Ryan Grim (2:03)

Get started@redfin.com own the dream hey guys, Sagar and Krystal here.

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Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are

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so excited about what that means for the future of the show. This is the only place where you

Rohit Chopra (2:17)

can find honest perspectives from the left and the Right. That simply does not exist anywhere else.

Ryan Grim (2:21)

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Ryan Grim (2:32)

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com

Krystal Ball (2:40)

One of the biggest data center projects, this one in Utah that you can possibly imagine is moving forward 62 square miles of desert getting carved up for, you know, I guess to jack up your electricity bills

Ryan Grim (2:58)

and use more power than the entire state of Utah.

Krystal Ball (3:02)

It's like 62 square miles and getting a tax break of humming data center. Like, look at that thing. I don't even, I don't even know what to say about that. Look at, look at that, look at

Ryan Grim (3:14)

that beautiful, beautiful chunk of land.

Krystal Ball (3:19)

Locals out there looked at it and were like, yeah, don't think we want this either. Did not seem to matter. Let's roll a little bit of C2 here. False. All of this is false. Then why won't they let people talk? Why won't they let us act quickly? It's false. This is not real information. And we sit here like it's okay. It's a charade. It's a charade. It's false. So despite this kind of outpouring of opposition, the project is continuing to move forward. Also, environmental concerns being spelled out in roll C3 here.

Ryan Grim (4:07)

How are you offsetting the, how are

Rohit Chopra (4:08)

you offsetting these environmental concerns?

Krystal Ball (4:11)

Well, I'm actually the only developer of data centers on Earth that graduated from environmental studies. So I'm pretty aware of what these concerns are. They are around air, water use, heat, noise, pollution. So sustainability is, is at the heart of what we do. In terms of all these proposals, we know not just Utah, we have 10,000 acres in Alberta, Canada with the same concerns. And so we search for the best technology. There's many air cooled turbines now, so you're blending in air cooled versus water. There's so many different ways to generate power. We can also put a percentage of the power generation through solar, wind and batteries because the battery technology is 10x more efficient than it was just five years ago. So that's very helpful because it makes the cost of energy lower. So no one, you know, if you're an environmentalist and you don't care about that stuff, of course you protest and that's what happens. I noted, you know, what's happening in Utah Right now is we think over 90% of the people protesters are actually not people that live in Utah or Box Elder County. They're being bused in.

Ryan Grim (5:22)

Oh, goodness.

Krystal Ball (5:23)

And yeah, I don't know what I think of this new trend of even like the data center guy, Kevin o'

Ryan Grim (5:29)

Leary of Shark Tank and Party supreme,

Krystal Ball (5:31)

like, doing the car thing.

Ryan Grim (5:34)

I mean, nobody trusts you if you, like, have over processed videos now and they've discovered that they're even in commercials. Not in this case, but, like, have you started to see some commercials that are filmed like they're on a phone. It's really something.

Krystal Ball (5:45)

So unless you're like Kyle Kalinske coming back to the golf course with Chris, nobody wants to hear nobody trusts you.

Ryan Grim (5:52)

Nobody trusts you unless you're Kyle and Crystal en route.

Krystal Ball (5:54)

Nobody trusts your take. Of course, all of this is propped up by an inflated bubble. Put up C5 here. Bloomberg has a nice little graphic.

Ryan Grim (6:05)

This is Crazy.

Krystal Ball (6:06)

Tries to explain how the money is flowing through here. And to help us walk through this, we're lucky enough to be joined by Rohit Chopra, who's the former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Board, also a former FTC commissioner. What's your current gig now that Trump threw you out of this cfpb? Because I don't want to. We don't want to just do formers. Rohit, welcome to the show. What are you up to now?

Rohit Chopra (6:33)

Well, I'm helping out our state attorneys general actually prosecute some of this wrongdoing that the federal agencies are just watching as crime is committed all over the country.

Krystal Ball (6:47)

Excellent.

Ryan Grim (6:47)

It would have been really funny, Rohit, if your answer was, I'm spearheading massive data center construction.

Krystal Ball (6:52)

Data center consulting. No. Rohit is one of the people that keeps corporate America up at night. The foul language that people like Jamie Dimon have had for Rohit, I think speaks quite well to him and to the analysis that he's able to give here. So first of all, this Utah data center project, am I an idiot? Like, why are they putting these things out in the desert? First of all, when the big problem is overheating, am I the first person to think of that?

Rohit Chopra (7:30)

Well, here's what we're seeing across the country. Massive, actually. Competition from all of these states and localities to hand out tax breaks in order to subsidize these very massive real estate developments. And I think you're seeing an unending thirst for power when it comes to keeping going this AI machine. There is even analysis from Goldman Sachs that is suggesting that AI is contributing to all sorts of increased consumer prices, or whether it is the increased cost of electricity that some people believe is a result, the increased demand for electronic equipment and chips, as well as a whole other set of costs, you're starting to see a lot of pushback, especially because some of the traditional arguments for subsidizing these developments, like creating lots of jobs, aren't necessarily materializing. While it takes people to construct these data centers, if you walk through some of them, you'll see there's very few people working at them.

Ryan Grim (8:42)

Have you done that before, Rohit? You've walked through the data centers.

Rohit Chopra (8:45)

I've seen a data center I've seen.

Ryan Grim (8:48)

It's actually

Rohit Chopra (8:50)

quite extraordinary in some ways to see the sheer volume of electronic equipment, the need to cool some of this, and the need to just kind of keep it going 24 hours a day. And I think we forget that every time we are opening an app or streaming a show that is really resting on those behemoth data centers.

Ryan Grim (9:14)

So on that point, Trump takes office. Cfpb, you're gone. CFPB is now a shell of its former self. Basically was doged, which was a plan of the conservative movement long before Doge, of course. But one of the things that you were doing, and correct me if I'm wrong, at the CFPB was starting to pay really close attention the consumer effects of cryptocurrency. And I think one of the reasons cryptocurrency and just financialization and the like. And I think one of the reasons that people are so mad about what started to happen with the data centers is that they look around and they say, for what? What is all of this? All of this is for schemes. Whether it's. I mean, crypto isn't directly related to this, or maybe it is, and you correct me if I'm wrong, but like, it's all. To that Bloomberg piece we were just, we just had up on the screen, it's all Microsoft funding in video to fund Microsoft. It all feels fake to people. It all feels like it's for the sake of people who are going to be fine no matter what. Just like what happened in the Great Recession. They are going to survive. Many of them are going to survive. Average people are going to be screwed once again. And so some of it, I think, just comes from this anger about what's building up the froth that's building up in the economy.

Rohit Chopra (10:31)

Yeah. You know, there's a concept that we talk about on Wall Street. It was, I think, coined by a Bloomberg journalist number go up, which is really this push. No matter what type of asset you're referring to, there's a. They want the number to go up. And we have seen it in the Data. The top 1% of Americans now own over 50% of the stock market and mutual fund assets in the U.S. and if you look at the portion of what we refer to the Magnificent Seven, those big tech companies, Nvidia and others, they are a larger and larger and larger share of the overall stock market. So we're in a situation now and I'll tell you something, just in one quarter recently, just baby boomers saw their wealth increase by a trillion dollars. And this is due to some of these stock market gains. So we're in a situation where the economy is now in some ways resting on these big asset prices. And many people are wondering, are these asset prices really real? You mentioned what's called circularity. This is where a group of companies.

Krystal Ball (11:52)

Let's put C5 back up while you're talking.

Ryan Grim (11:54)

Yeah. So people can look.

Rohit Chopra (11:55)

Yeah, these group of companies are really kind of all in deals with each other. Some of it is related to services like cloud, some of it is related to chips, the things that, you know, Nvidia makes. Some of it is actually investment. So there is really this web and honestly this Bloomberg graphic doesn't even begin to show some of it. You are seeing that in some cases an enormous part of even the cloud infrastructure is increasingly being paid between these companies. And what's interesting is that it is not necessarily they're paying cash, they're entering into deals, financing and equity deals that are really tying some of these firms together. So we don't really know. Is this a situation where if one problem occurs, will it have a ripple effect? I think earlier you mentioned what happened in the financial crisis. The regulators had no clue about the linkages between the big banks, between some of these credit default swaps, insurance companies like aig. And the result was a mess. And I think we're starting to worry that maybe there isn't a big problem here. But is anyone really looking? Because it seems like most of the regulators in Washington are worshiping at these companies altars rather than actually kicking the tires to see if there's a bigger issue on our hands.

Krystal Ball (13:39)

And so what happens if the revenue Expectations of an OpenAI or an Anthropic start to not meet?

Rohit Chopra (13:48)

Like what we're already seeing signs of. This OpenAI I think has delayed its timeline for a IPO where they go public anthropics. I think we still don't have a firm timeline on it. And many analysts believe this is because OpenAI is not showing the level of revenue that the street expects. So this is the worry. You have a set of companies that are an overwhelming share now of the stock market, over a third of the stock market. And you have all that wealth really concentrated at the upper echelons of the economy. And they are driving those wealthy individuals, are driving a huge amount of spending. If we start seeing the stock market values of these companies go down, will they all face a correction? And what will the ripple effect be through the economy? I think that's really what a lot of people, both on Wall street and who follow the economy closely are really, really curious about.

Ryan Grim (14:58)

If we could talk a bit about the consumer end of this. Rohit, I'm curious. You know, the, some of the stuff you all were doing at the cfpb to Steel man, the conservative argument, it was you didn't need the cfpb. The CFPB could sort of be folded into other agencies that already existed. So if we take that seriously for a moment, I'm curious if you believe that some of those responsibilities have adequately been folded into other oversight bodies. And what risk? I'm assuming you're going to say no. What risk then consumers find themselves in with a basically empty CFPB and some of this real economic change happening kind of under everybody's noses right now.

Rohit Chopra (15:44)

Well, let's look at the proof. While I was in office and even before, the CFPB was regularly returning billions of dollars. I think on average it was over $3 billion a year and really some serious fraud. I think we've basically seen zero. I don't, I can't even tell you when the last time they took an action. It has mostly been to gut the place. So I think the arguments that someone else would do it just haven't held up. Here's the thing, Emily, that I think we've got to really think hard about. It's one thing about, you know, going after fraud, returning money to people. The big, big work is often preventing the next meltdown or crisis. Had there had been, I think, some real scrutiny of subprime mortgages, we wouldn't have gotten into the big gigantic mess from 2008 that honestly we are still feeling aspects of today, both politically and economically, including in our housing costs. But I really wonder, these Alphabet soup agencies, are they asking any questions? Are they actually looking at anything? Or are they simply just doing deals to scratch the backs of political supporters? We're seeing this at The FTC when it comes to mergers, waving mergers through where there is a politically connected lobbyist and going hard on firms that might be enemies of the administration. And what I say to all my conservative friends is that I really thought you guys didn't want the government picking winners and losers. That is really how Russia and China often work. I thought we were about letting people build and create and not just deciding and crowning corporate royalty. I'm worried we're shifting toward that. And let's see if there is a broad spectrum of people across the ideological spectrum who just say no and we're tired of it.

Ryan Grim (18:12)

Yep. Picking a lot of tech companies as winners in particular.

Krystal Ball (18:16)

And Rohit Chopra, I also wanted to ask you to kind of unpack for us a little bit this, this fight that's going on between Wall street banks on the one hand, and crypto companies on the other hand that seem to be attempting to act like banks. They want to. It looks like they want to start taking deposits and paying interest on deposits, but without being kind of regulated as, as banks, which, you know, the nice thing that we got out of the Great Depression was the fdic and you put, you put your money into a bank. And if the bank goes under, as Americans, we're not actually worried that we're not. That we're going to lose our deposits. And so therefore, we don't rush and we don't create runs on those, those banks. So Thom Tillis, maybe we can add this in post, but Thom Tillis and Angela, also Brooks, the. Thom Tillis, Republican from North Carolina, also Brooks, Democrat from Maryland, putting together a proposal that they thought had reached some type of compromise between Coinbase and the crypto world and Wall Street. But that seems to have kind of unraveled a little bit. So can you unpack for us? Like, what are these, what are the different camps arguing for? And I wonder. So Coinbase just laid off what, 14% of its staff? And I wonder if they were waiting to kind of reach a deal and then. And then went for this massive layoff. Setting that aside, what is this fight over?

Rohit Chopra (19:42)

Yeah. So look, Ryan, you know, I'm not some kind of unvarnished cheerleader for banks. I think we gotta scrutinize them carefully. But let's be honest, we do need banks in our society. We need a place where we can pool our deposits and that we can get loans on everything from building factories or starting a dry cleaner pizzeria. That's what banks do. The banks are arguing that the crypto companies that are wanting to start these crypto dollars, or stablecoins they call it, that they're going to put money in those coins and that it is going to drain the banks of deposits who they would otherwise use to lend. And so what the battle is about here is can those stablecoin companies or crypto dollars, can they pay interest on the deposit? The argument, if they pay interest, there will be lots of flight from banks to those stablecoin issuers. And the argument from the stablecoin issuers is that the banks, they can just compete and raise their interest rates too. So this sounds actually like it's a debate about crypto. It's really not. It's really a debate about what is the future of our banking system. Is our banking system going to be one where we put money in deposits and that leads to lending, but we can always get our money back, as you, as you said, Ryan, or are we going to have something a little bit different? I really worry that this is not becoming a debate about farm lending and mortgage lending and national security and sanctions. Instead, it seems a little bit more about a fight that is just jockeying between two big industries shooting at each other. But the truth is that if you look at what is happening about big questions about the future of the dollar trade, the financial system, the future of the Fed, these are all linked and you just don't see a lot of coverage about this. So we got to all get smart and make sure this is not just a lobbying frenzy between industries, but we're choosing what is right for America.

Krystal Ball (22:20)

So what does a world look like if were doing crypto dollars instead of

Ryan Grim (22:25)

dollars in the stablecoin push from the Trump administration, which is enriching to them as well, by the way. But remember when with the tariffs, Trump's. What Trump brought him from the brink was the bond markets getting, quote, a little yippee. And I don't think anybody totally understands what they're trying to do with the dollar in the long term.

Rohit Chopra (22:42)

Well, here's really one of the best cases they're trying to make is that by issuing these stablecoins, they're going to attract more demand for dollars and therefore that will mean more purchases of U.S. treasuries, which will then make our debt cheaper. I wrote a piece last year that really questions some of that assumption because I do think a lot of the funds that will power these stablecoins will actually just come from US Consumers and businesses. When I send a Venmo or a cash app, I'm not thinking about is it In a stable coin? Is it in a bank deposit? I just expect it to work. This is not going to be so clear to consumers. And I want to make sure that if something went down, if there is a crisis, that people will not panic and, and that they will be able to get their money back. That is something that is so key for confidence in our economy. And I would hate to see those who really live paycheck to paycheck all of a sudden or a small business all of a sudden lose everything because what their money, that their money is not really stable.

Ryan Grim (24:08)

We're so cooked.

Rohit Chopra (24:10)

No, no, no, it's not. We're cooked. We just got to get smarter and we got to get our voices in the arena and we can't just be passive observers.

Krystal Ball (24:20)

Yeah. Who are the smart, like who are the people on the right side of this who are actually, who actually get it in Congress now?

Rohit Chopra (24:27)

Well, you know what's funny is I think actually a lot of them do get it, but many are worried about what they can say out loud.

Krystal Ball (24:36)

Right.

Rohit Chopra (24:36)

I think they see huge lobbying interest. Yeah. And I think that is something that, is something that politicians, you know, we want them to all be courageous, to do the right thing. But we know the power of these big arsenals of lobbying money. We're seeing it in AI as well, where the AI, you know, companies are forming lobbies to really destroy any state legislator or local politician who is even speaking up against. Data centers are trying to put some basic protections on the book. So this is why we can't just, we can't just observe. We gotta, we gotta be in on it.

Krystal Ball (25:25)

Rohit Chopra.

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Krystal Ball (27:28)

Thanks so much for joining us. Yes, former director of the cfpb, former Chairman or former commissioner on the ftc. Much appreciated.

Ryan Grim (27:38)

Thanks for having me.

Krystal Ball (27:41)

The conservative movements Woodward and Bernstein turned up in Havana both in one person, both of them two in one.

Ryan Grim (27:48)

All right.

Krystal Ball (27:48)

Takes two to match the wits of one Nick Shirley. Nick Shirley, however, running into a little. Running into a few problems in Havana. Here he is from a sanctioned Havana hotel. I think through sheer ignorance, Nick Shirley is confronting the absurdity of American sanctions by staying in a hotel he is definitely not allowed to be staying in. So critical support to Comrade Shirley here, who is facing difficult circumstances. Let's roll this video that Nick Shirley actually produced. This is not AI or made up or anything. Let's roll some Nick Shirley. All right, depending when this comes out or if it does, we are currently

Ryan Grim (28:40)

being told by Cuban intelligence here in Havana, Cuba.

Krystal Ball (28:44)

I came here, I've been wanting to

Ryan Grim (28:45)

make a video for so long about life and communism and showing people what communism is like in a place like Cuba.

Krystal Ball (28:53)

For instance, I go out at the

Ryan Grim (28:57)

airport, they seize all of my cameras, they seize both my GoPros, my Meta Glasses, These are not my metaglasses.

Krystal Ball (29:04)

All my microphones, however, the only thing

Ryan Grim (29:06)

they don't take is my iPhone camera.

Krystal Ball (29:08)

That's what I'm filming this on right now. They don't take my iPhone camera.

Ryan Grim (29:12)

And somehow they didn't get this microphone that was in the very, very bottom of my backpack. We're filming this video and when we're next to the hospital, we see undercover

Krystal Ball (29:24)

cop roll up on us. And my security guards that are with me, they detected him. And then all of a sudden there's another one. So we hopped back in another taxi.

Ryan Grim (29:32)

We left the scene and we thought we were good.

Krystal Ball (29:35)

They didn't tell us and we left.

Ryan Grim (29:37)

But since we left the airport, we had been getting telled or the word had gotten out that there was a

Krystal Ball (29:41)

journalist inside of Cuba. There's only two flights that come in

Ryan Grim (29:44)

here every single day, so it wasn't

Krystal Ball (29:47)

hard to spot out who the journalist was. And we have Cuban intelligence down in the lobby of the hotel right now working to essentially trying to round us up and potentially imprison us or make it so we cannot leave Cuba. So the interesting thing about that video, one of them at least, you know, when, when I went over there recently, there was this massive hullabaloo about the fact that we stayed in a, quote, unquote, five star hotel. When you have a giant group of Americans who are traveling to Cuba, there are only a couple of hotels that you're allowed to stay in. You can stay in their version of kind of airbnbs, but spreading 700 people out around those would be rather logistically difficult. So among the hotels that you're allowed to stay in, there's only a couple because they can't have connections to the Cuban government. He's staying in one that is fully 100% sanctioned. I don't think he's deliberately violating American sanctions and supporting the communist. The argument is by staying there, he's supporting the tyrannical communist government, and so therefore he shouldn't be staying there and it's a crime. What's the statute of limitations? Would it be funny if President Plattner rolls in and goes after Nick Shirley and lifts sanctions on Cuba, but also prosecutes Shirley for violating them while they were still in place? So good for Shirley for showing the absurdity of these American sanctions now. So he's there doing some reporting. I think his mom is sort of like his handler, right? She's kind of guided together.

Ryan Grim (31:31)

I thought they traveled together.

Krystal Ball (31:31)

Yeah, I'm much anger at his mom than him. He doesn't have any idea what he's doing. You can't be upset with him. Yeah, he is. He's challenged.

Ryan Grim (31:44)

We weren't gonna make the joke about literacy being Cuba's one strength.

Krystal Ball (31:49)

He's bringing down the literacy rate in Cuba single handedly.

Ryan Grim (31:52)

I wasn't gonna make the joke, but I was going to tee you up to make the joke.

Krystal Ball (31:55)

But I'm upset with his mom. Like, his mom should have been like, well, you can't just bring in a whole bunch of equipment and start filming in Cuba. Like you. There's a process you have to go through with the government to get a visa connected to doing journalism. The Chinese tried to send their leading propagandist to like make videos here in the United States.

Ryan Grim (32:22)

We'd roll out the red carpet.

Krystal Ball (32:24)

Well, we would also.

Ryan Grim (32:25)

We would follow them.

Krystal Ball (32:26)

We would follow them.

Ryan Grim (32:27)

Yes.

Krystal Ball (32:28)

Yeah. And there are ways, like you can't just come in on a, you're not supposed to just come in on a tourist visa and do it. There are processes, forms you're supposed to fill out. Now obviously Cuba has stacks and stacks of forms. That's what they are.

Ryan Grim (32:43)

Well, and nobody except for like, maybe, I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe people who are sort of still avowed Marxists. Nobody really tries to claim that the Cuban government isn't repressive and is not going to follow foreign journalists and that

Krystal Ball (32:59)

the process, everyone would agree they're repressive. The question is like, some would argue maybe it's good.

Ryan Grim (33:02)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's a good point. But it's obviously a repressive country. Again, even some of the people who are arguing against sanctions and the like,

Krystal Ball (33:10)

they have tight rules around admit that

Ryan Grim (33:12)

speech and media, they have artists in political prison. Like, yes, if you want to, if

Krystal Ball (33:19)

you want to interview somebody at the University of Atlanta who is a high profile person, like that's a government university and you have to then get permission from like the government to interview. Like not the kind of system that I as a journalist prefer.

Ryan Grim (33:32)

Which when you came back from Cuba, we talked about all of this. Like, we talked about the process, we talked about how you were able to do those tours of the hospitals.

Krystal Ball (33:39)

But it's also not a mystery like what Cuba is apparently other to anybody other than Nick Shirley. So I hope the Cubans don't. Government takes mercy on poor Nick Shirley. Truly, he doesn't. He knows not what he does.

Ryan Grim (33:56)

So Marco Rubio gave a briefing yesterday and I think it's worth rolling. This, this is going to be D4. Marco Rubio did the White House briefing yesterday, and both Rubio and Trump continue to talk about what could be coming imminently for Cuba. Trump obviously, infamously said that he may have the privilege of taking Cuba very soon. Here is Secretary of State Rubio at the White House yesterday.

Krystal Ball (34:18)

There's no oil blockade on Cuba per se. Here's what's happening with Cuba, okay? Cuba used to get free oil from Venezuela, used to give them a bunch of free oil. They would take like 60% of that oil and resell it for cash. It wouldn't even go to benefit the people. So the only blockade that's happened is the Cubans have decided. I mean, the Venezuelans have decided we're not giving you free oil anymore. And you can only imagine nowadays, the way oil prices are, no one's giving away free oil, much less to a failed regime. So the problem with Cuba is, is worse, okay? Their economic model doesn't work. Doesn't work. And the people who are in charge can't fix it. And the reason they can't fix it

Timmy McAllister (34:51)

is not just because they're communists.

Krystal Ball (34:52)

That's bad enough, but they're incompetent communists.

Ryan Grim (34:55)

Okay? So he also Southcom's Twitter, I can't believe that's the thing I'm even saying. But Southcom's, I guess X account posted a very calculated image of secretary Rubio yesterday. D2 posing in front of a map of Cuba with General Francis Donovan. Quote, their discussions, according to Southcom, focused on U.S. efforts to counter threats that undermine security, stability, and democracy in our hemisphere. Absolutely no mistake that they are shaking hands in front of a giant map of Cuba. Ryan.

Krystal Ball (35:23)

Yeah, and he was asked about that in his press conference and he said, yeah, that was to send a signal. Also, what he said in that clip is just a flat out lie. Forget Venezuela, Mexico, and every other country that wants to sell oil to Cuba, not give it away, sell it, is told that they're not allowed to do that by the United States. I don't know why he keeps telling this lie so confidently, but he does. Russia brought a tanker there and Trump allowed it to go through. The fact that Trump had to say that he was allowing a Russian tanker to go to Cuba tells you that there is a blockade. If there was no blockade, Trump would have nothing to do with a transaction between Russia and Cuba. Meanwhile, a little bit of news that came out yesterday. Cuba finalized a massive reform of its immigration system. A huge loosening of it. Previously, they didn't allow dual citizenship for the most part. And if you were gone for a certain amount of time, that was kind of a de facto renunciation of your citizenship. Immigration law is always complex, so might have the details slightly off here, but the, the loosening allow. It's going to allow dual citizenship and it's going to allow Cubans who have gone to not just the U.S. but, you know, Brazil, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, you name it, to go back and forth. It will also allow them to spend money that they have earned in Central or South America or the North American back in Cuba and then to go again. So it's a huge liberalization of their immigration policy, which is interesting. And it comes at a time as hundreds of thousands of people, as Trump and then Biden and really ratcheted up the boot on the neck of the Cuban economy. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans have. And millions at this point, over maybe five, six years have fled Cuba. And so what this is saying is that if they want to come back, the way I read it, if they want to come back, they can do so. And they don't have to stay either. They can come back and visit and go back. So, so anyway, that's.

Ryan Grim (37:58)

And bring, I guess, potentially bring stuff for people suffering.

Krystal Ball (38:01)

Bring stuff and bring money. Yeah, because. And to just.

Ryan Grim (38:06)

It's a flight from Miami to Havana. It's easy.

Krystal Ball (38:08)

Or from Costa Rica or wherever else they are, because they're like, Cubans are doing pretty well in other countries because they all got this. They all got this. But Cubans in particular, because they got this really good education in Cuba. And so they're able to then outperform other people in like, Brazil or Colombia or Costa Rica or whatever. When I was in Cuba, I was talking to some people there who was. Who were saying it was ironic that a lot of their friends have come, who have left and done really well, have turned right wing, and they're like, they're the ones who stayed in Cuba. It's a little annoying because they got this socialist education and then use that to do well in these countries where education is not a priority and have kind of forgotten how they got there. But that's because there's real, genuine animosity towards the sclerotic Cuban government.

Ryan Grim (39:06)

Yes, right. Well, we'll see. We'll, of course, be paying close attention to the plight of Nick Shirley, the education of Nick Shirley and the like. In all seriousness, though, we hope that he's okay and safe because that can get hairy very quickly.

Krystal Ball (39:23)

As you know, Ryan, imagine interrogating Nick Shirley about anything about anything.

Ryan Grim (39:31)

I'm sorry, this is gonna. I'm sorry Ryan. I would like to see you do that for the record. Nick, come on. Ryan will talk to you.

Krystal Ball (39:39)

Yeah, sure.

Ryan Grim (39:41)

Yeah, let's do it.

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Ryan Grim (42:47)

all right, we got big election updates to get to. So let's start now in Indiana. We can talk about this. We'll just put this New York Times tear sheet up on the screen because it kind of gives a broad overview of everything that happened last night. Big election results around the country, quote, President Trump's efforts to oust Republicans deemed insufficiently loyal faced a key test on Tuesday as Indiana voters decided whether to backstage senators who opposed redistricting and whom the president wanted out. All right. Now the Times also said his political payback campaign, Trump's is going to extend later this month to clashes in Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana. But in Indiana, these are primaries. We're not actually even talking about the general elections yet. The Times says several Republican led states quickly fell in line last year when Mr. Trump demanded redrawn maps. You may remember that Indiana Republicans tried to push back against that. So quote, when lawmakers returned to Indianapolis in December, the House approved a new map which would have positioned Republicans to flip the state's two Democratic held congressional seats. But the Senate said no and a slim majority of Republicans joined all Democratic senators to vote the bill down. Those senators who were on the ballot for reelection, not all of them were, but the ones who were faced, I've seen estimates between 8 million and $12 million from Trump Trump groups like national Trump groups basically, and not even secretly, but very openly, who then said ok, that's it, you're gone. And basically all of them ended up losing with the exception of one as of right now, losing their primary battles last night. So brutal day for Indiana Republicans who wanted to push back Against Trump, basically, again, as of now, just one who is clinging to in a high profile race, who's clinging to the seat. But you know, the way that I would describe this, we're in an arms race now on gerrymandering, there's no question about it. This was after Texas, which then you saw California. And the redistricting has been going on

Krystal Ball (45:00)

in space and propelled by the Voting Rights act decision because that opens up, yes. Redrawing redistricting possibilities everywhere from Alabama to Mississippi to Tennessee. Right. Because what they can do is they can just eliminate the Civil Rights act or the Voting Rights act required, basically majority black district. They'll just carve up the black voters and dilute them into a bunch of white districts.

Ryan Grim (45:28)

Right. And so six of the eight who refused to do the gerrymandering were gone last year.

Krystal Ball (45:37)

They have time to do it before November. Well, they're still in office, so.

Ryan Grim (45:41)

Right, yeah, some of them are. Yeah.

Krystal Ball (45:43)

But they'll do it for 2028.

Ryan Grim (45:46)

Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying. Yes. And just to again, the argument from Jim Banks and Trump Republicans is that you can't do unilateral disarmament or you can't. Yeah, that's not happening. Right. So it's not possible. And the only. If you're gonna make like a moral pencean type stand on the principle against redistricting at this point. There is no. You're not the bulwark against national redistricting just because you say Indiana won't do it. And so Trump people, and obviously Indiana voters for the most part looked at that and said, yeah, this is B.S. you guys aren't stopping redistricting. It's happening whether you like it or not. And what you are doing is just saying we're disarming ourselves and giving Dems more seats in Indiana. So I think that's a pretty compelling argument to most voters. Everybody hates redistricting.

Krystal Ball (46:36)

Maybe everybody hates it.

Ryan Grim (46:38)

Everybody hates it.

Krystal Ball (46:39)

They started it in Texas. They didn't have to do this mid district, mid cycle redistricting in Texas and they chose to do it. And then. Yeah, once they chose to do that, then you're.

Ryan Grim (46:50)

Yeah, the cycle was on. Yeah, it was immediately Gavin Newsom was like, okay, we're doing it. And Gavin Newsom's people loved that. Because everybody knows that we have, we don't have the stigma around these boundaries has been blown up during the Trump era. And so it's unfortunate. It's reality. Nobody is unless somebody. If these Indiana Republicans had a real like substantive plan to stop redistricting around the country. They would probably have a better case with Republican voters. But nobody, everybody hates gerrymandering, but also everybody hates not doing it now. Like Republicans and Democrats hate not doing it now. It's a horrible status quo, but it is unfortunately our reality. Ryan, Ohio, interesting results in Ohio last night as well. We can put this up on the screen. Politico, quote, ohio Republicans fear former ICE official could cost them a battleground House seat. Now this is about Madison Sheehan, who was a very young and inexperienced deputy to Kristi Noem. Title was, I'm trying to remember exactly what her title was. She was deputy director at ice. That's right. And then resigned to run for Congress back home in Ohio was the subject of a salacious Daily Mail hit piece

Krystal Ball (48:07)

about her that was incredible.

Ryan Grim (48:08)

Sex life. Yes, about her sex life just a couple weeks ago.

Krystal Ball (48:14)

Rather aggressive. Was it sexual assault even that like there was some pretty, pretty serious like yikes.

Ryan Grim (48:24)

It was definitely a yikes story. I don't remember if there's sexuality.

Krystal Ball (48:28)

Anyway, a lot of yikes going on ruled into it.

Ryan Grim (48:30)

But yes, Madison Sheehan people made.

Krystal Ball (48:33)

So she might lose. Right.

Ryan Grim (48:35)

Madison Sheehan, the results are in. Lost and lost big as we can look at the results right now. So this is former state representative Derek Marin won and now goes up against Marcy Kaptor in Ohio's 9th congressional district. Yeah, she lost. She lost. And the Daily Mail story, the headline was that she was engaged in a two year secret relationship with a junior staffer inside of the Ohio Republican Party and there were just some private communications and stuff that leaked. Obviously, anytime you have same sex relationships within a Republican administration, that is also equally to the media a sort of hypocritical. I mean it's different within the Trump administration, but that was also the subject of fascination, I think in the media reports or gave them extra, little extra fuel because of course, she's from a Republican administration. So.

Krystal Ball (49:37)

Oh, and before we go to Colorado, one real quick one on Ohio. This is buried down here. This is Greg Landsman who held onto his seat, but he is one of the only Democrats to publicly support the war in Iran and has been one of the most ridiculously outspoken, unapologetic supporters of Israel within the caucus. Damon Lynch IV, the progressive who spent like $5, got 32% of the vote against this against the incumbent Landsman. So to have landsmen under 70 suggests that like he's his type of politics

Ryan Grim (50:20)

is vulnerable and that actually I just another point on Ohio on The Sheehan race, this was seen in, I think, some way as a test of whether Trump's ICE immigration policies would be toxic in a place like Ohio. In a Republican primary in Ohio, is it like she was literally deputy director of ice, not some random bureaucrat, but like actually the deputy director behind Kristine Ohm. And all of these photos, those were in the ads. So another thing, just before we move away from Ohio, I wanted to note that did not work for Madison Sheehan.

Krystal Ball (50:52)

Yes, indeed. So in Colorado, speaking of the this like, redistricting cycle, their Democrats are trying to get onto the ballot, put a measure to redraw these boundaries in November, which would then apply to 2028, which shows that this is a long term thing. That would only give them the advantage in 2028 and 2030 because it was coming anyway from the census. But Colorado, being one of these Democratic run states, had leaned more towards fair process and doing the kind of commission type of approach where you're fair. Democrats plan to throw that out for 2028 and 2030. And if voters approve it, according to the new report and put up E3, the primary donor to the cause of getting this measure onto the ballot is Hakeem Jeffries is like super pac, basically. And so. Yes. And so then moving over to Michigan real quickly, there was state Senate race, massive blowout over performance again in a. What was a plus one? It was a Kamala plus one district. Yeah. What do we have here?

Ryan Grim (52:14)

East 7 state Senate 35, Harris plus one district.

Krystal Ball (52:21)

And he blew it out by like 20 plus or whatever. Just across the board. I don't think. I think Democrats have now flipped five seats in special legislative elections.

Ryan Grim (52:33)

Yeah, let's throw E9 on the screen. This is your guy, Daniel Ryan, who said this is a remarkable analysis that he did over at Boltz, his website. The GOP has not flipped a legislative seat in any state since 2024. Just read that again. Not flipped a legislative seat in any state since 2024. Democrats, meanwhile, have flipped, flipped five seats so far in 2026. And that's after flipping 25 in 2025. And I would like to remind everybody that the end of the Obama administration, Republicans took a victory lap. You may remember this, a huge Politico story that came out. Yeah, that was retrospective. This was towards the end of 2016 on all of the seats Democrats had lost during the Obama administration. And how he had essentially noti mean, maybe it's the Obama brand. Maybe it was a lazy Democratic party under Obama that tried to kind of coast on vibes and not really take care of some of these underlying problems in the economy that was giving rise to Trump and Bernie populism, whatever it was. Democrats hemorrhaged seats around the country over the course of the Obama administration, it looks like, not to anybody particular surprise, but after Republicans took that victory lap about 10 years ago very smugly over Obama, it looks like that is the experience that will probably be part of the Trump era for Republicans.

Krystal Ball (53:54)

Yeah, they're going to flip a bunch of chambers, I would suspect in November as well.

Ryan Grim (53:59)

Seems like it, yeah.

Krystal Ball (54:00)

So meanwhile, the DCCC has ticked off enormous number of Democrats. You can put up E5 here. This was really not the moment for Washington Democrats to creep into congressional elections around the country and put their thumb on the scale and endorse a particular Democratic candidate while there are, while there are serious contests still underway. So they added, I think eight new people. Yeah, eight new Democrats to what they call their red to blue list, which is meaning they're. Means they're getting the Democratic Party's basically their endorsement, getting access to their donors, to their vendors, to their consultants, which who knows what all of that is worth to them in the end, but also gives them both the sheen of being party endorsed, but also the stench of being party endorsed. And so it'll be interesting to see how some of these play out. California's 22nd district, Jasmeet Baines, was one of the more controversial red to blue candidates. Jasmeet is running against Randy Villegas. Jasmeet had been asked if Israel was committing a genocide, said yes, then said, oh, I think I heard that wrong. After starting to get support from Pro Israel Super PACs. And so yes, Israel's committing a genocide. No, it's not. Pro Israel money flows in and then Democratic Party money flows in. This is a Latino heavy district. So for them to go and endorse against Randy Vegas, who has the support of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, BOLD pac, which is the Hispanic Caucus, is an aggressive use of Democratic dues money. Like the way that DCCC is funded partly is through other House Democrats paying dues in. So the Progressive caucus, which represents 90 plus Democrats, endorsed Villegas, is spending its money and then the DCCC is using their dues money to then support the opponent in the race. It's crazy. So a lot of House Democrats very upset about this. They did Bob Brooks, who's in the news lately because he accidentally outed Josh Shapiro as having. Did you see this? Having endorsed this, this Republican because he was mad at the Democrats.

Ryan Grim (56:30)

Was it ag or something

Krystal Ball (56:33)

for comptroller, one of those positions, Bernie backed guy. So DCCC and Bernie on the same page, which is quite fascinating. But anyway, we'll track these red to blue ones as they get closer to the races and see how well the DCCC did at putting its thumb on the scale. Because the only thing more embarrassing than putting your thumb on the scale is putting a thumb on the scale and still losing.

Ryan Grim (56:54)

Well, let's put E4 on the screen. This is another dub for Grant Platten, big dub for Graham Platner. He's K file found an old video of Susan Collins behind George Bush. And Graham Platner is yelling in the audience, 2002, don't attack Iraq. Yeah, 2002. So before the invasion. Let's roll the clip.

Krystal Ball (57:18)

I want to thank the grassroots activists who are here. I want to thank the people who take time, who work hard to make

Rohit Chopra (57:25)

sure that the democracy is strong. I want to thank you very much for your efforts on behalf of all candidates.

Krystal Ball (57:34)

I want to thank you for what you have done. I want to thank you for what

Rohit Chopra (57:38)

you're going to do, and that is to turn out to vote for these candidates on November 5th.

Krystal Ball (58:07)

When I say that, when I say that I understand Susan Collins, I do. I've worked closely with her.

Ryan Grim (58:13)

So there's George W. Bush pumping up Susan Collins back in 2002. And you hear Graham Platner audibly, his voice in the background saying, don't attack Iraq. So the point Ryan was making about going back and checking how the D trip putting its thumb on the scales works out just a reminder of establishment Democrats here in Washington's record of that recently, there was no way they wanted Platner to be the candidate in Maine to take on Susan Collins. But here you have unearthed video, I think, showing exactly why they should have been excited about Graham Platner being the guy to take on Susan Collins rather than Janet Mills, one of the most uninspiring candidates conceivable in that race in Maine.

Krystal Ball (58:53)

And we knew about this protest because it was reported publicly. And he was interviewed by someone, you know, after he'd gotten taken out of this event. And then people. And then one of the first things I asked him when we had him on the air was, okay, you did that, but then you enlisted to go fight in those wars. Like why and what he has, what he said then and what he said. He's actually addressed this, like in Reddit posts, basically says he can't explain it really, but he had wanted to be a soldier since as long as he could remember. But that doesn't mean that he agreed with the policy decisions that were being made. He also made a point in one of his Reddit posts that I think people don't quite understand is that basically in every unit there's like not every unit, but a lot of them. There's the left. And as somebody from rural America can tell you, yeah, there's like we exist out in rural America too. There's lefties out there. Not as many, but they're out there. And then there's always like a nationalist right winger in the unit. And then everybody else is like, it's just a normal person doing going about their life. He was the lefty in the unit. It happens. Why? I can't quite explain it, but it happens.

Ryan Grim (60:10)

I mean, there are a lot of benefits to enlisting if you're well, there's that too.

Krystal Ball (60:15)

Yeah.

Ryan Grim (60:16)

All right, let's go ahead, Ryan, and bring in our next guest who's going to tell us exactly how miserable it is to be graduating college right now.

Public Ad Announcer (60:27)

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Sagar Enjeti (61:28)

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Krystal Ball (63:30)

Graduation season is upon us, which means it's time for students to start hitting the job market. But if you're like me and Emily, you're hearing from people around the country that graduates are entering a workforce that is as brutal and facing headwinds is stronger than any time perhaps since 2008, 2009 yet without the I hesitate to call it optimism, but the optimism at the time that at least that would be a one to two to three, maybe four year hiccup, but that things might recover. Now they're graduating into a world that is seems like different in kind than the world that they kind of entered college in. And by the way, they entered in difficult time because you're finishing up with finishing high school amid Covid and then entering college and so what we wanted to do today is talk to one of those graduating seniors. We're gonna be joined by Timmy McAllister, who is a computer science, soon to be graduate at the University of Central Florida. Timmy, Timmy, you got on our radar a couple years ago because you did kind of a funny video.

Ryan Grim (64:44)

He did some computer science.

Krystal Ball (64:45)

Some computer science video. Kind of taking a conversation that Sagra and I had had on this program about the Barbie movie and turning it into video a lo fi. But now you're headed into the job market. A recent video that you did has gotten, I think, enormous numbers for a small YouTube channel. Like 100,000 views.

Ryan Grim (65:11)

Over 100,000, yes.

Krystal Ball (65:12)

Viral video about. About what it's like trying to get into this job market in this environment. So, Timmy, first of all, thank you so much for being here and taking time out of your kind of graduation schedule. Appreciate it.

Timmy McAllister (65:26)

Yeah, absolutely. I'm a huge fan of the show, so I really appreciate the opportunity.

Krystal Ball (65:30)

So when do you graduate, by the way? Do you still have finals kicking around?

Timmy McAllister (65:35)

I finished my last final yesterday, so. So I'm through pretty much all of my schoolwork. My actual graduation is gonna be Saturday evening.

Ryan Grim (65:46)

So congrats.

Timmy McAllister (65:47)

Just working on that.

Krystal Ball (65:48)

Well, bittersweet congratulations. Maybe at the end of the. We'll play some of the Barbie thing at the end of the end of the song.

Ryan Grim (65:56)

He loves it so much. He loves it so much.

Krystal Ball (65:58)

I do. It's great. So let's start with a little bit of the video of yours that kind of went viral that was. Was getting attention about the difficulties of finding work at this moment. Let's roll. F1.

Timmy McAllister (66:12)

I'm applying to PhD programs because I've pretty much given up on the idea of getting a job because even if I did get a job, I'd probably just end up doing annoying work wrangling with AIs for one or two years. And then you have AIs that can wrangle themselves and. And I'm not even useful anymore. So I'm going into a PhD. Hopefully I can do a little bit of research about AIs even though I don't have access to the best AIs.

Krystal Ball (66:44)

So what was your job application process like before you made the decision to just pull the plug on it?

Timmy McAllister (66:53)

Yeah, so pretty much all of last summer I just spent like applying to internship positions. I was looking for some web development positions because I've done a lot of like full stack web development work. I was also looking for like, you know, like AI internships, stuff like that because I have experience like fine tuning large language models to do specific tasks. But you know, I applied to probably definitely over a hundred job applications. I did at least like, like one to three every day. Like I forced myself over last summer mostly on like LinkedIn. But you know, I'm not counting any of those like stupid, like easy apply things because those don't, those don't really do anything. No one ever responds to those. So just counting the ones where, you know, I found the job application on LinkedIn, went to the employer's website, definitely over a hundred and I mean I didn't get, I feel like I'm almost lucky in the sense that I got probably like 30 to 40 rejections. A lot of people don't hear anything back at all from these jobs that they applied to. And then I did get one interview at the unpaid front end web development position that I've been doing the past couple semesters. And yeah, that's what, that's what I've been doing these, these past couple semesters. And yeah, I, I talked to the supervisor there also. And I mean this was the thing that honestly really like shocked me is at that unpaid internship position, he told me that there were 250 other applicants.

Ryan Grim (68:39)

Wow.

Timmy McAllister (68:41)

And I was, I was the one who got the, the lucky unpaid, unpaid job, so.

Krystal Ball (68:47)

Wow.

Ryan Grim (68:49)

So, Jenny, you went into school studying computer science as an undergrad in 2022. And so I'm really curious if you could tell us just a little bit more. You get into this in your video, which folks can go watch, but tell us a little bit more just about yourself, about how well you did in school. You had pretty good grades and why going in, what your expectations were of how studying computer science would set you up. I'm sure you believe for success you're jumping in right before the AI boom is starting to change absolutely everything.

Timmy McAllister (69:23)

Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, I remember, you know, before I had, you know, decided on ucf, I was pretty sure I was going to go into psychology. But you know, I was always interested in computer science. I've always been like a coder, always worked on websites, stuff like that. And I thought that, you know, there's a lot of great opportunities there. They told us there were a lot of great opportunities there. The job market was great in 2022, but yeah, I mean, now I have a 4.0 GPA. I literally, literally straight A's like my entire time here at college. I've done, you know, I was a teaching assistant. I've done research in various labs and you know another big thing too that like they say employers like to look for is that you know, you have sort of a decent number of like personal projects, like not just that you've had good grades but you know that you were able to actually like work with something like a much larger scale project. And you know I did that like over my soft sophomore and junior year I worked on like this very large scale full stack web development project where I like fine tuned large language models to perform like this specific task of sort of identifying sort of like spin in like language and Yeah, I mean nothing, nothing back from, from anyone.

Krystal Ball (70:49)

Yeah. And what, what about. Well one, one, one of the things I, I saw people be critical of your video for is say well this guy's not at Stanford, it's University of Central Florida. But well first two things to that one, UCF is actually when it comes to computer science science, a pretty strong school. Secondly, we're not an economy just for Stanford. There are millions of people in this country, they all need work and so if we say well sure, everything's fine as long as you go to Stanford, you're going to be fine. However, from what I'm hearing, even the people who went to Stanford are, are deeply struggling to find the kind of jobs that one year ago even would have been easy for somebody coming out of Stanford. Just anecdotally among the circles that you run in, the computer science circles that you run in, what are you hearing from other seniors?

Timmy McAllister (71:48)

Yeah, so I don't know anyone at Stanford. Most of the people I know are just here at ucf. You know I have, you know, one of my close friends, you know, he got his first internship freshman year and so you know, he was able to sort of use those connections at the time and sort of like continue working through various positions. He has a job offer right now, so I'm very happy for him. I know a lot of other people who are going to grad school. It, it really just kind of seems like a safe option especially if you've done well in school. You can work towards like a specific project like research, something like that, continue getting paid like if you have an assistantship with a tuition waiver. And it's like that's, that's an option I've actually seen a very large number of people doing. But yeah there's, I'd say it's mostly that. And then yeah, I do, I do have a couple people who sort of got those connections early and like, you know they always tell us like networking is really, really Important for like getting a job. But nowadays it feels like that really is kind of the only way anyone gets any job. Because if you're trying to wade into that pool of college or not college application job applications, where it really is just thousands and thousands of AI generated resumes that are going to these AI filters that who knows what they're even doing, how many of these jobs are even real. You're not going to be in for a fun time.

Ryan Grim (73:33)

Can you talk us about, talk to us about the response you've gotten to your video. Again, we mentioned it's over 100,000 views and that's, I think, interesting in and of itself. I think it probably speaks to you, capturing something that other people are then sending around and saying, this is what my experience is like. It's resonant. So talk to us a bit about what you've heard from other people as you've shared your own experience publicly.

Timmy McAllister (73:58)

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, there's sort of a couple different sets of responses. I mean, there's a lot of people who are, you know, even like earlier along the path than me who are either like just graduating high school right now, or they're like a freshman or a sophomore. And you know, they're just trying to like, figure out what should they even be doing right now in this economy. And you know, I, I try to give advice as best I can, but, you know, I, I honestly don't really know like what, what the best option would be for, for someone going through that. I mean, honestly, the, the best piece of advice I could give to someone like that is just to keep working on like, personal projects. You can, you can use Claude code to like spin up an interesting idea pretty quickly and maybe you can put that on a resume or get some sort of connection or something from that. And then there's sort of like this other set of, of people I don't know. I got this email from someone who's like, just, just like, move to the Bay Area, bro. There's a bunch of like, AI AI engineer positions. Xai is paying like $400,000 a year if you're willing to sell out your soul. But, you know, not everyone can, can live in San Francisco, so I don't really know about that.

Ryan Grim (75:18)

Yeah, that might not be the best advice.

Krystal Ball (75:20)

Yeah, I mean, that is, you know, when you combine it with the idea that networking is the only way to get a job at this point. Like, I get the idea, like, just move to the Bay Area, like when you want to be an actor, you move, used to be, you move to la, you want to be, be country musician in this, or you want to be a folk musician in the 60s, you move to, you know, the Village. You want to be a country singer, you move to Nashville. Like, so I get it. But as you think about that, what, like, is that possible? Like, are there affordable group houses for people moving out there? Or like, because if it's $5,000 for an apartment, you better, better network immediately and you're also not going to get the apartment.

Timmy McAllister (76:07)

Yeah, I mean, that is sort of the issue. It's like, I don't know anyone in, in California. Like, I can't just get a job. Like I need to have a job lined up there already. And then, you know, the ability then to move knowing that I have like some sort of stable income. Like I could never just move to San Francisco. Like, that's not financially feasible.

Ryan Grim (76:27)

That's, that's bleak.

Krystal Ball (76:29)

Unless you're living in the street.

Ryan Grim (76:30)

Right. And Timmy, you go through this in the video, but tell us a little bit more about why you've landed on the path that you've landed for your future. Why are you taking the bet that you are? What is it? I mean, actually, it's a story that reminds me a lot of what people were making the decision to do during the Great Recession, kind of to stay in school. So talk to us a little bit about why you're thinking what you're thinking right now and why you're taking that kind of gamble. It's a sort of safer bet. Why do you think it's a safer bet?

Timmy McAllister (77:03)

Yeah, I mean, there's sort of like two reasons. I mean, the first one is kind of just purely financial. Like, I'm very lucky that I don't have any debt. Like, I had a very good scholarship, so I'm debt free and I don't have to really worry about immediately making income to try to pay that off. So. So I have a little bit more time. I managed to land a graduate assistantship position, so they'll pay me for doing research and I get tuition waves. So it's not like I'm going into more dire financial straits by doing this. And then the other reason is I really am just sort of interested and worried about, about sort of the consequences of AI on society. I've always been been worried about this. Like, I think social media is an example of a sort of very, very simple AI system that, that just runs from like the one rule of maximizing engagement. And I think it has had catastrophic consequences, like, on the mental health of my generation. And I can't imagine, like, what the consequences could be for something way, way smarter if we don't, like, take this really, really seriously and get this right. So, you know, I'm hoping to be able to do some sort of research with AI safety alignment, figuring out how we can actually make these things do what we need to. But I understand that it's not going to be easy, but hopefully I can make at least some sort of contribution there.

Krystal Ball (78:38)

Well, hopefully, because nobody else has taken it very seriously. That's for sure.

Ryan Grim (78:42)

Yeah.

Krystal Ball (78:42)

All right, let's finish up with some Barbie, then we can roll. Timmy's production from a couple years ago put up F3. One reason I'm okay with her getting stabbed, though, is because she really flopped the landing with this, like, reification of neoliberalism at the very end. With this, you are knuff. I know. Nobody's knuff. You need community, you need. You need socialization. You need friends, you need family. Like you need loved ones around you. Nobody is enough. And the idea that you would try to tell a whole bunch of kids that they don't need anything other than themselves, I thought was just a, like, horrific message at the end, so. And the idea that you would try to tell a whole bunch of kids that they don't need anything other than themselves. Nobody's knuff. Nobody's knuff. You need community. You need social media, you need friends, you need family. Like you need loved ones around you. Nobody is enough. Nobody is enough. You need community. You need socialization. You need friends, you need family, you need loved ones around you. Nobody is enough.

Ryan Grim (79:47)

It's pretty good stuff, Timmy.

Krystal Ball (79:49)

That's pretty funny.

Timmy McAllister (79:50)

Thank you. Thank you. I worked pretty hard on it.

Ryan Grim (79:55)

Timmy, you're knuff.

Krystal Ball (79:56)

Yeah. And must be probably a lot easier now with Claude. This was like pre Claude coding, right?

Ryan Grim (80:02)

Yeah.

Timmy McAllister (80:03)

Yeah. That is a.

Krystal Ball (80:06)

That's artisanal problem. Yeah.

Timmy McAllister (80:08)

Yeah.

Ryan Grim (80:09)

Timmy McAllister. Where can people follow you? Where can they find your work? Whether it's lo fi or graduation videos.

Timmy McAllister (80:18)

Yeah. So I'm on YouTube. Timmy McAllister. I've been trying to upload, like, about a video every week talking about AI, society, stuff like that. If anyone wants to try to support me financially, I just started a Patreon. I don't have anything really on there yet. I have a couple videos, but if anyone is able to, that would be awesome. Yeah, that's about what I'm doing right now.

Krystal Ball (80:45)

That's about all we got left to offer as an economy. We'll stay in touch. Curious how your journey goes over the next, you know, months and years. So thanks for, thanks for being here. Good luck.

Timmy McAllister (81:00)

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

Krystal Ball (81:03)

All right. Enjoy graduation day. Well, Emily, I am sure as sure glad I'm not graduating right now. What a God. I'm sorry for all these people that are graduating into this disaster.

Ryan Grim (81:14)

No, it's brutal. I pulled up a New York Times article while we were talking to Timmy and the New York Times is describing this as, as quote, the most dismal and unpredictable job market in years. Employers overall are hiring fewer workers, dimming the prospects in particular for first time entrants into the labor market. And then also obviously mentioning the rise of AI, which we just heard from Timmy, who thought computer science would be a safe major going into School in 2022.

Krystal Ball (81:41)

How quickly learn to code and yeah, and the harder that first, the higher that first obstacle is, then the more it helps helps to be rich, to be in with and the further we get from a remotely meritocratic level playing field.

Ryan Grim (81:57)

Yes, that's a good point because like

Krystal Ball (81:58)

if your parents can send you to the Bay Area, you can do the endpoint for six months, pay your rent,

Ryan Grim (82:04)

unpaid internships, that type of thing, which

Krystal Ball (82:06)

apparently possible to get. Too bleak anyway.

Ryan Grim (82:11)

Truly, truly bleak. I mean that was the theme of today's show with the exception of maybe Iran. We may have an end of Kinesis fighting. There may be an end in sight. I don't know, we'll see. But bleak all around, indeed. So thanks for watching FrankiePoints.com, get a premium subscription if you like being tortured by bad news like we do.

Krystal Ball (82:36)

Yeah, indeed. Talk to you later.

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