The War Is Back | Ep.072 Lemonade Stand 🍋

Summary

Lemonade Stand Ep. 072: The War Is Back (July 22, 2026)

Hosts: Aiden, Atrioc (Brennan), DougDoug
Theme: Three guys with just enough experience to run a lemonade stand, explaining business, tech, war, and the economy—with a heavy dose of humor and banter.

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Episode Overview

This episode opens lightheartedly—amidst Diet Coke chugging challenges motivated by a bizarre medical story about bezoars and Coke—but swiftly pivots into a detailed, sometimes somber, discussion of geopolitics, AI competition, global markets, and the persistent, unresolved state of US-Iran hostilities. There's also plenty of trademark riffing on Trump administration antics, Canadian-American relations, global AI advances, and the wild financial innovations (and messes) shaping the business landscape. As always, Lemonade Stand blends astute, skeptical analysis with irreverent asides and sharp wit.

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Main Segments & Key Discussion Points

1. Diet Coke, Bezoars & American Healthcare Absurdity

[01:02–04:39]

• Doug opens with a wild story: a woman with a stomach bezoar was prescribed 3 liters of Coke per day to dissolve it.
  • Doug brings 12 cans of soda to the show, aiming to “prevent” bezoars (preemptive medicine, the American way).
  • The hosts riff on the unhealthy logic: “It’s so American that our preemptive healthcare is drink more soda…” — Brennan [03:12]
• Memorable moment:
  • Doug, as he opens more cans: “Do I look? Do I sound. Do I smell better?” [02:52]

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2. Iran War Update—“The War is Back”

[04:39–24:21]

• Somber update: Despite a “Treaty of Versailles”–like peace signing just a month ago, the U.S.-Iran conflict has violently reignited.
  • 10 straight nights of open warfare; U.S. casualties in Jordan from an Iranian missile strike (names and ages shared).
• Oil market instability:
  • All key strategic straits in the Middle East are threatened/blockaded. Oil could spike to $150–$180/barrel if blockades hold, per oil traders ([09:00–10:47]).
  • Saudi oil rerouting through pipelines, now threatened by Houthi activity.
  • Strategic petroleum reserves are nearly drained—market “running on empty.”
• China's huge impact:
  • China halved oil imports, switched to reserves and coal, and stabilized prices—critical in preventing economic catastrophe.
  • Uncertainty: “We don’t know their clock, we don’t know their pain tolerance, we don’t know when they would stop doing that. And that is the big question mark.” — Brennan [16:11]
• Trump’s Iran strategy:
  • Shift from attempted negotiation to a regime change approach, as diplomacy fails and military stockpiles run low.
  • Brennan notes: “They just keep cycling between desperate negotiation and trying to go all out war. And it doesn’t seem to be making progress on the goal.” [17:46]
  • Enormous military budget and requests for extra funding—much of which is unconnected to Iran specifically ([21:18]).
  • Disillusionment: “I’m getting real fucking Iraq and Afghanistan vibes, dude...the whole world has to suffer now for that.” — Brennan [22:18]

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3. Canada–US Trade War & Tariffs Escalation

[27:14–38:01]

• Trump imposes new 50% tariffs on Canadian goods (wine, hockey sticks, cheese, etc.), exploiting a loophole in the Tariff Act.
• Canadian retaliation: Provinces ban US alcohol, restrict cars and dairy ([33:14]).
• Massive fall in Canadian public opinion of the US—from 83% seeing US as a “good partner” (2022) to just 35% [34:11].
• Trump’s rhetoric: “Without us, there’s no way they can survive.” [35:23]
  • Reaction: “If Xi Jinping went on the air and said, America needs us to survive…the instinctual response is like, well, fuck you…” — Brennan [35:32]
• Carney (Canadian PM) sees surging popularity by simply opposing Trump.
• Deeper theme: US behavior fomenting backlash, driving even rivals with domestic discontent to solidarity against perceived American bullying.
• Questioning US global reputation:
  • Doug: “At some point, are people just like, no, that fucking sucks so bad... America just kind of blows for the next decade or two or three?” [39:32]

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4. Global AI Arms Race: China Catches Up

[45:41–64:16]

• “Bombshell” Chinese AI model—Moonshot’s Kimmy K3—launches, rivaling top American models (Claude, OpenAI) at 1/3 the price.
  • “Kimmy 3 is better than every single model except the very high end Claude and OpenAI models…basically as good.” — Doug [50:06]
  • Immediate industry impact: Chinese investors elated, US tech stocks drop.
• Trump administration considers restrictions/sanctions on Chinese AI—worried about national security, IP theft, market dominance ([53:23]).
  • Quote: “This administration supports open source models. What we do not support is IP theft.” — Sec. of Treasury [54:06]
• Deepening cycle: Each new release from US or Chinese labs shortens the competitive gap—creating an unending, accelerating arms race.
• Discussion on where and how real innovation happens in AI; role of copying vs. true advances; who funds Chinese firms.
• Regulatory headaches:
  • “All this regulation stuff feels like you’re delaying the inevitable that comes when you’re not competitive on cost or quality.” — Brennan [64:17]
• Real-world effects:
  • Joke suggestion: “What if we taught Kimmy to trade stocks?”—leads to the revelation that Wall Street firms are already using AIs to parse news for “actionable” signals ([65:04]).

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5. Markets, Trading, Tesla, and the Federal Reserve

[64:16–80:06]

• AI manipulations: News headlines increasingly manipulated to evade AI-powered parsing for market trading—e.g., using Cyrillic letters to hide bad news from bots ([66:26–68:06]).
• Truth Social: Trump’s platform is selling “fast lane access” to Wall Street, letting traders pay $100k for millisecond-faster alerts on Trump's posts, due to their huge influence on markets ([69:07]).
• Tesla earnings shenanigans:
  • Musk/insiders suspected of planting “softball” questions in the queue to avoid tough disclosures about missed targets ([71:56]).
• The new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh:
  • Emphasizing less market signaling, ending the "mirror economy" where Fed cues drive stock prices more than fundamentals ([75:08]).
  • Brennan's analysis: “His words have been great so far, but…realistically, the second we get any time of real downturn, he’s probably going to succumb to the pressure and start the printing…and lowering and straight that everyone always does.” [77:42]

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6. Business Models & International Finance Oddities

[80:10–93:08]

• Apple & Klarna: Apple teams up with Klarna for rental iPhone plans (Klarna assumes the credit risk, Apple gets paid up front), but with no AppleCare for renters—Klarna’s risky business model lampooned ([81:33–83:35]).
• Quick Nordic currency fact:
  • Denmark keeps its currency pegged tightly to the euro for trade and stability but remains outside the Eurozone to avoid potential bailout liabilities—a “best of both worlds” approach ([90:20–92:42]).

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Memorable Quotes & Funniest Moments

• “It’s so American that our preemptive health care is drink more soda to prevent.” — Brennan [03:12]
• “I always said the Treaty of Versailles wasn’t a good deal.” — Aiden [05:58]
• “I was genuinely hopeful for that…end of the war…but it’s not happening…everyone, the whole world has to suffer for that.” — Brennan [23:18]
• “The hottest kid on the block”—running joke, from AI models to Germany in the EU ([51:04],[92:43])
• Doug, after 10 cans of Coke: “I am the healthiest man on this podcast.” [89:13]
• Trump on Canada: “Without us, there’s no way they can survive.” [35:23]
• On AI innovation: “At the end of the day, the consumer doesn’t care…They want the best thing for the lowest cost.” — Brennan [60:39]
• “If you eat Taco Bell, you might shit your pants. Over to Aiden for trying to get important information from someone who’s sipping their 19th Diet Coke…” — Brennan [85:32]

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Structural Notes / Timestamps of Key Segments

• [01:02] – Doug’s Coke challenge, bezoar story
• [04:39] – Middle East, Iran war update
• [13:36] – Houthis, regional oil threat, China’s role
• [22:18] – US military budget insanity, “quagmire” critique
• [27:14] – Canadian tariff war, Trump’s trade shenanigans
• [45:41] – AI arms race
• [66:26] – AI manipulation of financial news
• [69:07] – Truth Social “fast lane” for traders
• [71:56] – Tesla investor Q&A manipulated
• [75:08] – Kevin Warsh & the Fed
• [81:33] – Apple-Klarna phone rental story
• [90:20] – Denmark’s euro peg “cheat code”

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Final Thoughts

This episode deftly blends comedic riffs (Doug’s Coke odyssey, Canadian stereotypes, American business cynicism) with dense, serious analysis of the “wars” that define 2026: kinetic and economic battles in the Middle East, a US–Canadian trade feud, and the escalating AI arms race. Underneath the irreverent tone lies a sharp sense of anxiety: about enduring quagmires, an unraveling world order, the hollowing-out of America's reputation, and the relentless, increasingly global march of technological competition.

If you want up-to-date, no-nonsense, no-bullshit business and geopolitical analysis, filtered through a Gen Z/Millennial lens and unburdened by conventional reverence—Lemonade Stand is your stand.

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Endnote:
For the full Lemonade Stand experience (and more “hot kids on the block”), join their Patreon for extra episodes and even more long-form riffing.

Transcript

[Aiden]

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[Brennan]

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[Aiden]

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[Doug]

on a consultation with a clinician. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Lemonade Stand. Now there's a lot of interesting stories this week, such as the Iran war update. The new Chinese open source model may be destroying the US Economy. Until I found the most interesting story. Oh, Perry, pull this up. You see, okay, last week. Wait, we don't have to change that. Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago a woman is admitted to the emergency room. She's been sick, nauseous, throwing up for a month now, losing crazy amounts of weight.

[Brennan]

Okay.

[Doug]

She goes into the hospital and they say, ma', am, you have a giant mass in your stomach. Maybe it's related to the fact that she takes GLP1s like OIC, which change the way or the vax. There's no way of knowing for sure which changes how your body digests food. They realize there's a huge mass in her body. It's called a bezoar when you have a massive processed and unprocessed food that won't leave the stomach. And do you know what they prescribed her? 3 liters of coca Cola. This is a real diagnosis thing where you are prescribed soda to cure bezos if these appear in your stomach. And so this woman drank a liter and a half every day until finally the entire mass with a tugging sensation released from her stomach and she suddenly felt better. According to Complex, the blockage had completely dissolved. No surgery required. Diet Coke pulled off.

[Aiden]

The miracle is this comple the sneaker

[Brennan]

company and the number one comment lifestyle brand.

[Doug]

The prescription came from a very well known doctor. So ladies and gentlemen, I have an idea if apparently 3 liters of diet Coke can have incredible health benefits. I should see if it helps our podcasting.

[Brennan]

I see.

[Doug]

So I brought 12 cans of soda. I'm going to have nine of them during the course of this.

[Aiden]

Doug. Doug, you cannot have nine.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's three liters and we're going to see. Do I look? Do I sound. Do I smell better?

[Brennan]

Say though is you don't have a bezoar. You know, so it's not that we know for you that we know of.

[Doug]

That we know of. It feels I prefer to be preemptive. I've talked on this show about how preemptive health care could save us tons of money in this country.

[Brennan]

It's so American that our preemptive health care is drink more soda to prevent.

[Aiden]

I need to make sure I don't get a bezel. That's why I drink so much soda.

[Brennan]

The most bezoar free nation of all time, bro. The amount of soda consumption.

[Doug]

We got some great news for you this week.

[Aiden]

Are you opening the next one?

[Brennan]

Okay, relax sodas Doug. Or put a label. They're not sponsored us.

[Doug]

So what's going on with Iran?

[Brennan]

Please don't. How do you segue me into Iran like that? I have to cover the Iran war with that intro.

[Doug]

Oh, my stomach's feeling great.

[Brennan]

I'm praying for a big enough bezoar that even your Dr. Pepper can't stop. Or your fucking Coca Cola can't stop. Ladies. Do it. Let's get serious for a moment. All right? Hey, quit laughing in your little schoolboy outfit, Aiden.

[Aiden]

Sorry.

[Brennan]

Ok, it's time for the most qualified

[Doug]

people in the world podcast to talk about. Are you opening the third.

[Brennan]

Ok Doug.

[Aiden]

Dude, this is worse than the.

[Brennan]

I'm going to be talking about like someone dying in the Iran war and you're going to rip a gigantic belt so they can't edit out and it's going to be a problem because I don't want that clip to exist in the world.

[Doug]

You're going to regret those words when I lose my bezoar by the end of this episode.

[Brennan]

Actually we should have tested him before because he's going to be bezoar free

[Aiden]

for sure afterwards and we'll never.

[Doug]

He could have no for certain that I don't have bezos.

[Brennan]

Yeah, that is. Okay guys with that beautiful intro. Let me take you today 143 of our short excursion military excursion with Iran. Can you pull us up?

[Aiden]

Donald Trump has announced that they are de mining the straight with Coca Cola. Actually

[Doug]

enough coke in the straight.

[Brennan]

Anything's possible. They think of it like A bezoar constricting the straight oil.

[Aiden]

Think about the mines in the straight armies like a bezoar.

[Doug]

Stomach.

[Brennan]

Flush that thing right out. Day 1 43. If you guys don't know this was exactly one month ago. It's kind of time flew by. This is Donald Trump in Versailles who all the pomp and circumstance, everyone around signing the official end of the war memorandum of understanding been signed with Iran and we are finally done out over with. And now one month later, it finds out that we are in a. 10 straight nights of back and forth open warfare at the highest level it's been since the war began between us and Iran.

[Aiden]

I always said the Treaty of Versailles wasn't a good deal.

[Brennan]

You've always said.

[Aiden]

I've always said that for who?

[Brennan]

In your lifetime, of course. Wait, wait, wait. Treaty of Versailles was against Germany, right?

[Aiden]

You just said it was like a deal. They signed it Versailles. That's.

[Brennan]

Yeah, no, I understand. I see what you're saying. 10 straight night of warfare and it's becoming a persistent dark cloud, this bleak new phase. Just drink another sip before. Because, because I need you to get it out because the next one's a little bit somber. Okay. And I'm worried about conflicting it. Okay. U.S. striking Iran. Iran striking back. As of this morning, three service members died. Three service members died last night on the U.S. military base in Jordan struck by Iranian missile. Now obviously people have died on both sides, but I'm just saying this is a, a new phase of the warfare where American military strikes are being retaliated with and with casualties on the American military side.

[Doug]

Do you know up to this point how many Americans have died?

[Brennan]

I don't know.

[Doug]

Very few.

[Aiden]

Right. I don't know about the total for dead, but there's been about 100 casualties on the American side and. But apparently most of those are concussions.

[Doug]

Really?

[Aiden]

Yeah, that's what I read this morning.

[Brennan]

Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. So these are, I mean these are some of the first few of a direct missile strike hitting. The missile attacks by Iran are beginning to penetrate air defenses on the US military bases in the Middle east, which is causing concern and in fact there's a possibility, I can't confirm this, that more have happened. I don't know if they've lead to casualties, but it's been suppressed like they are suppressing discussion of successful missile strikes on US military bases to, to not give Iran confidence in their strike abilities. But it's, it's happening apparently.

[Aiden]

And for what it's worth, there's about four, it seems not unconfirmed, but about 4,000 Iranians have died. Yeah, maybe more, maybe a little less, but many, many people.

[Brennan]

I'm not doing a telly. I'm just saying for the, like, from the perspective of this was supposed to be over a month ago. Now, these are three people on essentially Donald Trump's military side who are now dead. 19 years old, Isabel Gonzalez, Tyler Feehan, I think 26, and Michael Swinton, 30, all died on the Jordan base. So serious, serious stuff. And what's the interest, not the interesting, but the crazy thing that's happening recently, the past few days, is that, look, there's just the map of the Middle East. We've kind of discussed this before. This is the numbers I got from an oil trader, okay. I got this from an oil trader whose substack I follow. And I messaged him, okay? He said, if there's. This is like a general rule of thumb for people trading oil, knowing the Middle east, if there's strikes in Lebanon, oil prices could rise to as high as 60 or $70. It's like over years are just looking at what happens if there's Houthis in the Bab Al Mandeb straight right there down in the Gulf of Aidan Calvin, oil could rise as high as 70 or $80. If there's problems in Strait of Hormuz, oil can rise as high as 80 to $100. And what's interesting about right now is that all three of these things are happening at once, which has never happened before. And oil could rise as high as 150 to $180. That's his back of napkin math of what's going on. Now, obviously, so far we've talked about similar things on the show, and it hasn't materialized completely. We do have higher gas prices, but it hasn't been apocalyptic yet. It hasn't been like insanely high values. And a huge part of that is that so far, Saudi Arabia has this big pipeline over the middle of their country that oil can flow through here, through this pipeline and then out this, this strait. And that is what they've been doing, millions of barrels a day. And now as of two days ago, Saudi tankers have to reverse course because Houthis have blocked this. They've threatened ships here. So with both blocked, it's a problem. And it's happening at the exact same time as the strategic petroleum reserve of all the major Western economies is being drained at a pretty rapid clip. So we're approaching a point again. I know that we Said this before, but I keep seeing consistent messages again and again and again from anyone trading oil that market complacency is being severely tested. Like they said going into the war, the oil market had extra 400 million excess inventories of barrels. Now we have close to nothing. And the oil trips keep warning the market is close to running on empty. So I get. I just want to pass this along. I understand that we've said this before and it hasn't really materialized, but they're not silencing. They're not being like, oh, we were wrong. They're like, no, it's, it's bad. We are just barely getting ahead of it with everything we've had to to cushion the blow. And the fact this war keeps continuing is in fact expanding now to cover more key straits will lead to a crisis of some sort with oil and fertilizer. That's just. I just want to pass that along because people are not calming down on that. And then. Yeah, sorry.

[Doug]

So there's like three. If you're. Let's say, Saudi Arabia.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Doug]

There's three exits, right?

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Like the, The Middle east orifices are like out through the. The sue, or, excuse me, the Srina Hormuz. Yeah. Then out through the Red Sea through the bottom, like what you just described. And if those two are closed, you do have the Suez Canal. Right. So in theory would just way, way, way more traffic now go north through the Suez Canal?

[Brennan]

I mean, I guess. But the point is that the end result of a lot of these oil is going to Asia.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Brennan]

So it's like nearly fucking.

[Doug]

That's very, very, very.

[Brennan]

The crowd increase is like insane. So I don't know that that's possible, but I'm not an expert on that.

[Aiden]

I know he's about four Cokes deep right now, and I don't want to give him too much credit, but I believe Doug pointed this out when we considered digging a canal across. You were ahead of the game, Saudi Arabia.

[Doug]

Right.

[Aiden]

You did mention that this area could

[Brennan]

be contested and had they started doing it, then they would already be. You know what I'm saying, instead of waiting.

[Doug]

I did say I was like nauseous from the mere idea and from the bezos in my stomach. But unconfirmed bezos. Unconfirmed bezos. But then what you said with the in. Oh, my God, Where? In the one near the Mediterranean Sea. The group that is attacking there, you said that's also a problem. It could cause.

[Brennan]

Yeah, this is. This doesn't shut down Suez, but my understanding Is that strikes in Lebanon just drive up oil prices. People are more loath to go through this area. It slows things down.

[Doug]

Okay, so Lebanon instability kind of makes the Suez Canal and Mediterranean area also feel unstable.

[Brennan]

There is Lebanon stability. There is Hormuz. There is the Gulf of Aden. So it is a. It's a triple threat happening literally now, like within past 48 hours, the Houthi thing began and tankers are reversing course. So we don't. Again, I don't know how it plays out. I just know that the people who are supposed to be ex in this are like, screaming bloody murder. Like, they have been consistent in saying, guys, we're not taking this seriously enough. It's a real problem. But the oil price has not moved as it's moved, but not as bad as they've said. Everyone's kind of like, shrugging. It's like, well, who cares? And I assume we're just testing the limits. It feels like we're testing the limits of what could happen. And we are, you know, officially back at war. We are. Trump said if the Houthis continue to do this, he's going to strike them, too. So it's like a wider expansion of war where now we're fighting on multiple fronts in the Middle east to try and keep all these straits open against the advantages of drone technology.

[Aiden]

So, yeah, I think as of recording, the Houthis haven't actually attacked anybody yet, but the threat exists. And then in like, the Houthis, or at least like a spokesman said that their reasoning is the blockade that Saudi Arabia has on Yemen has continued. This is like us responding to attack Saudi Arabia, but it aligns at a time when Houthis, which are, like, notably Iranian backed, are, you know, making this decision in tune with, like, the Iran war continuing. The other thing about this I thought was interesting, the. I think it was Max Fisher put together a video. He. I thought the video was interesting, basically asking this question, because the context that you're responding to is this idea of, like, we keep being told that, like, the world is going to collapse, like, the price of oil is going to skyrocket. But it's been months now and this is getting dragged out and we're still not really seeing it in the way that it was initially claimed to be. And part of the reason, among the others that we've discussed in the show, that is that China halved their demand for oil imports, like, overnight. Yeah, they started using, like, a huge stockpile of reserves that they have. That is really difficult for like other countries to measure. And then they've increased their use of coal within like a really short period of time. They're using coal to like create fertilizer and using coal for power in place of what oil would have provided before. And then they also have more oil reserves that the rest of the world, including the US combined by like a significant margin.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And attempting to like weather, weather the storm. And because their demand is so large on the global market and it's halved in such a short period of time, that's been a huge contributor to why the price across the entire world has regulated. I think if you want to go check that video out for yourself, I think it's, it's super, super.

[Brennan]

So I haven't seen the video, but I did read along those lines and the big question mark is like, so what they did is like considered kind of to be impossible. They literally cut the amount of oil they needed massively in such a short period of time. And you can't tell how much of that is, did they switch to more electric vehicles and switch or how much of it came from their reserves. How much are they pulling out of the roof? Because it's completely opaque. You can't see the numbers.

[Doug]

Are we running on a clock because of what China is doing?

[Brennan]

Exactly not. And we don't know their clock, we don't know their pain tolerance, we don't know when they would stop doing that. And that is the big question mark. It has been hugely beneficial to the world that China did this because it has kept oil from going astronomic. We don't know how long it lasts. Again, other reserves are starting to hit the point where they can't keep doing this.

[Doug]

I mean, we'll just say from the lemonade stand, cheers to the environment for taking one for the team taking another hit of coal.

[Brennan]

Yeah, true.

[Doug]

Right. We are trying to rolls up a big coal stove for China to hit

[Brennan]

and they smoke that shit and we all enjoy the fumes. But I, I, yeah, that, that is a big question mark and I'll have to check the video out. Um, but Trump, anyway, I want to go back to Trump. Trump here said, listen, all that matters is that when it all settles down, we're going to have $55 oil. So no worries, we'll have Iran defeated soon. Which is something he's never said before. I even have this great quote from his son back in April 2024. Remember when they said Trump would get us into a full blown war with Iran? Times like these should make us Realize how lucky we were to have Trump, his strength and his resolve. Great iconic quote. The, the. You know, I'm not gonna go too much longer on this. You guys get the idea. We've been back and forth on Iran forever. But I think if you want to have a high level understanding of what's going on here is this, that America right now, the Trump administration is realizing that negotiation does not seem to be able to get them the result that they want. They're not going to be able to get there by negotiation. There's no way that Iran is going to give up the control of the strait that they've earned through negotiation. They don't want it. And so they are returning back to plan A. Now that diplomacy seems to have failed, Trump is flirting with Plan A, which is regime change. But it didn't work the first time when you had a lot more missiles. A lot more. Listen, here's the stats. We've lost 30% of our Tomahawk cruise missiles. We've lost 50% of our Patriot interceptors. And those don't get replaced very easily. So we're basically running low on supplies and trying to do the same thing that we did at the beginning of the war. But again, they were banking on like a popular uprising. That was the plan, was like, they're going to have a popular uprising of the Iranians the second they strike the leader. It didn't happen. It's certainly not going to happen now. So it's like they just keep cycling between desperate negotiation and trying to go all out war. And it doesn't seem to be making progress on the goal. And things are obviously getting worse in the background. I don't know where it goes, but I do know to keep this going, they need more money to get more of this. So that's why. Final part of this story is that yesterday and today Pete Hegseth has been in front of Congress making the manly plea for more money for the war.

[Aiden]

And it's why Lemonade Stand has launched a GoFundMe. If any of you want to help fund these new Patriot interceptors, please go to gofundme.com lemonade stand. You'll find the campaign there. It's for about our goal. We've set the goal at a me, I would say a meager two and a half billion dollars. Okay. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Brennan]

It's small.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Brennan]

But every bit counts.

[Doug]

There's no middlemen. We will donate it directly to an Iranian military base in need.

[Brennan]

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. He's in front of Congress and he's asking for this more money. And a reasonable question is asked by Senator Patty Murray of Washington.

[Aiden]

My point is that a lot of this request does not feel like an emergency. And let me move on. Secretary Hagseth, like most Americans, I've had a lot of trouble following this administration's contradictory statements about the war. On April 8, you said, and I quote, their missile program is functionally destroyed, launchers, production facilities, and existing stockpiles depleted and decimated and almost completely ineffective. Mr. Secretary, Iran has been firing at US military, military bases in the region and ships for the last week. How is it possible, if their capabilities were, quote, functionally destroyed three months earlier, as she claimed, for them to be doing this now? Well, Senator, Iran is at the weakest

[Doug]

point militarily it has ever been in,

[Aiden]

in the past decade, certainly maybe in 47 years, as they've gathered effectively, a terror army. And that terror army was built to try to create conventional capabilities to defend against a pursuit of nuclear weapons, which meant thousands of ballistics missiles, many of which we have destroyed, others of which they have put inside facilities and hidden in underground facilities.

[Doug]

That's what terror regimes would do.

[Aiden]

So I acknowledge they still have capabilities, no doubt, but the amount of damage

[Doug]

that we've done to them over the

[Aiden]

course of these series of operations has

[Doug]

put them in the worst place they've ever been.

[Aiden]

Okay, well, let me move on.

[Brennan]

So, you know, it's a pretty telling question. And it's like, even if what he's saying is true and they are functionally the weakest they've been, if you, if you can't stop the capability of them controlling the strait and striking military targets in the Middle east, then it doesn't. Doesn't matter. It's like, it's a pretty binary thing, right? It could be weak, but if they can do it, or are they weak, they can't do it. And if they can do it, you haven't really changed anything.

[Doug]

Yeah, they're not using the stuff that they weren't using, and they are anyway, so.

[Brennan]

And additionally thing that I found frustrating as, because this is asking for a lot more money on top of we covered this in the show, but this is a $1 trillion military budget already that they've been given for this this year. And on top of that, they're asking now for, as part of this help the Iran war, extra funding package. Included in this is $800 million for the National Guard to patrol D.C. a billion dollars for the army to patrol the southern border, 900 million for boat strikes in the Caribbean, which is not. It's not. Why. Is it part of the Iran war funding update? Many people ask this, many senators asked this, and he said we have to keep the momentum going on. That's not an answer.

[Doug]

Is there, Wait, hold on. Is there currently momentum in the Caribbean?

[Brennan]

I don't know.

[Aiden]

The strikes on. Is that like the strikes on boats coming from Venezuela?

[Brennan]

But why? I thought the Venezuela thing was done. I thought Marco Rubio is basically running the place.

[Aiden]

It's 900 million to be safe.

[Brennan]

Million dollars. $18 billion for munitions, 1.7 billion for recruiting more people.

[Aiden]

So I did not set the GoFundMe.

[Brennan]

That's what I'm saying. The GoFundMe's gotta be way bigger to help this out. And so that's where we're at with Iran 1. That's the update. It's just, it is, it is looking like, and I've said this word before, a quagmire. I'm getting real fucking Iraq in Afghanistan vibes, dude. I don't understand. How do you get out of this? What is the way out? What is the plan?

[Doug]

I mean, what's weird to me is this feels worse than Iraq and Afghanistan because in those cases, America goes in and devastates these countries and then also devastates our own money, treasury, everything. Like, we waste all this stuff and then same thing is happening here, but then the entire world is suffering from oil shortages. It feels worse. I mean, maybe it's just because we're in the moment and it's easy to be like, this is a disaster, obviously, but the ramifications of this, if this continues, like, if the result is there's a permanent toll in the Strait of Hormuz. That seems worse in many ways.

[Brennan]

Yeah, it's, it's frustrating. I was genuinely hopeful for that. One month ago, end of the war, the, the thing. I thought it was a stupid idea, but they're getting out of it. Iran's going to have some advantage that, that you've basically given them, but, like, it's over. Shit's going to flow and the world economy can breathe a sigh of relief, but it's not happening. And it doesn't look they can do. It's almost impossible to go back to the negotiating table now after last time. It just doesn't make any sense unless some material reality changes for one of the two parties. Maybe, maybe a midterm fear from Trump's side, or maybe some deeper economic crisis on the Iran side. If they can't ship oil Maybe. But, like, realistically, they're both pretty entrenched and everyone, the whole world has to suffer now for that. I mean, it's. I don't know. It seems bad.

[Aiden]

Kushner is going to find a way. Don't you? Word.

[Brennan]

Oh, cushion. Old Kush and Witkoff, they might figure it out. So I can't tell you whether or not it's going to happen, but that is the update on the Iran war.

[Doug]

Support for this show comes from Shopify. I've been thinking of starting a new business.

[Brennan]

Okay.

[Doug]

Some. Some alternative medicine techniques I've been learning about.

[Brennan]

You've been really on this lately.

[Doug]

I've been on this. There's a lot of different practices from a lot of different parts of the world that a lot of people don't know about. I would like to write books to sell merch about this. I have no idea where to do it.

[Brennan]

I don't think your business is a good idea. But. But it's important. I do think you could run that business quite well on Shopify.

[Doug]

Something's wrong with your head. I've got a cure for you.

[Brennan]

See, I don't want you.

[Aiden]

I don't trust his cure.

[Brennan]

Yeah. I don't trust his curse.

[Aiden]

Sell it. I want you. I want you to pick a normal product. You made mugs. The Doug Dug mug mug. Everybody liked that one. Yes, and you could sell that.

[Brennan]

So if you have a normal product,

[Doug]

you know, I could put in Shopify

[Brennan]

to run your small business. I don't want you to do that. If your business is better than Doug's, a great place to run it would be Shopify, which allows you to make your idea into a real business and sell things online.

[Aiden]

So go make it, Doug.

[Brennan]

No, don't.

[Doug]

Thank you. I will. Shopify merging stands between me and my idea and a real business. So I'm gonna go make it one. You can start [e-mail] lemonade.

[Brennan]

That's shopify.com you can, but not him.

[Doug]

Lemonade.

[Aiden]

Just the mugs. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile.

[Brennan]

Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for 15amonth back. So I thought it would be fun if we made 15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] switch.

[Aiden]

Upfront payment of 45 for 3 months,

[Brennan]

$90 for 6 months or 180 for 12.

[Aiden]

Month plan required $15 per month.

[Brennan]

Equivalent taxes and Fees extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes.

[Doug]

Me slow when network is busy.

[Aiden]

See terms.

[Doug]

There's a civil war happening in the Democratic Party, and if there's one place that that's playing out most clearly, it's in Michigan. A crucial Senate primary battle in Michigan

[Aiden]

could determine control of Congress in November.

[Doug]

Congresswoman Haley Stevens and Abdul El Sayed,

[Brennan]

a progressive Democrat and a moderate Democrat.

[Doug]

In the end, it all comes down to the dreaded E word electability. But in Michigan, one candidate is trying to turn the electability concept on its head.

[Brennan]

If we think that voters walk around asking, where do I sit? On some theoretical left, right spectrum, then in theory, the bulk of the voters

[Aiden]

are somewhere in the middle. The problem, though, is that that model

[Brennan]

hasn't really accurately predicted our politics for a very long time. If Michiganers wanted moderate, why would they have elected Donald Trump twice?

[Doug]

Dr. Abdul El Sayed is making the progressive case for America first, and he's trying to settle the Democrats ideological battle in the process.

[Brennan]

This is about the many versus the money.

[Doug]

I'm Esteed Herndon, and this is America. Actually, catch us Every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast.

[Brennan]

But you had a carry on story, because the war doesn't stop in just the Middle East. We also have a deep.

[Aiden]

We have a more.

[Brennan]

A more entrenched neighbor to the north.

[Aiden]

I would argue a more pressing war to this nation. A greater threat, because it's right there.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And literally hanging, looming, and a notoriously like, warlike people.

[Brennan]

The Canadians, who are some sort of militaristic hat. Yeah, exactly. And they look down and they, they just, they're always ready for.

[Aiden]

And Carney's getting a little out of pocket. Have you noticed that? I mean, he's making threats.

[Doug]

Has he?

[Aiden]

The leader of Canada, they're buying Swedish fighter jets. Swedish fighter jets. And they said they're going to use them against the U.S. i don't. I got that. I got that from. From a different Max Fisher video.

[Brennan]

Swedish fighter jets. What the frick's going on? Canada, IKEA instructions.

[Aiden]

Okay, so there's some exciting news in trade relationships between the United States and Canada. And Trump announced a new round of 50% tariffs on many Canadian goods. These things like wine, hockey sticks, cement, dairy products, plywood, paper furniture, albeit these goods only comprise, like, less than 10% of the total goods that are being traded between the US And Canada. But you might hear that and be wondering, didn't the Supreme Court just rule that Trump can't unilaterally set tariffs?

[Brennan]

I Vaguely recall that, yes, how is this possible?

[Aiden]

Which was my first question. And apparently Trump has taken it upon himself to use a niche section of the Tariff act of 1930 that says if it is in retaliation to countries that are discriminating against US Commerce uniquely compared to other countries, Canada, then you can put those tariffs into place. So what Canada did that was very different from the rest of the world. Canada. When Trump had put the initial rounds of tariffs in over the course of last year, earlier part of this year, they and China were two of the only countries to distinctly push back and apply tariffs of their own, at least in a prominent way. And because Carney or the Canadian government chose to do this, Trump is pun is trying to punish Canada for doing so. Like you step to me, I can now use the provision in this law to. To apply these new tariffs against you where I otherwise cannot right now. And there's all these issues of like, the previously applied tariffs to a bunch of different countries getting refunded and the controversy around that. And this has not been, like, tested in court. The assumption is that there will be legal challenges internally in the US of whether or not he can apply tariffs in this way, but obviously not. You know, Canadians not pumped about this to begin with. But I think it is a lot of people noting that since this court ruling against him and his ability to put out tariffs, he's still finding ways to work around the rules and apply these.

[Brennan]

Yeah, it seems like such bullshit, bro. It seems like you could just find like A. The 1847 act against chewing Gum. Be like, well, someone chewed gum in Canada, dude.

[Doug]

When the founding fathers made that law in 1930, they knew that we would have a beef with Canada where they would, unprompted, throw tariffs on us.

[Aiden]

Well, 1930, that wasn't long after the war of 1812.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

So there was a lot.

[Doug]

There's still beef.

[Brennan]

There was still some simmering resentment. Yeah.

[Aiden]

Something sitting there.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Okay. I will say that when we talked, when we talked about the ruling from the Supreme Court that he can't do the tariffs, that's just that he can't do it on executive orders. But even then, there are other ways to make tariffs. Like, it was never like, oh, tariffs are done.

[Brennan]

Supposed to be a power of Congress. Isn't that the.

[Aiden]

Yes, but it's clear that he cannot make the unilateral decision to apply a tariff, and he is still choosing to do so through a provision in this act.

[Doug]

I'm blanking on the name, but there's another way that you can, it's basically the one where he can just at will throw this out and just say this is law now. Now he has to go through like these commerce processes to get it approved and it has to be more narrow. So this is what would the expected outcome of the Supreme Court ruling, which is that he would go find the like five or ten or whatever things where you can apply tariffs. It's just more restrictive. I mean, so it's, you know, it's better. Right. But obviously this is still kind of, kind of dumb.

[Aiden]

There's a couple things I think are kind of insane about this one. This is happening at a time when the previous trade agreement that he had with Canada and Mexico is coming to an end. I believe like that there's a, the timeframe for that trade agreement was coming up. And this applying these tariffs is a part of changing that agreement. What's interesting to me is that agreement was set by him. It was what was meant to replace nafta, which is what we had gone by since the end of the, was it the end of the 90s NAFTA came into play and he's basically overriding an agreement that he oversaw and saying like the old me was dumb. Here's these progress.

[Brennan]

That's called learning from your past.

[Aiden]

Me learning from his mistakes. Yeah, maybe learning.

[Brennan]

You can't be stuck in one Persona

[Doug]

for your learning from Canada's mistakes.

[Brennan]

Really.

[Aiden]

So when this whole like 51st state rhetoric like the terrorists are getting applied to Canada last year was going on, you guys might remember the backlash from Canadians. There's been like a huge dip in Canadian tourism to the United States for

[Brennan]

one, stop buying or alcohol.

[Aiden]

And then, yeah, that's a bunch of provinces like banned the import of US Alcohol. Like had they put like quotas on American made cars and also banned like the import of certain types of dairy products, like cheese in certain areas or like tariff cheese. And this was, these were all of the responses that Trump was like mad about. Like, you can't do this to us. We're going to hit you back even harder. What I think is wild is in this New York Times article I was reading, it mentioned that in 2022, 83% of Canadians saw the U.S. as a good partner. Just like in a general sense. What do you think that number is now?

[Brennan]

Hoping it's higher. I'm hoping they, they respect his. We did just firm but fair attitude.

[Doug]

We hosted that house party for the World Cup. We're bros now.

[Aiden]

Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's actually 89%.

[Brennan]

They went up, they said, firm but fair.

[Aiden]

35%. It's fallen to 35% in basically a like three and a half year timeline.

[Brennan]

Insane.

[Aiden]

I know. It is absolutely insane.

[Brennan]

Well, wait, listen to this clip. This is going to show you that he's got the right rhetoric to get Canada back on our side. Can you believe this?

[Aiden]

Terrorists 1. Are those a response to the wildfires in.

[Brennan]

We hear this. That's separate. We're looking at that separately.

[Aiden]

And what. Is there anything responsive?

[Brennan]

The way they've treated our farmers and our people. You know, Canada's been very, very tough on us over the years, for many years, and no other president's done anything about it. I, I love Canada. I love the people of Canada, many friends that live in Canada, but their leadership, from Trudeau to the current leadership, I mean, in all fairness to them, they need us to survive. Without us, there's no way they can survive. So. But they've been very. So I, I mean, it's, I think when you say that, you're like, you're basically asking people to say, fuck you. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you're. The human rational response is be like you. I will. They will do ever we can to not be dependent on you in any way.

[Aiden]

It's the encouragement of their new president.

[Brennan]

If Xi Jinping went on the air and said, America needs us to survive, the instinctual response is like, well, fuck you, and we're going to try and do whatever we can to not use Chinese goods or whatever.

[Doug]

I would lay down and submit.

[Brennan]

That's like, it's just a human thing. I don't know why. It's like the most obvious response to this type of rhetoric.

[Aiden]

My litmus test for this is my grandfather. He is traditionally, he is conservative by Canadian standards. He's an Alberta oil man. He's like, get the energy going. He doesn't like the granola, British Columbia people. You know, he, he is a true Calgarian. If I may, he. And he used to be like, I don't like Trump, but I get where he's coming from, like, type of deal.

[Brennan]

He's got some good ideas, dude.

[Aiden]

He hates Trump and he hates, he kind of hates the US now. And he's just, he's full boycotting. He won't come to visit anymore. He refuses. And he's not the only one that has this sort of mentality. And this is coming from, you know, I think these are the things that contribute to Carney being pretty popular right now. Carney is like, I think he has like the highest approval rating of any centrist leader in the world right now. And I think it's because it's functionally because of this. Like not to say that there's no like policies being turned around in Canada or if there's nothing like substantial to like maybe point out. But I think ultimately he stands as this figure opposed to Trump in a way that people, regardless of their political affiliation in Canada seem to stand behind. It's because he exists. Carney gets to be the guy who is combating him.

[Brennan]

Yeah, I mean it reminds me. This is kind of a weird tangent. It reminds me of Iran in a way where if you flashback to before he got involved, like the Iranian regime was remarkably unpopular. There was like mass, mass protests. There was economic collapse. You know, like they were, they, they

[Doug]

did like mass slaughter of the people in January.

[Brennan]

Like and now they are, their popularity is up. They're entrenched in power. They have a new source of funding. Like his involvement is only emboldening and helping the opposition of him because he's such an unlikable and a short term focused guy. Everything the deal making is so bad. So I didn't read the art of the deals. Maybe I'm missing the next step of this process, but it's not working.

[Doug]

There's a lot of game left to be played. All right, we got two and a half more years.

[Aiden]

It's getting me thinking, I like the idea if that this whole, the whole first term, the gap in between the, the first year and a half, it's, it's all been laning phase. It's just a really long. We. We are going for the, the 60 Minute Baron to win.

[Doug]

Dude. Yeah. You get beat up early game. But okay, you know, real quick.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Open ended question. I'm starting to think about a little bit. You know, I, at this point I don't think he's been a very good president and I would also. And I am, I'm thinking of changing

[Brennan]

my vote next time. Yeah, I voted for him three times now, but I swear to God, I

[Aiden]

was a three time. I was a three time in 28.

[Brennan]

When he runs again, I might not give him my fourth. Might not.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And I'm starting to wonder sincerely like at this so much of Trump has been like, God, this is insane. But like it'll end at some point. And the assumption that most other people around the world would understand this is insane. Most Americans aren't like this. We'll move on. Sorry. Burping. A lot.

[Brennan]

I wonder why. I can't imagine why.

[Doug]

And I'm starting to wonder.

[Brennan]

Most Americans are like this. You shook your seventh.

[Doug]

And as a hot blooded, God fearing American, yes sir. I am starting to wonder is in two and a half years, let's say we elect a normal person.

[Brennan]

Yeah. And it's never even know.

[Doug]

Right. And it's not this like, I mean, just truly baffling level of global chaos and just destruction of our entire reputation. Will people forgive us? Are we locked in this forever? And I mean this partially selfishly, that like when I go abroad somewhere, I can right now be like, no, Trump sucks. Right. And there's enough anger towards Trump in America that people probably recognize that a lot of Americans don't like this. But at some point, at some point are people just like, no, that fucking sucks so bad. America just kind of blows for the next decade or two or three.

[Aiden]

I think the reactions from like that, I go back to that Carney speech he made at the economic forum, like how long ago where he talks about, oh, this is a sign that we need to enter a new era where we as this block of like middle powers in the world are no longer reliant on the United States. And even if we get a better person into power, I think it has raised all these alarm bells about what dependence on the US means. And the idea that in the future, even if like the next two presidents are like perfectly good, perfectly competent in an international sense, you've exposed all these vulnerabilities in the relationship for the next time a figure similar to him gets elected and there's an electric electorate in the US that can elect a guy like this. So it's. If I'm concerned about all of the, you know, flaws that have been pointed out to me through him, but by him exposing them over the past, like years of our relationship.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Then I probably want to shore those things up. Either way, I have a hard time seeing things going back to this like traditional US led world order after him because he's just exposed so many of the problems with it. You know, regardless of how you feel about America's dominance on the global stage, I think that's just like the reality.

[Doug]

Yeah, it's a fair point. It's like in a neighborhood, like if everybody left their front door unlocked because you've never had a problem and then your neighbors turns into a psycho for a year, breaks in every day.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And he's like, I'm sorry, I'm like, back on, I'm on a medication Again, it's all like, you're probably gonna keep

[Aiden]

locking your door if the guy move.

[Doug]

Even if the guy moves out, you're probably gonna keep locking your do door now.

[Aiden]

Yeah, probably shakes what you worry about for the future. And that's not to say like nothing could be rebuilt.

[Brennan]

But yeah, I mean, I think it'll take time and you have to do things right. I think on like an individual level though, I mean, I think the people that you'd want to interact with are not going to judge you as a human being based on the leader of your.

[Doug]

That's what I'm worried about is like it's getting so insane that it might

[Aiden]

be like, are you talking about more that than what I'm talking about?

[Doug]

No, I mean it was open ended. I both mean on the broad level, but also the individual level. Like, are American individuals now going to be assumed to be okay with this or complicit in this?

[Aiden]

I think that part will blow over faster because I think a lot of the rhetoric that I feel like I interact with now is almost like pity. Do you know what I mean? Like, there's a sense of anger or frustration a lot of the time for sure, but it's like rarely. It's not directed at me as an individual as as much. It's more to do. Like, it fucking sucks. Like, what's going on with you? Are you okay? Like, I feel like it's more in that direction and as soon as like a new, more competent leader and like things are trending in a better direction, that happens, I feel like people will quickly recognize that, but I don't think that'll be realized in like more consequential, you know, geopolitical decisions.

[Brennan]

Tbd. I mean, we don't know where this goes. I mean, I do think, yeah, how this thing plays out is such a big question mark.

[Doug]

Iran, you mean Iran.

[Brennan]

Yeah, I think it's such a big question mark for how. Because this I'm being real for a second. Like, you know, Russia and China are both helping Iran and the Ukraine war is still going. It just feels like this is all getting so big and I. It would be great if it was trending towards less conflict and not more because as it gets bigger it becomes more and more like real global shifts in blocks that are like cut apart.

[Aiden]

This is. Okay, so that thing I mentioned about China cutting its demand for oil in half earlier. Right. But one of the explanations for why they did this, because them choosing to do this alleviated a lot of pain in the rest of the world. It wasn't necessarily just a decision that was beneficial to themselves.

[Doug]

Sure.

[Aiden]

And the argument for why they would do this is if they can show their resilience through a long period where oil is scarce, it shows to the rest of the world that they're more capable of navigating the conflict with Taiwan. Because in the event that they were to invade Taiwan, one of the first places that is expected to be blockaded by the US Is the Malacca. The Strait of Malacca. And because so much oil is trafficked through there, and if they can show that, blocking that straight doesn't actually mean that much, it's like this giant flex that when eventually we do invade Taiwan or we, you know, whatever happens, you guys do not have this, like, lever over us anymore. Yeah. And I feel like that's. It's. It's this increasing sense of, like, people are becoming more. Or not people. Countries are becoming more fearful and isolationist and getting ready for some greater conflict.

[Brennan]

That's what it feels like.

[Aiden]

That's what it feels like.

[Brennan]

It feels like you're just. You're. It's like, do you hear the storm cloud? The birds are flying by. It's like. It feels like the shit's coming. That's honestly what it feels like. The more you. You see all these pieces moving, but we don't know. Anyway, speaking of China. Yes. You know China? Oh, yeah. Actually, this is a really interesting story. I love to ask you about this.

[Doug]

Yeah. So we want to talk about a pretty bombshell new Chinese AI Model release. And before we do that, I really need to go to the bathroom, so I'm gonna.

[Aiden]

Dude, he has so many cans.

[Brennan]

That's so crazy.

[Aiden]

Dude. How is he? Actually, he's on seven Audio listeners, I am looking at a Diet Coke graveyard that Doug has just built during this podcast.

[Brennan]

It's so funny, bro. He has, like, the horse electrolytes. He just finds he'll do things to his body for. For the good of podcasting.

[Aiden]

I think he doesn't have to. Can I say that I. I'm wearing

[Brennan]

my, like, goofy little way for you. If we made him do it, I'll

[Aiden]

wear, like, my goofy little outfit from, like, the yard episode of the day. Be like, I'm wearing a lemonade stand. Now he comes on and harms himself.

[Brennan]

You had the opportunity to change. You just, like, dressing like that, like this. Yeah, you just, like. You think you're a little fancy.

[Aiden]

You think I'm a cute little schoolboy school boy.

[Brennan]

You're like the little Canada update school

[Aiden]

Did I do something bad?

[Brennan]

I'm surrounded. I'm surrounded. Dude, I have this school boy and the. The guy chugging Diet Cokes.

[Aiden]

Oh, no.

[Brennan]

Sorry. What's going on with Kimmy?

[Aiden]

Are you gonna paddle me?

[Brennan]

Cut the show. The whole show.

[Aiden]

This is who you chose to show

[Doug]

with, by the way.

[Aiden]

You chose Kimmy.

[Brennan]

What's going on with Kimmy? Because I would love to hear it.

[Doug]

Four years ago Chat GBT releases.

[Brennan]

Yep.

[Doug]

No, hold on.

[Aiden]

I don't know if we're cutting this. So much of this episode is Doug, Doug, like coping with the amount, with

[Brennan]

the amount of Diet Coke he's ingested. And it's so obviously destroying his body.

[Doug]

It's destroying the bezoar.

[Brennan]

There is no bezoar.

[Doug]

Yeah. Now there isn't.

[Brennan]

I walk into it every time. I walk into it every time.

[Doug]

Ladies and gentlemen, America has dominated the AI race so far. And I would say that the American economy, nay, the world economy, has depended on it. Now, a bombshell happened exactly in January 2025, because that is when Deep Seek R1 debuted. This is a Chinese company that released an open source model. Was extraordinarily good. Not quite as good as the very best American ones, but basically they're dirt cheap. You can run it on your own system. It was a bombshell moment. The Nvidia stock value dropped $600 billion in a single day. Everybody starts asking the question, do we need way less compute than we thought? Do the American companies actually have an advantage? Now, a little lesser known thing is that on that exact same day, by coincidence, a different Chinese AI lab called Moonshot released their own model, Kimi 1.5, that they thought would be a cool new thing. And they just got swept under the rug by deepseek. And like all of their users left for deepseek, they got ruined. And so they've been cooking ever since. It's been a year and a half. They launch various updates. Over time, revenue starts to go up. They're doing well. And then on July 16, Kimik3 released. K3 is a reasoning model as well as having the harness. It's just as capable as models like Claude Code or codec, the ones that people have been very excited about. Except it is about a third of the price.

[Aiden]

Do you think Kimmy, you know the reason Kimmy could reason.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

That this is not a good thing to do to your.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Doug]

What would you say?

[Aiden]

Don't open.

[Brennan]

Okay.

[Doug]

So Perry, you could pull up Kimmy.com and why don't you search? Is it healthy to have nine sodas in 45 minutes.

[Brennan]

Yeah, it's the Chinese moment.

[Doug]

Let's do the Chinese models have to say, according to our dear leader Xi

[Aiden]

Jinping, if you're, if you're American, Kimmy tells you that it's fine.

[Doug]

So if you go to first question,

[Brennan]

do you have bezos?

[Doug]

If you go to a page like llmstats.com there's a lot of sort of comparisons between these two. Really. The, the, the most important thing to take away is this new model. Kimmy 3 is better than every single model except the very high end Claude and OpenAI models. And even then it beats them in certain cate. It is a third of the price and basically as good.

[Brennan]

Just very, very, very close and way cheaper.

[Doug]

Yes.

[Brennan]

Which is very spooky.

[Doug]

Yes, there are some American models. Yes, there are some genuine innovations that they've done. We can get to that if y' all are interested in terms of like what technically they are doing. But let's talk about what the fallout of this has been. Okay, so first off, Moonshot again is one of maybe like eight Chinese AI labs that are competitive. Other ones include like Alibaba and Deep Sea Zai. But this immediately makes Moonshot like the most like the hottest kid on the block, right? Both in China and globally. With AI daily sales go up. Most popular kid on the block. Isn't that a phrase?

[Aiden]

No, it's the hottest kid.

[Brennan]

I don't think it's the hottest kid on the block.

[Doug]

The hottest thing on the.

[Aiden]

Whatever the case is, Kimmy is the hottest kid. I don't know. You're being weird about it, right?

[Brennan]

Sorry, schoolboy, you're being weird. Okay. All right.

[Doug]

Aiden's classmate Carrie is considered the most popular at the school dance right now.

[Brennan]

At the dance.

[Doug]

Okay, sorry. Popular daily sales immediately go up 6x. They got so popular they had to stop people from signing up. That's how popular their business is. So the Chinese companies and broadly Chinese investors are elated because the estimate for many people, including the top AI labs was like, oh, we're six to 12 months ahead of China, like our AI labs are. And now that's maybe three months, maybe less. It's hard to know. The investor, Kai Fu Lee said, quote, OpenAI and Anthropic will be the iPhone. The Chinese models will be the Android. So that means the American closed models will make the most money, but the Chinese models will get more market share, which that was really interesting. China is elated about this. America is freaking fuck out. So first off, big sell off of tech stocks. The same thing happened with Deep Seat released, right? Everybody's suddenly going, wait a minute, pouring all of our money into this industry going to work. If China can release a model that undermines a lot of what we're doing. There's also been a lot of movement now within the Trump administration because so much of this whole thing is underpinned by beating China. So a couple things. Bloomberg reported that Sam Altman is visiting with the Trump administration next week and they're going to try to like, propose a sort of safety review board. Trump's saying, oh, maybe we'll do an independent, like, reviewer who makes sure that the leading models get out. Because all of a sudden the idea of what happened a month ago where the White House stops Anthropic or OpenAI from leasing their top models is now maybe a national security threat of like, oh, we are falling behind China if we stop you. So they're simultaneously trying to stop regulation or do things like banning it. So per Axios, quote, the Trump administration is showing signs it could ban cutting edge Chinese models. A momentous move that could lock in dominance by OpenAI and anthropic behind the scenes. Apparently the Commerce Department, NSA and various white House people have all been talking behind the scenes about banning or putting restrictions on Chinese models. The previous AI advisors, including David Sacks, kind of pushed back against that, but those guys are out and they've been trying to cycle in new people to kind of like be the chief AI advisor policy. So they're now strongly considering maybe we just stop it altogether. And then Scott Besant, Secretary of Treasury, is talking about IP theft and saying, suggesting the idea that, well, maybe the only reason China is able to make these models is they're just copying ours. The idea being that you train an AI that is trained off of whatever Claude says or whatever OpenAI says. So he said, quote, this administration supports open source models. What we do not support is IP theft. If we see that overseas models are stealing from our great companies, we will have the ability to sanction them.

[Aiden]

And they say there is nothing more ironic than complain about IP theft in this context.

[Doug]

Yeah, I can get a counter to that. But yeah, it's certainly ironic. One quote, he said companies that are using Chinese models should have to disclose that to their customers. Quote, you can't use counterfeit goods. So this is a big, it's a big deal. It feels like every couple months a new Chinese model comes out that everybody's like, holy shit. And then it, and then it swings over to American company, has New thing that everybody's freaking out and it's been doing this cycle for at least a year.

[Brennan]

But the gap's getting closer, right? The, the timeline, the. Between the great new thing and then the.

[Doug]

I would say, I would say that the. So if it's like a sine wave and it keeps swinging between America's on top and then China's on top, or let's say open source is going to be the dominant thing. The, the speed at which it is swinging between those is speeding up, right? Because model releases are coming out faster on both the open source side and the closed source side. So it's like it's. This swing is happening every week or two.

[Aiden]

Do you guys know how funding for these Chinese AI companies works? Like is this. Are there Chinese VCs that are putting money into. This is just the ownership of the company. That is like self funding it. Is it subsidies? Is it investment from the government? Like how do these.

[Brennan]

It's all the above. There's different, there's different groups doing it. Like Alibaba is the Amazon of China. They have a ton of money. They're throwing tons of money in AI. Not as much as like a Meta or a. And then there's the, you know, deep seat was, was this spin off arm of a Chinese hedge fund. Like they had like it's a side project they did that ended up being big. So it's a different, different groups spending different amounts.

[Doug]

But yeah, and it's similar thing where they go make companies and then they get a certain valuation and they're raising money through VCs and all this. So it's, you know, it's more restrictive of a, of a market than RVC1, but it's still roughly the same. So like this company Moonshot, they have an interesting background. The, the creator is 33, he is like a child math prodigy in China, but came here, studied at Carnegie Mellon, then worked at Meta and Google's AI labs and then instead of staying, went home to found his own company. And so there's also people complaining about how hard it is for like immigrants to stay in America now because we were like losing people who are going home and making massive competitors like this. So he, you know, he went to China and basically started it with 300 people from like a top university. And he appears to be this like kind of genius guy. And they, they became unicorn status like worth a billion within like a month or something like that. I forget the exact timeline, but it's, it's similar. When you read about Their market as to ours, just with more the government can step in and do whatever.

[Aiden]

It's interesting, there's kind of a tie in there with when we went to China and hearing people's opinions about desire to move abroad and foreign education. Like people now when they go, if they go study in a foreign country, there used to be more of a desire for people to stay in those countries to continue their career.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

But as China, as quality of life in China has improved, especially over the last 20 years, the number of people that if they do to choose to study abroad and the question of that decision is already a little more different than it, than it used to be in the past. If they do choose to go study abroad, they're more likely to come back and go work in China because of the opportunity and the quality of life in China that they feel they have there now versus what it was like in the past. Yeah.

[Brennan]

Yep.

[Doug]

We kept talking to people who said they have no desire to visit America, which is just kind of like it was just not what we expected. You know, like people are just like, no, I never want to leave China.

[Aiden]

Yeah. And to hear them talk about how that like did not used to be that way. Yeah. The. So okay, one question I did have about this. If, if, if the accusations of like IP theft are accurate, right. And these models are built mostly off of the success and like technical innovation of the American companies that are willing to spend more of the money to sort of lead the charge does say we get to this point where the American companies are largely no longer willing to make the investment or put in the time because of the financial situation that they are in. Does that mean that the Chinese industry loses a lot of its ability to like progress or innovate or not really like that their, their products are able to continue on their own. Is there any insight into that?

[Doug]

That is the debate is basically how much is the Chinese success of companies like Deepseek or Kimi from them copying American companies or not. And that's open ended. So some people, you know, like Trump, the Trump admin is suggesting is like they're just stealing our ip, they're just distilling our models. But then there's people. So I was reading about, you know, the tech that Kimmy made for this, for example, how they compress context so that you can have longer form sessions, work sessions, and that is just genuine innovation that they've made. There's also kind of a thing where arguably copying the output of another model is becoming less and less valuable. Like Three years ago, these models really were like autocomplete. That's not really what's happening anymore. There's many layers on top of this and a lot of the product. When you talk about an AI, when you, even now, when you go to ChatGPT and ask it something, it's like agents spinning off of agents. And then you have like these harnesses that are spinning off different skills and utilizing things like browser search. There's a lot. You're now building both the fundamental AI at the bottom and you're building the stuff on top of it that coordinates everything. What that means is it's harder to copy all of that. You, when you go talk to Claude, you don't get to see everything that's going on under the hood because they've been building this up over time. So the pushback against the irony around stealing, definitely these AIs are fundamentally based off stolen data. But for, you know, a year, two years now, most of the developers of AI have been moving beyond get more stolen data and now it is much more. How do we coordinate the fundamental models that are there? So you could argue that there's real innovation happening on how you choose to utilize these things. Yeah, and that is probably harder to copy, but that's, that's the debate. Are they copying or not? Is that, I don't think that's the debate.

[Brennan]

Only because I don't. At the end of the day, the consumer doesn't care.

[Doug]

Like here's a quote, let me rephrase that. It is an academic debate that the user does not care about.

[Brennan]

Yeah, they don't give a, she doesn't give a shit. At the end of the day, they want the best thing for the lowest cost. Here's a, you can pull us up. This is a, I just found this out of context, but this is what Ford is doing right now. They're flying four to five Chinese evs to Detroit like a year. And they're just, they're, they're distilling them, you know what I'm saying? They're breaking them down. That's just what a competitor is going to do to try and catch up. I, I, I have zero doubt that everything they could try to take from a copy of Claude, they're doing to try and make their models better. And if they lead in something and people in America are going to try to do the same thing, that's what businesses are going to do whether they say it or not, whether they hide it or not. And so it all just feels very Academic, it feels like silly because at the end of the day there's countries outside of America and China and they're going to pick the model that they can get the best thing for the lowest cost. That's the more real thing, which is that this is just existentially scary for these two incredibly well funded but not profitable companies, Anthropic and OpenAI, that have been dumping trillions of dollars and need to be able to make a return. And if you make all the innovations in the world and then businesses use a cheaper alternative, you're fucked. And so I think that's where the pressure is coming from. I think they are lobbying essentially the government to start doing things like review and pressure on shutting down Chinese models and they need to make it so there's like only a few options because if there's not these options, they are fucked. I think, I think Claude is genuine innovation. Like it's a really cool thing, I've used it for cool things. But my God, at that cost a lot of businesses are going to be looking elsewhere. They're just way more expensive. So yeah, I don't know. I think that's, that's, that's the question here. And I don't know that here's what I don't know is like how much can you even control this with regulation? Like the user doesn't know what model you used if you have like a wrapper on top of it. If I'm a business and if I could use Kimmy, who would even stop me? How would they even know? Are they tracking traffic?

[Aiden]

Are they? Yeah. I feel like there's the fundamental question of like digital regulation. Anything that's digital, so hard, so, so challenging.

[Doug]

And then real quick, I mean if you're talking about large companies like you at home running this. No tiny company, you know, mom and pop shop. No. But if, for example Microsoft or Google, who are the hyperscalers who host these models, start offering it on sale, that's where the majority of usage is going to come from. Right. So.

[Brennan]

And they'd be too scared to go over.

[Doug]

Right. Because then the government would obviously know if Microsoft is selling to customers the ability to use Kimmy K3.

[Brennan]

Right.

[Doug]

So there you wouldn't be able to stop everybody, but you could stop the big players. The government does have real leverage here. That I agree. I don't think it's good for the market for them to do that. But given what the admin has done so far, I would not be surprised at all if we hear about sanctions on Chinese models soon. Literally just to protect the American companies.

[Brennan]

The thing is, like, that's what I'm saying is because the world market isn't just these two countries. Even if China says no American models or America says no Chinese models, like right now, it's happening with EVs. Every other country in the world is choosing. Right. They're choosing where to buy EVs, and they're going to choose as they make their businesses. Where do I get digital intelligence? And if they can get it so much cheaper, it almost doesn't matter. Even if you were able to regulate in America, you'd have to regulate it across Europe and South America. And that's. That's the bigger question they're not ready for.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Brennan]

All this regulation stuff feels like you're delaying the inevitable that comes when you're not competitive on cost or quality. Yeah.

[Aiden]

As time passes, like, yeah. America's power through the relative size of its consumer market is just going to continue to decline.

[Brennan]

It's just not as big as the rest of the world combined. That's.

[Aiden]

You know, what if. Okay, I have a question. What if we taught Kimmy. Sorry, just locked eyes with his 10th Coke. What if we taught Kimmy to trade stocks?

[Doug]

What model would you use if you were trading stocks?

[Aiden]

If you're trading stocks.

[Brennan]

This is a very short, short story. And I don't even know I segued

[Doug]

that in the most, like, serious way. I thought you were enjoying like a

[Aiden]

really personal anecdote and my grandmother.

[Brennan]

I don't know whether you'd use Kimmy or Chad, GPT or Claude for this, but it turns out a lot of Wall street head funds are beginning to use AI when trading stocks. They're using AI to summarize instantly news data and transfer that into actionable things to do with. With stocks. So basically, like if an article came out that said Google CEO is hit by a bus, then maybe they would, they would go that this is probably a sell signal and they would, you know, that's.

[Aiden]

I think that's a buy.

[Brennan]

Whatever it is. I don't know. But that the idea is like, it's analyzing news. A, A unique quirk of that is starting to be discovered. So this is a paper that just came out from the University of Lichtenstein about adversarial news and lost profits manipulating headlines.

[Aiden]

A lot of.

[Brennan]

Here's the key idea of it. Let's say we have Lemonade Stand Incorporated. Okay. And there's news coming out that Aiden did something terrible. Whoa. Lemonade Stand Incorporated fires Aiden, because blah, blah, blah, whatever, that's the title.

[Aiden]

You can't fire me. That's in my contract.

[Brennan]

Maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's the title. And so they want. So the AI is supposed to ingest that and then turn it into actual data. But here's the thing. Technically, you could write lemonade stand using, how do you say, Cyrillic? Or acrylic letters. How do you say this?

[Doug]

Cyrillic.

[Brennan]

Cyrillic letter. You could use Cyrillic letters, the Unicode where you go like alt 1, 2, 3, 4, and it makes a zero that looks exactly the same as an O. Yeah. And the AI can't read that. Instead of saying lemonade stand or in this case, Alphabet, it sees like dot, dot, star, hhb. It doesn't see the word and so it ignores it as a. As a functional trading pattern. And so news articles are being written to dodge AI scraping, where bad news is written with random characters changed to be Cyrillic. And good news is written in full English. And so when they parse it, the only thing that comes out is good news.

[Doug]

It's good. It's natural evolution.

[Aiden]

Wait, wait, I'm so confused. What motivation would the authors of these articles have to do that? Are they getting paid on the back end to, like, do things that benefit companies?

[Brennan]

Because everything gets scraped. You could also publish this yourself as like a blog or whatever. If you have any sort of, like a company that's been doing something similar to this, I think is maybe it's Coinbase. Coinbase has been publishing on their main website, a blog every single day, talking about how great, I don't know, like, it's writing it in a way to be picked up for AI search results about how Coinbase is the best place to trade crypto stocks. And then when you Google that, you basically get something trained on that that gives you the topic. Go check out Coinbase. So that's the idea. This is just people evolving to the adaptation of AI.

[Doug]

So this is like a company, if they need to post something that's negative and they don't want it to show up in search search results, yes, they can.

[Brennan]

Like, like a press release.

[Doug]

Okay. So they obfuscate bad news in a way that, wow, AI scraping won't catch it.

[Brennan]

AI scraping won't catch it. And like, it's instant, you know, because this stuff gets published and it's instantly the newswire picks it up and it's. People are trying to trade on it and so they're trying to like, change the trading such that, like here you can see, like, with different Letters highlighting like, Google shares rally after earnings beat and the company faces severe losses and layoffs. The red part could be removed from the scraping. And it's just an interesting adaptation to this world. I don't know what will happen next, but I thought it was a. I thought it was a funny paper to show what's going on with AI trading. That's really the stock update on this one. I don't have a deeper thought, but I could transition to another stock story.

[Doug]

Wait, hold on. Well, unless it's the Truth Social, because it's super relevant.

[Brennan]

No. What's going on with your social?

[Doug]

Oh, dude. Okay. This is genuinely one of the most.

[Brennan]

On Patreon. Talk about it.

[Doug]

Okay, real quick.

[Brennan]

Then.

[Doug]

Truth Social, which is Trump's platform. Trump's Twitter of choice. He posts incredibly consequential tweets, such as saying, it's Liberation Day in America, before announcing all the tweets. And his tweets on truth, his truths massively affect the market. Right. And now Truth Social, the company is going to sell to Wall street firms faster access to the Truth Social post, which means if you're a Wall street firm that uses these posts to trade, you can pay extra so that you get to see what Trump is posting about in the economy and in the world. News before anybody else.

[Brennan]

A $100,000 fee to get Trump's truths milliseconds earlier, which can matter.

[Doug]

At first I was like, that doesn't sound helpful. And apparently since so much trading is algorithmic now, that is the difference.

[Brennan]

Yeah, no, they have to pay it, basically. I was reading, it's like they. They would be at a huge disadvantage to. Not to. Given how impactful his tweets have been in the past year and a half. And so it's like the only way for Truth Social to make money because nobody uses the website other than Trump. The only thing of value they have is the president announces shit on there that's globally impactful for a couple more years.

[Aiden]

He's gonna die soon.

[Doug]

Could we have Trump insider trading, insider trade on polymarket to fund the war so we don't have to raise taxes?

[Brennan]

That's an interesting idea. I wish we'd been doing that because there's been a lot of insider trading and I don't know where it's been going. And if we could put that towards the war effort, we might be able to get this thing funded. Yeah, yeah, I saw. I'll keep going on a quick stock story. Tesla, big stock we've talked about many times. Elon Musk a worse first trillionaire, not no longer a trillionaire. Tesla is having its earnings soon and it's pretty important impactful earnings for Tesla. People have been asking Cheryl Tesla I've been wondering hey, what the hell is going on? You're focusing on SpaceX. Remember us? Remember your first love like we got shares. What's let's keep going. And they have this thing where it's open investor questions that you could you vote based on the number of shares? You have to put a question into Elon's queue at the earnings. Now I don't know how many averages getting through but it's not that many. So the top questions matter a lot because if you get down the list it's not going to get to you. And right before this earnings which is about to happen, two softball questions appeared at the top with massive amounts of shares more than like everyone else combined putting them in. So it's either him or someone close to him. Put two easy to answer questions at the top. Now the next all the questions after that from actual shareholders are like Tesla has missed short term guidance on Robotax E3 earnings. Three earnings reports in a row from 50% coverage of USA by end of 2025 to most recently 7 new cities in 1H26. What is keeping Tesla back from accomplishing these short term goals they've set for themselves? Like that was one of the most. That's probably the most upvoted from regular investors but it is now being shoved down the list by two out of nowhere last minute one shareholder softball questions to reward long term Tesla retail showrooms for their loyalty. Can you commit to achieving at least half the goals outlined in 2025 compensation plan before considering any offers to acquire or merge Tesla? They are all, all the questions are the same theme which is like where's Robo taxis? Where's optimus robots? And please don't merge Tesla with SpaceX until you Karen dude, let him just

[Doug]

do his job for a little bit. You don't ask him every single year

[Brennan]

single earnings things they do, they're on his ass, bro. Nobody's more on his ass than Tesla shareholders.

[Aiden]

Do you have a boss who's breathing down your neck?

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

Nobody enjoys that.

[Brennan]

That's true. It's harder to work. Yeah, yeah.

[Aiden]

How, how is he supposed to get work done if people are pestering him like that?

[Brennan]

And I do think the world collectively should give you on a break for once. Yeah, he's been on her.

[Doug]

You know when your boss shows up the office once every Three months and asks if you've done any work. Fucking let up.

[Brennan]

And it asks a question of whether any of your promises are even close to being fulfilled.

[Aiden]

Disgusting. Disgusting.

[Brennan]

But I don't suppose it matters to him too much. He can kind of softball this one because SpaceX is larger majority of his wealth by a lot.

[Doug]

And I've heard that there's a new chair that Trump is sitting on in Washington D.C. the Fed chair.

[Brennan]

Oh, what's going on?

[Aiden]

Well, Kevin Warsh. This is a short, short story, but it was an interesting little bit of background about him that I did not know. He's rich as fuck. I know about what the expectation is for this new era of the Federal Reserve in the country, which sets interest rates that have a large influence on the rest of the American economy. So apparently a big thing with Kevin Warsh is his insistence that that Fed communication changes from how it's been for a long time. So every quarter the Fed chair will do this update on what the new Fed interest rate is going to be

[Doug]

going another over baron boss.

[Aiden]

Another.

[Brennan]

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

[Aiden]

You hate to have him.

[Brennan]

Yeah, I do. Live reacts to those. Jerome Powell comes out. He says the same shit every time, but he's got a fun little suit on. That's a great J Pal impression. It's like a cartoonish kind of thing. He does his catchphrase, he does a little dance around.

[Aiden]

Yeah, it's Kevin Warsh seems to be. He's not really a dancing guy. He's not into that, it turns out. But there has been this sort of precedent set at the Fed that they signal and sort of leak intentions ahead of these rate announcements and to get markets to come to expect a certain result to be announced at that. At that, like quarterly announcement.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Aiden]

And what this has done in Kevin Warsh's eyes is created sort of a mirror economy where the value of things like stocks does not accurately reflect the value of those companies. It's just a general reflection of the market's confidence in what the Fed is going to set the rate at that. That is his feeling. So by him, him setting. By the Fed setting the rate and signaling that they're going to set the rate or move the rate in a certain direction. The market is following that announcement more than they're following the underlying value of the assets themselves. And he has seen this as a problem for a long, long time. He used to work at the Fed while Bed Burn Ben Bernanke was the chair. And during the 2008 financial crisis there was the Fed was Kind of leading the charge by putting interest rates to zero in an effort to rejuvenate the economy again. But after things got kind of going by the time we hit like 2011, and things are like, picking back up. Kevin Warsh, not the only person with this opinion, is like, okay, well, now that we've gotten through this crisis, the Fed should no longer be taking this, like, proactive role in, like, directing how the market should be. It should stay tight lipped, not reveal any information about what we're going to do, and let markets resolve themselves without the expectation of the rate going up or down in a particular way. And the mark, the market should be a more true reflection of the actual value of these assets. And this is his kind of M.O. going forward is we're no longer going to leave these little breadcrumb trails of where the rate is going to move to. The market should not be a mirror quote of the Federal Reserve's expectations and rate. It should be more of an independent thing that the Fed obviously still has influence over for through how that rate is set. It's not like this relationship is completely disjointed or something. He just thinks this, there needs to be a new era of Fed communication that has not been followed since the 2008 recession. And as someone who has known about this, you know, new, you know, this changing of the guard for a while, it was just interesting to read, like, his personal perspective on, you know, what needs to change at the institution.

[Doug]

Yeah, I would like to hear your thoughts.

[Brennan]

All I want to say about Kevin Warsh is that from my POV of someone who's like a little bit more of like a, I don't know, almost a fiscal conservative, like, let's stop doing crazy money printing. Let's not have the market totally rely on the swings. Like, what he's saying so far has been really good, to be honest. He came in and we thought, oh, this guy's gonna do everything Trump wants. He's gonna be, he's not gonna care about inflation. And his first meeting, he came out and he was the most harsh anyone has been on inflation. In one of those meetings since I've started watching him, he went out, he said, it's, it's our job, our first and foremost responsibility, to break the back of inflation and we're gonna do it. And he's like, way more hawkish, as they would call it, than everyone expected. Because Donald Trump wants a dove. He wants somebody who's going to cut interest rates and worry about inflation later and get the Economy juiced. So all of his words have been that. But the reason we had market signaling like that and the reason things are going is because when times get tough, there is an enormous amount of pressure, not just from Trump, but from everyone, from all businesses, from everyone, to fucking bend the rules, to print the money, to lower interest rates, to keep things going. And there's a lot of history of central bankers, not just in America, but all over the world of like, they talk tough until they get punched in the mouth. And we haven't had like any sort of real stock market downturn. We haven't had any real sort of like, I mean, the oil thing in Iran hasn't really happened yet. Like, once that happens, it remains to be seen whether Kevin Warsh will be as tough as he has sounded. That's the first test. If he passes that test and he's like, there's this guy, Paul Volcker back in the 80s who had people like burning shit on his front lawn. He had hate from everybody, but he raised rates and he broke the back of inflation in the late 70s, early 70s, and he's considered a hero in central banking. And he kind of saved the US dollars from now to our lives, like until now. And he probably is not that guy we're going to see. Maybe he wants to be, maybe he will be. But realistically, the second we get any time of real downturn, he's probably going to succumb to the pressure and start the printing and lowering and straight that everyone always does. So that's, that's what I say about Kevin Warsh is like, his words have been great so far, but the whole reason he's in office is because Trump picked him for a reason. And so it's just, it's like, which way is he going to go? We don't know. And I remain to be seen that that's, that's what I'd take away on war. But I was impressed by his speech.

[Doug]

No, that's well put. That's helpful. Yeah.

[Brennan]

Can I give just a funny little story, a little funny one?

[Doug]

Yeah, send it.

[Brennan]

You guys know that. Well, it's not even that funny.

[Aiden]

I hope this story doesn't besmirch a fine Swedish company.

[Brennan]

It disperses a fine Swedish company and your favorite tech company, Apple. So it's going to be a tough one for you.

[Aiden]

So let's not do this one, huh?

[Brennan]

You guys know how RAM prizes are through the dam roof. Everything's got to raise price. Consoles are going up, MacBooks are now going up. Phones are going up. And Apple has realized that these prices raising could cause people to stop buying their phones as much or buying the latest model. And so they're like, okay, how do we get them to buy it? We need them to be able to rent it from us, basically. But they realized, wait a minute, if we get millions of people renting a brand new iPhone from us, we're taking on a lot of risk because they might not be able to make those payments. But who is one company in the world that does not give a shit about renting people to people with bad credit? It's Swedish company Klarna. And so Klarna and Apple are teaming up. Klarna is taking on all of the risk. Apple's getting paid full price by Klarna. And Klarna is just hoping they're going to make their payments. They can rent now all the latest and greatest for much less a month. And one key factor of this is that you do not get access to AppleCare. Now, can you explain exactly what that is? It's a big deal in all these articles, but I don't understand. What is AppleCare and why would they not allow your access to this? When you do this?

[Aiden]

AppleCare is like a subscription. You can pay for your Apple product that you own. So when you break it, or maybe even when you lose it, you get like subsidized options to repair or replace the parts.

[Brennan]

Okay.

[Aiden]

At least that's how I've always.

[Brennan]

No, that makes sense in that they're worried about the credit worthiness of the people doing this. And maybe they're gonna try to scam it or some way, like break it or try to get a refund, I don't know, whatever. Like that's.

[Aiden]

Oh, so you wouldn't get access. You do not like a.

[Brennan]

If you do this, you cannot get Apple carries. One thing they keep essentially saying, and I just want to know why that is. But you can't get insurance.

[Aiden]

I guess that makes sense because if you like, if you buy the phone basically entirely on credit with Klarna and then you get Apple Care at the same price that it's usually at, which is like relatively cheap per month, and then you just break the phone like there's. They stand to lose a lot of money.

[Brennan]

Right? I think that's their fear. And so, yeah, this is just. I mean, it's kind of like sneakily brilliant on Apple's side because they are going to juice more demand for their phones and still get paid 100% fully by Klarna. It's just a massive risk from Klarna, who is subsidizing every single person who wants a $25 a month brand new iPhone or something crazy something.

[Aiden]

Surely Klarna is just running it down mid. Yeah, like, you know what I mean? Like, because you without. I can't recall if you actually talked about this on the show. Didn't you talk to somebody who worked there?

[Brennan]

Yeah, yeah, I did.

[Aiden]

And it wasn't great news internally. And then everything about the business model in the long run doesn't really seem to make sense.

[Brennan]

I don't know.

[Doug]

It's a 60 minute game.

[Aiden]

All right.

[Brennan]

Yeah. Much like Trump. They're playing a long game.

[Doug]

They're playing. Klarna's an ad carry. All right, Stop talking about them like they're an early game pick.

[Aiden]

So I feel like somebody at Klarna is just like, ah, that's the vibe

[Brennan]

I got from the employee who worked there who basically told me that they, they are running it down mid on the credit worthiness of people. They have these cohorts of people that don't have the money to buy the things they're buying, but they can make the payment for now. And Karna's like, we're, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. We're going to become a big successful company and we'll deal with that. And so this is just more of that. I don't know, it's, it's. I thought it was an interesting story, but that's my, that's my last main one for today. I don't know who's got.

[Aiden]

I'm stand up comedian John Marcos Cerese

[Brennan]

and I'm actor penis model Russell Daniels.

[Aiden]

The downside is our podcast where we bring on guests to talk about how miserable their lives are because let's face it, things are not getting better. Every episode we talk about what's wrong with our lives.

[Brennan]

Our guests lives the world, but in a fun way.

[Aiden]

Bottom line is you're gonna walk away feeling better about your life. We've had so many cool guests. Caleb Huron.

[Brennan]

Busy Phillips.

[Aiden]

Stavros Halkias.

[Brennan]

Laverne Cox.

[Aiden]

Hassan Piker.

[Doug]

Alana Glaser.

[Brennan]

I promise you're gonna have a good time.

[Aiden]

Now on the Vox Media podcast network,

[Brennan]

this is the downside.

[Doug]

I got a story.

[Brennan]

Give me a story. The story better not be your bezoar.

[Doug]

People are eating Taco Bell in their pants. Over to you, Aiden, about snap enrollment.

[Aiden]

Supposed to end this on snap enrollment. You're on your.

[Brennan]

You actually know any More about this, right? I don't. I don't at all.

[Doug]

Unironically. I watched a 20 minute Fox News video about it.

[Brennan]

Okay, what did you take away? Because I don't know anything about. I just know people are eating Taco Bell and that's awesome.

[Doug]

People are eating Taco Bell and they're in their pants.

[Brennan]

That's what you told me already over

[Doug]

to you for SNAP enrollment.

[Brennan]

Is there anything more that I should know? Should I be afraid of non Taco Bell? What about non Taco Bell food is there? Am I afraid of lettuce? Am I going to my pants?

[Doug]

If you eat, you eat Taco Bell, you might shit your pants. Over to Aiden for trying to get

[Brennan]

important information from someone who's sipping their 19th Diet Coke is actually quite.

[Doug]

Hey, great news by the way.

[Brennan]

Yeah, Bezoar free, dude.

[Aiden]

It's not good to drink.

[Brennan]

No, we actually looked it up on Kimmy K3.

[Aiden]

It's not Kimmy.

[Doug]

This is one. I am Bezoar free. This is the prescribed amount of daily. Daily. By the way, soda you're supposed to drink if you have a bezoar this much.

[Brennan]

Do you think that Diet Coke paid that doctor?

[Aiden]

You know, the funny part is in

[Doug]

the article they're like, honestly, we don't really know how it works. It's like some combination of the acidity or something. So they're just telling people being like,

[Brennan]

smoke ten packs a day.

[Doug]

It's a shame. They give him three liters of coke.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Doug]

And they didn't even. Apparently it's for Coke.

[Brennan]

There's gotta be a medicine with the active ingredient that doesn't require you to drink that much.

[Doug]

That doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense at all.

[Aiden]

Call Sam.

[Brennan]

Are you having a doctor?

[Doug]

Maybe it's the ask part of me that's not nice. We're calling our infectious.

[Aiden]

Hey. Hey. Are you. Do you have like a couple minutes?

[Brennan]

Yeah, I got a couple minutes, dude.

[Aiden]

So you're on lemonade stand right now. Oh, good Lord. And. And Doug. Doug. Has Doug read a story about how a woman had a bezoar in her stomach and she had bezoars?

[Doug]

Okay, okay, Sam. And without any additional context, what would you prescribe somebody who had a bezoar?

[Aiden]

Two to eight liters of Coke? Yes.

[Brennan]

Yes.

[Aiden]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Okay.

[Aiden]

Okay.

[Brennan]

Yeah.

[Doug]

Infectious disease expert. Cheers to that. So I'm going for 10.

[Aiden]

Okay. What if. What if, Doug, what if they didn't have a bezoar, didn't have a bezoar, and they just drank the same amount of coke anyway.

[Brennan]

I mean, everybody.

[Aiden]

Like a road through your fucking stomach. The whole reason that you're drinking that much Coke. Coke is there's, like, phosphoric acid in it that breaks down, like the hair that you swallowed. So I don't know if that's a great call if you're just ripping that, but preemptively.

[Doug]

You want to be safe.

[Brennan]

It's preemptive bezoar prevention.

[Aiden]

Doug. Doug says it's preemptive bezoar prevention. Is that. I. You know what? I don't. I. I'll. I. I could run the study. I don't know if anyone's done that okay yet, but that's it.

[Brennan]

That's a good for science.

[Aiden]

Was this. I have a memory of you telling me that coke is prescribed for. Was it for a bezoar. For something else. We had a patient at the VA who had a large beeswire, and the GI doctors told us to go get like, two to six liters of Coke.

[Doug]

Two to six liters.

[Aiden]

I'm way under the cheap government only had RC Cola. And we actually looked into it, and it doesn't have the phosphoric acid. It's only Coke.

[Doug]

It's only Coke.

[Brennan]

Three liters of RC Cola.

[Aiden]

And it's like.

[Brennan]

Oh, sorry, I didn't.

[Aiden]

The nurses just cooled, like 20 bucks and had me run to a gas station and go buy Coke. Wow. Wow.

[Brennan]

That's beast.

[Aiden]

Okay. Wow. Yep. That's. Okay. So I will. Doug has drank 10 cans of Coke in about. In about 80 minutes, if I'm being honest with you. You're gonna be so sad, dude. You'll never have hair block up your esophagus.

[Doug]

I'm the healthiest man on this podcast.

[Brennan]

Your doctor did not help us. Your doctor.

[Doug]

Thanks, Sam. You're a smart man. You are a smart man.

[Brennan]

Emboldened him hundreds of thousands of dollars

[Doug]

in med school debt in order to tell me that on this podcast. Over to Aiden.

[Brennan]

That was the worst Aiden knows a guy ever.

[Doug]

Fine. We're gonna do snap enrollment also. But it has to be a Nordic fun fact somehow.

[Brennan]

No, we have to end a Nordic fun fact.

[Aiden]

Fun fact.

[Brennan]

We have two minutes.

[Aiden]

Okay. Do have a really short Nordic.

[Brennan]

Let's go.

[Aiden]

Perfect.

[Brennan]

Okay.

[Aiden]

Okay. So I was curious. I was looking into, you know, all the Nordic countries have their own currency. Even the two that are a part of the European Union.

[Brennan]

It.

[Aiden]

They all have their own. Wow. You got it. You got it. You say it right too. And it's so easy to please.

[Doug]

Yeah. That wasn't much, man.

[Brennan]

His eyes lit up like the footage of lie.

[Aiden]

Bro, I just said you've beaten me into submission, right? Because anytime Sweden is brought up, you sort of.

[Brennan]

I'm so negative.

[Aiden]

I'm like a kid looking for just anything from his dad. And I was just, I was doing some very basic research and turns out Denmark, they have a peg. Their currency is pegged to the euro and they have through this like program called ERM2, which is what you go through when you're in the build up to proving to the European Union that you can be on the euro. That we have a, like our currency is good enough and stable enough and our financial institutions are set that to take on the euro in the future, we're going to peg our currency to the euro and keep it within a certain percentage range of the euro's value. So we can, you know, get on the euro in about two years time.

[Brennan]

Oh, they're planning to be on the euro?

[Aiden]

No, that's the interesting thing. So they went through this process to do that but then just never left it. So they keep their currency. Unlike the other Nordic countries, Denmark keeps their currency pegged to the euro within a two, two and a quarter percent range, which you can go all the way to like 15%. There's like a lot of wiggle room from the European Union to like pass this test. But Denmark keeps it like really, really tight. And I guess the reason that they stuck to this is they get the benefit of having a currency that's like matched up with the euro which like, helps inner, like inner European trade with their country. But if there was, if the shit were to ever like hit the fan, they aren't in the same position where like a Germany would be obligated to like bail out a country that's on the euro that's struggling within the European Union. Or they could like, worst case scenario, the Euro collapses and they could just make the decision to like, you know, get rid of the peg and cut and run.

[Doug]

Seems like they have best of both worlds.

[Brennan]

It does feel like they kind of cheated the system.

[Aiden]

Yeah, the trade off is that they don't get any votes on policy that directly impacts the euro. So that the trade off is like we don't get, we don't have a say in like policy decisions that influence the Euro, but we get this flexibility on the.

[Brennan]

But if you're as small as Denmark, it's like, what kind of say would you get versus a big gorilla like Germany anyway?

[Aiden]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Brennan]

So it's like you're kind of like,

[Doug]

germany's the hottest kid on the board.

[Brennan]

The hottest kid on the block. They're dressed up just like Aiden is.

[Aiden]

And if you're the hottest kid on the block, you can join us on Patreon.com Lemonade stand, where we do an extra hour of the show every week. You come on on there. We got 11,000 hot kids signed up for the Patreon.

[Brennan]

Give me a coke, dude. I feel like I have a mental bezoar after this episode that I need to clear up.

[Aiden]

I really. I really was hoping Sam would be more against you.

[Brennan]

The doctor supported him. I'm switching to his side. He's science approved.

[Doug]

That's the healthiest episode we've ever done. Thank you for watching. We'll see you next week.

[Aiden]

Don't drink that many cokes. It's just so bad.

[Doug]

Go to the bathroom.