Trump-Xi Summit + Iran’s $10 Trillion Threat | PBD #798

Summary

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PBD Podcast Episode #798: Trump-Xi Summit + Iran’s $10 Trillion Threat

Date: May 13, 2026
Host: Patrick Bet-David (“Pat”)
Co-hosts & Guests: Tom, Brandon, Bradley

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Overview

This episode unpacks the high-stakes U.S. delegation trip to China led by President Trump, exploring its broader implications for U.S.-China relations, global power plays around Iran’s evolving threats, and a patchwork of domestic issues from inflation to Gen Z’s economic prospects. The lively roundtable discussion—featuring business leaders and analysts—dives deep into real-time geopolitics, economics, and cultural shifts, blending sharp insight with the podcast’s signature quick-fire, humorous banter.

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Key Topics & Discussions

1. Trump’s Power Play in China: High-profile Delegation & Diplomatic Optics (00:43–21:40)

• Why the trip matters: Trump delayed the trip until he could take major “power players”: Elon Musk, Tim Cook, Jensen Huang (Nvidia), Larry Fink, Stephen Schwarzman.
  • Pat: “He’s showing up with firepower...not just representatives. This is boss move diplomacy.” (16:08)
• Optics and leadership: Debate around whether Trump pressured Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, to join (#“I guarantee you he definitely had a nice Big Mac waiting for him” – Pat, 20:19).
  • Trump’s “fake news” tweet, confirming Huang’s presence, highlighted the importance of US business clout in negotiations.
• US objectives:
  • Trade imbalance and tariffs (Brandon: “That’s the long-term issue. Iran’s more of a short-term.” 13:28)
  • Chips/AI technology (focus on Nvidia’s restricted AI chip sales to China)
  • Iran’s destabilizing behavior: especially rocketry and proxies, and controlling global commerce lines
  • Securing commercial/cyber interests (esp. underwater cables)
  • Taiwan (arms sales, independence signals)
• China’s objectives:
  • Retain Apple’s manufacturing base (“3 million jobs” at stake – Brandon, 14:25)
  • Access to advanced chips (Nvidia’s “Blackwell”)
  • Energy security (access to Iranian oil)

Notable Quotes:

• “China and Russia—we don’t want those guys buddying up as much as they have been in the past…Trump is a relationship guy, he brings the money and the muscle.” – Bradley (16:57)
• “Taiwan is the ex-girlfriend you shouldn’t talk about, but you do to get under his skin. That’s the Taipei troller move.” – Pat (15:30)

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2. Iran’s $10 Trillion Threat: Strait of Hormuz Internet Cables & Global Leverage (21:41–41:40)

• New leverage discovered: Iran realized it can threaten the global economy by controlling or cutting vital underwater internet cables in the Strait of Hormuz ($10 trillion/day in commerce).
  • Pat: “Iran's not just asking for $2 million per passing ship...now they want the world to pay them for internet cables too. If they mess with this, everybody’s impacted.” (26:58)
• Geopolitical implications:
  • It’s not just oil and shipping. Undersea cables are a new choke point—affects India, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, etc.
  • Tom: “This is just like the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage. Economic pinch points in plain sight.” (29:37)
• Negotiation dilemma:
  • Should the US give in to some of Iran’s demands to prevent global disruptions? Or “match their savagery” (Bradley, 36:45)?
  • Russia’s possible influence—did they give Iran the cable idea?
• No Nukes Red Line: All agree: Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions cannot be allowed.

Notable Quotes:

• “They want the cables, the revenue, and the right to fix them. You give them that, you hand your competitor new product lines—a toll both on the water, and under it.” – Tom (39:59)
• “They don’t just want to be pacified. With that money, more weapons, tougher each year.” – Pat (40:46)

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3. US Domestic Economy: Inflation, Gas Prices, and Political Optics (42:01–58:46)

• Inflation and CPI: Numbers released—3.8% CPI (highest since 2023); core inflation stays high; food and energy bite hardest.
  • Tom: “It’s being driven more by oil…but there’s always supposed to be an off-ramp, a plan. I don’t think he (Trump) realizes who he’s speaking to—he’s not reading the room.” (45:36)
• Trump’s viral quotes:
  • On Iran negotiations vs. US economic pain:
    “Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters: Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.” (43:03)
  • On construction:
    “I doubled the size of it, you dumb person.” (43:56)
• Proposed solutions:
  • Temporary gas tax holiday would save $0.18/gallon—deemed “not that meaningful” for households.
  • Tom suggests targeted diesel tax credits to cut costs of transporting goods and food, arguing for more creative executive action.
• Middle class pressure:
  • 50% of US can’t cover a $500 unexpected expense; high gas/utility prices risk “undermining the middle class and fueling socialism” (Brandon, 46:43).
  • Real street inflation outpaces markets/Wall Street:
    Pat: “Wall Street is not Main Street. Main street is trying to get married, pay rent.” (62:06)

Notable Quotes:

• “I'd rather be told the truth and be offended than be lied to and comfortable. The truth always is the best answer, even if it offends people.” – Bradley (47:05)
• “These problems are NOT complicated to fix. They just don’t want to fix them.” – Bradley (58:29)

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4. Gen Z’s Economic Anxiety: Job Market Shifts, Dating, and Income Stacking (62:40–79:48)

• Rise of “Income Stacking”:
  • More Americans holding multiple jobs, especially Gen Z—8.4 million, or 5.2% of workforce.
  • Male employment in decline vs. women’s, reflecting degree achievement gap and changes in available job types.
• Gen Z social trends:
  • 62% of Gen Z men (18–29) now opt out of dating; cost of an average date: $205.
  • Reasons: High cost of living, eroding nuclear family stability, shifts in gender roles.
• Cultural cycle:
  • Bradley sees “a sign the entitlement is going away...bad times make strong men” (69:05).
  • Brandon disagrees: spike in working women is a crisis for family formation, reflects deeper societal issues.

Timestamps & Quotes:

• Advice for dating/dinners: Split the bill or not?
  Bradley: “Men should protect and provide for women and children, period. There’s no other conversation to have.” (76:01) Tom: “Don’t create an expectation of reciprocity.” (76:09)

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5. Real Estate Market: Sellers Flood Market, Prices Don't Budge (79:49–89:35)

• Historic gap: 630,000 more sellers than buyers in February 2026—a record since tracking began.
• Why aren’t prices falling? High interest rates, insurance, property taxes, and regional migration patterns. Red states flooded with incoming buyers fleeing blue/high-tax states keeps prices up despite glut of sellers.
  • “If you’re in the hot state (e.g., Florida), the train isn't slowing. It’s not coming down.” – Pat (89:35)
• Should you buy now or wait?
  • Bradley: Wait, prices should drop...but not sure when.
  • Brandon: “Even with the record gap, it won’t come down in markets where rich buyers keep coming.”
  • Tom: “Savings rate is way down; ownership costs are soaring.”

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6. New York’s “Balanced Budget”—A Shell Game? (89:59–101:01)

• NYC claims: Socialist leadership declares a “balanced budget.”
  • Reality: Achieved by taking $5B surplus from predecessor Eric Adams, $4B handout from Albany, plus a wealth tax and pension deferrals.
  • Tom: “75% of the solution was outside money. Sleight of hand, not reform.” (94:21)
• Education spending: $42k/child/year for public school in NYC, poor results. Debate if parents should receive direct funding as vouchers instead.
  • “For $42k a year, that kid should be coming out with a SaaS company!” – Bradley (99:51)

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7. AI Pushback: Gen Z Booing at Graduation, Ambivalence & Cautious Adoption (101:01–113:09)

• Viral moment: UCF VP giving a commencement speech touting AI as the next industrial revolution—met with student boos and pushback.
  • Students apprehensive; believe AI threatens their job prospects.
• Gallup data: Gen Z trust and hope in AI declining; more anxious, less excited.
  • “It's not AI that will take your job, it’s the person who knows how to use it better than you.” – Bradley (107:08)
  • Pat: “If AI prevents you from thinking, what makes you important? What’s your leverage?” (112:41)
• Roundtable: Tech isn’t a “job killer" if harnessed as a multiplier. But generational attitudes now lag behind.

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8. Celebrity Business Failures: Kevin Hart’s $600M Media Company Implosion (113:09–end)

• Media report: Hart’s Heartbeat, once valued at ~$600M, gutted by layoffs, lawsuits, and Hart going radio silent (changed numbers).
• Lessons:
  • Many celebrities aren’t equipped to be real operators.
  • Best practice: Own a chunk, let real operators run daily business (a la The Rock, LeBron, Logan Paul).
• On credibility:
  • Bradley doubts the truth of most media scandals, but if true: “Having my phone number is a privilege. I don’t owe you accessibility if you’re negative.” (116:41)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

1. On leadership optics:
   “Sometimes in life, when you’re going to a big meeting, you call your power players and say: ‘You’re getting on this trip.’ That’s what leaders are supposed to do.” – Pat (20:19)
2. On Iran’s internet cable gambit:
   “If they mess with these cables, the whole world is impacted. This isn’t just about oil anymore.” – Pat (26:31)
3. On economic pain:
   “Middle class takes the hit; that’s the path to socialism if you don’t fix affordability.” – Brandon (46:43)
4. On Gen Z anxiety:
   “They’re staying out of dating and stacking jobs because the system changed. Not everyone’s keeping up.” – Brandon (70:42)
5. On celebrity entrepreneurship:
   “Just because you’re a great talent doesn’t mean you’re a great operator. Let pros run the business.” – Pat (120:08)

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Highlighted Timestamps

• 00:43–21:40: Trump-Xi summit breakdown, power players, real stakes of the visit.
• 21:41–41:40: Iran’s new leverage over internet cables; Nord Stream analogy.
• 42:01–58:46: US inflation, gas tax holiday, real economic stress on Main Street.
• 62:40–79:48: Gen Z’s economic hurdles, multiple jobs, and the dating crisis.
• 79:49–89:35: Real estate’s seller-buyer imbalance, unexpected price resilience.
• 89:59–101:01: NY’s budget “balancing” sleight of hand.
• 101:01–113:09: AI anxiety—Gen Z’s fears and the coming workforce split.
• 113:09–end: Kevin Hart and celebrity business challenges.

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Tone & Takeaways

• Candid, punchy, and insight-dense: Blunt assessments and fast banter; mix of real policy analysis and street-level realism.
• Core message: The world is getting more complex, and playing the next 5, 10, 15 moves ahead—whether in business, politics, or life—is more crucial than ever.
• “Sequence. Power. Leverage. That’s how you win—be it on the world stage or Main Street.”

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This summary captures the essential themes, arguments, standout quotes, and sharpest moments, giving you a vivid sense of the entire episode’s content and flavor—even if you missed the broadcast.

Transcript

[Tom]

Did you ever think you were making.

[Pat]

Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright.

[Bradley]

My handshake is better than anything I ever saw. It's right here.

[Pat]

You are a one of one.

[Bradley]

I don't think I've ever said this before.

[Pat]

All right, business Wednesday. We decided up the game a little bit with looks. We decided to bring Brad Lee with a great voice who should have been in Hollywood. He should have been a big time actor. We should have been like looking at the scout academies. But he chose to get into business and he's made some money for himself. So, Brad, it's great to have you on a podcast here today.

[Bradley]

Thank you.

[Pat]

We got Tom and Brandon. The goal is to get smarter folks. We got Rob and I here as well to facilitate. But some of the things that we're talking about, whatever you're doing right now, there's a group of people that are on the way to China to have a meeting there. And some of these guys are some of the most powerful capitalists in the world. A guy named Elon Musk, you may recognize, Jensen Huang, who apparently they picked up somewhere with the Air Force One or something happened. You know, the fake news said he was not going. Then the president tweeted and said he is going and so he's also going. Then you got Tim Cook, you got a bunch of guys. So we have to talk about what's going on there. Why is this such a big trip? Is this all the people getting off the plane, Rob?

[Tom]

Yes, sir.

[Pat]

Okay, so why is this such a big deal? What are the conversations going to be happening? You know, a trillion dollar investment in the U.S. you know, what topics will happen with Iran. So we'll definitely cover that ourselves now while this is happening. Talk about timing. A lady named Eileen from Arcadia, California is a Chinese spy and she admitted to it. So if there's ever been a time to be the worst time to go to China, can you imagine Trump's like, hey, can you stop sending these spies to America? Like, this is enough to Xi. And she's going to be like, what are you talking about? Well, one of your girls just told us she's a spy and she's doing this. So that happened simultaneously just a day ago. And the story of this girl from Arcadia, Mayor Eileen Wang, great name. Who was dealing with being a Chinese spy herself. Then we got the story with ebay and Gamestop we got to get to. Because ebay finally said, listen, we don't want this offer, but you have to just see the exchange. We never reacted to it, we will. The president made a comment about economy. It's like, hey, what do you think about the people that are having a hard time with economy? And he says, well, look, that's the last thing on my mind. Or something like that. We'll play the clip. And there's a lot of criticism on how that was answered. And another person said something about the ballroom. And he just looked at it and he says, you're a dumb person. I mean, it's just. He said, you are a dumb person. Can you imagine that was actually said? That's not AI. The president said that. And maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong, but that is something that he ended up saying. Mamdani claims he balanced the budget. Look how great Communism is. I'm going to balance the budget in New York. But he's not telling the full story. Part of it has to do with Eric Adams, the guy before him. Part of it has to do that. Mommy from New York State sent $4 billion. I think she sent $8 billion. What's your allowance, by the way? Think about what your allowance was when you were a kid. There's this mayor in New York City whose allowance is 4 billion a year. Mommy bails him out because she wants to support his socialistic agenda. So we're going to talk about that. The President told him, he says, why don't you be a little bit nicer to billionaires? Can you imagine what a weird thing to say, Be a little nicer to billionaires. Mamdani, he's not going to be nicer. He's doing what he's doing. And while that's going on, a data came out showing there's more sellers than buyers in real estate. More sellers than buyers. In a typical market, when there's more sellers than buyers, what happens to the price point? It goes down, but it's kind of not fully happening. We're going to tell, you know, maybe the whole story. We'll get through it. While this is going on, another story came out about Grok. Grok is losing market share, apparently, according to the story. I think it's a Wall Street Journal story. But there's more to it. There's more to it that people are not talking about. We'll get into that as well first thing in the morning today. CPI 3.8 and, you know, inflation, you know, we'll talk about that. That was literally reported this morning. I saw that on CNBC Time. I'm sure you got some thoughts on that. And then we have to play this AI graduation speech, this lady gets up on the stage. Her name is Gloria and she's a VP of Strategic Thinking of this one company, gets on stage and she's thinking the kids are going to be all in her favor. And then she says something about AI. And you should hear the reaction of the graduating class. She looks around to be bailed out and she somehow came back into it, but she lost the audience with making one comment about AI. Kids did not like that. And that leads to a story I got here with Gen Z. Gen Z's income stacking. These guys have to have multiple jobs to be able to pay their bills. And it's not a good thing. And I got some data to share with you when it comes down today. And I know Tom does as well and Brandon does as well. And then last but not least, this guy named Kevin Hart, who's kind of a big deal, very funny, very talented when he's in movies, it's just funny as hell. You got to watch this guy, his business, his media company that at one point was valued at $600 million, apparently is no longer valued at $600 million. There's some speculation about his phone number changed and maybe this has happened in the past before. And so we'll talk about how to actually run the business and getting the team that wants to work with you and run through the wall with you. So we will talk about that as well with Kevin Hart. So with that being said, before we get started, a couple things I want you to be thinking about. You notice with everything that's going on with these guys visiting China and who the President is picking up to take with him. Look at the way he thinks on the amount of power he wants to bring to China to sit down in the negotiating table. Why would you bring Musk? Why would you bring Tim Cook? Why would you bring Jensen Huang? Why would you bring all these guys? Why would you take all these guys to go? Maybe this whole thing is about sequencing and decision making that's going to lead to the end of being what he can get with Iran and hey, give and take. And he knows the leverage that he has. All of this comes down to one thing, and that is if you want to win in life, you have to know your next 5, 10, 15 moves. So once we host a conference called the Vol Conference, I want you to watch this video. It'll give you a little bit details about them. We'd love to see you at the event. We do this every year. This is the super bowl. We're expecting 12,000 people this year at the Vol Conference. Go ahead, Rob. So the sequence in which decisions you make in life matter. Let me explain to you what I mean by this. If you and I were to play chess, do you know how many first moves you can make playing chess? Only 20. You have 20 different ways of making a first move. You know the second move. 400 different type of moves. Third move is 5362 different ways. But you know what your fourth move is? You have 319 billion different ways to make the first four moves in chess. So let alone life. So what does this mean? Do I start the business first or do I save the money? Do I get married and have the kids and travel? Everything is about sequencing. This is why at the Vault Conference, we talk about making your next five moves. We move number one, master knowing yourself. Move number two, the ability to reason and make better decisions. Number three, putting your team together. Number four, how to skill. Number five, power plays when it becomes nasty and competitive. So if you're somebody that wants to take your life and your business to the next level. Once a year we host a conference called the Vault Conference. This year we're doing it at MGM grand arena, Las Vegas. 12,000 people from 60 plus countries will be attending from August 31st to September 3rd. And if you haven't yet registered, click on a link above or below. Get registered. I look forward to seeing you there. There you go. So, Vault conference. Go to vault2026.com again. Vault2026.com get your tickets, come down to the event. It'll be some of the best. I believe we have the best business community in the world. I really believe that. And I'll tell you based on what. It's not just money. We talk money values and principles. How to raise your family, faith, you know, raising your net worth, everybody. You're in a room with 12, 000 different people that look at life similarly to the way you do. So if you haven't yet registered, click on the link below. Go to vault2026.com Register we look forward to seeing you there. Okay, with that being said, let's get right into it. China. So us. The president has a trip that was supposed to be in March. Gets postponed. Let's see what happens with Iran. He didn't have the cards at the time, or he didn't feel like there was a need to go there at the time. But this time when he's going to China, he goes stacked. Who does he take with him? He takes his power players. He takes the guy that is about to step down from Apple but is running a four and a half trillion dollar company. He takes another guy named Jensen Huang, who is running Nvidia and it's currently valued at 5.2 to $5.5 trillion. He takes all these power players with him on the way. He takes Elon Musk, that's worth about $850 billion. Struggling financial, you may want to start a GoFundMe to support him a little bit. Right. He can buy countries, that's how much wealth he has. And he's taking it with him to say, let me tell you who we're coming here with. Right. And so while that's going on, everyone's speculating what's going to be talked about. Would Iran be on the table? Will the investments they're making in the US Be on the table? Will Taiwan be on the table? What comrade? Allegedly. Some of the topics he's even talking about one of the guys that got arrested. What's the guy's name, Rob? The guy that got arrested, Jimmy Lay Lai. Jimmy Lai, yeah. That got arrested. Apparently he was a loud billionaire saying certain things. Notice Jack Ma kind of disappeared and he's not saying anything anymore. So there's a lot of topics that people are speculating. Tom, what do you think is the outcome of this visit to China and what do you define as successful?

[Tom]

So I don't know what I define success as overall because there's two vectors. I think there's a global influence vector and then there's the economic deal vector. Trump's over there to make economic deals. He's got the tariff situation, he's got the guys over there and they were talking about chips. He didn't want Jensen Wang to sell the high end chips, only sell the mid tier chips to China. Jensen Wang is eager to sell to whomever because he's a capitalist and he wants to sell around the world. So I think one is China. Trade deals that would ultimately be beneficial and kind of calm down the tariff thing for the American consumer and to make long term deals, number one. But number two, on the world stage, I think there's gonna be some quiet discussions because remember China keeps shipping sodium perchlorate over to Iran and that is the white salt that is used to make rocket fuel. And there have ships that have gotten through since the start of the war. Since the beginning of this year, they have shipped between 1,000 and 2,000 tons of it to Iran and they need that. It's like A critical. It's a critical material to make rocket fuel. So part of it, it's gonna be knock off the rocket fuel stuff on the back door, dude. I mean, that's gonna be quiet behind closed doors. But then in front of everybody, you're gonna have the photo op. The photo op will have Tim Cook, the economic people, everybody there shaking hands, talking about tariffs. That's the photo op. The second line, I think, is on the back end, which is, listen, dude, you were propping up Venezuela. We've kind of let you know what we think of that. We're working on the Panama Canal, and the crap you were pulling with Hutch is pulling back. And now I got. The Panama Supreme Court said this. So let's figure out this canal thing and Hutch selling its position, and let's do these deals. So I think the economic things are going to be Panama Canal chips, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[Pat]

I got three.

[Tom]

Lot of photo ops.

[Pat]

I like that. I got three clips of the president revealing what some of the topics may be. Rob, whichever one you want to start off with, why don't we go with the first one, Providing Taiwan with weapons. Go with that one first. If you got it, go for it.

[Tom]

There's a lot of support for Taiwan from Japan and from countries from that area.

[Pat]

Do you think we should still be selling them weapons? United States?

[Tom]

Well, I'm going to have that discussion with President Xi. President Xi would like us not to. And I'll have that discussion. That's one of the many things I'll be talking about. Well, the, you know, he and I

[Brandon]

have gotten along well, other than with

[Tom]

COVID I, you know, I was not. I was. I was just not accepting of what

[Pat]

happened with COVID But other than that, he and I have had.

[Tom]

He's a great gentleman. I find him to be an amazing. An amazing man. And when I say that, the press always says, oh, that's terrible, that he called it. You know, he runs 1.4 billion people with a pretty iron fist. He's. He loves his country, I can tell you that. President Xi, I look forward to being there. And if he felt anything, we wouldn't. We wouldn't be doing it. But a lot of good things can happen.

[Pat]

No one talking about. You can pause it right there. So, Brandon, when you're watching this, there's another thing. He talks about Iran, which we'll get into here in a second as well. And then, Brad, I'll come to you when you hear all these different things of him going There. What do you think are the top three issues for him and what do you think are the top three issues for China?

[Brandon]

I would say for him top three issues are trade, deal. Iran.

[Pat]

You put trade above Iran?

[Brandon]

Yeah, ultimately. Because I mean that's been his biggest issue the entire time. And you know, Supreme Court kind of took some power away from him with that. So I think if like that's one of our biggest threats when it comes to China is the, the imbalance between that. So I think getting that squared away is number one. That's the long term issue. Iran's more of a short term. And then I think AI for sure. And then I think Taiwan, because, you know, Taiwan. The question is if we stop giving them weapons, are you just going to go over there and take it? China, you know, which a lot of people are saying they probably will try to. I don't think they'd be successful if they did. They did that. But with him bringing those guys over, I think a lot of it's symbolic. But at the same time that's the real might of America, that's the real power of America's. It's the biggest companies, you know, like the CIA. A lot of the effort goes into protecting and putting our companies in the biggest position of strength is what's our gdp. In reality it's really the market cap of our biggest companies and what they could do to other countries.

[Tom]

What do you think China's top three is? I agree with most of your analysis of the US but what would China's top three be?

[Brandon]

China's top three is probably keeping Apple in China because they, you know, employ 3 million people there. Right.

[Pat]

They've cheap in Apple and China.

[Brandon]

Yeah, I'd say that's up there keeping us. So Chinese manufacturing and US consumption is like really the backbone of the entire global economy. So you know, China's manufacturing.

[Pat]

Well, he took, Tim Cook, took 25% of it to India.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

They started producing.

[Brandon]

Yeah. They started moving it over there. Yeah.

[Pat]

Right. So he, you're saying the number one thing for him would be to keep the apple manufacturing, the 3 million jobs

[Brandon]

there in China to keep American manufacturing in China still there. Yeah, to stop that.

[Pat]

What else? What else outside of that?

[Brandon]

I'd say getting the, the Blackwell chips from Nvidia is probably a big one. And last but not least, I'd say probably securing their energy. So you know, a lot of their oil comes from Iran.

[Pat]

So you think Iran and oil for them is three?

[Brandon]

Yeah, because.

[Pat]

Are you on the same page?

[Tom]

No, I think It's. I think oil and Taiwan are like one.

[Pat]

I think so as well.

[Tom]

Right at the top. Then I think it's trade and chips. I think it's that simple for Taiwan.

[Brandon]

Why Taiwan?

[Tom]

Because. Because the oil influences the discussions about Panama Canal and Venezuela and Iran. So oil energy in Taiwan, I think were one or two.

[Pat]

You know what it is? It's kind of like Taiwan is the word you say to get under the guy's skin. He knows what he's doing. Taiwan is the ex. Taiwan is like, hey, talk about anything but don't talk about Taiwan because that's mine.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

It's kind of like a guy who gets married and he's got a family and he's got a main squeeze, but he wants to make sure his ex doesn't date any of his friends. Make sense?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

So I don't know any better analogy than to give to that. He's kind of like, hey, even though I'm married, you better not date Mary. Okay? I'm telling you, Brad, don't hook up with her. I heard you guys are texting each other. You better not date Mary. I think there's a little bit of. And he knows, he's like, hey, how's Mary doing?

[Tom]

And he's a troller. Trump's a troller. Can you see Trump trolling? Yeah, you know, you know, g, you know Qatar.

[Pat]

I hear she's really good. I hear she's really good in bed. You know, I hear like they want to talk to. I mean, listen, I'm not calling her. She's calling me. What do you want me to do? I think he's kind of doing that, Brad. What do you think?

[Bradley]

That'd be a violation of bro code. Can't do that. I think he's going over there like a boss, you know, and he's bringing the decision makers with him. Which I think indicates that there's probably more of the economics on the table.

[Pat]

Oil.

[Bradley]

I also know that, like, I need to read more before I come join these shows. You guys are some, some well read individuals. I don't know that they were shipping sodium PI chlorinate anywhere.

[Pat]

It's the problem with time. I know it's like, I'm gonna drop some on you'll equipped, but when I

[Bradley]

just look at the story, I'm thinking a boss move. Why? Trump's a relationship guy. He understands that relationships are the bottom line. China and Russia, we don't want those guys buddying up as much as they have been in the past. Right. So it's like, let's bring some power over here. China needs money, wants money, right? So let's bring the money. I'm bringing decision makers. I'm not bringing some. Some representatives. I'm. I'm showing up with full blown firepower so we can shake hands and make a deal and not say, let's talk about it next time.

[Pat]

Yeah, and you know what I like about the spread? I like the fact that story came out saying Jensen Huang's not going. Right. Nvidia. And he knows how important that is for him to go. So allegedly he calls and he says, you're coming with us. And he's like, I got other things to do. I don't care what's going on, you're coming with us. Allegedly he says that, then he tweets out, is this it, Rob? What is this?

[Tom]

This was just a quick report from Reuters yesterday confirming that Jensen Huang was.

[Pat]

Wasn't going. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead and put this one and I will read the tweet. Go ahead. One CEO not making the trip is

[Tom]

Nvidia's Jensen Huang, a person familiar with

[Brandon]

the matter said on Monday.

[Tom]

Huang was not invited, the source said. With the White House focusing more on agriculture and commercial aviation matters on the current trip, Nvidia has been pushing the administration to allow it to sell some of its AI chips to Beijing.

[Brandon]

The White House did not immediately respond

[Pat]

to a request for comment. Okay, so this is then. So everybody's like, okay, Jensen, why is he not going? He said no to the president. Allegedly. The president made the phone call and then the president put this, puts this tweet out there. If you want to. If you want to put the tweet of what he said. We had it on our group text, Rob. I don't know if you have it or just. You can do it here or you can go to. So the president says, I'll just read it here, Rob, until you get it in so the audience can see it. The president responds, says, this is fake news. This never happened. You know, this was not a story of anybody saying, we just literally shared it this morning. Somebody send it. Is it in? The guest podcast is in the business podcast. I know where it is.

[Tom]

I'm sorry.

[Pat]

Was on social over to X. Yeah, we had it. So anyway, so he says, no, it's fake news. This really happened. This is not something that didn't happen. CNBC incorrectly reported that the great Jensen Huang of Nvidia was not invited to the incredible gathering of businessmen women proudly going to China. In actuality, Jensen is Currently on Air Force One. And unless I ask him to leave, which is highly unlikely, CNBC is reporting fake news. It is an honor to have Jensen Wong, Elon Tim from Apple Tim Apple. He calls him Larry Fink, Stephen Schwartzman, Kelly. And he goes through a list of all this stuff and many others. Journeying to the great country of China, where I will be asking President. President Xi, a leader of extraordinary distinction, to open up China so that brilliant people can work their magic and help bring the People's Republic to an even higher level. You know what I like about this? In fact, I even promised that we are together, which will be in a matter of hours. I will make that my very first request I've been seen or heard of any idea that would be more beneficial to our incredible countries. Okay. You know what I love about this is the fact that the guy understands events and he understands optics and he's willing to make the phone call. What's the likelihood he called him and says, you're getting on this plane. What's the likelihood? 0,200. What do you put it? 50%? 100%? 90%? 80. I got him at 100%.

[Tom]

I'm 100.

[Pat]

Yeah. He called him and he says, hey, we're not doing this without you getting on this trip. You're getting on this trip. Why do I like that? Because sometimes in life you have to realize, like when you're going to a big. And what is a bigger meeting than this right now? I don't know if there's a bigger meeting than this.

[Brandon]

No.

[Pat]

Who do you want to take with your power players? You're calling and saying you're. And do you think there was a threat on the call?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

Or do you think it's a reminder? Do you think it's a nudge? Do you think it's a 0 to 10 pressure?

[Tom]

It's a Trump reminder.

[Pat]

Yeah.

[Tom]

You know, I was talking to Scott Bessant. He said Q1 next year would look a lot better if you were selling more chips to China. Just something he said. I don't know if it's right or wrong.

[Pat]

That's right. He's going to say, I thought we were doing you well, I thought we were doing this. I thought we did this. I think he's going to remind him what he's done for and it's going to be like, you better get on the plane and guess what? I guarantee you he definitely had a nice big Mac waiting for him. And maybe that was a selling point. Who knows? But I like the fact that he made the call and look, whether he was not supposed to be on or not, guess what? I like that he made the phone call. That's what leaders are supposed to do, to say, hey, diplomacy, get on. We need you when we're going to this trip in China. So while you're looking at this and this has taken place for me, it goes to a few other stories with it, because this conversation leads to, you know, with the China, with the, you know, Iran and all this other stuff. In one of the videos that you have, Rob, where he says, we're going to be also talking about Iran, if you want to go to that one. Is this it?

[Tom]

Yes, sir.

[Pat]

Go for it. Rob, what is your message to President

[Tom]

Xi as it relates to the Iran war?

[Pat]

Well, I think, number one, we're going to have a long talk about it. I think he's been relatively good, to

[Tom]

be honest with you.

[Pat]

You look at the blockade, no problems. They get a lot of their oil from that area. We've had no problem. And he's been a friend of mine.

[Tom]

He's been somebody that we get along with.

[Pat]

And I think you're going to see that good things are going to happen. This is going to be a very exciting trip. A lot of good things are going to happen. Do you think he needs to intervene

[Tom]

at all with the Iranians?

[Pat]

I don't think he can help in any way. I don't think we need any help with Iran. We'll win it. One way or the other, we'll win. We'll win it peacefully or otherwise. Their Navy's gone. Their Air Force is gone. Every single element of their war machine is gone. But there's one thing nobody is talking about. You can pause. You can talk about. You can pause this one here, right? It says Trump says Iran is on life support. Right. And there is one thing nobody is talking about in regards to Iran. And I want to know if you've read any of this stuff here, Tom, while I go through it. Do you know when people think about where we get Internet from, do you know 97% of the Internet that we use to upwards of 99%? Is it satellites or is it underwater cable? It's cable. And cable is where?

[Bradley]

Underwater?

[Pat]

Underwater. 97% underwater. You know how many thousand miles there's 750,000 miles of cable underwater. Each mile to build these is between $400,000 to $1.1 million to create each mile of this. So go. 750, 000 miles of cable. Okay, what the hell does this have to do with anything. If you want to pull up these cables, wrap on what they look like, the underwater cables for Internet. And. And if you go to that one right there, go to that one right there. Can you. No, no, the one. That's what it looks like. Just so you know. But go to the fourth one fourth image right there. Can you make that bigger? Okay, this is what Iran just figured out. You see all these cables where they're going through 60%. Go zoom in a little bit more. That's a pretty shitty quality picture, but we'll do the best with it. Rob, zoom in a little bit more to India. Do you see that bottom left? Like right in the middle of India, that zero dot right there? Go a little bit higher to show you which one it is. Go right to go down a little bit with that arrow wrap. Can you put it right to the left right there? That one right there is Mumbai. 60% of India's Internet comes from Mumbai. And the cables that go through there, two of the connections of these cables go through where? Straight of Hormuz. So Iran has realized, wait a minute, if this collapse, by the way, $10 trillion a day is going through that cable. And they figured out, and they said, oh, you guys want to play ball? So guess what we want to do. They've not just been asking about the $2 million per ships that come through a day from Strait of Hormuz, which is 2 million times 60 ships is what, you know, one, you know, $120 million a day times 30 days. That's a lot of money for these guys to be making. Right. If you think about, is it 2 million times 60? $120 million. Right? Yeah. They're not only asking for that because they want to say we want to control Strait of Hormuz. But guess what? That now they're asking. They made three requests. One, they want to take control of the cables that goes through Strait of Hormuz. Two, the entire if it breaks and fixes, you can't use any other company except for Iran to be able to fix the cable. So they want the business to go through them. And he's now asking, do you know who has cables on straight of Hormuz? Which companies? Microsoft, Apple, Meta has built their own cables that's going through there. India all of a sudden comes out and is like, wait a minute, we cannot. Because Iran's like, hey, we found out about these cables. If you guys mess with it. Because back in the days, what China knew how to do was even Russia trained On this, China had a unit and Russia as well, where they learned, they taught their people on how to go underwater to mess with these cables. And in many instances they'll go and they'll drop the anchor. Okay. In areas that they know where these cables are at. And the ship gradually moves. You know what all of a sudden happens when anchor gets stuck in the cable, Boom. Cuts the cable. All of a sudden the country loses Internet. You know for how long? A long time. Because it's not like you call AAA and somebody comes and fixes it within 20, 30 minutes. You know how long it takes to fix these things? Weeks to months to fix them. And if India is now being threatened by this, India is now making a phone call and saying, hey, these Iranians, we thought they were dumb. Apparently they're not done with the irgc. Not only do they want to mess with this, but now they're talking about they're going to mess with the cables. If they mess with the cables, guess who's going to be impacted by this economically? Everybody.

[Bradley]

The whole world.

[Pat]

The whole world. And is there a country that is famous for saying things like death upon America capable of messing with these cables if you really push them to the corner? Oh, yeah, probably, yes. So now this leads to you thinking about one of two things. Does the straight of Hormuz impact death the west more or does it impact China, India, Russia more? Who does the Strait of Hormuz impact negatively? Most more US or China. And Russia.

[Brandon]

China, Russia.

[Pat]

Okay, beautiful. So if it's China or Russia, don't you think this will be a conversation that they're going to be having? Because we're not at a point with the satellite. Oh, we're going to go. Internet's coming from the satellite like Starlink. You know how long it takes to fix those things? Yeah, long time to fix it. Internet is underwater and Iran just brought. Can you pull up the story, Rob? They just brought this up a week ago. You've not even heard about the story until about a week ago when Iran said, here's when we went with these cables. So whoever's given this intel to them, is that it? Yeah. There you go. Look at this, look at this. Iranian state media proposes charging international companies a fee to use fiber optic cables in the Strait of Hormuz. Go a little bit lower. Iran's semi official Tanzania agencies could start tsunami. It says change the rumble. So they ask for three different things which they're getting. And you're starting to see this is becoming a topic. So I wonder if this will be another one of those things that they'll talk about because if they all of a sudden get reckless and they mess with this, the world is going to be saying, hey, we got to stop. Specifically India. So India will be in the middle saying, well, us, listen, we kind of got to finish this war because we can't get anything. And the US Is going to be like, nope, number one priority for us is making sure those guys don't have a nuclear weapon. So this, this is, this is a bit of a right there. Look at. Go to the bottom left. That's how they set up the cables. So look at that guy. That's a maintenance. That's your AAA to fix the cables. Look at that. That's your Triple A. And by the way, when you have 750, 000 miles of cables, how do you secure them? Do you have cameras down there? You have security waiting for them? Do you have people that are waiting there? You ever hear the saying that 94 of the ocean has not been. Yeah, it's discovered. So if 94% of the ocean has not been discovered, how the hell do you protect 750,000 miles of cables that a country like Iran, if they wanted to disrupt the world, they could. This is it. Look at this. These are all the cables on Strait of Hormuz. And look, the connections with Iran, they know, like, they're starting to talk with. You know, I don't know where this information is coming to them, but this has been a known topic for a lot of people. But it's becoming a conversation just in the last week. Brandon.

[Brandon]

No, that's fascinating. And I was thinking the exact same thing, that some. Somebody had to have been putting this in their ear and getting in there saying this, because for it to come out nowhere like that with them, to

[Pat]

have a plan, you almost don't want them to be talking about this.

[Brandon]

Yeah, no, because if you, if you're dealing with somebody who has nothing to lose, like, you know, you could have all the resources in the world, but, you know, they always say that an equal or even more scary opponent than that, somebody who has nothing to lose. So if they're living in pain and, you know, no energy like turmoil, what is it to them to do this, to set the world on fire? It's nothing to them.

[Pat]

It's nothing to them. Now, Tom, what are your thoughts on this?

[Tom]

You know what, this is the backstory of economic pinch that is going on all over the place. We've saw it before, but you don't realize what? You're seeing it and the mainstream media is just not diving in. There's some smart people in mainstream media. You have to squint and look hard to find them. But there are some people out there. Think about Nordstream. What was Nordstream? Natural gas pipeline that went from Russia to Germany. All of a sudden, in the middle of the Ukrainian war, way over there, everybody goes, boom. What was that? Did you hear a thump? And all of a sudden, there's natural gas foaming out of the North Sea. Until they could. Russians got it turned off in 2021. Pat, what percent of natural gas to Europe EU came from the United States? 6% by 2024. After Nord Stream got bucket in 2022, that was 28%. The end of last year, it was approaching 40%. By the end of this year, the natural gas LNG to EU from the United States will be 80%. And guess who's no longer collecting money on the Nord Stream pipeline because they haven't been able to fix it?

[Bradley]

Russia.

[Tom]

Cause they've been kind of busy with the Ukraine thing and they're like this. And maybe our guy's got cancer, maybe he doesn't. Now, fast forward here. These are the backstories of economic pinc. Who everybody was saying, the CIA. This is the CIA. Cut the Nord Stream pipeline. It doesn't matter who you think cut, who benefited later. The U.S. is now up to 60% natural gas. You hear Trump say, we got lots of natural gas. Gas, gas, gas. Lots of gas going to Europe. Lots of gas.

[Pat]

Yep.

[Tom]

And guess what? He knows he's got the card there. 60% will be 80% they say by the end of 2028. 80%. Because Europe is moving from fossil fuels. Natural gas burns cleaner. So guess what? You've got all that going now. You've got this. This doesn't surprise me at all, Pat. This is Nord Stream with data bits where once you break it, who wins? Or they just want to put a toll booth on it and with a light switch.

[Pat]

So here's.

[Tom]

Here's a question, you know, you okay? All right, listen, I'm upset. No, Only fans for Europe. Click.

[Pat]

This is the question, though. And Brad, I'm going to come to you and I'm going to come to you. The question becomes the following for me. If you're negotiating with a country like Iran, okay, they just brought this up the cable, okay? So then you have to ask yourself, did they figure this out or did Russia drop this on them and whisper to them and say, hey, like, do you think if you're sitting down with Iran and Russia in that room, that they had Abbas Al Rachi that went over there and met with them in Russia, I don't know if you remember that. When Putin said, we're teammates, we're allies, what do you think is the possibility of Abbas Algoshi saying the following to Putin? Hey, Vladimir, question for you. What is the one area of pain that we can bring to the world that nobody is thinking about? And maybe Putin's team are like, you know, what's the one thing nobody is thinking about? What's that? Let me tell you what, Nord Stream pipeline, CIA was behind it. Tom, you know, if you want to scare them up, you know what you do? What's that? Why don't you go talk about all the cables that are coming through Strait of Hormuz. They'll be shitting bricks. They won't act like it's scary, but they'll be. What do you think is a likelihood of that meeting? So he goes, meets with Putin two weeks ago, Putin says, we're allies and we have your back. And then a week later, you come out and drop cables on him. So I think this was dropped to them by Russian intel to say, this is one way. Because this morning I got a question from somebody that's big on news and asked me a question about Iran and all this other stuff. And I was telling this person about the concept of economic hitman. How America was known for having the biggest business of economic hitman. It used to be Britain. Britain was the best one. They did this to Iran and to other people.

[Tom]

Confessions of an economic hitman.

[Pat]

That's the guy. John Perkins. Yeah, I had him on two or three times. So I think there's something here where they're flipping it. Brad, how are you processing this information here?

[Bradley]

I would. I'm tracking with you. I mean, that makes sense to me.

[Pat]

How do you negotiate this? I guess if it's you now, now you're us, okay? And in us right now, we have people that are not supportive of the war. 60% of is not supportive of the war, right? They're like, this is a waste of time. Now it's hitting my pockets. Gas prices are up to 450. Diesel is at 535. You know, I'm starting to spend more money. This is not fun. But Iran, the country that wants to have nuclear weapons, they've said it publicly that they want to have it. And now they're telling you with the cable, if that's the negotiation that they're having, how do you negotiate back with Iran? Do you sit there and say, okay, you can get some revenue from the cables, you can get some revenue from the straight of Hormuz, how do you negotiate with them?

[Bradley]

You know, I would have to get a little bit more into the details only because, you know, what do they want? What's their end goal? And, and based on that I would. If it's a nuclear weapon, that can't happen.

[Pat]

They want the nuclear weapon, that can't happen. Yeah. On the 14 point deal that they're talking about, one of them is let's do all, let's open up the Strait of Hormuz, let's lift the sanctions and then let's talk about nuclear control enrichment for us later on. But you know, we are eventually going to have nuclear. If Pakistan can have nuclear weapons, why can't we? If North Korea can have nuclear weapons, why can't we? That's the kind of position they're taking.

[Bradley]

What is the answer?

[Pat]

What is the answer?

[Bradley]

No, but what is the answer to that? Why can't they?

[Pat]

Okay, so that's the position you would take.

[Bradley]

Well, I mean, I need more details. Like I don't study this news all day.

[Pat]

No, but, but ask the question. That's a fair question to ask because a lot of people are asking the question.

[Bradley]

I'd like to know.

[Pat]

It's, that's not an innocent question. Some people are saying why can't they have it? Now the argument to that is these are such reckless, crazy human beings that they hate America and they hate what we stand for and they've publicly said that. Who is the Mojtabok Khamenei made comments three or four days ago about what's going to happen to us. You know which comments I'm talking about that we just read a week ago, Rob, where he says there will be a day where Iran, where us will be destroyed or something like that. This is their supreme leader that is talking about wanting to destroy the West. You can find a quote on what he said on their state TV or he said it to his people. Yeah, when you find it, we'll talk about it. So but some people are saying, do we want a leader like that to have nuclear weapons?

[Bradley]

No, I don't think there should be nuclear weapons ever again. There's enough to annihilate the whole world. So what's the purpose of having one?

[Pat]

Why can't Iran have it?

[Brandon]

Look, how great is for North Korea, we leave them alone because they have one. So you can't really do anything to a country once they have nuclear.

[Pat]

So you are saying it's okay if they have.

[Brandon]

No, I'm saying that's why they cannot have it, because once they do have it, they have too much leverage over us.

[Pat]

Okay, so let me come to you as a negotiator. Think like a negotiator with the access to information that we have right now. What are you doing with Iran? They're telling you what they want with straight of hornburst. They're telling you they want you to lift the sanctions. They're telling you that they want to have a nuclear weapon. They're telling you that we want to get revenue on this cable system that we have in Strait of Hormuz. How do you negotiate with them now? Yeah, I mean, is it at all cost? Is it using leverage by China to team up with you and say, china, stop helping Iran? How do you do it now?

[Bradley]

Yeah, give them the money.

[Brandon]

I mean, you have to match their level of savagery. Unfortunately, like it's. It's not going to be a pretty situation.

[Pat]

Okay, so you're saying match their savagery. You're saying give them the $30 billion that's sitting in the account. Tom, what do you do?

[Tom]

No, I. You can't. You. You have to push, push, push them hard. And the issue is you gotta control Russia. No one's talking about Russia here. Russia is so pissed at the United States because our entire government, except our president, was willing to help Ukraine. Now, I'm not going to take sides in the. Russia invaded first, and basically Biden gave him the wink, wink green light. But then we gave all this aid to Ukraine, and they bought all the things that you needed to to fight a war, like yachts, tanks. Wait, you missed my punchline. Tanks, planes, drones, Bentleys and yachts. All the things you need to fight a war according to what they were buying. And then what did Russia do with Iran? The first weeks of the engagement, they did this. They gave them satellite imagery of where we had concentrations of equipment Pat. In our bases in the Middle East. That was Russian satellite imagery. Hey, you know, if you're gonna launch these drones over toward Oman and. And uae, you know, Boris, this is what you want to do here, here and here. The Americans have got a lot of supplies and things built up. You might want to hit them. Then Russia was caught giving the. There's an Iranian drone called the Shahed drone. S H A H E D. Shahed.

[Pat]

That's the main one they make.

[Tom]

But it had poor tracking system on it. The Russians gave them technology to improve the tracking system along with. They gave them the targeting information on the ground. So if. If Russia is giving that to Iran, and they are so pissed at us about Ukraine, do you think they're also giving them a map of the undersea cables? Yes. Do you think Russia's got better intel on the undersea cables than Iran does? Yes, absolutely. And so what do you got to do about this? You either have to be more ruthless than the other guy and push it all the way over in a war that got far deeper than you wanted. Because if you stop now, oh, we'll talk about nukes later. And now we have to. Okay, so listen, we'll make a deal. You don't touch the cables. You get a toll booth on the ships on the water. You get a toll booth on the cables under the water, and we'll talk about nukes later. That's a W for Iran. That's a W for Iran.

[Pat]

So this is the part. And it goes to the folks who are sitting there who are not supportive of the war. Okay, so you finish up today and you give everything with Iran. We get the gas prices to go back down to 289 or, you know, 325 or whatever. The numbers are great. But they get controlled the Strait of Hormuz, for the $2 million, they're able to enrich. You give them the $30 billion and they have control. Because the three requests they made is maintenance, that anybody that's using a cable of Strait of Hormuz, they have to pay Iran a fee. You know, the asks they're making. And by the way, just so you know, it's. It's ridiculous on what can happen. So some people are like, I don't want to deal with it. The 60% of community. Let's not do any of that stuff. Let's give Iran everything they want. Is that a better position? This is a very complicated situation.

[Tom]

You just gave your competitor two new product lines. A toll booth on the water and then a toll booth on the cables under the water. Now he makes economic money on that to raise more havoc that he's already been doing.

[Pat]

That becomes. That becomes the Panama Canal of the East. Yeah, that's a lot of control with the wrong guy.

[Bradley]

If you're giving them control, like, you can take it back. So it's like, it's. It's almost like pacifying them. Like, you want control? Okay, here, you can have control. You only have control until I say you don't again. So at the end of the day, do you really have control or are you just pacified? Calm down and we can carry on. Because at the end of the day, who controls it? Well, whoever's the most mighty and powerful is who controls it. If I allow him to think he's controlling this company when I own the shares and I own the board, he don't control shit.

[Pat]

You don't, though, but you don't. In this case, it wouldn't be the case, because in this case, if everybody is going through paying the 2 million to them, it's 60 a day. If everybody. That's. That's a lot of money to them. And guess what they're going to do. The longer time goes by, more cash, more weapons, tougher. We learned that Iran is not Venezuela. Venezuela was easy. Boom, boom, we got Maduro, we're out, right? And now they're joking about making Venezuela the 51st state. I don't know if you saw that or not. They're talking about, hey, what do we. What can we do to make Venezuela the 51st state? Iran has shown they're more relentless and they're not wired like other people are. Like, it's celebration. If I die for my country in Iran, it's a very. If I die for my prophet, it's a celebration for them, Their mothers celebrate. I cannot believe my son killed himself. On behalf of our religion, on behalf of what we stand for, it's a very, very different community here. We mourn. They. They celebrate when somebody dies.

[Brandon]

You know, it could be done. I mean, and since you were saying that they're not rational actors there, but China and Russia are rational actors. Even though we have. This is with them. Like, we could say, all right, screw Ukraine, let's make Russia happy temporarily and help have them help us bleed Iran out. Because, you know, Iran wouldn't be nearly as strong and in a position of strength if Russia and China weren't supporting economically. And from an intel standpoint.

[Pat]

Yeah. Well, this is talking about. Trump was asked about the economy, Rob, and this one clip here, we can spend a couple minutes on it. Got a lot of criticism because he was asked, so what do you think about the struggles people are having in America with the economy and the challenges and all this stuff? And he just got back and he says, look, you know, the last thing on my mind is, go ahead, I'll let him tell you, go for it, Rob. When you need to build up your

[Brandon]

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[Brandon]

Sponsored Jobs. When you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are American financial situations motivating you to make a deal?

[Pat]

Not even a little bit. It's the only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We could not let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all. That's the only thing that. So this was the hot topic yesterday. And while they're asking a question, somebody also asked about the ballroom, and he says, you're a dumb person. Right. So every day something new happens that goes viral, but this was the moment that the President had yesterday. Rob, I don't know if you have the other one or not, but while you're looking. Is that the one? It's short. Go for it.

[Tom]

So what happened is we have a ballroom that's under budget.

[Pat]

It's going up right here. I've doubled the size of it because we obviously need that, and we're right now on budget, under budget, and ahead of schedule. I doubled the size of it, you dumb person.

[Brandon]

Double the size you are.

[Pat]

You are not a smart person. Tom, address the first issue and the second issue. Go for it.

[Tom]

The first person that's a dumb person. No. All he had to say there in the ballroom is the ballroom's been privately financed. Taxpayers aren't funding it, but taxpayers are going to benefit because you're going to have this ballroom there. And I made it bigger and we're on budget. But he is who he is, so he's got to kind of push a little bit there. You know, he was upset. You could tell he was getting frustrated. You could tell there's tension there. You can tell when a leader's got a little tension going. And so with Trump, you can see the tension and patience because his answers become actually more quick and strong. And you can tell when he's a little annoyed and he's like, all I'm worried about is they can't have a nuclear weapon. You know, that's a common thing, you might say, but she asked about it and what he should have said, because it came out bad, is I am deeply concerned about them not having a nuclear weapon. And the sooner we solve that, the sooner the war is over, and then the sooner we can get back to helping the American people with energy and gas costs and everything else. But right now we're stopping them from having a nuclear weapon and simultaneously trying to help the economy. But when the war is over, then everybody gets help. And I'm deeply concerned about the American people. If he does it like that, then you hear a president that is properly talking about the two problems that are on his desk. But instead it sounded dismissive and it kind of gives the mainstream media the angle to go with which I didn't like. You know, it could have been said better.

[Pat]

What are your thoughts?

[Brandon]

Yeah, I mean, it's. Talk about not reading the room. I mean, before this war even kicked off, you know, the biggest Achilles heel for him going into the midterms was the cost of living. And I mean, the reason it's a big deal is because the difference between a capitalist and socialist country is a strong middle class. You know, if your middle class starts getting eroded because of the cost of living, then you turn to a socialist society because, you know, like, 80% of the country can't afford basic things like rent and food and energy. Then, you know, you start, like, a lot of people don't understand why it's happening, so they start to get desperate and they, you know, accept the sales pitch from a socialist politician like AOC or Gavin Newsom or Bernie Sanders who tells them, you know, yeah, it's not fair. We're going to give you universal basic income, or we're going to tax the billionaires and give you, you know, payouts for it because you can't afford to live. And it's their fault. So I think he's creating that problem for the future. But, yeah, talk about in terms of not reading the room and like, who's faulted actually is. I mean, that's put that aside. But I'm not even certain that Iran had nuclear weapons to begin with. So saying that with certainty, not super clear on that. So to say, you know, it doesn't matter your cost of living, I think that should be the biggest issue.

[Pat]

Brad Bradley.

[Bradley]

Well, I agree with him only because, you know, again, if they'll, if they'll use it, which sounds to be the case, well, then they can't have one under any circumstances. So it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. And again, I think we already know he's not Politically, the best president we've ever had.

[Pat]

Politically correct. Like, yeah, yeah.

[Bradley]

Like, he doesn't know what to say half the time, so he just says what he feels, which I prefer. Like, I'd rather be told the truth and, and be offended than, than be lied to and, and feel all comfortable. Because the truth always, I think is the best answer, even if it offends people.

[Brandon]

What are you saying isn't. Isn't true? Like, before he was saying inflation's gone. That wasn't true at the time. And now you know it's worse because of the situation. And you could say there's an off ramp, you could say what the plan is. But I don't think he realizes how many people he's speaking to when he says that.

[Bradley]

Yeah.

[Brandon]

Whether they're in his side or not on his side. You know, he's speaking to a lot of people on his own side with that.

[Bradley]

Well, you also have to worry about, like, how do you trust the media in the first place? Like, when someone says, trump said this or did this, how do you know that's even true? And then when you hear him say it right out of his mouth, you say, well, that's, that's a lie. How do you know?

[Pat]

Yeah, but, but the part here with the economy, now, he could have worded that in a different way because sometimes this, the part again when you come out of a meeting and then the camera's on you. Like, I will do some clips sometimes and I'm reacting and nobody knows. Two annoying things just happen right before I'm supposed to get in front of camera and be in a good mood. And hey, let me tell you about how you can do this and do that. You're like, ah, two things just didn't go my way. And we just got a massive issue with this and I'm dealing with that. And that property didn't sell and this person did this and that person did that and, and then you want me to be a. And then imagine if I'm running a small business. Now imagine you're the president of the free world and how many calls like that you going to have? Well, Russia is not good with you. Putin just said this. And Carney is bullshitting around with Obama and Alex Soros and one of your guys, you find out is spying news to New York Times and another person. And then you get in front of the camera. So what he does, you're a dumb person. You're this. So of course, you know, you know, you can say that's diplomacy. You Got to have a better way of handling it. It is what it is. There is pressure and the topic of affordability is a real thing because this led to numbers coming out just this morning. CPI 3.8% that came up today and it's up. And there's a clip of this right there. Consumer price rose 3.8% annually in April, the highest since May 2023. Excluding food and energy, the CPI core the increased 0.4 and 2.8% respectively, keeping inflation well above the Federal Reserve 2% goal. Though energy in particular gasoline has been much of the headline story. Inflation pressures also came from a variety of other areas. The report also contains bad news for workers as real average hourly wages slipped 0.5% for the month and fell 0.3% annually.

[Tom]

Tom, oil is driving this and just in just moments ago, I sent it to you, Rob. Market Watch wholesale prices, the. Yep, I just sent it to you, Tom.

[Pat]

He'll look for.

[Tom]

There it is, wholesale prices, which is called the CPI Consumer Price Index. And then you have PPI Producer Price Index. So this is wholesale cost. Wholesale have hit a four year high and have climbed 6% over the year. There it is. Yep. Market Watch. You know, the nice thing about Market Watch is they don't spin it. They just put the numbers for you and they don't try to spin it. Well, it's not as much as others, but. And so what this means is, and it says that this is driven more by oil. Transportation of goods increases my wholesale costs. You know, Brad and I sell a bunch of citrus and then now we're dealing with $5.50, you know, diesel fuel. It costs a lot of money to get all of our citrus from Florida to the rest of the United States. Now that's in the price of those grapefruits and oranges now because we got to add the price. So the producer price index is up. And so what it's saying is that the war is having an effect on it. What's more alarming to me in the middle of these two things is what we don't see so much forward planning happens and fertilizer for next year, they've run out of the previously purchased. They've run through the previously purchased fertilizer at yesterday's prices, which they used to plant this year's crops. Next year's fertilizer futures are up 40%. And so they're scared to death that what everybody is nervous, including me, that what's about to happen is inflation next year driven by food is going to be up because it's going to cost more to drive. There it is key nutrients trading 30 to 40% higher than previous levels. That's 2027. That's 2027, because I have to buy it. If I need 40 tons of fertilizer, I got to put in an early order to ensure they can deliver it to me for 27. And so right now, inflation is creeping up and it's being driven by the war and oil. And it's not just, you know, 10 hours in and out of Venezuela.

[Pat]

Was it brand new?

[Brandon]

Yeah. I mean, they say excluding food and energy, inflation is only up by this much. But it just so happens that those are the two things that people really need to. So, I mean, yeah, if you want to just like, survive at the very least, like, those two things affect you, you know, like the stuff you buy on the shelf that are material things that, that could come and go. But it's. So it's kind of a silly thing for them to say, like, oh, just aside from the things you need to live, inflation's not up that much. So I don't think they should spin it that way. And I mean, think about what, like the impact the war has had on fertilizer, for example, or energy the last five years. So Ukraine and Russia, you know, biggest places we get fertilizer from, two huge places from commodity standpoint, oil standpoint, and then this happens. So it's really these, I guess, unnecessary conflicts in a lot of ways that are driving the thing up. But you can't ignore those two things. Those are the two things people need to live.

[Pat]

Brad Bradley.

[Bradley]

Yeah, I mean, I, I would agree with everything you guys are saying. The only thing I don't understand with some of this is where's the, in my mind, perceived manipulation of the market? Because if, because if you look at everything, when oil goes up, who decides it goes up? You know, supply and demand. We have tons of oil. How come we're not tapping into it?

[Brandon]

We can't use all of our oil because we have refineries are built for heavy oil and we only have light oil. So we.

[Bradley]

I don't know. But see, this is what I'm talking about. Like, these are all, to me, excuses. Like, if you want to get off dependency, you have to, you know, be proactive. So all these inflations, they're being allowed. Obviously it's manipulation is my point. They want these prices to go up.

[Pat]

Here's what the President had to say about it. Go for it, Rob. About inflation. Go ahead, Rob.

[Tom]

And as soon as this war is over, which will not be long, you're

[Pat]

going to see oil prices drop and

[Tom]

you're going to see a stock market

[Pat]

which is already at the highest point

[Tom]

in history, go through the roof.

[Bradley]

You're going to see the golden age

[Tom]

of America, frankly, and you seeing it now. So as soon as this is done, don't forget you have hundreds of ships

[Pat]

that are loaded up with oil that want to come out. As soon as they come out, we're

[Bradley]

going to have a gusher of oil

[Tom]

and you're going to have inflation that goes way down. So with all of this, inflation is much lower.

[Pat]

You can pause it wrap while this is going on. He announces supporting suspending federal gas tax. Now, what will that mean to you? This is a Wall Street Journal story where the President is entertaining the idea of stopping federal gas tax. States can do it as well. All these blue states that charge a bunch of money for gas tax, right. California being the highest one, if not the top two. Here's what the President had to say. He said he supports suspending federal gasoline tax, responding to a surge in fuel prices. I'm going to, he told the reporters at the Oval Office on Monday, arguing that gas prices will drop like a rocket once the world winds down, which is what we just watched right now. And the price of gas has steadily increased with the war. At the end of February, the average nationwide one gallon unleaded gasoline is roughly 450 according to AAA. One year ago was 314. And he continues. Families need help now. This is Senator Mark Kelly. Democrats saying families need help now. If they were to get rid of the gas tax for the federal government gas tax, that's 18 cents per gallon. So if they stopped it, it would be an 18 cent difference. So if you're paying 450 right now, it would be 432. Tom, is this meaningful? Because it's saying it would cost. Trump's gas tax holiday would cost three and a half billion dollars a month if they were to go through with this. What are your thoughts on this?

[Tom]

Number one, that's nothing. It's. And for to in terms of government costs, 18.4 cents and 24 cents for diesel. You know that that's a help, but it's, it's a small help. You know what I would do if I was the President? I would call on him and say, Mr. President, for all carriers that carry products to end market for all. So, you know, not moving vans, but for all of the, I'll suppose the Moving vans would help all the Californians leaving California. But for all of the carriers of product, I will give you a tax credit equal to $1 per gallon of diesel you use in the second half of this year. And I'll just give you that tax credit. Very simple. How many gallons of diesel did you buy for all your trucks carrying fruit, oranges, furniture, dry goods, flour, wheat, corn, all of that you Transporting, you're paying $5.50 a gallon. I will give you, I'll make it $1.50. I'll give you $1.50 a gallon tax credit. Take it off the tax at the end of the year and now you've got $4 diesel to everything. You know what happens to the pressure on prices? Pressure on prices immediately come down. These are the things that he has in his executive order. Pen and besant. Is there a Treasury? Scott, come in here a second. Let's do a tax credit second half of the year for all the diesel producers. $50 a gallon. Take it from 550 to 4 right now. What do you say? Simple. Now you don't have to worry about industry by industry. If you're carrying products to market and that cost was being carried on to consumer, let's bring the cost down and then, you know, maybe go ahead and do the gas tax of 18 and 24 cents. But you could so quickly hit the energy cost in the core. And this is why, maybe this is why I'm not in Washington. I think it's too easy, Brandon.

[Brandon]

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, and I think that, you know, you got half the country that lives off less than $500 a month or doesn't have $500 spent on emergency. So I like, imagine what that number went to when gas went from 250 to, you know, 450. So, yeah, I don't think 18 cents is going to make a real dent. And I, I wish he would bring a panel of people like Tom and economic advisors to do creative ideas that are innovative that could bring the price down, like whether there's subsidies here and there. I mean, if we run a deficit of 2 trillion a year, I'm sure you could find a way to temporarily subsidize the market because that really is the biggest threat to our leverage over Iran is the sentiment of the population of the US with their tolerance of the gas prices because we are already in a delicate situation with economic stability with the middle class. So I think that's his biggest threat. So it's more of a threat than Iran.

[Bradley]

Bradley, I Think the longer you, you know, push something off, the worse it gets. You know, sometimes people just have to pull up their pants and tighten their belts and deal with it.

[Pat]

You talking about gas prices?

[Bradley]

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, you can't have everything you want. It's like, you know, well, we got to get these prices down for some of these people that don't have money. Well, again, then tap into our own reserves. And then someone says, well, we can't because of this reason. Dude, we can do anything. We're just not. Yeah, it's not that like, like Tom, send him to Washington, shit would be fixed instantly. The problem is, is it wouldn't. He'd be killed or he would be kicked out because I don't know if they want it fixed probably in that

[Tom]

order first, and then they, they say, then kick me out just to be sure.

[Bradley]

But does that make me a conspiracy guy? Because I just don't think they, whoever they is, why wants it actually fixed? Because these are not hard problems to solve, but they're not solved and they haven't been solved for years, 50 years, so. So why is the question. And the reason is because I think they don't want it.

[Pat]

Let me ask you a question right now, today. How many. If I was to go through your project list of projects that are eight or higher importance, how many eight or higher projects do you have on your list today? Tom, what's yours? What's yours? Six.

[Tom]

Tom, you and I talked the other night. I probably about four of them. Four of them, Yep.

[Pat]

How many do we have as a company? Could you say now as a company you have five. What do you think we have as a company? Eight or higher?

[Tom]

I think right now we probably have 12 projects that are eight or higher, big time. From recruitment of people to certain traction to certain product development. It's because we're growing fast and we're driving.

[Pat]

Right. Okay, so how many do you think he has?

[Tom]

Trump?

[Pat]

Yeah.

[Tom]

Oh, my gosh.

[Pat]

Eight or higher. How many think he has?

[Tom]

Easily 25.

[Pat]

You think it's 25? Yeah, I think he's eight or higher.

[Bradley]

I would say. Yeah. Well, how many should he have is the question.

[Pat]

Well, no, how many, how many do you think he has for his position to say 8 or higher?

[Tom]

I'm like an 8, like a 10. Is Iran with nuclear weapons for sure.

[Pat]

So that's what I'm saying, 8 or higher.

[Tom]

You're way up there. I think there's 25 that are up there, probably enough that are 7.5.

[Pat]

Okay, so. So let's just say 100 plus for 7.5. You know how many that is? It's a lot. So then you have to sit there and think about which one of them. The predo theory 8020. Everybody wants to fix everything. By the way, I found this clip. Rob, I want to send it to you. I just literally saw it today from the interview we had with the President. It's very interesting what he says about Iran. And I don't know if I texted it to you. I don't know if it's in our notes, Rob. If it's not, I'll just send it to you. And this was in our discussion we had with Iran. Some person reposted it. I just want to show you this on what he said about Iran. And this was shared, Rob. I just send it to you if you want to check your text. So. So look how he answered this. Look how he answered this. Because he specifically says to you, this interview is, you know, last week of October. And then right after the interview we completed, he went on Rogan. It was literally these two last interviews that he did was me and Rogan. And I asked him this question about Iran. Look at the way he answers it. Okay, go ahead, Rob. Running around. What's going to happen to Iran with you by the. By the end of your administration? I don't.

[Bradley]

I'm not.

[Pat]

I would like to see Iran be very successful. The only thing is they can't have a nuclear weapon. Are you okay with the same administration and way of governing states, or would you like to see it go back to the 70s when Shah was running it and Iran was one of the top three countries. And tourism. Yeah, we can't get totally involved in

[Tom]

all, you know, I mean, we can't run ourselves.

[Pat]

Let's face it. Sure, Patrick.

[Tom]

We can't run ourselves.

[Pat]

Put sanctions. That's going to. They don't have. The people are going to turn and flip on them. It's not going to be a. Okay, so you see that conversation that we have, what does he say?

[Brandon]

America first.

[Pat]

America first. We can't run. So. But he still said what the position. That hasn't changed. They can't have nukes. Can't have nukes. But he says we can't run them. So you notice in his wording there, he's not talking about regime collapse or regime. Regime change. Right.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

This takes me back to what you said. I assume they have so many projects every single day if I'm the president and, you know, every President has a Tom in their lives, if not five or 10 times. When you're the president, he probably has 50 times. Right. That you're. These are minds that are coming and saying, look at this, look at this, look at this.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

And the hard thing right now, even with our company, we have different executives, and people will come and say what we need to do, but they're not all saying the same thing. What is the right thing for us to do today? Right. So then my choice is to take the intel from Tom, take the intel from Paul, take the intel from different guys that we have. RJ all these other guys are saying, here's what we should be doing, and then say, okay, I'm going to go with Tom. Or, you know what, Tom, I like the idea. Well, let's postpone it for six more months. I'm going to go with what Paul was saying. But to each of them, they're all smart guys.

[Bradley]

Yeah.

[Pat]

It's very. We all think we're smart and our idea is the best idea because we know what's best for everybody. Right. But guess what? We don't have. We don't have all the. What? We don't have all the intel, and we don't have the sequencing that they're dealing with. And specifically, the weight of the sequencing lies on who, on the leader. And he has to decide which problems do we want to solve now. And one of the hardest things about solving problems is you will never, ever hit 100% of the problems that everybody thinks is the most important. You will never be able to hit it. You were always, if you think about leadership, you're 100% of the time not going to police 100% of people. That is an out. So he. Because he won the election, not everybody else won the election. One guy won the election. Which is who? Him. He's the one that gets to say, at this point, I think this is what's most important. At that point, I think this is what's most important. And you'll listen to everybody, listen to the market and see what you do next. I will tell you, if this affordability goes like this longer, this is a bigger deal than they're thinking. Tom said, it's a very, very important thing. About 15 minutes ago, when we looked at what farmers are dealing with today and the price of the price of fertilizer, fertilizer that's coming from Strait of Hormuz, the price of fertilizer has gone up. And so the margins for these farmers have gone from 5 to 10% these guys barely make any money to now they're going in the negative 5 to 10%. Farmers don't make money. The bigger farmers are going to buy them out, they're going to knock them out and then you are not going to feel the prices when not today. You're going to feel the prices when 12 months from now, you know, 18 months from now, six months from now. This is a 2027 problem already. So how do you address that? So these, these are things that you know, he has to. And when you say stock market, Wall street is not Main Street. There's a big difference between Wall street and Main Street. Like I'm doing great financially, but on Wall Street, Main street is not doing great. Main street is trying to get married. Matter of fact, let me go to this next story here and we'll talk about Gen Z's, what they're doing with their careers right now when they look at Gen Z. Okay. The rise of income stacking. Why Gen Z is juggling multiple jobs. Okay. And the story right next to it is a changing job market. Liens against men. What does that mean? What do you mean liens against men? Wait till you see this data, Rob. I don't know if you have it or not. Okay, you have it. Fantastic. Watch this here. Let me read both of them on what men Gen Z, men in America are dealing with today. First story that we have, okay. Tamika Gomillion is working two jobs. An usher at an event space and a receptionist at the student center while finishing her computer engineering studies at the University of district Columbia. The 35 year old said she's juggling multiple jobs out of financial necessity and with the rising living expenses, she expects to maintain several jobs even after she lands a job. On her career track, one job would be easier, but I know if I have another, that's a check I can either put on the side or could just be my play money multiple jobs. Gamillion is among rising number of Americans who are income stacking or taking a taking on multiple jobs to build financial security after dropping during COVID the share of people working more than one job has increased over the past few years. Government data shows in nearly 8.4 million US adults or about 5.2% of the workforce were working multiple jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It's important context to look back and see that actually around Covid that number plummeted from pre Covid era to historical because you gave them free money. Like you know, that's the part that they don't say you send ubi, you send money to them that they weren't dealing with. Now watch this. This goes to the next one, which is a change in job market leaning against men. Rob, if you want to pull up that report, the data that you had, this one right here. If you can go a little bit lower to the chart. Rob, look at this chart. Cumulative change in non farm jobs since December of 2024. Okay? That's the plus minus for men and women. And it's 400,000 more jobs by women and jobs for men decreased. Now why is this happening? If there's one chart that we look at, Rob, is college degrees for women versus men. And I don't know if it's in the same chart or not. Let me see that one right there. Employment as a share of population 1950s, 85% men to 30% women. And then bring it to Covid. Forget about COVID So make the drop with COVID and then go to today. 55% is where they're at. And 65%, this is according to the Labor Department. We're getting fewer and fewer jobs for men and more and more jobs for women. That it's kind of flipping. And when you're looking at this tomorrow, I saw data today that gen Z men, 62% of gen Z men ages 14 to 29 is gen Z. So go 18 and up the adults, like, you know, adults. Gen Z, 62% of them have taken themselves out of the dating market. They're not even looking. 62, 62%. You know what it was in 20? 19? 51%. So it's gone from 51% to 62% now. What do you think it is for women? Gen z women, it's 34%. That means 66 are looking, but men are like, we're out. Do you know what the average date is today that Gen Z pays for dinner when they take a girl out? $205 for millennials is 259. The average in America is 189. You want a Gen Z to take a girl out for $205. Like what's $205 after tax money? That's 250, $300 pre tax money. So think about what they're dealing with today. And we need these guys to be willing to get married, to be willing to have kids, to be willing to date. So it's a little bit of an issue. Brad, I'll come to you first. What are you thinking when you're seeing these numbers with young men and Specifically Jay Z. Working multiple jobs and being in the

[Bradley]

dating scene, I see it as a positive sign. Means, you know, the entitlement's going away. These, these Gen Z guys, you're assuming that they're paying for dinner, first of all. Second of all, I see more women getting jobs because I think less men are, are, you know, taking that masculine position. So I see it as a positive that, that they're doing it only because it shows me that the entitlement is starting to. Starting to fade. You've heard the whole tough times make, you know, strong men. Strong men make good times, good times make weak men. I think that cycle continues and I think that's a sign that it's. We're starting to.

[Pat]

What cycle are we in? Weak men.

[Bradley]

We're just coming out of weak men. Weak men cause bad times and in

[Pat]

bad times create strong man. And then we're back at it again.

[Bradley]

That's a sign of stronger men coming.

[Pat]

So are you saying Gen Z are weak men?

[Bradley]

Yes.

[Pat]

You are saying that?

[Bradley]

I think they're entitled. And not only that, it's like, you know, that's why more women are probably getting jobs. They have to. The men aren't stepping up or weren't stepping up. I think they're starting to.

[Pat]

Interesting, Interesting. Brent, do you agree with them?

[Brandon]

I don't think it's a good thing for society because I would say, what do you think it's better if our society is having more or less kids with people who are married together?

[Bradley]

I would think it's better for more kids.

[Tom]

Right?

[Brandon]

Yeah. So this is drastically reducing the amount of kids that are being born because since really got off the gold standard, cost of living skyrockets. Two people off to work. You see that chart? It skyrockets in the 70s when women start entering the workforce. And then the state is raising your kids instead of the mother at home or the parents at all. So it's collectively having a bad effect on the nuclear family, the amount of kids you could have. So in that regard, the government spending more money than it should is causing this problem. And yeah, sure, some of it's just the trend that's going with. There's more jobs that are, I guess, built for women, like administrative jobs, jobs like in an office. But regardless, I would say that the best investment you can make is into yourself and like, make yourself as valuable as possible. Like there is going to be less people who have like a high standard of living these days than there was back in the day. Like back in the day you could have, like, a normal job and have a good standard living today, you kind of have to be a little bit more exceptional to have a good standard of living. But I think not everybody's going to embrace that. But you should embrace as much as you can. You should make yourself as valuable as you can. That's how you overcome this. And that's the attitude I took.

[Bradley]

But it's easier to make money now. It's easy. It's easier to make money than it used to be. You got the Internet, you got social media. It's so easy to make money. It's ridiculous.

[Tom]

Right.

[Brandon]

And it's not giving you like. Like if just doing it the way everybody else does, it's going to put you in a bad position. But before you get away with that. So, yeah, like now it's easier to do what you're saying with that, but less people are going to do it.

[Bradley]

Yeah, so. So when I see women getting most of the new jobs, well, that's, I believe, just indicative of. That's because, you know, they need to, like, if. If you're not going to take care of a woman, then they're going to take care of themselves.

[Pat]

Rob, can you pull up that degree chart of women versus men? Look at this year also. Did you have. You just had it up a minute ago. Okay, there you go. Share a population, ages 25 to 54 with a Bachelor's degree. Okay, Rob, Blue is women. Black is men, not black men. It's just black is representing men. So if you look at that chart in 1960s, look at the numbers, okay? Women, 7%. Men say 13, 14%. And then when did it flip? 2002, 2003. And then now 47% women, 38% men. Some may even say there's a reason why women are being brainwashed. And they are where they are because they're around people that hate capitalism, hate all that stuff, and they're bashing it. But at the same time, for job, getting a bachelor's degree, that's headed in a different direction. Tom, where are you at with this?

[Tom]

So I got two comments here. First of all, the online world allows people to immerse themselves and not have to go outside. You used to go out to places and you would meet people. I don't mean spending money on the clubs and trying to get behind the velvet rope and all that crap. I mean, you used to go out to the college football game and you would meet people. Your fraternity. You'd go hang out with girls from the sorority. We'd go Meet people. And a combination of video games and the Internet, it is a fact, has pulled men inside and made weak men that are incapable of having discussions and outside in public scared to walk up to talk to a girl. And they're immersed in video games and the online world. And now only fans for this seemingly perfect AI generated model. And now we're finding out that a quarter of the AI models right now are generated. Oh, my daughter never goes into AI. No, she doesn't. She got a computer science degree and made two people that are on making more money than she would do doing things there. You have all of this mess there. So the men are there. Then you are having a surge. Right now we are having a demographic surge where the number of new jobs have been over indexing in healthcare for five years. Why now when I mean healthcare, nursing services, aging services, home helpers, taskrabbits, all those things going there because the boomers are retiring and they got the money to pay for all these services.

[Brandon]

So.

[Tom]

And those are overwhelmingly female jobs. So now you have that wave going on. But on the other side, I see bright lights right now. Do you know what percent of businesses fail in the first year right now to 2026 stats Q1, it'll shock you. 22%. Okay, you know what that was 20 years ago? 80. 50. Yes, it was 50%. You go back to the late 80s, it was 80%. Guess what you have now? More research. AI gives you more certainty, more options. Wait, Instagram. This will do us all. Make it something on Instagram and you follow other people's lead. You have an interesting product and it makes it your side hustle makes it so you have an 80% chance of first year survival for businesses now, which is a huge change. So for me, that is what they're taking advantage of. Because my fourth wave is it's so expensive for housing, they feel like they have to stack it. But now they're able to do it. We now have 10 million people in America with two jobs. 55% of them are full time, part time, 30% of them are part time, part time and 15% of them are actually full time, full time. People are figuring out a way to work 80, 90 hours a week with two full time jobs. And by the way, this is just the W2 employment that Fred Federal Reserve economic data out of.

[Pat]

Imagine what it is for 1099.

[Tom]

Right? This is only the stuff we can count. Imagine.

[Pat]

Let me ask you this, let me ask you this.

[Tom]

Sorry to get richy here.

[Pat]

Tom question for you. Bailey goes On a date with a guy. What do you tell her about the bill? Where is Daredevil?

[Tom]

I'm right here.

[Pat]

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

[Brandon]

So what's next?

[Pat]

I feel liberated.

[Tom]

We're gonna take this city back over

[Pat]

medicated in an all new season now

[Tom]

streaming only on Disney plus.

[Brandon]

They're hunting us.

[Pat]

It's time we started hunting them.

[Tom]

I can work with them. This should be tons of fun. Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again now streaming only on Disney. Well, there's no room in her purse for money because she has a 9 millimeter. So it's that.

[Pat]

Well, what do you tell her? What do you tell her for?

[Tom]

Oh, you mean. No, what do I tell her?

[Pat]

Yeah, like advice, dad. Should he pay the whole thing?

[Tom]

Yeah. I tell her, don't create the realm of expectation and reciprocity because that lives, you know, hey, I paid for dinner. You know, we're gonna hook up. What are we gonna do here? First of all, I teach her to reason and resist, to stay away from people that the men that think about

[Pat]

it simplify for me. Do you tell her that she needs to accept, expect for men to take the 100% of the bill?

[Tom]

No, I tell her. I say, listen, owe nothing to anybody, have no expectation.

[Pat]

So if she goes to dinner with her guy, do they split the bill?

[Tom]

I. I want her to split the bill. I don't want her. I want him to have any expectation.

[Pat]

Okay, so where are you at with that? You're, you're, you're the one that takes care of everybody's bills. Because I've seen that video. You'll, you'll take care of the girls, their husbands, their friends, all that stuff. But imagine if you got a 23 year old son. What do you tell him?

[Bradley]

A son?

[Pat]

Yeah.

[Bradley]

Do you pay the bill?

[Pat]

You pay the bill.

[Bradley]

I'd rather ask, what about the daughter?

[Pat]

What do you do?

[Bradley]

My daughter. I'll give her all the money that she needs to pay any bill that she might encounter. And I want her to pay it very quickly if, if the gentleman doesn't do it and then come home because that guy is no longer an option. Like.

[Pat]

Got it.

[Bradley]

She, she can be, she can pay the bill, but that should be the last time she goes out with that guy.

[Tom]

Bingo. Thank you.

[Pat]

Okay, so that's a, that's a fairly simple way of looking at it. Right, but your expectation is he should take the 100%.

[Bradley]

Men should protect and provide for women and children, period. Period. There's no. There's no other conversation to have.

[Pat]

Yeah, that's why we're here.

[Tom]

You asked me about dates. If things become serious, I expect him to be gallant. I expect him to be serious, I expect him to provide. Yeah. So as things get serious and go over a certain line, my expectation changes. But just casual. Maybe we'll grab lunch, maybe we're investigating each other. I'm with you 100%. I don't want her cornered and I don't want her to have being or you know what I'm talking about, the expectations, you know.

[Pat]

You know, it's yesterday. We're having a conversation. We shot a video specifically about this on how the dating scene is. And you know what I told him? I said, look, everybody has a different reason why you're attractive and girls come to you. So there is too much. If you don't have a way to create you being attractive, you know, that's on you. And by the way, it's not just looks like when I'm not telling you, go grab a hammer, start hitting your face. But that's one way. But that's physical. That's. Look, some it's body, some it's money, some it's the family you're part of, some it's connections, some it's your leader, some it's your smart. Like imagine Tom with his intellect. How do you think Tom flirted with girls? When I think about Tom, I've seen Tom and he's actually very good because Tom uses his sense of humor. Tom's funny and self deprecating in a very funny way. But then he's firm as well. So Tom's got an element of even Tom, that you may be like, well, Tom, yeah, but he learned his game in a different way right now. Brad Brady, on the other hand, he just keeps his mouth shut. He shows up and they're like, damn right.

[Tom]

But he's got that Barry White voice.

[Pat]

That's. That's right. So, but. But the point is, what is your leverage? What. What is the thing that you're creating in a marketplace where they're coming to you? And then if you're just playing this game to want to hook up and have fun and all, well, let's just go swipe right and do your thing. But if you're looking for a wife and somebody to be your wife, a girl to have kids with and all that stuff, you may also have to be looking at different places to get a better qualified market to get into. The data shows it on What? You know what? People used to meet girls in the 30s versus today. In the 30s, it was all family, friends and work. Today it's 65. 70% is dating online is where they're seeing. But you know what is the highest rate of marriage working out is if you met your wife through work or through friends and family. Yeah, highest percentage of working out. Because if you say you work at a company and you're here for seven years, seven years later, how many girls have come and gone?

[Brandon]

A lot.

[Pat]

Yeah, but imagine if there's these four girls that you've been watching and they're still here. You know their dating history. You know how they handle themselves during good, bad times. You already have history with this person.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Pat]

So it's no longer, hey, what do you know about this girl in Miami? Right. So now you know, if you're dating, you kind of have an idea about each other. So it's also, where do you look to find somebody in the relationship? So let me get to the next story.

[Tom]

What a great point you made there. Think about family, friends and family. True filtering. And think about online dating marketing.

[Pat]

Yeah, there is no filtering in online dating.

[Bradley]

Well, there's also, you know, a lot of transparency digitally. So before you wouldn't know her body count. Now you can find it. And that, that might ruin a relationship

[Pat]

as well if you get in the business of body count. I think 80% of marriages wouldn't work out overnight. It's like, wait, I thought you said you only had two boyfriends. What is this, 28? Well, babe, that's not true. But this says 28. You went on a run one time in 2002. No, I would never do that. Well, why can you? That technology comes out, some shit's going to happen. By the way, divorce rate is going to go to the.

[Tom]

Well, you see celebrities. I mean, Lewis Hamilton just bought a used car, apparently didn't get care about the mileage.

[Pat]

Yeah, and by the way, the same's going to happen the other way around. The, the, the girl's like, I thought you said you've been with 32 girls. Only two. Was that your second?

[Tom]

No, no, that's just imagine. And you're a rock star now. That was last summer's tour.

[Pat]

All right, let's get to the next story here. Next story I want to get to is more sellers than buyers. Let's talk about real estate. So here's a story that came out about there's more sellers selling homes than buyers. And, and this is a scary thought. So home sellers outnumbers buyers by 630000 in a record gap according to redfin. Rob, if you want to pull this up, I think it's on page 20. I don't think you have a video on this or anything. So let me kind of go through the stats and then I'm going to come to you guys with this. So the u. S Housing market has shifted decisively in favor of buyers with a record 630000 more home sellers than buyers in February. The imbalance of 4063 46.3% more sellers than buyers marks the widest gap since the company began tracking it in 2013, up sharply from 29.8% earlier a year earlier. Redfin classifies any market with more than 10% excess sellers as a buyer's market or threshold the nation has exceeded since May of 2024. We're seeing a lot more inventory on the market compared to the last two years because the mortgage rates lock in effect is easing and there is a lot of new construction, says Justin Gomez from redfin prime premier real estate agent Omaha Nebrask. Two years ago people were offering $15,000 over the asking price. Just got a home with multiple offers everywhere. The surplus of sellers gives buyers who can afford today's price significant negotiating power. Housing costs. The high housing costs and economic uncertainty have pushed many would be purchasers to to the sidelines, shrinking the buyer pool. The number of home buyers fell 2.4% in February. So Tom, when you're looking at numbers like this and it says the imbalance on different markets meaning Miami let the nation with 163% more sellers than buyers followed by Nashville 120% more sellers than buyers. Austin at 112. Palm beach at 110. San Antonio at 104. What do you think is causing this? Is it just interest rates?

[Tom]

No, no, no. It's interest rates and savings right now. The savings rate used to be 8, 9%. Personal savings rate has gone down under 5% right now. So people are saving less on a monthly basis which means you're saving less for a down payment number one. And number two, when I saw the number on a national basis, I believe homeowners insurance on a national basis. And Rob, fact check me on this. I'm going to say a number here but we need to find it. I thought it was 22% increase in homeowners insurance on a national basis since 2022. So four years your homeowners insurance comes up. Well wait a minute, that's a Hidden cost of buying a house. Now the homeowner's insurance is more and rose in average. There it is, 21%. No, that was just that year alone. So it's huge. That's a hidden cost. So the interest rate affects your payment, Pat, but then your homeowner's insurance is also up and the overall cost of the house was up. So that the number of homes that are available for your first time buyers and mid tier buyers is actually even lower and worse than this chart. Because to find a mid tier home in core city you can't. And if you take a look what's being sold in Miami where there's more sellers than buyers, go take a look at what's actually being sold. Look at the number of million dollar condos. Kid coming out of 30 year old kid just gets married. He and his and his wife have a college degree and good jobs. They can't buy a million dollar condo in Miami and pay the HOA, which will be 1000 bucks a month or more. So there's a lot of things going into it. It's not just the interest rates, Pat. It's the replacement cost of the house driving the homeowner's insurance and then it's the property tax because it's a higher priced home in the first place. Because if you look back at those lines, Rob, go back when, scroll back down. When reds over blue prices are going up.

[Pat]

When blue overpaying for everything.

[Tom]

And so what happened in 2021-2023? We were coming out of COVID we come out to play and those lines drove the price of the homes way up. And those prices have not come down. They've come down a little bit. Like Austin, Texas, it came down. But Austin Texas had emergency building permits and they overbuilt. Go take a look at the inventory in Austin. Rents are now moderated and the number of homes are there. Guess what? Oh my gosh. We had a problem, we had a solution. Brad, you build homes. What could I do? I need permits faster and I need labor. Okay, we'll help you with the permits faster. So Brad works for Lanier, gets another thousand homes built around affordable areas of Austin. Now that's inventory supply. All of a sudden the prices moderate a little bit and everybody can find a home. Now we just need jobs. Oh, SpaceX Elon puts things here, Dell expands. Austin has got its issues, but it's an example of where things moderate back and forth, Pat. And people can say in the comments, I'm in Austin, it's not what you say it's better, it's better than other places. So if you're in Austin and you're still having a tough time, God bless you, I understand. But when you compare what you're facing to other areas, Austin's getting supply back in the market.

[Pat]

Thoughts?

[Brandon]

Yeah. So I sent you a chart, Rob. It's interesting this chart doesn't go back to 2008 because I wonder what the gap would have looked like then. But part of that problem was the bond side where people couldn't pay for the mortgages.

[Tom]

It was artificial supply of buyers drove price because they were able to get Nina loans.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Tom]

So you had more buyers because you were giving easy qualification.

[Brandon]

And then a ton of houses just hit the market suddenly when they had to foreclose on. But yeah, this makes me wonder if, if prices will ever substantially go down again without a crisis. I mean, you know, because they're, they're covering it as if like there's this huge gap between sellers and buyers, but it's not even making a dent in the price. But like what did make a dent in the price was dropping rates to zero and injecting a couple trillion dollars in the economy. I meant to like, if you look at this, it went from 370 on average to about 516 in just five years. So I mean, you know, that's.

[Tom]

And hasn't come down.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's not coming down at all. And like this is like if it's not now, when is it going to be?

[Pat]

So here's the thing. Is this story making you, if you're recommending Bradley to a young man who has money to buy, should you buy or should you wait?

[Bradley]

Say that once again.

[Pat]

If you're a young man, you're 30 years old and you have some money to buy a house, okay, you can buy half a million dollar house today. Should you buy or should you wait?

[Bradley]

Hard question? I, I would personally tell them to wait only because I do believe those prices have to be coming down because again, if there's so many sellers, the price is supposed to drop, but they're not. So why is that? Well then I would just wait for that purpose. But it's also less desirable to own nowadays. You know, younger people, they understand freedom, they understand, you know, anchors and a home is an anchor. You know, there's more sellers than buyers. Right? Everybody wants to sell their home. What for? Well, what are they going to buy when they do? And if there's not enough buyers to sell your home, you're Stuck, aren't you?

[Pat]

And you had a low rate. So do you want to give up the low interest rate? Do you want to give that up? Who knows? And you got to. You got to keep going. And. And you know what the end end is, is the following is, where are people moving to today? Red or blue states?

[Bradley]

Red.

[Pat]

And have we seen these numbers? What it looks like it's astronomical that they're moving to red states over blue states. You think that's going to slow down anytime soon?

[Brandon]

No.

[Pat]

So if it's not going to. And by the way, what types of people are moving to red states? Those that just want government entitlement programs or those that are coming with income

[Tom]

and money and can afford capital that's getting taxed and chased?

[Bradley]

So, like, read those. Read those cities again. Those.

[Pat]

Yeah, those are all Miami, you know, you know, certain markets at this. So then the Palm Beach. So then your question becomes the following. Do you want to compete against the guys that are coming here from New York, Illinois, D.C. all these places? Do you want to. Because they're coming here saying, wait, I'm. I'm gonna buy a property in New York. I would pay this much in my Fort Lauderdale. I'm gonna pay this much. I'll pay 30 grand more. I'll pay 20 grand more. I'll pay 40 grand more. I'll pay 80 grand more. Yeah, because it's still less than what they're accustomed to.

[Brandon]

No, this has changed. So I went, I was from the mindset of, like, last year, like, oh, it's too expensive right now. It should come down like, 10% at least. But now seeing this, like, because Miami is one of the worst cases of there being a gap between sellers and buyers. So now I'm like, all right, fine, I'm going to do it now if it's still not coming down.

[Pat]

But the part of it where you're screwed is the following. You're in the state that everybody wants to move to.

[Brandon]

Right.

[Pat]

You're in that state.

[Brandon]

So it's like, get in now. If it's not going down yet.

[Pat]

Yeah. This is not a state where, I mean, so. So what is the likelihood, Tom, that the governor, the next governor of Florida is going to be Republican? What's the likelihood? Is it a 55%, 60%?

[Brandon]

60?

[Tom]

No, no, no. I'm at 80. 85%.

[Pat]

So Byron Donald's going to be the next governor the state of Florida.

[Tom]

Yeah. Not getting support from DeSantis. Other. Another topic for another day. But Byron's got a head of Steam and a lot of money.

[Pat]

So if you got a guy like that, that's next. So that means this state stays blue for another. I'm sorry, stays red for another two terms. This is not going to slow down. Yeah, they're going to keep coming. In the interim, let's look at Mamdani. What Mamdani is doing in New York. You want to see this one here, folks? This is entertaining to say the least. Okay, so let me. Let me read this to you. Let me find a page. Here we are. Watch this here. Very, very interesting on what's going on with this. Okay, so Mamdani comes out and says, guess what? We've officially balanced the budget. And all the socialists are like, dude, the guy is crushing it. What a fricking rock star. And in behind. Is this the video talking about he balanced the budget?

[Tom]

Yep.

[Pat]

Go ahead, Rob.

[Brandon]

New York. It's executive budget season, and I'm proud to announce that our city's budget is fully balanced. This budget isn't just about numbers on a page. It determines if our libraries get funded, if a street is safe to cross, if snow is actually shoveled after a storm. And you deserve to know exactly how we got here. We inherited a $12 billion budget definition.

[Pat]

We are speaking about a fiscal crisis

[Brandon]

at the scale greater than the Great Recession.

[Tom]

Was.

[Brandon]

The Great Recession. Great Recession.

[Pat]

Many said the only way out of

[Brandon]

this was slashing services and passing an austerity budget.

[Pat]

We rejected that.

[Brandon]

After months of painstaking work. That deficit is now here. Our city is now on firm financial ground. We achieved this in two major ways.

[Pat]

Increasing revenue and support from Albany and

[Brandon]

cutting waste and finding savings here in New York City. Thanks to Governor Hochul, State Senate Majority

[Pat]

Leader Andrea Stewart, Cousins, Assembly Speaker Carl Hastie, and months of organizing from New Yorkers.

[Brandon]

We tax the rich. That tax alone will raise half a billion dollars per year. And that's not all. Thanks to Governor Hochul and our partners

[Pat]

in Albany, we finally got a better

[Brandon]

deal for New York City. We're getting billions more from the state to help tackle the gang.

[Pat]

You can pause it right there. You know how much they got? They got $4 billion. So, Tom.

[Tom]

Per year?

[Pat]

Per year. So, Tom. Yeah. Eight billion. Last two years. So when people are looking at this, they're like, okay, you know, how good of a spin job can you do to sell it as if everything is going right? What is he not telling in these clips, Tom?

[Tom]

Well, he's not telling you how. He's saying, we got help from Kathy Hochul, and we think it's important to shovel snow. It's a no. I want to see him go to the board and say, this is how we balanced it. Because, number one, he had a surplus from Eric Adams, who, you know, Pat, and has spoken to us. So we're not out of school here. We had direct conversation with Eric Adams. We know about the surplus city that was brought in. Then he gets money from Albany. That's. Guess what? That's not balancing the budget. That's. Brad and my daughter call us. Our daughters call us from college, and she's spending 500 more a month. I agree to give her 400 more a month. Brad gives his daughter 400 more a month, and then she meets a nicer guy and he starts paying for dinner. They didn't balance the budget. They just moved things around and other people helped. That's what's going on. And then this guy here, I quoted this study. And then this guy comes to the microphone two days later about how about education in New York is not getting any results? So he didn't tell people how and what he did. He leaves out the fact that supposedly. What was the gap from Eric Adams? The exact number. Three, six. Rob, tell me what that gap was. Because if he gets $12 billion and he claims four, it's four, six, nine.

[Pat]

I don't know why. I think three, six could have been three.

[Tom]

That's what I'm saying. Please, fact check me. What? I'm remembering what Eric Adams left him. Eric Adams left him 5 billion.

[Pat]

Yeah. I thought it was 460.

[Tom]

Okay. Yeah. So 5 and 4 from the state is 9, which means what did he cut and what did he change? And then he got a half a billion from. So let's do it. Five and four is nine. A half billion from the millionaire tax is nine and a half. And so 12 billion deficit. He only had to find two and a half billion. What sleight of hand did he do with pensions? I want to know what did he do with certain services? He's quoting that we have all these services. Where's the rest of that? I want to see it because it shows that they actually did nothing. What percent is 9.5 on 12?

[Bradley]

He says he attacked the rich.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Pat]

What'd you say?

[Tom]

Nine and a half on 12 is what percent?

[Pat]

75%.

[Tom]

75% came from somebody else. He didn't do it. So, Mr. I'm the Great mayor in doing all this. This is sleight of hand.

[Pat]

I'm just getting upset, Brandon. Yeah.

[Brandon]

With all that aside, I. I'm most mad about how long it must have taken him to do that video because, I mean, like, he has different cuts and everything. I mean, how do you think it took him a couple hours to do? Like, he's firing these off like, every day. Like a fully edited Tick Tock.

[Pat]

Sure took him a couple hours.

[Brandon]

Yeah. So, I mean, like, that, that pisses me off.

[Pat]

It's a great video.

[Brandon]

It is. And he's doing all the cuts the right way, where he'll go do well on Tick Tock. So, yeah, he is good. He's even better than Newsom with the spin job. But I mean, all the states, like, they run the. The state same way that the United States runs the country. You know, like they're, they spend money on things they shouldn't spend it on. Like the migrant situation. They have to do police overtime because, you know, there's so much crime. So they have to spend extra money on that. The health care situation, like, that's more expensive than it should be. So, I mean, think about how much money New York generates. Like, just the city alone generates, like 60% of the state's entire GDP. So, I mean, just the fact that they don't have enough money for what they need to do shows that they're not managing it the right way. And I mean, you should have certain requirements to run a state.

[Pat]

So this the part when I sit there and I think about, by the way, did he do the free buses? Did he do some of these programs that he talked about?

[Brandon]

I haven't heard.

[Pat]

Nobody knows, right? It's been kind of quiet on some of the programs that he was talking about. But if you want to go back to that clip, Rob, of that right there to the left, right there. Watch what the cost is right now per kid that goes to school. If New York State just decided to give the money of New York City, if they just decided to give the money to the parents, you know how much money would go back to the parents? This is how much education costs in New York right now. Go ahead, Rob. New York City. Watch this. Roughly $37 billion a year to educate about 850,000 kids. That's over $42,000 per child per year. And the results are abysmal. Two thirds of fourth graders can't do math properly and almost three quarters can't read at grade level. You don't have to be an expert in fractions to know that is bad. Let's agree that the political reality is

[Brandon]

we cannot reduce the amount of public

[Pat]

education spending at all. Fine. What can we do, Mr. Mayor, is tell every mom in New York city that the $42,000 currently spent spend on that terrible education is going to be her money. Here comes. Here comes some more advanced mathematics, some more long division. We are going to give her half, 21,000. That's 42,000 divided by two every year. She will receive that as a voucher for her child to attend whatever school she wants. We are going to take the other 21,000, put it in a real account, not a fictional Social Security account for which her child is the sole beneficiary. If it returns a paltry 2% over the next 13 years, that child will graduate high school with $300,000 enough for college, trade school, or a down payment. You can pause it right there. So money going to the family instead of the money going to the government. Where would you rather go?

[Tom]

Family?

[Pat]

Think about that. So he's asking a very honest question. 42k a year per child per year. Why not just give it to the parents and let them decide what private school they want to put him into? Why not change it? I think he continues to go into vouchers and different structure on how to do it. That was his solution. Tom, I think you would. You were about to say something.

[Tom]

I just. I just found it in plain sight. Right. I agree with this.

[Pat]

He delayed the pension plan. Did you see that? He delayed it for two years.

[Tom]

In other words, Eric Adams, 5, Albany, 4, 9. Wealth tax, a half, nine and a half. Two billion on the pensions, delays funding. That's 11.5 billion.

[Pat]

Did you understand what it means by the pension? He delayed the pension for five years or three years to be able to say, hey, we don't have to put this now, but you know why I love this? Let me tell you why I love this. Two things. One, you're screwed if you don't buy a house now because they're leaving, right? Okay. So the young guys that are sitting there saying, well, you know, I'm still going to wait, I'm still going to wait, they're going to leave. And do you know why I love that they're saying this thing now that 20, 20, 26, they balance the budget. You know why I love that? This is a manipulation that he's using right now. How long can he use this gimmick? What's gonna happen next year when he has to balance the budget? What gimmicks can he use next year?

[Brandon]

It's gonna get more difficult.

[Tom]

He doesn't have five from Eric Adams. That's the big one.

[Pat]

So I love this because go a year from now when he has to do this. What month and year are we in a year from now? It's May of 27. What starts in May of 27? People announcing that they're running for president. 2028. Okay. That's the date. Just so you know that it happens between March, April to June. And I think the president announced he's running for president. June 13, June 14, right around his birthday, the first time he announced he's running. So next year when everybody's announcing that they're running, he has to give his budget next year this month. And AOC is probably running. And the people that they're gonna compare AOC to is who to him and they're gonna say similar policies. Is that how you want someone to run America? So this hurts the socialist candidates in 2027 when they announced they're running. Bradley?

[Bradley]

You know, I don't, I don't really have a strong opinion on this one. On this one. Because again, when you, when you're spending $42,000 per child and the, you know, results are terrible, it just, it just screams to me that there's, there's some sort of corruption going on. I don't trust politicians. I don't trust this guy. So I think it'd be best if I reserve my opinion. 42, 000 for a kid. They should be coming out of school with the, with a SaaS company. Like, where's that money going? You think it's education? No. Let's check out the vendors. Let's go look at. Let's, let's start auditing where that money's going. Is there some daycares happening? What's going on with that?

[Pat]

Yeah. And by the way, you know, you know what the budget is for New York City? Rob, can you type in New York City's budget, annual budget? You know what the number is?

[Tom]

The city?

[Pat]

It's 120 some billion dollars. Look at that. $124.7 billion is the budget that they have. $124.7 billion. They're doing everything in New York City with that number. Okay. So it's pretty wild. But again, for simple. This answers a few different questions. People who leave New York City will be coming to places like this.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

And they'll be going to places like Tennessee and whatever's going to happen. Like right now, one guy just bought a house in our community. You know where he's moving here from? Canada. Okay. Very Successful business guy. One of our clients, we helped him out. Everybody was involved in helping get this property. And if you walk around the commuter, you're seeing people from Canada, New York, D.C. chicago, all over the place that they're moving down here and it's not slowing down anytime soon. All right, let's get to the next story. Next story I want to get to is this lady who has given this graduation speech and she's thinking she's going to crush it, and she makes one comment and then all of a sudden booze come out of nowhere. And then she had to find a way to recover from it. Go ahead, Rob. Watch this, folks. The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution. She's looking back for help. Okay, I struck a chord. May I finish? Look at her, she's nervous. Only a few years ago. You can pause it right there, Rob. Tom, why do you think the kids graduating. What university is this? Rob, what university is this?

[Tom]

University of Central Florida. Uc.

[Pat]

So, ucf. Why do you think the reaction was so negative?

[Tom]

Because these kids are looking for a lot of entry level jobs and the entry level white collar jobs, you know, if you don't have AI skills, so you have to walk in and demonstrate, hey, I can be that analyst. But I'm also very proficient in AI like this. So I can be an analyst that does this, this, and this. And the perception that all these kids are hearing from the news media is that AI is stealing jobs. AI is doing this. And her reaction is what happens when a policy wonk does a commencement speech for people who are graduating with degrees and want to go out and find employment? And she gets booed and she gets nervous because policy wonks that present white papers and positions usually don't have to go into the public square and to work on things. It reminds me of Ghostbusters. Remember the opening? So it goes back to our generation. But if you go back to the opening, the opening of Ghostbusters, where they're sitting there at the university says, I don't want to go out the private sector. Why? The private sector is tough. They expect results. And they're eating the Chinese food out of the box. That's what it is. And so she comes in and gets booed. But these kids, Pat, they're worried about AI and all the negative headlines on AI as it affects jobs. I think what they don't see is the deeper things that are, that are going on out there, where if you are proficient with AI, you can be the analyst that is the lion tamer, not the person that doesn't have it. But when they get all these headlines, it's in these kids heads.

[Pat]

Brandon?

[Brandon]

Yeah, no, they've been brainwashed. Like Tom said that they're in trouble, that the AI is going to take all the jobs away. And it happened kind of rapidly too, I guess depending on when you're in school and when different technological changes happen, you either get lucky year you get unlucky. Depending on what you're majoring in, sometimes the economy kind of shifts on you and demands for certain skill sets and different jobs shifts and sometimes it happens faster than others. And it was really what like 2023 that chat GPT came out. So imagine somebody who's a freshman that year or a sophomore year that year that like chooses a certain major and then like now they're graduating and like that thing's totally irrelevant because of that. But I don't know, I think it's a negative, limiting belief for them to have a negative view on it. I think it's much more helpful than hurtful. I think that people who are saying the jobs are gonna be wiped out are exaggerating it. Like we, we see it all the time. Things that like they say, oh, you're not gonna need people to write code. Yeah, you still need people to write code. Just makes it faster. Oh, you're, you're not, you're not gonna need people to like make content. You still need people to make the content. Just makes it faster. So yeah, it's bad mindset for them to think it's a negative thing.

[Pat]

I saw a chart this last week that I think Conor and Humberto showed me on how, believe it or not, Gen Z trusts AI less than the older generation. And I don't know which one it was that I just looked at.

[Brandon]

Trusted lesson.

[Pat]

Oh, trusted less. And they know the impact of being on it. They're kind of like, hey, because it's brain atrophy, right? Your brain is no longer making the decision, you're just relying on AI to make the decisions for you. And they're realizing this is a muscle. It's getting dumber.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

If you don't put it to use and you give the power here. So New York Times came out with the story. Gen Z is using AI, but doesn't feel great about it. New study from Gallup found that young adults have grown less hopeful and more angry about AI. Rob, do you have the chart on this, the date on this, that there's a. I don't know if it's got the data There, that could be one of them right there. Is this the one? It's going too long right there. So the percentage of respondents ages 14 to 29 who said they felt hopeful about AI declined sharply last year from down to 18% to 27%. So who's in it more? Kids are and they're saying, hey, I'm not excited about this. There's even a certain level of animosity that they have towards this of what it's doing to their careers. Okay. And there's a whole report on this that Gallup just did. I don't know if you have the Gallup report or not, you know. 14 decline in excitement about AI since 2025. 48 Gen Z believes the risk of AI is in workforce outweighs its benefits 52% of Gen Z K through 12 students think they will need to know how to use AI in their post secondary education, which is true. But the adoption and the concern is high. This one here, adoption has not increased. Negative sentiment has. So Gen Z's feeling about AI Strongly agree. AI intelligence makes me curious. Look at the disagree, the red. Anxious, okay. Angry, excited, hopeful. They're not hopeful about it. That's they're going a different direction. Bradley, where are you at with this?

[Bradley]

Well, I remember when they said the Internet was a fad, so I don't, I don't trust these polls either, I guess, you know, but when it comes to these guys having an attitude about, I think I agree because if you look at it correctly from the right perspective, AI is going to make you a force multiplier. In other words, it's not going to be AI that takes you out. It's going to be someone leveraging it properly. These, these kids shouldn't be booing. They should be, they should be freaking out. They can make a gentic AI that could make every single one of them wealthy almost overnight. Agentic AI that I think is kind of the. Maybe it's already here. I might sound foolish to you guys who are all learned and read up on, but, but my observation is AI is not going anywhere. And you know, I, I can't believe this is even saying AI adoption is not increased like it seems to being, being adopted everywhere. I was telling you, you know, lightspeed right now is, I would say literally revolutionized by AI and it's your company.

[Tom]

And quick headline. What does it do?

[Bradley]

It's a training software. It's a SAS model training software that allows people to, you know, deliver or create, deliver, track and measure content regardless of what it is usually in the. In the realm of training. So I'm hiring more employees, not less. Like, I need people, not less. AI is causing me to. To massively grow, and I need new people.

[Tom]

It's.

[Bradley]

It's not replaced.

[Tom]

Are These college grads 1 year, 2 year? What kind of people coming in?

[Bradley]

Yeah, exactly.

[Brandon]

There you go.

[Tom]

They got opportunity, they got wave. The wave is giving them something to surf at.

[Bradley]

Your company 100 and I think it's going to be that way in most companies. I think people are. When transformative technology comes out, there's always these little naysayers. I'm just surprised that it's the kids because, like, these kids should be.

[Pat]

It's the other way around, though. Like, if you think about when Elvis came in shaking hips, kids were supportive. If you think about, you know, when these, these types of Internet came in, kids were all like, on chat. Remember when we were kids, we were in AOL chat room, if you remember. Like, we're about the same age. AOL Champions was a big thing. Oh, my God, we loved it. So for it to be that, now they're worried. This is a different type of a worry than what we had to experience. So I. I don't know the impact of it. You know, yesterday we're talking to a group of kids in school. It was. What do you call it? Career day? Is that what they call a career day when somebody comes in? And so I went on career. Then I took with me Anthony, I took with me Paul Saladino, and I took with me Dan Simmons. So we're all there. Dan looks like he's ready to take somebody out because Dan's 18 Delta. They said. So I said, dan, why don't you tell everybody what your job was? He says, I'm the guy that comes and saves you where you only have 15 minutes left to live. That's what I did for a living. You know, you look at him. He brought you in when he walked in. I don't know if you saw the tall friend, Dan.

[Bradley]

Yeah.

[Pat]

Okay. So then Andrew gets. Anthony gets up there, and Anthony says, let me tell you how he got a job at valuetainment. Anthony's got 150,000 followers on X. X, not X. On Instagram, does great content. And I said, why don't you share something with you? I said, how old are you? 22 years old. So what did you do? Well, I started creating content. First everybody was making fun of me. So I paused for two years. Then I went back at it. And then it took off. And then he's been invited to be everywhere. And then he manexed me three times. Eventually gets a job, he's doing an interview with us. Comes down to your system with Humberto. Now he's full time with us. He's been with us for a week and a half. He moved to South Florida and now he's been invited go to the White House to be part of the prayer by Speaker Johnson. He got invited to go to the White House. What if he doesn't create content? And then Saladino got up, he says, I was a doctor, here's what I did. I did this, I did that. And then eventually I realized I couldn't stand being in that business because I found out that the real food that we need to be taking people are now teaching. So I decided to step away. I started creating content. And now he lives in Costa Rica. Serves every morning at 6:00am in Costa Rica. Literally.

[Tom]

Wow.

[Pat]

And he's got a business. He's doing all this stuff and it's taking off. I think there's many creative ways to positioned yourself for victory. I don't like the mindset of being worried, afraid and staying there constantly instead of trying to find a way to be a differentiator. But I will tell you if it's imagine in a time ten years from now. And I think we're going to get there. Tom, imagine 10 years from now if you're sitting behind your desk. I remember I'm talking to the founder of Lululemon. I don't know what his net worth is today. Rob, if you want to put him up, he's one of the most interesting guys. I think his name is Chip Wilson, who is probably a $4 billion guy. Type in net worth. What is his net worth today? Chip Wilson, $6.3 billion guy. Today we're sitting there doing a podcast. You know what he said in 20 years? He said in 20 years everyone's going to be in shape. So what do you mean? He said, it's not going to be a big deal for you to have a six pack going to be. I said, what are you talking about? He says there's going to be clothes you're going to wear that's going to tell you and report on exactly what your body is doing. Get up and walk. So imagine now we go to a point where we're wearing clothes that your body is working out throughout the day while you're working. So the shirt is working out your biceps, the shirt is working out your forearms, the shirt is working out your chest, your Lower back your abs. So we all go to the beach. Everyone's looking jacked, right? Everyone's looking great. So then what is workout? What do gyms do? What's the purpose of that? So I guess a part of it is, if AI is going to prevent you from having to think, why are you important? Why are you useful? Does it become a companion? Does it become a partnership? No matter what it is, you have to find a way to maneuver and make some good moves because the opportunity is there. But I also think a lot of people are going to be destroyed the next 5, 10, 15 years because they don't take advantage of the opportunities like usual. Like it happens all the time. Brandon?

[Brandon]

Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. And I thought, like, right from the beginning of the AI, I was like, yeah, what does make people unique if they can? I could give you all the information overall, but I think it's how good are your questions that you ask? Because, you know, it could tell you anything. But if you're asking stupid, basic questions that don't really give you any value, then it doesn't, you know, it's not going to be unique for everybody else. But if you, you could have the best questions, you could, you know, take the best angles on things and like, go down different rabbit holes and like, either useful information or not useful information. So I think that's, that's what makes it different for people.

[Pat]

Well, we'll see what happened. Let's do last story before we wrap up. Kevin Hart Media Company. Okay. Comes out and there's a lot of stories on this. Just a few years ago was valued at roughly $600 million when we read about it. And now the entertainment company is reportedly in crisis after layoffs and lawsuits, according to tmz. And we don't. I don't know what the story is, but let me get into it. So Kevin R's business with the world might be running low on punch lines because behind the scenes insiders say that there's been layoffs, lawsuits and chaos instead of comedy. A new Bloomberg report claims that the comedians once booming media empire Heartbeat has seriously downsized in recent years with executive shakeups stalled, projects canceled, staff meetings and multiple rounds of cuts gutting the company from the inside. The drama reportedly escalated after Kevin quietly stuck a deal in January with Authentic Brands Group, the company behind celebrity brands tied to stars like Shaq Beckham and others. While the announcement sounded like a power move, the report says the deal also gave Hart money to buy out his private equity partners and move his Endorsement business into the hands of authentic employees allegedly feared that was being. That was the beginning of the end. Especially as hard reporting became more removed from the day to day operations, leaving a small group of executives to steer the ship while he focused on films and movie projects and other things. And the story gets even a little bit deeper where he changed the phone number after layoffs at his struggling media company. Kevin Art vanished from his struggling media company. Tom, what do we know about the story? What do you know about the story?

[Tom]

I don't know the depth of the media company. I know two things. One, a lot of people said I just got laid off. So apparently the news reports are correct or directionally correct that a ton of people just got laid off. We know that. And the number two thing that we know is that Kevin Hart seems to have done this twice. I'm not picking on Kevin Hart. Apparently he had a restaurant prior and when it went bankrupt, he didn't want to handle the news media or something is what people were saying. I'm not saying this is what others said, that he changed his phone number and kind of hid and let the smoke clear from the, from the, from the restaurant. Now it appears that this one goes under and once again he changes his number and kind of hides. Let the smoke clear. You know, these celebrities need to understand things. And that is when you lose in the entrepreneurship world. You haven't lost, you've just gained experience. You may have lost money. It may be painful, maybe humiliating, maybe difficult. But you just got an MBA in whatever didn't go right. And people don't see that and don't understand that. In a celebrity world where everybody from your business manager to your chef tells you how great you are, you live in this world of perpetual edification and pat. Sometimes celebrities aren't ready for the pride swallowing siege that can be building a business and going over the bumps of life. So I'm not criticizing Kevin Hart, but it appears that he's handled two business closures kind of the same way.

[Pat]

I want to read this to you. So days before Thanksgiving, they fired about 20 out of their 80 employees at Heartbeat. The company later cut additional workers tied to podcasting and scripted television, including executives involved with a barbershop TV adoption for Amazon, a second season of animated series like Little Kevin, and then in weeks after, where Hart changes phone number, according to Bloomberg, which reported that advisors had long encouraged him to make himself less accessible. Okay, so I got a lot of opinions on this, but Bradley, I'll come to you first and then I'll give my thoughts. Go for it.

[Bradley]

Well, first again, I hate to be the guy that says it continuously, but who says this is true? First of all, the media is filled with lies. Not only that, people hate. So who says he's actually doing this? But let's pretend that he actually is. First of all, I think having my phone number, a privilege, if you ask me. So if, if you violate that privilege with negative nonsense and I want to shut you out, I'm changing my phone number. You don't. I don't owe you my phone number. Even if you work for me, I don't owe you access to me personally. So if, if you don't value the access and honor the access, well, then I'll just remove the access. I don't blame him for doing it. I mean, at the end of the day, he's Kevin Hart, right? Shut, Shut the phone off. I'm not taking any negative. The media's nonsense. You guys are all overreacting, freaking out. We had to fire 20 people. Big deal. Welcome to being an entrepreneur. You know, to me I'm the opposite. Like, I won't fire the 20 people because, because, you know, I feel bad. You know, the guy's got some, some shrewd operators probably on his side, and I don't blame him at all. Now again, that's assuming that it's true.

[Brandon]

Is he being a good leader of the company, though? They're like, by not being there for so much and not giving them clear direction on what they're doing.

[Bradley]

Who says he is the leader?

[Brandon]

I'm. And he. It's his company, isn't it?

[Bradley]

Well, again, it's his brand. You know how many brands are, are, are licensed.

[Pat]

But this is different. This is actually his company. So, so to me, it kind of goes to where you're talking about and not.

[Bradley]

And, and who's he changing his number four. Like again, this is just the media talking crap. How do you know that this is even real? Call Kevin. You probably could if you had a ster still.

[Pat]

But I mean, like, I, I don't

[Bradley]

know, I just, I just doubt.

[Pat]

This is what I'll tell you.

[Bradley]

I get hate, so I just doubt the hate.

[Pat]

This is what I'll tell you. To, to me, my feedback on this is the following. If you're an entertainer and you're somebody that a lot of people are watching and seeing, what George Clooney did with his tequila deal when he sold it, I don't know what he sold it for, but he sold it for a few hundred Million dollars. Then they saw what Ryan Reynolds did. Was it with Mint Tom what Ryan Reynolds did?

[Bradley]

Yep.

[Pat]

And. And he sold that. Then they see Reese Witherspoon with her book club, which, by the way, a lot of people don't know this, but Reese Witherspoon. Yeah, he sold it to Diego for up to billion dollars June 17. The deal included $700 million on payout and $300 million based on performance over the decade. All right, go to Reese Witherspoon's net worth. Type in Reese Witherspoon. Right. And she created a book club, and then she started doing deals, and it turned into movies and all this other stuff. And then so, you know, she went from a regular thing to look in 2021, sold majority of stake in a media company which produce hits like Big Little Lies and the Morning show to Blackstone in a deal valued $900 million. And this is Reese Witherspoon. You have people like Christian. Not every talent is a great operator. And it's not for everybody. You know, some people who are. Just because you're a great salesperson doesn't mean you're going to be a great sales leader. Just because you're a great sales leader and a salesperson doesn't mean you're going to be a good business owner running your own company. You're just a good sales guy. You're a good sale, and there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of sales leaders make more money than the guys running a company. They just do. Right. But it's. It's this part where you say, screw you, because to me, I was a guy that was a salesperson. And then they said, yeah, but you're not a sales leader. And then I became a sales leader. And then I was like, yeah, but I went and said, look, I want to one day be a CEO of this company. How can I get some equity? The lady, Susan, laughed at me. I said, oh, so you don't. You will never leave. You're just here to ask some money. Oh, no.

[Bradley]

Yeah.

[Pat]

You really believe I'm faking this? Yeah. Okay, cool. Jeff came, picked me up, went to his house that I'm starting a company. We shook hands. Later on, three months later, he didn't come. I started it by myself with a half a million dollars of saving. We sold the company for $250 million. And the market's like, oh, so. Oh, wow. So then it's like, media. Well, we think we can be media. Who do you think you are? Just because you're A good businessman. You sold it. But you think, you know media. I don't know, maybe we can't. But the market is brutal. There is who you think you are, and then there's the market. And if you want this kind of respect from the market and a massive payday, guess what comes with the territory. A lot of hate, a lot of criticism, a lot of shit that will be revealed on what was happening. If there's continuous patterns and people are going to sit there and saying, do I want to be involved in the next deal with them? I don't know. But when it comes down to talent, you crush it as a talent. So like Logan Paul has. What do you call it? What's that drink that he has? Prime. Right. Do you know what percentage him and KSI own of Prime? What do you think they own of prime?

[Bradley]

10%.

[Pat]

I think it's splitting. Is a 20 each, Rob. I don't. We talked about this. They own each 20%. He owns 20%. KSI owns 20%. But guess who runs the whole thing? Kogan brand, Congo Brands. And what's the revenue right now? $1.2 billion in sales in 2023. You know what it was in 2025? They own 20% of this, but they're not operating it. So maybe the feedback to heart is, dude, go on 20% of it, go on 30% of it. Go on 40% of it. But let somebody operate and deal with the day to day. You don't want to deal with the day to day. You're trying to be a comedian. You're trying to be a talent. There's ways of the, like, the Rock did it the right way. He's got operators. And the Rock is about to be a billion. If he's. He isn't already, right. LeBron James is now a billionaire because he's got other people that are running it. Look at one thing LeBron did. Definitely not a fan. I'm glad they got swept. And the best tweet I saw yesterday online was that Luca is officially cleared to play in game five. There is no game five. They got swept, right? But you know what LeBron does well, he realizes he's not an operator. He has others being the operator. So the market is super, super brutal. But I hope he comes out of this because he's one of the guys that if he's in a movie, our family has to watch it. He's that funny. He's that talented. Anyways, Bradley, great having you here, gang. Lots covered today. And for those of you guys that are tuning in. Today's what Wednesday. Rob, what podcast do we have going on tomorrow?

[Tom]

Paul Saladino.

[Pat]

Paul Saladino goes on tomorrow. One of the funniest. The stuff we talked about was so inappropriate, but so educational. If you watch, you will be so entertained. I'm just telling you, I rarely say this. He kept saying, I can't believe we're going there. I can't believe we talked about everything. You're going to enjoy the podcast tomorrow with Paul Saladino, and we'll be back on Friday. God bless everybody. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye, bye.