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- [00:00]
A
Guys, thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree. Zoe, this thing weighs a ton.
- [00:04]
B
Drew Ski, live with your legs, man.
- [00:06]
C
Santa.
- [00:06]
A
Santa, did you get my letter? He's talking to you britches.
- [00:09]
B
I'm not.
- [00:10]
A
Of course he did.
- [00:11]
B
Right, Santa, you know my elf Drew Ski here. He handles the nice list.
- [00:15]
A
And elf, I'm six' three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile, you can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies, right, Mrs. Claus? I'm Mrs. Claus Claus much younger sister. And AT T Mobile, there's no trade in needed when you switch. So you can keep your old phone.
- [00:32]
B
Or give it as a gift.
- [00:33]
A
And the best part, you can make the switch to T Mobile from your phone in just 15 minutes. Nice. My side of the tree is slipping. Kimber, the holidays are better.
- [00:41]
D
AT T Mobile switch in just 15.
- [00:43]
A
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- [00:59]
E
Visit t mobile.com today on the show, the supposedly booming economy is taking another punch to the face. Private payrolls lost another 32,000 jobs. Small businesses are getting crushed by the tariffs, and even Fox Business can only stomach talking about it for 30 seconds before they move on to something else. We're also going to talk about Scott Besant's growing obsession with with talking about how much cheaper red states are. But what that misses is an analysis of why blue states are more expensive, how much higher salaries are, and of course, how much better health care and education are. We're going to get into all of it. And then stunning Trump approval numbers collapsing to 36%. That is the lowest it has ever been other than the two weeks after the Trump riots of January 6, 2021. Even though Trump has said 2028 is not going to be for him. Steve Bannon says there is a plan and by redefining terms, Trump will be able to serve a third term. Is he just trolling or is there anything real behind it? And we are also going to take a deeper dive in terms of the jobs question at blue collar jobs specifically, which are collapsing under this administration. I also am going to delve into the very strange sort of irony of the Obsession with the prototypical alpha male in this administration and the lack of alpha males in this administration. All of those stories and more on today's show. What a day.
- [02:40]
We have to start with the jobs situation today which is getting quite dire. We have a reporting from CNBC and then a comment from FOX News. And you'll see what I mean in a moment. The miss was minus 32,000 jobs in November. Remember that Donald Trump has canceled the official jobs numbers.
- [03:02]
A
He didn't like the numbers a little.
- [03:03]
E
While ago, so he fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. That's okay. We still have the ADP numbers And ADP says minus 32,000 jobs. The, the estimate was plus 40,000. So minus 32 is 72,000 jobs short of the estimate. Here is the reporting from CNBC.
- [03:22]
B
Joe? Yeah, a big miss on the ADP payrolls. The private payroll company saying private payroll shed 32,000 workers in November. That's the fourth negative number in the past six months for this series. Take a look here. The estimate was for 40,000. So the street was off on this one. And how did you get there? Well, Goods producing shed 19,000 workers. Service producing shedding 13,000 workers. But the big story here, and I'll show you more detail on this is what's happening with Small business down 120,000. Medium and large business doing okay, up 51 and 39,000 respectively. But take a look at this chart here. Virtually all of the job losses have come from small business, which has been negative in six of seven months since April. Without those losses, ADP numbers would actually be positive. But you can't get rid of or you can't exclude small business. And then you look at it by sector. Well, we've seen those two sectors do it. Education, health services, hospitality leading the way. But manufacturing down information down. And professional business services down by 26,000. Also another sign of weakness in the job market. Job stayers their, their wages up 4.4. That's down a tenth from the prior month. And job changers, that was a big number or had been. That's down 4. 10 of a point to 6.3%. So Joe, at least according to ADP, additional weakness in the job market and small business getting hammered. And there is some information that some of this may be coming from being hammered by the tariffs.
- [04:51]
E
Fox News on the other hand, devoting almost no time to this. This is FOX Business to be fair, where they talk about the economy. Presumably Maria Bartiromo referring to it as unexpected loss of jobs, which to her credit is True, the expectation was plus 40,000. We got minus 32,000. Here's Maria.
- [05:10]
F
It's there on the move right now as we just got the November ADP numbers crossing the tape right now. An unexpected loss of jobs. Sheryl Khasani, tell us more.
- [05:18]
E
We did.
- [05:18]
G
We got a loss of 32,000 jobs which in a way markets may want to have seen because that gives you a better shot at a rate cut for December or more of a confirmation of that. The expectation was 10,000. They also revised for October up to 47,000 from 4,42,000. At this point we're still seeing about an 85% chance of a quarter rate point next next week. Excuse me. But again, this is the private sector job market. Private, you know, this is 500,000 US employers. This is the freshest data that the Fed's really going to get on jobs. Maria, ahead of that decision.
- [05:52]
F
You know, it's interesting, Cheryl, to see this market rally on this news because I guess it's confirming to some investors that the Fed has to cut rates.
- [06:02]
G
Yep. This is, and this is why I was looking at the Fed funds futures which are actually still moving as I'm talking to you, but they're moving up. The chances are actually heading up right now. The two year is, the two year yield is falling right now. But again, yes, this, this gives the Fed more of a, of a push for that quarter point cut.
- [06:20]
A
All right.
- [06:20]
F
A decline of 32,000 jobs in the month of November. Marcus Lemonis, your reaction?
- [06:25]
E
Well, I think we, I expect a little bit of it because you didn't see all the retail hiring that everybody anticipated. But when we had this happen under.
- [06:33]
A
The Biden admin, we had an emergency 50 point rate cut.
- [06:36]
E
Right now we're debating a 25 cut.
- [06:38]
F
Well, therein lies the 101 point rally in the Dow Jones Industrial. Not enough on this, on this news, not enough. Meanwhile, there's this data centers are setting up shops in small towns across America. The rapid growth causing concern.
- [06:51]
E
So let me give you a reminder, bigger picture about the jobs report. You know they, they keep calling it a jobs report, but in reality it's sort of like an economic warning sign of sorts where we are way beyond just like one bad number. This is now a pattern. If you go back to World War II and there's a political relevance here, you go back to World War II, the data show that when Democrats run the White House, the United States creates way more jobs. In fact, under Democratic presidents It's been about 70 million jobs added. Under Republicans it's been about 29 million jobs added. So put, put that into perspective, more than twice as many jobs created under Democrats. Put it a different way. Under Democratic presidents, the economy creates an average of 164,000 jobs a month, dating all the way back to World War II. Under Republican presidents, the economy creates about 61,000 jobs per month since the end of the Cold War. In 89, the contrast is wild. 50 million of the 51 million new jobs went to the economy while Democrats held the presidency. 50 million to 1 million. Now, one of the things you can trust me to do on this show, not to wear reliably stylish sweaters, not to stop with the turtlenecks, not to have my hair looking like I didn't just roll out of bed.
- [08:26]
A
Now, you can't rely on me for.
- [08:27]
E
That stuff, but you can rely on me to be really upfront with you about the economy and the role that presidents play in that economy. A president is not someone who has like a job creation wand that they can wave. There are economic cycles, there are global markets, there are demographic changes. There are one off events like pandemics and the like. But the longer a period you evaluate, the more likely you are seeing signal rather than noise. And the Trend now over 100 years is that way more jobs are created under Democratic presidents than under Republican presidents. So at the end of the day, we can't really be that surprised that when we have a Republican president who is as clownish, chaotic and incompetent as Donald Trump and who is moving the few levers presidents have on jobs in a way that will predictably not create them and might even reduce them, we can start making an assessment about in general which party is a better steward of jobs in this economy. What we are seeing right now under Trump is simply a continuation of a many decades long Republican pattern of weak job performance. Later in the show we are going to dig more specifically into what are called blue collar jobs from five specific sectors. That's later. Next, I want to talk about blue states and red states and the obsession that one Trump tool has with this. Couple of weeks ago, maybe it was last week, Scott Bessant said, hey, you know, the inflation rate is lower in red states than in blue states by half a percentage point. One thing Americans could do if they want to beat high prices is move from a blue state to a red state. And we did the numbers. And basically what Scott Besant was proposing was for a savings of $25 a month, uproot your family to a state that on average pays lower salaries, has inferior education and less access to health care, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Besant is back on this kick and he was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin at some event, and he again says affordability is more of a problem than in blue states. And again, he's missing the forest for the tree. So let's look at the clip and then I want to talk about it.
- [10:49]
D
You've been talking about is that the regional presidents you think actually are not as independent unto themselves that you want?
- [10:57]
H
Well, no, no, I think when I, when I was on Squat Box last week, Becky said, well, Susan Collins at the Boston Fed says this and you know, I, that her.
- [11:14]
People in her district are having an affordability problem. I should have said, well, she's in a red state, affordability is worse. I mean, in a blue state, affordability is worse than a blue state.
- [11:25]
D
We can debate that.
- [11:26]
H
But there's no debate. The number 50 basis points higher inflation, the, the 10 highest the inflation rates, they are in blue cities.
- [11:40]
D
But just, just so you know, because I went to look at this. This is the joint Economic Committee 2000. Since 2021, the highest inflation of the past four years has been in red states, especially Florida.
- [11:54]
H
I'm talking about current, current, current.
- [11:56]
D
Not over the past four years.
- [11:58]
H
Right. Today.
- [11:59]
D
Okay. I would think four years would be a reasonable.
- [12:05]
To trend line to look at today.
- [12:08]
H
Today it is 50 basis points higher. So anyway, and look, the people are voting with their feet. I have the American people on my side that New York, Illinois, California, Massachusetts.
- [12:24]
D
Are depopulating and they're going to places in Florida like Florida, where, where interest rates are. I'm saying inflation's up 22% over the last four years.
- [12:33]
H
Well, inflation, then inflation is up 25%, naturally. So it's lower.
- [12:38]
D
I believe in New York it was 19%. Sorry, I believe in New York it was 19%.
- [12:42]
H
I don't think that's right.
- [12:43]
D
We can, we can go through the math.
- [12:45]
E
You know, for Republicans who love to talk about the free market and supply and demand, who seem to understand there's a reason why Rolex watches are expensive or Mercedes vehicles are expensive, they always conveniently miss or ignore that to a degree. Blue states are more expensive because there is on average more demand and people make more money in those blue states. So it is true that on average the cost of living is higher in blue states than in red states. That's, that's not a lie. But you have to understand that wages are dramatically higher on average. In blue states, if wages are higher, there is a willingness to pay more for housing or other expenses, which leads to higher prices. If you have more jobs and more economic opportunity in blue states, on average, that is going to lead to a higher cost of living still to the benefit of those who are earning higher salaries and have access to better health, health care and better education. If you look at the cost of delivering better public services and infrastructure, of course that is going to be reflected in how expensive it is to live in a particular state. But there are benefits to that. Labor standards are better, more worker protections, better public services, amenities are more desirable, public schools are better, public transit is better, a culture is on average more rich. All of this stuff creates a demand to live in some of these places and, and it pushes prices up. That's the way it works because people are willing. This is market talk. This is basic market talk. People are willing to pay more to live in places with more opportunity. Now what we see as a result of that, or in conjunction with that, is that salaries on average are significantly higher in blue states. The schools are better, health care access is better, health outcomes are better, longevity, life expectancy is higher, Infrastructure and transportation is better. Access to high speed Internet is more widespread. There's more social safety nets, more innovation, more tech, more knowledge based jobs. And so there are caveats there. But it's really weird that Besant, who claims to be, you know, a champion of the free market, doesn't seem to understand the effect of supply and demand here. Now let me give you some of the caveats. Even though people make more in the more expensive blue states, that doesn't benefit everyone equally. We still have inequality in blue states. Affordability is a problem in blue states, there's no question about that quality of services. You can look at blue states, you know, you look at places like Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode island, you look at the statewide averages and the, the metrics in those states are very similar to some of the highest quality of life European countries. But within the states it's often way better in the urban areas, in the C, Boston, Providence, Hartford, etc. And not so good in the more rural areas of those states. There's still a disparity there. That's something we have to deal with. It's not perfect. The other aspect of this that I think is important is that short term inflation can look different than longer term cost of living. And those are two different things that are conflated. And Scott Besant isn't delving into that, but I wish that these champions of the free market would recognize sometimes things are more expensive because of demand and people willing to pay more for them. That's the principle that they champion and espouse in so many areas. But then they shut off that part of their brain conveniently. So when it comes to the fact that yes, blue states on average cost more, but people make way more money, Let me know what you think about this.
- [16:32]
A
This time of year, people often start thinking about where the country is heading as we get closer to the New Year. And with politics as unstable as it is, one of the big areas of concern for me, and I know for many of you, is how there are groups pushing religion into government. This brings me to our sponsor, the Freedom From Religion Foundation. They've been defending the separation of church and state since 1978. December 15th is bill of Rights Day, and this is a reminder that Christian nationalism is no longer theoretical. Religious ideology is shaping policy and challenging constitutional protections that are supposed to keep government neutral. FFRF is one of the most important groups that's pushing back. They file lawsuits, they challenge violations. They defend the secular boundaries that affect people directly. And through December 9, they are running their Season of Reason campaign. You get 20% off merchandise when you join. You get a free gift membership to share with someone who cares about secular government. Something I care about, visit ffrf.us/shop or text my first name David to 511511 before December 9th. Take action while these offers last, Theocracy doesn't wait. Neither should we. The info is in the description text Fees may apply. I love it when a box of bottles of wine from Naked Wines shows up at my house, we unpack it. I'm partial to the white wine. My girlfriend is more partial to the red wine. Our sponsor, Naked Wines, is a wine club that will connect you directly with independent winemakers all over the world. This means you are getting world class wine delivered to your door at up to 60% less than what you would pay in stores. And the reason is very easy. No middlemen, no huge markups. Just the winemakers and you. Every box has introduced us to bottles we never would have picked up on our own. Makes any regular weeknight dinner feel a little more special. And it's an easy way to enjoy great wine without overthinking it too much. Whether you're a wine expert or you're like me and you know virtually nothing at all about wine, head to naked wines.com/packman use the code Pacman as the code and password to get 6 bottles for only 39, 99 shipping included. The link is in the description. Donald Trump and this administration are suffering a critical polling collapse where they are even losing Republicans. Now, this is fascinating data. I want to go over it with you. Now, as many of you know, the gold standard in presidential approval polling is Gallup. Gallup just dropped a bomb on Donald Trump. So let's take a look at the disastrous numbers for this administration, for Republicans, especially, going into 2026, which, by the way, we're 11 months from the midterm elections now on the question of Donald Trump's approval. Donald Trump's approval has hit yet another low of 36%. This is the lowest Trump's approval has been this entire term. But more than that across both of his terms, other than the last two weeks of his first term, meaning right after the January six Trump riots, which is a very unusual situation. Other than that, Trump's approval is now as low as it has ever been and roughly as low as it was in the 14 days of his presidency after the January six riots, which were a historically disastrous and anomalous event. A criminally and disgustingly unusual situation. I might add. Richard Nixon is the only president with a worse net approval at this point in the second term than Trump. On the question of partizanship, because we know Republicans like Trump more than independents and more than Democrats, we find that Trump's approval is down among all groups and each one is notable for its own reasons. First of all, Democrats obviously dislike Trump, but only 3%, not 13 3% of Democrats approve of the job that Donald Trump is doing. This is notable because with other Republican Presidents, more than 3% of Democrats approve. So among Democrats, historically bad number. We then look at independents. Among independents, Trump's approval is down to 25%. Again, historically low. This one matters to us. This one is important in our analysis, especially as we approach midterms, because independents make a huge difference. Not only can independents vote either way, sometimes Republicans, sometimes Democrats, although most are partizan in one direction primarily, but they also can stay home. And with lower turnout in midterms, a group that is outside the expected numbers is more likely to go out and to try to hurt you. And then we look at the approval among Republicans, which we expect to mostly like Trump, also at a historic low of 84%. Now, you might say, wait a second, 84% of Republicans still support Trump? That's sick. How can that be? And of course, you're right to have that reaction. How could it possibly be? But we also have to consider that For Trump, this is a terrible number. It's the worst support among Republicans that Donald Trump has ever had. We then look at issue by issue and we see that Donald Trump has alienated a ton of Republicans on some issues. On if you look at the issue of Ukraine, only 2/3 of Republicans approve of how Trump is handling Ukraine. Trump has failed there. He said he'd have peace within a day of being elected. Then it would be within a day of being sworn in, it would be within a month of being sworn in, it would be within three months. And still no dice there on health care of major importance in these midterms, only 69% of Republicans approve of the job Trump has done on health care. And why, why would they approve? I mean, he's done nothing other than let premiums probably go up explosively unless he finds some way to prevent that in the 20 something days that are left in this year. And meanwhile, the congressional approval numbers are really bad. Only 4% of Democrats, 15% of independents, and incredibly, only 23% of Republicans think that Congress is doing a good job. Now there is any. One of the weird things about congressional approval is that in general, you ask the American people, do you approve of the job Congress is doing? And it's like, no, I don't. The numbers are really low. You ask them, do you approve of the job your specific member of Congress is doing? The numbers are way, way higher. So there's kind of two ways to read into this. On the one hand, when everybody says Congress sucks, that's pretty bad for the party in power, which in this case is Republicans. On the other hand, a lot of people think Congress isn't doing a good job, but it's not because of their elected representative, it's because of somebody else. So we zoom out from this shaping up to be a historic disaster for Republicans in November. We have to make sure that it is. And this is why we have to keep hammering on this. You can. It's sort of like nature versus nurture, right? You take a kid, a newborn little baby, what is going to determine what sort of person that baby becomes? Part of it is the stage that is set by the genetic predispositions, right? So we're talking about nature, and then part of it is environmental. It's the nurture. Similarly, we have to look at these polling numbers and we have to look at these midterms the same way. Structurally, Republicans take power in 24, they should lose in 26 polling. Disastrous for Republicans, disastrous for Trump. Those are sort of like the genetic predispositions, circumstantially and blah, blah, blah. It looks like it should be bad for Republicans. Then what are we going to do? This is like the, the, the nurture part. How are we going to nurture these circumstantial predispositions into actually taking could it be 30 or 40 seats from Republicans in the House? Could it be 50 or 60? Could it be a historic number? Could it be 70, 75? I don't know. We've got 11 months to go. But the predispositions of the circumstances are only part of it. And it's like, what kind of elections are we going to run? What kind of campaigns are we going to run? How are we going to activate voters over the next 11 months? My hope, obviously, is that it will be just a humiliating, resounding defeat. Let me know in the comments. What do you believe happens in the House in November as of right now? And you could say like Republicans plus five or Democrats plus 40 or what. What do you believe happens? Remember to leave a like for the video. And I would love it if you hit the subscribe button on YouTube as well. Steve Bannon is admitting that there is a secret plan for Donald Trump to serve another term starting in 2028. He's admitting to the entire thing. And I think what's important here is that we have to consider the ideology that underplays this. Even if you believe as. I wonder if Trump has completely given up even on the idea of 2028, which he sort of seems to have. Listen to what Bannon said. This is not a brand new video. It's from a few weeks ago. Listen to what Steve Bannon said about what they're scheming and crafting for 2028.
- [26:25]
I
Well, he's going to get a third term. So Trump 28. Trump is going to be President 28. And people just ought to get accommodated with that.
- [26:32]
C
So what about the 22nd Amendment?
- [26:34]
I
There's many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is. But there's a plan and President Trump will be the president in 28. We had longer odds in 16 and longer odds in 24 than we got in 28. And President Trump will be the president. And the country needs him to be president. United States. We have to finish what we started. And the way we finish it, do Trump. Trump is a vehicle. I know this will drive you guys crazy, but he's a vehicle of divine providence. He's an instrument. He's very imperfect. He's not Churchy, not particularly religious, but he's an instrument of divine will. And you can tell this of how.
- [27:11]
A
This is disgusting, delusional stuff, by the.
- [27:13]
I
Way, how he's pulled this off. We need him for at least one more term. Right. And he'll get that in 28.
- [27:20]
C
You're not driving me crazy. I'm really simple. I'm trying to understand the coherence of the things you've just told me in the last few minutes. On the one hand, you've said the Constitution is fit for purpose. Secondly, you've said that President Trump needs another term, Even though the 22nd amendment makes pretty clear that he cannot have a second.
- [27:37]
I
Why does it make that clear?
- [27:38]
C
Because he's on his second term already.
- [27:41]
I
At some point in time, we will make sure we go through Zani and define all those terms.
- [27:48]
A
So the idea of defining those terms means there might be some way in which Bannon believes it could be argued Trump hasn't really served two terms. We don't know is it going to be semantic? But the idea here is Bannon has a plan.
- [28:01]
C
But even, even if you're going to undermine the. You will be undermining the spirit of that amendment, even if you find some way around it. And to those.
- [28:11]
I
The American people. Can the American people. If the American people, with the mechanisms we have put Trump back in office, are the American people tearing up the Constitution, would that be turning up? Would they. Would the American people be going against the span?
- [28:26]
A
All right, so listen, he goes on a little bit further, but you get the idea. Bannon is doing three things here. Number one, normalizing the idea of a third term by continuing to talk about it. You just, you keep talking about it. By the time, if and when Republicans start pushing for it, somehow it'll feel less shocking. It goes. It would be unthinkable. Well, it would be controversial. Well, maybe there is some way. And then, oh, we expect Trump to try for a third term and maybe we're going to be less viscerally opposed to it. To Bannon's testing the base. How do you measure loyalty? Well, you say something like this, we're going to get him a third term. And you look who cheers, who hesitates, who attacks, who promotes it. If the reaction is strong enough in a positive sense, you can escalate the rhetoric and then you can escalate the actions. And then three, it is just more of this kind of soft launching authoritarianism. It's already been decided. Just accept it. We've got a plan. We're going to Redefine terms. We know how we're going to do it. You are conditioning people to think these rules don't really matter. They shouldn't matter. Don't worry about it. And so notice how he doesn't say how Trump gets the third term, but he says there is a plan, there will be an appropriate time to reveal it. We are going to redefine terms in order to explain how this is going to be possible. This is the language of people who know the plan isn't legal. If it was legal, they wouldn't need a plan, they wouldn't need to redefine terms. If it were constitutional, if it were Democratic, they wouldn't need to be doing these things. Everyone is talking about Steve Bannon saying Trump will be president in 28. But there's another point they're missing from this, which is that there is also a trial balloon here for treason and civil war, seizing institutions, conditioning their base to see violence and institutional takeover as a patriotic thing. Here's a little more from this interview.
- [30:17]
C
Use the word war a lot. If you really think there is a risk of civil war and, and the situation is as bad as you are saying, don't you have a responsibility as someone who sees this and who's a student of history and has seen what has happened in history, to calm things down?
- [30:33]
I
Not to calm things down at all, to warn people? Do you think if we calm things down, they're going to stop? What planet are you living on? This is my problem with this whole concept of liberal debate. We're in a revolutionary time, both technologically, geopolitically, Right? Financially, we must go to the ramparts. Because if you're just passive and docile and just flick the channel and watch the National Football League and go to Taylor Swift concerts, it's over. This is the fourth turning. The strength of the populist nationalist maga movement in this country is we're anti fragile, we're resilient. You can give us your best shot, you can put us in prison, you can take our credit cards away, you can debank us, you can deplatform us, you can have all the tech stuff that happen. We can't be beaten if we don't quit. And if that takes hot rhetoric, you ain't seen nothing yet. Because we're now getting into the middle of this fight and we're never going to. We're never going to kowtow to these people. We're never going to get on our knees to these people. We're never going to apologize we're never going to say we're sorry. All we care about is victory begets victory begets victory. And we know that we're ascended and they're in decline. We, as a populist nationalist movement, as a MAGA movement, we need to do, like, the redistricting fights. We need to get. This is why I was down in Texas. We need to. We need to get the House in a situation that is permanently defendable by the MAGA movement. Right.
- [31:54]
A
So.
- [31:54]
I
So it's a blocking mechanism. And take that, like I said, you move maximalist strategy with a sense of urgency and you seize the institutions. And that's what we're doing right now.
- [32:04]
E
I don't see. I don't see how that is a recipe for diffusing this crisis. I. I think that what happens is when people feel shut out of power.
- [32:12]
A
And interest groups cannot listen to what Bannon says. Let's listen to the language that he presents. This is about ending the independence of courts. This is about, you know, when he says, seize the institutions. This is Project 2025. This is sort of what they've tried and to some degree started to do. Remove career civil servants. Replace the rule of law with loyalty to Trump. Install political police inside the government to police views. Authoritarianism in the real world, tanks in the streets. Well, Trump would love that, but you don't need that. It's. You take over institutions from the inside. Do I really think Trump's going to serve a third term? I don't. Do I think they're going to come up with something and they will push authoritarianism to limits we've never seen before? Yes, I do. And Bannon at least seems to have a plan. A lot of guys go years without ever thinking about their underwear. You just keep buying the same kind, dealing with the same discomfort, the sticking, the chafing, the readjusting. Once you try sheath underwear, you are going to realize you don't have to put up with that. Our sponsor, Sheath Underwear, is lightweight, breathable, comes with two separate pouches in the front. That keeps everything comfortably in its own place. Airflow happens. You stay dry and cool all day. You put them on once and you will immediately get it. The fit, the quality, the design, it just feels better. I've been wearing sheath underwear for years. It's a level of comfort I didn't even know was possible. I would recommend them to anyone. And with the holidays here, sheath also makes a great gift for yourself or for someone else. They've got tons of styles and colors for both men and women go to sheath underwear.com/pacman and get 20% off with code PACMAN. The link is in the description.
- [34:09]
I want to talk specifically about blue collar jobs. And there's a couple of reasons why these jobs are really important to the economy. And also these are jobs that Donald Trump specifically said we're going to experience some kind of a renaissance if he became president. He's going to be the savior of the American factory worker. And the construction crew is going to be saying, thank you, sir, you saved our jobs and minors and the entire thing. And the rhetoric was all about tariffs and it was about America first and it was about bringing back those good old school jobs. We have the data and once again, the rhetoric and the delusions do not match up with the actual data. The blue collar sectors are not only not booming, they are shrinking, they are collapsing, they are diminishing at a, an accelerating rate under the President and under the administration that said, hey, we're going to protect these jobs. If you have one of these jobs or you believe these jobs are important to the country and you want to see more of them, vote for me. And in fact, the opposite is happening now. Legacy in corporate media has spent a lot of this year kind of hand wringing about AI, artificial intelligence and saying, you know, the AI threat to white collar jobs, Silicon Valley is going to be decimated by AI and Wall Street's going to be destroy AI. Those are very much valid fears. We've got to figure out where that shakes out. I'm not making a prediction on that right now, but there is this kind of quieter right now crisis, which is the blue collar employees. And this is not sometime in the future. It's, it's something we're dealing with right now. Now, the White House kind of predictably said to Newsweek that reviving the blue collar boom has been a day one priority. You know, a priority that I guess, judging by the numbers, they are failing spectacularly on. So let me give you some of the data. The latest Labor Department data from September. Of the five primary blue collar groups, that's manufacturing, mining, logging, transportation and construction, four are down and construction is up a little bit. Okay. Construction gained 19,000 jobs. Sounds okay. But that was offset by tens of thousands of jobs lost in those other four areas of what is sometimes just generally called blue collar work. Now, when you look year over year and you look at the annual payroll declines, those are accelerating since January. So blue collar job growth is negative. We are losing blue collar jobs. Excuse me, I almost choked myself on My enthusiasm. We are losing those jobs for the first time since the pandemic. So the trend is bad. And Trump's policies are really kind of stepping on the accelerator here. Now we could say, well, global business cycles, trends that have nothing to do with the United States or whatever, you talk to economists and they say a lot of it does have to do specifically with Donald Trump. This is not something Trump is a bystander for. This is something Trump is an accelerant of. Heidi Shearholtz is a former chief economist for the Department of Labor. She points out between April and September, goods producing industries lost 72,000 jobs and most of those came right out of manufacturing. David Dorn is a labor market expert and pointed out that in construction, the slow growth is not just like a broader economic deceleration. It's restrictive immigration policies that come from Trump. It's constraints on the labor supply that are a result of Trump. And so we have an administration that said, I will be the savior of manufacturing and blue collar jobs. And in fact, those jobs are diminishing and it is the fault of the guy that said he was going to save you from all of it. Now, the biggest culprit here, according to Dean Baker, one word, okay? It rhymes with barracks. It's of course, tariffs. Dean Baker said companies are reluctant to invest in a context where they have no idea what tariffs will be in place six months from now, never mind three to five years from now. There is no industry out there that is going. You know what, these tariffs have really helped us. You look at manufacturing, logging, transportation, food, service, agriculture. Every industry is saying tariffs are a problem. They might be a small problem or they might be a massive problem. And what Baker explains is the tariffs, aside from the immediate economic impact, they create this uncertainty and they reduce demand because companies have to wait because they don't know what economic circumstances are going to be at any particular point in time. So Trump's been all about brings job, bring jobs back and meanwhile it's not happening. But it's a self inflicted wound. Now, I want to also inject like a dose of reality here. It's not all Trump's fault. You have economists like Orly Ashenfelter and others who say there is a long term trend away from manufacturing that's just kind of like a reality. And I think that this is actually another area in which we do have to criticize Donald Trump. But any president who has said, we're going to bring back the manufacturing jobs, it doesn't seem like we are, no matter what we do. And there is a place in this economy for strategic manufacturing. I hate to go back to, to computer chips, processors, but it's a really good example where not only would tariffs be an appropriate tool to use, if we wanted to reassure chip production for national, for national security reasons, it might make sense to say, okay, that's an area where we just, we want to be doing it domestically and we're going to increase the number of manufacturing jobs in chips. But big picture, we know that these jobs are not likely to be the future of the American economy because there have been hundreds of thousands of open manufacturing jobs that companies can't fill. Now it is also true that if they offered a higher wage, they would probably fill them. It's basic supply and demand. They are offering a price for people's.
- [40:30]
E
Labor that people don't like.
- [40:32]
A
So they'd say, I'm not going to apply for this job. If you raise the price, you will attract more people. But this is sort of the point. Those higher wages seemingly would be cost prohibitive to these corporations. And so this whole idea of bringing back manufacturing to a great degree, that ship has kind of sailed. There are hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs open right now. They're available. Part of it is people don't like the wages. Part of it is a skill gap also, which gets to H1B visas. There's disagreement within MAGA right now. Trump and Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk have basically said in their own words, in different words, we need H1B visas. We need to bring in talented people from other countries, America first. MAGA Potamians don't necessarily love that, but we're either going to need to pay higher wages or close the skill gap in order to fill the existing manufacturing jobs. And meanwhile those, the number of fill jobs is going down. One other aspect of this that I think is important, and this is a criticism, it's a critique of the Trump administration. The strategy of this administration appears to be one of intentional neglect. Here's what I mean by that. When you have a situation right now of, of job scarcity, people are in a position of having to accept either lower wages than they want or worse conditions that they want than they want. And conditions can mean any number of things. If the there's a company and they're the only employer for miles, you're less likely to fight for higher wages. Collective bargaining, unions, labor rights. If you have nowhere else that you could go, if you lose the job. That collapse in blue collar employment is effectively creating A captive and desperate workforce force, and that's what large corporations want. So there is a world, actually, and again, with Trump. We never know how much of this is deliberate or how much he even understands, or is it people behind the scenes, or is it just. Is it a happy accident of sorts in the way that it works out? This is part of Project 2025. If you look into Project 2025's area of how to deal with the Department of Labor, one of the things they suggest is weaken labor protections and unions. And if you have a workforce that's more desperate, they're going to be more compliant. If you just, I need the job. What does it pay? Whatever. I can't collectively bargain. No unions, whatever. They are more likely to accept that, the more desperate that they are. So listen, we're not addressing shifts in markets. We're not addressing technological change. The tariffs are a disaster. But the next time Trump does, you know, I don't know if he's doing any more rallies, but any of these statements or speeches where he goes, the factory job is coming back to the United States. Remember, we have lost those jobs. There are hundreds of thousands of those sitting open. And to a degree, Project 2025 wants more desperate workers because they are less likely to demand labor protections and less likely to demand higher wages. All right, we've got to talk about what now counts as being an alpha male in the modern American right of MAGA and Trump. You know, the. The traditional hegemonic masculinity, for lack of a better term espoused by the right. It's rooted in stoicism and physically dominating other people. Unwavering authority, uncritical loyalty. This is not merely a cultural ideal. It's become a political weapon. It's used to delegitimize people. You're a beta. Look at these beta males. We need to go back to a simpler and more manly time where men were men and women were women. And this sort of stuff, I'm sure you've heard it, and not only does it flow from the orifices of those associated with Donald Trump, it also comes from the manosphere, the Andrew Taints and others. Okay, you've heard this stuff a million times, the alpha men. But what I want to propose to you, and we've done it before, but I want to do it now in this sort of. Like Trump 2.0, when we look at the figures actually elevated to the status of alpha males within the MAGA movement, the entire premise of masculinity collapses under its own Hypocrisy. I'm going to show you an example. There's this video that went kind of viral, I guess.
- [44:58]
Which is meant to project toughness. And it's three prominent figures from the Trump administration. It's Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, J.D. vance, the vice president, and Stephen Miller, who I guess is like deputy policy adviser or something like that. And it's set to aggressive music. I'm not going to play the music because I think it'll get the entire thing removed for copyright, but you can find the video if you want. But they have slow motion and they zoom in on JD Vance. And the idea here is to show that this is the embodiment of modern right wing strength, alpha males, etc. If you're only watch. If you're only listening today and not watching, imagine that you've got Hegseth, Vance and Miller walking through what looks to be, I think this was union station in D.C. and then it like zooms in and slows down and, you know, it's all very, very manly. But really think about these guys for a second and look at the incredible trick that MAGA has pulled. You got Pete Hegseth, okay? Promoted as the quintessential American man, a symbol of hard worn, traditional manliness. But his public profile is really highlighted by advancing baseless conspiracy theories, birther stuff, and all of this. And then as soon as it becomes inconvenient because you're working for Trump and you can't repeat all of the same stuff, he just shrivels into flaccid subservience. Is that really principled Alpha leadership, or is it dishonest opportunism, where he'll just say, if. What if? What do my Fox employers want me to say? Ok, what does Trump want me to say? Okay, so that's Pete Hegset. We then go to J.D. vance. J.D. vance has positioned himself through his supposed story, told in hillbilly elegy, of his rough and tumble upbringing as this working class heartland critic of coastal elites and their effeminate values. Now, that's not for J.D. he's a man's man. But of course, superficially, it looks like JD wears eyeliner, which, by the way, I don't care. Wear makeup.
- [47:07]
E
I have no care.
- [47:08]
A
But it doesn't matter for your character, doesn't matter for your capabilities. But in a political movement that demonizes deviating from gender norms and targeting the LGBTQ community and all of it, that one of your main alphas is a guy who's increasingly wearing more and more eyeliner, but also, quite frankly, has not been completely forthright in the story of his upbringing, which turns out was much more middle class than he has led us to believe. And so it's another example of when the standards are only applied to others, but not to your movement's most favored sons. Okay, and then we have Stephen Miller. And again, listen, guys, I'm not a tall guy, ok? Stephen Miller's short and he's bald, and he is not physically imposing. And by their standards, I don't give a shit. If he's got good ideas, cool. If he has bad ideas, then we don't like him. But in the cultural framework of masculinity that these MAGA people have created, this is not a guy who meets the standards of alpha male. And then what really ties them all together and maybe the most beta behavior of all, like, you know, Hegseth did serve in the military, and JD's got his eyeliner, and Miller's bald and short. Okay, fine. But what unifies them is something that is not considered masculine in this framework, which is that they are completely subservient to one person. And that one guy is obese and covers his entire body and makeup, different parts of his body for different reasons, doesn't exercise, and is, quite frankly, the image of what the prototypical alpha male seeks not to look like. And so you've got these people.
- [48:59]
Around Trump worshiping a guy under the premise that he's alpha and they're alpha. And in reality, it's all kind of bootlicking intellectual surrender. And so where we land is that in this political culture, there's a lot of people in glass houses throwing stones about behave like a man and provide for your family and don't compromise your principles and all of this stuff. And they aren't exhibiting courageous dissent. They are not exhibiting principled autonomy. They are demonstrating a willingness to lay down and to let Trump walk all over you, period. No matter what, your espoused values were all in the service of one guy who's the color of a traffic cone. And so the dominant men in this ecosystem end up being the ones who command the most profound level of fealty from their subordinates at the end of the day. And it's that instead of being alpha for having strength, they want to be seen as alpha for essentially being vassals. And the alpha male has been redefined as the man most willing to suck up to the right people. This was not the alpha stuff we were led to believe they would bring and I'll be honest, any Magaz out there, if you identify this and you find it, quite frankly, pathetic, good for you. You're welcome here. As I've said before, join us. Even if you're conservative, we welcome those who are against corruption to join us in this fight. If you are sick and tired of those who want to tell you how you should live and how others should live and that they are the standard for masculinity, if you're sick of them not even living by what they espouse, come join us. You're welcome here. Even if we don't agree on what the top tax rate should be, there is, I think, a movement here to work together with people who are just, quite frankly, sick of this crap.
- [51:06]
E
A lot of people hit this point.
- [51:09]
A
In December and realize I still need to find a thoughtful, genuine gift for.
- [51:13]
E
Someone on my list.
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A
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- [52:06]
E
All right, I want you to tell me honestly when you hear Donald Trump's former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, who is now a Fox News host, say the following about inflation. Do you believe it? Do you think it might be true? Do you think it's a straight up lie? Is it technically accurate but misleading? So let me play. It's a very short clip. Let me play it for you. First, Kayleigh McEnany talking about inflation, and then I want to talk about it.
- [52:32]
A
But you need to put these pieces together.
- [52:34]
E
The work that's been done on inflation.
- [52:36]
C
I mentioned gas prices, the fact that.
- [52:38]
A
It was 9.1% inflation. Trump brought it down to the 3% range.
- [52:43]
E
Okay, so what do you think when you hear that? To the casual observer, it definitely sounds like, oh, when Trump became president a second time, inflation was 9. And then Trump brought it down to 3.
- [52:56]
A
Major win, right?
- [52:57]
E
Trump reduced inflation by 2/3, reducing it from 9 to 3. This is what they do. It's dishonest and there are still some people falling for it, but more and more people are not. So let me, let me give you the information about this. Here is a chart with the inflation rate over the last five years. Was inflation ever 9%? Yes, it was. In June of 2022, inflation was 9.1%. That was the COVID pandemic, high watermark for inflation. Who was president then? It was indeed Joe Biden, who was president at the time. All right, well, what is missing from this story? Well, basically everything is missing from the story. And I hope that this is instructive and useful. If these debun are something you like, please do like the video and hit the subscribe button. YouTube will tell us which videos are people subscribing from and that can really give us useful information about what to do more of and what to do less of.
- [54:00]
A
So here's the data.
- [54:01]
E
Inflation was 9.1% for a month due to Covid. It was high globally. And then under Joe Biden, what happened? Well, it started to come down not just a little bit, but a lot faster and faster and in fact faster than in other wealthy and developed countries. By January of 2023, inflation was down to 6%. And then by June of 2023, inflation was 3%, which is right around the desirable, economically desirable 2 to 3%. And if we look at the period From June of 23 to now, inflation has essentially bounced from 2.4 to 3.5, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less, but basically in that 2.4 to 3.5% range. Most of that time, Joe Biden was the President of the United States. And Trump, over the last 11 months, at the point of the handover from Joe Biden to Donald Trump, inflation was 2.8%. That is certainly not the impression that Kayleigh McEnany is trying to give. And since Donald Trump became president again, inflation essentially has been flat. It's been actually up five of the last six months, but only a little bit under Donald Trump. So think about how 11 seconds of Kayleigh McEnany lying instantly creates this cycle of disinformation to the casual viewer. Oh, Biden Inflation was 9 when Trump took over. Trump brought it down a 3.
- [55:34]
A
What a win.
- [55:35]
E
Trump brought prices down, which I'm going to get back to because that also doesn't make any sense. The real story is that for two and a half years, inflation's been between two and a half and 3, mostly. And it's remained there under Donald Trump. So if inflation is okay now, it must have been okay for that entire latter part of Biden's presidency. Or if inflation was a problem at the end of Biden's presidency, it must still be a problem now, because it's the same. Which is it? Now? Let me get back to that other thing about, oh, if inflation went from 9 to 3, Trump did bring prices down. The best analogy I found for this is the following. Imagine that you are on the highway driving 75 miles an hour, and you slow down to 60. You have brought your speed down, but you are still moving forward towards your destination. Only if you start going backwards do you get further from your destination. And similarly, if inflation goes from 4 to 3, inflation has come down, but prices are still going up. They're going up 3% a year instead of 4% a year. And so it's important to remember that the promise from Trump was to bring prices down. That's actually called deflation. It's typically bad for economies, or it only happens when the economy is otherwise in very, very rough shape. They don't care about you knowing any of this stuff. It's much easier for Caylee to take 11 seconds to go. Biden inflation was 9, and Trump brought it down to 3, which is dishonest. It's inaccurate. It doesn't address Trump's promise to bring actual prices down. That's much easier than having an honest conversation about it the way I'm trying to do with you. The really kind of terrifying and morally scary part is that they lie with such facility and ease that it seems like second nature to them. And one of the things. I mean, listen, this is one of my faults when I am interviewed. I don't have the capacity morally to just say things that I know are lies. And the truth often requires a little more explanation than these sorts of lies. And they don't care about that. And so, to a degree, they are more effective propagandists. And I say I use the term propaganda neutrally in this case. Propaganda meaning, you know, information meant to influence. They are far more effective propagandists, certainly, than me, because I need six minutes to give you the explanation. Whereas Haley Kaylee. Haley Kaylee was able to set this fire in only 11 seconds, and it takes me six minutes to put it out. Unfortunate reality of the state of play right now. All right, Costco, a company known to be a pretty good place to work and known for cheap hot dogs as well, they are suing Donald Trump, and they are suing because of the tariffs. And this has sent a lot of MAGA people into an absolute tizzy. And I'm going to explain why. The argument that Costco is making is that Donald Trump used the law meant for national emergencies to impose these blanket tariffs on imported goods. And it wasn't done that way because there is a national emergency, but it was done that way because Trump thinks that tariffs make him a tough guy and he was determined to find some way to do it. The framing of the tariffs, as you all know, and this is sort of like a good refresh of where we are, is that the tariffs are going to essentially be free money from other countries, including China. We know that that's not the way that tariffs actually work. American companies and American shoppers are paying the price. When the importer imports stuff, they pay the tariff to the American government and then the importer starts passing along portions of those tariffs either to middlemen, wholesalers, warehousers, the retail stores, and then the retail stores will pass along some portion to consumers. Not 100% of the tariff is immediately passed to the consumer. Some portion is. Well, Costco got absolutely slammed. A third of everything that Costco sells is imported. So prices on everyday stuff, you know, like food, staples, fruit, just the basics, non perishable items. The prices of everything went up. Costco didn't want families paying more, so they decided to do something most companies didn't do, which is to eat most or all of the costs, depending on the product. And eventually they said enough. So now Costco is suing the Trump administration and they are demanding a full refund of every dollar they were forced to pay pending the result of the Supreme Court case to determine whether Trump's blanket tariffs were or were not legally acceptable. This is not a one off protest. Costco has been standing up to Trump in a lot of different ways. You know, it's weird to say this, but just by paying employees well, Costco is standing up to Trump. Costco pays meat cutters around 31 bucks an hour. Costco pays stockers 25 or more dollars an hour, depending on shift and their seniority. Costco is known for health care and retirement benefits that a lot of other companies don't provide. Costco is union friendly in many locations. They invest in workers, they protect consumers. It's like the opposite of deregulate and let the billionaires win. And look at who else is now saying, I think we're going to sue as well. Revlon, Slor, Luxottica, Kawasaki, Bumblebee, Yokohama Tire. There are a growing number of large companies lining up behind Costco and saying the tariffs are illegal. Give us the money back now. Even worse for Donald Trump is, as I mentioned, the Supreme Court is reviewing whether these tariffs are legal at all. And the conservative justices did not seem impressed during oral arguments. And if the court does ultimately rule against Donald Trump, we are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars in refunds that the government will owe, and it will be the complete collapse of the entire tariff fiasco. This is what happens when you put a guy who doesn't know anything but really wants to be seen as strong and smart. On tv. Trump said the tariffs would punish China. And they punished Costco, they punished American businesses, they punished American consumers. And meanwhile, and this is the irreversibility of some aspects of this, China's fine. China has found other suppliers. And so one point that I think is really important to remember on this and to hammer home, even if Trump did an about face today and said cancel all of the tariffs, a lot of the damage is not easily reversible. Look at, for example, China with soybeans, where now they're, I guess they're making purchase orders for some soybeans. But when China went to zero American soybean purchases, they didn't just stop importing soybeans. China found other suppliers. If the US Goes, forget about it, Oopsie, we're canceling all of the tariffs. China has no reason to just go, oh, okay, all those other soybean deals we made with other countries, let's cancel all of them and just go back to the United States. They might be strong armed by Trump, as apparently they are into starting to order some nominal amount of soybean, but they've made other deals and that's the irreversibility of this. So I believe that this lawsuit is really about a lot of different things for the companies. It is about the money. And maybe they will get tariff refunds depending on the Supreme Court case. But it's also kind of an indictment of Trump's entire philosophy, which is he's the ultimate businessman, but the most worker friendly, customer protecting, sort of efficient retailer in the United States is saying, the policies failed and we want our money back. And Costco is an excellent employer that still makes a lot of money. So Trump should be terrified by this probably as much as or more than a bad poll. And I expect that we are going to see more companies fall in line. Do you shop at Costco? Does hearing about this make you like Costco more or does it make you like Costco less? I think I know the answer, but leave me a comment. Let me know what you think.
- [64:17]
J
Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.