← The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
It's a Numbers Game: AI Panic Explodes: Voters Turn on Big Tech, Jobs at Risk & 2028 Shake-Up
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Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
welcome back to A Numbers Game with Brian Garduski. Thank you for being here, ladies and gentlemen. So I was looking around and playing around some of the numbers of the listenership of this podcast. Listenership over the weekend, checking out, you know, where my audience is and who was responding to it. And I really, really, really want to do a live podcast taping this year. Like, that would be. My goal for this podcast, is that this year we can get an audience together and I could do a live event. I just think a live ask me anything. So it would be so much fun. And I could have a guest come stream in or can be there, you know, in person, depending on the place and the time. So that's what my goal is. And the show's been growing pretty successfully, and the audience has, you know, been very loyal, and I'm so happy for it. And. And I was looking at cities. So Houston is the biggest city for this podcast as far as listenership goes. And then it's followed a city that I never heard of. And I can't believe how big my audience is there. But it's Hutchinson, Kansas. I have never been to Hutchinson, Kansas. I've been to Kansas many times, but never Hutchinson. But I have a strong following in the city of Hutchinson. Candace, After Hutchinson, it's Dallas and New York and Denver and Phoenix and Atlanta and the places you would think, you know, have big listenerships because it's a big population. But if anyone, if there's an organization or a group or anybody that wants me to come to do a live event in your city, email me ryan@NumbersGame Podcast.com we charge, you know, a low overhead just to make sure we cover costs. I don't need to make a lot of money off of it. The show is doing great. I have a million other jobs, but I really think a live event would be wonderful. So if you're interested, email me ryan@NumbersGame podcast.com Same as Ask me anything time. Tell me if you know, we could pack a house, if we could pack a house, if we can get people there, I'm down to do it. I just think it'd be so great. So thank you guys so much for continuing to support this podcast. I really appreciate you all. Okay, let's talk about some polling from around the country. Let's do a little polling. Pick me up. In Wisconsin, Republican Tom Tiffany is in the margin of error for governor against all leading Democratic candidates. He's down three points against Sarah Rodriguez, two. Two points against Mandela Barnes, who is the lieutenant governor, one point from David Crowley, and he's ahead three points from Francesca Hung. Barnes is leading in the polls, but Francesca actually had a recent poll that had her ahead it's more likely Barnes only because of name ID and support. But Francesca is like the super progressive candidate, the very far left candidate, although Barnes is like, you know, I don't know how you get further off than Barnes. But Francesca managed it. She's just. She outdid him on, you know, hating capitalism just a little bit more. Over in New Hampshire. In New Hampshire, a St. Anselm poll found that Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte is leading likely Democrat candidate Warmington, that's the last name, by six points. It's a healthy lead for a Republican candidate in a state that voted for Kamala Harris. On the Senate side, this is the sleeper race, the New Hampshire race no one's paying attention to, but it is the sleeper race of the year. Former Senator John Sununu is down by just three points against Congressman Chris Pappas, the likely Democrat. You know, Sununu was a senator a while ago. He lost reelection, I think, in one of the Democratic waves, I think 2008. But he's from a legacy family. His brother was a super popular governor. His dad was an icon in the state. I think his dad's still alive. But he was George H.W. bush's chief of staff and he was a governor himself. It's just New Hampshire is this weird place where like four Lebanese families run the entire state. And the SNOO News are one of them. And just incredibly, incredibly popular. He's not a Trumper, but he's endorsed by Trump, so there's immunity in the Republican Party. And his name ID is not associated with Trump, which you would need in a year that's not favorable for Democrat, for Republicans, rather, especially with the Trump brand not being great. I just think. I mean, I'm not saying he's going to win. I think it is the sleeper race of the year, especially given that New Hampshire has had such tight federal races in the last couple of cycles that no one really picked up on over in Los Angeles, this is not a federal race. This is a local race. Mayor Karen bass is at 25% against Los Angeles City Council Chairman Neesa Rahman. And I think that's the progressive candidate. She's at 17%. And reality show star Spencer Pratt is at 14%. Now, Karen Brass is famous for not being in L. A during the fires that destroyed an entire neighborhood that now she's trying to get Section 8 housing built in that neighborhood. In the Palisades. I've been to the Palisades. It's such a beautiful area. It's horrific what's happened. To it and how Karen Bass has been neglectful to say the least. And Spencer Press running as like the de facto Republican candidate. Which is there a better person? I don't know. He's definitely trying to, to get his name out there. But Karen Bass, who slot, who was away while City Burned, is still leading in the polls, which is not wonderful. And last but not least, There was a CBS poll asked, do you support voter ID? 80% of people supported it, 20% opposed. When the poll also asked when do you support requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote? 66% said yes, 33% opposed. That includes 93% of Republicans, 61% of independents and 43% of Democrats. It also included 60% of the black vote. Considering they always say the black vote will suffer from, you know, requiring citizenship, 60% of black voters support it. Okay, now I want to talk about the generic ballot because that was, you know, a lot of these polls have been good news for Republicans because there's tight races. Republicans are not being blown out in some of these races. They're competitive in Wisconsin, competitive in New Hampshire, competitive, you know, in a number of these places. But the generic ballot is moving in the other direction for Republicans, first being the Emerson poll. The Emerson poll has Democrats dominating the generic ballot by 8 and a half points, winning Independence. Democrats are winning independents in this poll by 18 points and they're winning Latinos by 21 points. That's actually a pretty good number Latinos because it shows in a year that looks like 2018, generic ballad wise, the Latinos still have not move back to where they used to be in 2018 numbers, where it would be like 36 or 38 or 40 point landslide for Democrats. 21 is actually very good considering it shows that the transition of Latino voters is really sticking. Even if they're not happy with Trump right now or the Republican Party, they're not willing to move back to the Democratic Party like they used to. The poll also has Republicans only leading by the white vote by two points. If that. I mean, I don't believe that that's true. It's never been that small. If that's true, it is. The GOP really is screwed. That follows a similar number from a, from the, from the website. The argument. They did their own internal poll. The argument is a left wing outlet, but they're smart left wingers. They put out information that makes liberals uncomfortable at times. And I think they're intellectually honest, although they're a bias. But everyone has a bias. You can't really Help it. They're not like, what's his name, Gene Morris or something from the, he used to be at the Economist. He's just like a straight up hack. This is a liberal, I think, with a brain. So I, I read their stuff. Trump's favorability is negative. 18. According to their poll, 17% of Trump voters disapprove of the job he's doing. And he's underwater with every key demographic. And he's just tied among whites without a college degree. Pretty awful. The primary driver is the economy. Voters hate this Trump economy and they're blaming him, you know, for. I'm down in ruby Red, Louisiana, and voters are just feeling disappointed. They're, they, they were hoping for the first term all over again, and they're not getting it. And there's anxiety and a lot of people are just barely getting by and they're really struggling. And I think that there's this divorce mentality from how bad it is on the streets from, you know, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 65% of voters feel like the economy isn't keeping up with the cost of living. Now, is that true? Not necessarily untrue. Right. Because we've seen what inflation is and we've seen the growth in job wages. Wages are growing pretty fast, and inflation is down significantly from the, from the, from the Biden era. Although with gas prices just jacking up because the Iran war, maybe they're feeling it more. I don't know when the poll exactly was taken. I think that gas prices started going up at the same time the poll was being taken. And only 25% of voters feel like their financial situation is improving. 50% of voters think the economy is getting worse once again. Is it getting worse? Not, not terribly worse. I mean, a lot of this is about feelings. And, you know, Benjamin always says facts. You know, facts don't care about your feelings. That is true. But voters don't care about facts. You have to. Feelings are the only thing that matters sometimes to voters. So you have to kind of. Feelings matter a lot to people, and you can't tell them they're wrong. You have to justify their feelings and explain how things are getting better to comfort them. So it is what it is. One interesting data point that the poll found out is voters have a preference for lower prices over lower unemployment. I don't find that to be true, only because in this country, we have gotten so used to unemployment being under 5%, we don't, for most people, we don't remember what 10, 12, 15% unemployment feels like. Um, and that's I, I think that's why people are arguing more at prices than actual unemployment. Right now among all registered voters, Democrats leave 46 to 40among this poll. But among those definitely going to vote, it is 5545 because voter enthusiasm is over the moon for Democrats right now. Zachary Denini, who I've had on this podcast twice, such a smart, such a smart guy for he's a data scientist. He actually puts out though when you pull all the polls together, Democrats lead has actually shrunk a little bit in the last few weeks. It says Democrats have a overall national leave of 4.6 despite these polls, although I think they are two good pollsters. A D 8 environment, which is what these two polls say means that Republicans will lose the Senate. A D 4, 6. As Zachary Denini notes from all the pollsters, that's where they keep the Senate. Lose the House, but not by more than, I don't know, 15 seats, 12 seats, 18 seats, 10 seats. It's not, it's not an overwhelming, it's not a 40 seat landslide. Now there are so many factors into why prices are going up. There's, you know, there's too much money in the system because our government cannot stop running deficits and adding to the debt. There's the war with Iran. There is problems with how companies are restructuring post Covid. There is a lot of instability in the market that there's the fact that a lot of companies hired too much during COVID and now they're firing people. I will say this is anecdotal, this is not data to provide it. I think one thing going to benefit Republicans is the upcoming tax season with the rebates. I spoke to a relative of mine who is a hairstylist. She lives on tips because of Trump's no tax on tips. Her tax rebate was 750% higher than the year prior. Prior it was a life changing amount of money for I want to say life changing but year changing life amount of money for a person in a blue collar job. And considering that 17 million Americans work in the tip industry, this could be a lot. This could be bolster working class Americans incomes substantially going into going into the election year. So I am hopeful that come May and June, as long as people file their taxes on time, which lord knows I love an extension they are, I think that those tax rebates will help a lot of working class Americans and maybe ease a lot of anxieties around the economy. Another big problem though, and this is something that won't be felt from the tax on tips. A big problem is too many Americans feel like Trump is focused on the wrong things. I know I'm going to piss people off. He's got to relax. The foreign policy stuff, I know it's legacy building. I know it's important. We're in an election cycle, though. Americans don't care about foreign policy. They don't, they don't care about foreign policy. Venezuela, as I said on this podcast, where was flawlessly done? Flawless. 10 out of 10, no one cared. It was a brief bump in the polls by a point and everyone went back to their life. Iran is much more complicated and it's having a lot more repercussions in the economy and locally. Not to mention there are dead Americans. Now Trump at this point needs to start calling all these executives who have promised to open up all these warehouses and factories across the country and hire all these Americans and start showing up to ribbon cutting ceremonies every single week. Send JD Vance out, send your key allies out, send Commerce Secretary whomever or Secretary of Treasury whomever, make sure they are at these ribbon cutting ceremonies where you're going to break ground on new construction, where you're going to hire new workers, take photos with new hired workers. This is of the effort. This is the, this is the effort needs to be put in to make sure Americans know that you care about the economy. You know, go invite a bunch of people who got taxes, tax relief for they were servers at restaurants or they were hairdressers or, or worked in hotels, whatever the case is. And they got tips to talk about how much of a relief the economy is from the no tax on tips. You really have to emphasize I care about the economy. I'm a businessman. I care about the business of people's everyday lives. Don't worry about what is going on at a war table in Tehran, what is happening at the kitchen table in Dallas, in Detroit, in Cleveland, in all these excerpts and suburbs and rural America. You have to, it has to be concentrated so heavily on the economy right now. And Congress, you know, in this meantime, have to start bringing up all the easy bills, get Mike Johnson to bring up the easiest bills and make Democrats vote against them. Hang it over their head going into election season. Have Thune bring them up to votes even if they fail, it doesn't matter. Let Democrats own every bad policy issue. Chris Murphy, who's got an IQ of like well water, he, he was on I forget what show Ms. Now or something like that. And he said he was like the people we care about with the most are, are undocumented Americans. You have to make them own all these stupid, insane positions. Democrats have so many good populous positions that they care about on health care that are, I'm not saying they're well thought out, but they're popular American people on abortion, on health care, on, on, on tech more and more. And then they'll be like, here are, you know, winning issues left, right and center. And by the way, along these winning issues, you have to let an illegal alien man who identifies as a girl who is 37 priors shower next to your daughter. Like they will destroy any type of well wish, any well welcome, any welcome that they have with, with voters at all. They just, they have to, they can, their brains are broken on trans issues and illegal immigrants and crime to the point that it actually hurts issues they're so popular with the American people with. And that's honestly the benefit of the Republicans. But the Republicans have to get on message. Trump needs to get on message. It is of the essence. And one of those messages, and you know, I've talked about this a lot is I both parties, man, they're missing the message. They're missing the point on this right now. And I have a guest on the show coming up next, Andrew Egger, my buddy from the Bulwark. He is here to talk about how both parties are missing out on the AI conversation that everyday Americans are having. That's coming up next. Stay tuned.
- [19:16]
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- [21:15]
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- [21:47]
Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
With me on today's episode is my buddy Andrew Egger, who writes the morning shop for the Bulwark, the morning newsletter. It's great. I actually do subscribe and read that. Thank you for being here, Andrew.
- [21:56]
Andrew Egger (Guest, White House Correspondent for The Bulwark)
Hey Ryan, how you doing?
- [21:57]
Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
You wrote a really interesting piece called Everybody Hates AI and you point to the NBC poll showing that AI is one of the few policy pieces that there's really no consensus on of which party has the most trust in. And you wrote this. That's what opportunity looks like. The party that can write the argument over AI is set up for a political windfall and then will be tasked with the shepherding of the country through the massive disruption towards a process rather than a dystopian AI integrated future if possible. No pressure, but so far it seems like basically everybody is blowing it. Is the question that they're blowing it because it's so new, or are they blowing it because they don't know what side their side should be taking?
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Andrew Egger (Guest, White House Correspondent for The Bulwark)
I would say right now most of what you are seeing when it comes to AI policy is you have this Brand new thing. It's going to be uniquely disruptive economically. It's set up to be uniquely disruptive politically. I think a lot of people are just waking up to this and that's what that poll kind of demonstrated is that voters have their views on which party tends to be more trusted on for instance, crime or immigration. You know, they're going to go for the Republicans or, or you know, voters tend to give Democrats the edge on health care, you know, civil rights, constitutional, you know, protections, those sorts of things. AI is a complete no man's land. And I think that, that not only is it a complete no man's land in terms of people knowing which party they, they, you know, want to, want to cling to on it, but even, even the, the idea that the issue is becoming so much more salient is new. I think a lot of policymakers are waking up and realizing, wait a minute, there's this political latent energy out here where, where this issue is only becoming more and more and more and more important and we need to figure out how we're going to take a stance on it. Some of the part of the problem is that we are really just seeing policymakers kind of fall back on frames of understanding, you know, for the last whole set of technologies in order to kind of do the opening shots of AI regulation here. So there's a lot of, on the Republican side, there's a lot of just, let's, let's just let it rip, baby. You know, free market type stuff. Get the data centers in there, let's just go. And on the Democratic side you see a lot of, you know, we need to, we need to restrain this thing quick and fast. And there are a lot of different kind of, in my view, bad policy levers that they're reaching for to do that. One of which, the one I wrote about in the piece is, is this idea of sort of protecting professional classes like, like doctors or lawyers or therapists or, or you know, basically anybody that, that you need an occupational license from the government to practice in a given state if you're a human being, basically just sort of freezing AI out from, from sharing any views on any of these, any of these issues. That's like one, one way. Another thing is these, these sorts of copyright lawsuits. The idea of, of, you know, basically holding these, these companies accountable for the AIs having had their training data, you know, pulled from perhaps copyrighted works. There are a lot of current lawsuits going on about that. But, but you know, there policy ideas in the pipeline about sort of using those to sort of divert big amounts of the, of the profits from these companies back to, you know, the people who the data was trained on, things like that. And then there's just you know, more kind of disruptive even than that ideas out there, like just sort of banning data centers altogether. And this is actually not just a Democratic thing. You've seen people like Ron DeSantis in Florida, Sarah Huckabee Sanders throw himself. Yeah, yeah, they're, they're sort of like a populist energy in the Republican Party as well. That, that, that is basically just. No, I, thanks, thanks. But it's not for us. You know, we, we've taken a look at it and we don't really like it. There's an enormous amount of political like energy out there behind this. I've talked to a number of people who sort of do public, public opinion research in this field and I think that the take you hear from those sorts of people is like, however bad you think it is, it's worse. People just don't like this thing. They, they, There's a, that was going to be a lot of appetite to, to maybe crush it. And, and that's going to be a thing that politicians are going to try to channel.
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Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
Yeah. And two things you mentioned. One is the difference between state Republicans and federal Republicans are, is a world apart. Like, you know, it's funny, very funny. The line out of coming out of Washington, the Republicans were using were if you we don't regulate this, then California will. But the truth is Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, they all regulate AI, all these deep red states. It is not just a California thing at all now that there shouldn't be a federal standard, but the Republican states want to regulate just as badly as Democratic states do. And I think, and maybe I'm wrong. I think that's because a lot of Republicans in Congress are older. They are not, you know, it's not the top of the list for them. And two is a lot of them are taking notes and cues from Trump who is super pro AI. He's the AI President. What is your opinion on that?
- [27:00]
Andrew Egger (Guest, White House Correspondent for The Bulwark)
Yeah, I think, I think that's basically correct. The White House, this White House in part because of sort of campaign like alliances that sort of sprung up during 2024. I mean you've seen a much more kind of muscular tech coalition, that sort of new tech. Right. That, that has the President's ear on a lot of this stuff, a lot of policy things. And AI is maybe the biggest one. Last year the, the White House put out, put out an action plan that was basically along the lines of what I was talking about earlier. Where, where, you know, kind of couching it in national security terms. Not, not, not like US versus California, but like US versus China is kind of more, more of the frame there where, where it's, you know, they're, we're developing our models over here. We're lucky enough to have all these companies, you know, be American companies, and we basically just need to focus on unleashing them. Obviously, that's been complicated in a couple of different ways recently. I mean, the Department of Defense is currently in a big fight with Anthropic, one of the leading AI companies over some, some use policies. We can set that aside, but that's been kind of the White House's line. And I think that that sort of national security line is another part of why there's, there's sort of more of an appeal for some, like you say, older lawmakers who, that's one of their primary frames for, for viewing the world. The other part of it is just that, I mean, this, this industry is spending a lot of money lobbying on this, on this topic. So it is sort of shaping up as well to be one of these things where, you know, they realize how much sort of like insurgent populist backlash is building up against them. They're like, wow, we better get out ahead of this thing before we just end up sort of, you know, legislated out of existence, really. And so they are, they are throwing a lot of money around for, for congressmen who might want to, to take a more pro AI stance too, as this a bad thing. I'm very pro AI myself, I should say. But, but, but, but it is one of these weird dynamics of, of sort of populist energy versus just a whole lot of money flying around in Washington.
- [28:52]
Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm pro AI to a point. I do think it needs. I, it's not the Internet it needs. It's different. It's a different beast. And there should be some, some regulations around it, considering that, like, you know, every once In a while AI developer goes, yeah, there's a 40% chance it ends humanity. I'm like, maybe we should have a conversation. That's a bigger number than one or two and you know, more than I do. But the funny thing is that you, as you mentioned the populist backlash, there was a Yuga poll that came out just like an hour ago from this recording, and they asked voters what industry has too Much power in Washington. And AI beat guns is real. Evangelicals, unions like to do that in such a short period of time to break people's generational mindset of like, oh, you know, we have heard forever that the nra, which is a functionally bankrupt organization that has essentially no power anymore. We've heard from Democrats for generations, NRA has too much power, even though that is not true anymore. To break that mindset of, of all these organizations on the right and the left to be the organization has too much control in the midst of the Iran war, in the midst of everything shows really that there is an anxiety that is so real and palpable. And the answer of just let it rip is not going to suffice to average voters, especially if the unemployment rate does inch up to 10% or higher.
- [30:28]
Andrew Egger (Guest, White House Correspondent for The Bulwark)
Yeah, yeah. And I would say this is one area where the Trump administration, like I said, it's had a pretty pro AI stance and it has actually done some good work on the margins of these anxieties. Like, just a couple of weeks ago, they basically rolled out an agreement where, you know, one of, one of the many sort of populist anxieties about AI is this, this stuff about energy costs and water usage. Right. I mean, these data centers, they, they, they suck up electricity and they, you know, they create a lot more demand on it in a given grid. They raise prices. So the White House rolled out basically a policy that, that is sort of a handshake agreement with some of these companies to shoulder more of those costs of, of their own data centers for some of these hyperscaling companies. That, that in theory addresses that one component, but of course that's only one component. Right. And as you're kind of mentioning, I think that there is, there's this sort of belated but now very real sort of societal awakening to the, to the idea that whereas even just a couple of years ago, all of this stuff about it really, you know, mass deplacement of, of employment, displacement of employment and things like that really did seem like kind of a, I, I don't know, like kind of a, a hidden ball trick or something like that. It's like, oh, these companies are just sort of, you know, making these silly sounding promises to hype up their own products. Nobody really thinks this is going to happen. People are really starting to think it is actually going to happen and it is creating an enormous amount of anxiety. I mean, I've been kind of slow waking up to all this stuff myself in just the last couple of months. I mean, it's, we were hardly thinking about AI at least, you know, I was hardly thinking about AI this time last year a lot of people were thinking a lot about it. But, but now, you know, you turn around and this could end up being really the key policy issue of the, of the 2028 election. I mean, like, we, we may be a couple of years already into some, some sort of AI transition at that point. And it, it's. And nobody, the thing that I keep coming back to is that nobody really has like a full plan for that. Everybody's trying to kind of like, like, you know, stick their, their pitcher down into the stream to like pull a little bit of that sentiment out and, and channel it toward one political end or another. But nobody seems to have like a real vision for what a society that, that, that interacts with this extremely powerful technology in a healthy way actually would look like.
- [32:40]
Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
Andrew, I will say if I have any talent in this world, it's picking up political trends. Like I really, I, I'm actually good at it. And I sat with a top member of the Trump administration in 2023 before the election and I said, you have to have an answer on this. It is the most important issue coming up. And they point blank looked at me and said it's not going to be a problem. It's not going to displace jobs. And I was like, you're wrong. Like, I don't know how else to tell you, but you're wrong. And I, I had on Ro Khanna on the show who's very like hawkish on AI. He's actually getting a primary challenge from the AI companies about it. And he said on the show he was, that this was the, the goal for him was we need to tax AI to do redistribution of wealth where everyone gets a check because no one will have jobs. And David Shore, it's like Andrew Yang's idea and it has been for a while. David Shore put out a study these. The progressive pollster is very smart and he said that people, voters care more about a job than a handout. Like they don't want to hand out. They want some kind of government backed, government backed job. And even a plurality of Republicans and Trump voters think it is more important that AI companies be taxed for the jobs that they lose, the jobs they destroy rather than be able to get profits. I do think we're in a different world than we were in ever because I do think this is going to split across party lines in a profound way.
- [34:09]
Andrew Egger (Guest, White House Correspondent for The Bulwark)
Yeah, yeah. And part of it is just that it all remains so opaque, right? So vague. Nobody even really knows what the impacts are going to be, where they're going to be felt first, how quickly they will arrive. Because all. Because we're all still just sort of like groping our way toward even what the technologies are going to be capable of a year from now or three years from now. I mean, like, even among the people who are building these things, views diverge wildly about how much more quickly this can continue to scale, right? And how, how. Where the bottlenecks are going to be. Where, where the actual, like, like an economy can sort of trundle along inefficiently without, like, perfect allocation of capital for a long, long, long time because of various, you know, actual human interests that are involved. And this seems like a situation where there's going to be a ton of that. And so the question is, can we, can we manage that sort of situation? Can we, can we allow these technologies to continue to be deployed while also finding different ways to sort of like, blunt the harms, allow the unleashing of the technology and the, and the productivity and all of those sorts of things, but blunt the harms? Or is it actually a situation where, where these, these. You're better off without it. Where, where you're. Where, where it's actually fine for these different, different politicians to basically subject this technology to a death of a thousand regulatory cuts. And, and, and, and nobody really knows, but they do know one thing, which is that the hatred for it out there, the anxiety about, about it out there, that is 100% real. Like, that's not just some, like, possible future development that's there now. And I think that's part of why we're starting to see this wave of, of, like I said, different sort of pretty hostile AI policy legislation out there. And it's going to get bigger.
- [35:49]
Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
The AI PACs, the AI alleged affiliated PACs, are spending millions on several races because they want to put the fear of God in these politicians. There's New York 12. If you haven't covered the New York primary, you should. It is the race to replace Jerry Nadler's old seat. There's a guy named Alex Boris. He's an assemblyman. He worked for Palantir, and he wrote the AI regulation for New York State. They are spending like, I think north of like $15 million to defeat him. He's running against John Kennedy's grandson, like, and George Conway, I think, you know, like a great, great parade of people. But he's actually a serious legislator. Even when I, even though I disagree with him on like 75% of things, he's serious. And like I keep telling Democrats, he has to win only so the conversation doesn't end. Like if he wins, the fear of all this money dials down a lot and then we could actually have a smart conversation. If he loses, a lot of people are going to shut up out of fear, but that's really what this election cycle more than I think who wins the House, who wins the Senate. The real story is these, these. And I've been talking a lot about money and politics for this podcast, last few episodes. Apac, crypto and AI, specifically AI spending money is to whoever wins the House really control what is allowed to be talked about and regulated or not. And that's why like Boris has to win. So we could actually have an adult conversation. Does that make any sense?
- [37:18]
Andrew Egger (Guest, White House Correspondent for The Bulwark)
Yeah, no, I see what you're talking about. I am also very, very interested in the way that this plays out on the Republican side. I mean, I was mentioning earlier the sort of split we talked about, the kind of populist versus institutionalist, or maybe institutionalist is not the right word, but the anti versus pro AI side on the Republicans and like a lot of it's concentrated at the state level, but that's not guaranteed to remain. I mean this has been one of the kind of fault lines in the MAGA coalition for quite a while is just this sort of like tech futurist guys, the Peter Thiel's of the world on the one hand and the more kind of like return to tradition sort of social cons on the other side of that particular split. And it really did feel like a sideshow for, for a lot of the women, certainly for the first Trump term, for a lot of what we've seen so far in the second Trump term, in terms of most of the policies that have been front and center, they tend to agree, they tend to align. There have been little flare ups like, you know, the fight over H1B visas or something like that. But, but, but we're really looking at a world where if this does in fact become kind of like one of the defining policy issues of the, of the back half of Trump's second term, I don't know how that coalition hangs together on this issue because it just seems so like they're, they're so diametrically on opposite sides of, of the very, very basic fundamentals of, of, of the issue here.
- [38:35]
Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
Well, I'll tell you a secret. So this is the secret in the Republican primary right now because I'm, I've been seeing this non stop is the AI gives buckets. The Club for Growth. The Club for Growth has a super close relationship with Trump. Trump endorsed the same primary cabinet Club for Growth does. And everybody wins. So we're not, we're going to have a serious conversation. We have not yet had that because Club AI and Trump are all in cahoots too. They're all like everyone's singing Kumbaya together. Once that ends, whether through its Trump's presidency or through I don't know what or a backlash is too big to withhold. But once that ends, then we'll have the conversation. But so often when a party's has the presidency, even they saw this in Obama when Obama was president, when Bush was president. You can't have dynamic conversations outside of what the White House is saying because everyone takes notes from the White House. So yeah, I'm frustrated on the Republican side deeply as somebody who does politics for a living. The Democratic side I think has a lot of energy and they have a lot of, they're open to a lot of conversations. A lot of bad ideas are coming out of Democratic side too. But they're having a conversation which is what the American people are. And Shore's data show that like economic populism tied to AI means a four point swing in Democrats favor nationally. You go from a Trump 2024 election to Obama 202012 election. Specifically on AI, so long as you don't make the other policy positions like a grown man should be able to shower a thin a 12 year old daughter. Like, you know what I mean? Like it's like who identifies the woman? Like as long as you don't do that. Like actually there's a lot going for Democrats. Okay, where, where could we go to read your stuff to hear more about you? Because I think you put out some really, really interesting stuff. Your morning newsletter.
- [40:19]
Andrew Egger (Guest, White House Correspondent for The Bulwark)
Yeah, thanks. So I'm the White House correspondent for the Bulwark. I write our morning newsletter with Bill Kristol every day, Monday through Friday. It's a free newsletter, goes out@thebulwark.com and I'm also, I'm also all over our YouTube, all over our substack video stuff. You know, follow the bulwark on YouTube if you feel like it or head over to substack video stuff there as well. And I'm on Twitter, Edgar D.C. great guy.
- [40:40]
Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
Do not let the Bulwark scare you. He's somebody worth listening to. Absolutely. All right, Angie, thanks for this podcast I appreciate it.
- [40:46]
Andrew Egger (Guest, White House Correspondent for The Bulwark)
Thanks, Ryan.
- [40:48]
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- [43:17]
Ryan (Host of Numbers Game Podcast)
Now. It's Time for the Ask Me Anything segment. If you want a part of the Ask Me Anything segment, let me ryan@NumbersGame podcast.com that's Ryan@Numbers plural numbers game podcast.com I've got a lot of them. I love getting these. I think they make the show so wonderful and it makes me know that someone's listening. Okay, this question comes from Eric. He writes, Ryan, the House representatives has been 435 representatives since the early part of the 1900s. 1929. Since then our population has increased to over 330 million. I'm a strong advocate of expanding the number of Representatives. Earlier this year many states did redistricting to increase Rs or Ds. My opinion is why not simply increase the number of Republic of Representatives. I think the problem is the current reps do not want to water down their power. In your opinion, what is the correct number of Representatives the US House should have and how do we get the House to expand? You know I talked to Matt Gaetz about this when he was in Congress and he just was always like his opinion always was will the House operate better with more representatives? And that was his big opposition to it. We have one of the smaller like parliaments or House Representatives in the lower. Lower representatives, lower body rather a parliament of our parliament of our Congress. In the world we are number 24 as far as the size of our lower house representatives. Other countries like you know, other mid sized and low sized countries have much larger parliaments than we do. France, Mexico, Japan, England, Ethiopia, Turkey, Germany, they all have larger bodies than US legislative bodies. So it's it, it, it's not like we would be out of step with the world if we increased it. But why we don't increase it I think partially is I don't think congressmen feel a need to do it and I don't think that they think Congress will work any better if you increase it. What do I think is the appropriate size? Population? So I started looking at what other countries have as far as population. We have about 760000 people in every congressional district on average average. Germany has a hundred and sixteen thousand. England has a hundred thousand, Japan has 272,000. Most peer nations are between two to three hundred thousand. So I started looking at historical precedences, the cube rule, what ideal representation would look like. And most, most very smart analysis said between 480,000 to 600,000 people per district. Now this is purely an intellectual game. I don't know how you would get to an actual number that that would matter. But I started looking also the European Union, what their body is. They have 100 million more people than us, but we're going to get there with immigration. So I had said, let's. I say a good number that would restore more balance in Congress to representation. Representatives. Representatives per people would probably be about 721. Right. It's about the European Union size with one extra seat because we can't have ties. And that would decrease the number of people per district to the 1970s level. About 460,000 people per district. It would just be much. Be much easier, I think, for people to interact with their representatives. It would cut the population in half. And I think it would give representation, better representation to states that have, you know, that are. That are diverse. But what happens when the population cap is so high is that one city represents the entire states. Like a state like Delaware, they have one congressperson who gets all their votes out of the northern part of the state. That's all Democrat. If there was a fair. Or if there was. If they had. If they reduced the number to 460,000, there was a fair map, they'd actually have a Republican seat and a Democratic seat because southern Delaware is very Republican, but they don't get any representation. Likewise, New Hampshire would have Republican seats, Massachusetts Republican seats. Texas would have more Democratic seats. If everything was done, you know, fairly, which I'm saying that's a big if. And I was looking at some states like Delaware would go from one to two seats. Connecticut would go from five to eight. Idaho would go from two to four. Louisiana go from six to 10. Texas would go from 38 to 63. It would be a bigger size. That's a hard thing to wrap your mind around, but I would say about 721would be a good number. Anyway, it's an interesting question. Okay, last question for the show. This question comes from Ryan. He writes, I am a man. I am a man. Oh, okay. Because I asked you. He wrote to me last time I said, I know Ryan is a man or a woman because there are female Ryan. It's not many, but there are. He wrote, I am a man. I know. You read it on your pod and you aren't sure, my name is. My name is Ryan. Anyway, you brought up your. Your grandmother's meatball recipes on the last pod. I love making meatballs. What can you share from your grandma's recipe? Okay. This is probably the most important question that was ever asked. I'm Italian. I'm 50. Sicilian. Making sauce Making meatballs is like. It's. It's our. I mean, the smell of garlic and olive oil is like my ancestral legacy. So. And I. Oh, you always have to make sauce with your meatballs. I don't believe in just making meatballs. I really, honestly don't know how to do it. It's this weird thing Italians have where, like, I can cook very easily for 85 people. I do not know how to make a meal for three people, though it is. I am dumbfounded at the concept of what Porsches actually look like. I. It's. Everything is in bulk. Like, literally, Costco is just Italian people's everyday life. So this is how you make my grandmother's meatball and sauce recipe. It's not like we don't, you know, we're not trademarking it. It is what it is every time. It's basically the same thing with a little thing different here or there. It's a very basic thing. But I will explain it to you since you asked, and this is. Ask me anything. So the first thing you want to do, get a big pot. And you want to coat the bottom of the pot with a good olive oil. Shouldn't be dripping. It shouldn't be like an inch of olive oil. You should just coat the bottom of the pan a good amount. I don't measure a lot of things, so that's that. And then you need to put chopped garlic on the bottom of this. Listen to me very carefully. Do not burn the garlic. You brown the garlic. If you burn the garlic, throw the whole thing away and start over again. You cannot burn the garlic. Once the garlic is brown, you add tomato paste. It's a small little can you get from the. From the grocery store. It's very thick. Put that in, Fill the can up with water. Throw that in, mix it, get it nice and smooth, and. And make sure that you know everything's even. Then after tomato paste, you get tomato, crushed tomatoes and tomato puree. Those are much bigger cans. Take the tomato puree, put water in that, put that also in there, and you want to put it on a low temperature. I'm talking like, if you have electric stove, low or warm. If you have a gas stove, like the lowest flame possible, you add some basil, pinch of sugar for the acidity, salt and pepper, and heat that thing and let it go. Stir occasionally, then you go to your meatballs. I do think a little differently than what my grandmother did. Everyone has their own kind of specialty. What I have found in making meatballs is this. Use a chopped meat that is very lean. So I do like a 93, 7 or 80, 20 chop meat, a chopped meat that is very, very lean, very little fat. You can go to a butcher, you can go to Whole Foods, find that. And then I take that and I mix it with pork, usually from a sausage. Like, I'll cut this sausage open, I'll take the skin of it off, and I'll put the sausage in. Or like a ground pork with, like, a healthy amount of fat. And people say, 50, 50. I do it 75 beef, 25 pork, whatever the case may be. That's what usually I do. 75 pounds a beef, 25% pork for like a pound, pound and a half. The leanness of the. Of the ground beef and the fat on the pork are beautiful together. Like, they are gorgeous. Take a big bowl, you put an egg, half a cup of regatta. It is not pronounced Ricotti is regatta. Put regatta in the bowl. And then you put an insane amount of pecorino Romano cheese. Like you put an insane amount. They say put a. Like a half a cup. No, put a full cup. Put as much as you want, heavy on the cheese. Then you do 2 tablespoons of salt, 2 tablespoons of pepper, a chopped garlic. Again, half a cup of Italian breadcrumbs. Some Italians make their own breadcrumbs. I don't got time for that. Just put it, you know, it's fine. Put regular breadcrumbs, Italian breadcrumbs in the. In the meat. And then parsley, like a lot of parsley. Half a cup of parsley. Then you throw your meat in. You mix it with your hands, wash your hands, obviously, beforehand. Mix it with your hands. Your hands will be freezing from this whole process. You will have to go out and, like, warm your hands up from this entire thing because it is cold. You mix that, you roll it. Here is where, like, the magic is made. And this is a controversial opinion. Depending on the person, you put the meat raw, directly in the sauce to cook it. The flavor of the meat is absorbed in the sauce. You cook the sauce for three hours. So the meat will cook. It's not going to be raw after the entire thing is over. But that is how you really marinate the meat and the sauce together over that time. And it should literally take about two and a half to three hours, no minimum of that, because then it will be just. It'll be too tomatoey. It won't be good. Like, you got to be like. The sauce has to be thin, thick to a bite where it sticks onto the pasta, it sticks onto the meat and you occasionally put in some salt, pepper if you need to, but you don't have to. After that, stir occasionally, keep it going and that's how you make my grandmother's meatball and pot and sauce recipe. If you want to bake it beforehand, by the way, put in for 10 minutes the meatballs and then put them in the sauce just to make a harder outside so they don't completely fall apart. But if you, if you pack it right, it's not going to fall apart, it's going to be delicious. As I said, two and a half to three hours is how you cook it on a low heat. If it's bubbling everywhere and exploding, the heat's too hot. Lower the heat and you will have Sunday dinner. I make Italian Sunday dinner every single Sunday. Catholicism and pasta on Sunday is the two things I still have from the old country. So after all these generations I barely register as an Italian anymore. It's just sauce and church. So and it comes on the same day. Anyway, thank you for listening to this podcast. I hope you like this. I hope you like the recipe. If you like this podcast, please like and subscribe on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast like on YouTube. Give me a five star review if you're feeling generous and I will talk to you guys on Friday. Thanks.
- [54:26]
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