Tariffs, AI, Immigration & Corruption: Mike Nellis’ Most Honest Interview Yet | DSH #1636

Summary

Digital Social Hour – Episode Summary

Podcast: Digital Social Hour
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Mike Nellis (Democratic strategist, digital fundraiser, and content creator)
Episode: Tariffs, AI, Immigration & Corruption: Mike Nellis’ Most Honest Interview Yet | DSH #1636
Date: November 23, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this candid and wide-ranging conversation, Sean Kelly sits down with Mike Nellis to dissect the turbulent state of American politics, with a particular focus on tariffs, the labor market revolution caused by AI, mass immigration, economic hardship, and deep-rooted corruption across administrations. Nellis, pulling from his frontline experience as a strategist and digital fundraiser, offers unfiltered critiques of both major parties, shares personal stories of struggle and transformation, and delivers tough love to listeners about the realities of power, trust, and accountability in U.S. society.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. AI, Automation, and the Shifting Job Market

• Impact of Technology: Nellis draws historical parallels, saying technological revolutions have always displaced workers:

  “If you were a horse and buggy rider, you got killed by the car… that’s just what happened.” (00:00, also 05:49)

• Government Responsibility: He argues “the job market is going to shift, but the government has a responsibility to step in and help people who are being displaced by that.” (00:15, 05:49)
• AI’s Speed: Automation is eliminating entry-level and gig jobs, from legal to food delivery:

  “Entry level legal jobs are getting killed... The only growth... is health care, or gig workers like Uber... Those will get replaced too.” (05:49–06:57)

• False Hope in Manufacturing: Tariffs and promises to restore manufacturing jobs are “bad economic policy” because automation will replace those jobs anyway:

  “If we do that, within the next five to ten years, robots are going to be building those cars.” (00:37, 07:18)

2. Tariff Wars and Economic Policy

• Trump’s Tariff Strategy: Nellis criticizes Trump’s tariff policy as “stupid” and “poorly planned”:

  “If you want to win a tariff war, you have to have allies. What he did was literally put tariffs on everybody.” (07:46–08:01)

• Strategic Miscalculations: Tariffs on U.S. allies like Vietnam and Canada only help China:

  “You’re just pushing everybody to China.” (08:30–08:50)

3. Economic Hardship, Disconnected Leadership & Corruption

• Nellis on Trump:

  “I would give him an F. Pretty bad... Everything about this administration feels like it’s either about enriching Donald Trump or enriching somebody that he knows.” (01:52–02:26)

• Unkept Promises:

  “He campaigned... grocery prices will go down... 10 months in, grocery prices are not down.” (01:52)

• Alleged Bribery:

  “You’re not taking your salary, but you're taking a $400 million bribe from the Qatari government.” (02:38)

• Priorities Questioned: Facing a government shutdown and cuts to social programs, luxury spending and gifts to political allies are denounced:

  “We can find money for this. We can find money for planes... But...40 million Americans are going to lose their food stamps…” (03:14)

4. Rural & Small Business Crisis

• Farmer Challenges:

  “We’re sending $40 billion overseas to Argentina to bail out their economy. So everything about this administration feels like it’s... not helping the vast majority of people.” (02:26)

• Corporate Takeover:

  “I think they want to kill... the farming industry because they want more rich people to buy it up.” (20:33)

• Struggles of Small Businesses:

  “Every single one of them says the same thing. It’s harder to find customers. It’s harder to sell. They’re having to lay people off.” (04:31)

5. Critiquing Both Parties

• On Democrats:

  “We didn’t help provide direct relief to the American people. Trump promised to fix that, and instead dumped gasoline on a dumpster fire.” (04:52)

• On Joe Biden: Administration failed to communicate or improve economic realities for ordinary Americans:

  “Most Americans are like, I don’t give a shit about [Nobel economists]. I can’t put food on the table... Egg prices are bad. My Chipotle burrito bowl costs $35 now.” (09:23–09:27)

• No Perfect Party:

  “Both parties generally suck.” (13:58)

• Kamala Harris Behind the Scenes: Nellis paints a nuanced and positive portrait of Harris as a boss and strategist:

  “She was my first client. She pushed me... I wish people could have gotten to see that.” (10:56–11:10)

6. Immigration and Enforcement Policies

• Critique: Democrats swung “too far to the left” on border and immigration, then faced a “whiplash” under Trump:

  “...Trump is coming in extremely hard and basically targeting every person who’s black or brown and might not be here legally in this country.” (14:28)

• Personal Impact:

  “They were just grabbing people off of the streets... my whole neighborhood was trying to prevent ICE agents... from grabbing these people. They tear-gassed people...” (15:10)

• Policy Paradox:

  “The status at this point is a piece of paper... We should make sure we secure the border and create a comprehensive pathway for citizenship…” (16:25)

7. Corruption, Institutions, and Trust

• Epstein Files & Wall Street:

  “Wealthy, rich people never held accountable for their crimes. Never... Tens of millions lost their homes. Do you know how many people went to prison for the Wall Street scandal? Zero... Same with Epstein stuff.” (27:53)

• On Trump’s Unapologetic Corruption:

  “Trump is, in my view, the most corrupt president in American history. But most Americans actually give him credit for how corrupt he is because he’s so brazen.” (29:06)

8. Dark Money & Campaign Finance

• Small Dollar Fundraising:

  “I’ve raised probably a billion and a half dollars… all through… small dollar contributions.” (29:31)

• Public Financing Solution:

  “If it were me, I would make my job useless... I would ban my job altogether, simply because I’d make campaigns publicly financed.” (30:53)

• Corporate Overreach:

  “Apple carries an incredible amount of cash… you have billionaires pulling the strings for both parties.” (31:13)

9. Mental Health, Authenticity & Personal Resilience

• Personal Story:

  “I used to weigh 600 pounds... I had untreated personal and professional traumas... anxiety, depression, loneliness... That digital connection is not real.” (41:01, 43:13)

• Change Catalyst:

  “I was at my brother’s wedding… I physically couldn’t stand... I wrote this plan called ‘Hot by 40’ and slowly worked at it.” (42:41)

• On Isolation:

  “We’re never more connected, but never been more isolated.” (43:13)

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On the Futility of AI Resistance:
  “If you're an AI skeptic out there… that isn’t going to happen. Nobody has ever been able to stop [a technology shift].” (05:49)
• On the American Farmer’s Plight:
  “Soybean farmers are getting killed… all they want to do is be able to sell what they've created.” (20:03)
• On Public Sentiment:
  “When you give people two shitty choices, they're going to pick one. And that's what happened in the last election.” – citing Andrew Yang (09:27)
• On Corruption:
  “He likes to be like, well, I'm not taking my salary. Be like, yeah, you're not taking your salary, but you're taking a $400 million bribe from the Qatari government.” (02:38)
• On Modern Fundraising:
  “What I loved about Bernie’s campaign in 2016 is… the average donation was $27.” (31:33)
• Personal Vulnerability:
  “I had untreated personal and professional traumas that then manifested in a massive anxiety disorder and massive depression. It funneled its way through food.” (44:00)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Topic / Highlight | |:-----------|:----------------| | 00:00–01:18 | Mike Nellis on job losses due to technology, and the government’s duty to reskill workers | | 02:26–03:14 | Trump’s economic policies: net worth, farmer bailouts, White House spending priorities | | 05:41–07:44 | How AI is transforming the job landscape and undermining gig work | | 07:46–08:50 | Tariff wars: why Nellis thinks Trump’s approach was deeply counterproductive | | 09:22–09:27 | Disconnect between economic stats and everyday realities (“Egg prices… my Chipotle burrito bowl…”) | | 10:36–11:40 | Kamala Harris as a boss, and inside the 2019 campaign | | 14:28–16:25 | Immigration: critique of both Biden’s and Trump’s approaches; ICE tactics in Chicago | | 20:03–21:54 | U.S. farmers’ struggles, economic collapse in Iowa, corporate land grabs | | 27:53–29:06 | Corruption: Wall Street crash, Epstein, lack of accountability, “most corrupt president” | | 29:31–32:18 | Campaign finance: small donors, PACs, and Nellis’s preferred public funding model | | 41:01–42:59 | Weight loss journey, mental health crisis, and recovery | | 47:48–48:18 | Authenticity in politics: Nellis on being “the same in every room” | | 50:04–51:16 | Candidates with mysterious agendas & the dangers of inauthentic politicians |

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Tone and Approach

The dialogue is energetic, direct, often irreverent but grounded in data, personal experience, and real-world observations. Both host and guest are unafraid to call out hypocrisy, acknowledge faults in their own political “camps,” and keep the focus on ordinary Americans’ lived realities.

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Conclusion

This episode blends hard-hitting political analysis with personal vulnerability, giving listeners an insider’s take on how power, technology, and capital shape the lives—and futures—of everyday Americans. With sharp critiques, memorable metaphors, and a willingness to tackle uncomfortable truths, Mike Nellis and Sean Kelly deliver an episode that is deeply relevant, surprisingly personal, and wide in its scope.

Find Mike Nellis:

• Substack: Endless Urgency
• Social: @mikenellis on Instagram, TikTok, etc.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Mike Nellis]

If you were a horse and buggy rider, you got killed by the car. Like, that's just what happened. If you were a typist, you got killed by the personal computer. If you were a mathematician, if you were a computer, it's literally what they were called. You got killed by Excel and what they could do. So that's what's going to happen here. So the job market is going to shift, but the government has a responsibility to step in and help people who are being displaced by that. Trump likes to talk about how he's going to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. That's what the tariff war was about.

[Podcast Host]

I can't see that.

[Mike Nellis]

No, there's no way. It happens. But he was also like, we're going to get. What was it, 75 deals in 75 days, and it never happened. Like, we have five tariff deals. But let's say he's able to bring manufacturing jobs back. Let's say he can somehow pull them from China or Vietnam or anywhere else, and we're going to start building iPhones or cars in the United States. If we do that, within the next five to 10 years, robots are going to be building.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

And that's worth doing if, like, we could bring manufacturing back here, but isn't going to create jobs and it isn't going to revitalize those towns. To me, it's false hope and it's bad economic policy.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. All right, guys, Mike Nellis here. Hope you didn't lose too much money last night, but thanks for coming, man.

[Mike Nellis]

No, no, I finished up by, like 50 bucks.

[Podcast Host]

Nice.

[Mike Nellis]

Huge win.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. Blackjack.

[Mike Nellis]

Black.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's the way to do it, Ben. Blackjack, baccarat poker, if you're good poker.

[Mike Nellis]

So I was good at one time.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I played in the World Series poker three times.

[Podcast Host]

Damn.

[Mike Nellis]

Made like six or seven final tables at WSO events.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And everyone's too good these days, right?

[Mike Nellis]

Everyone's too good. And then I got married, had a kid.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Started my career.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I feel like when the solvers came, I have on a lot of poker pros, the solvers just leveled the playing field. Right.

[Mike Nellis]

Well, there's like that Chris Moneymaker. Boom. And then everything just kind of feels like it got out of control.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, absolutely, man.

[Mike Nellis]

A lot of game theory.

[Podcast Host]

Well, what's new these days? I'm sure you're super busy with all the stuff going on in politics.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, super busy. I mean, there's never a dull moment in American politics today. Just a ton of news every day. Drinking from A fire hydrant, but trying to build up my company. So I've got a series of companies I work with. I run one of the largest digital fundraising and advertising firms for Democratic and progressive causes. Then we do a bunch of other stuff like that. And then being a content creator, so launching my substack, endless urgency. And trying to be out there. Obviously, I'm not a fan of the president, so trying to be out there, letting people know how I feel about what's going on.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. How do you think he's doing so far?

[Mike Nellis]

I would give him an F. Pretty bad. I mean, I judge him this way. When he campaigned last year for the presidency, he said, when I'm elected, everything's gonna get cheaper. Day one. This is a quote. On day one, grocery prices will go down, and we're 10 months in. Grocery prices are not down. It's harder for people to put food on the table, harder for people to buy a house. I'm watching the President throw American farmers off a cliff buying beef from Argentina, letting China steal our soybean business. They're getting killed, and we're sending $40 billion overseas to Argentina to bail out their economy. So everything about this administration feels like it's either about enriching Donald Trump or enriching somebody that he knows.

[Podcast Host]

I did see some graph of his net worth. It's gone up a lot this term.

[Mike Nellis]

Something like 70% of his net worth he's made since January.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's pretty nuts.

[Mike Nellis]

Yep. Okay.

[Podcast Host]

No, I was just gonna say, like, he campaigned on, like, how he loses money while he's president.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, I mean, he doesn't lose money while he's president. Like, he likes to be like, well, I'm not taking my salary. Be like, yeah, you're not taking your salary, but you're taking a $400 million bribe from the Qatari government. Like, have you seen this?

[Podcast Host]

Was that the plane thing?

[Mike Nellis]

He got gifted, so they gifted him a plane. He says he's planning to keep it after he leaves. $400 million. And he goes, oh, it's not a bribe, because there's no quid pro quo. But, like, a couple of weeks ago, he signed an executive order giving Qatar Article 5, like, protection. So right now, if somebody attacks Qatar, they have the same protections as, like, it's an attack on the United States.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. So that's what $400 million buys you.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

I don't think many countries have that.

[Mike Nellis]

No, just. Just NATO countries. That's what we have with them. And then Taiwan, I Think that's pretty nuts, man.

[Podcast Host]

He's also bulldozing the White House, you said?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's bulldozing the east wing of the White House. And look, I like, look, the White House is a historical landmark, and I know people are really upset about it on that front. I care about that, but I care less about it in the context of whatever. Sometimes there's renovations that need to be done. Maybe this is right, maybe it's not. But I tend to think about it like, what's the way that we spend money in this government? Right now? This is $350 million. Now, it's private funds, but we were able to find the money for that. But right now, the government's been shut down for 28 days. 40 million Americans are going to lose their food stamps, their SNAP benefits on Saturday if they don't reopen the government and fund this. We can't find the money for. We can find the money for this. We can find the money for planes. We can find the money for whatever they just gave. Kristi Noem just bought her second private jet so that she could travel across the country and shoot content. So to me, it's the priorities of this administration are super off, and you can go, look, I'm a Democratic strategist. You might be watching this and going, this guy's full of shit. I don't believe anything that he says. But, like, there's an objective truth here, which is everything happening in Washington right now is about enriching Donald Trump and his allies. It's not helping the vast majority of people. And he's running around talking about this golden age of prosperity that we're having. When does the golden age start?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. Unless you own a lot of AI tech stock, you're not doing very well right now. There's no growth in the economy, job markets getting killed. People can't afford to buy a house. Where. Where's the things we were promised?

[Podcast Host]

Where? I was just filming at ComplexCon this weekend, and all the vendors were like, dude, this is really bad. They weren't selling anything.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, I remember. So I'm a local entrepreneur in Chicago. Like, one of my businesses is obviously democratic strategy is what I do, but, you know, I know all these, like, small business owners, and they're running, like, you know, merchandise businesses and, you know, chemical stuff and all these things that I don't really understand. But I know every single one of them says the same thing. It's harder to find customers. It's harder to sell. They're having to lay people off. We just watched, I think Amazon laid off 3,000 people yesterday.

[Podcast Host]

30,000.

[Mike Nellis]

Right? 30,000 people. Jesus. I mean, it's not. It's just not a great situation. And I feel like the President is very disconnected from the day to day. He stands on the lawn of the White House. He's like, it's the best job market ever. We have no inflation. I've defeated inflation. Like, we can't have a president that's that disconnected from reality. And you'll find people that are supporters of the president, they'll go, mike Nellis has Trump derangement Syndrome. And I don't. Like, I think there are things that Donald Trump does that are good every now and again. And, like, you know, look, he brought the hostages home from Israel weeks ago. Like, good. That's a good thing. I'm happy for that. But he refuses to accept that his economic policies are making everything worse. And the flip side of that is you have a lot of Democrats that refuse to acknowledge that what Joe Biden did over the last four years, like, wasn't enough to help the American people. Like, we lost because inflation was poor and we didn't help provide direct relief to the American people. Trump promised to fix that, and instead he dumped gasoline on an existing dumpster fire. So now everything's worse.

[Podcast Host]

I'll say this about the Amazon thing, not to defend him, but I think just with the rise of AI, a lot of jobs are going to get replaced. I don't know if that's Trump's fault, too.

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, I don't think it's Trump's fault, but I think it's Trump's responsibility. And this is one of the things that I think politicians don't understand is there's a lot of things that happen you can't control, like AI technology. Nobody's going to defeat that. So if you're an AI skeptic out there and you're like, I don't want to use this shit. I think we should ban this shit. Like, that isn't going to happen. Nobody has ever been able to stop that. Somebody who was like, you know, if you were a horse and buggy rider, you got killed by the car, like that. Just what happened. If you were a typist, you got killed by the personal computer. If you were a mathematician, if you were a computer, that's literally what they were called, you got killed by Excel and what they could do. So that's what's going to happen here. So the job market is going to Shift. But the government has a responsibility to step in and help people who are being displaced by that. If you're 22 and you're about to graduate from college, you are scared to get into the job market. I meet kids and hear from them all the time where they're like, I don't know what I'm going to do because there's no entry level jobs. Entry level legal jobs are getting killed. So if you're a law student, you have nowhere to go to clerk. Entry level jobs are bas Everything, it's just gone. And right now the only growth that you're seeing in terms of jobs in the economy is either a small amount of health care or you're seeing a lot of gig workers. So we have more people that are being Uber drivers, door dash drivers, which is fine. That's noble work.

[Podcast Host]

I'm not sure those will get replaced too though.

[Mike Nellis]

Those are going to get replaced. Self driving cars, the drones in Chicago, they have these little like and weird drones that just like bring you food.

[Podcast Host]

Yep. Yeah, yeah. They have the self driving cars out here in Vegas now. Soon your food will be delivered by self driving cars. There's going to be no drivers, Uber drivers. They're screwed. Honestly, I think.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. And we're going to have to have some kind of shift in how we think about work because I mean, these jobs are gone. They're going to be gone in the next 10 years. Like Trump likes to talk about how he's going to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. That's what the tariff war was about.

[Podcast Host]

I can't see that.

[Mike Nellis]

No, there's no way it happens. But he was also like, we're going to get, what was it, 75 deals in 75 days and it never happened. Like we have five tariff deals. But let's say he's able to bring manufacturing jobs back. Let's say he can somehow pull them from China or Vietnam or anywhere else. And we're going to start building iPhones or cars in the United States. If we do that, within the next five to 10 years, robots are going to be building those cars. And that's worth doing if, like we could bring manufacturing back here, but isn't going to create jobs and it isn't going to revitalize those towns. To me it's false hope and it's bad economic policy.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, it's a really good point. So you're not a fan of the tariffs?

[Mike Nellis]

No, no, I think tariffs are stupid and I think they've been poorly planned. Like if you want to Win a tariff war, you have to have allies. What he did was literally put tariffs on everybody. And I think the thing about Trump is. And I just say, this is a Trump critic. I'm not. I'm not like a hater. I don't really like the guy. I think he's a man of low moral character. He's good at identifying the problem.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Mike Nellis]

Like, he's right that America is getting taken advantage of in trade like we are. He's right that there are countries that are over tariffing us. There's a right way to handle that and a wrong way to handle it. I don't think coming out and putting a tariff on every single country makes any bit of sense. You need to create an alliance so that you have economic partners that can help you. So coming out and putting a tariff on Canada and Mexico was really stupid. If you want to win a tariff war with China. And what you're doing is you're pushing everybody to China, you're pushing everybody to other countries. Vietnam is another example. Vietnam is a trading partner that the United States has spent decades building up as a. As a source of economic opportunity for the United States. Like having a place like Vietnam where we have a good relationship with them, given everything we've been through with them, it's actually incredible. We have the relationship that we do. We're building more manufacturing plants there as a. As a counter to China to hedge on their powers. They put massive tariffs on Vietnam. Like, what the hell are we doing? You're just pushing everybody to China.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Do you think the economy was better under Biden?

[Mike Nellis]

Yes, but I. But marginally so. Like, I don't think. Yeah, I don't. Look, I don't think the economy under Biden was good. I think it was improving. I think you have to take a full step back and go, there was a global inflationary crisis in this around the world. Let's be clear. I mean, it was bad here, it was worse everywhere else. So I think Biden deserves a modicum of credit for inflation not being as high as it was everywhere else. However, I think Democrats got so wrapped up in the numbers, they would go, well. And I hear this all the time from Democrats. Be like 49 out of 50 Nobel laureate economists say that our economy is the envy of world.

[Podcast Host]

The world.

[Mike Nellis]

And most Americans are like, I don't give a shit about that. I can't put food on the table.

[Podcast Host]

Egg prices, right.

[Mike Nellis]

Egg prices are bad. My Chipotle burrito bowl costs $35 now. Like, they're Pissed off. And I think the other thing for Democrats is we get stuck in this thing where we're trying to tell you, like, you should be able to survive, you should be able to put food on the table, you should be able to buy a house, you should be able to retire. It's all true. But you should also be able to take a goddamn vacation every now. And you should be able to afford, like, the new Nintendo Switch if you want to be able to buy one. You should be able to make sure that your kids have everything that they need to. You know, like, I got a six year old kid, he's going to play baseball. I got to buy him a glove. I got to do all that. That's harder for people to do now. Trump promised to fix all of that. I alone can fix it is another Donald Trump quote that I think about all the time. But the minute that he took over, he hasn't done jack shit to help improve anybody's life. Everything is worse now than it was 10 months ago. Doesn't absolve the Democrats the mistakes that we made in the past, but we have two options. Like Andrew Yang said this not that long ago. He was like, you know, when you give people two shitty choices, they're going to pick one. And that's what happened in the last election. People were given two shitty choices. I liked Kamala Harris. I respect Kamala Harris. I worked for her for a long time. I think she was put in a bad position by Joe Biden, his administration. But Donald Trump is a worse option. It makes sense to me that people ran towards him because they had nowhere else to go. But right now, people are hurting, and I think he's denying that objective reality.

[Podcast Host]

I just bought her book. I didn't read it yet, but what was it like being on the inside of that?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, well, I was on. I was on her 2019 campaign. So I was not on the 2024 campaign, but on 19. It's like I worked for her for five years. She was a really great boss. She was a really smart human being. I think that people didn't get a chance to see the Kamala Harris that I got to see, which was somebody who pushed me to be a better strategist, pushed me to be a better business owner. She was the. When I started my own firm, she was my first client.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Mike Nellis]

She was my client at the last firm. I told her I was going to hang up my own shingle. She says, I'm going with you. And she pushed me. And one of the things is the company that I was at before I started Authentic, which is the name of my business, kind of fell apart due to, like, financial mismanagement and then the way that it treated its staff. And when I told her I was starting my own company, the first question she had for me is, like, how are you going to be different? And, like, I hadn't even thought about that. I was just like. I was just sort of like, fuck these guys. I could do a better job. And I hadn't thought about it. And, like, I left that meeting and, like, I wrote our first company handbook. I wrote our core mission statement. I started to really think about the intentionality of how I wanted to build that firm. And I did that because of her. And I wish that people could have gotten a chance to see that. And they did it. And there's a whole bunch of reasons for that. But I always thought she was a really great person. I'm sad that she's not president right now. I understand, though, why Americans voted for Trump.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think if she had more time, she would have won?

[Mike Nellis]

I think if she had more time, I think it's. I think it's two things. Time is certainly a factor, but we should have had a full, vibrant Democratic primary. Like Jake Tapper's book Original Sin. I call it the most frustrating book I've ever read because I only believe half of it, and the other half of it's, like, the most maddening shit I've ever read in my whole life. If Joe Biden had made the decision to not run for reelection, which is what I believe he should have done, he should have said, In 2023, I'm not running. I believe I've done great work, but I'm 80 some years old. I need to step aside. Right. We could have had a full, vibrant Democratic primary, and Kamala Harris would have been the front run for that primary as the vice president. She likely would have won that, but she would have run against a field of 12 other highly qualified Democrats. She would have had more time and opportunity to build up a campaign. She would have done more podcasts like this. She would have become a better candidate. Or if she didn't rise to the moment, we would have nominated somebody who had. And I think that's incredibly important. The last time we really had a full, vibrant primary where we didn't have, like, a sitting vice president sort of shadowing over the field was 2008, and we nominated Barack Obama, who, in my opinion, is the best political talent that's been generated in the last 40 years.

[Podcast Host]

Really? 40 years.

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, who's more politically talented than Barack Obama?

[Podcast Host]

Talented, yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

It's hard to argue with that.

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, Trump is a. Is a talented politician, I'll give him that. I think Zoran Mandani is a. Is a talented politician in New York City. I think Josh Hawley on the Republican side deserves more credit for what he does.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. But Obama, when it comes to just speeches and oration.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

He's incredible. Monster. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, I was at his first rally in Iowa. I dropped out of college to work for him.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, wow. Yeah. So was that the first political job you took?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, the first. I mean, it wasn't a job, so they called it a. I. I was supposed to be in class. I can vividly remember supposed to be. Music appreciation class.

[Podcast Host]

That's a class.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. Music appreciating. I was appreciating music, which I did in my day to day life. Usually, like being high as a. Yeah, yeah. Listening, listening. God knows what I'm trying to think of the first song that comes to mind, like Sweetest Girl by Wyclef Jello. But, like, I don't know why that came to my mind, but. But no, I remember I dropped out. I got in a red Ford pickup truck. I drove all the way out there to beat his first rally. I'd been protesting the Iraq war for, like, you know, middle of high school because I thought it was a stupid war.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, so you knew early.

[Mike Nellis]

I knew. I knew early that I was against the Iraq war. Wow. I didn't necessarily know that I was a Democrat yet.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Mike Nellis]

But Barack Obama was like, the only person who was speaking a language that I understood. Like, seemed like the future, seemed like opportunity, wanted to end the war, had a, you know, a message of, like, we can do better than this and turn the page. And I attached to that. And slowly, as I built up my values after that, I find that they align more with the Democratic Party than the Republicans. But neither party's perfect. I mean.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Let's be clear. Both parties generally suck.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I like that we can both agree on that.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I mean, I tell people all the time, like, I think if I just stopped working in Democratic politics, I'd probably be an independent. I wouldn't change who I would vote for. Like, I think this version of the Republican Party is so far off the reservation that I can't possibly support the vast majority of them. Like, the last Republican for president I could have supported was probably John McCain. Okay. Maybe Mitt Romney but, you know, I just. Even the Democratic Party, like, there's times where I don't feel like I.

[Podcast Host]

Well, they've gone pretty far off, too. I feel like.

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, on some areas. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Like, since Obama.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I mean, I think on immigration, we've made a ton of mistakes. I think the immigration policy under Biden just didn't make a lot of sense. And I think the problem is, like, we sort of swung it this way, and now it's swinging the other way. And so I don't think Democrats did enough to secure the border and to remove violent criminals out of the country. I think it's just an objective reality that you have to acknowledge. So then I think the reverse of that is that Trump is coming in now really, really hard and basically targeting, you know, every person who's. Who's black or brown and might not be here legally in this country. Like, I live in Chicago, and last Friday, I was out of town. I wasn't there when it happened, but they were just grabbing people off of the streets. Somebody's walking the streets. And, like, my neighbors, my whole neighborhood was, like, trying to prevent ICE agents, masked ICE age, from grabbing these people. They tear gas, people blocking halfway. Yeah. Like an hour before school got out.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Mike Nellis]

So it's crazy. And like, to me, it's like, look, we can have a debate about immigration policy. We can have a debate about what's right or what's wrong. People come in here legally or illegally. But, like, I don't think that massed federal agents driving unmarked cars should be grabbing people on the streets. That's the literal definition of fascism. It scares the hell out of me. You know, those, like, those kind of gun nuts that, like, live in Wyoming and they have, like, 4,000 guns and they're, like, planning for, like, that's the type of shit that they warn about. And I'm like, I'm living that little bit in Chicago right now. To be clear, I'm super white. They're never coming after me. But, like, we're watching that happen to my neighbors. And. And I just don't. I just don't think that's right. But I think Democrats need to acknowledge that it's a consequence of how far to the left they went immigration. When your policies don't make sense, people are going to embrace something that's sort of slingshots back in the other direction. So I think Democrats have to acknowledge that still Trump is responsible for that because he's allowing it to happen, not allowing it to happen. He wants it to happen. But we got to acknowledge that we're the reason.

[Podcast Host]

He also did get fair warning, I feel.

[Mike Nellis]

Fair warning to what?

[Podcast Host]

Like, he was announcing that he was going to go pretty hard on deportations before he got elected.

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, he. I mean, he did, but I think people just didn't believe him. I mean, if you ask the American people today, they'd be like, we didn't think that that's what this was going to be like. He promised in the campaign, I'm going to get rid of violent criminals, which is fine. I'm all for that. You can find anybody that's been violent this country, get them the hell out. I'm all for that. But if you're grabbing people at Home Depot who are trying to do a job, like, that's not right.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

And I sort of hate this idea of, like, people come here legally, they come here illegally. Like, that's a breakdown of the system. Like, we have a border that isn't secure, and then we have an immigration system that doesn't work. We need these people to come here to do these jobs. We want them here. I think we want anybody in this country that wants to work hard, that wants to take care of their family, and maybe every now and again, they think about somebody other than themselves. To me, the immigration status at this point is a piece of paper. And I know a lot of people don't like that. But I don't think there's a lot of difference between me and somebody who took a very dangerous journey to get here, and now they're raising their family and their kids, and they're trying to do whatever work they're doing. We should make sure that we secure the border. We should create a comprehensive pathway for citizenship for people who are here, make sure that they're paying their taxes, make sure that we get them here legally pass through that marker, and then make sure that this doesn't happen again. And by the way, the whole reason it's happening is because billionaires in this country wanted access to cheap labor. They wanted this system to be broken.

[Podcast Host]

True.

[Mike Nellis]

So they could bring in people to work on their farms, to pick fruit, to do all kinds of jobs that they wanted to be able to mow your lawn and stuff like that and not invest in American jobs. So, like, if we need those people to come in and do it, that's fine. Let's figure out the right way to do it, and let's. Like, neither political party wants to solve this problem, and I think that's a massive issue yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Have you been to any of the protests? The no Kings protests?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, I was at the no Kings protest in Chicago. Was that a week and a half ago?

[Podcast Host]

How was it?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, that was good.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

So I think there's something like 250,000 people in Chicago. It was awesome. It was massive. I mean, I think they said total nationwide was like 8 million.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I drove. I got married in Jersey last week and I drove past one. Thank you. There was like a couple hundred people, but you're saying 250,000.

[Mike Nellis]

250,000 in Chicago alone. It was massive. It was like bumper to bumper. And you know, JB Pritzker gave a great speech to saw a bunch of other people. I think the thing about the protest this time around that I noticed not just that it was more people, it was how many people were carrying American flags. And what pisses me off about our politics today is the Republican Party has co opted so many things that like, I hold really dear. They. They wrap themselves in the flag, they hide behind their religion, they hide behind family values when they really don't represent any of them.

[Podcast Host]

You don't think so?

[Mike Nellis]

I don't think so. I. I don't think the Republican Party is any more patriotic than the Democrats Democratic Party. I think Democrats get scared because Republicans try to own that stuff. So then we're like, oh, it's uncomfortable for us to wear an American flag. And like, no, I. I think we need to like reclaim that stuff.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting.

[Mike Nellis]

They love to talk about family values. What are the Donald Trump family values? The guy's got like four kids with three different women. He cheats on them. He was on Howard Stern talking about how, you know, what was it like the 80s were his own personal Vietnam because he was avoiding getting an std. He talked about paying for abortions. Like, these are not people, at least this Republican Party. And by the way, I want to make it clear to people who are watching this. When I talk about Republicans, I talk about elected Republicans, I talk about Republican operatives and MAGA influencers. There's regular people and then there's like our leaders. And I think you have to separate that out because I believe that there are a lot of Republican voters who really, truly are good, hardworking, patriotic Americans who I have massive disagreements with on many issues. And they're voting for the option that they resonate more with. Again, two options generally, usually shitty choice. But Donald Trump doesn't care about family values. Donald Trump is not patriotic. Like America first to him is Trump first. It's everything better for Him. That's why I keep harping on this, like, Argentina thing. So they gave $50 billion, $40 billion, excuse me, to Argentina to bail out their economy because the guy is a Trump ally with close ties to one of Trump's billionaire buddies. That's all that that is. It's a massive bill.

[Podcast Host]

So we got nothing out of it.

[Mike Nellis]

We've got nothing out of it. No. And we're never going to get that money back. I don't believe we'll ever get it back.

[Podcast Host]

And by the way, how is it structured?

[Mike Nellis]

It's not even a loan. They just gave it to them to, like, prop up the economy. Yeah, they're buying. I think they're buying. They're buying the. Is it peso? Arguably peso.

[Podcast Host]

I don't know what it is.

[Mike Nellis]

I believe they're buying their currency. Likes to prop up the economy in Argentina. And then what happens right after that is Argentina sells all of their soybeans to China, which kills America's soybean. So they didn't even negotiate a deal where it was like, don't sell your soybeans to China.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. At least get that out of it. Right.

[Mike Nellis]

Like these soybean farmers are getting killed right now. Like, they. All they want to do is be able to sell what they've created. That's all they want to do. I mean, most of these people are like, hard working. They've been tilling the land forever and now they can't move their product. And if they're moving it, it's like at 50% of the value of what they normally do. So they're just getting killed.

[Podcast Host]

Farmers here are getting wrecked. They're getting a lot of them on the show.

[Mike Nellis]

Yep. The Iowa economy, Iowa's economy, which I think is mostly soybeans at this point, is like completely collapsing. Unbelievable.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I talked to a lot of farmers here and used to be able to make a living off it, but now it's really hard.

[Mike Nellis]

And honestly, like, I think they want to kill the farming, what remains of the farming industry because they want more rich people to buy it up. Like this weekend, Trump's treasury secretary, who's also a billionaire, by the way, Scott. Or maybe, maybe he's like a 700 millionaire.

[Podcast Host]

Maybe not quite a millionaire.

[Mike Nellis]

We'll round up on him. But like, he was on, I think ABC with Martha Raddatz, and he was talking about, well, you know, I'm a soybean farmer too, so, like, I'm feeling this pain. Well, no, he's a rich guy who owns the land that he leases out to people who are. Who are soybean farmers. So he's feeling that pain because his people can't pay their bills right now. What I think is happening is they want all these farmers to go bankrupt, to move off so that they can buy that land and then they can start tilling the land themselves. So the people who are going to do well in Trump's economy are people who already have so much money.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Because they're going to be able to ride that wave. So if the account. When the economy eventually falls apart, which I believe that it is on the verge of, I believe that'll happen. I believe in the next year. Because if you just look at the stock market, what, it's something like 80, 90% of all the growth in the stock market in the last year. All the GDP growth, too, is all in AI companies. So it feels like this massive bubble. Nothing else is growing. Nothing else is getting more profitable. And so I think when that pops, you're going to find a lot of, like, very wealthy people who are able to afford large quantities of gold and have, like, resources that they can sort of lean on. They're going to be able to reinvest in the economy, and then when it shoots back up again, you know, a couple years from now, you're going to be. They're going to be in a really good spot, and then average Americans are never going to get a bailout, which is exactly what happened in the financial crisis.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Rinse and repeat. Right. Happens every 15, 20 years.

[Mike Nellis]

Yep.

[Podcast Host]

That's crazy.

[Mike Nellis]

And like, you and I are entrepreneurs. We've done pretty well. Like, we'll be able to navigate that situation for ourselves and probably increase our net worth for it. But the average person that's living paycheck to paycheck can't do that.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, they're wrecked. Yeah, they're screwed. Did you know China owns a lot of farmland here? Yeah, that's concerning.

[Mike Nellis]

China's been buying up all kinds of things. This is reminds me of, like, Saudi Arabia is buying up all our sports teams. Like that scares the. Out of.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, they want to get in the NBA now, too.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. Yep. I would like them not to do that. Yeah, I kind of like that. The NFL keeps telling them to go off.

[Podcast Host]

NBA is going through some stuff right now.

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, NBA is going. I mean, the, the whole poker scandal.

[Podcast Host]

Poker and sports betting.

[Mike Nellis]

Poker and sports betting. Is it. Is it sports betting? Are they shaving points? I haven't fallen.

[Podcast Host]

So there's two different charges. So Half of it's poker. They were rigging games with, like, glasses or whatever and card readers.

[Mike Nellis]

They were rigging it with glasses, like, with metal glasses.

[Podcast Host]

One of the players could see the cards.

[Mike Nellis]

That's incredible.

[Podcast Host]

And then allegedly. But when it's the feds, we kind of know, like, they got a lot of evidence.

[Mike Nellis]

Well, this version of the federal government, I don't know.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Cash Patel shown his ass more than a few times. But I do think, like, this is the kind of thing they're probably right about.

[Podcast Host]

Well, the timing of that seemed weird because NBA just started and then he announced it.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So it just seemed very strategic.

[Mike Nellis]

Probably when the investigation was over with, I don't know. My dad is a. Is a 34 year veteran the FBI. He retired a few years ago. I try to separate out, like, again, like, Cash Patel is a politician. He runs the FBI. I don't think he's qualified for it, but I know that the men and women who work at the FBI are hardworking, trying to keep us safe, trying to root out criminals like this. So I want to trust that that investigation is right.

[Podcast Host]

Well, my view of the FBI is I've lost faith.

[Mike Nellis]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

Not entirely, but I just feel like there's a lot of weird stuff that goes on these days.

[Mike Nellis]

Like what?

[Podcast Host]

Like the Charlie Kirk thing. We don't have to get too conspiratorial, but.

[Mike Nellis]

No, let's get it. I want to talk about.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, it seemed fishy to me.

[Mike Nellis]

Like, you don't think. You don't. You don't think that guy killed Charlie Kirk?

[Podcast Host]

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[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, I mean I buy, I, I buy that that guy killed Charlie Kirk.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Mike Nellis]

Like I. So what was his name? Tyler Robinson.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

So I buy the Tyler Robinson killed Charlie Kirk. I don't buy some of the other stuff. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist. Those text messages are some of the weirdest I've ever seen. The text messages, if you've never seen them folks, please look them up. They're literally like, hello my love. I have murdered Charlie Kirk. I have left the at the following longitude and latitude for the FBI to find. They're so weird. But there is a conspiracy theory like the other way of that. So there's the one version is the FBI made those texts to whatever blame it on liberals or whatever it is. But the reverse side of it is I've seen this from MAGA world a lot is that it's a Walter White, Skyler White situation from Breaking Bad where they sent those texts specifically so the FBI would have them later to make it look like the partner didn't do it. So I don't, I don't know. And part of this goes back to a fundamental problem of trust. You want to be able to trust the head of the FBI. You want to be able to trust the president states when something goes wrong and they have to go. Like when 911 happened, George W. Bush had to go up and lead the nation through a terrible time. Imagine 911 happening with Donald Trump as president right now. Half of people wouldn't believe him just because he lies about everything. And I think probably the bottom 25% of MAGA World would probably not believe him just because they're conspiracy theory related that's been just allowed to foment. So I think you have a huge issue. So cash during the Charlie Kirk investigation, announcing twice that they already had the shooter was an aggressively stupid thing to do because now I won't trust him.

[Podcast Host]

That's what I mean, right?

[Mike Nellis]

And then two weeks later he had that shooting at Dallas where there was, somebody started firing at, they claimed it was firing at ICE agents. They murdered three migrants. And then like within an hour of that shooting, Kash Patel posted a photo and said that the shooter had anti ice ideology on the bullet. And then the person had just written the word anti ICE on the bullet. And like, I'll be honest with you, I don't buy the hell out of that. I don't buy that at all. Because I just don't think a regular person or any person writes anti ice. Maybe fuck ice, maybe abolish ice, something like that. But I don't think they ever write anti ice. Yeah, this feels fishy to me. And again, if he was somebody you could trust, who had earned that trust, who knew what they were doing, an adult in the room, you might go, all right, that's weird. But I trust you. But I don't have that trust.

[Podcast Host]

I don't have it right now. And that. And we're leaving out the Epstein stuff, too. I mean, we could do a whole hour on Epstein. Yeah, that's what first, like, affected my trust levels, and then Charlie then just took it up a notch. But the Epstein stuff was crazy.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I mean, the thing about the Epstein stuff is, like, look, I don't know what Donald Trump did or didn't do. I don't know what these billionaires did or didn't do. They've decided that not releasing the Epstein files is better than this situation. So right now they're making a choice that if you see what's in there, it's worse than, like, this whole scandal of not knowing and the backtracking and the weird letter. And, like, this is not a good political situation for them. And it goes back to my fundamental critique of the Trump administration is the only thing that they care about is protecting and enriching themselves. And Donald Trump wants to keep himself safe. He wants to keep himself out of prison. Donald Trump wants to put money in his pocket. He wants to keep his billionaire friends out of jail, too. And I think really think that's all that it is. But the Epstein scandal is so indicative of the broader problem in America, which is wealthy, rich people never held accountable for their crimes. Never. And I go back to the wall. This is one criticism I have of Barack Obama, and I have a ton of respect for Barack Obama. I'm very proud to have worked for him back in the day. But they should have held people accountable for the Wall street crisis. Like, tens of millions of Americans lost their homes. Do you know how many people went to prison for the Wall street scandal?

[Podcast Host]

Zero.

[Mike Nellis]

I think it might be one guy. It was like, one guy went to prison. It was ridiculous. Do you know how many people have gone to prison for the Epstein stuff? One person, Julian Maxwell. I mean, Epstein died in prison, so he was never found guilty of anything. So, like, I have a hard time believing that. You have these two massive scandals, and they're very different in their scale where there's only two people who are ever responsible for that. That's insane to me.

[Podcast Host]

That is insane. Yeah. The crisis. There should have been hundreds of people locked up for that 100 crisis.

[Mike Nellis]

Yep. And there should probably be hundreds of people who knew what was going on with Epstein. And I don't think it's a Democratic or Republican thing. I think there's probably plenty of Democrats on there. I'd be happy to kick the hell out of anybody in that manifest. And at a minimum, anybody who was there should have to explain why they were there.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

And go. Yeah, I was on the plane. I didn't know what it was. I was networking or I was trying to get a grant because Epstein provided a lot of grants, like science and arts.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. He was tapped in with Harvard. Right, Right.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I mean, he. I mean, he was a savvy guy. He understood how to use money. He was a gross piece of shit and an abuser of young men and young women. But, you know, we need to expose this stuff. Like, I feel like this is why people don't engage in the American political system. They just think everything is corrupt and rigged and it allows for somebody like Trump to get elected because Trump is, in my view, the most corrupt president in American history. But most Americans actually give him credit for how corrupt he is because he's so brazen. They go, at least he's doing it out in the open, unlike all these other politicians. And, like, I kind of get that. It drives me crazy.

[Podcast Host]

I kind of get it.

[Mike Nellis]

Honestly, it makes you sort of respect him a little bit.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Because at least you're seeing what he's doing and he's saying he's going to do it and he's doing it.

[Mike Nellis]

Right.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Rather than, like, you find out 10 years later this guy took a deal behind.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. Or, you know, like. Or protect it. You know, I think what happens with a lot of politicians is they protect certain industries, and then when their careers are over, they go lobby for them for 15 years. And, like, that's a form of corruption and bribery that I think could be outlawed in this country and it would be good.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I know you're on the fundraising side, too. I'm sure you've seen a lot of wild stuff.

[Mike Nellis]

Oh, I mean, I mean, I've raised over probably at this point, a billion and a half dollars. Democrat candidates, all through, like, low dollar, small dollar contributions.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, really?

[Mike Nellis]

No, I don't do big donor stuff at all. So it's all 5, $10 increments.

[Podcast Host]

And you were able to raise over a billion dollars.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, over a billion dollars. Like, I worked for Bernie Sanders in 2016.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Mike Nellis]

Campaign. And I've worked with a whole bunch of others. Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer, who's the governor of Michigan, Adam Schiff, who's the senator from California. And I love. I've loved grassroots donors my whole career because I think that the biggest problem in Washington is that corporate PACs and lobbyists and rich billionaires control everything that happens there. Now you've reached a situation where 40, 50% of fundraising for Democratic candidates comes from small dollar donors. So regular people have as much say, I think, in what Democrats are willing, are able to do in Washington as rich people. Now, the challenge is there's not like, one group of people lobbying for them, so the impact of that isn't as effective. But if we could get to a point where, if it were me, I would make my job useless, I would just. I would ban my job altogether simply because I would make campaigns publicly financed, really, you should be able to. You want to run for Congress, you should go to your community. There should be some kind of metric for how many petitions you need to get signed. You get those petitions signed to show that you are a viable candidate in your community. Let's say it's 5,000 or something like that. You get that done, and then the government gives you, whatever, $250,000 to run your campaign, and that's it. And that's what a lot of other, like, western democracies do.

[Podcast Host]

I like that.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I think it'd be much, much better.

[Podcast Host]

I think there should be a cap to make it fair, too.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I think there should be no super specific PAC spending. I would ban that. I think the idea that money is speech is ridiculous.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Like the idea that Jeff Bezos can have whatever, 300,000 times more influence on our politics that I do is ridiculous.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. These companies have gotten so big lately that they have so much influence. Right. On politics.

[Mike Nellis]

And they carry so much cash, too. I mean, Apple carries, like, an incredible amount of cash, you know, But, I mean, you have billionaires that you've never even heard of that are some of the most powerful players in Washington. People that are just pulling the strings. And by the way, they're pulling the strings for both parties. And I think that's wrong. And I. What I loved about, like, Bernie's campaign in 2016 is, like, all of his money, he raised $300 million. All of it came from people. Given the average donation was 27 bucks.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Mike Nellis]

And so part of the reason, like, you know, you can feel however you want about Bernie Sanders, and I tend to love Bernie, and I tend to agree with him the most on, like, economic populism, because I think we need a lot more of that in this country. I think we're like, capitalism is not bad. I'm a capitalist myself. I'm not, like, again, I'm an entrepreneur like you. So, like, I've benefited from capitalism, but unfettered capitalism is bad for people. Like, when we're allowing people to make so much money at the top, you're just leaving people fighting for scraps. And I would argue 80% of Americans are just fighting for table scraps.

[Podcast Host]

They live paycheck to paycheck, right?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. They're lucky if they're living paycheck to paycheck. Right now, the number of people who are financing their lunch orders on klarna or using GoFundMe to get groceries is, like, through the roof. I think Klarna at this point is basically a Ponzi scheme.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Mike Nellis]

I think it's like those CDOs. If you ever watched the Big Short.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Where they explain how the CEOs work. I feel like that's Klarna.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Mike Nellis]

And just like, if you look at their. Like, their financials, I think Klarna lost something. Like, I'm gonna get the number wrong. People are gonna get mad at me. I think it was. It was like, millions of dollars they lost. Just an insane.

[Podcast Host]

So they're not even profitable.

[Mike Nellis]

They're not even profitable because people are defaulting on their loans. They're not paying.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Mike Nellis]

It's only gonna get worse. Like, I actually genuinely think the government have to bail out Klarna.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap. Yeah. Afterpay is another one too.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. After pay. Yeah. There's a couple of them. I've never. I've never used them.

[Podcast Host]

I bought my eight sleep mattress on it because there was zero percent interest. So how did they make money?

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, I. Well, they. I think they make money off of it, don't they? Take a cut. I've never used it, so I don't actually know.

[Podcast Host]

The one I did was zero percent interest.

[Mike Nellis]

That might be because you had good credit.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Mike Nellis]

I think. I think that's what it is. So, like, I bought, you know, I bought a car, I don't know, five, six years ago, and they offered me a zero percentage. I mean, it's possible that wherever you bought it from, had a deal with Klarna. I don't quite, I don't know, 100 now. Klarna works. But I know that those tools are specifically designed for people that don't have good credit because otherwise you just get a credit card and you pay it back a month.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting. Try to get your points this morning with the Israel stuff. I mean, you were the one that broke it to me, but crazy, right?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. Well, I mean, look, for those that haven't seen it at the time that we're recording this, like, Israel is currently launching airstrikes on Gaza again. And I've been saying this for the last couple of weeks, like, Trump bringing the hostages home from Israel is phenomenal news. Like, I think it was the remaining like 20 hostages. Joe Biden brought something like 80 back. Like, it's good that they're home and I'm super happy with that. The, there was a four part peace plan here. Part one was bringing the hostages home. Parts two, three and four involved Hamas demilitarizing stepping down as the government holding free and fair elections, like withdraw. And then Israel withdrawing from parts of, of the occupied territories that they've taken. Right. And I watched MAGA influencers just go, Trump has brought peace to the Middle East. Everything's great. Look at this amazing art of the deal. And I kept going, Hamas hasn't agreed to any of that. They just agreed to bring the hostages home. And so I think we're in a moment where Trump is just doing what he always does, which is over promising and under delivering. So again, good that he brought the hostages home. I'm not gonna like shit on him for that. It's an amazing thing. But he didn't close the deal on this. And so now Israel is aggressively attacking Gaza again. I mean, Hamas, I think has been pretty violent themselves too. I do not, I'm not a Hamas supporter. I think they're a terrorist organization. So that does not excuse the genocide that is happening in Israel, to be clear. But. And the starvation, by the way, the starvation is horrific in Gaza. But, you know, this is not. Donald Trump has not delivered peace in the Middle East. And I get a little bit frustrated just from like a critique of the way the Internet is now when you log on. And like everything that Donald Trump does is either like amazingly good, the best thing ever. It's the worst thing ever. Like, there are things that he does that are okay, yeah. But when I watch MAGA influencers go, peace in our time. And they did this again with. When Trump invited Putin to Alaska, he brought a brutal Dictator to American soil in an attempt to get peace with Ukraine. And if you would listen to Fox News and every MAGA influencer that day, they were like, donald Trump is ending the Ukraine war. It's going to be the best peaceful golden age of America. And Putin made him look like a jackass, in my opinion. And we got nothing from it. And like a few days later, he literally bombed an American factory in Ukraine. And a few weeks later, he started drone. Not like fucking with drones in Poland. Right. Because he's just testing his power. So I think we continue to just look like. We look like the weakest we've ever been on the national stage, international stage.

[Podcast Host]

He has said he. He made peace with seven wars though, right?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, it's horseshit.

[Podcast Host]

Have you looked into those?

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, I mean, he can't name him.

[Podcast Host]

I can't.

[Mike Nellis]

No. I mean, I think he was. I forget which two countries it was, but it was like Armenia and Turkmenistan or something like that. And they, the two world leaders, they'd never been at war. The two world leaders were meeting at some conference and they were caught on a hot mic making fun of how ridiculous it was.

[Podcast Host]

No way.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. So, I mean, again, he just lies about everything. And I'll tell you one of the worst that he claims that he ended. So India and Pakistan had some hostilities earlier this year, and, you know, Marco Rubio stepped in and a bunch of others stepped in, and they were able to end that conflict. Good. I got no problem with that. The issue that I have with it is that's the type of conflict that never happens with strong American power in the world today. If America was strong, if we had a president that people feared, if we had a military that people feared, if we had hard power, which is our military, soft power, which is our relationships and our ability to move money and resources, then India and Pakistan are never going to go to war like that. They're never going to have that skirmish because we're going to be able to stop it before they happen. And I believe under Reagan's administration, Bush's administration first, Bush second, Bush, Clinton, Obama, they were all able to stop conflicts that none of us know about because they had those relationships to prevent them from happening. And I think with Trump, you have a lot more things that are breaking out and then they're stopping them after the fact, and it's because they can't stop them. Yeah, they either don't have the relationships or we lack the soft power. Like, let's remember USAID for a second. One of the Very first things they did was they completely dismantled usaid. You can feel however you want about usaid. You can feel whatever you want about money that gets moved over from the United States to other countries. You can talk about America first. I get that the value of the soft power, of being able to provide financial resources to other countries is the influence we have in moments when we need it. And so all the initiatives that. And by the way, I'm sure that there was a ton of wasteful spending in the government. I'm sure that there was a ton of, like, stupid shit I got asked once about. I think it was, like, Irish folk dancing lessons that some. Some the USA had paid for. And I was like, I don't know. It sounds stupid, but, like, you know, I'd have to talk to the person who, like, approved it. Like, maybe there was a reason for it, but, you know, so stupid. And. But, like, all those programs, like, in Africa that they cut, they're not gone. The money's being filled by China. So China is ascendant on the world stage right now because they're spending more money, they're getting cozier with everybody. They're doing more trade because of the tariffs. And do you feel safer in a world where China is stronger? Do you feel safer in a world where Russia is more emboldened militarily? I don't. I don't. And I think that's why it's important. I think what you want to talk about Democrats for a second. Democrats spent that whole time going, it's so horrible what's happening to these kids in Africa. And it's so horrible what's happening for this and that and the other thing. And they tug at your heartstrings. And don't get me wrong, they're right about that. It is terrible. But we need to explain to people why these things matter to them in their lives. If we don't have strong, soft power in the United States, if we don't have a president that people either fear or trust or have relationships with or have, you know, qualified diplomats who can go out there and do it, we're a lot less safe. And we're more likely to have conflict, breakout. Like, it's unacceptable that Putin violated the airspace of a NATO ally, and we're not even talking about it right now. It happened the day before Charlie Kirk got assassinated. I think we'd be talking about it more.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Mike Nellis]

If Kirk had not been assassinated, it would have probably been the biggest story of that week.

[Podcast Host]

But I didn't even know that happened.

[Mike Nellis]

Fate. Fate stepped in the way. I don't. I don't know how else to describe it as horrible.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap. Yeah. No one talks about Doge anymore, too.

[Mike Nellis]

No. Well, I mean, Doge is effectively. Doge is a massive failure. And this goes back to something I said at the beginning of the podcast. Like, Trump is really good. Excuse me, at identifying the problems that are in this country that politicians want to talk about. So Trump is right. There's a ton of waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. Just a ton of it. There would have to be. It's a massive bureaucracy.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Mike Nellis]

My guess is if I started looking at Amazon's books, I would.

[Podcast Host]

Any big company.

[Mike Nellis]

Any big company. I mean, you and I know probably fraud. Not fraud, but absolutely no fraud in our companies. There's probably some waste in our businesses. You know, like, it's human capital. Like, people are going to fuck up or things are going to change. You might have a job that people don't need anymore. They need to evolve into something else, like, that's real. So I think the idea of Doge is not a bad idea. Like, go in, work together, both parties, try to figure out, where's money that we can save? Where can we redirect it? Where are their efficiencies? Like, the government is completely inefficient. Completely. Like, I mean, I think it's ridiculous. People argue that it's not. I do think the government is more a force for good than bad in the country, but there's plenty of things. Like, as a small business owner, there's plenty of times that government gets in the way. I think there's a ton of regulations that just don't make sense. And it's okay to, like, acknowledge that. The problem is they take it too far. So what Doge did, those was just indiscriminately cutting people, many of whom they had to hire back. They were cut. They cut programs for, like, cancer research for kids. Like, that seems like a pretty important thing I want the government spending money on because, you know, frankly, these pharmaceutical companies, there's not a lot of money for them to make from, like, curing kids cancer, which I think is insane to me. But we want the government, like, funding research like that so that we can and prevent these things from happening. I want to make sure that, like, the government is making sure we have clean water and clean air and that the shit that they put in my food isn't. This is why, like, I agree with, like, the bottom third of what RFK Jr wants to do, like. There's like, get the. Get the red dye out. Okay, I'm with you. You know that they put a lot of shit in our chemicals. Then he'll, like, go off and be like, well, circumcision causes autism. Well, you're a fucking lunatic. Tylenol, right? This is, you know, acetaminophen. Can you say it? Do you know how to pronounce it?

[Podcast Host]

No.

[Mike Nellis]

Donald Trump. Donald Trump can't pronounce it.

[Podcast Host]

I can't pronounce you ever.

[Mike Nellis]

Have you seen the clip of him trying to do it?

[Podcast Host]

I haven't.

[Mike Nellis]

He's just like, I'll do my bad Trump personage for a cena. Meta. Is it right? What are we doing? Aceda. Meta. Pasipina. Pedal on. Like, I just. It's ridiculous, but I don't want politicians making medical decisions. I don't want them making the decisions of, like, you know what with Doge, again, it's like they were just cutting things indiscriminately, and I just don't think that that makes a lot of sense. But again, he's right. And Democrats had this reflexive problem of, oh, let me defend every bureaucracy in the federal government, which doesn't make any fucking sense.

[Podcast Host]

That Tylenol announcement. I remember they hyped it up the day before Trump tweeted, like, huge announcement tomorrow. I was like, oh, what is this about? And then I saw it was about Tylenol. I was like, wow, that's. That's interesting.

[Mike Nellis]

And they. They have no evidence that Tylenol causes autism. None. The biggest study that's ever been done has found that there's no link between the two.

[Podcast Host]

None. It was for pregnant woman, right? Taking.

[Mike Nellis]

It was for pregnant women who were taking it. And there was, like a. There was a massive trial that was done, and there's just no evidence of it. So again, they're making. RFK Jr. Believes in a lot of weird shit, and some of it's right. But, you know, and I say this, like, people are going to look at me and they're going to go, well, you're like a big guy, Mike. Like, you don't know anything about being healthy. Well, I used to weigh 600 pounds, and I would frame it to you this way. Like, I got addicted to what's in the food that we had. Like, I'm a food addict in America. I'm not a food addict when I'm, like, overseas, because it's not filled with additives, and that, like, makes me want to eat it. But, like, I'm a food addict in the United States, and because of that, I allowed myself to get to 600 pounds, amongst other things that happen. I've now lost about 300. So I'm at a much more normal ish weight. And I have a long way to go, so I want to see the government work on that. RFK Jr. Has a lot to say about beef tallow and fries. He has a lot to say about Tylenol. He has nothing to say about added sugar in our food. And added sugar is probably the greatest creator of cancer in the United States today. Wow. Because added sugar is just pumped in everything. Not only that, but then the. The replacements and the. What's the thing they put in? Diet Coke that is that. Yeah. I can't remember.

[Podcast Host]

I don't even drink soda.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I try not to drink too much of it.

[Podcast Host]

I don't remember.

[Mike Nellis]

I forget what it's called. Whatever that fake sugar is. Dextrose, stuff like that.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Stevia, things like that. Damn.

[Podcast Host]

£600. Was there a specific moment where you're like, I need to get my shit together?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I was so. I'd been so focused on work that I was basically trying to kill myself with food. Is just what I realized.

[Podcast Host]

Stress eating or.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, stress eating. But I would also just eat when I was happy. It was like any emotion, natural response just to eat. And, you know, I drank a lot, too. In my twenties. I drank a lot. I think the only reason I'm still alive, that I stopped drinking when I was like, 26. So I really, very rarely. I'll drink like a Guinness is the only thing I do. Guinness, by the way, to an Irishman, is not alcohol, just a loaf of bread. But, you know, I was at my brother's wedding. He asked me to be the best man and stand up there with him, and I physically couldn't stand.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I'll show you a photo when we're done of what I looked like when I was £600, but I couldn't stand, and I had to make an excuse to sit down. And I was really embarrassed. And I wrote this plan on my phone that is titled Hot by 40 and just as, like a bit. And I've been, like, slowly working at it every single day. Respect is about four years ago, dude.

[Podcast Host]

Respect. That's awesome, man.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

What. What weight are you trying to get to?

[Mike Nellis]

I'm trying to get to, like, I think like 250, 40. And then probably what I have to do is I'm Going to have a lot of like excess skin I'm going to have to have removed. Like when you've lost that much weight, you just kind of have to do reconstructive surgery.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. You were dealing with some mental health stuff too, right?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. Anxiety, depression, loneliness. A lot of things that, like, a lot of men are going through right now. And I think we have like an epidemic of these things. And I never see either political party talk about them, period. But I think we're in this environment where people have never been more connected, but we've never been more isolated from one another. Like, that digital connection is not real.

[Podcast Host]

It's not the same.

[Mike Nellis]

No, it's not.

[Podcast Host]

That's why I do as many pods as I can.

[Mike Nellis]

I was actually really impressed when you invited me to do this in person. Part of the reason I did was I watched your show and I was like, you know what? I want to meet this guy and I want to do this in person. And I think we'll get like a better vibe and energy than if we do it 100%.

[Podcast Host]

It's always way better.

[Mike Nellis]

I hate that. Like, so I have my substack, it's called endless Urgency for folks who want to check it out. And I do most of them online. And they're good, they're fun, I enjoy them, I get a nice little feel from them. But I did my first in person interview. We rented a studio in Chicago and had Congressman Maxwell Frost, who was in town, do it with us. I got more energy from that than any other time I've ever done.

[Podcast Host]

Exactly.

[Mike Nellis]

More fun, more interesting, more vibes. Built a better relationship with him. We're building a content studio for that reason. And so I think for me was I had untreated personal and professional traumas that then manifested in a massive anxiety disorder and massive depression. It funneled its way through food. I never like cut myself or anything like that, but I do think I was suicidal in those years. And it all kind of culminated in a situation where I was so big I couldn't go do anything. I was married and I was with my wife. We were watching the same five TV shows on repeat. It was like Parks and Recreation, the office.

[Podcast Host]

Good place.

[Mike Nellis]

We just cycle through. And that wasn't real meaningful connection. It wasn't really a life. And I got lucky that when the pandemic hit, we had just moved to Chicago. We had a one year old baby boy who I love to death. And about halfway through the pandemic, I had the worst anxiety attack in my life because I literally hadn't talked to another human being other than my wife in person for, like, six months because I've been trapped inside.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

And that. That fucks you up. And the good news is I had such a bottoming out in that moment that I was able to get the help that I needed. And then I spent the better part of that year, like, getting my head right and building some real mental toughness, building some real understanding of, like, okay, I got to let some things go. Like, I was mad at my dad about shit that happened 30 years ago. I was mad at, like, a boss that happened for something 10 years ago. I was holding on to a. Less of. When you hold on to that, you hold it on for somebody else. Oh, yeah, you hold it. You're really, like. You're polluting yourself. You think you're punishing that person, but you're punishing yourself.

[Podcast Host]

No, it's worse for yourself. Honestly.

[Mike Nellis]

Honestly. Yeah. I mean, I think. I think that, like, it's sort of. It's sort of the opposite of grief. You know, grief is considered a negative emotion. But what. Grief is just the expression of the love that you can't give. That's really what that is. And I think that, like, holding onto that kind of. That the hate that I had, or whatever you want to call it, just sort of. Just sort of the opposite. So it polluted me, and then it took me a year to get my head right. And then. I've always described it this way. It's like I was sort of climbing out of a deep, dark hole where I couldn't see myself or understand what I'd done to myself. And then when I got my head to a place where I'm the guy you see before you today, like, mentally, I looked in the mirror and I was like, holy, I'm £600. I might want to do something about that.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. So I'm lucky to be alive.

[Podcast Host]

Dude. Thanks for being so open about that. I know that wasn't easy. I dealt with some really bad mental stuff, too. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

And you're on the other side of it or you feel like.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I was on Xanax. I was, like, having a panic attack as soon as I left the house. Some of those panic attacks feel like heart attacks.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. Have you ever had one where you're, like, literally outside your body?

[Podcast Host]

Oh, no, that's not.

[Mike Nellis]

I used to get them where, like, I felt like I was outside my body. I could literally see myself.

[Podcast Host]

It's good. Out of body.

[Mike Nellis]

Crazy shit.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Nellis]

I assume that that was like a made up TV thing about being out of your body.

[Podcast Host]

No. I know people that have had those, but I've never heard it from a panic attack.

[Mike Nellis]

It's crazy. I could like see myself, like right here, as if there was like a camera on me down here. I could see it.

[Podcast Host]

So the pain was so much or you had to disassociate?

[Mike Nellis]

I literally dissociated from my body.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

In the middle of like a conference caller is getting yelled at by a client.

[Podcast Host]

No way.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Geez.

[Mike Nellis]

It was nuts, dude.

[Podcast Host]

So that brought out a spiritual side to you too?

[Mike Nellis]

I don't recommend it. Yeah, I don't recommend it. It pushed me closer to my faith, honestly, as a practicing Catholic.

[Podcast Host]

Well, respect, man, that's awesome.

[Mike Nellis]

Well, we do have a soul. It can leave your body.

[Podcast Host]

You feeling optimistic about the midterms and 28 presidential election.

[Mike Nellis]

But, you know, before we get that, we've got elections coming up next week. So we've got Virginia, New Jersey, a lot of little local jerseys.

[Podcast Host]

Looking close.

[Mike Nellis]

I don't think it'll be close.

[Podcast Host]

You don't think so?

[Mike Nellis]

If I had to guess, I think she wins by eight, but maybe more than that.

[Podcast Host]

Last poll I saw was tied.

[Mike Nellis]

I'm skeptical, but, you know, whatever. It's recorded now, so I'm going to get, you know, everybody. Everybody can fucking wreck me if I'm wrong. I don't know that it'll be that close.

[Podcast Host]

I grew up in Jersey, so.

[Mike Nellis]

Did you. I do a lot of Jersey work. I'm not working on the race right now, but I. I don't think it's gonna be that close. I think we're gonna be in an okay position. I don't want to get like, overly confident because like, you never know. And I've been overly confident in the past and been surprised, but I think the Democrats are gonna win these, these statewide elections. I think the one that's the most interesting to me is Virginia Attorney General because the Democratic candidate said some stupid shit in a text message and you know about. He basically made. I don't know if you've seen it, but you know, you know the office meme where it's like, if I had to. If I was in a room with Hitler, bin Laden and Toby. Yeah, two bullets. I'd shoot Toby twice. He basically made that joke, but about a Republican member of the legislature, which you should not fucking do. Like, it's offensive, expensive. And so he's getting a lot of hell for that. And the people are going to decide whether or not that's disqualifying or not. So I think that's the most interesting race that's going to come out.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. I always assume my text calls are being monitored.

[Mike Nellis]

Oh, 100.

[Podcast Host]

You just got to move that way these days.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, I mean, I mean, you got.

[Podcast Host]

To live kind of a thing, especially in our space. Right.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. I. Anytime I put anything in writing, I'm living on the front page of the New York Times.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. You just got to assume like, you have an audience.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. The one, the one benefit to me is like, I'm not full of shit. Like, you'll get a lot of. I mean, I think you've had some good guests like Adam and Harry and stuff like that, but like, you'll get politicians that'll come in here and do this and like, they don't know what they believe, so they're just like resuscitating talking points. It's just most boring. Like, like I know what I believe. So, like, if you and I, if you turned off the mic right now and we weren't recording, we'd have the same conversation.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Right now, if we were at a bar with a beer, we'd be having the same conversation. Like, I'm the same. I. My dad had a phrase that I've now co opted. When I would tell my dad, he's being an. He goes, well, at least I'm the same in every room. And I'm like, that's how I feel. Like, same in every room.

[Podcast Host]

What percentage of politicians you've. You've worked with would you say were authentic? Like they actually, like, off camera, they were talking about the same stuff.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. So I would kind of bucket it in a three different, different times of types of clients that I've worked with is like ones who are true believers. They have something that they have to say that they got to get off their chest that they believe in. They have a worldview that they want that is probably 15.

[Podcast Host]

That's it.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, I think it's way less than you think.

[Podcast Host]

Not a lot.

[Mike Nellis]

Then there's like, I would say the like, large group and this is probably like, you know, 70% we'll say is a lot of people who like, they kind of believe what they do, but like, they don't really, they're not like, they don't really know. They're just like running for the next thing, you know. Like I, you know, they'll be like, I built this business and I sold it. Now I'm running for Congress. Oh, I ran for Congress. Now I'm running for Senate because that's the next thing to do. And I want to get to the next cocktail party. Like you get a lot of them in the middle where they don't know. Or it's like, Yeah, I was 26 and I really believed and I got elected to city council. And now I'm just like on this career trajectory. And so then that. Those are the career politicians you get frustrated with. And then the other 15% is like, they believe in something, but they won't tell you what it is. And those are the people who scare the hell out of because they believe in something. And it's like, like, you know, they're there to. They're going to say everything right. You get a lot of them and say everything right. And then when they vote or when they're in the room, they're not advocating for that. And I think the best example for that to me is J.D. vance. J.D. vance scares the hell out of me. There's a predictability in Trump because Trump really only believes in one thing, it's himself. And so you can kind of predict what he's going to do. And very rarely am I shocked by him anymore. I'm just kind of like, yeah, like he takes 400 million dollar bribe. I'm like, yeah, okay, I get it. I know, I know what I'm getting with him. Which any Vance, that guy believes something, I just don't know what it is. And that scares the hell out of me more.

[Podcast Host]

There are some. I know you're not in the conspiracies, but there are some interesting theories on.

[Mike Nellis]

The Peter Thiel stuff.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, the Palantir. I'm sure you've seen them.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, I'm aware of them. I mean, Peter Thiel's another one.

[Podcast Host]

That's an interesting rabbit hole. Yeah, I watch, I watch a lot of different creators. I watch Candace Fuentes and all these guys just to see what's, what's the word?

[Mike Nellis]

I can't stand Fuentes.

[Podcast Host]

You don't like him?

[Mike Nellis]

No, no. Well, he's like, he's a complete and total white supremacist.

[Podcast Host]

Did you see him on Taco yesterday?

[Mike Nellis]

The only clip that I've seen of it is Tucker Carlson saying he was sorry he called him gay.

[Podcast Host]

Funny, they both accuse each other being feds. That was a fun one.

[Mike Nellis]

I mean, there's a whole network of like all of them. Like, I think, you know, There's. Was it the 90s, like it was Kobe and Shaq and they, they they talked about. They've. Shaq has talked about this a lot because Kobe's obviously gone now. He died in the helicopter crash. But Shaq was like, oh, yeah, we were, like, best friends. Like, we were like teammates. We were in on all of it. But, like, all the tabloids were, like, how they were fighting with one another, hated one another, and they were just creating content. That's all they're doing. So I. If I had to guess, like, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, maybe the feud started legit, but they know they're going to come together. You know, Candace Owens is, like, feuding with TPUSA right now. Like, Candace Owens has gone full conspiracy theory on the government killed Charlie Kirk, which is all crazy.

[Podcast Host]

Crazy.

[Mike Nellis]

I don't. I don't know. I. I don't know. I mean, you. I mean, you're kind of a lot closer to believing it than I am, but I don't know.

[Podcast Host]

The government killed him. I don't. I don't know who killed him. I just don't buy the main narrative.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. You know, I. I don't know. I don't know. That's why trust is important again.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

But, you know, I think these guys like to sort of, like, create their own, like, celebrity feuds. You know, it's like, didn't Kim Kardashian do this with somebody, like, she was fighting with? I forget.

[Podcast Host]

Who was it? Ray J or someone else?

[Mike Nellis]

I don't follow any of it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I don't.

[Mike Nellis]

Married to Kanye, so I don't like.

[Podcast Host]

The celebrity gossip, but.

[Mike Nellis]

No, I want to say it was, like, Kim Kardashian and Taylor Swift, but, like, I'm not sure it was Tay Tay.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Mike Nellis]

This is what people thought Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift was for a while. They thought.

[Podcast Host]

They thought they were faking it.

[Mike Nellis]

They were faking it forever.

[Podcast Host]

There was a contract that got leaked.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah. There's no way.

[Podcast Host]

No, there was. It was like, a fake contract. Yeah.

[Mike Nellis]

Okay. I was, like.

[Podcast Host]

Got leaked.

[Mike Nellis]

I've always been a believer you believe in.

[Podcast Host]

You're a swifty, huh?

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, I'm not. I'm not a swifty. I will. I'll tell you a story about being a swifty, though. I took my wife to see Taylor Swift. We were in London. We just happened to be there, and she's playing at Wembley, which, by the way, if you ever want to see a concert outside the United States, it's way cheaper.

[Podcast Host]

Wembley.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, it was at Wembley. I think we paid, like, 400 bucks. C. Taylor Swift. And, like, the going rate in Chicago was, like, 1600 bucks.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[Mike Nellis]

We go. And my wife is a huge Swifty, loves. She's all decked out. I'm wearing a Travis Kelsey jersey like a jackass. And we go. The show starts. I go get my wife a couple of. By the way, another thing about European concerts, you can just buy mixed drinks. So, like, I went to a bar, I got her, like, a rum and Coke or whatever it was. Tequila, coke, whatever she wanted. And I'm walking back, I'm holding two drinks, and this little British tween walks up to me and is like. And again, remember, I'm wearing a Travis Kelsey jersey, so I look like an asshole. And she's like, who dragged you here? And I'm like, nobody. I bought these tickets for my wife. She's like, oh, yeah, what's your favorite Taylor Swift album? And I go, evermore. And she goes, what's your favorite song on Evermore? And I go, no body, no crime. And I go, you know. And what's your friend's name in the song? Estee. She's a friend of mine. Tuesday night at Olive Garden, dinner at Glass of Wine. Like, I started singing the song, and she, like, scoffs and, like, walks away. And I was like, what, a little prank?

[Podcast Host]

That is nuts.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Her fans just vetted you out.

[Mike Nellis]

Yeah, completely vetted me out. I looked out of place.

[Podcast Host]

It's the first.

[Mike Nellis]

I told my wife. It's the first time I ever felt unsafe.

[Podcast Host]

That's funny, man. Well, safe flight back. Anything you got planned the rest of this year? Where could people find you and all that?

[Mike Nellis]

No, no, I mean, find me on substack, Endless Urgency dot com. You can also find me on any major social media platform. Him, Instagram, TikTok, et cetera.

[Podcast Host]

Awesome, man. Check out the links in the description, guys. See you next time. Next time you see him, he might be debating someone.

[Mike Nellis]

Peace, everybody.

[Podcast Host]

I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.