The Tide is Turning | Ep. 067 Lemonade Stand 🍋

Summary

Lemonade Stand Ep. 067 – "The Tide is Turning" | June 10, 2026

Podcast: Lemonade Stand
Hosts: Aiden, Atrioc, DougDoug
Network: Vox Media Podcast Network
Main Theme: A blend of lighthearted banter and deep dives into current business, tech, and political developments, viewed through the lens of three self-styled “lemonade stand” operators with business expertise.

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Episode Overview

This episode is a whirlwind tour through world affairs, business trends, tech news, gaming industry shakeups, political intrigue, and a uniquely detailed European election analysis—all in the trademark Lemonade Stand mix of wit, sarcasm, and insight. The central theme is the changing tides in global power dynamics: on the frontline in Ukraine, in the halls of central banks, across the console wars, and even in Nordic politics.

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Detailed Summary

1. Ukraine Turns the Tide: Drone Warfare & Shifting Power

[02:24 – 13:11]

• Major Update:
  Ukraine has started to make significant territorial gains against Russia, reversing what had been a multi-year stalemate. Such momentum is “completely unexpected, especially this late into a grindy war.” (Aiden, [10:12])

• Technological Leap:
  Ukraine seized a Russian position for the first time entirely via drones and robotic vehicles, with no soldiers present. “They captured a Russian army position…without a single human being there.” (Aiden, [03:37])

• Drone & Robotic Warfare:
  Ukraine is now seen as a world leader in drone technology, outpacing expectations and even US/European innovations. “Probably maybe the world leader right now…in drone technology.” (Aiden, [06:13])

• Russian Economic & Social Fallout:

  • “900,000, could be over a million young men have fled the country to avoid conscription.” (Aiden, [07:40])
  • “Having a war go for five years, there’s been a lot of masking the damage that does to the economy…but in a real sense you cannot throw hundreds of billions…and not have a deep cost.” (Aiden quoting Eisenhower, [08:12])

• Zelensky’s Open Letter to Putin:

  • Quoting Zelensky's open taunt to Putin:
    “Now the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians view it positively that our long-range drones paid a visit…in St. Petersburg…as you know very well, that distance is not the limit of our capabilities…” (Aiden, [09:06])
  • Directly urges Putin: “Do not be afraid to take the path out of this war…Ukraine has preserved its independence…” (Aiden, [11:06])

• International Impact:

  • Russia’s dependency on China deepens.
  • Countries in the Middle East now seek Ukraine for drone warfare training.
  • Head of NATO: “The strongest army in Europe right now is Ukraine…You should be talking to them because they’re going to help you modernize your military.” (Aiden, [12:03])

• Uncertain Future:
  Hosts emphasize the unpredictability—“every prediction’s been wrong so far.”

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2. Surveillance, AI, and the Russia-Iran Espionage Scare

[15:36 – 22:01]

• AI Espionage and the Limits of Surveillance:
  After Israeli hackers used Tehran’s own surveillance network to assassinate leaders, Russia is now disabling much of its 300,000-camera Moscow network out of fear. “They had to take all of [the cameras] down and only put them back up once they're disconnected from the Internet, which…makes them kind of useless.” (Doug, [16:04])

• AI & Pattern Matching:
  “The new thing is that if AI can process millions of hours of footage and you can just talk to it in English now, that's extraordinarily valuable.” (Doug, [17:14])

• Private Camera Risks:
  Even private security cameras (like Flock, Ring) are being widely hacked.
  “It's an interesting problem…The scale at which we are willingly installing cameras and them being available to people who choose to hack them in some capacity.” (Perry, [21:20])

• Democracy vs. Surveillance:
  Dictatorships with massive surveillance now face new vulnerabilities—“a massive liability they probably need to shut down.” (Doug, [19:53])

• Societal Trade-offs:
  Is the disappearance of crime worth surveillance? “It depends who holds the camera power, honestly.” (Aiden, [22:01])

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3. Gold vs. US Treasuries: The Great Reserve Shift

[23:31 – 32:54]

• Major Financial Trend:
  Gold surpasses US Treasuries as the world’s top reserve asset for the first time since the 1990s.
  “Gold, collectively as the country's reserves, has hit 27% globally…[US Treasuries] have fallen…to like 24% this year.” (Perry, [23:57])

• The Russia-Ukraine War’s Ripple Effects:
  US freezing of Russian reserves caused nations (China, India, Turkey) to buy up gold, fearing the US could do the same to them.

• Why It Matters:
  “Central banks used to be the safest and most reliable purchaser of U.S. debt…Now a larger percentage of their reserves are going to gold. So they're not buying as much debt.” (Aiden, [28:38])

• Imperial Overreach Parallel:
  “Great empires fall as they continue to spend an extraordinary amount of money on war…inevitably, draw debt in order to fuel that…eventually, people are no longer willing to buy it anymore.” (Perry, [30:44])

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4. SBF’s Wild Investment “What Ifs” and the Trump Pardon Angle

[36:14 – 41:21]

• SBF’s Pardon Bid:
  Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) submits an official pardon request from Trump and tweets pro-Trump to build goodwill.
  “He’s been doing a lot of pro-Trump tweets to like build the case…” (Aiden, [36:14])

• If He Wasn’t Caught:
  SBF’s venture bets (Anthropic, SpaceX, Cursor) “would have made him $100 billion richer had he stayed out of prison.” (Aiden, [39:32])

• Politics of Pardons:
  Trump’s repeated pardons for major financial fraudsters—sometimes in explicit pay-for-pardon schemes.

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5. California Elections & Vote-Counting 'Fraud' Theories

[42:43 – 51:08]

• Runoff Surprises:
  L.A. mayoral and California gubernatorial races are dogged by online conspiracy talk as mail-in ballots overturn initial in-person returns.
  “The first day when…the elections [results] were coming in, Karen Bass was winning and Spencer Pratt was in second place…then mail-in ballots are overwhelmingly for Nithya Raman, the super progressive candidate.” (Doug, [44:35])

• Mail-in Voting Reality:
  “80% of ballots are mail-in for a state of 40 million people…all the Democrats or young people or whatever…all mail in.” (Doug, [49:12])

• Satirical Fraud Alerts:
  Repeated spoofing of right-wing “fraud” rhetoric, and poking fun at fringe candidates like “Living for God and Country Demott,” who posts his passport photo as a campaign plank ([52:13]).

• Insider Anecdotes:
  Perry shares a friend’s tale about Spencer Pratt’s reality-TV-fueled finances: “He spent all of his [The Hills] money on things like starting the Crystal Store…then had to move back in with his dad.” (Perry, [54:03])

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6. Gaming Industry Shake-Up: Xbox, Console Wars, Valve, and the Price Squeeze

[55:19 – 67:44]

• New Xbox CEO Asha:
  Initial fan enthusiasm for reforms like lowering Game Pass prices, retro branding, and whispers of “Project Helix.”
  “There seems to be a general positive reaction from Xbox fans…But realistically, everything you listed is like deck chairs in the Titanic.” (Aiden, [58:49])

• Harsh Realities:
  Price hikes loom for all major consoles due to rising RAM/component costs; Valve’s new “Steam Machine” delayed for affordability.

• Exclusive Games as a Lost Era:
  “I do think the era of new exclusives is sort of over. You need an established, recognizable game character to get away with it.” (Perry, [65:49])

• Nintendo’s Success:
  Switch 2 sees best launch ever, even amid hardware market struggles ([64:17]).

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7. IPO Mania: AI Titans & Market Gatekeepers

[70:08 – 80:39]

• Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX IPOs:
  All three race for public listings. Discussion of “the era of the Omega IPO.”

• S&P 500 Guardrails Hold:
  “S&P did not change their rules…demanding a certain profitability in order to get listed.” (Perry, [77:10])
  “If you don't get listed in the S&P, that's trillions of dollars you're locked out of.” (Aiden, [78:03])

• NASDAQ Bends the Rules:
  For SpaceX, the “seasoning period” was dropped to 15 days, profitability requirement was waived—“for super mega cap.”

• AI Company Valuations:
  “SpaceX plus Anthropic plus OpenAI all combined is one-tenth of Walmart, but each is valued bigger than Walmart.” (Aiden, [79:51])

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8. Claude Fable 5: AI Breakthroughs and the Race for Revenue

[71:07 – 75:57]

• Claude (Anthropic) Releases Fable 5 Model:
  The model beats Pokémon Fire Red using only vision—“entirely through just analyzing what's on screen…able to…speedrun.” (Aiden, [72:28])

• AI Monetization Model:
  After June 22, Fable 5 moves to usage-based pricing, ending the flat subscription model—“the subsidized Uber model is like burning through enough cash for them.” (Aiden, [74:36])

• Competition from China:
  DeepSeek 4 is “very good and…so much cheaper.” (Doug, [75:23])

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9. Nordic Fun Fact: Denmark’s 2026 Election & Global Consequences

[89:43 – 102:10]

• Backdrop:
  Denmark’s Social Democrats stay in power via a coalition, with “Trump’s aggression in the second term” giving them a popularity bump after he threatened to invade Greenland. “They capitalized on this surge and gambled by calling an early election.” (Perry, [94:23])

• Result:
  The Social Democrats form a government with center and left parties—they had to make major concessions, notably launching free dental care.

• Meta:
  The hosts joke about their repeated resistance to the “Nordic fun fact,” noting US resistance to international stories unless disguised as Vermont politics.

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10. Lighter Bits & Running Jokes

[85:03 – 88:49]

• Uber Lost & Found Index:
  Top unusual items: breast milk, dentures, “70 tiramisu cakes,” even a wedding cake. “Maybe that's why the Switch is selling so well. They keep leaving them in Ubers.” (Aiden, [86:31])

• Lemonade Stand banter:
  Recurrent humor about Aiden’s “Nordic fun facts,” Doug’s election satire, and the trio’s irreverent chemistry.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “They captured a Russian army position…without a single human being there.” — Aiden, [03:37]
• “No one expected…Ukraine to become…one of the world leaders…in drone technology.” — Aiden, [06:13]
• “Trump keeps pardoning people who’ve done…massive financial fraud.” — Doug, [40:43]
• “Gold collectively as the country’s reserves has hit 27% globally…[US] Treasuries…down to 24%.” — Perry, [23:57]
• “Everything you listed is like…deck chairs on the Titanic, bro. Tiny.” — Aiden, [58:49]
• “Claude Fable 5…beat Pokémon Fire Red using only vision.” — Aiden, [72:22]

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [02:24] - War in Ukraine: Drone breakthroughs & Zelensky’s letter
• [15:36] - Russia/Iran: AI espionage scare and surveillance backfires
• [23:31] - Gold overtakes US Treasuries; empires and unsustainable debt
• [36:14] - SBF, Trump pardon speculation, and his venture investment “what-if”
• [42:43] - California election “fraud” discourse and the reality of mail-in voting
• [55:19] - Xbox, console market woes, Steam Machine, and the direction of gaming hardware
• [70:08] - Mega tech IPOs, S&P/NASDAQ rule changes, and the impact on markets
• [71:07] - Claude Fable 5 AI breakthrough, monetization pivot, global competition
• [89:43] - The Nordic Fun Fact: Denmark’s 2026 coalition and Trump’s unintended effect
• [85:03] - Uber Lost & Found: Weirdest items left in cars

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Tone & Language

• Entertaining, irreverent, and self-aware. Hosts blend genuine expertise with jokey, often profane asides, and aren’t afraid to lampoon business, tech, or themselves.
• Quotes retain original speaker’s wordings, including informal and sometimes sarcastic asides.
• Frequent banter and callbacks to running jokes (e.g., Nordic facts, candidate “Living for God and Country Demott”, console naming confusion).

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For Listeners:

If you missed the episode, this summary gives you a roadmap to Lemonade Stand’s signature blend of sharp analysis, current events, and comic rapport. From the frontlines in Ukraine to weird items lost to Uber, and from IPOs to the niche politics of Denmark, “The Tide is Turning” is a tour of the zeitgeist—past, present, and future.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Perry]

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[Doug]

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[Aiden]

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[Doug]

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[Perry]

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[Doug]

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[Perry]

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[Doug]

Visit RedBull.com BrightSummerAhead to learn more. See you this summer.

[Perry]

Welcome back to Lemonade Stand, everybody. Huge news this week. Wild N64 Sherbet Land World record finally broken in the no glitch category. A mind blowing new shroom strat used after 18 years atrion.

[Aiden]

So funny that you prefaced this intro by saying, hey, guys, pretend like you don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. So it's interesting. You think I'm supposed to. You think I would normally know what you're talking about?

[Perry]

Well, we said we were going to do the Mario Kart Wii Time Trials podcast this week.

[Doug]

We talk of Mario. Hold on. I. That am I. Oh, yeah.

[Aiden]

All right, explain it. What happened?

[Doug]

He.

[Perry]

He switched. He switched.

[Doug]

What level?

[Aiden]

What level did he just say?

[Doug]

Sherbet Land.

[Perry]

Sherbet. Sher Land. They switched from. They switched from Toadette to baby Daisy. It's a big deal. It took 18 years of Toadette to baby.

[Aiden]

No, I prepped. I prepped.

[Doug]

So about how Daisy personally set off a bomb in the Kremlin this week.

[Aiden]

That was a big Nintendo direct. Was about that.

[Perry]

It was all it was. They did do the direct. It was crazy. They went to the treehouse after is 90 minutes of Nintendo Treehouse after.

[Doug]

It was Shigeru Miyamoto in the Obama like, control room watching the situation unfold.

[Aiden]

That'd be a hard photo.

[Doug]

You know those.

[Aiden]

It's like Bob ombs.

[Doug]

Wait, have we thought about inviting Newton to Super Mario Land at Universal Studios

[Aiden]

as a way of like. No.

[Doug]

Kill him. You gave it away.

[Perry]

And then I'm never getting my tourist visa now.

[Aiden]

Yeah, we're never getting in. Okay, look, look, look, look, look, look. We. We have a lot of topics to cover today. There's actually a pretty stacked week, but there's one that we've been like, dancing around for a while, and we wanted to do a slightly deeper look at some of the new updates. And that's Russia, Ukraine, which is just like this. I feel like it's, it's like the, this is like almost not appropriate. But you remember the meme of the guy looking at the girl, he's got the girl next to him. It's like, Iran war has taken all the headlines. Yeah, the Iran war is taking all the headlines, but the Ukraine war is still going on. In fact, it is longer than the eastern front of World War II, as we said, like 50 days ago, and is now like the longest land war.

[Doug]

Oh, my God. Think about that. That's. Yeah, yeah.

[Perry]

It's insane. I got to be honest with you. I have four Mario Kart we Related stories So this is tough week for me.

[Aiden]

Just throw them in in between the horror.

[Perry]

Okay.

[Aiden]

No, actually, what's interesting about it is the reason we're bringing this back on the menu and why I should talk to get about is that all of the new recent stories are in Ukraine's favor. It turns out that it started out as a trickle and now it's kind of a flood of a lot of like, hey, they're actually really making progress. The lines have begun to move in the opposite direction, which is kind of insane given that Russia has an overwhelming military and economic advantage and has been in the driver's seat of this slow quagmire war for a while. Ukraine has really, really leaned into not just drone, but robotic warfare. And I have a couple of headlines from recent stories that I kind of want to go through with you guys, so I'll pull up this first one. So recently Ukraine did something that's never before been done in the history of war since the dawn of man, which is they took a position. You know, you can bomb a position and you can sort of wipe it out, but they took a fortified position without a single human being there. They captured a Russian army position for the first time using on the ground drone controlled robots that are like, they have like. It's like an iPad on there of a person, like with a. And they took it and the people surrendered. Human beings surrendered by just an army taking a fortified hill, which has like, never happened before. This is kind of crazy. The innovations they're doing not just in drones, but in all of this are like turning the tides. And so if you. Again, it's a fog of war on this whole thing. But my understanding, and this is based on the analysis is that they have like a six to eight kill ratio. Basically Ukraine is taking out seven or eight Russian soldiers for every one that they're losing. Now it's not good for either side when Ukraine has fewer people, but it's like the, the, the level of success they're seeing by leaning into this 100% is happening. And now because they, they were sort of held back from doing this when they were working closely with America, but America has really pulled back from its support of the Ukraine war, both financially, militarily and intelligence wise. And so Ukraine is now just bringing the war straight to Russia, which is causing a lot of home discontent. They've now strike Russian fuel lines, Russian major cities deep, like hundreds of kilometers inside of Russia that was never part of the war originally, making it so that like they are feeling some of the effects that Ukraine is feeling at home. So this is a recent Russian economic forum and the stark image that hit the rest of the world from this is an explosion happening in the heart of St. Petersburg when they had other countries coming in for its economic forum. It's like it's right there at home and they're feeling it.

[Doug]

And so do you know, just kind of broadly, is there a reason why Ukraine is having this kind of technological advantage over Russia? Like why are they able to have these advantages on the battlefield? Why, why isn't Russia doing the exact same?

[Aiden]

So they are doing the same thing. I include an example here of like what Russia is doing in Kiev, which is a huge drone based attack.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

But again, it's my understanding is that Ukraine's strategy has leaned into this 100% with all of their gotcha money, zeal and interest is like drone and robotic warfare and they have become world class at it. So there's this clip from like 8 hours ago, someone being interviewed. And it's funny because the, the, the news reporter that's asking this guy questions is under the old model of thinking, which is that Ukraine is relying on American weapons. Okay, like, and so she's going to ask this question, have the initiative, but

[Doug]

for how long can they do so? Because we have to consider what they're using as munitions.

[Aiden]

Can the U.S. for example, continue to

[Doug]

provide these things as we've deployed so many in the Middle East?

[Aiden]

The US is not providing them. You're right, Katie, you're right. That's exactly right. These missiles that the Ukrainians are firing, they're making, these are, these are Ukrainian drones and Ukrainian missiles that they're firing at St. Petersburg military targets. Let's be Clear military targets, naval bases, oil export facilities. But these are, these are Ukraine. So they, they don't. So yeah, Ukraine has, has just become world class. It's kind of, no one expected this a few years ago for this to become the, one of the world leaders, probably maybe the world leader right now and at least in terms of Europe and America in drone technology. And it is having a lot of weird outsized effects. They're just getting things done that were not possible. And again, the morale on the Russian side is not great. So they have 300,000 dead and the bigger number really here is that 900,000. This is like a minimum, could be over a million young men have fled the country to avoid conscription. And to you they just want to be part of it. Like it's not, the risk is too high. And so if you're an economy that's already in a shaky spot, you take out working age men to a tune of 1 million-plus. Like every economy on the earl in the world is hunting for, they want working age young men. That's exactly what you're looking for. And so they're having them flee the country. So it's having like these knock on cascading effects. There's this kind of trite quote that it's in a lot of presentations like this, but I think it's actually super relevant here. This is the Eisenhower quote about like every gun that is made, every warship is lost, every rocket fired is a, signifies a theft from those who hunger, were not fed or cold and not clothed. This is true with the Iran war. Is this true, this war? But having a war go for five years there's been a lot of like masking the damage that does to the economy. But in a real sense you cannot throw hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands, hundreds of lives and not have a deep cost. It's true of every war in history and it's true right now Russia is pretty guarded on their economic numbers. It's hard to get it out. But this is just an obvious truth that is being felt in a lot of like non obvious ways. So I guess what's just surprising is that a lot of these wins for Ukraine are hitting in a, in a row. And Zelensky, who was previously not really open to a negotiation with Putin because he was negotiating for a position of weakness, right. And Putin was taking advantage of that, has now sort of switched and is now because he has some of this momentum and strength, has put out an open letter and I don't want to read the whole thing because it is pretty long, but I've got it here and I want to read some parts of it because it's pretty powerful. And he put out this open letter, as he said, this is directly to Putin. He wrote a letter directly to Putin, basically saying this open letter to the president. Russian Federation when you came to power in Russia more than 26 years ago, many people in Ukraine viewed you positively. That is how it was. But that is now in the past. Now the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians view it positively that our low range, long range drones paid a visit to the opening of your forum in St. Petersburg, covering a distance of more than 1000km. As you know very well, that distance is not the limit of our capabilities. For 26 years, your time and power has completely changed the agenda of relations between Ukraine and Russia. From discussions about trade and civilian matters, our nations have moved to talking almost exclusively about strikes and losses. You've spent half of your years in power waging war against Ukraine. Whatever you may say about NATO, geopolitics, the Russian language, this war was your personal choice. A war without a real cause. That is how history will remember it. These years could have been very different. The Russians are finally becoming less comfortable with this reality. The fact that the war is bringing more and more negative consequences to Russia. They don't like our drones and missiles. They don't like gasoline shortages and constantly rising prices, which is true. Russia has very high inflation right now. They do not like constant restrictions. They don't like your intention to launch a second wave of mobilization in order to expand the war in another direction in Ukraine or use it against other countries, neighboring Russia. So like he kind of threw this out there, this gauntlet out there of like, hey, it's becoming more apparent that this can't keep going for you, especially if they're not even making progress. They were making incremental progress before and now it's turning against them slightly. Now I want to say this is a caveat. I should say it early. This is a fog of war. I'm not a military expert and it's very likely that you could flash forward. This war drags on years more and it switches the tide Again, we don't know. But the where it is currently now Ukraine has a ton of momentum that was completely unexpected, especially this late into a grindy war. So I guess it's like just a pretty powerful letter. I think it's like a historical moment. This just came out.

[Doug]

Putin's response real quick. Does he ask for anything in particular or it's More just like he's kind of.

[Aiden]

He basically asked him to end the war. Do not, yeah, do not be afraid to take the path out of this war. That is the main thing that is required of you now. Ukraine has preserved its independence and it will preserve it despite all predictions to the contrary. We have united many around the world to stand with Ukraine and against you. We found the weapons and the financing we needed. We received support, you receive sanctions. And this will continue until there is justice for Ukraine. So big part of this that he talks about that is seemingly 100% true is that Russia, because of its economic situation, has become far more dependent on China than they ever have before. They are like extremely, extremely dependent on China. Ji Jinping has, when he says jump, they have to say, how high? Because it's everything economically they're getting through China. China's buying all the oil to give them money and then selling them all the goods that they need to keep the economy going. So it's a deep reliance. Again, I don't know. I don't know where it goes from here. I do know that this is a powerful letter and I do know that it's kind of cool that Ukraine has done what no predictor would have said at the beginning of this war. Like, this is no war predicted it would last this long. No predict that at four years in, they would be turning the tide. And then what's super interesting is that every other country around the world, I don't have the clip on me, unfortunately, but the head of NATO in Europe, Marc Root, was like the strongest army in Europe right now. Is Ukraine. Like, we need to learn from them. We need to be talking to them more, investing in them more. Like, not just like as a help. It used to be considered like we would send them money as help. It's like, no, you should be talking to them because they're going to help you modernize your military, the modern tactics, understand how drones and robots are used. And so the countries that do see this are like countries in the Middle east which are all signing these huge long term deals with Ukraine to give them money in exchange for training and understanding of how drones are using. So Ukraine is finding its own funding without the US Sending it, which is like they've made it work regardless. And it really is kind of a crazy flash forward from that meeting in the White House where he didn't wear a suit and JD Vance was making fun of him or whatever. And like, you don't have the cards. I mean, they found the cards. It's Very impressive. I just think it's an impressive story that's happening right now. Yeah.

[Perry]

Do you know much about. I feel like I've seen headlines circulate lately about Russia's end of things where there's an acknowledgment of troops being drawn back or some forfeiture of their advance or their willingness to concede in the war. Like, I feel like there's things like that around, but nothing concrete.

[Aiden]

I didn't see anything on them being anything other than their position of like, we're winning, it's happening, we're grinding it out. Yeah. But what I did see is that there's some pretty good substacks that follow this war, and some of them are more versed in Russian politics. And what they said was a weird thing has been happening in the past, let's say, six months, which is that more people have become. Been willing, even on, like, state media news programs, where they have a roundtable of people talking like us to criticize the war in some way or, like, things that are happening. And there was an open letter from somebody in Russia talking about how the war needs to end. And that just the way that the substack framed it was like, that would not happen two years ago. You just couldn't get away with that. So it feels like there's a waning of. It would be very stupid to predict any waning in Putin's influence when he's lasted this long and been this dominant. But it feels in a way like he doesn't. He's losing a little bit of the consent of the governed. People are getting a little bit more upset, especially the elite class, where they feel like they're just losing money. The sanctions are affecting them. They're getting bit by that.

[Perry]

It's like, I remember watching that video I mentioned a while back where someone was doing street interviews around New Year with people in Moscow. And you know, this is a wealthier area of Russia relative to the rest of the country, so keep that in mind. But pretty much every person showcased in those street interviews said their wish was for the war to end. They don't want it to continue.

[Aiden]

I think that's what these were saying was like, if you're not part of that upper echelon, wealthier class, your opinion almost doesn't matter in Russia. But that group who was insulated from the war before is now feeling the effects and are kind of upset about it. And he requires that group to maintain power. That is the important group. So I don't know. It's we don't know where it goes. I mean, every prediction's been wrong so far, so we'll see. But I thought it was worth talking about. You had a story you wanted to add to the.

[Doug]

Yeah, the FT did a. An article which is really good, which is called New AI Espionage. Espionage Powers Trigger Putin Camera Scare. And the gist of it is, you know how the. When the Iran war started, it kicked off with Israel and the US Bombing and killing the Ayatollah and all the leaders, Right.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Well, it turns out the reason they were able to do that is because Iran installed a bunch. I mean, they already had some, but they installed a bunch of cameras to do surveillance all over Tehran in December during those protests. And then Israel hacked the cameras. And now, because of AI technology, can process all of the footage in basically real time and did things like mapped Tehran's geography, and they could find the patterns of senior officials and bodyguards. They could find specific target locations. You can do things like, find me anybody. Find me two men who've passed a briefcase to each other. And so the degree of processing that you can do now on data is getting so crazy that they pinpointed exactly where the Ayatollah was and killed him dead with guns and rockets and bombs. And so Russia has 300,000 cameras in Moscow that is surveying citizens. That's. That's a lot. And so because of this threat, after. After the. The Israeli hacking, they had to take all of them down and only put them back up once they're disconnected from the Internet, which there's not a ton of additional info about this. Like, the only reporting right now is really from the FD, but just logically, that makes them kind of useless. 300,000 cameras, you have to go physically, like, pull out the tapes and what, read them? Yeah. The thing is, like.

[Aiden]

Or someone has to monitor them in real time. Like, it's easy. That's not very. That's.

[Doug]

That's the thing. You know, people think of surveillance footage as, like, there's like, a security guy looking at cameras, but if you're talking about hundreds of thousands of cameras, that's not possible. So one of the things I saw that is, you know, hacking security cameras has been around a long time. That's not, like, new. The new thing is that if AI can process millions of hours of footage and you can just talk to it in English now, that's extraordinarily valuable.

[Aiden]

Have you seen the. There's like a variation on this where apparently AI can. If you're on A discord call with someone. It can hear the keystrokes or whatever. It can. Like, I'm not. I wish I was an expert on this. Like, it can figure.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

AI can hear passwords. That's the idea. Because there's a. There's a. Like. Like microscopic differences.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

They can. In the way it. Yeah. Here, AI can identify passwords by the sounds of keys being pressed with 90% accuracy.

[Doug]

Jesus Christ, man.

[Aiden]

While chatting over zoom. Isn't that crazy?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Uh, that's.

[Doug]

I mean, one of the things AI is remarkably good at is pattern matching on giant, giant quantities of data. Right. And so this whole thing. So what's really weird about this is, you know, a survey. If we talk about elites in Russia or the people starting to get upset with what's going on, part of how you clamp down on that as a dictator is through surveillance. Right. But they've literally had to take their entire surveillance system in Moscow down, essentially. They can't use it. They're like, it's not valuable if it's not connected to the Internet. You can't. I mean, they can't even do the same kind of AI analysis. Right. And this is happening in other cities. I actually looked up. If you pull this up, Perry, this is from comparatech. They did this study looking at the countries and the cities that have the most surveillance cameras. Because I was like, wait a minute, is 300,000 a lot? So China is not even on the map because it would blow out everything else. But. Yeah, but this map, kind of shockingly, India has a ton of surveillance cameras all over the place. Yeah. You know, America and Europe doesn't have a lot. Like, there's a good amount in London, in. In Paris, in New York City, in Los Angeles, like, you know, the real big ones. But the top 10 most surveyed in the world, China just beats everything. But then it's India. India, India, Pakistan, South Korea, Russia, Afghanistan, Singapore and Russia.

[Aiden]

Top 10. Yeah.

[Doug]

Yeah. And so it's interesting if you just look at the map, it's very kind of like it's Southeast Asia, but also dictatorships. And suddenly dictatorships setting up giant camera systems to track their people have become a massive liability that they probably need to shut down. That is such a weird dynamic happening.

[Aiden]

Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. Again, I just think this is. This tech is. Is changing things in a lot of weird ways, a lot of unexpected ways. And I think the Ukraine war is a great insight for me.

[Doug]

It's awesome. Like, all those cameras I've been putting in your House, like, now I can just say, is he in the shower right now?

[Aiden]

I was wondering why you keep doing that.

[Doug]

I don't have to sit and monitor actively anymore.

[Perry]

You can just, you know, you can just tell him no, right? You don't have to let him in.

[Aiden]

Well, he's my podcast co host and he's like, I have the right to

[Doug]

install cameras for the podcast.

[Perry]

I just tell him no. And we still do the podcast.

[Aiden]

You're actually blowing my mind right now.

[Perry]

This is. Does this include. This is cameras that are set up by, like, the government or state in some capacity.

[Doug]

These are CCTV cameras.

[Perry]

Would this exclude, like, Flock, say, like, private, like, or like, ring cameras?

[Doug]

Uh, yeah, it's cameras used by government entities such as law enforcement. Okay. So, you know, this is a. This is definitely an increasing trend around the world, but this, this AI. You know, look, everything is going to be hackable, basically. And then the fact that, oh, other, like, foreign entities are just going to be able to tell where everybody is is kind of scary. I mean, it would. I think it would be kind of nice to. If it reverses this trend. I'm not a huge fan of it. You know, we were in China and we talked about the fact that there are cameras everywhere on everything. It is pretty kind of creepy and dystopian, and that's now something they might start to have to roll back on because someone who hacks into their stuff can use it to figure out anything.

[Perry]

I don't. I haven't watched these yet or, like, haven't watched, like, part of one. But Ben Jordan, a big YouTuber, did a couple videos on people's private cameras being hacked fairly easily, and the access that people are finding through that. I think it's an interesting problem in general, like, the scale of this, the fact that it can affect a dictator, and it's now a security vulnerability to the people setting it up. But then on the other end of it, too, just like the scale at which we are willingly installing cameras and them being available to people who choose to hack them in some capacity. It's.

[Aiden]

Middle American cities were rolling out these Flock cameras on, like, street poles and. And people, I mean, just covered them all up with trash bags. Like, there's a photo here. I don't know if you pull up, but, like, But.

[Doug]

But this is. Is that nsf?

[Aiden]

No, this is like, Dayton, Ohio.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Doug]

Because I. So I haven't looked into this much, but, you know, Flock is being credited as one of the things that is helping bring down crime in San Francisco. And that's something people are happy about because SF has had a real crime problem for the past six or seven years. And they're talking about that and be like, oh yeah, this is allowing us to track down the people who are going smashing windows all over the place.

[Aiden]

We talked about when we were in

[Doug]

China, all the people in China were like, it's cool, there's no crime now.

[Perry]

Yeah, everybody, everybody in China vouched for this shit for that reason.

[Doug]

It's obviously not this black and white, but it, but it is kind of weird to be like, hey, would you be okay with cameras everywhere that could be used to track you if crime almost disappears? And I think a lot of people, I mean, I would have to really think about it, man. Especially if like, once I have kids.

[Aiden]

Yeah, it's weird. So it's a trade off. It depends on who holds the camera power, honestly.

[Doug]

Yeah, I guess if the question is, do you want Putin to have access to cameras, like, or Trump?

[Aiden]

I don't know, it's different. So anyway, interesting stuff.

[Perry]

Well, the thing about Russia, Ukraine is that it's a really simple topic that doesn't have any cascading consequences.

[Doug]

Right, right. And I think actually the only two updates are that, that one battle we talked about and cameras in Moscow.

[Aiden]

Yeah, I think that's probably the two updates.

[Perry]

Probably it for 2026. Yeah, well, I lied.

[Doug]

I lied.

[Perry]

There's more. No, I wanted to update you guys about how gold is replacing US Treasuries as the top reserve asset in the world for basically the. I mean, basically the first time since U.S. treasuries became really prevalent. If you could pull gold.

[Doug]

That is true. You do love gold.

[Aiden]

I love gold.

[Perry]

These are.

[Aiden]

No, these are real and they're mine.

[Perry]

You can keep them. That's fine with me. So you. Gold collectively as the country's reserves, has hit 27% globally, up from, you know, like mid-20s in the previous year. And US treasuries, partly because of like the US is placed in the world and like the value of the US dollar, you know, the stability of those bonds have fallen from around the same like 27% down to like 24% this year. And this is part of a huge movement which I think we had talked about before when Russia invaded Ukraine. The one of the things that the US did was freeze the US dollar holdings that Russia had at the time, both like Treasuries and then straight up, like the cash in US Dollars that Russia had.

[Aiden]

Yeah, a couple hundred billion dollars.

[Perry]

And the world sees that the US does this. And regardless of the stance on Russia, Russia choosing to invade Ukraine at the time, everybody kind of wakes up and is like, whoa, all of this money we have in US Dollars, they can just do that? Yeah, like there. That action had never really been taken before, certainly not in that capacity. And as a reaction, the demand for gold in recent years has spiked to like record levels. It's part of the gold price, like hitting $5,500 an ounce, I think, at the beginning of this year.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

And although if you look at this, like, if you look at overall reserves held by countries across the world, I think US Denominated assets, which includes like, you know, stocks, other things like that are valued in US dollars that countries may be holding, is still like 47% in total. This share of gold is growing, and it's coming from countries like China, India, Turkey, purchasing massive amounts of gold in recent years. Because this fear of the US holding this economic power over your country by choosing to hold this reserves has fueled it because the US finally chose to charge.

[Aiden]

Can you pull this chart out? It's similar to this, but it just shows that there's this period, this warped period, I guess, between 1995 and now, basically where the green bar US Treasuries was the highest thing people had in their central bank reserves. Central banks around the world held more Treasuries than anything else. And gold was at its lowest. And now it has bounced back to being just edging out dollars and is. Is now the highest.

[Doug]

So I didn't realize that only changed in 1995. I guess in my American patriot brain, I thought we had the highest dollars or were the most reserved.

[Aiden]

Well, I just think gold was like hundreds and hundreds of years. And then the dollar grew post World War II. And finally in the 90s, it, you

[Doug]

know, it's also hundreds of years America.

[Aiden]

Yeah, true.

[Doug]

I mean, that's a ridiculous argument. Also, remember that doubloon I bought for $600? Has that gone up in value now?

[Perry]

I mean, for.

[Aiden]

Been around for hundreds of years, but it hasn't been a power until post World War II.

[Doug]

No, I was joking.

[Perry]

I think the big swing was when we. I mean, this trend towards Treasuries being the majority started after we left the gold standard.

[Doug]

Right.

[Perry]

I think it was. It was a further. After World War II.

[Aiden]

Well, we left the gold standard in 71. So you can see it right there where it actually kind of drops for a bit. People go on gold. It's like the 80s or 90s. Whenever we start switching back anyway. I mean, you're right. Right there, you see on the right that 2020, basically Ukraine happens. We tease the reserves and everyone's like, we gotta have gold. I need to. It's the only safe thing to have for central banks. And they've been buying it like crazy.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Perry]

And it's a big, A big swing. And I think these countries starting to set the tone also. Cause a lot of like private, either private investors or you know, like, like hedge funds to follow the trend and buy massive amounts of gold during the same period of time. And then alongside just buying gold, countries like France moving their physical gold reserves from where it was stored in the United States back home to France as a. In order to keep it safe and not have it under American control anymore.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Okay, I have a question. Okay, so if everybody else is buying gold and less America stuff and they're taking it home to me, somebody who doesn't have an mba, why do I care? Why. Why do I give a fuck? As like an average person, Genuine question, like, do I, do we care?

[Perry]

Who?

[Doug]

Why does it affect me?

[Aiden]

Go for it, man.

[Perry]

Maybe here you give your big answer to this because I think I have a longer. Maybe a longer one.

[Aiden]

But yeah, the reason we care is that these people, the central banks used to be the safest and most reliable purchaser of U.S. debt. That's the U.S. treasuries. They would hold. Yeah, they would do that. They would just mechanically all the time, all the countries, and now a larger percentage of their, their reserves are going to gold. So they're not buying as much debt. Now we've made up that fact because we have a much larger percent recently of hedge funds and like flightier investors buying our debt. So we haven't like private, Private investors.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

But those guys are the most likely to panic if things go wrong or whatever. Central banks were the most rel. That's who you want to buy your debt because they, they don't care the price almost. They just buy it as a thing. They need to have a certain percent.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

Now they've changed their percentage. So the idea is that like if this happens, it undermines our ability, which we need to do based on our deficits, to keep issuing gargantuan amounts of debt because there's not the appetite there was.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Perry]

I mean, this is kind of what I was going to get at as well. I read there's a really, really good article I recommend called Trump's Empire of Debt that came out last week and it's kind of talking about the historical context of how great empires fall. As they continue to spend an extraordinary amount of money on war specifically, and they're unable, as they continue to try to maintain the control over the world as their empire has formed it, they continue to spend more and more in order to be able to maintain that and inevitably, like, draw debt on in order to fuel that. They continue spending. And then as you get more aggressive in your approach to control, this effect basically snowballs. People are more wary of the enforcement you're using or the damage you're causing, which causes them to fight back more or less. Things continue to crumble. There are people that help fund your war effort through the buying of your debt that are no longer willing to buy it anymore. And the cascading consequences of you continuing to up your aggression. The you are no longer able to fund that war effort anymore because nobody is willing to buy the debt. It's like this. It's like this chain reaction and your empire begins to crumble because of this.

[Doug]

We gotta fix this or we can't keep attacking Iran.

[Perry]

And I thought it was this really interesting historical look at how the spending of this debt fueled money in the context of war is kind of its own undoing. As soon as you start on this train, you're heading towards something.

[Aiden]

No, there's a million even before treasury, like you go back to Rome, that they overextend on war. And then they have to, like, they start putting less gold in each coin. What are they? I don't know what it's called. It's called basically counter shrink, inflation shrink. Flashing their own coins. And that, that destroyed their economy. And then the Spanish Armada, they spent too much money on war and they had to start doing the same thing. And then Britain spent too much money on war. They had to.

[Perry]

I mean, there was the, quote, Louis Louis xiv, the warmongering profligate sun king of France, apologized on his deathbed for loved war. He loved war too much and spent too much. And I think this, I mean, this ties into something I want to talk about later too. But I think this aggressive stance that the US has chosen to take in the last year specifically is causing all of these things to unfurl in a way that devalues its debt and, like, will cause us to continue to have to like, raise interest rates to attract the remaining portion of buyers and continue on taking on more and more now.

[Aiden]

But trouble. Figure it out.

[Doug]

Support for this show comes from Shopify. We're high energy, baby, baby. Every ad. Let's go what's up, Shopify?

[Perry]

Have either of you even used Shopify?

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

Do you know. Okay, you actually have used it. I used it to run a store.

[Doug]

I used it to run a store

[Perry]

for Ludwig for ages.

[Aiden]

Yeah, I bought some things on that store. Yeah.

[Perry]

And you'll never get your money back, of course. But that's, that's a problem with my fulfillment.

[Aiden]

Problem with your.

[Perry]

To be clear, shop everything correctly. And I chose to ignore his stole. We used to sell all of Ludwig's mogul moves like his original run shipping out of the garage. That was. We use Shopify to build that original version of the website and sell, you know, before those.

[Aiden]

Sold them at a booth at Smash events and he left them all at my apartment.

[Perry]

I believe that I 100%.

[Aiden]

And they took a lot of space in my tiny little apartment in San Jose.

[Perry]

And what's cool is like we could have used Shopify to sell those ones too. That inventory centered around their Shopify's design studio and built in marketing tools let you build a beautiful online store and effective campaigns to reach your audience. Turn those what ifs into Cha Ching with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com lemonade. Go to shopify.com, that's shopify.com lemonade cha ching. Support for this show comes from Serval AI.

[Doug]

That's right. Serval AI enables IT teams to automate various processes. Instead of having to drag and drop stuff, you can just describe what you want. IT processes can cause such a headache if companies Atriok. There are certain employees that cause so many problems for the IT team.

[Aiden]

So back when I was at Twitch, they Twitch got hacked and they did a new security system where everyone had to change their password all the time. And I always forgot it because they had very intense rules. And so I would constantly have to ask them to reset my password.

[Doug]

And then those are individual tickets that like somebody on staff had to like take time out of the ticket.

[Aiden]

That's why Servo would have helped a lot here, both me and them, to have shaved the embarrassment of me walking in with my laptop. And then one day I walk in and they open my laptop and I had put a sticky note with my password on it and they got really bad.

[Doug]

That doesn't make sense. There's no security issues.

[Perry]

Why would they, why would they be mad at that?

[Doug]

Servable platform is designed to eliminate repetitive tickets that it can focus on strategic work instead of having to build and deal with crazy tickets like Brandon's you can make this whole process get faster with resolving requests, building workflows, transforming tickets. You can learn more and start a free four week pilot at serval.com lemonade that is S E R V A L.com lemonade serval.com lemon lemonade try it out. Password. Where is Daredevil A miner?

[Aiden]

Don't miss the return of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again.

[Perry]

So what's next?

[Aiden]

I feel liberated.

[Perry]

We're gonna take this city back over

[Aiden]

medicated in an all new season. Now streaming only on Disney plus.

[Perry]

They're hunting us.

[Doug]

It's time we started hunting them. I can work with them. This should be tons of fun.

[Aiden]

Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again now streaming only on Disney plus.

[Doug]

You know who would fix this is sbf. Because we could issue more crypto coins without causing inflation on American dollars.

[Aiden]

Exactly. Much like.

[Doug]

But that guy's in prison.

[Aiden]

Fuck.

[Doug]

What are we going to do?

[Aiden]

Get him out. Pull this up, Perry. Speaking of Trump and sbf, Sam Bankman, Fried officially as of today, submitted an official pardon request from Trump. And I want to do a little bit of a retro retrospective here on sbf. Oh, we talked about this last week,

[Doug]

how Trump hasn't happened.

[Aiden]

It hasn't happened.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

It probably won't even happen. I'm not going to say it will. Even though, dude, he's pardoned. He's pardoned a lot of people, a lot of them in the crypto industry and all of them doing the same playbook that SBF has done. However, they were less well known. So it's a little easier to get away with because there's no, there's no heat. SBF is very well known and not well liked, so it's harder to get away the pardon, however he has been doing, I think we've covered this a little bit before, but he's really leaning into it lately. A lot of pro Trump tweets to like build the case. This is one relatively recently that was funny where he just talks about how the S and P is hitting all time highs. How about during Biden?

[Perry]

It's just so blatant.

[Aiden]

It's so.

[Perry]

It's unbelievable.

[Aiden]

So he's been doing that. But I want to retrospective on on SBF because I don't know if anyone remembers why he went to jail in the first place.

[Perry]

He was it played for being bronze in league after like 2000 games.

[Aiden]

Hey, he spent too many games on league and he didn't get it. He took crypto investors money. They gave it to him to put in a vault, which he did not put in a vault, he took out of the vault and he gave it to his own hedge fund, Alameda Research, to gamble. That is why he went to jail. That is like the simple reason is that he speculated with investor money in a way that he did not say that he would do. And so pretty simple. That's why he got one under. However, people have taken a look back at the things he gambled on and a unique story has emerged, which is that when he, after he went bankrupt, they were like, we have to pay these people back. So they sold everything that he gambled on immediately to try and pay back the investors. But it turns out that some of the things he gambled on were a company called Cursor, a little company called Anthropic, and a little company called SpaceX. And he put hundreds of millions of dollars, in some cases billions of dollars of investor money in these companies in 2022.

[Perry]

You're telling me these prosecutors had paper hands? Adrian had paper hands, Aiden.

[Doug]

So it turns out on a visionary investing cursor in 2022 is wild.

[Aiden]

I'm sorry, it's like a 5840% gain.

[Doug]

Oh my God. But they sold it all, right?

[Aiden]

They sold it all at the lows, lows of 22. They sold all of these companies at the low. Now again, many things he gambled on were trash meme coins. But it turns out that the total amount they owed investors at Allen when it went bankrupt was $11 billion. The, the 3 or 4 billion he gambled on these companies are worth $111 billion today. Had he not sold God, 10x the value of the of FTX.

[Doug]

I wonder how many like criminals are out there in the world where they just do horrible things, but one out of ten times, they hit it huge and they just get to keep going.

[Aiden]

Had he somehow made it through that summer, he would not only have like recovered all the losses, but he would be one of the wealthiest men in the world and like, considered the greatest investor.

[Doug]

Oh my God.

[Aiden]

It's crazy how much his life diverged because he got caught basically doing this bankrupt. But yeah, it's come out that his venture bets would have made him $100 billion richer had he stayed out of prison. It's crazy. I mean, buying Anthropic at like the, the valuation it was in 2022 is, is, I mean it's like a 500% gain on billions of dollars. It's crazy.

[Doug]

Yeah, a visionary.

[Perry]

I take it all Back. I take it all back.

[Aiden]

Yes.

[Perry]

You know what they say, Adrian? The ends justify the means.

[Doug]

They do say that.

[Aiden]

I think he belongs in jail. I just think it's very funny. Know, it's got to sting him a lot more.

[Doug]

He goes to jail with a Bloomberg terminal.

[Aiden]

Yes.

[Doug]

Like, we let him lead.

[Aiden]

Let him lead some rounds.

[Doug]

It's like the end of Catch me if you can. Let's let him part partner with us. There's no reason to keep him out

[Aiden]

Hanks and let him pick some startups. I just thought that was funny. I mean, cursor is a crazy one. That was completely unknown. He put 200 million into it.

[Doug]

Now it's worth, like, it is worth saying, dude, we did. We did a corruption episode last week and we didn't talk about. Because there's literally too much. But one of the things is that Trump keeps pardoning people who've done. Or maybe we did like massive financial fraud.

[Perry]

Oh, yeah. We didn't even talk about it.

[Doug]

That's a specific category of people Trump keeps, like, pardoning opened up a window,

[Aiden]

like a shop you could just like pay to play. They show up, they pay a fee, and they get a part. It's crazy. Like, he doesn't even know who they are. People ask about an interviews, he's like, oh, I don't know who that is. Like, it's just a couple million bucks and you get a pardon. It's crazy.

[Perry]

Wait, that's sounds like a good deal,

[Aiden]

But I think SBF's not going to get it. I actually don't think he's going to get it.

[Doug]

Why not?

[Aiden]

I literally think Trump doesn't care enough to get the heat on this one. People don't like this guy. And they know about it too. It's too blatant.

[Perry]

Yeah, he is. The tweet is insane. It's like if you like, if I ghost wrote it for him as a joke.

[Doug]

But that stopped Trump. I don't know, man.

[Perry]

Trump's penis in 20. 26. 8 inches. Biden's last year a frail 4.

[Aiden]

No, but I mean, I don't know if you guys remember, but spf, I remember this. There's like. This is well known, but he. He literally had a plan leak.

[Perry]

This is like.

[Doug]

Like everything's starting to crumble.

[Aiden]

Right.

[Doug]

And he does like an internal thing where he's like, I'm just spitballing. Here's some options for, like, how we could get out of this.

[Perry]

Yeah. And right wing Grift was in there.

[Aiden]

Yeah, go on. Tucker Carlson Your favorite guy come out as Republican.

[Perry]

Hold on, hold on. That's. And, and to be clear, if you were grifting, you wouldn't go on Tucker Carlson's show. It's where you do your authentic messaging.

[Aiden]

Part B, come out against the woke agenda. Part C, talk about how this cartel of lawyers destroying value. So that's the, that's the, that's just a funny thing. He literally, you know what he called his shot? Barry Bond style. You know what I'm saying? You pointed to the rafters. And if he, if he gets the pardon, that's actually so.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And we should also be clear. He's doing the steroids part. He's breaking the law. Yes, yes.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. Anyway, yeah.

[Doug]

You know what's going on in California? Bunch of fucking elections.

[Perry]

I'll tell you what, Doug. Fucking fraud.

[Doug]

It's fraud. Fraud.

[Perry]

It's fraud.

[Doug]

Fraud alert.

[Aiden]

If I, if I'm burying my gold and I'm hiding from this fraud, if

[Perry]

I've learned anything from X, the everything app, it's that this election in California this year has been robbed from the people, Doug. So tell me a little more about that, Barry.

[Doug]

Bring this up. We're going to show you two proofs that California is rigging the elections. First off, this is the, this is the result for the Los Angeles mayor. Okay? Now I'm gonna highlight four people here who are the most notable. You got Karen Bass. Karen Bass is the incumbent. She's been here for a while. She's sort of a establishment Democrat. Let's say you got Nithya Raman, who's the more like far left progressive sort of side emulating Zoran Mamdani's sort of style. And then you got Spencer Pratt. Now, if you don't live in Los Angeles, you probably don't care too much, but the, the, the reason this is interesting is because Spencer Pratt came into this race as a Republican. This is in Los Angeles. This is a deeply, deeply blue city in a deeply blue state. And this dude basically has a whole campaign which is essentially just shitting on Karen Bass and saying she caused with AI videos.

[Aiden]

That was his big. That was his big innovation.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Perry]

To his credit, he.

[Doug]

Trump is maybe like a too strong of a comparison, but I think he's good at making like bombastic things that get attention. You know, like when they did a debate, those three, like, he just keeps doing these like, attacks.

[Aiden]

No, I think Trumpian is right. It's a very. Yeah, yeah, it's like, it's Attention grabbing.

[Doug]

Yeah. And his thing is very much like, look, it's not about being Republican. It's that they're ruining the city and we need to get it back and blah, blah, blah, blah. So Spencer Pratt was a total underdog. You wouldn't think that this. Oh, by the way, his entire background is that He's a reality TV star from the mid 2000 from the hills. He was like a villain in the reality tv and then he's made, I believe, a crystal shop since then. I'm not deeply researched on Spencer Pratt's history.

[Perry]

I have a fun fact for you guys after.

[Doug]

Do you know a guy?

[Perry]

I know a guy on this one.

[Doug]

Really?

[Perry]

Oh, wow.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

Crystal shop guy or a reality TV guy?

[Perry]

I'll tell you, maybe a little both.

[Aiden]

So LA deserves a reality TV crystal shot.

[Perry]

Marrow, especially New York, deserves a Knicks fan. And we deserve a guy who opened

[Aiden]

a Christmas grifter mayor with a no.

[Doug]

So I don't think a lot of people are super stoked about Karen Bass, Respectfully. I don't think people who live in Los Angeles feel that the city's going in a great direction. It's kind of establishment, but. So Spencer Pratt comes in, you wouldn't think would get any very. Again, Trump kind of ask, and then just like gets all the attention. And so we started the election in California last week, and then the top two move on to the general election in November. Karen Bass is currently in the lead, but if you look at this online, currently Nithya Rahman is in second place. But wasn't you see when the results were first coming in? And this is where you play, you know, dark conspiratorial music. The first day when there was the elections coming in, okay, Karen Bass was winning and Spencer Pratt was in second place. Not only second place, solidly in second place, he had a dominant lead. But then they started to find mail in ballots, Aiden. And the mail in ballots are overwhelmingly for Nithya Raman, the super progressive candidate. And suddenly Spencer Pratt's lead, which he fairly earned, has been disappearing. And over the last couple days, he went from the obvious person that's going with Karen Bass to the runoffs to now almost certainly locked out of the race. Another person who got left behind. My favorite. That's right, Nelson Chang, age 23 from UC Berkeley, who is currently in last place. And I just want to highlight one of sort of his standout policies. What is your professional background? I'm a Roblox YouTuber who has been doing Roblox game with my team of friends and fans along with other popular Roblox YouTubers. We do not agree with the new age verification verification requirements that Roblox is imposing to limit online chat and scan minors faces.

[Aiden]

And it's that Roblox has age verification.

[Doug]

And that is the answer to the question what is your professional background? So big Barack Obama Shaw.

[Aiden]

That was the guy who's.

[Doug]

Yeah, okay, I'm sorry, I didn't look up. I do have our. I do have your guy from last week. So. So as you could probably imagine, this is causing, regardless of the sort of candidates, this is causing the exact same conversation as 2020 because the Republican was one of the two leaders, leaders of the race and then suddenly the mail in ballots are coming. This has happened kind of sort of not really into the same degree but with the governor election. So here are the current results of the Governor Xavier Bear, Xavier Becerra is currently number one in the lead. But Steve Hilton, the Republican candidate, who again has been doing way better than you would think as the governor of California candidate was in the lead solidly. I think he had 33% in the first 24 hours, something like that. But over the last week, awfully suspicious bunch of mail in ballots are coming in. Suddenly he's not winning. So two questions.

[Aiden]

First of all, where are we January six thing for Steve Hilton? Because obviously this is a die hard

[Doug]

Steve Hilton podcast, to be clear. So I've been saying that.

[Perry]

Thank you.

[Doug]

Spencer Brat, the mayoral candidate for Los Angeles is now basically locked out and he's not going to be able to run. But with the governor it is almost certainly going to be Xavier Bercera and Steve Hilton. So he's still in the running, but Tom Stair did not get into the top.

[Perry]

I'll give you a Doug, you caught me because Tuesday last week I rolled up to the mailbox that is near my home and I dropped in about 50 ballots for Nithya.

[Aiden]

So 500,000. I mean you were out there all day.

[Perry]

No, that was in the coordinated telegram chat that I'm in.

[Aiden]

Like very obvious that older people more likely vote Republican and they also do in person voting. And yeah, so that.

[Doug]

So that's what I looked into. So that's what I looked into. I was like, okay, all right, what's going on?

[Aiden]

I'm sorry, I'm harshing the vibe.

[Doug]

So even Trump has weighed in on the California.

[Aiden]

He also votes mail in. Trump. Yeah, just to be clear.

[Doug]

And then he was like, you know, again he's like, voter fraud. Why does this keep happening? Republicans are winning day one. And then the mail ins just like happened to do this. So, so what is actually going on in California? California is incredibly slow at counting votes. And this is a valid criticism that kind of sucks that we have to wait weeks or like a month or whatever to know who wins an election in California is, I believe, the slowest by far. So why is that 80% of ballots are mail in for a, for a state of 40 million people. That is a shit. That's so many. 80%. And on top of that, like California mails ballots to everybody to mail in.

[Aiden]

It is funny though, to be like, we shouldn't count the mail in ballots in a state where it's 80%. It's like, yeah, well that's why we count 20% of our votes.

[Doug]

Well, no, I mean they've pushed for it. Right? So they're. And then the pro problem in quotes is that they have to be, you just have to get it in the mail by election day. So it doesn't, it might not arrive for up to seven days before you can even count the ballots. And then you have to do all this extra verification because it's mailed in like signature checks. So the Secretary of state has like a whole little thing talking about this. So you have to verify signature, you have to vote they didn't vote in. You have to verify they didn't vote in other places and all this. So essentially the short version, California has decided to do a very long process here that is, encourages mail in voting and then is really thorough about making sure the votes are not fraudulent. So are they fraudulent? No, it's just California is really slow. And then because Republicans with, for example, Donald Trump have been talking about mail in voting as this fraudulent thing, they don't do it. And so what happens is they all Vote Day 1, like you said, they go and vote in person. And then all of the Democrats or young people or whatever, or old people are all mail in.

[Aiden]

Me.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Or I vote mail in. Hip.

[Perry]

Yeah, whatever.

[Aiden]

You right.

[Doug]

You know, if you're, you know, it's kind of a little painful to stand up and walk to the.

[Aiden]

When I take my, when I get my hip changed, I go, I do

[Doug]

the mail in voting. Right, right. So it's interesting that this is sort of causing this, you know, conversation around like fraud. It's not fraud. California has opted for this incredibly slow system. There are a lot of calls from Democrats being like, even Ro Khanna this morning was like, guys, we, we need to make this faster because it just looks so Bad. But it is not ultimately fraud. And I want to end with proof that it is fraud. Because Perry, if you pull this up, your candidate for governor, Living for God and country. Demott.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Who's currently, I believe in second to last place.

[Perry]

Second to last.

[Doug]

Yeah. Unfortunately second to last. He's not doing the best. Yeah, I mean I was looking over the policies of our. Of our top three, for example, Steve Hilton, one of the key policies is make California the crypto capital of the world. Which to me is actually top of the list. Yeah, this is top of the list.

[Aiden]

The top of the policies list is Make California the crypto capital of the world.

[Doug]

That's actually above Keep California the AI capital of the world. It's funny going to.

[Perry]

Even if you're a really tech intensive guy, you wouldn't want crypto to be ahead of AI. Right.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Perry]

This is the guy who got second.

[Doug]

So affordability is below cutting car registration fees. Yeah, it's. The candidates are an interesting spread but probably the most interesting is Living for God and Country Demotte first name Living for God middle name and country third final name Demat. And I thought some of the cool, you know, policies here, if you read the full platform, is that he wants to create a. Where is it? He wants to create a militia in California and then we're going to create our own sovereign wealth fund and then we will no longer engage with the federal government and only use our own money.

[Perry]

Dude, this guy's awesome.

[Doug]

If we go stuff some ballots right now, we get our fucking Living for God.

[Perry]

You know why he's not dead last? Because I was crazy.

[Doug]

Look, just I want to say this.

[Perry]

My dual NY demont ballots were going crazy.

[Aiden]

They could really get something done.

[Doug]

And I just want to point out for audio listeners, next to his policies, he just has photos of his passport and driver's license.

[Aiden]

Here are pictures of my passport and driver's license.

[Doug]

And it just says here are pictures of my passport, driver's license.

[Aiden]

Join the dumpster fire response the DFRT

[Doug]

Every everything is about dumpster fire. If you're sick of demo publicans and Republic rats then dude, this website's money. Yeah, Living for God.

[Perry]

So let Aiden knows a guy. A little segment that I'm bringing back an interesting thing. So a friend of mine I found out worked for Spencer Pratt.

[Aiden]

Oh really?

[Perry]

Before this election.

[Doug]

Wow.

[Aiden]

I didn't know like at the crystal shop, dude.

[Perry]

Not literally at the shop but had. He was in that era had insight into his finances.

[Aiden]

Okay. Wow.

[Perry]

And what he did and I was Just like, what was working for him, like, and he was like, dude, I, I, it sucked because he was, well, one. He was kind of a weird, like, demanding guy in general, he said. But he said he had insane spending habits. So his paychecks for the Hill were very big. Like, he was getting paid an extraordinary amount of money. And he spent all of his money from that show on things like starting the Crystal Store and, and to the point where he ran out of apparently. This is just what my friend told me. Yeah. So this is all alleged from, from him.

[Aiden]

Isn't it the American dream, though, to strike it rich on reality TV and then open up a crystal shop with the money and go back.

[Perry]

He didn't put any of the money aside side and spent so much of the money that he earned from that show on things like the Crystal Store that he had to move back in with his dad.

[Aiden]

Really?

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

That's what we need running California.

[Perry]

This is just what this is. My friend worked for him for like, I think like a little over a year or something.

[Doug]

And this is just like, like at the Crystal Shop.

[Perry]

No, not literally at the Crystal Shop. He, but he was like, yeah, that's why I didn't vote for him. I was like, this guy's not responsible at all. Like, and I kept, he was like, I kept telling other people, like, like, I have a real.

[Doug]

Just.

[Perry]

I think this guy was shitty to work for. So I just didn't vote for him.

[Aiden]

Just on a human level.

[Doug]

Maybe some people just need more power. And then, you know, you promote, you keep promoting them until they find their groove.

[Perry]

Yeah, if they just become the mayor, it'll be fine.

[Doug]

Does he play Xbox?

[Aiden]

That's funny.

[Doug]

Does he?

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

I don't know if Spencer Pratt plays Xbox.

[Doug]

Wait, hold on. Let me try another transition. Speaking of the new world record on Mario 64, can I play that on my new Xbox?

[Perry]

Mario Kart Wii.

[Aiden]

Mario Kart Wii.

[Doug]

Oh, Mario Kart Wii. Shit.

[Perry]

Okay. I thought it was interesting because I've been seeing a little thing circulate on my gaming is back timeline that the new Xbox CEO, Asha, she is apparently killing it, doing a very, very good job, at least as far as Xbox fans go. So during this tenure, I think we talked about a while ago when Phil Spencer, the previous guy, was removed from this position. Or did he resign?

[Aiden]

He resigned. I mean, he's been there a long time. I think it seemed like he was removed, but it's obviously one of those things where it's like, I'm stepping honorably discharged.

[Perry]

Y yeah, yeah. Honorably discharged. Since taking over for him, they have done things like lower the price of Xbox game pass, like the multiple versions of it, which they got a lot of heat for. And they did lose, like millions of subscribers over when they raised it last year. They're changing the logo and going back to like an old sense of the branding changing. Like the marketing campaigns announced that they were bringing back console exclusives, which is something that fans wanted. They are announced a new console venture altogether nicknamed Project Helix and trying to also apparently internally promoting people that have been on the Xbox team for a long time to sort of get a feel for like, the old culture at Xbox to like, set the tone with this fan base. And I think there is this collective reaction from gamers online that like, Xbox has kind of fallen by the wayside. One of the reasons being they don't know how to name consoles. They don't know how to do it really. Dollar company. It's insane. Consoles, I couldn't tell you. I think they've made four. I'm not sure. I think they've made four Xbox four

[Aiden]

versions of the last one, Series X.

[Doug]

So there's. There's the Xbox, there's the Xbox 360.

[Perry]

Yes, I can get there. And then it was the one Xbox

[Aiden]

series S. Xbox Series X.

[Doug]

But those are the same 20th anniversary edition, which is. No, those are the same. And then there was another one, right? No, after Series X, I thought there was a new.

[Perry]

Nobody knows the Series Q Series Q console launches.

[Aiden]

Can I push back on this?

[Perry]

No. Maybe.

[Aiden]

Let me. Let me do like a big finish, I guess. Finish.

[Perry]

I think there. There seems to be a general positive reaction from Xbox fans on things like the subreddit for Xbox on Twitter that she's. She's goaded, she's moving things in the right direction. And also from what I could see, allegedly she gets to do a lot of these things. Because during Phil's time in that position, he had this mandate of a 30% profit margin after they had acquired massive studios like Activision Blizzard. And it's like, hey, now that we have these things, we've spent a ton of money. You have to make the Xbox or like the Microsoft gaming division a lot of money now. That is your goal. And then he then like, failed to do that. And apparently. Or the idea is they have removed that mandate internally. And that's part of the reason she can so freely make a lot of these changes or decisions. That's like a theory going around.

[Aiden]

I mean, yeah, I fully agree that there's clearly a tide shift in public perception. When she first got announced, people were like, gamers were like, who? Who's this woman gonna come in? And now they're like, oh, she's kind of based. But realistically, everything you listed is like it's like deck chairs in the Titanic, bro. It's like tiny. It's like they lowered the price of game pass to still higher than it was before they raised it. They announced exclusives, but they just did their big conference. It was like Gears of War is the one exclusive console exclusive and it's still on PC. They like there's this general trend of console hardware sales are already declining outside of the Switch. Like PS5 and Xbox are both.

[Doug]

And the Xbox what?

[Aiden]

Give the full name Series S and Series X.

[Doug]

Okay, nice.

[Aiden]

They're both like on hard times and they. It's going to get worse because all hardware consoles are going through this RAM price spike. So everybody has to raise prices again. So there's a big risk that everyone's gonna get super pissed really soon. Nintendo's raising prices in September. September. I think Xbox is doing theirs pretty soon. PS5 is doing theirs pretty soon. So everyone's getting mad about that and they have no real big exclusive. That's like changing the tide on. It was already a losing battle. They were already losing. PS5 was already beating them. Beat the brakes off them really. And now it's like they got a new CEO who's like dressing things up a little bit. But it's not. Nothing has changed substantially. And she's just nicer to the community than the people thought, which is like I guess cool. But the business is not any stronger than it was before. If anything it's weaker. More time has passed and they keep announcing, you know, like she got a lot of pushback from fans for including the logos of PS5 when they announced new games because the games are multi platform. They have to make money. And so she's like, you know what, you guys, right? We heard you. We're going to take those logos out but they're not going to not Release them on PS5. Nothing has changed. The games are still releasing on PS5.

[Doug]

No, no, but the logo is.

[Aiden]

But the logo is not there at the bottom when they announce it in the Xbox conference.

[Perry]

This is.

[Aiden]

It's just minor.

[Perry]

So I had the same general pushback or thought specifically to the game exclusives thing as this as something the community was excited about because one I was like, I saw two of the exclusives that got announced. One was like A Gears. A new Gears of War game. And then I forget the other.

[Aiden]

It's like clockwork. Something.

[Perry]

Yeah. And I was like, that's not turning the ship around. This isn't Mario. I do not think an exclusive at this point does anything significant to save the brand. And I also don't even really understand, like, why an Xbox fan would be particularly excited about that game being exclusive. What does it do to you as a fan of the brand to like have that game on other platforms to begin with? I don't even, like, why would you complain about a PlayStation logo being like no console?

[Aiden]

I mean, they want it to be exclusive because if not. Right now, the, the ideal strategy for a gamer if you want to get access to everything, if you're real hardcore into it, is you buy a PS5 and you have a PC or you buy a PS5 and you have a Switch. And that covers everything. It covers all the releases. Yeah, all major releases. Xbox is not included in that.

[Perry]

But is this just like an Xbox, like Console wars fan that she's appealing to? Basically, yeah, basically.

[Aiden]

But that's.

[Perry]

That's someone who's wearing the Xbox jersey.

[Aiden]

Yeah. They're weird. They shouldn't care. They shouldn't care. But if you're a new consumer is like, I'm going to become a gamer now. It makes no sense to buy the Xbox. You're just not getting anything unique. So there's no reason. But Sony has timed exclusives for big games.

[Perry]

So what else I thought was interesting in the vein of the console stuff is that they have already kind of walked this back when I looked into it.

[Aiden]

Oh, really?

[Perry]

And because of the spiking costs of creating these things right now, so because RAM specifically is so expensive, among other parts, Project Helix is being like totally reworked. They don't have like a timeline. They aren't sure if they're gonna be able to push it out. And this being one of the big announcements that like the fan base of Xbox was particularly, particularly excited about. This isn't even something they can commit to at the moment, even on like a two to three year timeline.

[Aiden]

Yeah, The Steam deck just went up to $1,000 and the Steam Machine.

[Perry]

So I've been keeping tabs on the Steam machine all year. And this is Valve's big entry to the console market, sort of, because it's technically still a PC.

[Doug]

Right.

[Perry]

And they have delayed it from when it was supposed to initially launch in, I think May, to later this year with an asterisk, because they're trying to figure out how to make it even remotely price competitive with how the components are spiking. And I can't remember a time when I was a kid where I watched console prices go up significantly over the

[Aiden]

years of a generation. It's should be going down. They should be doing mini versions and yeah, it's, it's, it's wild. I mean I'm seeing, you know, games industry commentators say it's, it's making games like hardware console gaming into like a upper middle class only activity. Like it's literally like pricing out the broad families that used to buy these call. Except for Nintendo which is doing pretty well. Their. Their console is more expensive than the last Switch, but they priced it above the cost expecting tariffs to be a problem. Instead RAM became more of the problem. But they've been able to like have very, very minor price increases. So Switch 2 is like seemed very affordable by comparison and it actually had the best year of any console Nintendo's ever had in the 50 years.

[Doug]

Switch. Switch to shit.

[Aiden]

This last year is the best launch they've ever had of any console. Back to the nes. Any. None of them.

[Doug]

That is shocking.

[Aiden]

Look it up.

[Doug]

I promise you.

[Perry]

We talked about it on the show. The opening month was the best. Was the best month ever.

[Doug]

I just. Yeah, it's not like I don't believe you. It's just very surprising given that the Wii in particular was like just beat the Wii.

[Aiden]

No, it's insane. It's like Switch beat the Wii.

[Perry]

We for that time frame, you know.

[Aiden]

Okay, maybe not long term total sales, but yeah.

[Doug]

Could we turn it around with this? This is what I would name the next Xbox. Xbox One 5.

[Aiden]

Xbox One 5.

[Doug]

Because you already have. There's four Xbox Ones. There's the Xbox, there's the Xbox One. There's the Xbox One S is the Xbox One S. Yeah. So Xbox One 5.

[Perry]

I like this. I like. It's simple. It's. And why not keep it simple, Asha? Why not keep it straightforward and understandable.

[Aiden]

The word series in there somewhere. So I know that it's like cool.

[Doug]

Hear me out.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

X the everything box.

[Aiden]

X the dude partner with eons and it can tweets.

[Perry]

While the weird Xbox fans will love that.

[Doug]

There's a. There's a Venn diagram of people for whom that that would be the greatest moment. I. I just don't understand why people pay for this. When you can go to Claude and say claude, make me Xbox 5.

[Perry]

I think I, I do think it's kind of. I do you think the era of new Exclusives is sort of over. Like you need to Nintendo.

[Aiden]

Nintendo's leaning in. They haven't changed a damn thing.

[Perry]

No, but that's because it's like you need to have like an established recognizable game character to be able to get away with it. I feel like. Or you know, in Sony's case sometimes that'll be like Spider man. But that's, that's a, you know, it's a recognizable character. I have a hard time imagining any time with like how gaming has aged and like where the industry is at making a new IP console exclusive that is successful and drives it feels like

[Aiden]

a bygone era type thing. It's changing. I got to talk to some people through the reporter Jason Schreier at Summer Games Fest and some of the things I heard about behind the industry is that more likely, despite all the hype about Asha Sharma, there's going to be layoffs probably the increased cost of the console is like you said, making them panic. And very likely it'll have to be a managed decline on the whole business based on the way they're headed. Like the sales have not picked up like what she's saying and in general Sony's handling that better but also like a managed decline of like this old style of console hardware selling the mass. That's all changing. People are adapting in different ways. So yeah, I think the industry's reacting.

[Perry]

That's why I think Valve's play is smart. Like Valve. Valve has like the best position.

[Doug]

But how's that different in what way?

[Perry]

I think they just have like a really like trust. They've developed like a really, really trusted brand and they're just like building a skin for what is basically a PC that you can use in really any way that you want want. Like, I think it's more fitting of like their industry position and also the way that the broader industry works now

[Doug]

is like I think what they're doing well is having a store that makes a zillion dollars a day. I mean Microsoft would be doing whatever the fuck they wanted if they had Steam.

[Perry]

Okay, fair enough.

[Aiden]

Steam is amazing.

[Perry]

Fair enough.

[Doug]

I think it doesn't fucking matter what the Steam Machine does.

[Perry]

That's a good point.

[Aiden]

Well, I think it's a smart thing. I mean, I think the RAM prices kind of fucked their plan.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

But I think the idea is like, hey, our store is now significantly better and we get a ton of great new indie games which are now out competing AAA's. Yeah, we make Steam deck for mobile to switch. We make Steam Machine to compete with consoles. We get on your PC, we're going to win every market with this. Bigger.

[Doug]

It's a good strategy. But then if you take out Steam, I think suddenly the whole business is much more.

[Perry]

They don't have to rely on it. Yeah, right.

[Doug]

They don't have to do anything. They have a billion dollars half life.

[Aiden]

Three in 20 years maybe.

[Doug]

Yeah. They barely make any games.

[Perry]

Don't get ahead of yourself.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

God.

[Perry]

Hi, I'm Maria Sharapova, host of the Pretty Tough podcast.

[Doug]

Each episode I sit down with high achieving women to discuss the pursuit of excellence without apology. This week, model Sports Illustrated covergirl and

[Perry]

entrepreneur Ashley Graham talks about the time she almost quit.

[Aiden]

I called my mom and I said, mom, I just, I'm not going to do this anymore.

[Perry]

And she told me, no, you are going to stick this out.

[Aiden]

Your body is going to change someone's life every decade.

[Perry]

You're going to go through something different. So be really happy with who you are right now because things change. Check out pretty tough new episodes on Wednesdays. You can watch it on YouTube or

[Doug]

listen in your favorite podcast app. So the 2026 midterms is shaping up

[Aiden]

to be an all out brawl.

[Doug]

But the biggest fight may not be

[Aiden]

between Democrats and Republicans, but over the congressional maps itself.

[Doug]

Gerrymandering is not a good thing. We don't like it and then all of a sudden we're going out and

[Perry]

telling people, vote for this.

[Doug]

So I'm in Ashland, Virginia, a small

[Aiden]

town just outside of Richmond, which calls

[Doug]

itself the center of the universe.

[Aiden]

And that checks out because it's the

[Doug]

center of the political universe, at least when it comes to the 2026 midterms. That's because Ashland sits in Virginia's 1st congressional district, which is one of only

[Aiden]

about 35 or so that are actually competitive.

[Doug]

That makes Virginia particularly important when it comes to the question of gerrymandering.

[Perry]

The gerrymandering is a major problem, but it's not like Democrats drew first blood with this one. Donald Trump doesn't think he should be held accountable by anybody. So he's trying to change the rules because he doesn't like the game.

[Doug]

We've shown what we're capable of.

[Perry]

Now let's keep up the push through the midterms.

[Doug]

America actually will be in your feeds and on YouTube every single day Saturday with an interesting interview in politics or culture.

[Perry]

Big news this week for all my

[Doug]

Gordon Geckos, my Robin Hooders, my Claude squad, Anthropic, which is newly the most

[Perry]

valuable AI company In SVRLD announced it would be going public.

[Doug]

That news follows reporting that OpenAI plans to go public as soon as September.

[Perry]

And that. That news follows reporting that SpaceX, which

[Doug]

also considers itself an AI company, will be going public in maybe just a

[Perry]

few weeks from now.

[Doug]

Welcome to the era of the Omega ipo.

[Perry]

We are about to see millionaires, billionaires, and yes, probably even the world's first trillionaire created overnight. And yes, it's that guy.

[Doug]

This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.

[Aiden]

Chainsaw.

[Perry]

But all the tech bros who are gonna make all the money, they need our money way more than we need their products.

[Doug]

And we're gonna remind you why on

[Perry]

today explained from Vox.

[Doug]

Well, speaking of games, Fable was just announced by Claude.

[Aiden]

Well, Fable 3 was announced by Microsoft. And then Claude said, we're gonna one up that shit.

[Doug]

Oh, these are different.

[Aiden]

And they said Fable five. We're skipping four.

[Perry]

Wow.

[Aiden]

No, I saw this as I was about to come to this podcast. Literally. They released today kind of a surprise launch. I don't think it was announced.

[Doug]

No, it's not.

[Aiden]

Yeah, it was. They just dropped it today. A brand new model from Claude called Fable 5. And I do want to show you some things from their announcement. This is, this is basically Mythos. This is the one they've been talking about. And they did a couple of things. You know, they hyped this up as it was going to be a huge security vulnerability for the world. And everyone's got to be prepared. They said this is what they'll do. If you try to use this thing to hack anything or anything untoward, it automatically behind the scenes reroutes it to a really weak model, like their old Opus 1 or whatever.

[Doug]

Yeah, it defaults to Claude Opus 4.8, which until yesterday was the most powerful model we comparison. Yeah, it's not like super weak sauce, but.

[Aiden]

Yeah, but anyway, I want to pull up their launch page here. Where is it? Because it did something that was seemingly impossible. It beat Pokemon Fire Red using only vision. Can you show this, Perry?

[Doug]

Interestingly, this is like a thing. I've.

[Aiden]

This has been like a test.

[Doug]

Yeah, it's been like a thing.

[Aiden]

And previously all the models required a lot of scaffolding to be able to get through it. And like, it would break at certain points and they would have to fix it. So this one, entirely through just analyzing what's on screen and then responding, it was able to. This is a speedrun and we're going to show it in 50 seconds. Thank God.

[Doug]

We can finally outsource playing video Games. Yes.

[Aiden]

Because humans are not Pokemon. But this is real interesting.

[Perry]

The footage looks a little crisp. Perhaps Nintendo. They may have played this on an emulator.

[Aiden]

It may not Nintendo take down Claude

[Perry]

may not have actually owned the game.

[Aiden]

Send the SWAT team, get in a

[Perry]

large legal battle with Claude.

[Aiden]

But pretty. You know, it's solving even the. I mean it took me a long time to solve that Cubone puzzle when I was a kid.

[Perry]

But you figured it out.

[Aiden]

I did figure it out. I did get there. I'm sort of a self learning AI.

[Doug]

You're sort of a recursive self improving child.

[Aiden]

I am like a. Anyway, we're almost cruising through this.

[Doug]

I mean for somebody who like doesn't. The reason why this is impressive amongst other things is you need a lot of context to progress through a game like this.

[Perry]

Right.

[Doug]

For a while now you could have an AI that's like fight in this Pokemon battle. But if the idea is okay, you have a badge here and now you need to know to go to this area, to go back to this area that isn't making forward progress but eventually it's part of this longer term goal. Like that's the challenge I've seen there's been little channels on Twitch that are like Claude plays Pokemon for a while and they inevitably get stuck in like one gym that's a little more complex or a part of the game where you have to actually like have some thought beyond just what is in front of me right now.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And so I'm excited to see that them replace lawyer jobs with Pokemon playing AIs.

[Aiden]

Yes, that's the. Their plan I think here. So anyway, I thought it was just interesting. I thought it was an interesting release. They. The last thing that's interesting about it is that they. This is their most advanced model. It comes out and they go, hey, if you're a subscriber, use it to your heart's content. All right. Enjoy this thing. It's awesome. It's the brand new latest tech until I think it's like July 3rd or something. All right, so I'm date in the near future. If you can find the exact day. It's like a very soon date. And they're like after that though it's. It's token based price.

[Doug]

June 22.

[Aiden]

June 22, token based pricing.

[Doug]

That's two weeks.

[Aiden]

You get paid. You have to pay us based on the usage. Which is a sign of course that like this, you know the subsidized Uber model is like burning through enough cash for them. They have to. They've been doing this for business clients and now it's coming to regular users where if you want to use the latest and greatest models, you're going to have to basically pay to play for the amount you're using it for right now, getting a subscription, you could just like ask it to do a lot of hard things. And you're making out on that deal. Yeah, it cost them a lot more than it costs you. They're, they're adapting that because they are burning through a lot of money. So it, this is like a big. After this moment, it'll be interesting to see Quad which right now making the most money of any AI company. Revenue, not profit, but revenue. If people adapt, do they switch to a cheaper Chinese model? Do they, what do they do whenever it costs you a lot more to do the things you want to do? That's a good question.

[Doug]

It is much more expensive than some of the recent open, like Deep Seek. Actually the, you know, the Chinese breakout one, they just came out deep seek version 4 and it is very good and it is so much cheaper than these models. And so now the question is going to be like, okay, If Anthropic or OpenAI is going to IPO and then say, hey, we are going to have so much profit, all the companies are going to use our AI for everything. But then Deep Seek just launches a new ultra cheap thing which is maybe just as good in many different contexts. It's like, is that sustainable of a business?

[Aiden]

It's a big question.

[Doug]

Surely it'll be sustainable enough to keep paying us, but will they?

[Aiden]

Well, it's especially interesting, you guys, we talk about this in the show where it's like all the, all the iPodS, SpaceX and Anthropic and OpenAI, we're going to be included in the s and P500 early and they're going to change all the rules.

[Perry]

We talked about that a little bit, but I actually wanted to lead into that because the news just came out that OpenAI actually made its SEC filings to go public. So they're prepping, you know, this is the confirmation that they are indeed prepping to do it, as we have mentioned on the show. And I wanted to ask you guys what the update was on that because I heard that the S and P rules held strong. So if the S and P had caved to basically SpaceX and then potentially Anthropic and OpenAI, it would allow these immediately listed the IPOs of these stocks to be picked up by everyone's 401ks and retirement funds, which immediately provides a lot of demand and support for the price and the amount of money that they're hoping to raise through going public. But the S and P did not change their rules and are demanding a certain profitability from these companies in order to get listed.

[Aiden]

Yeah, there's like two big rules. One is the seasoning period. It's, the idea is like, hey, this is a brand new company. Before we take everyone's retirement money and buy it, let's see where the price lands. Let's like give it a year and let's see where, where it evens out. That's the seasoning period. And the second one is the profitability requirement where you have to have multiple quarters of being an actual profitable company so you're not dumping some hype machine onto the public. These rules have held for a long time and they've been great for investors. And Elon got out of these rules for the Nasdaq and they thought they were going to get out of it for S and P, but they held strong because people were really mad about it, which is cool. And I think it's one of the reasons that like these companies that are ipoing now are like, well that was our big plan to like get a bunch of new money and we have to now start getting towards profitability. Because if you, if you don't get, listen, the S and P, that's like trillions of dollars you're locked out of. That is like a lot of money in a lot of passive retirement funds.

[Perry]

Yeah, I mean I feel like the investment advice I've gotten literally from a young age is just keep dumping money into the S&P 500 index and that is your savings.

[Aiden]

It's half the market. Half of the stock market in terms of like trades is people's passive 401ks buying the S&P 500. So yeah, you can't really afford to be locked out of it long term.

[Perry]

Okay, I did want to ask because, what was the change with the. Because the Nasdaq also was going to make a change in order for SpaceX and they did make the change.

[Aiden]

Yeah, they have a six month seasoning period. They lowered it to 15 days for space X and they got rid of the profitability requirement.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

So essentially they're just like, their argument is that SpaceX is too big to ignore and we would not be representative of the big tech companies if we didn't include them as fast as possible.

[Perry]

But this isn't a rule that just applies to Space X. This is a rule that now applies to any company looking to get listed on the NASDAQ in the future.

[Aiden]

The. No, it's a. It's an exemption for like super mega cap. You have to be like over a trillion bucks.

[Perry]

You got to be a fat.

[Aiden]

The idea is you're so fucking big that if we ignored you, we would be. We wouldn't be doing our.

[Perry]

You got to be crazy. You got to be nasdaq, NASDAQ chairs. Like, you got to be big for me. You got to be fucking huge for me.

[Aiden]

And then you got to be swole. You got to have an Elon Musk type body with like the cybertruck build.

[Doug]

But to be clear, it's not. You don't have to be big in terms of profit. Just the idea of being like a big confident guy.

[Perry]

You could be a big, huge baby with money leaking out of every orifice. As long as you're big.

[Doug]

That's the thing. They don't make as much money as most people.

[Perry]

The I. But will this. I assume this also will apply to Anthropic and Open AI. They are companies that would be big enough.

[Aiden]

They're about a trillion. So it's funny because the revenue of SpaceX plus Anthropic plus OpenAI all combined is one tenth of Walmart. But each one of them is valued bigger than Walmart. Yeah. Based on or like around Walmart?

[Doug]

Well, okay.

[Perry]

I don't have a Walmart app on my laptop.

[Aiden]

True. Well, I don't see Walmart beating Pokemon. Okay. I don't see that.

[Perry]

It's funny because Walmart's like shifting strategy is like. They are emphasizing online sales and it's kind of catching on and they're doing a really good job relatively so. But, you know, that'll be in a different episode.

[Aiden]

Yeah. What were you thinking?

[Doug]

No, just Anthropic. They said this in May. I forget if we mentioned it, but they said they're going to have their first profitable quarter. So one of these companies might be making money soon. That's cool.

[Aiden]

Let's do it.

[Doug]

Damn. That's, you know.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Told you guys. AI is going to fix everything.

[Aiden]

Yeah, I think they got that companies

[Doug]

are going to make money now. We've invented it.

[Perry]

What if the business made money?

[Aiden]

Yeah. You're fucking crazy. The meme where the guy gets thrown out the window.

[Doug]

Yeah. You know, one of the. I will say for. For people who are, you know, more in the AI sauce or interested in it, one of the interesting things that's going to happen with this fable model is, is. It is the Mythos model, which, if you remember a month or two ago, Anthropic came out and was like, this model we've come up with is so powerful, it will destroy all of the cybersecurity around the world. We cannot release it. It is dangerous. We are going to pick a few selected winners of society who. We will share it with them and they will fix everything, like Firefox and banks and whatever else. And then, like, I think last week I was going to mention on the podcast, we don't have time. You know, they're like, we're releasing it to more people and countries and whatnot, and we might even release it to the public soon. And the question, I think prime made a video about this or talked about it, and he was like, you guys last month were saying it was too dangerous, like, to release into the wallet, and now you're saying it's coming out in a couple of weeks. And then it was apparently in a

[Aiden]

week and now it's out. I'm going to ask you to hack the government.

[Doug]

Yes.

[Aiden]

Can you hack the government for me?

[Doug]

So I think what's interesting is the, you know, the worry or one of the big things is like, these models are getting so powerful, it's going to break everything.

[Aiden]

It switched to opus.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's. That's a whole.

[Aiden]

If I ask why, it says it has safety measures that flag cybersecurity or biology topics.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Wow. So guess what? I can't hack the government.

[Doug]

In theory. Part of what they're trying to pitch as their valuation is like, we Anthropic are going to fundamentally change all of software. And so this thing being out, we're going to start to see, is this hype or not? Because we don't know. We don't know how much of this is hype or not. So be kind of interesting to see, like, are there a bunch of companies that are like, holy shit, everything's breaking, or we fixed all our bugs or blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Aiden]

Yeah. I played around with this agency to see if it was like, oh, is this crazy? It felt like the last one. I mean, I'm not using it for Agentix. I'm using it for asking it questions.

[Doug]

I think for like a casual AI user, even for me in the level of. Of I'm not doing advanced coding. It's like, these things are all plenty good. You're talking about, can you give it a giant code base and find, like, major security vulnerabilities?

[Aiden]

I did see this I don't know if we can check it out. I'm not. It's like apparently he asked it to create a horror game and this is what it. One shot. This is.

[Doug]

Look, I know you're like hyped up on AI and I don't want to hurt your feelings. This doesn't mean anything.

[Aiden]

No, I don't think this is like. I'm just saying I don't think you could do that in the last. Claude. So this is interesting. I don't know what the fuck it means, but that's in browser, right? That's something. It's weird. It doesn't look like a very good horror game but obviously, you know, that's the thing you say about. It's just. It's just a weird. My estimate if you asked me yesterday is that this shit is bad and really far is what I would have said. And this is like more than I would have expected. So I'm just gonna update my analysis slightly and be like, okay, well this is interesting. Yeah, that's fair Play this in a browser is. Is. Is kind of wild to me. It doesn't. It's not like that doesn't beat Resident Evil, right? It's just like an interesting thing that they can do.

[Doug]

Yeah, the really big. I guess. No, that's not fair. I was going to say the big question is like can this stuff actually help an enterprise software? But you know that that's very.

[Aiden]

It's very question I ask myself every night.

[Doug]

Programming coded.

[Aiden]

I'm always like, can this help in enterprise software something? I could.

[Doug]

My SaaS product, could I give it a JIRA ticket and it runs on its own and I don't have to do additional testing and create shareholder value

[Perry]

for B2B SaaS companies don't talk about JIRA on this show.

[Doug]

You don't like jira?

[Perry]

I hate jira.

[Doug]

Nobody likes jira. Well, everybody. Brandon left, he said, I'm done with this fucking show. I'm bored. Nothing you guys are saying is interesting. And he just. With no context. So I guess just keep going. Aiden, you and me.

[Perry]

Okay, Doug. For audio listeners, I'm looking at a stuffed Care Bear and the head of a Barbie. A small toy fridge. I'm just curious why you pulled this image up.

[Doug]

Oh, this was it. Now that Brandon's gone, I figure this is the show. Okay. Fun story. And it's a real bummer that we lost Brandon because he would really love this.

[Perry]

He would love this.

[Doug]

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's the most exciting Time of the year. It's the annual Uber Lost and Found Index.

[Aiden]

What is this?

[Doug]

So I didn't know about this. Uber every year publishes info on how much shit people forget in Ubers and leave behind. And so this is the ten year celebration. As part of that, they list the most unique items that were found this year in actual Ubers, including breast milk, dentures, 420 donuts, meaning like marijuana, oxygen tanks, brand new mini fridge. Thought that was silly. And then, you know, 10 most commonly forgotten items they list out to be expected. Phone, wallet, luggage. New York City is the most forgetful city of Uber.

[Aiden]

How to guard fucking wimby, I'll tell you that.

[Doug]

My Miami who also forgot to. And that's why they're not in the playoffs.

[Aiden]

LA Boo Boo on the loose.

[Doug]

Yeah, I just thought this was fun. So they post this whole report of how much stuff people forget in cars.

[Perry]

Did that say 70 tiramisu cakes have been left? Is that what that said?

[Aiden]

That was me. I'm sorry, it's. You guys been making fun of my weight. So I'm like, I just buy it, but then I leave it in the Uber so I don't eat it.

[Doug]

How do I. Sir? I don't know how to spell tiramisu. I'm realizing. Oh, right there. Yeah, this was this year. So they list out the most notable. This is in one. Somebody left their wedding cake in an Uber. What's funny about this as well is they. They said in the thing they're going to have a new like lost and found feature in Uber where you submit that you've lost an item and then you could pay for the driver to come back and deliver it to you, which I think is a funny little business.

[Aiden]

Maybe that's why the switch is selling so well. They keep leaving them in Ubers.

[Perry]

Didn't you have to do that in China? Didn't you pay a hairdryer?

[Doug]

Forgot. Perry did. And we had to go get our translator to call the Uber back.

[Perry]

And we paid him to bring the phone back.

[Aiden]

Oh, yeah.

[Doug]

And then just tipped him. Yeah, we. I mean, everybody knows somebody leaves shit in Ubers. Like, this is a. So it's funny that this is so common that they need to make reports about it and this is completely unnecessary. But somebody left tickets to the Atlanta Falcons. Brutal.

[Aiden]

Brutal.

[Perry]

Top5 toys and novelty items left behind. Care Bear is number one. That's why they have a picture of a Care Bear DS eyes.

[Aiden]

We're still using my.

[Perry]

Why does it say my green scooter? Oh, that's the way people type it into the app.

[Aiden]

You're leaving your beyblade in the Uber? Having to call the Uber. You're like a 34 year old man.

[Doug]

I didn't realize this is what they send it in. It's like, hello, I'm missing my small hello kitty pouch that says J. Boogie on it. A gold Rolex.

[Perry]

You said this is an index. How can I invest?

[Aiden]

So you were profiting on all this? Sell these.

[Perry]

I heard the S and P is compromised right now. I'm looking to put my money elsewhere.

[Doug]

Oh yeah. They have the most papers unique that have ever been lost. Divorce papers.

[Perry]

A.

[Doug]

The head of a salmon.

[Perry]

A lobster in 2017.

[Aiden]

Why is that?

[Doug]

And that's the update on the Uber lost and found report. Stay tuned in next year when we give you the 11th annual report.

[Perry]

Dude, I want to now I kind of want to compete for this. Maybe this is dangerous. You know when like, you know what

[Aiden]

if we try to get the craziest thing again on the list?

[Doug]

Poly market odds. What's what's found in the Uber Dangerous.

[Perry]

This is like when the WNBA dildo thing broke out and then people started doing it for money. It's like we could bet to get on this.

[Aiden]

This. Well, that was for betting. There's no money in this, right?

[Doug]

Not until we make a holy.

[Aiden]

Well, I'm just saying it could be fun. We could be on the list. We could find the craziest thing. We leave it in an Uber. Then we call and go. You lost my prosthetic, Aiden. Or whatever.

[Doug]

Okay, hear me out, dead body. One of us volunteers. That would top the list. Dude.

[Perry]

Sorry. I left my fucking dead body.

[Aiden]

I'm so sorry, guys.

[Doug]

I left my friend in the car.

[Aiden]

My friend is dead. He's in the back of the.

[Perry]

Wait, no, this is. He's me and Doug. Weekend at Bernie's Atria. In the back of. In the back of an Uber? Yeah. We leave you in there.

[Doug]

No. Okay, wait, wait, wait.

[Aiden]

Hold on.

[Doug]

You know all. All three of us want to have kids now. I think whoever has to go first. We ask our lovely partner.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

To have birth in the Uber and we forget it. We see if we can get on the list.

[Aiden]

Having birth in an Uber. I forgot something. Oh, the kid. I didn't inter with the kid so I didn't remember it.

[Perry]

You forgot about the kid already? No. You're doing a great job. You're doing a great job.

[Aiden]

So funny to call the Uber driver. Is there a crying kid back there?

[Perry]

You got a bit you got my baby in the car.

[Aiden]

Baby in the car. I can't find him.

[Doug]

Close the door on the umbilical cord. Yeah.

[Aiden]

I love where our head's at with this.

[Doug]

I think I would love to. Birth is a fun fact about Norway.

[Perry]

Well, the Nordic fun fact of the week.

[Doug]

Wait, hold on. Sorry. That wasn't enough. Possessed. Can you intro Nordic fun fact with like a lot of hype?

[Aiden]

Yeah, me.

[Doug]

Yeah. This is the big segment. Everybody looks.

[Aiden]

This is the segment I hate more than anything in the world.

[Perry]

Well, and that's why we're saving the Nordic fun fact of the week this week.

[Aiden]

When you save it, you're bringing up.

[Doug]

Bringing this.

[Perry]

I know you're drooling. For the Nordic fun and for the Danes in the comments who have been complaining about not enough Denmark in Nordic fun fact of the week.

[Aiden]

Yeah, that's.

[Perry]

It's about Denmark.

[Doug]

This week, ladies and gentlemen, there is introducing more than your own partner.

[Aiden]

You would listen to a Danish person in the comments about something.

[Perry]

Absolutely nothing.

[Aiden]

Aiden cares about more than someone who's Nordic coded in the comments.

[Perry]

My girlfriend went to an American public school.

[Doug]

She's dumb. The Nordic fun fact of the week featuring Aiden McCaig and NATCO kicking it off. Three, two, one, go.

[Perry]

Well, I really did want to save this though.

[Doug]

You want to say.

[Aiden]

No, you absolutely cannot.

[Doug]

It's in our list.

[Perry]

I wanted to save fun fact of

[Aiden]

the week is a main video exclusive.

[Perry]

I wanted to save it for the Patreon.

[Aiden]

It's not a Patreon. Patreon.

[Perry]

We're at it. We're.

[Doug]

People are gonna unsubscribe. It doesn't matter.

[Aiden]

People watching are desperate for one thing, you to give them some esoteric.

[Doug]

We can't promote the Patreon. Like, hey, tune in every week for the Nordic fun fact.

[Aiden]

Being an Aiden friend in real life, this is what it's like. He just tells you random shit about fucking Nordic areas.

[Perry]

Yeah, so it's like viewers at home or listeners. If you're listening to audio, I'm your real friend telling you that if you pay me, I'll tell you what the normal.

[Doug]

I mean I can. I can talk about medical asses, I guess.

[Aiden]

No, tell us the Nordic fun fact.

[Perry]

Wait, are you for real?

[Aiden]

I'm for real.

[Perry]

This is like. This is.

[Aiden]

We're. I had to pee. It's not our full timer. I want you to tell me the Nordic fun fact. I'm demanding it for the audience.

[Perry]

Okay, fine, fine. There was an electorate in Denmark this year. They had the big election

[Aiden]

thank God. Thank God.

[Doug]

This is free. We cannot pay all this.

[Perry]

You can't pay all this important information.

[Doug]

Okay, what happened? What happened?

[Aiden]

I talked about California.

[Doug]

I want to hear about Timber.

[Aiden]

I'll be all standoffish about it. Tell them you gotta sell it to us. Okay.

[Perry]

What.

[Aiden]

What excited you about this? All right.

[Perry]

What the. They had to form a new coalition government.

[Aiden]

I feel bad. No, make me feel bad. Feel bad.

[Doug]

No.

[Aiden]

You hyped up a fun fact and said there's an election in Denmark.

[Doug]

Okay, we can't. No, we can't only talk about California elections. We got to hear about a specific Scandinavian country election. Just hear about it.

[Perry]

I don't even know. I guess.

[Aiden]

Who were the. Who were the. I'm gonna. Like. I have to like. It's like the parent trying to be like. So that's exciting. So who was the belligerents? Who were the two competing?

[Doug]

Who do you like? Who do you like, Honey?

[Aiden]

Who is the.

[Perry]

Well, I mean, Meta Frederickson won. Okay, I want you to imagine, okay, you're. You're Meta Frederick. Mette Frederickson. She. And it's. It's in danger. You guys sound like you have potatoes in your mouth. I can't do it. I can't say it right.

[Aiden]

I like a fish.

[Perry]

I want you to imagine you're at the end of 2025. And you, your approval rating. You're the leader of the Social Democrats in Denmark, which is like a center left party in Danish politics.

[Aiden]

All right?

[Perry]

And you're. You've been the Prime Minister for quite some time. I think since 2019. Maybe a bit earlier than that. Since 2020, when your approval rating, I believe, peaked at 79%. Your approval rating now is now in the low 30s. Uh oh. People are sick of you. And the Social Democrats, they don't like me. They.

[Aiden]

I'm in character. You said it'd be.

[Perry]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I like that you're leading into it. I appreciate that. And right. Right at the beginning of the year, something rocks. Danish politics. Can you think of what that might have been?

[Aiden]

Someone tripped on a Lego, bro. They covered it for weeks, bro.

[Perry]

Anything else? Any other ideas?

[Doug]

I don't know, Like a bike fell into a river.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Someone.

[Aiden]

Someone closed the bike lane.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And the city shut down. No one could get to go.

[Perry]

Okay, well, you're close. You're close. Trump threatened to invade Greenland.

[Aiden]

I remember that. I remember that. That. You know what? That was kind of an American bad, honest with you.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And wasn't our proudest moment. What is and we did all support it 100%.

[Perry]

We have talked a lot on the show how Trump's aggression in the second term has dramatically shifted elections in other countries. And this actually did the same in Denmark. So the Social Democrats saw a huge uptick in support. Menna Fredrickson saw a huge, oh, like a Carney thing. Like a, Similar to Kearney, similar to Australia. Like she saw a surge in her approval for her government's response to Trump's threats of Greenland earlier in the year. And they kind of capitalized on this surge and gambled by calling an early election. Now they had up until November of this year to call for that election. And it just happened, I think at the end of March. And then because they, they thought this is the time where we're going to be able to get enough seats. The other main player here is Lars Luke Rasmussen. I would say Rasmussen is a little eccentric. He, he posted this, he's leaned into calling himself the Goat. Takes a lot of pictures, smoking publicly. And when posted like an Instagram photo with him like next to a goat to help insinuate it. He also, upon being asked about becoming prime minister for a third time, which he cannot be like in this current government, I see, he said, rule it out entirely. That would be a strangely weak position to put yourself in when you're the goat. Right? Which I thought, I mean, that's what

[Aiden]

the goat would say.

[Perry]

People have actually liked. His general response to Trump's aggression earlier in the year is seen as like the second party in the government prior to this election as like part of that response that people liked. And also in this post election period, he was seen as this kind of kingmaker because as the leader of the Moderates, he is able to greatly shift what the coalition government post election is going to be. He could either choose to have the Moderates lean in the direction of the right wing parties in Denmark and shift and give them like the power in government, or he can go back to like the, the left wing parties and the Social Democrats being one of them and give them the power. And prior to this election he publicly proclaimed that he would not work with the further left wing parties in Denmark. One of them called like the Red Green Party.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Perry]

And he, after the election is over, the numbers come in and now they have to form the government based on which parties have won the seats. Right. And it takes away longer than normal, takes over 60 days to get everything together. And Fredriksen and the Social Democrats maintain power by forming a bloc with enough of the Left wing parties and the Moderates led by Rasmussen seemingly walk back their promise publicly and do form a coalition government with the other left wing parties, leaving them in the majority over the right wing ones.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Perry]

And isn't it kind of funny how

[Aiden]

you guys ever seen Code Geass?

[Perry]

Yeah, I've seen like an episode.

[Aiden]

This is a very. It's a spoiler actually. So if you. Two clever years. It's such an old show. The main premise of Code Geass is that he makes himself into the world villain at the end so everybody unites and he saves the world by being the bad guy. Yeah, it is kind of funny that, that Trump has had this effect on so many elections. What if he's secretly a deep cover? Like I just read that solar panel pickup has hit all time highs massively because of the war in Iran. What if he's an eco terrorist? That is like, he's like, I'm going to make green energy adoption and I'm going to help the center left parties of Europe.

[Perry]

It's funny because they, the new government like Fredriksen announces like her, her Cabinet of Ministers, 21 people, first time in Denmark's history where there's more women than men in that cabinet as well. And they released this like paper basically of how we're going to govern and the policies that we're going to pursue during this like next term of government. And one of the things is like within the next 10 years we're going to roll out free dental care to all Danes and within the next year to a certain people below a certain income level, they'll get free dent care within that one year.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Perry]

And to think that like Trump through his actions is like wanted, I wanted

[Doug]

to go care for people.

[Perry]

Free dental care.

[Aiden]

That was his plan. He doesn't get enough credit for it.

[Perry]

But that was the, honestly that the, the way this party was able to maintain power is a direct outcome of this polling burst that came from Trump's threats. And I thought that was, that was kind of wild. It's just like another you know, global domino of like how his actions have helped shape.

[Doug]

Imagine it's 2016 and Trump is like, what can I do to make the world move as left as possible? And I make a fuckload of money. Holy shit. President of the United States.

[Perry]

I think I, he's this super nice guy. Yeah.

[Aiden]

Everyone around is like, but you're going to have to be a villain. I'll do it. I'll shoulder that.

[Perry]

I'll do what I have to do.

[Aiden]

He starts working on the hands.

[Perry]

He read a moral ambition.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Perry]

Yeah.

[Doug]

How can I. He's actually every country around the world shifting to the right shipping Timmy's Garden.

[Aiden]

Yeah, probably.

[Perry]

I think the. The last interesting thing about this was they. They had to make.

[Aiden]

What was the first interesting thing about it?

[Perry]

Sing.

[Aiden]

Dude, I'm kidding. It was it. Don't put on your pouty American hat

[Perry]

for the. I'm curious for the Danes listening, what big parts you feel like I may be missing. From my understanding, you know, Frederickson is like a pretty milquetoast candidate that is like nobody's like, you know, super jacked or excited for. And the her party did lose seats compared to the previous election. Like they still like, it was just not as dramatic of a loss as it could have been. And it was. The damage was mitigated. They had to end up making concessions to further left wing parties in Denmark that actually saw seat increases. Yeah. And things like the free dental care are things that those further left parties are like drawing a line in the sand on that the Social Democrats have to compromise and say like, okay, well you'll give us the majority and we'll back your advocacy for like there are

[Aiden]

so many parties, you pull us up. It's just interesting. You're right. I mean like, literally, they both need this little tove. I'm making up a color. What is that? What is the M color?

[Doug]

No, it's Tove.

[Perry]

The M's are the moderates.

[Aiden]

Yeah, yeah, I know, but they need moderates. They need the moderates. I don't know what color that is. I'm trying to say taupe. Lavender. Tove.

[Doug]

I think it's tove. Yeah. Yeah. So the Tove party is sort of kingmakers.

[Aiden]

They're clearly kingmakers.

[Perry]

I think if any Danish person listening to this has insight. One thing I didn't really understand is like why Rasmussen like walked back his. His commitment to maybe working with right wing parties and saying he wouldn't work with the left wing ones this time.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Perry]

Because I heard one explanation that I won't even repeat here because it just didn't make sense to me. So if anybody could synthesize that a bit better. Yeah, but that's the Nordic. That's the Nordic. Fun fact of the week. It was pulling fucking teeth.

[Aiden]

Oh, yeah. Hell yeah, pulling teeth. And they're now super clean.

[Perry]

Dude, if I just said for free. You know what's annoying? If I describe this whole election and I said it was like, this is how Vermont does its elections, he'd Be fine with it. He'd be fine with it. But because it's Denmark, he's got attitude.

[Doug]

You fix the problem right there. You lie, you say you're covering the, like, Vermont elections. At the end, you're like, it was

[Perry]

Finland the whole time. I need to start sprinkling in stories

[Aiden]

and just might give it away when

[Doug]

his name is Ludwig Vermot. And wait, wait, wait, real quick, super fast story. I just need to correct it because I got this very wrong. A couple weeks ago, we talked about Google glasses and those being announced and how they're going to come out later this year. And I incorrectly said that the meta glasses currently do not have displays in them. And that is wrong. I was misunderstanding what was going on. They actually did the meta Ray Ban glasses. They now have a version with a display, but. And apparently it's like, good and people like it, but it's been like, way sold out. Is not available outside of the US So I think I kind of conflated those things as well as the really big holy grail is glasses that are gonna be able to have two displays right on both sides. And so that may or may not come out the end of this year. There's some good Marques Brown Lee videos about it. If you search for those with titles such as Wait, Smart glasses are suddenly good. But just quick update to that because that was just. That was so wrong. That's your.

[Perry]

I was appreciate. I appreciate that you want to correct something like, it could have to do with smart glasses. It could have to do with Iceland. It was. We all make mistakes. I think it's important to make corrections on this podcast when we fuck up. So if you hear anything perhaps about the Den, the Denmark story, let's do it. You want to crack?

[Aiden]

Let's do it in. The next we should do is we should do a Nordic fun fact of the week and then a Nordic correction of the last week's fun fact. We could do it if we could fill the last 45 minutes of the podcast with like some esoteric Nordic long

[Doug]

apologies, a lot of bowing. We want to apologize for this.

[Aiden]

My ideal.

[Perry]

I'm done. I gotta go do my other podcast. I gotta go do that one.

[Aiden]

Bye, guys. Thanks for joining us on this week of the news. Bye, everybody. See you next time.

[Perry]

Formula one. So hot right now.

[Aiden]

It's like if traders in succession had a baby on wheels.

[Perry]

Teams lying, drivers beefing, celebrities everywhere.

[Aiden]

And scandals, lots of scandals.

[Perry]

So we made a show about it, the Red Flags podcast, where we recap races and break down all the latest

[Aiden]

F1 headlines, but no nerdy tech talk. We only cover the stuff you want to hear about.

[Perry]

Yeah, and the only thing hotter than the drivers are our takes.

[Aiden]

And now we're doing it on vox.

[Perry]

Oh, we're so legit now. We're basically thought leaders.

[Doug]

TED Talk incoming.

[Perry]

And we do a podcast with Gunter Steiner called Venka Hours.

[Aiden]

I still can't believe that's true.

[Perry]

Well, believe it. There is so much for the beautiful Vox Media audience to enjoy. So come check out the Red Flags podcast Every Monday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.