← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:00]
Matt Rogers
This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
- [00:04]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas.
- [00:05]
Mike Steinberger
With Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.
- [00:07]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Hey, Bowen.
- [00:07]
Matt Rogers
It's gift season.
- [00:08]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Ugh. Stressing me out. Why are the people I love so hard to shop for? Probably because they only make boring gift guides that are totally uninspired. Except for the guide we made in partnership with Marshalls, where premium gifts meet incredible value.
- [00:23]
Matt Rogers
It's giving gifts with categories like Best.
- [00:26]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Gifts for the mom whose idea of a sensible walking shoe is a stiletto or Best Gifts for so thoughtful.
- [00:33]
Mike Steinberger
I really shouldn't have.
- [00:34]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Check out the guide on Marshalls.com and gift the good stuff at Marshalls.
- [00:38]
Alicia (guest on cooking segment)
Having MG can make cooking difficult, but.
- [00:41]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Over the years I found some really.
- [00:42]
Alicia (guest on cooking segment)
Helpful tools and tips that I'm excited to share. Hi, I'm Alicia.
- [00:46]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
I think cooking should always be fun.
- [00:48]
Matt Rogers
Creative, and of course, delicious.
- [00:51]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
These black bean burgers are hearty, full of flavor and MG friendly.
- [00:55]
Katherine Rampel
You're gonna love them.
- [00:56]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Check out Alicia's black bean burger cooking video and other recipes full of tips and tricks for managing common MG symptoms while cook at mg-united.com Ready? Let's cook. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have got a doubleheader today. I told you to get serious. I've been wanting to do an episode focused on Palantir for a while now and was happy to have a chance to talk to Mike Steinberger, who's got a new book about Palantir and their CEO Alex Karp. So we got that in segment two. Also wanted to throw out to you. I got this flag to me. I'm not going to be there. I'm in New Orleans. I know there will not be actually any Bulwark people there, but Bulwark fans are doing a meetup in St. Paul tonight, the dual citizen brewery in the Twin Cities. So go if you're listening. Go meet some other people. I thought I'd help the industrious Bulwark listeners who are trying to have revelry and have gatherings this holiday season. Encourage anybody else in the Twin Cities to go check it out. But first up, we've got my colleague. She's the economics editor at the Bulwark. She writes the newsletter Receipts, which is published on Thursday evenings. She also co hosts Ms. Now's the Weekend Primetime. It's Katherine Rampel. Welcome back to the show. How you doing, girl?
- [02:28]
Katherine Rampel
Doing well. Doing well or as well as when can in these trying times? I guess I'm obligated to say, true.
- [02:34]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
We're in the holiday season, we don't need to caveat. Right. You know, things are good. Personally, I mean, you know, the world is full of torment. Always. You know, true. Maybe it's feeling a little more acute right now. It's certainly feeling a little more acute in the economy. How about that transition I wanted to talk to you about? We had some delayed jobs numbers that came out because of the government shutdown and the fact that the President was considering a scheme to cook the books that isn't going well so far. And the numbers that we saw yesterday revealed an unemployment rate that set a four year high, even though I should say it's pretty low, you know, compared to like past really bad recessions and just otherwise a lot of softness in the economic numbers. What did you see? What caught your eye in particular?
- [03:21]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, so this was, as you said, a delayed report. Everybody's kind of looking around to figure out what's going on in this economy because it is very confusing. Everybody, specifically including the people at the Federal Reserve who have to actually act upon these data. Beyond the fact that the unemployment rate went up, we now have measures suggesting that in three of the past six months we actually lost jobs. We have also lost jobs in manufacturing for the past seven consecutive months. So manufacturing was supposed to experience this big renaissance under Donald Trump. That obviously has not happened. So yeah, there's some, some sources of concern. As you point out, the unemployment rate right now is still not, you know, Super High. It's 4.6%. That may not be super comforting if you are among the 4.6%, obviously, but it's rising. And probably the reason why it's rising, the reason why we've had some job losses and we can get into whether we should even take those numbers at face value, they probably overstating the health of the economy. You know, part of the reason why all of that's happening is that we have some pretty destructive economic policies that are weighing on the economy.
- [04:40]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Let's talk about that. Cause I heard you mention that yesterday with Sam as well, which was that the Fed is looking at this and I guess determining that they think maybe the picture of the actual economy is maybe a little uglier than what even these really weak numbers are showing.
- [04:55]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, so Fed Chair Jerome Powell last week said at his press conference that the Federal Reserve staff think these numbers are probably overstating the number of jobs we're adding each month by about 60,000. So what does that mean? That means that if we had last month, as the number showed, about 60,000 jobs added, probably if you adjust it by what they think the error is, maybe we had no jobs added, and in previous months when we had slight job losses, they might have been much bigger job losses. To be clear, this is not an accusation that the Trump administration is cooking the books. Rather, this is about some difficulties in measurement around the time that an economy might be turning. Cause, like, based on the way that the surveys are administered, companies that are closing are no longer responding to surveys. So maybe you're only getting responses from companies that are still doing okay. And so if you were actually to, like, adjust the data a little bit, in retrospect, they will do this, they will do revisions. If you were able to adjust the data accounting for all this stuff, that the economy would probably look a little bit worse. It's just, it's a methodological challenge. It's, again, it's not about malfeasance. There are other kinds of malfeasance I'm worried about. And Donald Trump, I think very much wants to be cooking the books, but there is no evidence to date that he's actually doing that. What are you worried about with respect to his statistics? Yeah, well, he has, for example, fired all of the people who compile the poverty guidelines which determine who is eligible for food stamps, Medicaid, other kinds of benefits. So how is that going to work out? We don't know. He's gotten rid of a bunch of the health surveys. He's cut the funding for a number of the other statistical agencies, so they've had to cut a bunch of their measurements. So, like, for example, at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, that's the agency, the independent agency that does GDP statistics, they historically have tracked a bunch of other things, too, like investment in the US Economy by foreign companies. And they've had to cut back on a lot of those measures because they just don't have the money for it. They don't have the resources. They've lost whatever it is, like 20% of their staff this year. And all of that means that they just, like, they can't measure stuff. And most of those are things that maybe most that people don't pay that much attention to. But Donald Trump is making lots of very bold claims about foreign investment in the US Economy. And simultaneously, we're making it much more difficult to actually measure if he's keeping his promises. So it's a lot of stuff like that that, you know, on climate, on LGBT community, on people of color, on, you know, Gender in particular, there's a lot of things that they're deliberately either censoring, firing people, or just cutting back funding so much that civil servants can't do the work that they're legally supposed to do.
- [07:57]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
You mentioned that the Fed did a rate cut in part based on assessment that the economy is even worse than the bad numbers. Look, as a result of that. I don't know if anybody is like me. I've been getting calls from the mortgage company trying to get me to refi over the past couple days. But I've seen some reports that actually in some ways mortgage rates are moving higher after the Fed rate cut and that loan demand is going down. Rate cut also risks further exacerbating inflation issues. What's the sense of what's happening with all that? I mean, it feels like we're at least at a little bit of risk of the dreaded stagflation problem.
- [08:38]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, I think there's already evidence of that. Inflation has picked up since Trump's Liberation day in April. Those things are not unrelated. Inflation had been sort of like trending downward for a long time, and now it's been picking back up. In addition to higher prices, higher price growth, you're also seeing as we've been discussing some job losses and some slowdown in the economy. That's the stagnation and the inflation that come together and become stagflation.
- [09:06]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
A beautiful word, stagflation, like groceries.
- [09:10]
Katherine Rampel
Exactly. Something people don't say anymore. Trump is actually bringing it back this time, but he, he literally is. Because the explanation behind both of those things, those bad things happening, is tariffs. Right. Tariffs raise prices. That's the inflation part. And tariffs also weigh on the economy and make it harder for businesses to invest and grow and buy stuff. That's the stagnation part. So Trump again is single handedly dragging down the economy and also making it much harder for the Fed to do its job. Because the Fed is supposed to both promote stable prices and maximum employment, and tariffs make both of those objectives harder. And the thing you would do if you're the Fed to address one of those problems is the opposite of the thing you would do to address the other one of those problems. Specifically, that if you care about inflation, you would raise interest rates. You, if you care about stagnation, you would cut interest rates. So they're in this really tricky situation where they're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Donald Trump obviously wants them to take one of those paths, which is to cut interest rates, which they have been doing. He wants them to cut even more. But as you point out, the real risk there is, if they do what he wants, which is to like ratchet rates down to 0 or 1%, you could have a huge burst in inflation. But that's going to be the story of the next year. I think that he's going to be really tussling with the Fed. He's, you know, we can talk about this if you want, but he's trying to put some kind of sycophant on the Fed board as the new chair to replace Jay Powell. We'll see who he ends up choosing. But he's also probably trying to like plant other more pliable people into the other Fed positions.
- [11:03]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Yeah, let's put a hack in there like Kevin Hassett to just really step on the gas of stagflation. That'd be great. There is a counterview. Maybe we're just Debbie Downers, maybe we're afflicted with tds. Let's listen to the counter perspective from the Vice President of these United States. President Trump last week gave his economy a grade of A plus plus plus plus. What grade would you give the economy today? A plus plus plus a downgrade.
- [11:30]
Mike Steinberger
I believe the American people are gonna reward us because the American people are smart. They know Rome wasn't built in a day. They know what Joe Biden broke is not gonna get fixed in a week.
- [11:42]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
A Rome isn't built in a day, not gonna get fixed in a week, not gonna get fixed in 11 months, apparently. What do you think?
- [11:49]
Katherine Rampel
Well, it's especially not gonna get fixed if they keep on doing things to break it further. Like it is true that Donald Trump came in promising something that he could never deliver, which was to lower prices. That is not something a president can do, at least not the aggregate price level. If the overall price level in the United States were actually falling, if we were experiencing deflation, that would mean the economy is very sick. Like that's what happened during the Great Depression. He can't deliver that. But not only can he not deliver that, he can't even keep prices stable because he's doing all these things to make stuff worse. Tariffs and muddying the Fed and deportations and everything else.
- [12:31]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
It is notable that Trump did the four pluses and JD Only the three. He might be brought in for spanking. Probably something to think about. Do they have a plan? So Trump's giving a speech tonight at 9 o'. Clock. He's announced. We don't know what it's about at the time of this taping. My guess we get to see if Abras is sort of the pundit crystal ball attempt here, is that he's going to mention that they're going to have Trump bucks coming for people. Santa Trump, I don't know if I'll actually do that tonight. That they've been talking about that as a possibility that the tariff revenues have been so great that we get to reward the American people by giving them some of the money back that they've given to the government through taxes and tariffs.
- [13:10]
Katherine Rampel
No, the American people didn't do it. The foreigners, the evil foreigners are paying the tariffs. According to Donald Trump.
- [13:17]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
At my coffee shop, it tells me that what my tariff, tariff cost is, we love the people at the French truck for just like the little dig at the Trump administration is letting us know what the little tariff costs. So that is costing me, not the. No, I'm not the Colombian coffee bean farmers. I know you're aware. And that's one potential thing. Do they have another? What is their other. What is the pitch for how it'll get better?
- [13:41]
Katherine Rampel
I think the only plan Donald Trump ever has is sending out a check with his name on it. And he has been pitching that for months now, both as a solution to like people complaining about affordability, as a solution to people complaining about their health care premiums specifically getting more expensive. Just send people money. And Donald Trump specifically is often claiming that he can use the abundant tariff revenue to pay for all of that. Of course, they've also earmarked the tariff revenue to pay down the debt.
- [14:14]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
And, and free ivf. Didn't we float for the tariff money is going to pay for free ivf?
- [14:18]
Katherine Rampel
Everything. There is just so much. There's unlimited tariff money to pay for everything. Of course, that's not the case. And in fact, the Supreme Court may soon rule that they have to give all that tariff money back to your coffee purveyor and other companies that have.
- [14:33]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Actually, what would happen if that happened? And they would challenge it, I guess. But. And who do you challenge?
- [14:40]
Katherine Rampel
Well, this would be the Supreme Court. So what would happen here? There would be, in one sense, it could be like a real shot in the arm to the US Economy because all of the sudden you have your coffee shop. But you know, retailers and every other company in America that has been footing the bill for these tariffs, suddenly they get a big cash infusion and they can start paying the bonuses that they've been holding off on or they can start buying up more inventory that they need, whatever it is. So that's one possibility. Now, a lot of companies have already been counting on that happening. So you may not actually see a big change in behavior. Like they're already assuming that the tariff money is coming back to them. And so that's part of the reason why they may not have been raising prices as much as had been predicted or haven't been cutting back as much. So I think you'll see some limited stimulus, ironically, from, you know, from the Supreme Court, like undercutting Donald Trump's primary economic agenda. So you'll see that. I don't think you'll see prices come down.
- [15:39]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Probably paired with some dubious attempts at new tariffs, though.
- [15:42]
Katherine Rampel
Oh, yeah, yeah. That was going to be part two of all of this, which is that the Trump administration has already been lining up alternative tariff mechanisms, which, to be clear, they could have been doing all along. Like there are a bunch of things that they could have done that would be on more solid legal footing than what Trump has been doing. But they require some process and an investigation and reports and things like that. Not just Trump, like sneeze, tweeting a new tariff rate. So, yes, they're already lining that stuff up. And to some extent, they could probably cobble together the same kinds of tariffs that they, you know, or at least similar tariffs to what they've been doing just through a different legal authority. Those will still be challenged. They take a little bit longer to put in place and they might be a little bit harder for him to use as leverage when he's beating up on our allies. Right. Because he can't just like suddenly say, aha, you, France, you've pissed me off today. So I'm suddenly going to have a, like a new Tarif French wines or whatever, or EU wines. It'll be a little bit harder for him to bully people with them, but they'll do it. They'll still be destructive to the US Economy, they'll still be destructive to our relationships with our allies, and they'll still probably raise prices. It'll just be on a slower time frame.
- [17:07]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
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- [18:28]
Katherine Rampel
So there has been a rash of these immigration raids on construction sites, on particularly on residential construction sites where it seems like immigration agents are just kind of like driving around and looking for a house in a suburban neighborhood that is having its siding redone and then rounding up all of the Latino looking immigrants who are working on it. This has happened in a lot of different places around the country I think. Actually there was a case recently near you, right? In one of the NOLA suburbs.
- [18:58]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Yeah, Kenner.
- [18:59]
Katherine Rampel
Yep, exactly. That's what I was thinking of where they, you know, rounded up some roofers. And in Minnesota this week there was another case where some immigration agents basically roped off a house that was under construction where. Well, it was like it wasn't even quite a house yet. It was the framing of a house. They chased the, a couple of the workers up to like the tippy top of the frame, the roof of the frame, but it's like little spindly sticks of wood. It was sub zero temperatures and they trapped them up there for a couple of hours and they wouldn't let people bring them warm blankets and things like that. And ultimately one of the workers got taken away in an ambulance. Anyway, there are these horrifying things going on as you point out, like humanitarian consequences of this are awful in my view. These are basically like pogroms that are going on and they're putting people's lives at risk. But beyond that, there's this question that has been nagging me about why aren't the companies that are hurt by this Doing more. Even if they don't care about the dignity and safety and health of their workers, which they should, presumably they care about their bottom line. You know, they are, they're losing workers, they're potentially losing customers. It's become a lot more difficult for them to just do their jobs, particularly since, like I said, they're not just going after people who are undocumented. They're rounding up anyone who looks Latino, including U.S. citizens. There's a big case over one U.S. citizen who's been detained multiple times in Alabama working on construction sites. So you'd think that the construction companies would push back a little bit, and they haven't, or at least not very publicly, not very vocally.
- [20:40]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
I did notice on the, on the jobs report that there was an uptick in construction jobs. And would this be the JD Case here that, like, doing this has created some jobs for us born Americans and it's a tiny uptick. It was like 20,000 jobs or something. Could there be something to that?
- [20:56]
Katherine Rampel
No, I don't think so. You know, these are jobs that, these are very demanding, difficult, backbreaking jobs. They're very hard to fill. It's not like I think Americans were being turned away from these positions. In fact, construction companies have been complaining about labor shortages for years at this point. So it's not like if you get rid of the immigrants, suddenly there'll be a lot of new openings for Americans. Again, take all of these numbers with a grain of salt because there are a lot of measurement issues right now. If you took them at face value, what might be going on? Well, there is a huge need for new housing. Right. Housing prices have, have gone through the roof. People need new homes. And so I think there's still demand for new homes. The question is, will there be workers to build those new homes? But if there are any workers available, yes, I think firms are scooping them up. But the broader point here is I am like slightly obsessed with this question of why isn't the private sector doing more to push back against Trump? Not for reasons of moral clarity or caring about democracy, but because he is destroying their business model and he is making it much harder for them to operate. And there are different ways to see all of it. That's what I'll get into my newsletter tomorrow.
- [22:12]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
It'll be interesting to see the newsletter Being built. Crystal talked about this a couple weeks ago. Just kind of reminiscing about the good old days when we were Republicans. Did consulting for interest groups back in late aughts and it was like the pushback from the chamber and the roundtable and all these groups to various things that Obama was doing was overwhelming. And that. That's absent now. Oh, yeah.
- [22:33]
Katherine Rampel
I remember in the Obama years there was this constant complaining about regulatory uncertainty, economic policy uncertainty, that because Obama was supposedly like tyrannically using the power of the executive branch and we weren't using this deliberative process of setting laws and policy. And today, as I just said, it's like Trump just has a fat fingered tweet about tariff rates and that will jack up rates fivefold from one minute to another. And you don't hear very much from these interest groups. I understand why individual companies might be worried about sticking their neck out. An individual home builder or, or a law firm or others. You know, I get that they don't want to put a target on their back, but the whole point of these industry groups is that they are supposed to represent the collective interest of businesses, whether in, you know, a particular sector or like you said, you know, chamber or business roundtable nationwide. And they're supposed to like, shield some of the individual companies from, from being a target. And even they are pretty mum.
- [23:45]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Very mum. All right, last topic, last bad sign about the state of affairs and our failing competition against China and the way that Donald Trump's failing our economy. The pioneering American maker of Roomba Irobot said that it has filed for bankruptcy. Control of the company will be taken over by its Chinese supplier. That's sad.
- [24:04]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah. I feel like Roomba is a nice, tidy little allegory of how both parties have completely failed business, in particular manufacturers, for that matter. So Roomba, you know, is this sort of iconic American company in that I think it was the last of the domestically made robot vacuum makers in the United States, which is like a pretty niche thing. You know, I don't know if it's of strategic.
- [24:31]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
I had a Roomba.
- [24:32]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, I just mean, like, I don't know if it's of strategic interest for us to have a US robot vacuum company, but apparently politicians have, you know, think otherwise. They think we should be making everything here, including tube socks. So this company was started by MIT grads in the 90s. I believe they had their big hit. It was, you know, robotic experts. They had their big hit with Roomba. The company's called Irobot, that they had their big hit with Roomba in the early 2000s. And, you know, there were all of these viral videos of cats and babies riding around on these, on these little robots by the 2000 and twenties, they were facing more intense competition from Chinese vacuum makers and they planned to sell themselves to Amazon for like $1.4 billion. And of course, the left was very upset about this because Amazon, big bad company, they're not allowed to buy anything because big is bad. There's like this whole theory of the case on the left and the Neo brand ICNs, and there were all of these like crazy almost conspiracy theories about, oh, well, Amazon's gonna like have the map to your living room and that's gonna be really bad. Oh, you're laughing, but it's seriously true. Like, you know, because they couldn't really come up with a traditional consumer welfare based argument for why it would be so bad if Amazon, which didn't already have a robot manufacturing.
- [26:02]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Yeah, we're very concerned about monopolies in the vacuuming space.
- [26:05]
Katherine Rampel
Yes, exactly. So, you know, the FTC in states wanted to take this down. They didn't really have the, the legal tools to do so. There's some evidence that they coordinated with their European counterparts who have a much broader remit. The Europeans basically blocked this merger. Meanwhile, iRobot was like, hey, guys, we're like, maybe going to go out of business if this merger doesn't go through. Amazon ultimately abandoned it because it was clear that it was going to get blocked. You know, like I said, it would have been tough to win in US courts, but in the EU it works differently. Then there was a whole investigation in the House about this coordination thing. Did Lina Khan, the FTC chair, like, illegally coordinate with the Europeans to do what she couldn't do under US law? Whatever. Then Trump comes in, tariffs away any hope of their survival because they do need inputs from abroad and now they're.
- [27:03]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Now the Chinese own it.
- [27:04]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, for cents on the dollar. So it's like, great work, everybody. The stupidity of both parties really took this company out of commission. And again, like, I don't know if it really matters if the Chinese own this company going forward.
- [27:20]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
It matters. It matters. We need to beat the Chinese at something. We can't beat them at the robot vacuums. This was American ingenuity. We've handed it away.
- [27:29]
Katherine Rampel
Yeah, I mean, my general view is we overweight the value of manufacturing in the US across the board.
- [27:37]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
It's about pride. All right, it's about pride and patriotism, but whatever.
- [27:43]
Katherine Rampel
Let's say you grant people the objective of, like, we want this manufacturing renaissance. We want to make more robot vacuums so cute little babies and cats can ride around with them and create YouTube content, whatever. With an American made vacuum. We're doing everything we can to undermine the the possibility for US Companies to build products like that.
- [28:06]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
I did a massive rant about people got to watch out for the great power struggle on this podcast of the Bulwark versus China because I'm so unhappy with the way that Donald Trump is prosecuting that we have to get to other topics today. But if people want to hear my 20 minute rant about this was not my best rated YouTube video. But it's okay. The momentum is building. I'll put a link in the show. Notes Katherine Rampel, thank you for your expertise as always.
- [28:30]
Katherine Rampel
Thanks for having me.
- [28:31]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
We'll be talking to you soon, girl. All right, up next, Mike Steinberger on Palantir. Stick around. For Bulwark plus members that made it to our first mailbag Q and A on Monday. I revealed something and I'm gonna pull the curtain back just a little bit for you guys right now. All right? You should still become a Borg member, but I'm gonna tell you something that I had only saved for members and that is that I might have another cat coming. I say another cat because we've had this neighborhood cat that we've been feeding Aretha and I was hoping that would satiate my child's desire for an animal and that has failed. And so her birthday's coming up next year and my will to fight is fading. Here's the thing. The good news for the new Kent if that happens, is that they're going to be fed damn well by Smalls. This podcast is sponsored by Smalls for limited time. Get 60% off your first order plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com thebullwork Smalls Cat Food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free ingredients you'd find in your fridge. It's delivered right to your door. That's why cats.com named Smalls their best overall cat food. Starting with Smalls is easy. Just share info about your cat's diet, health and preferences. Then Smalls puts together a personalized sampler for your cat. No more picking between random brands at the store. Smalls has the right food to satisfy any cat's cravings. Plus, with Smalls, one thing that the neighborhood cat that Aretha likes is the treats. It's not just the regular cat food, the little cat treats. That's how my child kind of, you know, moves Aretha around by the nose by shaking the cat treat bag. Then Aretha follows. Apparently they're yummy. I haven't tried them myself. The team at Smalls is so confident your account will love their product that you can try it risk free. That means they'll refund you if your cat won't eat their food. What are you waiting for? Give your cat the food they deserve. For a limited time because you are a Bulwark listener, you get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com the bulwark one last time. That's 60% off your first order, plus free shipping when you head to smalls.com theboork all right, we're back. He's contributing writer to New York Times Magazine, also author of the new book the Philosopher in the Valley. Alex Karp, Palantir and the Rise of the Surveillance State. It's Mike Steinberger. Hey, man, thanks for coming on the show.
- [30:52]
Mike Steinberger
Thanks for having me.
- [30:53]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Happy to do it. Look, as I was reading your book over the weekend on Palantir, I came to the realization that I'm much more familiar with the narrative and discourse around Palantir and how they kind of exist in the public conversation than I am about the nuts and bolts of the company and like, what it is it does and its origin story. So I assume a lot of listeners are in the same boat. So I kind of wanted to start there before we got into the politics of Palantir. Give us a little 101 about the company, what it is they do, and maybe a brief origin story.
- [31:23]
Mike Steinberger
Yeah, there's a lot of mystery surrounding this company. Part of it is because much of the work they do is shrouded in secrecy. They work with the CIA and the Mossad and other intelligence services. They're at the forefront of autonomous and semi autonomous warfare. So there's a lot that they can't talk about publicly. But in brief, Palantir is a technology company that specializes in data analytics. It sells software platforms that enable organizations to make better, faster use of their own data. There's typically large organizations like the US army, which is a Palantir client, and Airbus, which is also a Palantir client. They collect massive quantities of data on a daily, even hourly basis. And data is messy to work with, and there's a lot of it. Palantir software helps them bring order to this chaos, if you will, and then helps them find answers in the data. Users run queries and the software finds patterns, correlations, connections, trends in the data. So you can think of it almost as a digital detective board in some sense. And Palantir has its roots in the war on terrorism. And it was created essentially to help the US Government find terrorists. So that's very much a digital detective board. Very powerful technology, pulls in a lot of data very quickly and generates answers very quickly. So that's, in a nutshell, what Palantir does.
- [32:46]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
You talked about how it came out of the war on terror, which I guess I realized, but the degree to which that is the company's origin, where you're writing that, how candidates initially, including just kind of like engineers and people that were behind the scenes, had to demonstrate straight to the founders that they had a passion for defending Western civilization and killing terrorists. That was part of the original deal.
- [33:15]
Mike Steinberger
Yeah. If they detected in any job candidates a kind of desire to just collect lots of stock options and get rich quickly, if they sensed that they were just in it to make money or were squeamish about the company's mission about killing terrorists, they would not get the job there. So if you were going to be a successful candidate at Palantir, you had to show great enthusiasm for the mission, which was to help the US in the war on terrorism and more broadly, to defend the United States and the West. That was the company's mission. That's what they told themselves from the start.
- [33:49]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
So you mentioned it's kind of like a digital detective board. I'm still trying to figure out exactly the scope and scale of what they're offering. On the one hand, you can listen to their description and it sounds like it could be like Salesforce, you know, it could just be like a software platform.
- [34:04]
Mike Steinberger
Yeah.
- [34:04]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
But then, you know, and your opening anecdote, you talk about how Palantir was brought in during the Biden administration to help with the Afghanistan evacuation. And as you write about it, it's like, I don't have it right in front of me. I think it was like 150 staffers from Palantir went into the Pentagon and into the White House and were like working side by side with government employees. So, I mean, to me, that that's more than just like offering a software product.
- [34:34]
Mike Steinberger
Oh, no, it's. It's more than that. And that's always been kind of the wrap on Palantir is that, you know, it's technology company, but there's also a strong consultancy aspect to it. Less so nowadays, but it's certainly in a case like that when basically, you know, Biden had ordered, you know, withdrawal and then expediting withdrawal. And so they, to put that into effect required not just the technology, but a lot of hands on help building out these virtual pipelines to merge data between agencies. So they still do that sort of stuff. I mean, they call it a surge where they put a lot of people on a problem and a lot of their work begins in moments of crisis. So that's what they do. It is very powerful technology, but sometimes it also needs the help of their, what they call forward deployed engineers. So a combination of man and machine, if you will.
- [35:23]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
I thought the Afghanistan example was interesting because Biden took a lot of heat for the way that that withdrawal was handled, including here on this podcast. And Palantir kind of came out scot free on that. Like they're still with their aura. Like there wasn't a lot of discussion about the way that they failed.
- [35:38]
Mike Steinberger
Well, yeah, I mean, but it actually, it worked. I mean, you know, the software did what it was supposed to do. It, you know, it could have been a lot worse because there was just, it was absolute chaos from everything that I was told, just enormous logistical challenge that the joint staff couldn't solve on its own. So Palantir's technology did actually work well in that case. But you know, the problem was on, on the political side, and just the fact that it was done in such haste, that was the problem. And so it's looked at as a disaster. But actually the number of people that were evacuated from Afghanistan in such a short time was kind of remarkable.
- [36:17]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
What about the kind of claim that Palantir has spyware spying? There's one point that's analyzing data or looking at data. It's another thing if it's watching.
- [36:28]
Mike Steinberger
Yeah. It's also important to understand. Yeah. That it's not surveillance technology, but it does help organizations that deploy surveillance technology do their jobs more efficiently. So law enforcement, intelligence services. So Palantir is like one step remove, you could say, if we are seeing the emergence of a surveillance state. Palantir is an important part of that, but it is not surveillance technology in and of itself. And again, it is important to recognize that Palantir doesn't oversee how clients use its technology. It is not monitoring the way the CIA is using it. It's not monitoring how Airbus is using it. It's the clients who use it. As with any other software program, I'm.
- [37:07]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Going to dig in some of that and some of the controversies and things that people, the concerns people have about it. But the book also gets it to the founder CEO, really, Alex Karp, the founder. People always say it's like Peter Thiel's Palantir. So let's start with that. I mean, he was the founder, it was his idea. But is he in board meetings? Are him and Alex talking? What's his relationship with the company at this point?
- [37:29]
Mike Steinberger
Yeah, no, he's a co founder. The idea for Palantir did originate with him. It grew out of PayPal. He had this idea after 911 that the anti fraud algorithms that PayPal had developed could possibly be reconfigured to help the US government in the war on terrorism. So Thiel had the idea for this. He and Karp were classmates at Stanford Law School. They reconnected after Karp went off to Germany and pursue a doctorate. Karp came back to the Bay Area. That's when they reconnected with Thiel. And at that point, Thiel was trying to get Palantir off the ground. But he has never had any day to day involvement with the company, certainly not since the earliest days anyway. However, he is the chairman of the board and he and Karp are very close. They're close friends. Interesting relations.
- [38:13]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
It's hard for me to imagine Peter Thiel actually having a friend, like a friend in the way that I describe friends. Are they colleagues or friends?
- [38:22]
Mike Steinberger
I think they are friends. Like, I know they get together for dinner periodically. I would not be in a position, even after all this time working on the book on being able to comment on just how close that friendship is and whether it's the kind of friendship that you and I think of as friendship that I don't know.
- [38:36]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Well, they're both a little neurodivergent and I, Karp is like embracing that term for himself now. So, I mean, they're. The way that they think about friendship is probably different than the way I do.
- [38:45]
Mike Steinberger
It's. Yeah, I think it's a little different than, you know, you know, you and I going out for beers with friends. It's just, it's not the same thing. But they do consider themselves, themselves close friends. What was interesting was, you know, they were political opposites. I mean, part of the reason they bonded at Stanford Law, they bonded over their shared dislike of law school. They were both miserable in law school and they like to argue. They like to argue with each other. Karp considered himself a socialist at the time, and Thiel, of course, was famously already a libertarian. And so there's been this interesting thing for most of Palantir's history where you've got Karp, I'm a progressive, Thiel is libertarian, drifting further and further to the right. And it was actually a healthy, a useful tension, shall we say, for Palantir, because Thiel's been a polarizing figure for years. And yet you've got this company at the nexus of technology and national security being run by this guy who looks like a mad Professor Karp and who says, I'm a progressive, I'm a neo socialist. And if it didn't assuage concerns that people had about Palantir, it kind of threw critics for a loop a little bit for a very long time.
- [39:47]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
When you put it that way, it's kind of similar to my love story with my husband. He was a Democrat, I was a Republican. We've met in the middle as neolittle liberals now. Peter was a libertarian. Yep. Carp was a neosocialist. They've met with in kind of a desire for authoritarian fascism. And so, you know, it's a little different in that sense.
- [40:06]
Mike Steinberger
Well, it is. And you know, and actually in the last couple years, I would say that Carp is definitely move. One of them has moved. And it's not Teal, it's Carp. Carp is now much more closely aligned with Teal's view. Certainly issues like immigration, the daylight that existed between them, there's less of it now for sure. And that's because Carp has moved.
- [40:25]
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- [41:26]
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- [42:26]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Many people I assume like me didn't really know, seen the name or didn't know anything about him. And then there's this video of him with Andrew Ross Sorkin a couple weeks ago that went viral online where he is, he can't say that still, like there are jokes about like, is this guy on cocaine? Or like, what's happening with him and was involved.
- [42:45]
Mike Steinberger
This I know, Mexican coke. He, he, he drinks Mexican coke before television appearances and other interviews to get a sugar rush. So as far, yeah, I can't comment on other stuff, but I do know that was involved.
- [42:56]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
But so tell us about this guy. I mean, besides like the origin story with Teal, like, what else should we know about Alex Karp?
- [43:03]
Mike Steinberger
Interesting backstory. Grew up in Philadelphia. He's biracial. His father's a Jewish pediatrician, his mother's black, an very left wing household. I mean, he, as he tells it, he and his brother spent a lot of time as kids being taken to anti war rallies, anti nuclear rallies by their parents. Karp is severely dyslexic, pretty young age. He kind of came to feel that he had some strikes against him in this world, being biracial, Jewish with a learning disability. And he carries this very acute sense of vulnerability into adulthood and essentially carries it right to Palantir. You know, Palantir's mission resonates very strongly with him because he thinks that only in a society that offers robust protection for minority rights with a rule of law is a very powerful force, can someone like him, with his background survive and prosper. So when Palantir talked about defending the west for most of Palantir's history, that meant defending liberal democracy. And Karp took that very personally. In some sense, you could say Palantir existed to help make the world safe. For Alex Karp, that was how he believed he was doing helping make the world safe for millions of others. But it was a very personal mission for him.
- [44:15]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Yeah, and you're right at this point, he's like, his biggest fear at one point is fascism. Right. And is protecting the West. And this is where things start to come into tension with now what your perception is of what Trump is doing. And they're doing work with ice. They're doing work with, as we've mentioned, the surveillance state. How does he kind of process that? Like the. The idea that, you know, the. The mission of the company is to protect Western civilization and liberal democracy and that now there are threats to that coming from kind of inside the house.
- [44:49]
Mike Steinberger
Yeah, well, interestingly, you don't hear much about liberal democracy anymore. You know, when he talks about defending the west now, it's not really about defending liberal democracy. It's about defending the west as a sort of cultural entity. And in that sense, he. He is very much aligned now with Thiel because, you know, Thiel, you know, years ago, he. He wrote this famous essay in which he said that, you know, democracy and freedom, by. Which meant economic freedom were not compatible. He was on the side of economic freedom, not. Not democracy. And. And, yeah, so Thiel's conception of the west was, you know, something as, you know, basically a bunch of countries bound by a shared Judeo Christian ethic and, you know, by varying degrees of adherence to free. The free enterprise system. Karp had a different view. Karp's view was Palantir's view, but now with Karp, you know, certainly in the last few years, even before Trump returned to office, but especially since Trump has returned to office, when Karp talks about the west, it's as a cultural entity. He's not talking about it as a political project any longer. And his views have shifted on that, for sure.
- [45:52]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
And you mentioned that the views shifted maybe even a little bit more aggressively after October 7th. It's an interesting. When you think about how he kind of processes his cultural identity and you kind of write about this, but how he's very in tune with, like, the Jewish side of it. And, you know, defending Israel as part of defending the west feels less in tune or less comfortable talking about at least, you know, kind of like the biracial side of it with his. With his mother. Talk about that a little bit, how that might inform how he's thinking about this moment.
- [46:20]
Mike Steinberger
Well, it's really interesting because, yeah, when he was, his brother spent a lot of time talking to me. His brother's two years younger, lives in Tokyo, and other people Said the same thing that, you know, when he was in college and high school, Karp identified very much with his black heritage. I mean, his brother said he was a young black man, and he doesn't disavow the black side now, but he is. It's the Jewish side that is front and center for him. It's been that way for years. And October 7th was something that, obviously it shook many people, but, you know, shook carp to a great extent. You know, he, as I said, identifies very strongly with his Jewish heritage, has been a strong, staunch supporter of Israel. Palantir has had involvement with Israel now for about 10 years. The Mossad began using its software about a decade ago. And, you know, when October 7th happens, Karp is shocked and immediately says, Palantir. They took out a full page ad in the New York Times about a week after the atrocities in Israel saying, palantir stands with Israel. Palantir is going to give Israel everything it needs.
- [47:22]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
It was another miss for the intelligence gathering software, I guess I should say. I don't know that she's been working for Assad for 10 years.
- [47:30]
Mike Steinberger
It's interesting because.
- [47:31]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Didn't catch that.
- [47:32]
Mike Steinberger
You know, it's kind of amazing that didn't happen. Now, what they would say is, you know, they weren't being used by Shin Bet, which is the domestic intelligence service in Israel. They weren't being used by the IDF at the time. That has changed since October 7th. Now all, you know, the military and intelligence apparatus in Israel, all of it's using palantir since October 7th. And after October 7th, you. It's when I really began to see the change in Karp's politics. He had been expressing frustration with the Democrats for a long time. He was a major Democratic donor, but had been expressing frustration with the Democrats and progressives for a long time over things like immigration, over things like identity politics. But after October 7, that is when his turn to the right really begins, really accelerates, I should say. For instance, on the issue of immigration, he had seen immigration, the chaos of the border. He had always viewed that as bad for the Democrats, as a toxic issue for the Democrats. After October 7th, he decides that immigration is bad for American Jews, which is an interesting place to land, but that's where he landed.
- [48:31]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
And certain types of identity politics are important and.
- [48:34]
Mike Steinberger
Okay, actually, that's exactly right. There was kind of a hypocrisy here. He's scorning the Democrats for being enthralled to identity politics, but it is now his Jewish identity that is driving his decision making at Palantir and driving his political metamorphosis. And this is when you really see him starting to get on board with Trump. This is of course before the election, but he thought Trump was going to win and I could see him starting to find reasons to get on board with him.
- [49:02]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
So is it just my perception or is it accurate then that he was not as public facing before this metamorphosis? Right, like the political metamorphosis, does that dovetail with him doing more, you know, kind of public commentary or did I just notice the public commentary more because, you know, it was a little bit more outrageous that he was trying to side with the right?
- [49:24]
Mike Steinberger
Well, for a while he was kind of low profile. I mean, during the first Trump presidency when Palantir was caught up in a lot of controversy, he was working with ICE then. But during the first Trump presidency, basically almost every article about Palantir would say Peter Thiel's Palantir. Even though Thiel wasn't running the company, Karp was sort of not nearly as well known as Thiel and Thiel's name was Clickbait. In the last couple years, Karp has gotten to be much more well known. Part of that, of course, the stock has taken off when the stock was languishing at $10 a share, which wasn't that ago. Not that many people are interested in hearing from you when the stock, you know, quadruples over the course of a year and goes, you know, from $50 to 200. So he's gotten more, more invitations to speak at events. He's I'm not sure that five or six years ago Andrew Ross Sorkin would necessarily invited him to deal book. But now he is. Now he's an a lister and people want to hear from him. So you're seeing more of him these days.
- [50:23]
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- [51:24]
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- [52:24]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
So I took to the ICE question of this time around. Karp told you that if Palantir had stopped the work it does with ice, he's worried that then other clients, people in the military, might think they're an unreliable partner. I want to hear more about that conversation and you could imagine, I mean I made the joke about Benioff earlier in Salesforce, but Salesforce was throwing their platform to ICE too, which I, I don't support. But you can imagine a situation where Trump is coming in, they're claiming they're going after criminals. This is in line with Palantir's mission. Like, hey, we're going to help you find these really bad guys. The drug traffickers, maybe even terrorists have gotten into the country and you can use our platform to do that now after we have enough months here to see that that isn't really the main goal. And they're going after and hassling a lot of regular people and they're hassling a lot of citizens even or people that haven't committed any crimes. I'm just wondering how he's thinking about.
- [53:19]
Mike Steinberger
Their partnership Now, Well, I mean, he's given no indication that he's having any misgivings about it during the first Trump presidency. As I said, Palantir was very involved with ice. It was working with another part of ice, so it was only kind of tangentially involved with removal operations during the first Trump presidency. But there was a lot of controversy surrounding its work with ice. Carp, you know, kind of took it as a backhanded compliment because other tech companies were also working with ice. But Carpenter figured that, he said anyway, that part of the reason people were targeting Palantir back then was because they knew that the software was really good. But he also made clear that he had misgivings about Trump's immigration crackdown during the first Trump presidency. In fact, he said to me at one point that if he'd known where things were going, he might not have signed the contract with ice. This time around, he's not expressing any misgivings. He is expressing full support for what Trump is doing. He believes that that last year voters sent us very strong message that they want the demographics of the country to basically remain the same and that Trump's policy is doing that. And Palantir is happy to help this time. There's no qualms being expressed this time around.
- [54:31]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
If you think about the increasing anti Semitic sentiment that we're seeing on the right and left, I wonder if eventually whether you think that he will start to process, whether there's any. Any concerns there. I mean, like right now already, the government is basically saying that they're gonna go through people's social media. The current government is friendly to Israel, but they're under the mindset of if you're traveling here, when you go through your social media, if you've whatever said something mean about Charlie Kirk or something nice about a pro Palestinian group, you might not get a green card. It's not hard to imagine the other that flipping right under a different type of administration where they decide that if you're too supportive of Israel, then we don't want you in the country. Does that not. Not. Does that concern never get raised by him? I guess. I wonder.
- [55:15]
Mike Steinberger
Well, it's a great question. The thing is, I mean, one thing that's important to know is that, I mean, you know, he went to Stanford Law School, then he went to Germany to pursue a doctorate and he did the University of Frankfurt.
- [55:24]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Likes the German culture.
- [55:26]
Mike Steinberger
Exactly. He went right there and he did his dissertation on the rhetoric of fascism. So whereas, you know, with some of these other tech bros, you know, you see them spouting off online and it's just like, have you ever read a book?
- [55:38]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Right.
- [55:39]
Mike Steinberger
You know, it's just like the ignorance is.
- [55:42]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
He's read books, learned German and you said he studied with Habermas and like.
- [55:46]
Mike Steinberger
Yeah, he, he can't plead ignorance and he knows where this sort of stuff goes and where it can lead. And when you see people being grabbed, you know, grabbed off the street in broad daylight by massed law enforcement officials. Yeah, we've seen this in other countries and it typically doesn't end well. And, and, you know, it's an interesting discussion because, and I've said this to him and, and he kind of deflects, but it's like, you know, tell me one place where right wing authoritarianism has, has come to power where if it hasn't started with the Jews, it doesn't land on them at point. That has got to be the concern. And it's, you know, whether it's, you know, anti Semitism on the left or what we see now, this, this, this outbreak of anti Semitism on the right. And, and I've made this point as well to him. And, and he doesn't disagree. Yeah. He's always maintained that Trump is not an anti Semite. And, and it's fine. Okay. If you don't think he is, that's fine. But you know, the point is he's created this permission structure. This is beyond him at this point. Sure. Now people feel very free to express bigotry in a way that wasn't the case 10 years ago. These sorts of things don't end well, whether you're Jewish or Muslim or Latino. It's just. Yeah.
- [56:50]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
I wonder what he thinks about the brand concerns. Now, like you mentioned, obviously throughout the book, there is, he has some bitterness a little bit about the perception of Palantir and how your shared alma mater isn't calling him to be a donor or whatever because they're worried about brand association. And that's only gotten worse. It's starting to come from inside the house. I noticed on Theo Vaughn's, I think it might have his interview with JD Vance. There's interview with another right wing figure. He talks about how he's concerned about Palantir.
- [57:22]
Mike Steinberger
Well, he was talking about with Rogan.
- [57:23]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Oh, with Rogan. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, it was with Rogan. Yeah. And to me it's easy to say, oh, these effete liberal elites at the universities don't like us. Screw them. But now it seems like the concerns about, about, you know, the Extent of the power, how they're working with the spy agencies. Civil liberties are expanding within, you know, folks that you might care about their feedback. And I wonder if that's on the radar over there at all.
- [57:50]
Mike Steinberger
Oh, yeah, no, for sure. In fact, a couple months ago, the New York Times ran a story saying that Palantir was essentially helping the Trump administration build a master database with all our personal data. And Palantir reacted with fury. And a lot of that was driven by the fact that elements of the far right, notably Nick Fuentes, picked up on this. And all of a sudden Palantir was in the crosshairs of these MAGA adjacent people, specifically Fuentes, and they were saying, why is Donald Trump the ultimate victim of the deep state, getting in bed with the company that is the deep state, and so forth. So they are very attuned to that. I think Karp and his colleagues are much less concerned. Blowback from the Democrats if the Democrats get in power. And part of this why, I mean.
- [58:40]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
That'S not crazy for me to imagine that a Democratic president in 2029 would say, we're canceling all contracts with Palantir.
- [58:49]
Mike Steinberger
You know, I mean, part of it is based on experience, because there was a lot of that talk after the first Trump presidency and the Biden administration didn't do anything.
- [58:57]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
They thought Biden was anti tech. They might get a different kind of leftist next time. They should be careful. Careful.
- [59:03]
Mike Steinberger
It's true. But I think, you know, I think part of it is they think that first of all, the second Trump presidency, they see it as a massive opportunity. And that's part of the reason CARP is all in with ICE this time, is they see this as a massive opportunity. It's a huge government contractor as it is, but they see this as an opportunity to become even more deeply entrenched in, you know, in the bowels of government, if you will, to the point that it would be very hard and very disruptive to, to switch vendors. But they also, you know, and again, this is based on experience that maybe.
- [59:32]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
The next Democrat will decide we're not trying to do immigration inform. So it's not that hard to switch vendors, actually, because we don't have it. We don't need a new vendor at all. We're just going to get rid of this one maybe.
- [59:40]
Mike Steinberger
But I think, you know, based on what they've, what they experienced with Biden and just what they kind of experience in general. I mean, for instance, ICE itself, I mean, this was kind of the amazing coda to the controversy during the first Trump presidency, ICE itself tried to terminate the contract with Palantir after Biden became president. Not because of the controversy, because it thought it could develop similar capabilities in House. And they didn't work out. They came back to Palantir and re upped with Palantir. And so this has been Palantir's experience throughout. You know, Karp's view is like, you know, he's, he's kind of like the Jack Nicholson character and A Few Good Men. You know, it's just like, you may not like me, you may not respect me, but you need me. And that's very much his attitude. And I think he, you know, I think he believes that, you know, whatever blowback Palantir might suffer if the Democrats come into power, it's not going to be enough to significantly hurt the company's government business. You know, the retribution will not be enough to, to, to really damage the company. We'll see if he's right. I don't know if he is.
- [60:41]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
I don't know. It feels like there's a little hubris to that because it's interesting how like they're, in some level, they're responsive to the criticism. Like, you can imagine a different world where Palantir wants to be as low profile as possible. You don't have to imagine that actually that was their, that was their policy for a long time. Now you've got Palantir, huge advertisement during the Army Navy game. They're selling Tote B Challenger. It does feel like they're trying to, to brand themselves. And that, you know, that could lead to blacklash.
- [61:08]
Mike Steinberger
Right, there's that. And the other thing is too, he is obviously very outspoken in a way that other tech executives aren't. And, and this is very much a reflection of, of his personality. The guy likes to argue. You know, many of our conversations were essentially arguments when I was, you know, when I was reporting the book, it's like, you know, he, he likes to, he likes to engage in intellectual combat bat. And, you know, he, he feels that he's got positions that, to defend, that he can, that he can defend, and he wants to be out there. He does not. You, you saw it with that interview with Sorkin. He became loaded for bear and he wants to take on the critics. He wants to challenge Palantir's critics. And, and the thing is, you have to also recognize that he's kind of like Elon Musk now in, in that, you know, Karp has developed a very, very strong retail fan base who thinks that, that he can't do anything wrong. So that's the audience he's playing to. So while people saw that interview or they see other interviews and they say, what the hell is with this guy? Karp's fans are like, oh my God, give me more of that. So he's kind of playing.
- [62:10]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
That's kind of becoming a meme stock. There's a little bit of a meme stock play to it.
- [62:13]
Mike Steinberger
Well, there is a little bit of that. I mean, he's got, you know, it's got that these very loyal retail investors, they refer to him as Papa Carp and Daddy Carp. And, you know, it's always Palantir to the moon and they're buying all the Palantir swag and so they're eating all this up. So Carp likes to be out there. He likes to be out there jousting with people. But it's also playing very well with the audience he's catering to.
- [62:35]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
It's interesting though, Elon said recently in an interview with Stephen Miller's wife on a very low rated podcast for some reason, but he said that he regretted going in because of the hurt that it's due to the company. And so parallel is kind of interesting. You do, you know, and Karp could look at Elon and think the other way, right? Like you get a little too close to the sun, it gets too hot, you do end up hurting your core business. That feels like a not crazy path.
- [63:00]
Mike Steinberger
It's not crazy to think about that. And I think he has become a. Yeah, you. Though you wouldn't have been able to tell from the Sorkin interview. I think he has become. He has come to recognize that there are, you know, battles that may not be worth fighting in public and that there are moments when it might, that it can be helpful just to keep a lower profile. But again, his personality is such that that he wants to argue. It's not enough to like think, okay, we're just going to make a lot of money and I'm perfectly comfortable with what I'm doing. He really does want to be out there. And this may be tied to his background in academia. He's a credentialed scholar and as I said, he likes to argue and kind of keeping the low profile and just doing the work the way other CEOs do. That's just not his thing, never has been. And I think he feels certainly Palantir is in the spotlight now and, and he wants to push back hard against the critics.
- [63:58]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
You mentioned the pushback to the Times Strike. What is the truth, do you think, or what do we know, I guess, about what Palantir is doing with the Trump administration as far as the database work is concerned?
- [64:09]
Mike Steinberger
Well, what they said is it's just to improve government efficiency, which, again, I.
- [64:15]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Mean, I never thought of Obama did that, so did Mussolini. So it's hard to know which one you're talking about.
- [64:22]
Mike Steinberger
And I don't recall Donald Trump running on a platform in 2024 of making the government more efficient. That was not. That was not part of the. The agenda, as I recall. Yeah, that is what Palantir says. It says the work they're doing is completely misunderstood and misrepresented. But, you know, as you know, there were people who, who worked in government, worked very sensitive data, people who lost their jobs under Doge, who said, look at this. Information wasn't kept segregated because we wanted to, you know, the government to operate less efficiently. It was because it was understood, going back forever, that couldn't always count on having trustworthy people in power and emerging this information, making it easier for bad actors to get a hold of information. They shouldn't have to do nefarious things. The idea was, you know, we should make that as difficult as possible. And so that's why so much of this information was siloed. I think the bigger concern here, from my point of view, and I think from many other people, is what's going on with ice, because it does seem that ICE is building out a surveillance apparatus. Palantir is integral to that. Its software is foundational to the work that ICE is doing right now. And the argument is very simple. What's being directed at one segment of the population right now could very easily be directed at others. And in fact, as you mentioned before, ICE is scraping social media. And apparently one of the things it's doing is it's monitoring critics of ice. And not all critics of ICE are people who are candidates for deportation.
- [65:55]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Well, and you've seen it with the memo that Bondi put out to Patel about looking after critics of the administration, critics of ice, to me, and I guess that's where I'll close. If there are some misconceptions about whether ICE or whether Palantir is actually doing the spying or whether they're keeping the data, which they aren't, it feels like it's one of these things where there the risk associated with Palantir, like it's a tool, and so the risk is tied to who is using the tool and what they're doing with it.
- [66:22]
Mike Steinberger
That's exactly right. I mean, and it was clear from the first Trump presidency that this would be a very powerful tool in the hands of an authoritarian regime. And the concern now is that we have taken a turn to authoritarianism, and Palantir is facilitating its technology is facilitating that. And you can't just say, well, it's just a tool and they have no responsibility for it. They make choices. I mean, Karp has not said, you know, what his red lines are. I assume there must be red lines. You know, that if I start doing this, that maybe Palantir will reconsider its work. But, you know, it's not in his interest to say that publicly, because it's not in his interest to piss off Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. But one would like to think there are lines that can't be crossed using Palantir's technology. We just don't know what those are.
- [67:05]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
All right, Mike Steinberger, appreciate it. The book is called the Philosopher in the Valley. Alex Carp, Palantir and the Rise of the Surveillance State. I have a feeling that they'll be in the news a little bit more next year, so maybe we'll check back in.
- [67:15]
Mike Steinberger
All right, that would be great. Pleasure to be with you today.
- [67:18]
Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
Thanks so much to Katherine Rampel and Mike Steinberger. We'll be back tomorrow with another edition of the podcast. See you all then. Peace. For real you man look at your 75 you are staring is made up somebody paid for it out on a limb echoes forward and sur. We see you when you're all again down break my brain. But still technically fighting following the no great hesitations of mine will stay shit is made up somebody paid for it out on a limb that goes forward not enough. The hour dangerous ingrained in us to our happy strain mind will be. Still time to change my way. The Board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
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Katherine Rampel
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Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
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Mike Steinberger
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Host (likely Charlie or a main Bulwark host)
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Mike Steinberger
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Matt Rogers
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