wondering because you don't normally see that in high net worth individual accounts.

[David Gura]

And you can't see the exact timing. Right.

[Jess Menton]

Well, there actually is on February 10th, there was a number of transactions with some of these big tech Names Nvidia included. And then about a week later, obviously there was different deals and things being made with Nvidia. So that was something that raised some eyebrows among people on Wall Street. But again, we still need more information because it doesn't necessarily dictate and lay out all of that in these regulatory filings.

[Christina Raffini]

I'm going to make an observation, a long winded one, and then you can comment on it if you'd like, that is comfortable.

[David Gura]

Here we go.

[Christina Raffini]

You have a president now who is meeting with these executives in a way that past presidents haven't, talking about these companies, in some cases getting the US Government involved in private companies in a way that we haven't seen either. I think of intel in particular, were I his independent investor, operating in some capacity away from the president, he may not be directing me to make trades, but it is not difficult for me or for you or you to ascertain sort of what country, what companies he's interested in, where you see movement as a result of that. It's just there's, there's a novelty in the projection of what might be of interest to this president. And obviously you're able to see the reaction as he talks about these companies in the market in real time.

[David Gura]

I mean, if you're a stock guy, you see him getting onto the plane with all these execs, you just like start clicking through, right?

[Christina Raffini]

It's not even telegraph left, it's just there. It's there, plain and simple for you to see.

[Jess Menton]

And you see, based on these meetings that he's had with all of these executives, especially on the back of what was going on with his visit in Beijing. And again, to make it clear we don't know that President Donald Trump was actually making these transactions too, or whether his sons were doing that as well, because we know his two older sons oversee a large swath of his financial portfolio. But they're making it clear by the Trump Organization that this is a third party and so supposed to be an automated process. But to your point, David, when you're thinking about the meetings that the Trump administration has with these big executives, that's why some people on Wall street more so are wondering, well, what do we not know? When you're the President of the United States, you have so much at your disposal, they're wondering, well, what information do we not have and what type of trades we're making?

[Christina Raffini]

Can I get one last question in on that point? So you brought the fact that I think somebody said this to you, Adam, Sarah said this to you wondering of how these trades met it out in the end? Were they positive or negative? My question to you going forward is what don't you know that you want to know going forward? And what are you going to be watching for here as we get to future quarters of releases and when's part two coming?

[Jess Menton]

Right. And Adam Sarhan, 50 Park Investments. I mean, he made that point because he said, I would like to see the account was this negative or positive by the end of this because when I brought up met as mixed performance, I mean, it doesn't quite make sense because it wasn't at least like that was a great trade.

[David Gura]

If you saw this, had a bad week after.

[Jess Menton]

And then the other thing Adam was pointing out as well as many others, you can't really say anything illegal happened based on these filings. You have to be very careful with that because again, it doesn't specifically disclose all of this was stock, whether all of this was municipal bonds. You have to be careful when you're looking at these regulatory filings. We're just seeing there's a massive volume of those trades. And that's what people are wondering what's going on beneath the hood there.

[David Gura]

Jasmin, great job on this story. The whole team, kudos. The whole team. I have seen this absolutely everywhere. It ran through Twitter like wildfire and really good old school work.

[Christina Raffini]

Great to have you here on set with us in New York. Thank you for coming in. We are monitoring a volatile morning for global markets as President Trump ramps up pressure on multiple foreign policy fronts, tracking multiple flashpoints simultaneously in the Middle East, a widening conflict with Iran is triggering sharp fluctuations in Brent crude.

[David Gura]

For instance, in Latin America, we've got severe new economic sanctions that are directly targeting Cuba's primary revenue streams. Meanwhile, high stakes trade friction with Beijing continues to complicate multinational supply chains. All right. Joining us now to break down the economic and geopolitical fallout of all of that, I hope she's had her coffee is Missy Ryan, national security reporter at the Washington Post. She's also at the Atlantic. Missy, I want to start with just when you look at briefly this trip of the president to China and the fact that they are he is using this Taiwan aid package, the second package, as a bargaining chip. What is your take on that? And does that in itself a win for Xi coming out of that trip?

[Missy Ryan]

Yeah, that is absolutely a win for Xi. Even just putting that on the table, obviously is provoking a lot of concern in Taiwan and I think for US Partners across Asia. It really goes to show that the United States is not necessarily going to stick to its traditional alliances and is willing to at least consider reneging on the military support, the political and military umbrella that is provided to countries that rely on US Counterbalance to China. So he may not follow through with that. And you would think that he would have actually made a deal in China if he was going to, but certainly it's not good news for Taiwan.

[Christina Raffini]

I'm curious, as you watched this trip unfold and heard all of the comments about Iran, of course, the prelude to these conversations that took place in Beijing was another summit between the foreign Minister of China, the foreign minister of Iran. What you walked away from in terms of the role that China is playing now and is prepared to play in trying to ameliorate or solve this conflict in the Middle East.

[Missy Ryan]

Yeah. My impression was that China is not really interested in using a lot of political capital to end this war. You know, it's not clear. You know, China does has relied on Iranian oil. Obviously, China has an interest in maintaining global flows of commerce. At the same time, what there's only so much leverage that China has over Iran, given that this is an existential situation for Iranian leaders. So my impression was that China, I think, desires an end to this conflict, but they're not willing to go to the mat on Washing's behalf, especially considering that in some ways this war does benefit China. It actually lays bare some of the military challenges that the United States has and arguably makes it harder for the United States to solidify this rebalancing to Asia and the kind of military shifts that the United States wants to do in order to counteract Chinese influence in the Pacific.

[David Gura]

If it's Asia, we were just talking about it. Missy, I know you've covered several of these anticipated attempted pivots to Asia. I do want to ask you about the broader picture a little bit. So in April, you wrote with some of your Atlantic colleagues that the Pentagon was maybe not giving the President the full picture of the war. And then on Friday, we have the president getting into it with David saying from the New York Times saying that the paper's coverage of the war was treasonous. My question is that improved at all? Does the president know how the war is really going? And to the American people,

[Missy Ryan]

it's a really great question. You know, the president, we've known since his first term that he doesn't consume intelligence or I think, you know, other kinds of information in the same way as other presidents have. You know, every president has different preferences, of course, but in terms of the lengthy, dense intelligence briefings that the PDB briefers have typically done. He doesn't have that same appetite for that information. We know that he's relied on these videos that the Pentagon has produced. At the same time, he has, I think now been asking harder questions because the war isn't going well. But you know, the Pentagon, I will say the Pentagon, from my vantage point in terms of their public information, does really seem to be trying to present a favorable picture of this war to an extent that is arguably misleading in many cases.

[David Gura]

We've only got about 30 seconds and I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but I do want to get really quickly your your take on these troop redeployments out of Europe. We had that initial announcement and now it seems like troops might be coming out of Poland as well as Germany. How is this good for American security?

[Missy Ryan]

I don't think it is good for American security, at least in the to the extent that it sends a message to Russia that the United States is not committed to to Europe. Now Europe is taking significant steps to bolster its own arsenal to, you know, get NATO in a different place, in a more prepared place. But the United States, it's more symbolic than practical, I think. And I do think that it remains to be seen whether it happens. I mean the discussion of poll and shows how complicated this will be to pull permanent troops out.

[Christina Raffini]

Missy, always great to speak with you. Missy Ryan of the Atlantic. Thank you very much for the time on this Sunday. Appreciate it.

[David Gura]

Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend right after this.

[Narrator/Announcer]

You need to make a huge presentation in an hour. Adobe Acrobat uses AI to take all your documents and generate a presentation with a single click. Build slides quickly and streamline the process. Need a last minute pitch deck? Do that with Acrobat. Need to level up your presentation design. Do that with acrobat. You have 30 plus documents that need to be simplified into a proposal. Do that, do that, do that with Acrobat. Learn [e-mail] AC do that with Acrobat

[Christina Raffini]

this coffee shop running smooth thanks to Genius from Global Payments, Instant Transactions, Effortless

[Chase/Business Advertiser]

inventory and synchronized operations. Big league reliability for any business. That's Genius. Support for the show comes from Public. Public is an investing platform that offers access to stocks, options, bonds and crypto. And they've also integrated AI with tools that can assist investors in building customized portfolios. One of these tools is called Generated Assets. It allows you to turn your ideas into investable indexes. So let's Say you're interested in something specific like biotech companies with high R and D spend small cap stocks with improving operating margins or the S&P 500 minus high debt companies. Chances are there isn't an ETF that fits your exact criteria. But on Public you just type in a prompt and their AI screens thousands of stocks and builds a one of a kind index. You can even backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks, go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market and paid for by Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor Crypto Services by Xerohash Sample prompts are for illustrative purposes only, not investment advice. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete [e-mail] Disclosures.

[Christina Raffini]

Our next guest will graduate from college in just four weeks, but Theo Baker is not suffering from senioritis, a condition of pre commencement carefreeness that I can only imagine is easier to contract among the palm trees on the California campus where Theo is still a student. His first book, how to Rule the An Education in Power at Stanford University, hit store shelves on Tuesday.

[David Gura]

All right. It chronicles the prize winning reporting Theo did for Stanford's student newspaper reporting that led to the resignation of the university's president. And the book is a gimlet eyed look. Yes, that expression comes from David Gura at the academic institution that continues to be a training ground for the tech elite who play an outsized role in our lives.

[Christina Raffini]

Well, Stanford has made a Faustian bargain with Silicon Valley Theo rights, one that has enabled its meteoric ascent and allowed for its corruption. Theo joins us now here in New York. Great to see you. Congratulations.

[David Gura]

We have a book. We have a book.

[Christina Raffini]

Hoisted Live. There we go.

[Theo Baker]

Thank you for having me.

[Christina Raffini]

You grew up in a milieu of powerful people. I'm going to allow that. When I lived in D.C. i remember seeing you as a kid with your parents, Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, at a Center for a New American Security event. You were there in a blazer, you know, at probably the age of like 7 or 8. But you tagged along and met a lot of folks who are powerful people in the world of Washington. How is power different? How does it manifest itself differently on the campus of Stanford or in Silicon Valley generally?

[Theo Baker]

Yeah, no, it's a great question. You know, I came out to Silicon Valley thinking I was going to do the exact opposite thing from D.C. i was going to go 3,000 miles away and be a coder and kind of fell into the family profession by accident. But you know, I very quickly arrived and discovered that there was a sort of secret inside world afforded only to those identified as next the trillion dollar startup founders. And so these teenagers are plied with yacht parties and slush funds and the sort of excess that feels like it's something out of a satire and yet in reality is exactly the product of a system in which teenagers are a valuable commodity to monetize.

[David Gura]

That's so interesting. You said when you got to Stanford everything looked perfect. Why does that matter as well? And does that extend to the student body? Are they trying to look perfect? Or is it more about existing in the perfect place and having the perfect resume and getting that perfect job?

[Theo Baker]

Yeah, no, I mean this is exactly the thing that Stanford, which really is sort of Silicon Valley's theater school, its training ground, this relentless focus on perfection, on appearance, is sort of, I think, the best way to explain the entire institution.

[David Gura]

Are you all looks maxing academic? Maxing. I don't know what else.

[Theo Baker]

Well, look, if you learn how to say the right words, you can raise pre idea funding, you know, where someone will give you a million dollars and say, hey, if you make a company with it, call me. And so the reward to looking really good is accruing the sort of power that teenagers very rarely get to wield.

[Christina Raffini]

You write about the coziness the school has had to Silicon Valley, the importance of intellectual property. The professors there realize the worth of that. Many professors and administrators have availed themselves of that. They were very rich of the faculty at Stanford. Talk a bit about that coziness, if you would. The way that this institution, perhaps more so than many other academic institutions in the United States, is really part and parcel of a larger kind of industrial theme.

[Theo Baker]

Absolutely. I mean Silicon Valley wouldn't exist without Stanford. Much of it was created on the university grounds. In fact, if you just took the value of the companies that have offices on Stanford land, it's something north of $6 trillion in terms of total value. There's a professor who's known by the moniker of professor billionaire because he's made over $20 billion by investing in his students companies. Right. And so understanding this no boundaries relationship goes a long way to explaining how both the money and the power, you know, that have seeped into Silicon Valley make their way onto campus. But also the sort of cutting corners mentality that has, you know, in so many ways infected a number of the students that I arrived with, seeing them take on this tech ecosystem for themselves.

[David Gura]

All right, we're talking about Stanford. We're talking about everything. But we also do want to talk about the reporting that you did that scrutinized the work of Stanford's now former president. First of all, when you sat down, because we both know your parents, I said, didn't you learn anything from your parents? Why did you want to go into journalism? You said you actually didn't. And then this started with a tip. So talk us through that.

[Theo Baker]

Yeah, no, I'm a completely accidental journalist. I joined the student.

[David Gura]

Happens the best of us, buddy. I was a ballet dancer.

[Theo Baker]

It's, you know, it's a terrible thing. And yet I fell in love, of course, over the course of freshman year with the ability to actually find a story and do reporting that I thought mattered to my community. This reporting on Marc Tessier Levine revealed allegations of research misconduct in several papers that he had co authored over a significant period of time before becoming the president of Stanford. Ultimately, by the end of the year, as I report for the first time in this book, he was ousted by unanimous vote of his own board of trustees, and several major neuroscience studies were retracted as a result.

[Christina Raffini]

You know, it's interesting, as you're reporting all of this out, the kind of pushback that you get from folks who knew him, knew of him, suggested that he had a sterling reputation. In effect, you should watch yourself as you're doing this. And that kind of manifests itself most significantly, I guess, in letters that you got from legal counsel saying, these allegations are untrue. You shouldn't publish this. It's scurrilous. Here you are, like, not even 20. Yeah, that's always having to navigate the this world. How did you find your way to that? I think a lot of us think of the quaintness of a college paper, but you had a lot of might at your disposal. There were lawyers that you and the paper had as you went through this.

[Theo Baker]

Yeah. Thank God, you know, the Stanford Daily has been independent. It was as of 50 years before I arrived. So we had editorial control, and there were pro bono counsel, as you say, who volunteered their time to, you know, review our work and to keep us safe as we published, which obviously was essential to this work. Marc Tessier Levine hired Steve Neal, who was the chair emeritus of Cooley, sort of the dominant Silicon Valley firm. He had formerly represented Charles Keating Jr. And Elizabeth Holmes. And he began sending me letters soon after my 18th birthday about trying to stop my future reporting from coming out. But, you know, I'm grateful for the team and you know, I'm grateful that these stories have emerged into the public record.

[David Gura]

All right, so your graduates in how many weeks?

[Theo Baker]

Gosh, I think it's a little over three weeks now.

[Jess Menton]

Okay.

[David Gura]

Have you done all your homework? I know you're here on a Sunday.

[Theo Baker]

I do have an assignment for Sleep and Dreams I have to turn in after this.

[David Gura]

I'm not digging into that.

[Christina Raffini]

We're talking about the breaks for another time.

[David Gura]

Look, it's a very hard time, it seems to me to be a young person right now. And I just want to ask you broadly, are the kids all right? How are you guys doing? Do you feel like you're going to find your place?

[Theo Baker]

Well, some kids are, some kids aren't. But this has also been interesting. I came on campus right at the beginning of the AI rush and at Stanford in particular. This has been a crazy time. ChatGPT came out two months after we arrived. And now as we graduate, some people have learned how to make a meteoric fortune off of this. They have. The guy who taught me how to shotgun a beer freshman year dropped out six months after he started his company was valued at over a billion dollars. But for a lot of people, the latter has been sort of drawn up, taking away these starter positions.

[Christina Raffini]

Got about a minute left. It's a book about Stanford and your experience there, both doing all of this reporting and just digging into the academic life there on that campus. Are there, are there, or is there a broader lesson to be drawn about an institution like Stanford in American life today?

[Theo Baker]

Absolutely. I mean, Stanford is the vanguard of so many trends that influence the rest of higher education. You know, many of the things that begin out there, including the sort of corporatized university, have filtered out to various degrees. So I think understanding what's happening, you know, in the middle of Silicon Valley's training ground, where so many of the great technologies that affect all of our lives are being shaped, is essential to understanding how the next Elizabeth Holmes or the next Sam Bankman Fried comes to be.

[Lisa Mateo]

Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend, right after this.

[Narrator/Announcer]

You need to make a huge presentation in an hour. Adobe Acrobat uses AI to take all your documents and generate a presentation with a single click. Build slides quickly and streamline the process. Need a last minute pitch deck. Do that with Acrobat. Need to level up your presentation design. Do that with acrobat. You have 30 plus documents that need to be simplified into a proposal. Do that, do that, do that With Acrobat. Learn [e-mail] AC do that with Acrobat.

[Leslie Shedd]

This dog salon. Operational excellence thanks to genius from Global Payments, Scheduling, Personalized checkouts, Instant absolutely genius big league reliability for any business. That's genius.

[Chase/Business Advertiser]

Support for the show comes from public. Lately it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades. And others feel less like investing and more like a game. Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth on public. You can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts. Yep. High yield cash. Yes, again. They even have direct indexing. Public has modern design, powerful tools and customer support that actually helps go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by Public Holdings Brokerage services by public investing member FINRA, SIPC advisory services by public advisors SEC registered advisor crypto services by 0hash. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete [e-mail] disclosures.

[Lisa Mateo]

Welcome back to Bloomberg this weekend, Lisa Mateo alongside Christina Raffini. And you guys know millennials, right? You grow up watching these iconic TV dads. Do you remember Philip Banks, Fresh Prison Bel Air? Yes. Carl Winslow, Family Matters. They're like those quintessential American fathers.

[David Gura]

I think they were like my age and I think of them as so old. But here we are. This is where we are, right? Quintessential American fathers, but in our heads, older. And you got to a point, especially the TV dad, where you were allowed to be an older man. Well, that might be changing a little bit because, Melissa, millennial men are really thinking about what it means to look good at any age. As Chris Rouser writes for Bloomberg, quote, as my dad told me, when you retire, you don't just become a different person, you're the same guy just in a new scenario. And I know I'd like to enter that scenario feeling and yes, looking as good as possible. Chris joins us now. So first of all, how's your dad doing with his aspirations of millennial hotness? Or I guess he's older.

[Chris Rosser]

But my dad is not worried about his hot span, which is what we're talking about.

[David Gura]

Hotspan is the phrase.

[Chris Rosser]

And he read the story was like, hot span. Okay. And I was like, well, it's like, you know, for people like baby, like at middle age. But yes, he's doing great. He's very healthy. And that's one of the morals of this story is, like, actually staying healthy through your retirement and beyond, like, will make you feel better and, like, incidentally, look better.

[David Gura]

How much of this is image and then how much of it is functionality? Because I know a bunch of women who all of a sudden in their 40s are like, I'm lifting weights. But it's less because we want to look hot. I mean, we all want to look hot, but it's more like we want to be able to be mobile longer in our lives. Yeah. So talk us through the balance there.

[Chris Rosser]

Well, that's like, a really interesting point that you raised. So this story is about men at midlife because women at midlife have been so forward thinking about this for much longer and also under societal pressures that men are only kind of recently in pop culture being put under. I know. Like, yes, thank it. So nice to be here.

[David Gura]

And besides, terrible. You'll love it here.

[Chris Rosser]

Yeah. Yeah. So, like, because of the obsession with longevity science, which became Health Span, which is exactly what you're talking about, like, saying fit and healthy into your old age. So it's actually, like, a nice time to be alive. There has become this huge influence from, like, manosphere podcasts and all this stuff for men to suddenly look at themselves and see themselves in pop culture aging through 40 and 50 and, like, having different expectations of how we move through the world, how we look and all that. And so there's, like, a lot of medicine and money behind it, as men are finally like, oh, wait, I. I'm not supposed to give up when I get near retirement. I'm supposed to keep going. And I myself, like, really was just, like, had it in my head. I'm like, retirement is for margaritas. It's not for counting macros.

[Lisa Mateo]

I love that.

[David Gura]

And I will needs to be incursive on a sign somewhere, but yes.

[Chris Rosser]

Right. And I feel like I have to call out David Gura because you guys talked about this story when it came out.

[David Gura]

Very uncomfortable talking about this. Yes.

[Chris Rosser]

Do you.

[Lisa Mateo]

You go to the gym? Do you work out?

[Christina Raffini]

I'm not going to answer any of these questions for you.

[Chris Rosser]

So funny. His face was like the emoji that's just two dots in a straight line. You guys were like, how do you feel about having to be hot into your 60s? He's like,

[Lisa Mateo]

do you go to the gym, David Guerrero?

[David Gura]

No reaction.

[Chris Rosser]

Like, I relate, right? Like, there's a guy at my gym who's like, must be in his 60s. He looks like Tarzan. Incredible. And all my friends are like, I want to look like that guy when I'm that age. And I'm like.

[Lisa Mateo]

But you're saying it's more than just a. Like, this is a lot of money. Like, how much money are these men spending? We're talking about plastic surgery. I mean, we're talking about a whole bunch.

[Chris Rosser]

Yes. So this story, I talk to people who do plastic surgery, who. Surgeons. And for people who receive plastic surgery, hair transplants is really big nowadays.

[Missy Ryan]

Yeah.

[Chris Rosser]

And then there's all the, like, peptide science, like, you know, the lifespan stuff that is kind of pretty experimental at this time. But there's a lot of concierge doctors that are coming up sort of just to prescribe, you know, these hot, you know, like, medications that are sort of, like, trendy right now.

[David Gura]

It's the awareness of things that men can do in a way that, to your point, women have known about and have felt obligated to do for much longer. And all of a sudden, it's something men are having to spend money on.

[Chris Rosser]

Well, Ozempic was a big social unlock. Right. Like Ozempic and all the GLP ones, because you, like, you couldn't hide what, like a radical change in your. In your body. And celebrities also started talking about it. So then everybody kind of started talking about it, and it wasn't. There's nothing shameful about it. And then that extended to something like hair transplants were like, also. Can't really hide that, you know?

[David Gura]

And also, men are talking about. Celebrity about it.

[Chris Rosser]

Yeah. Especially John Cena got a hair transplant. He was like, I was. Fans used to make fun of me, and I just got tired of it, and I got a hair transplant.

[Lisa Mateo]

But then you look at, like, a Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, like, they look amazing.

[Chris Rosser]

Yeah, we don't know.

[David Gura]

I mean, exactly. Do some Googling. There are some changes that have happened with them as well. I mean, so what's the takeaway? I. Part of me karmically thinks this is great and you all should suffer along with us. And then, honestly, part of me is a little bit sad because it is a lot to have to deal with. You know, you should be able to embrace the later half of life, health aside, and not care as much about your image. Is there a concern that this is going to make people miserable?

[Chris Rosser]

I hope not. I mean, the way I started this story was I was like, when I retire, I want to be like Galadriel and Lord of the Rings and diminish and recede into the west, and no one will see me again.

[David Gura]

My brother's going to love that reference

[Chris Rosser]

about whether I'm desirable or anything like that. And then by the end of the story, I talked to so many people who had been really taking care of themselves through their men and women, through their 60s into their 70s and beyond. And the people who made decisions to start taking care of themselves for whatever reason, often for health, sometimes for look, sometimes for both those people were so much happier. And you know, and one of the doctors that got into this concierge medicine practice, I talked to, Dr. Wesley Spiro, he was like, I used to be an emergency room doctor and I was dealing with people who would come in with type 2 diabetes and renal failure in their 60s and 70s because they didn't know, like they didn't know that they needed to be taking care of themselves or that anything was wrong. And it wasn't like I want to look like a Marvel superhero when I'm 70. It was like I just want to be happy and be the best version of myself. And so actually I'm hoping that this eye opening stuff with surgery without is actually going to help us all be in kind of a better place, literally

[David Gura]

or metaphorically, eye opening. Chris Rosser, thank you so much. It was fascinating. Thanks for joining us on today's Bloomberg this Weekend podcast. Don't forget to tune in live for the show every Saturday and Sunday morning starting at 7am Eastern.

[Christina Raffini]

Right. Bloomberg Television Radio and the Bloomberg Business app bringing you unique takes and in depth interviews on news, politics, lifestyle and culture.

[Narrator/Announcer]

If you follow markets, you know the value of long term thinking. You plan, you diversify, you prepare for volatility. But even the best strategies can't prevent every bad day. For more than 75 years, Cincinnati Insurance has helped individuals and businesses navigate tough moments. With expertise, personal attention and independent agents who focus on relationships, not transactions, the Cincinnati insurance companies let them make your bad day better. Find an agent@cin fin.com from coast to coast.

[Sonesta Travel Pass Advertiser]

Unlock adventure at Red Lion Hotels by Sonesta where restful sleep, friendly service and trusted local knowledge are part of every stay. Red lion makes it easy to feel welcomed, comfortable and connected wherever the road takes you. Whether you're traveling for business or pleasure, you can spend less and make more of every trip. When you sign up for Sinesta TravelPass, you'll get their best rates instantly. Go to sonesta.com to book your stay and unlock the best rates with Sonesta Travel. Pass here today, roam tomorrow. Join [e-mail] Terms and conditions apply.

[Amisha Cross]

This plant shop.

[Leslie Shedd]

A perfectly balanced ecosystem thanks to genius from Global Payments. Tracked inventory, seamless payments and reviews in one place. Big league reliability for your business. That's genius.