Jason Calacanis: The Silicon Valley Vibes Are Still Pro-Trump

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast (June 9, 2026)

Jason Calacanis: The Silicon Valley Vibes Are Still Pro-Trump

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Episode Overview

In this spirited episode, Tim Miller welcomes entrepreneur, investor, and “All In” podcast co-host Jason Calacanis for their recurring "State of the Valley" check-in. The two dissect Silicon Valley’s relationship with Trump’s second term, AI disruption, the shifting political winds among VCs, the SpaceX IPO, data center controversies, the transformation of Twitter/X, and the challenge of elite character in tech and politics. The conversation moves fluidly between sharp political insight, Valley insider baseball, culture war anecdotes, and a healthy dose of Knicks playoff banter.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Silicon Valley’s Political Vibes: Still Pro-Trump?

Timestamps: 14:00–18:00, 44:11–45:13, 51:15–52:21

• Jason Calacanis describes a pragmatic, transactional support for the Trump administration among many VCs and tech elites:
  • "I'm a moderate and have always been an independent moderate... I just vote for the best person." ([19:00], Calacanis)
  • CEOs appreciate Trump’s accessibility and deregulatory approach, less so his erratic governance or moral character.
• Tim Miller challenges Silicon Valley’s "fidelity" to Trump, pointing out inconsistencies in their risk tolerance compared to how they’d evaluate CEOs:
  • "If you were doing a VC vet of a CEO, you would never invest in a company that had this person as a CEO..." ([44:11], Miller)
• Elite complaint: Biden “didn’t return their calls”; with Trump, “they much prefer bending the knee... to keep selling iPhones.” ([51:15], Calacanis)
• Both agree: there’s little broad-based enthusiasm for Trump, but "transactional" economic ties make the alliance sticky.

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2. AI Disruption: Job Losses, Superintelligence, and Intern Despair

Timestamps: 7:59–18:25

• AI’s scope is “every previous technology wave put together and then times 10.” ([08:09], Calacanis)
• On Job Loss:
  • "Middle management... that's going to be gone. Then you take self-driving, that's going to be gone. Truck driving, that's going to be gone. Factory workers, that's going to be gone... The writing is on the wall." ([13:32], Calacanis)
  • The opportunity for “AI-first employees” is real, but entry-level jobs and the first rungs of many careers are disappearing fast.
• On College/Early Career Crisis:
  • "This is why they're booing at commencement speeches. When you evoke AI, this is the first generation that hacked their way through school..." ([16:56], Calacanis)
  • The “AI slop” experience: both students and professors rely so much on AI, it hollows out actual learning.
• Miller and Calacanis foresee significant short-term chaos and increased inequality, especially as debt-laden grads can’t find jobs.
• Universal healthcare and minimum wage increases are floated as necessary systemic adaptations for the new AI era.

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3. Data Centers: Elite Battle or Red Herring?

Timestamps: 18:25–23:21

• Calacanis categorizes pushback on data centers as mostly “fud” and likes state-level experimentation:
  • "If people in Maine or New Hampshire have a problem with this... Texas wants every data center you can build." ([20:02], Calacanis)
• Water use is a fake issue; impact on the power grid is real but manageable.
• Predicts the next big trend: data centers moving closer to users—including, provocatively, mini-data centers in homes alongside solar/batteries.

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4. The SpaceX/Starlink IPO: Bubble or Revolution?

Timestamps: 24:46–29:20

• Calacanis is bullish on the Starlink business and justifies the massive valuation:
  • "Starlink has over 10 million people subscribing... probably double what you see from Netflix." ([26:09], Calacanis)
• Miller presses him on whether Tesla and SpaceX’s sky-high valuations are “appropriate”—Jason answers that Elon’s companies are priced as VC bets, not mature businesses.
• On NASDAQ’s fast tracking: acknowledges it’s likely overvalued at $2T, but that’s how public markets roll for “story stocks.”

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5. Twitter/X: From Lib Echo Chamber to Rightwing Bubble

Timestamps: 30:30–34:52

• Miller raises the “pendulum swing”—Twitter once critiqued as a lefty bubble, now dominated by right/mainstream-business threads and MAGA types.
• Calacanis laments the loss of an ideologically mixed public square:
  • "It was kind of magical to have everybody sparring in one arena as opposed to multiple arenas." ([31:31], Calacanis)
• X’s algorithm is open source, but the effect is clear—if all the “libs” leave, the tone and trending topics skew further right.
• Feature insight: Calacanis hints that "algorithm stores" with user-side customization could be coming to X.

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6. Culture Wars: Cancel Culture, Free Speech and the “R Word” Segment

Timestamps: 36:57–39:46

• Miller confronts Calacanis on his change in stance over offensive language, showing how X’s culture has shifted personal boundaries:
  • "Do you feel like you've been manipulated by the algorithm?" ([36:57], Miller)
• Calacanis reflects on generational context and shifting norms, ultimately seeing use of certain words as "symbolism of the overreach of cancel culture."
• Miller points out: voting for Trump purely to own the libs (or say offensive things) is “the most retarded thing that a person could possibly do.” ([38:41], Miller)

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7. Oligarchy, Risk, and Elite Cynicism

Timestamps: 54:52–57:59

• Calacanis is blunt about the embrace of oligarchy (“Sign me up! ... Oligarchy sounds pretty great.” [55:21]) and the risks VCs are willing to take for access and predictability.
• Miller worries aloud that the result will be pitchforks and socialism unless elites change course; Calacanis agrees the risk is real.
• Both note the symbolic importance of performative philanthropy (like the Giving Pledge) in shaping broad public consent for oligarchy.

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8. Network Effects, Character, and the Epstein Problem

Timestamps: 65:22–70:09

• Miller questions Calacanis on decisions to connect with notorious figures like Jeffrey Epstein, framing it as an elite “networking at all costs” issue.
• Calacanis says he wasn’t paying close enough attention but now tries to be more vigilant about character.
• The pair agree there’s a broader culture in “elite” circles that downplays character in favor of transactional relationships, especially online.

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9. Knicks Talk, Sports Juju, & Predictions

Timestamps: 4:33–7:32, 71:25–73:17

• Calacanis, a Knicks superfan, shares his playoff experiences and Knicks paranoia; laughs off Trump “hexing” the team.
• On the NBA Finals: "I still think... Nixon 6. And having been at the first two games, I'm now at Nixon 5." ([71:30], Calacanis)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On AI’s Impact:
  • "AGI means the artificial intelligence is as smart as the smartest human being. Superintelligence means it's smarter than all collective human intelligence for all time..." ([09:57], Calacanis)
• On Elite Deal-Making:
  • “They much prefer bending the knee, having to show up for the Melania documentary… I'll do whatever it takes to keep selling iPhones.” ([51:49], Calacanis)
• On Oligarchy:
  • "If you told a bunch of business leaders this could become oligarchic, they would be like, sign me up. Hell yeah, sounds great." ([55:19], Calacanis)
• On X’s Public Square:
  • "It was kind of magical to have everybody sparring in one arena as opposed to multiple arenas." ([31:31], Calacanis)
• On Cancel Culture & Empathy:
  • "I look at the 2020 Jason, and...you're showing empathy…Don't you think that's a good instinct?" ([39:22], Miller)
• On Democratic Renewal:
  • "I just think that the Democrats are gonna be desperate for somebody outside...the Clinton Biden Harris era. I just think they're ready to move forward." ([75:41], Miller)

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Episode Structure / Timestamps of Important Segments

• Start–07:32: Knicks/Trump playoff talk, guest intro
• 07:59–18:25: AI, VC mood, job displacement, Gen Z/college, UBI, CEO layoffs
• 18:41–23:21: Data centers, environmental debate, state-level competition
• 24:46–29:20: SpaceX/Starlink IPO, Tesla and Elon, “bubble” valuations
• 30:30–34:52: The X/Twitter shift, public square, algorithms
• 36:57–39:46: Culture wars, algorithm-driven speech, personal conduct online
• 44:11–47:01: Trump’s appeal in Silicon Valley, risk management, CEO class rationale
• 51:15–57:59: Tariffs, access vs. taxes, oligarchy, populism/elitism tension
• 65:22–70:09: Epstein, elite networking, character in business and social media
• 71:25–73:17: Knicks/Spurs finals prediction, winning culture vs. “juju”
• Throughout: Miller pushes Calacanis to break out of VC/elite groupthink; Calacanis’s rationale is consistently pragmatic, not moralistic.

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Tone & Style

The exchange is frank, combative but often jocular, blending inside-baseball Valley talk with root-level political analysis and doses of self-deprecating humor. Miller’s style is skeptical, reality-driven, and persistently needling; Calacanis combines Valley bravado with admitted pragmatism—revealing the tensions and cynicism at the top of Silicon Valley.

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Summary Takeaway

Jason Calacanis shines a light on why, despite Trump’s chaos, the powerful and monied in Silicon Valley continue to pragmatically support him: access, economic self-interest, and—ultimately—a belief that they can shape policy when “the calls get returned." Yet, both he and Miller agree that this “oligarchic” bargain is unsustainable, breeding backlash from below and amplifying systemic and cultural dysfunction. The conversation is an unvarnished look at how “normal” gets defined—and warped—by power, money, and the algorithms that now rule both politics and tech.

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For listeners seeking clarity or a dose of raw, unfiltered “reality-based” analysis, this episode delivers.

Transcript

[Jacob Goldstein]

Hey, it's Jacob Goldstein from Business History. In our new series American Genius, we tell the stories of three great writers who changed the way business works in America. Our first episode is about Benjamin Franklin, who among many other things, was a best selling business writer.

[Tim Miller]

Take a listen.

[Jacob Goldstein]

He's writing this much later in his life, consciously creating this image of himself. And I do want to emphasize how unusual this model is at the time, this self made man myth, because you don't want to be self made. It's low class to be self made. You know, this idea that we have today is the opposite, right? And it comes from Franklin. Today there is the derisive term nepo baiting.

[Tim Miller]

Well, exactly right. And these days, if you are a billionaire, you had better have a Benjamin

[Jason Calacanis]

Franklin story about starting in a garage,

[Tim Miller]

coming up with the idea from nothing.

[Jacob Goldstein]

And here is Benjamin Franklin inventing it

[Tim Miller]

right before our eyes.

[Jacob Goldstein]

This has been brought to you by Odoo to listen to more of our American Genius series, Listen to business history. New episodes release every Wednesday on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tim Miller]

Hey everybody, a few notes before the pod today. I taped Yesterday Afternoon with Jason Calacanis. Cause I'm about to hit a plane to my father's retirement party, which we're excited about for the newbies. Jason is a little bit of a departure from our usual material here on the Bulwark Podcast. He has a podcast of his own called the All In Podcast. And his colleagues, two of them were very active Donald Trump supporters. One of them, David Ballsacks, ended up going into the administration. And then another one is kind of a. Was Trump curious. Jason was the most middle of the road of the crew. And we did our first interview, God. A couple years ago now before the 2024 election, and have done a check in every, you know, six, nine, 12 months. So we did one of those check ins today. We talked a bunch about the stuff that he really knows about, which is Silicon Valley and VC World, and then talked about what the vibe shift is looking like on Trump. It's not shifting as much as we would like. A little spoiler alert. So that's what's on this podcast. We also have the Next Level podcast. So if you're looking for just a politics fix and can just pop on over to the Next level, feed me, Sarah and JVL as we do every Tuesday. So go give that a listen. Download it if you're not subscribed to the Next Level feed. I guess one more thing before we get to this show. Jason's a big Knicks fan, so we discussed the potential of a Trump curse and he was worried about a Trump curse. It turned out that he was right. Trump showed up to the game, made it a massive hassle for everybody in midtown New York. Salted the vibes, fell asleep. Trump actually fell asleep for a little while. He rested his eyes, lengthy rest, about a 22 second irest during the third quarter and then he left early. So as a result, the next 13 game winning streak is over. Don't know who else to point to on that except for Donald Trump. Would really be something if the whole, the whole series, the whole vibe of New York, the whole, you know, the whole trajectory of society shifts because Donald Trump decided He was a 12 year old and wanted to do. What is J. Mark calling it? The Make a Wish presidency. The big presidency. You guys remember the movie Big. The Big Presidency where he gets to be a little boy that does fun stuff with all the grownups. So that's what happened last night. I'm enjoying it. I've got some buddies who are listeners who are next fans. I'm sorry that Trump hexed you, but hard not to enjoy it. So anyway, stick around for me and J. Caleb. It gets a little hot in the second half, so hopefully that'll give you something to get your dander up and if not, go check us out on the next level. And we'll be back tomorrow with our regularly scheduled programming. Appreciate you. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Happy to welcome back to the show. A journalist and entrepreneur turned angel investor. He's the co host of the all in podcast. He's the best of the four. Not really a competitive category. He just hosted the Liquidity Summit, a private Investor Summit for LPs, fund managers and elite entrepreneurs. That's fancy. It's Jason Calacanis. What's up, man?

[Jason Calacanis]

How you doing, brother? Big fan of the show. Nice to be here for my second appearance. After five. You get the blazer, I understand.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Is it a third? I think it's third. I don't know.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think you should make it five.

[Tim Miller]

Notice your third appearance, Is it my third?

[Jason Calacanis]

Okay, sure. Well, I'm a big fan.

[Tim Miller]

I went back and checked the archive. Good. Your last appearance was at the six month mark of Trump's term and we did a little check in now like a year and six months. Almost hasn't been quite a year. So we'll do a little update. We'll get to that. But first, just for some people know we're taping this Monday afternoon. And so this is with Tuesday show. So we don't know if the Knicks have won game three tonight. I'm surprised to see you at your home studio because I've seen you not quite courtside. Like row two, row three, semi courtside.

[Jason Calacanis]

I had courtside for the wrap up game in Atlanta. The massacre.

[Tim Miller]

Yep.

[Jason Calacanis]

And I flew there with my brother. I went to Philly with Ben Stiller, my friend fellow, and we were courtside for the Philly game. They tried to block us. I was at two of the MSG games, but like you said, third row. Because even with my incredible micro celebrity, and you understand micro podcast celebrity, you

[Tim Miller]

just, you leverage it a little better than me. Your shamelessness I have to give you. You're out there on X just being like, who has courtside for me? I don't have.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, I mean, I pay for them to be. To be honest.

[Tim Miller]

But even still.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, but I do use the power. I mean, if you. What's the point of having a million followers on Twitter if you can't just use it for customer support?

[Tim Miller]

I agree with that. That's fair.

[Jason Calacanis]

Like if something's not right. And then Cleveland, they blocked us from getting courtside. So I had third row and I went to the spurs, both games. I am going to predict tonight the Knicks are going to win and. And I think they're gonna demolish them by 15 points. 20 points.

[Tim Miller]

Why are you not going? You're scared of Donald Trump. You don't wanna deal with the hassle. You're worried he's hexing your squad.

[Jason Calacanis]

There's some bad juju here with Trump going.

[Tim Miller]

There is some bad juju.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's bad juju. He should not have done this. You should not make the fans show up three hours early. And he got rid of the watch party, which has become this huge tradition. So listen, he's the president. He can do what he wants. But I would have preferred he didn't do it. I was gonna come in for it, but I've decided I'll just come in for game four and if.

[Tim Miller]

Kind of a move. Yeah, I mean, and he's even a fan. Like, do you think he can name anyone for the 1999 team? I mean, I guess you.

[Jason Calacanis]

He used to go to games, but I don't know if he went to the games primarily because he was friends with JD or if he went because it was a celebrity thing to do. But he has not been going since. So I don't put him in the Timothy Chalamet.

[Tim Miller]

No.

[Jason Calacanis]

Spike Lee. He's not part of our group and I put myself into that group just based on fandom, not celebrity.

[Tim Miller]

Well, based on your strong prediction on the Knicks, I'm going to fade you based on some of the predictions you've made that we're going to get into from the Trump.

[Jason Calacanis]

Okay, here we go.

[Tim Miller]

I'm betting on the way.

[Jason Calacanis]

Were you a Pelicans fan?

[Tim Miller]

I'm Nuggets. I'm Nuggets.

[Jason Calacanis]

I'm Nuggets for Nuggets. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And yeah, rough playoffs for us. But I'll bet on the spurs tonight. Modest wager on DraftKings, and we'll see. The listeners will know who's right before we get to Trump. Yeah, you know, because who knows how that'll go. I want to kind of get into your main area of expertise first. We want to talk kind of what's happened in Silicon Valley world AI. I don't know if you'll take this as a compliment or an insult, but I feel like you're a fair arbiter of conventional wisdom on, like, where the Valley investor class is on things like, how things are going.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And so rather than putting on your Jason hat, I just want to start there, like, where is the Valley right now? On the economy broadly, and also the AI stuff in particular.

[Jason Calacanis]

Let's start with AI. AI is like every previous technology wave put together and then times 10 in terms of the impact, the opportunity, and just the capabilities of what's happening. Last time I was on the show, or maybe it was two times ago, we had a clip go viral where I said, listen, Amazon is going to be lights out in their factories. It's all going to be robotics and they have Zoox. So they're going to be delivering packages. And the idea that a human would touch a package between, like you clicking order on Amazon and it's showing up your doorstep will be insane or farcical in but, you know, three, four or five years that went crazy. Shortly after that, Andy Jassy wrote a memo saying, hey, we're going to be going all in on AI. We're going to have a different staffing level. He laid off a bunch of people and then this secret memo got leaked that they weren't going to hire 600,000 jobs. And the PR team is like, how do we deal with the fact that we're not going to be hiring humans anymore? Maybe we should give money to Toys for Tots. I don't know if you saw this.

[Tim Miller]

Not cars for Kids, notably, given some of their baggage there.

[Jason Calacanis]

It could be, yeah. And then if you watched, there was the figure robotic company also doing humanoid robots. Had like a telethon where they had one of their robots sort packages. And so this timeline is increasing. So it is a huge opportunity. And the tokens which equal intelligence are so compelling for people to use that people are spending too much money on them. They're, like, going crazy using them. And you've had to rein in employees for every story you hear that this technology is going to change everything. You'll have people who don't know how to apply it.

[Tim Miller]

But.

[Jason Calacanis]

But we use two terms in the industry, AGI and then superintelligence, to keep it super simple. AGI means the artificial intelligence is as smart as the smartest human being. Superintelligence means it's smarter than all collective human intelligence for all time, and it will solve problems we can't even think about, like, we can't even conceive of. The race is really for super intelligence. AGI is a. Is like a little waypoint along the way. And that waypoint prints money. It prints money. And we have this grand debate on all in all the time we have it publicly about job displacement, job destruction, universal basic income, and people in our industry have delusions of grandeur because we've done big things. Right. So you do have this God complex amongst the anthropic people, or Sam Altman, Elon. The whole group really has done some things that have changed the world dramatically. And then some of them are drama queens.

[Tim Miller]

And both. And some are both.

[Jason Calacanis]

Some are both.

[Tim Miller]

Yes. Some fit both. Okay, so I was listening to one of your debates, maybe from two weeks ago on the show, where you were more concerned about job displacement than some of your co panelists. I was talking a little bit with Derek Thompson last week.

[Jason Calacanis]

Smart, Cap.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah, really smart. What he was basically saying is like, I don't know. He's like, I know that's not what I'm supposed to do because I'm supposed to do an explainer podcast. And he's like, I hear compelling arguments for the fact that AI is going to actually create so many efficiencies and so many potential opportunities that there'll be job growth. And he's like, I see the apocalyptic version as well, where there's huge displacement. Obviously there'll be displacement in certain types of industries no matter what, but the question is, how is it? On balance, I find it interesting that there was a lot of. I feel like conversation about this over the Last year there continues to be but like feeling like it was imminent. And I don't know, I sense a little bit of a vibe shift where like maybe it's. Maybe this stuff isn't happening as imminently as people thought. What do you make of that?

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, so multiple things can be occurring like a storm. Right. You can have multiple components of this weather pattern and some people it's going to flood their neighborhood and other people it's going to. The weather in San Francisco might be more like Los Angeles eventually. Right. In LA might turn into a hellscape and be like far too hot. So the weather system is very complex. And so Derek's right. Hard to predict. So what do we know? What are CEOs of companies and what's their behavior? It's always helpful to just look from first principles, like a game on the field. You had Jack at Square block, just cut the team in half. Now in technology, we always bloated these companies. Why? There were two reasons. One of them strategic, one of them sinister. The strategic reason was let's hire people because we're continuing to grow for a year or two from now. If we hire ahead, then we'll be able to move faster. Okay, that's strategic. Every company's been doing it for 30 years. The sinister one is what Google did early in the days. And I literally had this conversation with the principals there, Sergey and Larry, many times they would hire people based on intelligence pedigree, Stanford, Harvard, mit.

[Tim Miller]

Hoard them.

[Jason Calacanis]

And they would hoard them, they would hoard talent. But it was not just so they could use it, it was so those people didn't create a competitive company to Google.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Jason Calacanis]

So it was a blocker strategy in addition to, hey, we have this natural resource. Pretty sinister. Now with AI, you can get rid of middle management. What is the job of middle management? It's to set up meetings, keep people on track, provide TPS reports, project updates. All that stuff is being done perfectly and better and more consistently by AI. The number of note takers that pop off when you start a meeting on Zoom now, like notion has one, Zoom has one granola. It's like how many versions of this meeting do we have to, you know, have records of? So that whole job slice is going to be gone. Then you take self driving, that's going to be gone. Truck driving, that's going to be gone. Factory workers, that's going to be gone. You know, simple food production, making bowls, slop bowls at whatever bowl place you like to order from, that's going to Be all robotic. The writing is on the wall.

[Tim Miller]

The Starbucks has come back. Starbucks, yes. Kind of a countervailing story to that narrative.

[Jason Calacanis]

Because they got rid of what makes us uniquely human. We might drive more human experiences. So that would be the addition. So, hey, this thing is so profitable, maybe we should add some services or add some people. There's nothing more compelling to a chief operating officer, a VP of Ops, than the ability to replace humans with technology. They love it. They love it. How do I know this? Because for the past 10 years, I have invested in and been pitched on companies explicitly. Explicitly. Tim. Our company gives you the ability to get rid of all cashiers at your quick serve restaurant. Our technology allows you to get rid of the person making french fries at your restaurant over and over again. That's been the pitch in Silicon Valley for decades and it has increased massively. So when technology people say it's not happening, or they say all jobs are going away, they're talking about two different things. One is trying to protect Donald Trump from supporting AI relentlessly. And that job displacement happening, which liberals and America first people are not buying for good reason. And on the other side, it's unrealistic to think that an AI first employee can't get a job. If you're an AI first employee and you know how to deploy these tools, you will get many jobs. So long term, I think we'll be okay. Short term, you could see a lot of blue collar jobs, a lot of middle management jobs get retired, and that's going to cause chaos.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, my last thing on this, the other thing that people worry about is the new jobs, like new out of college. I know that you, you have a big internship program. I was just talking to some interns here about this question. It was funny. I saw this Bill Maher clip. I kind of hate to hand it to Bill Maher because he's had some misses lately, particularly in the war, but he had this funny bit about what's happening at colleges right now, which is that college papers have just become a circle jerk. It's like a computer circle jerk. It's a circle jerk of nonsense where AI is writing the paper and then AI is grading the paper. So it's like two computers talking to each other. No one's actually learning anything. No one's getting real feedback. It's a very dystopian concept. He made the joke. I asked a couple recent college grads about it and they were like, yeah, oh, yeah, that's exactly what's happening.

[Jason Calacanis]

This is why they're booing at commencement speeches. When you evoke AI, this is the first generation that hacked their way through school and felt like they didn't learn anything because they were just using AI tools and they felt their teachers were using the same AI tools to teach their lesson plans. And so they're like, yeah, my whole college experience was AI slop. They got a reason to boo. And if you're running a company right now, the concept of training somebody for two years to be productive or a year to be productive eventually, when you could train an AI to do that, Toby from Shopify, who's a good friend, said, anytime anybody wants to do a hire and they put in a request, they have to prove that they haven't tried to do that job with AI. First very logical approach for a company, but devastating for those first two or three rungs of the ladder. That's why this feels a lot different than minimum wage debates, which we can get into. This feels a lot different than immigration and people working illegally because elite people who racked up 150,250k in debt now can't get the first rung of the ladder. That's gonna cause a whole different level of hand wringing here.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, their parents are gonna be mad. Talk about who you know who votes. The 55 year old parent of a 22 year old who just spent $150,000 on college and their kid can't get a job.

[Jason Calacanis]

Infuriating.

[Tim Miller]

That is a person that fucking votes and donates. And who.

[Jason Calacanis]

They're vocal.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And who's vocal? So anyway, that'll be interesting to see all that play out. Well, I guess one more thing on this, on the politics, speaking of the vocal pushback, the other area is the data centers. Where do you fall down on this? Yeah, on the, on the great data center debate.

[Jason Calacanis]

Just so people understand my politics. My, my contemporaries on the podcast like to paint me as a libtard and it's kind of like a straw man thing.

[Tim Miller]

But you voted for Trump. This last.

[Jason Calacanis]

I never said who I voted for because I'm trying to remain independent. And I don't think we alluded to

[Tim Miller]

the fact that you, you were interested. You were Trump curious. So you're the live on the pod and you were Trump curious.

[Jason Calacanis]

We'll get into. I'm a moderate and have always been an independent moderate. I voted 60% Democrat and 40% Republican in my career. I just vote for the best person. If you were to tell me I could vote for who was the private equity Republican that everybody hated for so long. Romney, Romney. I would like vote for Romney in a heartbeat right now to have like a centrist. I might even vote for Pence to have a right wing conservative. But who's normal? I'm voting for normal. That's what I would like to have. So just so people understand my politics coming into this, I'm an independent and pick people generally that way. But your question is obviously the big

[Tim Miller]

tech people make very passionate arguments about all these data centers are needed. They're needed to fund all that compute that you were talking about earlier. There's high demand for these tokens. They are creating jobs in communities within the communities themselves. There's just been a lot of pushback about environmental concerns, displacement, electrical costs, etc. I just wonder where you think that's headed.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's a great debate filled with a lot of fud fear, uncertainty and doubt by one side. And then it is essential for our industry to get these things up and running and to get them up quick because it turns out when you put a lot of this hardware on a problem, it can in fact solve it. So sometimes the brute force of it does work and the demand is off the charts for access to more tokens and to lower the price of tokens. As you know, everybody talks about Jevons paradox, which basically means if you make something cheaper, people use it more. If you want an example of that, like you expand the 405 freeway by two lanes, all of a sudden traffic moves quicker for like two months and then people move a little further out and it induces more traffic. On the data center side, my politics are very much in favor of state rights and local rights. I like the fact that if people in Maine or New Hampshire have a problem with this, the folks Pennsylvania might seize that opportunity. Or Texas. Texas wants every data center you can build. We have the largest install base of solar and wind outside of China. I mean this place loves energy and they don't care where it comes from. Oil, nat gas, they're in different solar as long as it makes a buck. That's all they care about is this is union economic positive. The thing about water is a fake news story. The thing about energy and it infecting the grid is a real story in some cases. So you have to kind of parse that the water thing is fake because all these systems use closed loop which basically means the water goes in a pipe and it evaporates a little bit but it uses much less than the almonds or golf courses in the country.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah the fucking Almonds. Fake the fucking almonds. If you're out there drinking almond milk,

[Jason Calacanis]

it's a mid nut anyway. I'll go pistachio all day.

[Tim Miller]

Who's eating all these cashews?

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, cashews are incredible. You put a cashew with the date, you're in good shape. But anyway, so the water is a fake issue. I like the fact that people are competing for these. Let the states and the people who don't want it ban it. Let the states that do want it benefit from it. That's one of the great reasons why the United States is so successful is because we have an A B testing process. We can multivariate test something. And what they're doing now is the data center folks are chasing power and they're chasing power that doesn't impact locals. So if you go to the Permian Basin and you get some NAT gas there and some solar and battery, you're not harming anybody. And great, you can build it to the cows, come home and putting them in space is the next thing. The third one you haven't heard about, but that you will, is people are going to start giving free batteries and solar to people's homes. And then in the rack where the batteries are, they're going to put 10 of these Nvidia servers. So imagine I offered you for your home, hey, would you like solar and would you like battery and would you like a free electricity bill? And you'd be like, yeah, what's the catch? And it's like, the catch is we're putting a mini data center on the side of your house. It's the same size as your, you know, existing H vac water cooler. And that's going to be a real thing. And I think that'll be the bridge between now and space. So it's kind of a non issue.

[Tim Miller]

It's an interesting flag that's a little dystopian. To be continued. Estate planning, not that fun to think about and easy to put off. You have to deal with lawyers and think about what would happen in the case of the worst. But it's one of those tasks that's hard to start but gives you a peace of mind when you get it done. Our friends at Trust and Will make it easy. Trust and Will offers affordable attorney designed estate plans that you can create in as little as 30 minutes. And that 30 minutes is pretty key. You know, I'm not a paperwork man. I don't like doing paperwork. I am also a procrastinator. Not really about podcast stuff, but about the rest of life stuff. I just realized as a matter of fact that it only booked me and my husband's ticket for this flight that I'm about to get on in one hour. Realized that yesterday. Did manage to squeeze my child in there. So don't do this. That's not how you should plan your estate planning. When we pull up Trust and will they make it as easy as possible. Simple for even a guy like me. 30 minutes in and out. Check some boxes. They make it as painless as possible. Trust and will affordable estate plans priceless. Peace of mind. Go to trustandwill.com bulwark and get 20% off. That's trustandwill.com bulwark to get your 20% off. Trustandwill.com bulwark I want to do Elon stuff before we get into Trump. You're an Elon buddy or relatively buddy? Just an issue of transparency.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. Very close friends for a very long period of time. Time.

[Tim Miller]

So there's been a lot of critiques here at the Bulwark over the manner in which the SpaceX IPO is going to happen, in part because of the fast tracking of the nasdaq, breaking the traditional rules of how a new IPO gets into the nasdaq. Also, I mean, Kara, your friend Kara Swisher was on lap two a couple weeks ago.

[Jason Calacanis]

She hates me. Karen Swisher is very angry. She's so angry.

[Tim Miller]

But I think on this case, right. Which kind of got the valuation of the company being kind of absurd. There's really one good company which is the satellite business. And then you have two not that profitable companies. One of them actually a shit company kind of tied onto the satellite business. And it's sort of absurd what the valuation is. What's the case for the Elon NASDAQ case?

[Jason Calacanis]

One is never bet against Elon because he manifests things in the world.

[Tim Miller]

You've done pretty well betting against him on the process of cutting government funding through the Doge process because he totally fail. Failed at that. So.

[Jason Calacanis]

And has inspired another round of it that looks like it's going to be quite successful.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I don't think Eli could get credit for all of government cuts everywhere. His. The program that he was.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think he didn't inspire it and put it in front of him. So did it work? Perfectly. But I think he inspired people.

[Tim Miller]

Erskine Bowles were talking about this 30 years ago. So I don't.

[Jason Calacanis]

You know. And did they make any progress? I guess is the question. But now you have people taking it up, realizing it. It's an important issue to Americans. But anyway, let's put that aside. Your question is about SpaceX. There's an incredible business in Starlink. Starlink has over 10 million people subscribing that will wind up being the largest subscription business in the history of humanity. Probably double what you see from Netflix. Why? Because they're going to go directly to your phone eventually. If you've seen the Starlink mini, if you've seen the progress, they're putting it on boats. Most people are putting it on their houses. Who can afford to as a backup to their cable modem? Like if you're a broadcaster from home, you might have Starlink as your backup. I assume you do.

[Tim Miller]

I don't, but I've been considering it, reluctantly.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, think about this. For $1,000 or less, you can have a backup and you make 20, 30, $40,000 per podcast. How could you not have it as a backup? And you can get this router from Unifi that just automatically switches over.

[Tim Miller]

Putting that aside, I'm in hurricane country, so it would be wise, it would be very.

[Jason Calacanis]

For you to get a battery pack and that. I'll send you a link to the router that does the hot swapping.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, thanks. Do you have a promo code, Jason?

[Jason Calacanis]

I don't for it, but I have one for Roko if you want a glp. If I could interest you in a glp. Yes. Here's the good news. That business alone will support the valuation. The second business is.

[Tim Miller]

Will support the $2 trillion valuation. Yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

1.75 for sure. For sure. Yeah. It's not inconceivable. 500 million to a billion people will have one of those. In other words, there'll be one for every 10 people on the planet. Ballpark. That gets you to 700 million subscriptions. If you think that's crazy, just look at Netflix. They provide a service. Verizon gets past 100 million, and it's quite disruptive when it starts going to your phone. I don't know if you've ever had to use the satellite version that's in the iPhone, and you can get text messages. Their version of that's going to be much better. Much, much better. And it's going to be sold to every phone. Every phone on the planet will wind up paying a doll.

[Tim Miller]

Just to give a baseline, I hear you. Starting is a great business, I agree. But just to give a baseline on your honesty, do you think that Tesla is appropriately valued?

[Jason Calacanis]

All of Elon's companies get Valued like venture capital businesses venture capitalists invest in. Like what is the next business that's going to drop five years out, six years out, seven years out. Most public companies get valued on their existing performance. How much did you sell this quarter, et cetera. So if you look at Palantir, if you look at SpaceX and you look at Tesla. Yes, essentially valued like a VC business, which means they're fully valued and you could wait, you don't have to buy these stocks in the public market. You can short them. There are many devices for you to not participate in this. The reason why Tesla's doing particularly well and has kept its value is because of Optimus. And full self driving Optimus will be what that company will be remembered for. Huge opportunity. So what he keeps doing is he keeps building the future and then people value it as a venture business. So you're right. As a public company, the valuation doesn't match. For venture capitalists. It does match. It matches what we do.

[Tim Miller]

What about the NASDAQ fast track part of this? Because this feels ridiculous and those of us who are invested into index funds feel like we're forced to support Elon's grift. We don't like that.

[Jason Calacanis]

You do not need to be in index funds. And if it is unsustainable, a lot

[Tim Miller]

of people are in index funds.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, I mean if, if people really do have a problem with it, you could make a synthetic index fund without them in it. And if people do feel it's that way, Vanguard will take them out.

[Tim Miller]

It's still unfair though. I mean if you and I were starting a business and did an ipo, NASDAQ wouldn't change the rules for us.

[Jason Calacanis]

I'll be totally honest. I don't know exactly how it came about, but I do think it's a distinct possibility that the company will trade at 2.5 trillion and then come back down to 1.2 trillion. Many people I talk to say it's undervalued at a trillion. They say it's overvalued at 2 trillion. So we're in the general neighborhood of where this would be valued properly. If it trades at 1 trillion, it's undervalued. If it trades at 2 trillion, most sharps people who are in this business who I talked to, you mentioned the liquidity conference. Most folks believe 2 trillion would be overvalued. 1.4, 1.5. Probably appropriately valued.

[Tim Miller]

While we're in Elon world, I want to talk about X and the echo chamber that has gotten created there. We have this very prime example of it this week with the Spencer Pratt mayor race, everybody on X. And we went through a period of time where the critique, they all just really quick, this is why I set it up. Just because the original critique of X, I think from Elon, part of it was a free speech element that like people were getting silenced. And then another part of it was that like it was this liberal echo chamber. It was not really the public square. And when he took it over, a lot of people like yourself and others, like were arguing for it because we want a public square that is without influence. And now it kind of feels like we've just, the pendulum has switched the other way and now we have kind of a right, a center, right echo chamber to right echo chamber, depending on the topic. And I think the Spencer Pratt case is like a prime example of this. Like, if you only consume that race through Twitter, you'd have thought he ran the best campaign that's ever been run in the history of politics. He ends up underperforming Trump in Los Angeles and now everybody on there is like thinking it's a conspiracy theory there, that he lost when he just lost.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. So two separate issues on the issue of the breakup of X, where Blue sky is falling threads and the libs all went to those places and then what remains is anonymous based. Right. Maga America first and then business Leaders, I would say is the other piece that's still very tight over there. It's kind of a bummer. It was kind of magical to have everybody sparring in one arena as opposed to multiple arenas. I go over to Blue sky and like, you know, it's kind of the opposite mirror world. Right. It's two bizarro worlds over there. They think like Trump's about to get arrested for, you know, some grand conspiracy and he's dying and he's going to have this like heart attack any day now. Like, it is very weird. And yeah, I kind of miss when everybody was on one platform. You could have a more reasonable discussion.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, before you pages, the thumbs on the scale though, I mean, obviously for you page, you can just look at the data about like, which accounts.

[Jason Calacanis]

He's the only person, he's the only person who has open sourced the algorithm. And so you can go load the algorithm, you can point to the GitHub where it is and you can say, please tell me how to perform better with this. I did it, my team did it and it will explain to you exactly how to do it. So I think what it Is is when you perceive the thumb on the scale and is that if you take out all the libs and Karen Swisher's not there and Prof. G's given up on it and you know, they don't want to participate, well then what does the algorithm have left? It's only got the Spencer Pratt, like, you know, they're got homeless people who were given crack and meth to sign their account.

[Tim Miller]

I mean is is elevated. Elevated. And like the amount of people say any whatever.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, he, he was always the number one or number two user. Him and Obama were the neck and neck for the number one achievement.

[Tim Miller]

I will say this is my one compliment of the new for you page is if you get out of politics space where I think it's pretty obvious that the thumb is on the scale of which kind of stuff's being elevated. I'm trying to think about an example of something recently where I was interested in a niche topic. It was a foreign something that was happening overseas. I forget what it was and I searched for a couple things and I clicked on it and the for you page all of a sudden started giving me quite valuable stuff instantly. Yeah, it is quite good on that.

[Jason Calacanis]

It's almost too powerful, I find. Like, you know, you're like, oh, I'm interested in this Jalen Brunson, you know,

[Tim Miller]

and then all you're getting is Jalen Brunson.

[Jason Calacanis]

And I'm like, okay guys, I do want to know outside of the Knicks, what's going on in the world.

[Tim Miller]

I agree with that.

[Jason Calacanis]

Like I could use 15% non Nick's content or whatever, but it is pretty powerful. But you know, I wish everybody TikTok and Facebook Instagram would release their algos as well. And eventually, you know, I've talked to Elon about this a bunch and I think he's probably going to go in this direction, which is byoa. Bring your own algorithm and an algorithm store. So imagine when you loaded it, it said, hey, you're currently using the default algo. Would you like an ALGO that is 50% the most important news in the world as determined by this intellectual AI that was written by this person. And then 50% your stuff and a slider that you can pick those kind of options I think will eventually be available on X.

[Tim Miller]

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[Jason Calacanis]

I lost that argument.

[Tim Miller]

June 2026 Jason posted the following Stop being retarded. Start retard maxing. Being you are ruminating and overthinking. Retard max means you're making decisions based on your gut instinct. Stop being retarded. Start retard maxing. So in six years you went from saying take the art pledge, don't say this to doing a post that has the word in it, like, nine times. Do you feel like you've been manipulated by the algorithm?

[Jason Calacanis]

Them? No, I. You know, when I grew up in Brooklyn, that's all we called each other.

[Tim Miller]

Sure.

[Jason Calacanis]

Then for a period of time, it was like it was hurting people's feelings. And I felt like maybe this is probably not a good idea to do this, because I have a friend who's got a mentally challenged brother, and I felt bad about doing it. And now I just didn't call the

[Tim Miller]

brother the R word.

[Jason Calacanis]

No, obviously not. Now. I think it's. Now people have put the word into the proper context, that we're not talking about people who have down syndrome. We're just talking about the actual inherent nature of the word. And then on top of that, there's a new trend, which is retard maxing, which means just going with your instinct. And if you haven't seen the guy who does these, he sits on his back deck and smokes a cigar and just talks about using your instinct to enjoy life and not ruminate, which I kind of believe rumination is the path to unhappiness in life. Like, too much rumination, not good. So I'm a big fan of the retard maxing.

[Tim Miller]

Well, balance in all things. I think zero rumination is maybe the path.

[Jason Calacanis]

Introspection, okay. Sociopath introspection, okay. On the margins. But rumination is when you just take introspection to a level of, like, ocd, as I think. But, yeah, sure, I've changed my position on it three times in my life.

[Tim Miller]

Just culturally, though, like, I don't know. I don't actually care that much about the specific of this word. I think that people should use words. Speaking of using the ARD word, I think that voting for Donald Trump to be the President of the United States because you wanted to say retarded has to be the most retarded thing that a person could possibly do.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yes, that is completely retarded.

[Tim Miller]

The United States has all of these very important goals, and whether or not you can say a word without being criticized is really not that important.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think it was more symbolism of. Of the overreach of cancel culture would be how they would say it is like word policing. And I think it's just a overall debate about the Overton window. Like, are we allowed to talk about certain topics or not?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I look at the 2020, Jason, and I don't know, you're showing empathy. Like, other someone in your life has feeling pain, and you don't want them to Feel pain.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

And, like, don't you think that's a good instinct? Isn't it bad that now we've gone to a place where people are like, oh, it's cucked. If you care about somebody else's pain, it's to just make fun of people and be a dick as much as possible. Right.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. I can hold these conflicting thoughts in my mind, which is one, I'm not responsible for the Overton window opening and closing. And if people want to say that's gay to me, that's dumb, or they want to say that's retarded, that's out of my control. Tim, I don't.

[Tim Miller]

What's in your control? I don't know what you say is in your control, though.

[Jason Calacanis]

It is in my control. And I think if the, the public vernacular is, we can separate the intent of the word retarded and say that means you're not thinking in a crisp way and people say it in a jovial way, I think we can separate that from the use of it. Like, I would like to make fun of this person with down syndrome and make them feel as bad as possible.

[Tim Miller]

Speaking of the R word, let's get to Donald Trump's management of the economy and the country lately. When you are on. When you're on with your six month assessment. When we were on last.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

What prompted our last visit? Just kind of set the parameters of the conversation, was there was a video that had been posted on Dax that was of your colleague on the all in podcast, David Friedberg, talking positively about the Trump administration to date, and you kind of jibing him a little bit, giving him a little trouble. And then you posted the link to that video by saying, you know, we're six months in and your assessment is that it's been pretty solid. He still has work to do. I want to listen to the original video just so we can have a baseline.

[Jason Calacanis]

Let's listen. Tim's got receipts. But what better team has ever been put together? It is a cabinet of CEOs. It is a cabinet of managers and people who know how to get done. And every time I go there, I'm impressed by this cabinet. I pull my hair out when I meet my cabinet. So will you admit that you're pro Trump?

[Tim Miller]

I support my president. I support the president.

[Jason Calacanis]

Okay. So you voted for him. You voted for him and you love Trump.

[Tim Miller]

I love what he's doing. Okay. Your colleague loves.

[Jason Calacanis]

He's in the administration now. He's in that science group that Sachs is running. I've got the name of the PCAs.

[Tim Miller]

So Friedberg said, I love what Trump's doing. You said at the time he was pretty solid. You both agreed that the cabinet was strong. Sure. How do you feel a year later?

[Jason Calacanis]

There are a series of things that are complete unmitigated disasters. And there is consensus, I think from all Americans when you look at his historically low popularity, that none of us wanted to get into an endless war in the Middle east. That was like top of the reasons to vote for Trump. And now that has made.

[Tim Miller]

If you wanted to be duped by that, yeah, sure.

[Jason Calacanis]

I have to say he made a pretty convincing argument because he didn't start any wars in his first term. Because you had people who were hawks on both sides who very much wanted to engage in maybe being a little more active in Ukraine and a lot more active in the Middle east on both sides. Right. Whether it was Nikki Haley or it was Hillary Clinton, they wanted to go hardcore into Iran. So he actually made a very convincing argument. Now why did he switch his position completely? I think Marco Rubio said it the first time and the first time was the correct take. They got dragged into it by Israel cuz they said they're gonna go anyway and he decided to do it. Huge mistake. Terrible, terrible decision. I think the ICE stuff was incomprehensibly cruel and poorly executed. And you heard me give J.D. vance, when he was a candidate, a hard time about that. At one of our events, I said to him, hey, you can't drag 20 million hardworking Americans who just happen to not be legal yet out of this country. People are gonn their phones up and record you dragging their nanny, their handyman, this dishwasher. Americans are not going to go for that. And I was exactly right about that one. He plummeted in his approval rating because of those two things. The tariff stuff was poorly executed. But the right idea, we should rebalance trade like that, he just did it in his normal YOLO nature. So if I were to put together the biggest disasters since we've last spoken, Iran is just an unmitigated disaster and it's going to kill his presidency. I think there's consensus about that. Right. I'm not like in politics all day long. But there is strong consensus that that was the biggest mistake he could possibly have made. He cannot get out of it reasonably. And he lost Tucker, Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon, everybody in his group because of it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess I do wonder what. And this is something we spent a lot of time on last time is like, what I never understood about why CEOs got behind him in the first place and why smart people would get behind him is that it's just the risk. He was erratic. His whole career has been erratic. He bankrupted casinos. He bankrupted an airline. He's posting late into the night. I think what we did last time we were on is I was like, if you were doing a VC vet of a CEO, you would never invest in a company that had this person as a CEO because he's just a total erratic shit show.

[Jason Calacanis]

But it's a binary choice. And if the choice was Kamala, after what Biden did to the economy and after what Biden did to M and A, if you talk to any CEO, they need to have low taxes and high M and A. And they are pragmatists. They represent their shareholders, their employees, et cetera. And they looked at the. The option of Kamala.

[Tim Miller]

But they do risk analysis, though, as well, Right? They're aware of risk analysis, I believe.

[Jason Calacanis]

Okay, but one of the sounds like they did it perfectly.

[Tim Miller]

People would say, I was ridiculous. They came on and I was like, I don't know, Trump could get us into a nuclear war. And, like, here we are. Like, I don't know, we're not on the cusp of a nuclear war, but, like, we're on the cusp of a total unpredictable disaster that, like, is way worse than what I mean, Kamala would never have done anything this stupid. It would have been just Kamala started the war for sure with Iran. You think Kamala would have gone to war with Iran?

[Jason Calacanis]

Absolutely. 100%.

[Tim Miller]

Why 100%?

[Jason Calacanis]

Nikki Haley, Kamala, all of them.

[Tim Miller]

Well, they're not the same. Kamala is a Democrat. Nikki Haley's a neocon hawk Republican.

[Jason Calacanis]

They both are very pro.

[Tim Miller]

You think the Harris Wall administration was going to do a war of choice in Iran?

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, Joe Biden didn't go to war in Iran. Barack Obama didn't go to war in Iran. Bill Clinton didn't. Why would Kamala Harris have.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think because the timing was there and Israel was going to do it anyway, which is what they said, the reason they did it. Oh, I think if Israel was going to do it, they would have followed them. That's just my gut and I have conversations.

[Tim Miller]

Phil Gordon on this pod. I asked him that exact thing. And then they all said, I just don't know why you wouldn't take them at their word. I don't. I'm joking.

[Jason Calacanis]

Okay, so back to your question about CEOs, though. And why would they pick this person if their main goal was to do commerce? Do they have access to this administration? Yes. Do they have lower taxes? Yes. Are their stocks at record highs? Yes. So in their minds, as hard as it is for you to believe, this has worked out perfectly on those three things. M and A is back on the menu after years. IPOs are going to be happening. Lower tax, lower regulation, and the stock market's at an all time high and employment is at an all time low for us lifetime. So they're looking at that business game on the field. And they're not thinking about ice. They're not thinking about the conflict in Iran.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, sure. Well, what about the tariffs, though? And you say their taxes are down, but most of those companies, not all of them. Some of them inconsequential, some of them Donald Trump stole from. He stole from them. How is that more inconsequential than their personal corporate taxes? They already are changing the tax code anyway.

[Jason Calacanis]

Capital gains, everything.

[Tim Miller]

The corporate tax rate went down a couple points.

[Jason Calacanis]

You asked me why they would make this decision. They make an economic, rational decision. And this is what the Democrats need to learn for the next cycle, is to embrace business leaders and to bring them into the.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, let me give a counter take, though.

[Jason Calacanis]

This is how they think and they've won big.

[Tim Miller]

I understand, I understand. But this is where I think the Democrats are in a real conundrum because I want to give you a counterfactual. Kamala Harris, you did win. Okay. She gets in there and she puts a legal tax on the Silicon Valley companies. Unilateral. It doesn't go through. Congress puts a tax on them. It's not legal, but she just does it. She says it's an emergency. I've decided I have the right to do whatever windfall profits tax on all of these companies. I'm going to do that. And then she garnishes money from the CEOs, she makes them come to her and beg her for absolution to get around it. Sometimes she grants it, sometimes she doesn't. Kind of based on whim, kind of based on whether Doug is friends with the person, kind of based on whether they've given money to her. And then the Supreme Court comes back and says, no, actually, you've got to give the money back to the companies. And she says, no, actually don't want to. I'm not going to do that. In fact, I'm going to threaten them and maybe I might actually take a percentage. Donald Trump Just suggests I might take a percentage of the company for the government. I think if Kamala Harris had said that, you and all your Silicon Valley buddies and the Wall Street Journal would be losing their minds and it would Communism.

[Jason Calacanis]

So you're making this analogy to tariffs.

[Tim Miller]

Obviously this is what Trump is doing with tariffs and with taking a percentage of intel. He's suggesting he's going to take a percentage of AI companies. He tariffed them illegally. He made them come in and beg for their lunch. That's left wing autocratic politics is what he's doing.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. I can educate you as to why they don't have a problem with it and why you do. You are looking at it from a moral perspective and from a logic perspective of like, well, if you were okay with one side doing it and not okay with the other side doing this doesn't make intellectual sense to you. It doesn't totally understand where Tim Miller is coming from. This intellectually does not make sense. Let me tell you on a business level what this means. The tariffs were when they're under 15% when they actually hit are easily absorbed in one side or the other. The folks who are selling items or the folks who are providing those, they each make a bit of a concession and maybe you raise the cost of something a little bit, but it's not as dramatic as the left feels it is. It was chaotic, but when it actually hit the ground, it made no difference to these businesses. So a lot of hand wringing for not a lot of impact. And you find it offensive. Reasonably so that people have to go bend the knee and bring a gold bar and wait in line. And south park did a whole send up of it that you have to bend the knee and make your donation. That's what business people like. They like transactions. You may not like it, you may think it's wrong. Business people love like to have a coin operated situation, I guess, but like the Democrats.

[Tim Miller]

Also this wife. But this whole Biden thing is crazy. He didn't even raise taxes on them. Trump has raised taxes. You can tell me that. Fine. The tariff thing is inconsequential, et cetera. Inconsequential. Okay, fine. But the last federal corporate tax hike was in 93. All they've gotten is cuts from Obama, from Biden. They haven't faced a corporate tax hike in 30 years. More. Why are they so upset about the Biden situation?

[Jason Calacanis]

Because Biden didn't return their calls.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, so the tariff isn't a big deal. The phone call us, that's fine.

[Jason Calacanis]

Actually it is. You're brushing that off. And this is where you have a blind spot, Tim, respectfully. You have a blind spot if you can get in the room with the person, if you can get in the room with the administration and then you can shape policy and you can say, hey, here's what we're trying to accomplish. And hey, can you help us with this? And this regulation doesn't make sense. That actually is a preferable situation to not getting your phone call returned. And if what you have to pay for it. I'm not saying. This is my belief. You have me on here to explain Silicon Valley and the business side. I'm explaining it to you.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, no, I hear you.

[Jason Calacanis]

They much prefer bending the knee. Having to show up for the Melania documentary. Tim Cook's like, I gotta show up for a documentary. That sucks. I gotta bring a gold bar. I'll do whatever it takes to keep selling iPhones. I gotta keep the supply chain open.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, okay. But he just retired. I don't know. We'll see how that goes. If President Ossoff gets in there and he decides that he wants to. He decides that he's going to put an actual tax hike on these guys, but he's going to return their calls. We'll see what they say about that. I don't think that they'll be that happy. I think that there's an imbalance.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you. Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times of points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Chobani, Vitamin Water, Jelly Belly, Nutella, Haagen, Dazs, Nestle and Outshine. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings. When you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.

[Tim Miller]

I want to play Howard Lutnick with your colleague. Okay. That's another thing that's like. You guys just keep being wrong about how good Trump is for the economy. Not you personally, but I suppose mean the people that make the case that Trump was gonna be better for this.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, which part of the economy is the question?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, Chamath interviewed for your show, Howard Lutnick. This was January of this year.

[Jason Calacanis]

I wasn't on this one.

[Tim Miller]

You weren't on it. You weren't. But it's an interesting time capsule from January this year. Let's Listen, you're gonna see five. Fives in the greatest economy in the world, you're going to see fives. And people think, you can't, you can't.

[Jason Calacanis]

5% GDP on a base this big is just. It's enormous.

[Tim Miller]

We have a $30 trillion. So 5% is 1.5 trillion in growth. And if we cut rates, you'll see 6.

[Jason Calacanis]

6.

[Tim Miller]

And people do not.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Would never.

[Tim Miller]

Before Donald Trump walked into that office. They don't think that's possible. Yeah, we wouldn't think that's possible because that was insane. We're looking at maybe 2% economic growth, GDP growth this year.

[Jason Calacanis]

They were close to those numbers, by the way. If they hadn't done the Iran one war, they would have hit 4% and they would have had potentially some cuts. But if you start a war and you do a supply chain shock with energy, you essentially take the Trump 2.0 agenda and you torch it.

[Tim Miller]

Correct.

[Jason Calacanis]

Which is what's happened.

[Tim Miller]

Why haven't more people come around on that? And again, I would think that Chamath, for example, I know you don't like to speak for your country in theory. If you had a VC and you, you brought a CEO in and they're like, hey, man, you invest in me right now, you get behind me, we're gonna have 6% growth this year. And then six months later, they like stuck their dick in the fax machine and like, screwed everything up, and now they're at 2% growth with maybe negative, with maybe going down from there.

[Jason Calacanis]

Quite a visual.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. You'd be like, okay, well, see, turns out we need a new. We need some new leadership. I'm calling the board here. I have some concerns. Yeah, so why isn't that happening? Why aren't people like, we're calling the board here.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh, very simple, very simple.

[Tim Miller]

Simple.

[Jason Calacanis]

Trump demands complete fidelity. I'm not speaking about Chamathia or anybody specific, but we all know in order to be in the Trump circle, you have to have complete, utter fidelity to him. He's a genius.

[Tim Miller]

So it's North Korea. We're in North Korea.

[Jason Calacanis]

Basically, I think he's.

[Tim Miller]

Which it doesn't feel like, again, like a capitalist system. It doesn't feel like a capitalist system.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, well, it's.

[Tim Miller]

I can't critique the president.

[Jason Calacanis]

Capitalist slash. You know, if you told a bunch of business leaders this could become oligarchic, they would be like, sign me up. Hell yeah, sounds great. Oligarchy sounds pretty great to account.

[Tim Miller]

And this is why we're fucked for

[Jason Calacanis]

a short Period of time.

[Tim Miller]

Can we agree for a second? That's why we're fucked. This is why we're not going to get. You said he wanted normal. I'm sure you and I would disagree on the margins and what the marginal tax rate should be for the top tax bracket or whatever. But, like, maybe not. We're not, maybe we wouldn't. I don't know. But we're not going to get normal because these guys have decided that they want to. That they want to go on with oligarchy. They decided that it's cool for Elon to become a trillionaire. They decided that they can't abide any even tiny tax hike on capital gains rates or corporate. So what they're going to get is pitchforks and socialism. That's what they're going to get.

[Jason Calacanis]

Now, I do think they're driving the socialist movement and I've talked very broadly about how to reverse that. I think we need to have a very open discussion about minimum wage at a fair, free market, market version of minimum wage for a long time. But then I started studying what happened in New Zealand, Australia and Norway, Denmark, you know, these are obviously slightly different than the United States. But if we want to correct the socialist movement, which is gaining steam, and someone like Bernie Sanders saying, hey, listen, they stole all the content from us and the knowledge and then we should get half the company.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, they did.

[Jason Calacanis]

They did. Yes, of course. And some of it is legal, some of it's not legal. If you buy the book, you're actually allowed to train on it according to the courts. But if you steal the book, you're not putting all that aside. It is a great sales pitch from Bernie. When I saw that, I was like, oh, man, this is going to play. This will play in 2026 and into 2028. What I think we need to do as a society is look at that. K shaped recovery. And it's like, you know, one group's going down, one group's going up. Invest America, the Trump accounts is a great step in the right direction. Adding a dollar to the minimum wage for each of the next seven years and getting it to $15, it might seem performative, but it would actually be performative in a good way. It would say, hey, everybody on the Top's doing really well with equities. Let's get these people to move up and let's look at that then. I think universal healthcare is another easy way to kind of bridge this gap between capitalism and socialism. And we do have to have some kind of grand bargain that occurs because I do think the country's on the verge of just splitting into states that are going to be like Nevada, Texas and Florida and states that are going to be like New York and California maybe.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I don't know. I think that. And so I like having this discussion and I wish some of them would come on and we could talk about it. But this is what I think that the CEO class in the elite VC class in Silicon Valley needs to realize that if they don't change the way they talk about this stuff and change the way that these things are regulated, that the pitchforks are coming for them hard. I mean, this is a noticeable pivot. Not really. And there's been this pivot that continues in Trump 2.0 about like, oh, giving money away is for suckers. The whole Bill Gates vision, He's got his own issues. Vision of the world is different. We want no regulation. We want to stop doing charity. All that stuff is happening.

[Jason Calacanis]

People are aware of this issue. When Sam Waltman's house got firebombed and then shot out by two different people in a 10 day period, trust me, that was talked about a lot by the same CEOs and elite venture capitalists you're talking about. Then there's the folks at Anthropic who are saying, like, all jobs are going to go away. We need to contain this. So the industry has done a terrible job of communicating why AI is good for society and the good that could come out of it. And we have not done productive links like, say, the Giving Pledge. The Giving Pledge, again, super performative when it came out, but saying, hey, the majority of my wealth is going to be given away upon my virtue.

[Tim Miller]

Signaling is good, though.

[Jason Calacanis]

It made people feel like, hey, maybe we're all in this together. And what Michael Dell did when he gave $7 billion or whatever it was his Invest America accounts. That needs to happen 10 more times.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. But maybe next time without getting a $9 billion deal from the Department of War two weeks later. And this is the thing, these guys, I hear what you're saying, that they like it, they're happy with oligarchy, they're happy to deal with Trump. But some on the left listening to this will probably be like, look, capitalism has always been fake. There's always been crony capitalism. Like, Tim, you are sold a bill of goods. Maybe. But like, when there was a period of time where people did the performative part of it, whether it was the giving Pledge, whether it was like actually committing to a real Free market where there's competition that created an environment, you know, where the capitalist system could thrive and they have now gone all in with somebody, no pun intended. That is an assault on it. He's like, I'm just going to do deals with rich people that buy me a off. And I'm telling you the reaction to that is not going to be, hey, let's go back to more friendly relations with the corporate leaders from the Democratic class. The reaction is we're going to do the same thing. We're going to use our power to bully these guys the way he did and you're not going to like it. That's what's going to happen.

[Jason Calacanis]

That is concerning the lawfare that keeps getting escalated. What we really need to start thinking about is, you know, the Democrats winning the midterms and I guess if they win the House, they get subpoena power back. If they win the Senate, then they can do hearings and a little bit

[Tim Miller]

more and stop appointments.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah. So some of these appointments were ludicrous. You know, Pam Bondi, Kristi Neom, Pete Hagseth Noem.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

I mean some of these are quite embarrassing. And you know, he's given them promotions, I guess can never make a mistake. But he promoted them, gave them a

[Tim Miller]

better window seat leadership.

[Jason Calacanis]

There needs to be checks and balances. That's the other thing that's kind of broken here both on the Republican side and I guess they did break the Republicans brains with this slush fund for the 1.7 billion. So maybe that's a sign that the Trump era is ending and Republicans are going to take the party back. Either way, this thing's over in two years. Right. So we're going to have to start thinking about a post Trump world and hopefully having more.

[Tim Miller]

Your skiing buddy Tucker might run.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, I think he's probably more interested in getting ratings for the show. I think he likes doing his show. If you look at all of those performative folks, I think it's just about ratings. Whether it's him or Karen Swisher or

[Tim Miller]

you're really going after Megan Kelly.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think they just want ratings, you know.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway for you. Save days are here now through June 23rd. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times the points. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Monster Energy, Kett Chips, Craft Best Foods and Kellogg's. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long saving. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy Savings on top of savings. When you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.

[Tim Miller]

I have two more things for you. I'll let you go three more things. We'll go rapid fire. Three more things, rapid fire.

[Jason Calacanis]

Here we go.

[Tim Miller]

No, run. You have to look at that and be like, that's not as bad as you thought. No, I mean, Zoron's been pretty good.

[Jason Calacanis]

In what way?

[Tim Miller]

Certainly look, we're six months in. You did a six month Trump assessment. I look at Zoran and I think he kept the police chief. Crime rates are down in New York. People are worried that he would go in and it would be. We'd be on the side of the criminals and they would give out hugs instead of having cops in the subway. And none of that happened. He's gotten rid of some of the red tape around building they're planning to build, the budget they got balanced. They had to cut a deal with Hochul to deal with that. He did the kind of performative, populist left thing. Going after your boy at Citadel for having a pied a terre in New York.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, that was not good.

[Tim Miller]

That's kind of fine. Populism. That's fine.

[Jason Calacanis]

No, I'll tell you why. This is where you have another. This is another block.

[Tim Miller]

If you don't live in New York, you have a pied a terre.

[Jason Calacanis]

You should totally fine with the pied a terre tax. If you want to do that, it's fine. Like I said, local communities can do what local communities want to do. If they want flock because they want to have a secure community or they don't want flock and they want to ban it, that's like a local community's decision. Let them do it. What is, and you should be appalled by and you should speak out about is when he picks a specific person and puts a target on their back. We just talk about Sam Altman having a firebomb and them shooting at his house with his kids in the house. Then you do this to the Citadel founder. That's the kind of stuff that gets people killed. And it's not cool to do that. For a politician to say, hey, this person is the reason why the city sucks. Sucks. This person owns a penthouse. You don't. That's going to get him shot because there's a lot of crazy people out there. Mandami should have apologized for that. He should have said, this is a great New Yorker. I think he did say. He's like, we want him here. Or whatever. But that was completely descratiad. And it's disgraciad if you don't call it out. I mean, I call it anytime you single one of these people.

[Tim Miller]

I call it violence. But I don't know, man. I think that it's okay. You don't see the problem with saying Ken Griffin.

[Jason Calacanis]

I wouldn't have a problem pointing to his house.

[Tim Miller]

I don't think I would have done it in front of his house.

[Jason Calacanis]

Of course you wouldn't have. You're a decent human.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

And I don't think Mondami would.

[Tim Miller]

You know, I think that it's fair to do some populist, eat the rich stuff. I mean, people are mad for good reason. Right?

[Jason Calacanis]

Be careful.

[Tim Miller]

Ken Griffin can afford it.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, but you don't want to.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jason Calacanis]

So again, two different topics. Are we targeting individuals and sending.

[Tim Miller]

I don't want to do that, obviously. No, that's insane.

[Jason Calacanis]

Obviously. And then that's the problem with singling anybody out. You start singling people out and you're saying this is the reason why you're suffering. Suffering. Don't be surprised when the United Healthcare CEO gets shot.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, the president, we could just do this.

[Jason Calacanis]

Oh no, the President doesn't. You will not get me here defending

[Tim Miller]

no rich people get mad at him. So again, that's just what I'm like the crocodile tears about Zoran going after Ken Griffin. It's tough, cuz you know, Donald Trump does it all the time and they don't do that. Cause, oh, they're scared. You can't be mean to Trump because

[Jason Calacanis]

nobody should do it.

[Tim Miller]

Fake capitalism. Okay, I'm doing this. I swear not to pick on you, but because it illustrates a point. But people are making fun of you. Someone on social media because of an email you sent to Jeffrey Epstein and then the Epstein files and said, hey, Pat. Hey, pal. Running out to a kid's birthday party will dig up their info. He's trying to connect you. And to me, I thought this was an instructive exchange because you're not involved in any of the Epstein stuff. All that was happening was he was a networker. He was a power networker. You're a power networker. But I think that one of the reveals from the Epstein files is that people in elite circles are too lax about going along with and taking favor from people that do bad things or vetting people or vetting or things that are suspect. Right. It's one of these things where it's like, look, if I heard that one of the Other parents on my kid's basketball team was a pedo. I think I'd keep my distance and have my kid keep my distance as much as possible. If you hear that about somebody, what's the question? No, I'm getting to it. If you hear that about somebody that can help you get a job or can help you get access to capital, then all of a sudden it's like, well, whatever, who cares? We'll do a little deal with him. And in retrospect, don't you feel like. Like that? Maybe a lesson from the Epstein thing is that people should use more judgment in this sort of circle.

[Jason Calacanis]

Well, I mean, in hindsight, of course. Here, I'll give you the complete background to it. My book agent, John Brockman, ran something called edge.org, where all scientists got together. And I would go to the TED conference. He was there, he was giving donations to everybody. And I wasn't following it. I wasn't following his career or anything like that. My book agent said, you know, Epstein, and I wasn't following his case, to be totally honest. That first case in Pontification Beach, I guess, had happened. And he said, hey, Epstein, who you've met at, like, TED twice, and he was going to invest in your magazine. I had one meeting with him about that back in the day. He said, hey, he wants to meet those guys who are on your podcast. They're doing that bitcoin thing. And I was like, yeah, sure. And I say, hey, pal, to everybody. That's like a New Yorker thing. Hey, pal, sure. Thanks, pal. I mean, I'll say it to the valet. It's not like you can read into that anything. Of course, the Epstein file people do. And he was like, would you mind introducing Epstein because he wants to invest in these founders. My business is connecting, as you said, capital to founders. I wasn't really even tracking what he was doing. And in fact, I went back and I did some research on it. The way it was framed to New Yorkers when he came back from that Palm beach sentence he had was that he was framed. He got a massage, the girl had a fake id, and the Palm beach person let him work from home, and he had to report to jail at night. And it was just like, trumped up fake charges. But like I said, I wasn't even following it. So, sure, you got me.

[Tim Miller]

No, no, this is not a gotcha. This is a serious question. And we'll just end with this and you can give a Nick's prediction. We can end with that, but it's Kind of related to the retard maxing thing, which is like, I feel like that as a culture that maybe we should be valuing, particularly people in elite circles, valuing judgment, valuing character. And instead, I do feel like we're creating a culture where people are like, it's actually cool to signal that you're a little bit of a dick. And if somebody that you do business with is slimy, it's like, who cares as long as you get yours.

[Jason Calacanis]

No, that's not my belief, but maybe it's some people's belief. I walk away from many deals based on character. I just want to feel like that following that one.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, but you don't feel like that is something that is pervasive now. Particularly if you look at Elon's feed from day to day, people mock the notion that we should be caring more about character and virtue. And I don't know, does not the Epstein thing reveal that maybe we should all be a little more judicious about all of this rather than. Than the opposite?

[Jason Calacanis]

I mean, trust me, I've thought about it since this happened and like, oh, my God, is there anybody else in my circle who has this going on? Or like, even when I take selfies now, like, you know, you get stopped now for selfies. You on your tour probably took a thousand selfies. One of them's a serial killer. Tim, do you endorse serial killing? No. And so.

[Tim Miller]

But the Epstein story was a lot of people that were like, going to. This isn't you. But it was a lot of people going to fancy going to these dinners. And it's like, hey, do you want to come to this dinner? Woody Allen's going to be there, and so. And so is going to. And Howard Lutnick's going to be there. Do you want to come? And. And there's this instinct that people have, like, hell, yeah, I want to go. I want to network. And. And shouldn't we be trying to model an instinct that's more like, you know, maybe I should value character more. Maybe I should value virtue more. Maybe I should be doing business.

[Jason Calacanis]

I mean, I. I've always. Character. I've always valued these things. So you're preaching to the choir on this one. Do you think Elon have walked away

[Tim Miller]

from many of Elon Musk social media now? Social media.

[Jason Calacanis]

I mean, every time I'm here, you do this. What does Elon think? What does ch think? I don't know what these guys think.

[Tim Miller]

Look at his social media. Elon is like, it is a Walking vice signal. He's basically, he basically makes fun of anybody that tries to, to offer that, to care about.

[Jason Calacanis]

Have him on the program and you can go through his 40 tweets a day.

[Tim Miller]

You don't, you don't.

[Jason Calacanis]

I'm not following his 40 tweets every day. I don't know which one you're referring to. All I know is you don't think

[Tim Miller]

that this is a problem.

[Jason Calacanis]

Credible business person. But I don't have every mistake he's made.

[Tim Miller]

But you don't think this is a cultural problem then in our culture?

[Jason Calacanis]

I think if we do have a cultural problem right now is that we don't have people working together collaboratively in our government anymore and that that needs to come back and more moderation and working together. I hope that when Trump is out of office and in this midterm, we can return some balance to the various branches of government and get out of this partisanship. That's what I hope.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well, I agree with that. Nixon four or five, six.

[Jason Calacanis]

I'm really concerned about this President Trump juju. You know, I'm like a pretty superstitious guy when it comes to the Knicks because I've suffered for, since the 90s over this team. I'm a little worried about him showing up and then the chaos that's going to ensue. I don't know why he's doing this, but I still think my original prediction was Nixon 6. And having been at the first two games, I'm now at Nixon 5. I do think it'll be a gentleman

[Tim Miller]

sweep in San Antonio.

[Jason Calacanis]

That would be convenient for me.

[Tim Miller]

How do you, how do you recover if you're Wemby? I mean, that game too, that was about the worst thing I've seen since Chris Weber called the time out in college.

[Jason Calacanis]

Yeah, Throws the ball on his back. But, you know, the Knicks built up a 12 point lead. They have an incredible young squad. Their guards have been incredible on Jalen Brunson. They're beating the hell out of them and they're letting them play. So you can't argue about calls here, but the Knicks are a team of destiny and it shows what happens when you just have a very deep team that's healthy. Going into the playoffs last couple of years, we weren't healthy. Tibbs didn't develop the bench at all. And now you just look at like Bridges and Deuce and Hart and Jose. Like we have this long, great tale of incredible players and everybody's healthy. It really is like getting to the finals and Winning is about how healthy your squad is at this elite level. But, yeah, Wemby is not ready for it. He will be, but he's not ready for it now. And, man, the fact that Carl Anthony Towns owns him, and then, you know, Mitch Robinson has been doing a tremendous job on him. I kind of feel like he's on par with Mitchell and I think Cats dominating him. So total advantage gone. The guards have been playing great. What do you think? What's your prediction? 6.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, the Knicks have been. Even when the Knicks were losing in the first quarter of the game, on game two, I was texting my friends, and I was like, they just seem better. Like, they're getting better shots. They just weren't. You know, it just took a little bit for them to get in. So it's kind of hard for me to see the Knicks losing the series, but there's a part of me with my Trump derangement syndrome that does want to see four straight spurs wins, like, just to have the juju get totally stopped in the tracks.

[Jason Calacanis]

How dare you.

[Tim Miller]

And I do love Dylan Harper. I bought my daughter Dylan Harper Jersey during game one because that guy is such an. It's unbelievable. He's 20 years old.

[Jason Calacanis]

20 years old and the second best player on the team. Incredible.

[Tim Miller]

He's so fun to watch. So, anyway, that's. That's where we're at. I forgot to ask you about crypto stuff, so we'll have to do it again another time.

[Jason Calacanis]

I'll come on again.

[Tim Miller]

That's SJ2. And tell your colleague, you know, tell Chamath and Freebird, you keep taking it for the team. Okay? Like, get out of there.

[Jason Calacanis]

I like talking to you.

[Tim Miller]

I know, but tell them to get out of their cozy little bubble. You know, I don't buy it.

[Jason Calacanis]

Here's the thing. You have to understand, like I said earlier, like, if you're. It's a tribal sport now. You cannot break once you join the team, whether it's Trump or the other side. If you have Trump derangement syndrome, you can't break from the. If you have Trump dedication syndrome, you cannot break from the team. I've never joined either team. I had the opportunity to be on both teams. I politely declined. I like to be independent.

[Tim Miller]

You have. What do we have, two years and seven months left to just fully come on board? The door is always open.

[Jason Calacanis]

Which group?

[Tim Miller]

Mine. There's no hope to go onto the Trump dedication team. It's only gonna get worse from here. So if one morning you wake up and you're like, you know, know what this is this little Tinkerbell inside me the whole time that knew, that wanted to be with Tim, that knew Trump was terrible, but I just, I couldn't quite get all the way there.

[Jason Calacanis]

I like Rahm Emanuel.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, there you go. You like Rahm Emanuel.

[Jason Calacanis]

I've been texting with Rahm Emanuel. I like Josh Shapiro.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I think that Rahm Emanuel's message would go over a lot better if it was, if it was coming out of the body of someone besides Rahm Emanuel. It was a good. I don't have anything against personally, but I just, I think that the Democrats are gonna be desperate for somebody outside of their there's not been part of the kind of Clinton Biden Harris era. I just think they're ready to move forward.

[Jason Calacanis]

You think they're gonna just go full AOC Mondano?

[Tim Miller]

I don't know. It could be AOC or could be somebody else from the center. I just think that, like, it's more like they don't want the baggage. I don't think. I think Democratic voters want to move forward and wash away this 12 years, this 12 year horror show that they've gone through. And I just find it very hard, hard to imagine that the voters are like, you know what? Let's give somebody from the Clinton era a try. I think that they want a fresh start. So that's my.

[Jason Calacanis]

I think he's super competent. That's the thing I like about him. He's super competent. I would like to have a competent moderate on either side.

[Tim Miller]

All right, brother, I'll talk to you on board. That's Jason Calacanis. Everybody else will see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. Peace. The rappers I run till I drop. Hey, thoughts of a fool's got a g. The Borg Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by James Jason Brown.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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