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- [00:00]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway with the Stock up sale at Safeway and Albertsons. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store when you purchase participating products. Save now on your favorite beverages from Red Bull to Coke, Monster 7Up body armor and Pepsi. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store or online. Plus you can even have your groceries delivered or use drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car at the store. Restrictions and exclusions applied. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [00:38]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Quick scheduling note. We're digging in again on the economy and Wall Street's fuck around and find out moment on this pod today. Tomorrow we're pivoting to legal issues in Ukraine. If you're looking for fascism, watch and a little politics talk. It's Wednesday, so Sarah JVL and I break that threat assessment down on the Next Level podcast. Go subscribe to that. But on today's show, she's already making me giggle. She's the host of the 11th Hour on MSNBC. She also is senior business correspondent for NBC News. She was formerly managing director at Deutsche bank and she's doing I Dream of Genie dance moves right now. It's Stephanie Ruhl. What is up girl?
- [01:18]
Stephanie Ruhl
Hey, hey. Yeah, all of those things are right. But today I'm just psyched to be here with you.
- [01:24]
Tim Miller
Mia Wallace, Pulp Fiction or I Dream of Jeannie. What was the dance move there?
- [01:29]
Stephanie Ruhl
Just a little bit of me this morning. Just finding joy wherever we can.
- [01:33]
Tim Miller
Steph was, she has the show, as I mentioned, the 11th hour, which is on 11pm to midnight, which is a struggle for me. It's on central time, but she's doing it on eastern time. And then she was on the Today show. What were you doing giving people coupon clippings?
- [01:46]
Stephanie Ruhl
Summer ahead summer travel tips. And it's so funny. Even in sort of the most basic safe place that you're talking, people are looking at the tariff situation, they're looking at the, the international situation and they're worried and they should be.
- [01:59]
Tim Miller
I saw an article right now that 900,000 fewer Canadians came across the border in, in March than of March last year. So I don't know, maybe for some people that'll mean more hotel rooms open in hot Canadian travel spots like the up in Michigan. But I don't, I don't know if that's great for the local, what's happening.
- [02:17]
Stephanie Ruhl
On a global scale. As soon as you see people just stopping travel, it's just another window into what I think is the biggest problem here. And it's this crisis of confidence and what we've spent decades and decades and decades building our relationship and our trust around the world, right? Globalization. While it was really tough for parts of this country, for parts of our economy, globalization is also why in large part we. We as a globe have prospered. And the fact that we're seeing bits of it and chunks of it break down, that's the most worrisome thing.
- [02:51]
Tim Miller
It is. We're gonna break it all down and she's gonna be a little punchy. We're on like four hours of sleep, maybe for Steph. So I wanna start here, which is how much difference a fiscal quarter makes, because I re listened this morning to the podcast we did together where you were bucking me up. I was in a dark place. It was, I think, like two days after the inauguration, maybe three. It's funny to listen to it because it's like the environment is so different from now. Like, we were mostly talking about, like, this vibe shift among the business world and how they were getting on board with Trump. And they're like, we have our doubts, but at least we can say pussy again. And we're going to get our tax cuts and our regulation cuts and our stock number is going to go up. And we're kind of, you know, navigating that and why that was and why it happened. And here we are, three months later, we have a total reverse vibe shift. They have fucked around. They found out quicker than anybody, maybe in human history. And I'm wondering what you're hearing with your people.
- [03:53]
Stephanie Ruhl
The absurdity about the vibe shift is this Wall street investors core responsibility is to assess risk. That's what you do in finance. You figure out what is the risk ahead and how do I place a bet, how do I make an investment based on that. And what we saw after the inauguration was this enthusiasm around a vibe that we're going to get no regulation, that we're going to get tax cuts and yeah, you know, DEI and all that nonsense that was strangling our productivity and profitability, we're going to rip through that. Well, that's what they made the priority and they ignored the promises and pledges and point of view that Donald Trump has had for decades and decades. And now we're seeing it play out. The funniest thing I think we're seeing right now is Just this longing, this missing of a Steven Mnuchin, a Gary Cohn, a Jared Kushner, who in the first administration held Donald Trump in. And the thing that concerns me so much right now, Tim, I can tell you, I speak to investors here abroad, business leaders here and abroad. Right now, I cannot find one single smart, serious person, voice of influence, even those who like the general idea of Trump's tariffs. Not one single person who is on board or happy with the execution and the rollout of what has happened over the last two weeks. Save two groups. There are two people that are okay with it, and those are people that are deep in Trump's inner circle who are convincing themselves if they keep French braiding his hair and telling him he's the greatest master super leader ever, then they'll be able to gently push back on him. They're fancying themselves a Gary Cohn, a Steve Mnuchin, a Jared.
- [05:41]
Tim Miller
Are the two people, Howard Lutnick and Scott Bessinger, those are the two people.
- [05:44]
Stephanie Ruhl
Put that over there. And then the other group of people who are business people, who are specifically on the take, who are getting some sort of carve outs, whether because of an exemption, whether they own a private prison, whether they're in crypto, where they're in a space where they are making so much money because of what Trump's doing, they're willing to ignore all the rest that he's doing. And that is when you say, oh, that when we two people talk about American oligarchy, that's right there. So those two categories of people on the inner circle who believe they can convince him otherwise, or those who are personally banking so much money, they're just going to build a moat around their castle and say, damn the rest of us.
- [06:24]
Tim Miller
You know, it's kind of funny is again, back in January when we were talking with these masters of the universe that were all around him, Sundar was there and Elon and Tim Cook and, and Zuckerberg, and they were all thinking they were going to get theirs. And you know, I mean, they're all still fine, but all of their industries, there's some shaky stuff happening. I love how you're like the hot industries now. The people that are feeling good are private prisons and crypto. That's, that's a first world economy. That's really what you want to base a first world economy on, imprisoning people and fake money?
- [06:56]
Stephanie Ruhl
Yes, 100%. And when you, when you think about what over the weekend when we thought suddenly Apple and these other tech businesses are going to get the exemption. When I talk to other business people, immediately they're like, damn, who are our lobbyists? How do we get to Mar A Lago? And as confusing as Trump's messaging has been, he's had one consistent message. Tim, I've got my views, but I'm flexible. Come on down to Mar A Lago and maybe we can make a deal. And that's what it is, right? We and I have talked about this before. The $5 million one on one meeting you can have with him, the one on one candlelight dinner you can go to at Mar A Lago. And each of those people in the tech universe are vying to stay closer and closer to him. You know, people have said, like, why does Jeff Bezos even want to own the Washington Post? He's not interested in it. Jeff Bezos owning the Washington Post is the most valuable thing he can do to stay close to Trump. Because as much as Trump likes lining his pockets with money, which tons of people are willing to do for him, he cares so, so much about the press. He cares so, so much about what the Washington Post has to say about him. And Jeff Bezos having any ability or an outsized ability to influence that media outlet, that's a huge value to Trump. And we see Trump is about what is in it. How does this advantage him? And that's how he makes decisions.
- [08:20]
Tim Miller
That is 100% true about Trump. The thing that is also true about Trump, though, is that you can't trust any of the deals, right? I mean, like Zuckerberg, for example, prime example, I think, thought he was getting in on the inside. And he put Dana White on his board. They're hanging out at MMA together. He's in the front row. He's ahead of Marco and the inauguration seating chart. And like, again, three months later, J.D. vance is like, and no, we're still into the, you know, antitrust stuff. And you thought you got rid of Lena Khan, but we're going to start looking into this stuff. All that's moving forward. And so again, I just wonder, these guys like these guys.
- [09:01]
Stephanie Ruhl
You know what, though, Tim? Shame on them.
- [09:03]
Tim Miller
Totally.
- [09:04]
Stephanie Ruhl
Especially Wall street guys. They knew him. So anybody when, when we've had to watch Howard Lutnick say, let Trump be the business guy that he is. Art of the deal. Yeah, that's what he's doing. And any person who works at any investment bank in New York knows exactly the business guy that he was, right? Somebody couldn't trust business when he was in business. JPMorgan didn't do business with him. Goldman Sachs didn't do business with him. Morgan Stanley didn't. My bank, Deutsche bank, compared to those banks is like the dog track of banks. They were willing to do business with him and find a contractor, find a counterparty. He never stood up to his deals, right? Never. I remember years ago talking to a hedge fund manager who he did some kind of deal with Trump. I don't remember what it was. And the day after the deal closed, I remember telling me the story, Trump said, let's say this Guy was making 50 million and Trump was making 10. Trump said, can we reverse those numbers for the New York Post? And the guy's like, what? All Trump cared about was the headline. And the other guy was like, yeah, as long as I'm getting the money, as long as you're getting diluted. And most of the companies that Trump ran, at the end of the day, he was diluted down to only owning 2% and having his name on the door. But he didn't actually own any of them. It was all about bluster and show. And so now here you have a person, the leader of the free world, you know, negotiating these deals. Just yesterday, he said, like, we want China to make a deal with us. If you're the person with the strong hand, why are you begging the other one to come to the table? And this is what has people so worried. Can they trust what he's saying? For Wall street, you can actually make a ton of money in volatile markets, right? You can buy and sell no sweat. In a recession, you can bet against the market. But, Tim, if you ran any sort of business, how on earth would you plan today? United Airlines put forward guidance, two separate lanes. Here's what guidance would look like if we face the tariffs. Here's what it would look like if we won't. Because under what Trump is doing, we actually have a strong, stable economy. It's why things have moved so much, because they're like, if only he would just get back in the ring, we could be okay. But there's no sign of him doing that.
- [11:15]
Tim Miller
Do you remember the differences in the United thing? Because I think that's another thing that people who do not, like, watch the finance news. It hasn't sunk in. We're coming up on earnings. And so a lot of big businesses are going to have to do something like that. And I think that the outlook, outlook is going to get really kind of dire here in the next month.
- [11:35]
Stephanie Ruhl
Companies are either pulling guidance entirely because they don't know what's Ahead or now we're seeing like United, they're giving two outlooks. But think about the last week. Jamie Dimon said, you know, we got a rocky road ahead. Larry Fink said, we may already be in a recession. Goldman has adjusted their GDP outlook to basically zero for 2025. And all of that falls squarely on Donald Trump. And something I would connect this to. You talk about young vot all the time. Think about all the support Donald Trump had, especially from young men. We've seen that support plummet. And you know why? Because, yeah, they wanted to end wokeness and they wanted to be the men that they were again until they realized, oh no, the most important thing is the economy. And suddenly with rates where they are, if I got to, if I need almost 500 grand for my first home, I don't have money like that. If suddenly all the businesses I want to work at, the graduate degree I want to get, the research job I want to get is gone. Suddenly, suddenly they don't care so much about Trump ending wokeness, half of which wasn't even true. Because you're actually seeing our concrete economy, our place in the world as a superpower start to be in question.
- [12:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's funny you say that, right, young man. Cause I was looking at a poll that's kind of just clicked as you said that yesterday for the Gen Z show, Fypod, everybody go check that out. And it was like the 18 to 21 year old boys are still solid, you know, and like the 22 to 28 year old boys, you've seen the number plummet, right, since January. And I was kind of trying to think about like why that is. And the economy is maybe not the entire element of it, but it is a big part of it. And part of it is like, what is trendy in this? Like, you know, they do the kind of barstool day trading stuff and the crypto stuff and they expected like big returns, right, to happen. They bought the con, let's just be honest of Trump and like thought it was all going to hit because the.
- [13:28]
Stephanie Ruhl
Idea was no rules, let's let it rip, right? But we're getting the opposite because tariffs, especially in the way that he's rolling them out, are the most restrictive rules. And when you've got a White House that does not have a unified message, I mean, let's just be honest, you've got Scott Besant saying something different from Howard Lutnick. You've got Trump saying on Sunday, right, when everybody was like, couldn't wait to Go buy tech stocks. And they're like, oh, my goodness, the exemption parade is coming. Howard Lutnick goes on television and says, oh, those tech exemptions, they're probably going to only last a month. When that happened, my phone was ringing off the hook from guys like, he's, Lutnick's going to get fired, right? He's off the rails. He's not our message. And then two hours later, Trump's like, nobody's off the hook. And so this has people with their heads just spinning, like, pick a lane, bro, and go with it.
- [14:18]
Tim Miller
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- [15:58]
Stephanie Ruhl
So I will say, I don't have those conversations by design. Right. If I'm speaking to sources, I want to learn everything I can. And me saying, well, didn't you learn your lesson? Is a waste of time. Something that I've actually heard in the last two Days was something I hadn't thought about. But I'm hearing more and more guys talk about is Trump's leaning toward authoritarianism. A huge investor called me just yesterday just based on these rumors that the White House has denied about them potentially having a military parade. You know, if we were to have a military parade and in honor of our president, if that were to happen, that should rock us to our core, because that's what Kim Jong Un does, right? That's what we see in dictatorships. Pair that with ignoring a Supreme Court ruling. Right? Lots of folks out there would say, you know, oh, my goodness, like, just get rid of those illegal immigrants. They're all criminals. When we make them, if we make a few mistakes, so be it. I'm glad with what Trump is doing, there's a group of people who say that, but there is a group of surprising people in the investor class who are paying super close attention to this Maryland man who has been detained, who's in an El Salvador prison. And the reason they're so concerned about it is because Trump is openly and brazenly ignoring a Supreme Court ruling. And one of the main reasons that people invest in America and believe in America, a core tenet of American exceptionalism is that we follow the rule of law. We have three separate but equal branches of government. Congress does their job, we follow the rule of law, we invest in science, we back our universities. When we don't do that, that breaks down the foundation of American exceptionalism. So it was interesting to me calls that I was surprised to get from investors who are so focused on this idea. Could we have a military parade? And is Trump going to continue to ignore a Supreme Court ruling and hide behind this sort of. Well, I'd bring him home if it wasn't for the President of El Salvador. Explain to me on one hand, you're the strongest of the strong men who thinks you rule the world, but now you're going to hide behind the President of El Salvador. No one believes that. And it's interesting to me that that has so many in the investor community concerned.
- [18:23]
Tim Miller
It's interesting to me, too. My dad, who's in the investor community, mentioned to me the Garcia thing last night too. And he's just like, why not just him back, like, what is the, the deal? You know, have just not just being aware of, like, what the potential systemic, like, risk is of all this. Like, this just feels like over one guy, like a not worthwhile to fight, like these rational, like, finance type people. And it is interesting because there's this poll yesterday that came out about some of the immigration stuff. And like, if you actually look at the details on it, like Trump is still like barely over water. Depends on what poll you look at on his overall immigration policy. But deport undocumented immigrants who have not broken laws in the US except for immigration laws. I would have thought that was maybe a positive. I don't, you know, not having looked at it, it's minus 18. Like, a significant majority of Americans don't think we should deport people who have not committed other crimes besides crossing the.
- [19:23]
Stephanie Ruhl
Border because a significant portion of Americans understand the contributions these immigrants make to our country. Right. Let's go to the state of Florida, Donald Trump's adopted home state. So we're going to mass deport the people who pick our fruits and vegetables. Okay. The people responsible for the produce at your grocery store and in your kitchen. And what are we doing to counter that? Well, we're lowering the regulations in Florida so children to the age of 14 can now work, I think, until 9pm at night. Okay. So again, we're talking about denting American exceptionalism. We're gonna remove immigrants who came here for a better life, who are willing to take those low wage, intensely laborious jobs so what, our kids can do those jobs? And this goes right back to if.
- [20:19]
Tim Miller
Donald Trump wanted to say, D Tasselin is back, baby. We're gonna be. That's for my Iowa people.
- [20:24]
Stephanie Ruhl
If Donald Trump wanted to say China is a bad actor in terms of trade, and they are. And if we wanted to get together with our allies, which we wanted to do at the end of the Obama administration with the Trans Pacific Partnership and take them on, have at it. Or if you wanted to say we're really going to tariff them. But this idea that Howard Lutnick that pushed and we're going to start making iPhones here, we don't want that for our kids. We want to invest in education. We want to improve education so our kids can have higher skilled jobs. So they're designing the next iPhone. So they're designing the next car. Not so they're assembling every piece of it. It just makes absolutely no sense.
- [21:02]
Tim Miller
Well, I mean, there's some scuttles carve out farm workers and then bail out the farmers. So it's just a great policy, a great coherent policy chaos.
- [21:11]
Stephanie Ruhl
So we're going to bail out the farmers. We know when Donald Trump first announced the tariffs and wasn't mentioning bailing out any farmers, he said this is going to be great for farmers have fun, guys. Never realizing that we as a country produce more food than we could ever consume. Right. They need to export. So now we're going to write these giant checks to farmers because we want to save the American farmer. Aren't we supposed to care about debt and deficits? Aren't we supposed to care about government spending? So on the left hand you have Doge taking a rhinestone bedazzled chainsaw to vital parts of the government. And now on the other side, we have to write a check to American farmers to make sure they can stay in business because of the tariffs we've imposed. Is there's no logical strategy behind any of this.
- [21:57]
Tim Miller
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- [24:16]
Stephanie Ruhl
So here's why this matters. And people like to like gaze off when you talk about bonds. But I'm just going to, I'm going to lay it out just for a second. Normally when the stock market goes down, people rush to bonds. And when we say, what are bonds? That's U.S. treasuries. And you know, a few weeks ago, early tariff talk, when the stock market started to go down, we saw the likes of Scott Bessett and others say, well, this is good because we are going to see rates go down and this will help us because we have a huge amount of government debt that is coming due, $6 trillion in June that has to get refinanced. So they had this idea, well, the stock market will go down and we are going to see people rush to buy Treasuries. So people rush to buy Treasuries. That means the price goes up and the yield goes down. But what's happening, in my opinion is the scariest thing. Normally stocks go down and you see people rush to buy Treasuries. They're not, they're not rushing to buy Treasuries because they're not trusting the US Dollar.
- [25:17]
Tim Miller
They're not rushing to buy gold.
- [25:19]
Stephanie Ruhl
The US Just exactly. They're going for the gold. Not Olympic style. They're going for the gold because it's the only trusted asset. So, so for people who aren't even invested in the markets already, you're hazing over. You're right. When, when those rates go up, that means your credit card is going to cost more to pay. That's your mortgage, any sort of loan. So tariffs are going to make everything cost more. And now what it costs you to borrow is going up as well. And that's a perfect storm. And the question will be, will Jay Powell and the Fed have to step in and buy bonds, which is crazy that they should do that when the economy is so strong.
- [25:54]
Tim Miller
Oh, so that's the solution. Because, like, lowering the rate wouldn't actually help the 30 year. But buying bonds, Mike.
- [26:00]
Stephanie Ruhl
No, it's, it's. Will the Fed come in and start buying up Treasuries? Because as long as we're talking trade war, and I promise I won't get that nerdy. One of the problems is some of the largest holders, the people who own the most Treasuries, are other countries. China is one of the biggest holders of U.S. treasuries. And if they decide to dump them or not show up for our next treasury auction. That's what a nasty trade war looks like. And they have the ability to do that. They've been quietly buying up and publicly buying up U.S. treasuries for years and years and years. And they've got us by the bond balls.
- [26:35]
Tim Miller
Another area that I wanted to focus on is the manufacturing. Your man Joe Wiesenthal posted this yesterday. It was a chart that had the new orders for New York Fed regional manufacturers, and they hit the lowest level in the history of the survey. So investment in manufacturing is way down. That seems to be the opposite of what the stated goal was of the program. But what do you make of it?
- [27:01]
Stephanie Ruhl
In part because it's ignoring the fact that even if you are in manufacturing, we have a global supply chain. Okay, so take autos for a second. It's not that we don't build cars here. We do. We efficiently build cars here. Parts of it, we build here. Parts of it, we build in Mexico, some parts of it we build in Canada. Or even if you wanted to build a whole new new plant, the pieces you need, the parts you need, come from abroad. So this notion of this manufacturing renaissance that's coming back was completely ill conceived because there was no strategic planning around it. And that's why you're seeing, yes, even manufacturing get hurt.
- [27:40]
Tim Miller
So I guess the point I was trying to make here is we have interest rates for everybody way up, inflation is persistent. Manufacturing down, stocks down, crypto down. Like, who is even. Have they done anything to help anybody? That's like the craziest thing about all of this. Not only has it been chaos, not only has there been some authoritarian, light authoritarianism, but they're not even keeping the trains running on time. They're not even serving their own people. Who's happy?
- [28:13]
Stephanie Ruhl
Well, I would say Donald Trump is most definitely happy. The Trump family is happy. Donald Trump is wealthier than he's ever been. When he was actually a businessman in real estate, he inherited a huge New York real estate portfolio, where he lost an enormous amount of money. But finally, as President of the United States in 2025, he and his family are wealthier beyond their wildest dreams. And where has he made money? In businesses that many people believe are Ponzi, like crypto, in his massive crypto exchange and Truth Social, which is a social media platform that doesn't actually make any significant money, but trades at a huge, huge multiple. Because whether it's Trump's meme coin or his crypto exchange or Truth Social, the greatest way you can get something from Trump and Curry a favor is to give him money. If you ask me what business has been spending the most amount of time down at Mar a Lago, it's crypto, guys. Right? Right. You're seeing Justin's son, who's being investigated by the government and his company. This is the guy who bought a piece of art. It was a. It was a banana duct tape for six and a half million dollars. He put 75 million dollars into Trump's business, and that investigation into him, poof, it went away. Last week, the Department of Justice announced they're going to end prosecuting and investigating crypto as an industry. They are only going to look at it if the crypto is being spent on terrorism or trafficking or real, real bad crimes. So Donald Trump himself is making a killing. Right. While everybody was spinning, panicked over what to do with tariffs, he was at Mar a Lago for the live golf tournament, making an enormous amount of money. And so I would compare where we are to Russia in the 1990s as they were breaking down their government and their economy to the studs and privatizing it. That's where we're headed.
- [30:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah, you hit all of my crypto points. I'm obsessed with the crypto stuff. I'm like the guy from Always Sunny in Philadelphia with the yarn on the wall when it comes to Justin sun and all these guys. But the only one you didn't mention that I wanted to just bring up really quick was the Binance story. These guys, their billionaire CEO, Zhao, I'm not going to try to pronounce his first name, Is also seeking a pardon. He had a guilty plea on anti money laundering laws. As the DOJ is like, we're not going to investigate any of this stuff. Binance is now going in and saying, also, could you not investigate money laundering? And in exchange, they're talking with the Trump family. About a, like, I guess, taking a stake in Binance. This is a Wall Street Journal story from earlier in the week, and that is, like, wild. How is that real?
- [30:53]
Stephanie Ruhl
That makes me think about Eric Trump, who has repeatedly said, I'm a private businessman. I have nothing to do with the government. What? Are you kidding me? This is a person who just weeks ago said, you know, buy crypto. It looks cheap when there was a dip. And then just a couple days later, the White House announces, oh, we may be putting together a crypto reserve. And when I talk to some of the biggest names in finance, something that is just making their head spin, just think about this. The government is defunding science to buy crypto, right? If that doesn't warn you, if that doesn't concern you and put you in a panic, it should. And this is a business that has no transparency. I remember Eric Trump saying, you know, we learned about crypto. We got involved in crypto after January 6th, when no one would do business with us. Red flag. If no one will do business with you, but crypto has its arms open wide and ready to embrace you, then there's something up with crypto. And I actually know some really smart, sophisticated crypto investors who hate what Trump is doing in the crypto space, because even though in the short term it's great for them, it delegitimizes it. Because if you believe in legitimacy of crypto, what he's doing right now just makes it look like crimes that they've.
- [32:07]
Tim Miller
Legalized science for crypto trade brought to mind one of my favorite quotes that I have bookmarked for the Trump era, which is Marc Andreessen, one of these guys, really smart guy, invented the web browser. I very well read that. Sometimes smart people can be very unsavvy. He got fully in with Trump, and he put this. I think this was a day or two after the election. America is an economic coiled spring. We should be growing at least 4% annually, and ideally 6.8% growth has been brutally suppressed since before I was born. I hear these guys that thought Trump was going to be this springboard for them to, like, massive economic prosperity. And what they're doing is slashing all the things that made America, you know, economically unique and powerful and great and, like, investing in scams. And they've turned us into, like, the mattress on the floor of a crack house in three months. It's, like, unbelievable.
- [33:05]
Stephanie Ruhl
That spring, we're now, you know, the Statue of Liberty is now wrapped and tangled into that, into that spring. And that goes Right back to what he's doing with Harvard. Donald Trump and Stephen Miller love this fight with Harvard because they want to present this as their war against sort of liberalism and universities, sort of, but where it's so misguided and where the American people should understand it. This is not about antisemitism and just the notion that, like, they are taking money from the likes of Harvard and they want you to close your eyes and think that, you know, there's a professor somewhere smoking a pipe who's panicked that they're going to lose their tenure and they're not going to be able to go on a reading tour this summer. No. If you looked at the humanities budget at Harvard or Yale or any of these schools, it's a rounding error when Donald Trump pulls $2 billion from Harvard and threatens their tax exempt status. The only thing I want you to think about is Harvard's medical research, the work that they do for decades and decades. I'm going to get choked up thinking about it and the millions of lives that it saves. Right. Our medical research, the kind of research that the government funds, is the research that private industry won't because there's not going to be a vaccine right away and they can't turn it around and make money off of it. But we've got people that are plagued with terminal diseases and illnesses, that you've got our best in class, world renowned medical centers researching and studying scientists who devote their lives to it, who could work in private industry, but they don't. And so this idea that we're pulling from Harvard, it's such an attack on us and so much misinformation that people don't understand that, like, these aren't people at the Harvard Club or people like you know, suddenly, you know, skull and Bones at Yale, like they'll be sol. No, these are career researchers who are trying to save lives and they're going to be missing out. And by them missing out, we're going to miss out.
- [35:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'm glad you bring it up because I always think in this situation about my friend who has a kid that has this very rare disease that like three people have a year. It's like three. Three kids have it a year. So it's like the pharma companies are not investing in finding a solution to something like that, you know, because it's just, there's no scale. Right. There's not, there's no business interest in it there, you know, and really, even the big charitable foundations aren't right. Because they want money. From people that. You know what I mean? And so, like, this is the only way to do it.
- [35:41]
Stephanie Ruhl
Yeah. They want wins. I get it. Or charitable foundations are going to give money where there's scale, where there's lots and lots of people suffering.
- [35:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [35:49]
Stephanie Ruhl
But for your friend and his or her daughter or son, that's who I fear for.
- [35:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [35:56]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway with the Stock up sale at Safeway and Albertsons. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store when you purchase participating products. Save on household essentials from General Mills, Kellogg's, Philadelphia Quaker and Tide. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store or online. Plus you can even have your groceries delivered or use drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car at the store. Restrictions and exclusions applied. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [36:28]
Tim Miller
I was going to bring it to a silly Topic next, but I can't do it. So we'll do one more.
- [36:32]
Stephanie Ruhl
I'm sorry for that.
- [36:33]
Tim Miller
Should we do a silly topic? Okay, one more. We'll do a transition to the silly topic. I just want to. I was watching your show last night, so I wanted to. It was tax day yesterday.
- [36:41]
Stephanie Ruhl
You can't. I'll tell you on a silly topic every time I keep talking about Harvard and their endowment. I have guests. I had a guest last night who said well endowed. And then of course I fell off my chair because then I can't pay attention anymore, you know?
- [36:51]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [36:52]
Stephanie Ruhl
And I'm like. And I'm like, why? Why? Like, didn't you know I was the host. Couldn't you just say big endowment? Like, why'd you have to say well endowed now?
- [36:57]
Tim Miller
Girthy. Girthy endowment. Okay, fine. We're going to silly talk. We'll end taxes. Speaking of not well endowed, the shadow president. I don't know if you saw the Wall Street Journal story about Elon Musk and how he wants to have a legion of children. I would recommend people read the whole story, but a couple of highlights. Multiple sources believe the number of children he has is much higher than 14. He has been dming random ladies on X asking to use their wombs for his children. According to including one on the record source, he's tried to create a Mormon polyamorous compound in Austin, but only one of the baby mamas lives there so far. He's cutting alimony to the moms, not participating. He cut Twitter engagement to one of the women that wouldn't let him impregnate them.
- [37:43]
Stephanie Ruhl
Okay, here's my take. My take on Elon Musk. And remember, I mean, his father has many, many, many, many children. I think his last two are with his stepdaughter. When I hear about Elon Musk, when I read about Elon Musk, when I watch him in his paternity spats on Twitter with his most recent mother of his child, you know what I actually think about Democrats, and here's why.
- [38:11]
Tim Miller
Because they're fertile.
- [38:12]
Stephanie Ruhl
If Democrats cannot successfully peel any family values voters. Okay. And I thought of this because a couple weeks ago I was speaking to Art Collin from Iowa, and I was asking what would it take for Iowa to not be a deep red state? And he said, nothing. Democrats have lost us forever. You know, we're family value state, blah, blah, blah. And I've been thinking, you've got a current president who has been married four times who, blah, blah, blah. We know how he talks about women, all of that. We have a shadow president with at least 13 children. And the story that you just laid out sights on a legion of children by many, many, many women. How is it that Democrats can't take this reality and make some sort of inroads with family values voters when the idea of family is inclusion, is to love thy neighbor, is to accept people for exactly who they are and take them in and love them forever. If Democrats cannot successfully peel any portion of family values voters away from a Donald Trump and a shadow Elon Musk and his legion of offspring, then I don't know what to tell you Democrats. You need some new strategy. What do you think about that?
- [39:26]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I do think the Democrats should make a more concerted effort, and I've talked about this before, of just trying to peel off some minor percentage of Christian evangelical, daily churchgoing or weekly churchgoing voters just in the same way, like almost in a shameless way, in the same way that Trump did with black voters. Right. Cause like. Cause my initial reaction from people which I think is right, and I don't know, I'm kind of overdue to have Russell Moore back on the pod. We kind of talk about this is like, man, there's actually some problems in the church. And, you know, I was just looking at this tweet from this Republican congressman, Riley Moore, who's like doing this snuff selfie from the El Salvador prison. And it's like, it's like the least Christian thing you could possibly do, some Christian camp. But obviously it has an appeal among these voters. And so some Democrats, when they hear your rant, will say, this is broken. The church is broken. These people aren't gettable, you know, and, like, there's some deep fundamental sickness that's gonna take a generation to change. And there may be some truth to that, but, like, you could peel off some. That's what I mean, the black voters. So that's why, to me, it's more analogous to the black voters. Did Trump win 50% of black voters? No. But did he increase by 8% by doing some gimmicks and some lies? Let's be honest. But actually trying by trying, by trying, he peeled off some black voters. That was meaningful. And Democrats could learn from that. They could just try.
- [40:52]
Stephanie Ruhl
Lots of people were offended and aghast when Trump, first time, I believe, went to a black church in Chicago or Michigan and said, vote for me. What do you have to lose? Look at your situation, Right? And people were offended. But there were some people who said, like, yeah, my situation isn't getting any better. Democrats can do the same thing with family values voters. They can do the same thing. Donald Trump, look how well he's done with Latino voters. Given what's happening in terms of illegal deportations, can't Democrats take that one on as well? Not everybody, but how about some?
- [41:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree. I think that there's a way to peel off some, but it's going to take a really a concerted effort to do it. And it's recognizing that you're, you know, it's still in the aggregate of losing battle. Like, you're probably not going to win the Iowa governor race next time. Could you win two of the congressional districts? Maybe. Could you win one? Definitely. You know what I mean? That's what you're talking about. Yeah. It's worth. It's worth trying. It was interesting. I'll put in the show notes. People should watch it. It was like, it's kind of hard to hear. I was thinking about playing a clip from it on the show, but since you brought it up, there is a Grassley town hall yesterday.
- [41:58]
Stephanie Ruhl
Oh, my God, I'm so glad you brought this up.
- [41:59]
Tim Miller
You see this?
- [42:00]
Stephanie Ruhl
I'm so glad you brought this.
- [42:00]
Tim Miller
Where he is, like, getting really railed. And to be fair, it's like, hard to know based on a video. Maybe it's the 15 libs in the town that are in the thing that are asking these questions, but they're framing the questions in the right way. Their questions, too, Grassley, are very like, what happened to love your Neighbor, like, what happened to feed and home? You know, clothe the stranger? What happened to the Declaration of Independence? Right. Like, the questions to him were framed from a very kind of traditionalist American, Christian perspective, rather than, you know, like what you might imagine, like somebody from Brooklyn shouting at them.
- [42:39]
Stephanie Ruhl
You know, when I first saw that, I had to listen to it three times. First of all, because I give Chuck Grassley credit for being a 91 year old who actually is standing up and having a town hall. But I was like, hold on a minute. This is the question he's being asked at an Iowa town hall. I was surprised by it. But it is also a reminder that Iowa has a huge immigrant population because of all the meat processing plants.
- [43:05]
Tim Miller
Yes. No. And this was an issue with Nunes, remember, because Nunes had that farm up in northwest Iowa that had an undocumented immigrant workers. And then there was like, there was that whole community. I'm blanking on the name of that town in northwest Iowa that just had a lot of immigrants because that's. They needed it for the farm work and, you know, they went to church and like, they're just, they're an ingrained part of the community.
- [43:25]
Stephanie Ruhl
Storm Lake has a huge amount of immigrants. And. And I remember Art Collins saying to me once, and I was like, why? And he said, because if the last place you were living was a Somalian refugee camp, then you don't mind coming here and sweeping pig blood and cutting the hind off a pig every day.
- [43:44]
Tim Miller
Well, a lot of people come from rural. Like back when I was in Oakland, I did this like a volunteer thing for asylees coming from Guatemala. Most of them came from rural Guatemala. Right. Because it was like that's where they were fleeing. Like, there was no money and the gangs that were doing the drug trade were kind of taking over these communities. Right. And so it makes sense that they would go to a farm part of America. Right.
- [44:09]
Stephanie Ruhl
So just the idea that those are ungettable voters, I don't believe that's true.
- [44:13]
Tim Miller
I agree. Not ungettable. Winning the whole state, Iowa. It's a long, but you never know. You got to be on the field to win, I guess, is the. Is the first piece of evidence for it.
- [44:23]
Stephanie Ruhl
Let Donald Trump be every person with political aspirations model. Did anyone on planet Earth think he was going to be president once, Actually, twice? No, no, but. And so, like, this idea. It's not worth it. Don't try. Every vote counts. Try.
- [44:41]
Tim Miller
I agree with that.
- [44:42]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. With the Stock up sale at Safeway and Albertsons. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store when you purchase participating products. Save now on your favorite beverages, from Red Bull to Coke, Monster 7Up body armor and Pepsi. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store. Plus, you can even have your groceries delivered or use drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car at the store. Restrictions and exclusions applied. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.
- [45:13]
Tim Miller
All right, let's get back to tax day and just close on that because I was interested in your conversation about it last night and you know, everybody's got it on their mind right now, listening to this, having been stressed doing their, you know, tax filling out their PDFs last night. But I was interested in your conversation because, like, the gutting of the IRS that Doge has done is crazy.
- [45:36]
Stephanie Ruhl
Because if we're talking about we're sitting here saying we're going to bring money in this country through tariffs, we're going to get rid of all these workers. That's how we're going to improve things. No, if we just collected our taxes right, we leave so much money on the floor. And the way we won't do that is if we have employed tax professionals. But instead, we're gutting the irs. We're having thousands of people opt in for the, you know, the layoffs, the early retirement, which is crazy because if people aren't working at the irs, they're not going to collect their taxes. And the people they're not going to collect their taxes from are from the wealthiest people, you know, who aren't just making a regular paycheck. You know, the people who can put trusts here, there and everywhere, they can avoid paying taxes. And if, if you really wanted to improve the IRS or improve our tax system, what I would love to see is the great minds of Doge, those great tech leaders that surrounded Donald Trump at the inauguration. I would love for them to come into the government, volunteer their brain power and their effort and improve our system. Okay? The computer system that the IRS works on is called Cobalt. It is so old that when there are kinks and problems with it, there aren't even humans alive who know that system to fix it. So you've got the irs, the most important agency in the government that brings in the tax dollars that we need to service this country, working with one hand tied behind their back. And now 20 plus percent of them are potentially out the door this to me is such a grave mistake and oversight and it shows that is the government. Is this administration really looking to tighten up the screws and bring things in? That's not the case given how they're treating the IRS right now.
- [47:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's funny how out of vogue that has come in like 20. Like the Obama administration, that's was something they tried to do and this didn't really take that well. Was right. Like bring in these tech and technocratic folks to update the way the government does things. And it's just like that isn't even in the discussion with all these guys. Like, you have all these Silicon Valley guys coming in. I know. It's.
- [47:41]
Stephanie Ruhl
That's what's so absurd with like what we now have in this bro wokeness of like, Trump wins and it's like electric cars, forget them. Big Coal, bring it on back. Like, who is. Who is Big Coal going to help? Like, you want to help West Virginia? Let's bring industry there, let's bring new jobs there. Nobody should be looking to bring back the black lung.
- [48:02]
Tim Miller
All right, I lied. I have one last time because it's too funny. Not to mention I was on Blue Sky. Mark Cuban bullied me into getting on Blue Sky. And here we go. I got my payoff. This guy. John Keegan, have you noticed those ornate gold medallions that are now up in the Oval Office? They're kind of the gaudy Trump Tower type things, you know.
- [48:20]
Stephanie Ruhl
I've also noticed some members in the administration are wearing these gold buttons that are Trump's face.
- [48:26]
Tim Miller
Mm, that's classy. Well, John Keegan found those medallions on Alibaba. They're high density home decoration polyurethane pleats ornament pu foam veneer accessories from a seller in Guangzhou. So it's lucky they got them in before the tariffs.
- [48:47]
Stephanie Ruhl
Listen, that's the forever reminder that every product Donald Trump has ever made has been produced overseas. And this idea, right? If you and I wanted to end this podcast and go walk through the garment district of New York or take a deep look at clothing and home design and furniture manufacturing in the United States. We have some furniture manufacturing, but apparel, home decor, we don't do that here. And so it's absurd. And the thing is, Trump knows that his families know that. Go to any of his homes, go to Mar A Lago. Like, if people wanted, if they truly wanted to buy from Made in the usa, we would be there. But our president, along with the American people, made a decision years ago that wasn't a priority for us. And that's why the gold medallions in the White House and probably the ones in yours are made overseas.
- [49:35]
Tim Miller
Thanks to the maker in Guangzhou, though, for fancying up our White House. Steph Rule, thank you for your passion. Thanks for coming back on. We'll do it again soon. I'll see you on the 11th hour. I don't know, next week or in a week or two.
- [49:48]
Stephanie Ruhl
Welcome back from Coachella.
- [49:49]
Tim Miller
Oh, it was so great. I'm finally at 100. I had some comments from people that said I was not looking that good the last two days. And, you know people, I don't need that. All right. You think I don't know that? I was looking a little worn out, but I was here. I was grinding. I was podcasting. And that's just part of the deal.
- [50:06]
Stephanie Ruhl
When people rail on what I look like, especially, like, when I go on podcasts. What does she look like? And I'm like, you know what? I was unaware that this was. That you and I were here competing for Mr. And Ms. Universe, but I saw you getting your party on at Coachella, and I just thought. I mean, I just thought it was amazing. Who is your favorite performer? I'm guessing Gaga.
- [50:25]
Tim Miller
Gaga is obviously my favorite of the. Of the sub performers that maybe people haven't heard of. Amare was my favorite, and she is like a Ghanan R B. Like a little edm, kind of a little rock. It's just. It's a. It's. It's very. It's very, very good. I'll play some Amare on the way out for everybody.
- [50:44]
Stephanie Ruhl
Well, there you go. Well, welcome home.
- [50:46]
Tim Miller
All right. Thank you, Steph. We'll see you soon. Everybody else, we'll see you back here tomorrow. Peace.
- [50:50]
Stephanie Ruhl
See ya. By.
- [50:56]
D
Left you in my garden in the nude pik you take a bite into the fruit I said drop it from your loose go ahead and face it just make it a taste test. You don't got to tell nobody. We could just fake it. This party is basic. Your friends on the weight list. Whatever you feel once you're ready. Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch don't even think about it. Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch Purple like the colors of the moon left you in my garden in the nude pig you take a bite into the fruit like Bermuda after nudes an oasis but I'm drowning left me how you found me my body cold okay, ready? Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch don't even think about it. Touch touch touch touch touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, touch.
- [52:08]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway with the Stock up sale at Safeway and Albertson. Stock up and earn four times points at your local store when you purchase participating products. Save on household essentials from General Mills, Kellogg's, Philadelphia Quaker and Tide. Clip the offer in the app for event savings and look for participating items throughout the store. Shop in store or online. Plus, you can even have your groceries delivered or use Drive up and go to have your groceries brought to your car at the store. Restrictions and exclusions applied. Visit Albertsons or Safeway for more details.