Trump Official Who Resigned, Joe Kent, Under FBI Investigation For LEAKING

Summary

Podcast Summary: Timcast IRL

Episode Title: Trump Official Who Resigned, Joe Kent, Under FBI Investigation For Leaking
Date: March 19, 2026
Host: Tim Pool
Guests: Matthew Marsden, Kyla ("Not So Erudite"), Ian
Theme: Breaking news, political realignment, media dynamics, Section 230 & voting, taxation, and urban politics.

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

The episode opens with breaking news about Joe Kent, a former Trump official who resigned over the Iran war, now revealed to have been under FBI investigation for leaking classified information prior to his resignation. The discussion expands into themes of political realignment ("MAGA schism" and the "right's civil war"), media manipulation, Section 230 internet law, voting systems, and the economics and policy of American cities, especially around taxation and migration.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

1. Joe Kent & the FBI Investigation

[02:22–17:47]

• News: Joe Kent, ex-National Counterterrorism Center Director, resigned over the Iran war; now it's reported he was being investigated by the FBI for leaking classified material before his resignation.
• Narratives: Tim outlines the rumors: some say Kent's resignation was about principles (anti-war, anti-Israel lobby), but Beltway sources suggest it was a preemptive move after getting iced out for alleged leaks.
  • Tim: "This reporting is that he's been under investigation before he actually resigned. So that lends itself to the... presumed to be the leaker." [08:52]
• Timestamps & Sources: Kyla finds Seattle Times headlines confirming Kent's involvement in the group chats associated with the leaks. (09:14)
• Skepticism of Timing: Kyla and Tim debate whether the timing of the investigation leak from the FBI is retaliation for his resignation or coincidental, reflecting how news cycles and power dynamics interact.
  • Kyla: "If I wanted to besmirch somebody who stepped out of line in a big public way and punish them, this might be one of the ways that I do it." [11:36]
• Motivations Questioned: Was Kent principled or self-interested? Did he change views, or was he lashing out after being sidelined?
  • Tim notes old tweets from Kent describing Iran as a major threat, suggesting opportunism more than principle.

2. The Right's Civil War & the Israel Divide

[17:00–27:00]

• Political Realignment: Tim and Kyla discuss the realignment on the right, with some MAGA personalities shifting to anti-Israel stances, mimicking past left populist splits.
  • Tim: "You have prominent personalities... building a massive base by creating a singular enemy... and saying Israel, this is not a drill." [17:47]
• Social Media Trends: Critique of influencers chasing views and engagement by amplifying divisive narratives, especially around Israel.
  • Tim: "There's a lot of money in it." [19:20]
• Crossover with the Left: Kyla mentions how figures like Candace Owens now have unexpected leftist fans and how left/right online commentary often now centers on Israel.

3. Media Dynamics, Authenticity, and Algorithmic Manipulation

[27:00–44:25]

• Corporatization of YouTube: Discussion about networks buying up podcasts, dilution of independent creators via 'AI slop content'.
  • Tim: "YouTube... is being dominated by AI generated slop content. There'll be 10 big shows in politics and it's going to go back to the way things used to be." [28:46]
• Algorithmic Incentives for Outrage: The panel muses on the addictive nature of views and how engagement algorithms warp political discourse.
  • Tim: "It's the viewership... it's looking at that number... put out a video and seeing 300,000, and you're like, wow, I filled three stadiums..." [31:00]
• Authenticity vs. Manufactured 'Content': Matthew Marsden observes that the appeal of successful YouTubers has always been authenticity versus legacy media's scripted content.

4. Section 230 and Platform Liability

[45:21–49:33]

• Section 230 Debate: Tim explains the law shielding internet platforms from liability for user content and discusses the prospect of Congress repealing it.
  • Tim: "Section 230... is blanket immunity in, in a redeemed, in an absolutely ridiculous way for, for Internet content providers." [45:21]
• Potential consequences: Loss of Section 230 would force YouTube towards a highly filtered, TV-like approval model.

5. Voting, Demographics, and the 'Low-Interest Voter' Debate

[51:20–73:02]

• Universal Suffrage and Low-Information Voting: Debate on whether being a citizen and 18 is enough to vote; Tim is critical of voter drives that harvest "default liberal" votes from the disengaged.
  • Tim: "Maybe you would. Would you actually argue that uninformed ignorant people being pressured to vote is a good thing for a system?" [56:07]
  • Kyla: "Suffrage isn't about who's most informed. Suffrage is about who has stakes. Right?" [58:46]
• The SAVE Act & Ballot Harvesting: Save Act’s registration hurdles debated—Tim argues it's about preventing Democrats from leveraging ‘low-interest’ urban votes; Kyla disputes that Republicans couldn't, with effort, adapt similar tactics.

6. Urban Politics, Taxation, and Migration

[73:02–140:31]

• Red State vs. Blue City Dynamics: Extended debate on whether urban exodus and tax rates are making cities like New York and San Francisco unlivable for the wealthy and middle class.
  • Tim: New York's tax problems, city exodus, and progressive policies criticized. Uses example of Governor Hochul ("maybe the first step should be to go down to Palm Beach and see who we can bring back home because our tax base here has eroded" [110:12]) to illustrate Democrats' awareness of the out-migration.
  • Kyla: Pushes back on "mass exodus" narratives, citing data that only about 2% of top earners leave for tax reasons and insists much reporting is alarmist.
• Progressive Taxation Philosophy: Both discuss the logic and incentives behind progressive, land-value, and property taxes; Tim opposes taxes that penalize productivity and generational wealth, Kyla supports taxes that encourage development and redistribution.
• Notable Debate: Whether land value tax is "forced" or an efficient incentive; who really benefits and loses in tax structures.
• Practical Experience: Tim gives personal anecdote on how progressive taxes make him consider scaling back work that supports dozens of employees.

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NOTABLE QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

• On Joe Kent’s motivation:
  • Tim: “They already booted him. So for him to be like, I'm resigning, it's like, yeah, they already kicked you out of the meetings.” [15:44]
• On social media influence:
  • Tim: "If you're an American influencer and you make a post and you get 10,000 retweets, you're going to do it again... that's a psychotic machine." [21:56/32:15]
• On progressive taxation:
  • Tim: "The more hours I work, the less amount of money I make. If I stop working these hours, 30 to 40 people will lose their jobs." [119:21]
  • Kyla: "I'm not for like a 90% tax on rich people. I think that's silly... land value tax for example, is so much better than property tax. It's genius." [133:08]
• On city policy realities:
  • Tim: “The process of lowest common denominator population basis... in a city, you need to find the point at which [distinct groups] do come together.” [103:18]
• On authenticity in media:
  • Matthew Marsden: "What is disappointing for me about [Joe Kent] is... when you resign you have to burn the bridges. Like, can't you just resign like the way it used to be and just go off?" [23:26]
• On the future of internet discourse:
  • Tim: "YouTube is going to be a kind of a hybrid... there will be people who start their own channels. But then YouTube... is going to decide this channel should be on the front page." [41:13–44:25]

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IMPORTANT SEGMENT TIMESTAMPS

• Joe Kent FBI Investigation: [02:22–17:47]
• The Right's Civil War/Israel Divide: [17:47–27:00]
• Media Authenticity and Algorithms: [27:00–44:25]
• Section 230 & Platform Future: [45:21–49:33]
• Voting/Education/SAVE Act: [51:20–73:02]
• Urban Taxation, Migration, and Policies: [73:02–140:31]
• Land Value Tax & Generational Wealth: [133:08–140:08]
• Rumble Rants & Community Engagement: [140:24–141:02]

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TONALITY & STYLE

The episode maintained Timcast IRL’s signature style: unscripted, opinionated, blending breaking news with in-depth policy and cultural discussions, punctuated by off-the-cuff humor and authentic disagreement. Kyla played the center-left foil, pushing back on right-wing narratives but also challenging progressive orthodoxy, while Matthew Marsden and Ian offered perspectives on media and systemic incentives.

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FINAL THOUGHTS

For those who missed it, this episode delivers a snapshot of America’s current contradictions: shifting media power, fractured political coalitions, a jaded trust in institutions, and the relentless, often cynical logic of populist politics (on both left and right). With the Joe Kent revelation as catalyst, the panel weaves a broader tapestry about democracy, censorship, and the pressures swirling around the 2026 political climate.

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For the full after-show with uncensored debate, visit rumble.com/timcastIRL.

Transcript

[Tim Pool]

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[Kyla]

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[Tim Pool]

Joe Kent, the Trump official who resigned, is now it is now being revealed he has been under FBI investigation predating his resignation for leaking classified information. Of course it's gonna be. This is particularly interesting considering the narrative that we heard during just, just after his resignation was that he had been removed from intelligence briefings and was uninvolved in the goings on with this war. There were rumors that his resignation was largely due to a professional dispute, notably that he had been slighted by the administration. He was ousted and thus he's gonna resign and say this is the reason. However, the anti interventionists are saying it's a principled response to a war of aggression. Well, based on this new information that he's been under investigation predating his resignation. Assuming that's true, I think it says a lot more to what is currently going on and there are questions about whether or not he was the one who was leaking these group texts. So we're have to get into all of this and you know we originally were going to lead with I think something a bit more interesting in the domestic area and that is the progressive Democrats in Illinois got blown out completely and the corporate press is celebrating Washington Post saying that the people of Illinois are not prepared to walk off the cliff just yet. So it looks like perhaps WOKE is broke or at least the online version of it. So we'll talk about that. Plus there's a. There's a lot more information. We got a story about Afroman that's apparently very, very funny. Get into all that. But before we do, my friends, we got a great sponsor. It is True Gold Republic. My friends, having sound money and financial independence is important. Hard assets are extremely important. That's why you should check out True Gold Republic. Look at the world right now. Active wars, NATO under pressure, the dollar being weaponized. $36 trillion in debt. We printed so much money since 2020 your savings are worth less every single year. By design. Gold can't be printed. It can't be sanctioned, it can't be devalued by a press release. Central banks are buying it at record levels right now. The people who run the system are hoarding the one thing they cannot print that tells you everything. Insert True Gold Republic. Real physical gold and silver. Not paper, not ETFs. Metal you can hold. Check out their independence bundle. A physical gold starter kit. A one on one with experts and a bonus press. Precious metals on top. The chaos isn't coming. It is here. Go to truegoldrepublic.com Tim and claim your independence a bundle or call 1-800-628-GOLD truegoldrepublic.com Tim do it. Don't forget to also go to timcast.com and join the Discord where tens of thousands of people are hanging out. They're building something. Community is our strength the most. You know what they say? They say it's not what you know, it's who you know. If you don't have a powerful network, you're gonna have a harder time getting things done. So if you want to start a project or help someone else with a project or find a group of people where you can build things together, the Tim cast Discord is the place to do it. And as a member you're supporting the work we do here. So go to timcast.com, sign up. You can also call into the members only uncensored show coming up at 10pm on Rumble exclusive Monday through Thursdays. Don't forget to also give a little tap to that like button. Subscribe to the channel and share the show with everyone. You know, we got a couple of great guests joining us tonight. Sir Matthew, why don't you, why don't we start with you? Who are you? What do you do?

[Matthew Marsden]

I'm Matthew Marsden and I'm a recovering actor.

[Tim Pool]

Oh.

[Matthew Marsden]

Used to be in Hollywood for a number of years until they didn't like me anymore because of my views. And then just out doing some other things, doing a little bit of YouTube in coming on the this great show.

[Tim Pool]

All right.

[Ian]

I like how Tim referred to you as Sir Matthew.

[Matthew Marsden]

I like that.

[Tim Pool]

Good. Sir Matthew.

[Matthew Marsden]

Yeah, I like that.

[Tim Pool]

Well, you're British so we just assume you're a knight, you know.

[Matthew Marsden]

Yeah, yeah, I'll take it.

[Tim Pool]

Yeah. Well, thanks for hanging out. Should be fun. Kyle's here.

[Kyla]

Hi.

[Tim Pool]

Who are you? What do you do?

[Kyla]

My name is kyla. I'm a YouTuber, political debater on, on everywhere. Basically.

[Tim Pool]

Right on. It should be an interesting conversation. Of course Ian's here, but he does, he doesn't need an introduction. Chaos is here.

[Ian]

I liked how you said that in the ad read earlier.

[Tim Pool]

The chaos is here.

[Ian]

I mean it's here.

[Tim Pool]

I am. Yeah, it's here. Let's get into the news. We've got this. This is breaking news just dropping in the past few minutes. Joe Kent, who resigned from the Trump administration over the war with Iran is under FBI investigation. So this news is currently breaking. We have this clip from Laura Ingraham show on Fox News saying that Joe

[Kyla]

ke, the former director of the United States National Counterterror center. This is from Semaphore. He just resigned. He's now under FBI investigation for allegedly leaking classified information. And the investigation predates his departure.

[Tim Pool]

So we've seen this report going around. Not. Not that the FBI is investigating. We have this from AZ intel for former National Counterterrorism Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent is under FBI investigation for allegedly leaking classified information. Sources tell Semaphore adding the probe began before his departure. So let me just start by saying I've got my ear to the ground. As many of you know, we have friends who have been on the show and are now in the administration, so friends in the administration as well as members of Congress and their staff. And I've been hearing some rumblings in the Beltway. The rumors that I heard from people that are much more loyal to Trump is that Joe Kent was leaking classified information, at least that's the allegation, and was ousted from these meetings. So they basically booted him out and said this guy's no good. They think he's the leaker. He felt at least this again, the perception slighted personally and professionally. And that from the view, again, this is all just rumors. They don't think that Joe Kent is truly motivated by the issue of Israel or Iran and that it's more personal and that he's using this as a means to slight professionally an administration that. That he felt had wronged him. Considering we've got past comments and tweets from Joe Kent about the severity of the threat from Iran, I think this is why many people believe this may be the case. That being said, he appeared on Tucker Carlson recently and talked about what he thought was the real issue and that was that Israel had pressured us into this war and that he was not in favor of that. It's what he wrote in his resignation letter. He's being hailed as a principled man who stood up for what is right, pushing back on the Israel lobby. So I'm not entirely sure what is going on, but what I can say is this reporting is that he's been under investigation before he actually resigned. So that lends itself to the. He was. He's presumed to be the leaker. Again, we don't know that he is, but I think you were mentioning, you looked it up. He was involved in those leaked groups. Group tax. Is that what happened?

[Ian]

2015. You remember the Telegram stuff?

[Tim Pool]

2015.

[Ian]

20. I'm sorry, 2025.

[Tim Pool]

That was a long time.

[Ian]

Been around for a while. Yeah, apparently. Let me. I haven't been able to confirm it, but I just searched for it on the Internet and Therefore, it must be true, but that he was involved with it and said that there was not an imminent threat back then before they attacked Yemen. This is in regards to the bombing in Yemen. And I think he was saying after the fact that there hadn't been. That he saw an imminent threat. I really don't want to misquote him.

[Kyla]

I've got Seattle Times confirming what you're saying.

[Tim Pool]

Which one? That he was in the group. Group chats.

[Kyla]

He's involved. I don't know. It's just a headline right now, so I don't know to what extent.

[Tim Pool]

These were, like, the Hegseth Group chats where they were, like, being. Being called out or whatever, what they were talking about.

[Kyla]

Like, they were planning, like, national security stuff.

[Tim Pool]

Right, right, right, right. And then the argument they made was that it was, like, national security stuff after the fact. Like, well, we had already decided to release this, so the texts don't really matter. Which, I mean, if it's true, this guy was leaking the stuff.

[Ian]

He was in the chat.

[Tim Pool]

Right, right. So, I mean, the presumption would be that's what was getting leaked. I mean, what else got leaked that he would have been involved in?

[Kyla]

Well, it's just if he. If he was involved in the leak before, why are you only investigating after he steps away?

[Tim Pool]

No, no, the investigation predates this. That's what they reported.

[Kyla]

They're reporting, but they're only publicizing this investigation now.

[Tim Pool]

I suppose if there's an FBI investigation, you don't know they're doing it until they decide to make it public. And perhaps because he came out and resigned, they said, okay, then publish it. I mean, if he was being investigated FBI, I doubt they're going to fabricate. Fabricate documents, you know, with fake dates predating his resignation.

[Kyla]

Sure. But a lot of people were upset when these, like, signal leaks happened because of the, like, incompetence of the group. Right. If he was one of the principal actors involved, why not mention, like, you know, certain members are under investigation to see, like, how this.

[Tim Pool]

They'd have to fire him and.

[Kyla]

Well, they. They could, maybe. But, like, I just. The timing is. Is, I guess when it comes to breaking news, the timing could suggest two separate things. And it. I think your bias would make you want to go in one direction or the other. But the reality is he was kicked out. Of what meetings?

[Tim Pool]

The intel briefings on. On terrorism pertaining to Iran.

[Kyla]

Who is he leaking to?

[Tim Pool]

That's an interesting question. That journal, who was the journalist who published those texts? Yep, I got it.

[Ian]

His Name is Jeffrey Goldberg.

[Tim Pool]

That's right. That's right.

[Ian]

Editor of the Atlantic. Editor in chief.

[Kyla]

Right. So Goldberg got added into it, but again.

[Tim Pool]

Oh, right, right, right.

[Kyla]

Is that leaking it to him? Is that something.

[Tim Pool]

We don't know if that's what was leaked.

[Kyla]

Well, even Goldberg said it was an assistant.

[Tim Pool]

Are you under the, under the belief that the Trump administration is creating a, an FBI investigation right now? That they're going to create documents with past dated. Like, what is your argument?

[Kyla]

It's more of a question. It's so breaking news that I probably would be cautious to make any argument. My question here is, though, we have an administration that regularly punishes people who step out of line and are no longer sycophantic. Right. And so he makes this major public declaration, basically signaling a MAGA schism and led to you making that post. Right. About how the MAGA coalition is falling apart and then suddenly a day later, well, now the FBI is public about the fact that they're investigating him. But actually it was from before. Right. I'm like, if I wanted to besmirch somebody who stepped out of line in a big public way and punish them, this might be one of the ways that I do it. Or maybe he is stepping out. Right. This is the problem is it actually could with the evidence we have, be either of these options? Well, I have.

[Tim Pool]

If the argument is that he was under FBI investigation, resigned. So, so then someone in the FBI contacted a journalist in Semaphore and said, look, he's been under investigation. It could be a couple, it could be very simple. No one asked because he was otherwise unremarkable. So a journalist from Semaphore makes a call to the contacts that she has in the FBI and the DOJ and says, I mean, honestly, here's what I think happened. The dude resigns and says it's over Israel. Immediately. We heard from the Trump administration, like Carolyn Levitt. People are putting out like, well, he was, he was, you know, presumed to be a leaker anyway, he was being investigated. Then this journalist contacts people she knows in the DOJ and says, did, Is there an active investigation into Joe Kent? They then say, yeah, it's, you know, from a year ago. And then she goes, wow. Then she reports it. That's how the information gets out. No one thought to look or ask because again, he was otherwise unremarkable. I don't mean that as an insult. I'm saying he was not high profile in the press. He wasn't going to big meetings and blasting out Information, he was quietly doing his job, or I guess according to the Trump administration, not doing his job. So this, in my opinion, based on the rumors that I've heard from dc, lends itself to. Let me do this. Let me show you this tweet that Jamie Mitchell says. Fascinating stuff, Joe. And it's a post from Joe Kent in January 2020. The war with Iran talk is very black and white in a gray world. Iran has been at war with us since 79. The killing of Kassam Soleimania QS is the first decisive act we have taken against the Iranian terrorist since the 80s. And that's not the only post he has which indicates that there was perceived to be a threat or conflict from Iran. He also made a post about how Iran was trying to kill Donald Trump. And it's intolerable. So many people are viewing this as a flipping of his, of his opinions on the issue. The first thing I'll say is perhaps the next thing I'll say is, well, you know, people are allowed to change their opinions, but I'll say it again, considering there was an FBI investigation into him predating his resignation and the rumors that I'm hearing from the Beltway is he was doing his job, he was excited to be a part of the administration. They booted him out. They started like basically he was not getting the exit he wanted. So he felt personally slighted either whatever the issue is, started leaking or something, got iced out from these meetings and then decided to resign because he was basically in golden handcuffs. You know, I think a lot of people who have worked in offices, either in a managerial level or in a non managerial level, have talked with somebody who is upset with their place of work and then wants to lash out, either justified or not. The, again, I'm not saying it's true, cuz I don't know. I'm just saying what I hear from those that are loyal to Trump, and of course you can argue they're biased, is that this guy, for whatever reason, was no good, so they weren't including him. He got off because he, he thought that he should be in these meetings. And so he was having a tantrum and then resigned and said, yeah, well, you know, Israel made you do it, despite the fact he's been talking about Iran being in conflict with us for a long time.

[Kyla]

Sure.

[Tim Pool]

I suppose the other argument is he came to his senses, was granted access to information where he realized Iran is not a threat to the United States, that Israel is forcing our hand, and then in a, in a truly dignified and righteous stance, stood up and said, I will not be party to this administration. I'm just going to add the reason why I don't think that's likely is because they already booted him. So for him to be like, I'm resigning, it's like, yeah, they already kicked

[Kyla]

you out of the meetings, according to your sources. Right. Like for example.

[Tim Pool]

No, no, no, no. Like, well, according to the administration, not my sources, but publicly stated he was no longer involved in these meetings. And now we're learning that he was under FBI investigation the whole time. That's indicative of there was a problem with his work before he decided to quit.

[Kyla]

Sure. So the questions I would have is, okay, well, when the Jeffrey Goldberg stuff happens, I would hope that almost everyone in that Signal chat is under investigation because they should, the people involved and go, who here is responsible for this leak? Right. So one of the questions I would have is, if he's involved in this investigation, how many other people are also listed as people in the investigation and did they experience the same icing that he did? Right. I don't know. Right. What could have happened is that he sees MAGA as a sinking ship. He wants to detach himself from it publicly and politically and saw the Iran war, which is very unpopular. Right. As a, as an opportunity to jump ship. He understands that the midterms are looking rough. He knows that Trump is, his legacy is going to end eventually. And this was the, the easiest route out and he took it. And then when the FBI saw that, they're now just dropping information that besberges him. Right. And this is what I'm saying, when it comes to breaking news, it could be both of these things.

[Tim Pool]

I would agree with you largely, I think that there is a sect of right wing personalities that think the, they think Trump is cooked and so they're shifting away from him. I think a lot of this has to do with what I would refer to as a mass format. Here we go again. Mass formation psychosis around Israel. And I know, I just, I'm so sick of talking about it. But Joe Kent's resignation has to do with Israel. An over emphasis on Israel in foreign policy. Overlooking like that Joe Biden was involved in the Burisma scandal. All of a sudden it's Israel and the people just ignore this or the cutter Turkey pipeline, which I talk about ad nauseam. And all of the past 20 years of foreign policy we've discussed on the show, you have prominent personalities. They're building a massive base by creating a singular enemy by by demagoguing and saying Israel, this is not a drill.

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Ready to upgrade your sound? Shop now at Amazon and search Whimsound. That's W I I M S O u n d done everything. So it could be as simple as and I don't want to say this is exactly what you're saying, but you can, you can clarify after I finish my point if this is correct. But my view is that it is a strong possibility. Joe Kent getting booted from his meetings. He's looking, he's reading the room and he's like, look, Candace Owens is getting gangbusters views. Megan Kelly, Tucker Carlson MAGA is not Ben Shapiro is not Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro's views, they're not bad, but they're way down. And Candace Owens is through the roof. So he's going, which side am I going to go on? I'm going to go on the side that hates Israel. That's, that's where the people are at. I think that there's a decent probability there because of what we have seen with the likes of Megyn Kelly, Candace Tucker Carlson, Jimmy Dore and many. Well, Jimmy, to be fair, Jimmy's not a conservative, but many people on the right have just dramatically shifted from being anti woke to anti Israel. And I have no idea why. I mean just people started doing it. Make any reason, make up any reason you want. Maybe it's just that it's a very compelling argument. I suppose. I think it is wrong. But they've all started doing it. And I will say this, there's a lot of money in it. So hey, look, if we wanted money, if we wanted to get, you know, 120,000 current viewers just like old Candace Owens did we can sit here and rag on Israel, but I don't think that's correct information, unfortunately.

[Kyla]

I think it's very interesting looking at what's happening to the right because I think the left experienced this type of same kind of populist wave takeover and then the problems that fall out as a ramification of kind of that unholy union, right? So on the right we've got this populist alt right, which joke was somewhat attached to before because when he was getting confirmed, right, that was the Democrats biggest issue with him is claiming this guy's alt right, he's got griper connections, he's a Fuentes type, right. And so him now continuing in that trajectory as we see this right populist, America first isolationist kind of zeitgeist getting more popular isn't overly surprising to me. And I think part of the problem is that MAGA really shook hands with these populists further right people. And you're like, we're the same guys. Even though it's like neocons are not the same as Nick Fuentes. They never were.

[Tim Pool]

That's true. But the current trend that we're seeing with like Candace, Megyn Kelly and what I refer to as like the Israel posters, like Jimmy Dore is a good example of this. He's not a nationalist America first guy, but he's posting all about Erica Kirk and Israel quite a bit. There are many leftists who are on the same page. Anna Kasparian of the Young Turks talks about how she watches Candace. No one's now she loves her show. This is a progressive and it's like they've unified around the issue of Israel specifically. So certainly, you know, certainly the neocons MAGA was very different two or three years ago. It was very different. And so there is a distinction between the America first and the anti Israel America First. There are people who I would argue as a like predominantly dispected liberal or libertarian that don't want to fund Israel. But Israel isn't their boogeyman for every single issue. They're more concerned with border security and the US economy and not spending money on Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, whatever country it may be. But then there's a group of people that are just like, nothing matters but Israel. And we've had them on this show and like you could ask them about like there is a raw bar that sells oysters and then they'll immediately somehow turn it into Israel.

[Ian]

And you're like Mediterranean and.

[Tim Pool]

No, Eastern Mediterranean. Well, are you sure? Yes. And Then they'll say, have you ever been to the Mediterranean? And I'm like, why did you bring this up? We were talking about oysters. I'm like, well, because when I was in Israel and then you're just flipping the table over, like, what does that have to do with anything? So I have a lot of conspiracy theories, I suppose, or theories on this. One I would say is that it's. It's potentially just an emergent phenomenon without the constraints of. Well, I would say not with, not with constraints because the progressives don't like Israel either. But you are seeing on X people will get thousands of retweets when they just blame the Jews for something. And I think this has to do with the foreigners that are operating bot accounts that we know they are. There are a lot of anti Israel countries in this world. There's a lot of Muslim nations in the world that don't like Israel and they can click retweet. And then if you're an American influencer and you make a post and you get 10,000 retweets, you're going to do it again. Because these people are just like, wow, this must be what people like. Well, I'll tell you what I think. I think I'm going to tell you what I think is true based on the facts and not based on what is going to get the most views. And sometimes that means we won't get that many views, but at least we'll be more, more likely to be correct. I'm curious though, you know, I know you may just be a former actor guy, but yeah, following all of this stuff and seeing this shift and what people refer to as the mega civil war, whatever, like, what is your take on all this?

[Matthew Marsden]

Well, I think that. Well, firstly, talk about Joe Kent. Right. I think what is disappointing for me about that is that he was held in such high regard by so many people and so many people that I know that served with him. And that's been very disappointing to me that when you resign you have to burn the bridges. Like, can't you just resign like the way it used to be and just go off and say, thank you very much, I'm, I'm done, I'm moving on. I think exactly what you said as well that it would make sense that if the FBI was investigating him earlier on that maybe it got to a point where it was a problem for national security, so we couldn't be in those meetings just by necessity if he's been investigated. So it makes sense to me that he was being investigated before. As far as the groups are concerned, I feel that, and we spoke about this earlier on, that the left has been trying to Balkanize us for a long time and we've kind of resisted it to a degree. And over the past few months, I'd say it really has been moving into those directions. Like, people feel like they have to have a take. They have to. You're either you hate Israel or you love Israel. You can't like say, well, as you just said, well, listen, I don't want to fund them, but I see, I can look here and see that Americas and Israel's have similar goals in this. So they join for this. Nobody makes the argument about Saudi Arabia and all the other Gulf, all these other Arab countries coming together. You never see someone saying, why are you doing Saudi Arabia's bidding ever?

[Tim Pool]

Right?

[Matthew Marsden]

And that's peculiar to me.

[Tim Pool]

And especially with the expiration of the petrodollar contract, Trump is particularly deferential to Saudi Arabia, but again, that never comes up. So I wonder if, you know, people say that Qatar is funding a lot of this stuff and I'm like, I don't know. I don't know who's funding it. But Google certainly knows what's going on. They know that their algorithm props up people who break the rules. So the only assumption one could make is that they want it to happen. For whatever reason, Whatever conspiracy theory you may, you may think of, I think

[Kyla]

it's always, this is like one of the worst things about like evil or wrongdoing is that so often it's, it's banal in its purposes. Like, why does Google maybe allow certain algorithms to be overtaken probably by Russian and Chinese bots that are trying to sew like dissidents amongst a democracy? Because it makes the money. They can sell it to advertisers. As long as they have sufficient plausible deniability, they can get away with it. Because there isn't really great rules about the Internet because it's kind of the wild west, right? It's like, it doesn't always have to be this like string puppeteer at the top. Oftentimes it's really simple machinations of like wanting money and having enough plausible deniability to get away with it.

[Tim Pool]

Right?

[Kyla]

Like every, every con man's line is, if I wasn't conning people, somebody else be. Right?

[Tim Pool]

Yeah. The crazy thing about it is when I ask people, you know, if, you know, why is, why is Candace Owens on the front page of YouTube right? When you open a new account. Why is she a recommended personality? Certainly right. She has broken many of the rules and she's being sued for a lot of these things. There's specific rules against brigading and targeting personalities or making accusations and things like that that people have gotten strikes for. Other people have gotten their channels outright deleted without warning for doing less than she's done. And when I bring this up to people, they say it's because the Jews want it to happen. Now I'm not kidding. They say they want to be hated to bring on the messianic era. Which I suppose the argument then is the Jews are propping up Candace Owens for the purpose of fulfilling their whims, which means Candace Owens anti Israel content and her and Candace Owens herself are a function of Israel's desires. Like none of it makes sense. But you know what, maybe the real point is just to make sure none of it makes sense. And my view of what's currently going on based on the conversations I've had, and I know I said this 800,000 times for the sake of the guests here, the, the big networks, you know, cbs, hbo, whatever, NBC, they are looking to buy up prominent shows. And the path like where we are going is YouTube is being dominated by AI generated slop content. There's more and more videos popping up explaining how to make slop content. Interviews and prominent news outlets with people who do it saying in two hours you can make 500 videos per day and make a hundred thousand per month. And so what that's going to do is just massively flood the zone Independent channels without the ability to be on top of the mountain of the broadcast tower will get drown out. They will not be able to make a living doing these things and they will be relegated to small back corners of the Internet. Then the networks are going to buy out the shows they view to be compelling, put them on their apps and then you're going to have 10 big shows in politics and it's going to go back to the way things used to be where you had CNN with 10 million views per night and no one watched anything but Anderson Cooper or you know, at the time you still had Hannity and, and Rachel Maddow centralizing all views within a small hand handful of people where they may disagree on certain issues but they all agree on, you know, basically the most important things, which is largely war. You think we'll go back like the

[Ian]

genie's out of the bottom with the Internet video? I don't, I mean maybe humans could be, could be lulled back to Sleep. But I don't know, maybe part of us, some of us will, and then there'll be a resistance. That's a free network.

[Tim Pool]

No, I think what we've seen with many of these YouTubers that are willing to talk about Candace Owens, I think they've. They've proven it to anyone with eyes. These people never had a genuine opinion. They were just making videos about what they thought would make them money. And so take a look at the individuals who make video after video about Erica Kirk's pants or whatever, you know, or, like, the look on her face because she did an interview, and they're just like, look at her face. Like, why is her face looking like that? And I'm like, literally nothing's happening in the video, but they know they're gonna get a ton of views. Or that guy who went to a shopping center and said, why is. Why is Turning Point paying fees to an LLC in a parking lot when he knew full well he was in front of a UPS store with mailboxes where it is presumed the LLCs were registered to. These people just say whatever they have to say to make money. And that's been the argument for a long time. So that's what we're looking at now. We'll see how that manifests in the midterms.

[Ian]

But, well, yeah, When Google bought YouTube, I was making videos on YouTube 2007, and I was like, well, here we go. Get ready for the corporatization of communication. And then a bunch of my friends started getting really rich doing maker studios. And, like, they would sit and watch the analytics, and they're like. They started calling it content. I'm like, dude, it's not. It's me communicating to you. I'm talking, talking to you. This is me.

[Tim Pool]

It's product.

[Ian]

And they'd be like, yes, our product is doing well in the market of analytics. And I'm like, oh, my God. And, like, it just became about getting the money. It became about the views, not just the money, but it became heavily about the money. And being the re. I mean, relevancy is one thing, but the money, when Google got that money in there.

[Tim Pool]

It's not that. I mean, I don't think you started

[Ian]

doing this, Tim, for money. I didn't start doing this for money.

[Tim Pool]

I still don't.

[Ian]

It's like, that you can get paid for. It's still insane.

[Tim Pool]

I mean, it's a job. I. I'd like to be able to make a living doing something. But the reason we get here is because I was making videos and they weren't making money. And then one day they were. I was like, oh, wow, look at that. I don't gotta do anything else.

[Ian]

I watched like maybe 80 or 85 of my friends fall into the obsessed with the money part of it. When that happened to them too, when they're like, oh, you can make money off.

[Tim Pool]

It's not so much the money, though. I think for a lot of these people, it's the viewership. It's looking at that number. It's like putting out a video and seeing 300,000 and you're like, wow, I filled three stadiums. And they get addicted to that social acceptance. It's the same thing we see with, like, teenage girls on Instagram. They, they, they post a picture of themselves and if they don't get enough likes, they delete it and then post a new one. And they, they, they get depressed when they're, when their metrics go down. One thing I've pointed out quite a bit is that you will, you will get YouTubers and you can look throughout history of YouTube that will have like breakdown videos where they're crying, saying, I just can't do this anymore. And to do is look at their past several videos, and you'll almost always see like 1 million views, 900,000 views, 700,000 views, 400,000 views. Mental breakdown video. Guys, I can't do this anymore. And it's because they. It's a normal human thing where they feel like I am fighting as hard as I can, but no matter what I do, I'm failing. Instead of just making videos because they have something to talk about and they want to talk about something, they're actually feeling more and more depressed because they're not getting views anymore.

[Ian]

That's a sad cycle because the more miserable you get, the less interesting you are to watch. So the people that get sad about being sad and then the views go down and they're sad that which makes the views even worse.

[Tim Pool]

No, I think it's. It's a, It's a, It's a. It's different from that. When they make the I'm dying and I can't do any more video, they get 10 million views. And then YouTube boosts them in the algorithm again. They make another video and they're back to getting a million views. And they're like, you know what? I'm feeling good now. It's a psychotic machine.

[Ian]

You're right about the relevancy obsession.

[Tim Pool]

Yeah. PewDiePie just put a video talking about algorithm brain and how everyone's being made to be retarded by these social media algorithms. And he actually made a few good points. He said get a separate device for browsing social media and don't make an account. Just always use like a private browser or use a device not yours so that none of your apps, none of your emails, nothing is connected to it. Otherwise they're going to start manipulating you to see things they want you to see. Which is creepy, but that's the way it works.

[Ian]

So stop chasing the algorithm. And that growth for the sake of growth is cancer or can become cancerous corporations. The ethos of we must expand for the. I think that's going to change too. Because a corporation that just grows for the sake of growth ends up overtaking itself and strangling out its own system.

[Tim Pool]

Like, well, it becomes a machine.

[Ian]

Yeah, sustainable corporations, man, that their whole sole purpose is to sustain the environment. And if you can live like that as a creator too, it's not about.

[Tim Pool]

You mean like a generic environment? Like just the system that they've built is to sustain itself.

[Ian]

Yeah, to sustain the luxury and the beauty that's provided for you. To create what you're.

[Tim Pool]

You know, this is why nonprofits don't work. Because the function of a nonprofit should be to put itself out of business. But have a 20 year old nonprofit with an executive director who signed on three years ago, who makes 200,000 a year and he's going to be like, I don't lose my job. But let's jump to this story. We got more news from Axios. The squad left suffers complete wipeout in Illinois. Heavens me, all the progressives got just wiped out. And here we go, ladies and gentlemen. I got a question for you guys. What do you think Axios focuses on in this article about the progressives losing in Illinois? What do you think is the true subject and focal point of this article?

[Matthew Marsden]

Racism.

[Kyla]

Aipac.

[Tim Pool]

You are correct. Because you probably read it, right?

[Kyla]

I just, I've seen AIPAC posting all day. It's Israel, like running lapse.

[Tim Pool]

So I pull up an article talking about progressives losing. And these are people who are protesting ICE operations at dhs. But again, welcome to the psychobabble reality because the whole article is just about apac. That's it. Now to be fair, APAC did back a bunch of their opponents and then celebrate. But there's certainly a lot more to talk about than just apac. If you want to talk about apec, that's fine. But literally every point in this, like how many times let's just do this 12 times in this article. The look at this.

[Kyla]

It's so, it's so frustrating too because I'm very critical of aipac, but I'm critical of AIPAC for the same reason I'm critical of almost every single super PAC and carry committee, which is that I don't like unreported money and I don't like high power special interest lobby groups having so much capacity.

[Megan McArdle]

Has the news been getting you down for Hi, I'm Megan McCardell and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic and it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. Every Wednesday I'm going to talk to people who see a path forward.

It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together to solve problems where they are.

[Tim Pool]

You know, I am a believer in America and that's worth fighting for.

[Megan McArdle]

Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever

[Kyla]

you get your podcasts and weight in our elections regardless of like what they're for. Right. I don't want oil lobbyists just like funding and driving. I don't like that. Like I don't like carry committees. I think that they're bad generally. I think they've been bad for a democracy.

[Tim Pool]

So, so, so what do you think it says about Illinois that the progressives lost? Is this an, is this an argument of AIPAC just spent enough money to crush them or is it that most people don't like these progressive Democrats?

[Kyla]

I'd have to see what the funding differences. A lot of people know that when you're running elections, funding's funding makes a huge difference of who wins because a lot of election is just getting people to see your name and face. Right. Because most, most voters are not that informed. Most voters aren't on Instagram looking for Kat and like liking her stuff. And I think a lot of progressives are trying to take the xoron mom Dani kind of Gavin Newsom social media strategy and really trying to utilize alt media to campaign themselves. James Talarico did it really successfully as well. But I think one of the issues that they have to contend with is that if you have massive carry committees funding moderates and moderates will take it because a lot of these people won't take PAC money or they'll take very limited PAC money. You just can't get your name out there. Right. The reality is that a lot of elections are won by who spends the most, not always. And sometimes there are breakout elections. But the statistical norm is, is that,

[Tim Pool]

well, I suppose like an article like this, the progressives are gonna make the arguments and they're gonna rally a ton of support from conservatives that Israel interfered to stop the far left from losing. Then I imagine with articles like that, I mean, this is Axios, right. Axios is supposed to just be like plain old report in the news. They do lean liberal on a lot of issues. But certainly you can criticize AIPAC for funding candidates. But there are many other issues in this election, notably like Kat Abu Ghazala for instance, was arrested. She was at these ICE protests. That's gonna sour her view to many individuals who live in Illinois. She's also Palestinian, pro Palestine, critical of Israel in the most Jewish district in the state, I believe in Evanston. So again, that does play a role. But all they do is talk about aipac. What'll be interesting is I've made the arguments half jokingly that the future of the left and the right will be anti and pro Israel. That you've got.

[Kyla]

It's terrifying to think about.

[Tim Pool]

Yeah, I think, I mean like what unifies the, the whatever this group is the anti Israel right with the left and it's the issue of Israel. You could take Tucker Carlson and bring him on the young Church at this point and they will get along perfectly. I mean the fact that like Anna Kasparian says she's a fan of Candace and watches her show. So long as the issue is Israel, these people have come together and aren't really arguing these other issues anymore. And the reason why I say that the potential for the, the future of the left and right will be Israel, anti Israel. So you can take a look at the previous coalition for MAGA which was disaffected liberals who were maybe, maybe like pro progressive tax, but were now aligned with the Republican Party who was opposed to this because they were concerned about like gender dysphoria issues or you know, critical race theory.

[Matthew Marsden]

Well, I think, you know, you mentioned something earlier going back to when you said, you know, you're at a stage where you didn't have views and then you had views. And it's probably around the same time that the entertainment industry was getting more and more emboldened with the way that they wanted to influence culture. So if you look at something like this where you've got 12 references to APAC in there, that's really obvious. I mean, all you've got to do is look at it and say, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom. So when you have someone else that's coming out and they're saying, hey, listen, I'm just telling you the way I think, and I'm being reasonable, and I'm not. I'm not being swayed one way or the other by money or by bias. I'm just telling you the way I have, the way I am. There's an element of authenticity there. And I think that what you, what you. And I was just going back to talk about what you were saying earlier, that the. Nobody trusts the mainstream media anymore. Nobody trusts cnn, Nobody. Nobody trusts Fox anymore, right? Like, nobody trusts any of these people. So I think that what is going to happen with the increasing. Because they're not stopping, right? You think that they'd be like, hey, hang on a minute, this is a little bit too obvious, right? This is. It's a little bit too obvious, right? Let's. Let's just scale it back a little bit. They're not doing that. So there's going to come a point, because they do want to make money. They are essentially, certainly on the news shows, they are entertainment, right? They want to get the clicks. So they will go back, I believe, and I do think they'll do what you're saying, certainly with the way that the YouTube is moving, with all the crap that's on there, that it's going to end up. They're going to come in and they're going to say, okay, well, I'm going to bring these people in and try and make a mainstream and make their own news organizations through it. And hopefully, you know, that might be a good thing in a way, because you still have authenticity. Because if you think about it, like, the YouTubers that have been a success have done it themselves. They've bootstrapped it. Whereas if you look back at the. Your Anderson Coopers and whatever, it's the channel. The channel was the, the platform, right? The channel was already there. We'd already had funding, it had money behind it. And so they kind of slotted into that. And when they started parroting the BS and everyone's like, hang on a second, like, what. How did you, how did you come to that? It was rejected, right? For more authentic people.

[Tim Pool]

I'm telling y' all right now, it's. It's already happening. And the big networks know that, like Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, this model is on the way out. People don't trust them anymore, and their views are largely pumped up, but it's not organically sustaining itself. So Colbert can do well in terms of his videos, but it's because YouTube puts him up on the front page. Default viewership because he is Colbert, because it is, you know, nbcbs or NBC. These networks have a mandate right now to purchase authentic feeling podcasts. Fox News launched the Hannity podcast, hanging out with Sean Hannity because they know they have to do this, otherwise they will cease to exist. 70 year olds, you know, a big component is the viewership of these, these channels is in their 70s and, and that's it. They're not getting the views in the key demo. So what's going to happen is there to be a semi decentralized series of podcasts picked up by every major network. Everybody else, you are going to be on YouTube and you're going to be fighting against AI content that can be produced 10 times as fast for a tenth of the money. And there's no way you'll make it regular. One more point. Regular people are going to say, I don't use YouTube, it's just noise. YouTube will, will start to prop up just like the other big networks. Let me put it like this. I have already had conversations with powerful executives that are making these moves. It was explained to me a month ago that a meeting was held in Florida between large television networks to discuss specifically how they purchase podcasts and take the space over. They didn't say it so nefariously. They said, we recognize that the industry has shifted. These old shows don't work anymore. And so the mandate of these companies is to start acquiring prominent shows and authentic podcasts that we can put on the network and generate money through, because that model works better. So what we're going to see is YouTube will be a network just like Paramount plus Netflix or any of those other other channels. The way they're going to operate though is not going to be the same where it'll be somewhat like a hybrid between Amazon and say Paramount plus. Paramount plus owns ip. You pay per month and you get the shows they make. And they got awesome shows, but Landman's fantastic and they got all the Star Trek stuff. So I like it. YouTube is supposedly the user generated content of organic producers. But it's becoming increasingly more difficult to be an organic creator on YouTube. Amazon is the, you buy it, they do have their originals, so you can sign up for prime, but they have certain creators they allow to be on the platform. You register, you get approved, and then you can submit your movies and Amazon will host them and you can make money. But not everyone can do it. YouTube is going to be a kind of a hybrid between that where there will be people who start their own channels. But then YouTube behind the scenes is going to decide this channel should be on the front page. And that's largely what we're seeing right now. We're seeing who they've chosen to be at the top of YouTube. Obviously, Mr. Beast is one of them. Whether or not people actually care to watch Mr. Beast shows, YouTube has decided this is family friendly, generic entertainment. You know, I'm not saying that disrespectfully. It's like very basic. That's going to be on the front page. They've decided that a series of other political personalities with certain views are going to get heavily promoted and others are not.

[Kyla]

I think a lot of this will come down to liability, though, right? As well. Like, one of the issues that I think mainstream is always going to have, like something like cbs, is that they have a lot more liability to the content that they put out there. They can be held accountable if Sean Hannity goes on like a crazy long anti Semitic rant, right? Whereas Candace Owens, YouTube isn't held liable for it because YouTube's been like, well, we're not producing any of this. We just make a platform. We try to, you know, man, name some of these things. So I think a lot of this is going to come down to probably different lawsuits. I think that the Cron lawsuit against Candace Owens will be really important to look at of who has liability for what type of content. And this is why I think right now alt media can be so successful with a lot of this more conspiratorial stuff is because YouTube is not liable for Candace Owens screaming every day about Erica Kirk being a trans or a Jew or like whatever else she says about Erica Kirk. But CBS might actually be liable for that and they won't take that risk

[Tim Pool]

on not for long. We've got this story from the Verge. Congress considers blowing up Internet law. Section230 is not one of the Ten Commandments. There was a hearing today over Section 230, and this is largely overlooked. And the Verge is not going to let us read the article, so I'll have to off the log in. But I'll give you a quick bit. Internet platforms liability shield. Section230 faced another round of attack at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday, this time with two distinct undercurrents complicating the conversation. One was an unprecedented wave of ongoing legal challenges to the law's scope, and the second was a heightened bipartisan concern over government censorship. I genuinely believe Well, I shouldn't say genuinely believe, but I would put it this way. There is a strong probability that section 230 goes a bye bye. For those who are not familiar with what Section 230 is, it is blanket immunity in, in a redeemed, in an absolutely ridiculous way for, for Internet content providers. What it's supposed to do. Well, section 230 of the Communications Decency act is supposed to. Basically the argument is this. I'm a website. You can post stuff to it. You made the post, not me. You can't sue me because of what someone posted on my site. However, section 230 is a protection. It's more than just that. It's specifically to allow a website to remove content they find objectionable, lewd and lascivious without facing liability. And that's where things get weird. This blanket immunity has resulted in psychotic levels of defamation for which many people have consistently challenged it. At the same time, it's basically the only reason user generated content websites can exist. The question then becomes, why is YouTube allowed to have a political and editorial agenda? They do. When they create rules saying that you can't disparage one group if you can another, that is an editorial guideline. And then allowing that content to exist is propping that content up. Certainly they bear some responsibility there. The issue is that there is no unified definition of lewd and lascivious. And as our culture has bifurcated, they've, they've come out saying you're allowed to insult white people because no one cares, but you can't insult black people. Well, then conservatives get mad and say why that's racist. So now you have YouTube saying we're gonna remove anything that insults black people but not white people because we find only one thing objectionable creating this political conundrum where now there is a question of whether or not any of these sites should actually have liability shields. I have entertained the prospect, I don't know how probable it is for a while now that we could enter a future where section 230 is dead and YouTube has. YouTube has a sort of filtration system for new content where the rules become particularly egregious. That means YouTube says if you say anything that results in a lawsuit against YouTube, you will be banned instantly because YouTube wants to be generated content. But without immunity protections from Section 230, they can't be. So how you hybridize a scenario where they lose section 230 honestly don't know. The only result then is that YouTube will turn into a website where you have to apply for approval and have a meeting with YouTube to determine. And they would ask you show us examples of content you have made in the past. And if we believe that this is safe content, we will then approve you or worse. Anyone can upload a video, but it has to be reviewed by a human at YouTube before it gets confirmed to post. I think there's a strong possibility of where we're going and it lends into what I was saying about the big network trying to take back the narrative machine. So I don't know what you guys think, but we gonna make it through this one or what?

[Ian]

Yeah. The antidote is for people to upload and maintain their own data with.

[Megan McArdle]

Has the news been getting you down? I'm Megan McCardell and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic. And it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. Every Wednesday I'm gonna talk to people who see a path forward.

It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together to solve problems where they are.

[Tim Pool]

You know, I am a believer in America and that's worth fighting for.

[Megan McArdle]

Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Howie Mandel]

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[Ian]

games networks, kind of like bittorrent systems where I'll just be hosting my own videos locally on my device and you'll be able to subscribe and then we'll have networks of networks that are interoperating. So it takes the load off of central systems because you can't have liability on central systems or they shut down.

[Kyla]

Yeah, I'm really of two minds here because I think on one hand I'm a really big proponent of free speech and obviously a lot of these platforms have become kind of our town square and so people having high, high basically stakeholder because it's fundamentally what they're going to get rid of is stuff that makes them liable and stuff that their stakeholders don't like. Deciding what free speech is on the platform feels a little bit spooky, even though it's a private entity. And at the same time, I really hate the way that Russia and China have been able to utilize bot farms to cause so much political polarization and rage through intentional kind of like, bot farming and AI slop and all these sort of things that I think is actively dangerous for democracy, let alone for our kids. Right. I think that people increasingly don't even know what's real. It's terrifying talking to my dad and being like, yeah, that crocodile video, like, at the person's door is not real. That's AI. That's not a real video.

[Tim Pool]

I have a question.

[Kyla]

Yeah.

[Tim Pool]

With all due respect to the boomers that are watching, some of you probably agree. Is it. Is there something wrong with boomers?

[Kyla]

There's a lot of lead in gasoline for a while.

[Tim Pool]

Is unironically. Is that what has resulted in, like. No, the people who believe this tend to be boomers.

[Ian]

You know that phenomenon where the Native Americans would stand on the beach and look out at the ocean day after day after day, and then all of a sudden, one wise native was out there and watching, and he's like, there's a. There's something out there. A ship. None of them had ever seen a ship before, so they didn't understand what it was. Therefore, they didn't see the thing because they weren't able to comprehend the concept. And I think that's what's happening with these people.

[Tim Pool]

You're right. I'm a Democrat now.

[Ian]

Oh, that wasn't my intention.

[Tim Pool]

No, no. I just. I just realized it. Like, I mean, if we can prove the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is the party of say whatever you have to say to convince stupid people to vote for you. And I've just realized that, you know what? There's a good 20% of people at the higher end of the bell curve who can understand what's going on. Maybe all of us who understand that should just seize the power by lying to people like Democrats do. Because most people are standing on the beach and they can't see the ship. And I'm sitting here screaming, mother effort. There's a ship right there. And they're like, not a Jew.

[Kyla]

Trump. Famous, famous truth teller Trump.

[Tim Pool]

You know, the Trump is a famous truth.

[Kyla]

I don't know if it's just Democrats.

[Matthew Marsden]

The difficulty that. Well, the frustrating thing about this is that they're already censoring us. Right? They're already censoring us. So all they're going to get all you're gonna get if they pass. This is more censorship towards the people on the right.

[Kyla]

But don't we. We have to censor us a little bit like that, right?

[Matthew Marsden]

They say that. Yeah, but they're like, oh, it's like, we, we're fair now, but they're not fair. Like you're saying. You know who they're pushing?

[Tim Pool]

I. I gotta be honest. I think.

[Kyla]

Who are they pushing?

[Tim Pool]

The.

[Matthew Marsden]

The reason, Candace. And like, you're saying there are certain people that they're putting in the algorithm.

[Tim Pool]

Yes, but at the same time, Larry Ellison bought CBS and Free Press and Barry Wise is a proud Zion. So I actually think there is an elite civil war going on. Ah, civil war. I said it. But not in the context you guys normally are used to. We've talked about this since Trump got elected, that he's a powerful billionaire, other billionaires don't like him, and that they've tried to remove him from power. It seems like there's a political battle between different special interest elitist groups. And I wonder if it has to do with China versus the US and plans for, like, what, what the liberal economic order will look like. What I can say though, is certainly YouTube is propping up people of a certain political viewpoint, but now we've got the purchase of TikTok and CBS, which is an inverse political viewpoint. I'm just sitting here being like, you got billionaires on both sides propping it up. Maybe there's no civil war. Maybe they're doing it to make everybody fight each other over a dumb. I won't swear. Dumb. Ish.

[Kyla]

I mean, like, there's this interesting thing, right? If you go to like, the Curtis Yarvin kind of like the dark right, which.

[Tim Pool]

The dark right.

[Kyla]

The dark right here. I know I'm giving you a great segue for your. One of the topics we talked about before, but Yarvin and a lot of the billionaires that are his proponents are accelerationists, Right. They are anti democratic. They think that democracies don't work. They've been tried and they failed. And they do genuinely want to see, like, the ending of the democratic liberal order. And when I say liberal, I don't mean democrats. I mean just like liberalism of democracy. And I think that there are other oligarchs who fundamentally think that capitalism and democracy has been broadly good and want to continue fighting for this. That's my suspicion.

[Tim Pool]

But what do you mean by democracy?

[Kyla]

The representation that we had representative democracy, which we have in America right now.

[Tim Pool]

So without getting into semantics, we're a constitutional republic with democratically elected representatives.

[Kyla]

Sure.

[Tim Pool]

But which is distinctly different.

[Kyla]

Why did the founding fathers not say democracy?

[Tim Pool]

Dino, why did they not say democracy?

[Kyla]

Yeah. Why did they. Why did they define it in the way that you just.

[Tim Pool]

They defined it as a republic.

[Kyla]

Yeah. Why. Why did they not say democracy?

[Tim Pool]

Well, the presumption is a direct democracy means that people vote on their laws.

[Kyla]

Right. They didn't like the Grecian democracy.

[Tim Pool]

In fact, the 17th Amendment fundamentally changed the structure of our government because it used to be that the states would appoint senators to the federal government, and now it's the people voting for it, which dramatically alters what the founding father's vision was.

[Kyla]

Oh, well, sort of. It depends on which founding father you're talking about.

[Tim Pool]

Well, sure, sure. Because suffrage system they created, obviously there was dissent, there were the federals and antiferals, but the system they created functioned as you voted for your state reps, your states were effectively their own entities, and then the state would appoint senators to go to the federal government.

[Kyla]

Right. But they were very open in acknowledging because for them, suffrage was about stakeholdership. All they wanted is to make sure that the people who were voting had stakes in the country.

[Tim Pool]

I agree with that.

[Kyla]

Right. I do, too. I actually think that. I think that stakeholdership. The issue is they at the time were like, oh, what's the best test of stakeholdership in our brand new little baby country? Well, at the time it was actually landowning. Right. Because they're like, well, landowners are the most motivated to make sure the Brits don't take the colonies back, so we're going to give it to landowners. But they were always open that it would have to update and that suffrage would have to change based on proper stakeholdership. I think now being a citizen over 18 is sufficient stakeholdership, which is why every political philosopher will tell you, we have a democracy, it's just a. It's a representative democracy. It's not a direct democracy.

[Tim Pool]

Well, actually. Actually I would argue we have simultaneously a multicultural democracy and a constitutional republic, and they're trying to coexist within the same space. And that's what's causing a lot of these problems, because I certainly don't agree that being 18 and a citizen is sufficient, because you have people who don't understand and don't care voting simply because the strategy of the Democrats, the reason why they don't want the SAVE act, for instance, has nothing to do with illegal immigrants voting. Like the conservatives will say, the Democrats want illegal immigrants to Vote, which is not true. The Democrats want to send young activists to rock concerts to register people to vote who don't know and don't care. Then they can do ballot, they can go ballot harvesting or they can do voter drives and get people who aren't paying attention to vote. That is bad for any democracy, whether it's a constitutional republic with democratic institutions. Maybe you would. Would you actually argue that uninformed ignorant people being pressured to vote is a good thing for a system?

[Kyla]

I think it could be. I think. Well here. Well here I think.

[Ian]

Ow.

[Kyla]

Well, I think that voting in self interest is the best way to vote. I think that like when voters are uninformed and stupid and they just vote for what's best for them. That I think.

[Tim Pool]

But they're not voting for what's best for them.

[Kyla]

I think they usually are. Right. This is why small business owners tend to go right because they want lower taxation. This is why people in the health care industry tend to go left and universities because again they're in these industries and.

[Tim Pool]

Agreed. But that's what we're talking about. We're talking about those man on the street videos from Times Square where they ask someone to name a country that starts with the letter U and they go Utah. And what.

[Kyla]

I'm not here to defend the American citizens foreign policy knowledge.

[Tim Pool]

Hold on. Should those people be voting? Is it good for a system when an individual who doesn't know their own capital when they vote? And let me stress this, I worked for a non profit and we did. I told the story a couple weeks ago. They asked me if I wanted to go register people to vote at a Death Cab for Cutie concert of which I'm a huge fan of that band and said holy crap, are you kidding? And then I didn't even realize. They gave me an all access pass and all I had to do was get people to register to vote. The people who at the concert did not know the first thing about what they needed or wanted. They were completely clueless 18 year olds. When voting time comes, people go to them and say vote Democrat. And they go okay, I guess. And they don't know why they're voting.

[Kyla]

I don't know if that's true that

[Tim Pool]

they say who personally went to these people and asked them to do it. They could not tell me left from right in.

[Kyla]

In politics I believe that.

[Tim Pool]

And they're voting.

[Kyla]

The thing that I'm so the. Well this is one of the issue, right? Do we limit democracy? I'm open. I'm actually open to it. The issue is how do you do it in such a way that every partisan side and every, every person feels not unfairly done by. Right. And again, suffrage isn't about who's most informed. Suffrage is about who has stakes. Right? Who has stakes in the country, which every citizen does. Now, my actual, like perfect limited democracy is there's a magical button that you touch and God knows your heart and knows if you love your country and if it goes green, you get to vote. Right. So you're a patriot.

[Commercial Announcer]

Right.

[Kyla]

Essentially.

[Tim Pool]

That would mean Republicans win every election from here on.

[Kyla]

I actually think lots of liberals, I mean, who's holding, who's holding signs? We love America.

[Tim Pool]

We're talking about progressives.

[Kyla]

Well, liberals are Democrats, right? I'm liberal.

[Tim Pool]

Progressives vote Democrat. They tried running these races and I think if you pressed a button and when you press this button, God would just be like, if you don't love your country, your vote doesn't count. Republicans would dominate everything, possibly.

[Kyla]

I don't actually know if that's necessarily true.

[Tim Pool]

Do you think the Democrats, which side has more nationalist fervor? I mean, do you really think the Democrats would potentially.

[Kyla]

Yeah, I think so.

[Tim Pool]

Oh, come on.

[Kyla]

Yeah. Well, I mean, what would Democrats do? They would immediately start rising left fervor for patriotism. Right?

[Tim Pool]

These are people who, like, I'm not talking about Democrat liberals. I'm not talking about like your run of the mill regular liberal in the city. They'll, they'll wave an American flag. But when you go to like Portland, for instance, they, the act, the protesters during one of these, one of these like BLM marches or whatever, went to a guy's, a random house as they're marching through a neighborhood, he has American flag and they knocked on his door and told him to take the flag down or else those people, they vote and their vote won't count if you press that button.

[Kyla]

Well, on the right, again, God might say they love Portland. They love the people around them. Right. And again, part of the reason why this is funny.

[Tim Pool]

Well, I, I certainly don't love their country.

[Kyla]

Loving your neighbors within America and having major criticisms. Like part of being American is having issues. Right. Like lots of libertarians, I say, would be patriots, even though they're also very, very critical of the American government. Right. And so, like, would some people not count on my magical God test? Yes, but it's a magical God. It's why it's kind of a joke is that we can't know these things necessarily. But I think a good stakeholdership Is I care about the outcomes of my country. And I think the reality is that a lot of progressives do care about the outcomes of their countries. They genuinely do.

[Tim Pool]

Let's try this. In a system, let's say there's 100 people and it's a standard IQ bell curve. And let's say the top 40% don't vote, so the bottom 60% do.

[Kyla]

Well, they definitely would like

[Tim Pool]

to grant it. So let's say you have 100 people and the top 40% of the most intelligent decide we're not going to vote. The bottom 60 does vote. Will that system survive?

[Kyla]

I think it will. I think it will. Based on, like my. So I could be wrong. This is one, Rob. Like I'm 65% on this. I could be moved either way. I think it will.

[Tim Pool]

You think that the low end of the bell curve on intelligence can sustain a national economy and system?

[Kyla]

Well, not a national economy and system. Will vote. Will be able to have.

[Tim Pool]

No, no, I'm saying will the system survive if only the stupidest people are the ones who are running it?

[Kyla]

Wait, okay, these are two different questions. Are we saying the people that are also running an office, like basically intellectual, high IQ, single country, there's just 100 people.

[Tim Pool]

Yeah, the top. And they're voting on issues of, of how they run their little micronation. The top 40% of intelligence say, I'm not interested.

[Kyla]

Well, my question is who are the politicians? Are they also part of the low IQ?

[Tim Pool]

It's that bracket of 60%, the 60% from. From.

[Kyla]

So like the politicians themselves are stupid.

[Tim Pool]

They're in that same bracket. The top 40% have removed themselves.

[Kyla]

If now we're getting to, like, who actually is in office, that's a different conversation. But I'm talking about voters, right? I don't think voters have to be high iq. I obviously want politicians to be informed.

[Tim Pool]

But again, my question is if 100 people and the top 40%, let's just say, remove themselves from the process entirely and only the bottom. We said bottom 60%. But from the bottom to the top to slightly above average, they're the only ones engaging in politics, will that system survive?

[Kyla]

Only ones engaging in politics? No, because that's assuming that politicians. But that's not what I'm talking about. When I'm talking about.

[Tim Pool]

I know, I'm just, I'm presenting hypothetical

[Kyla]

system would not survive.

[Tim Pool]

No, my point largely is that if you, if you argue that you only need to be 18 years old in a citizen in order to vote, you are going to have the ease of opportunity to get more ignorant voters versus smart voters. So if you take a look at the.

[Kyla]

Well, well, no, because lower IQ people are also going to come up against different resistances that make them less likely to actually turn on a vote.

[Tim Pool]

Like two urban locations where you have high density of people and you need two activists to go to each apartment building to get 500 votes each. And all you have to do to convince them to vote is say Trump's a Nazi and they go okay, and then they vote Democrat.

[Kyla]

So arguably then the Republicans are doing the same thing. They're just going to other areas. And being a population density.

[Tim Pool]

Republicans don't have population density and Republicans are disagreeable. When you, I'm sure you've seen that graph that shows the Democrats are a singular cluster that largely agrees and the Republicans are a desperate bunch. I think a great example of this is the current trends of Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace, etc. That were big Trump supporters and now are not. The right is absolutely fractured. Joe Kent's resignation. MAGA may be still MAGA people may still support Trump, but the libertarian disregarded liberal coalition that wrapped around that boosted them are not on board. So that's going to make it increasingly difficult to convince someone on the right. You know what really, really sucks is that I watch like I watch some of these liberal YouTubers and it's just really. I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw David Pakman out here as a great example of this. So several years ago, this was Trump's first term. I made a video for my 4pm segment saying, Donald Trump sees record high approval rating. And David Pakman on the same day made a video saying, donald Trump sees record low approval rating or record high disapproval. And I thought to myself, this is crazy. How could both of these videos exist at the same time? Am I wrong? Well, I look back at my video and I checked all my sources and I was like, you've got 5:38, you've got RCP, you've got all of the aggregates showing that Trump's approval rating is at a record high, especially compared to other presidents. How did David Pakman make a video? That's the inverse. He cherry picked a single poll and made a video about it saying the exact opposite. And it wasn't coordinated. He just made a video. And I said, is David. I thought to myself, because I known him for a long time, I'm like, is he doing this on purpose? Like any honest person that's assessing Donald Trump's approval is going to check the aggregate. Not a single poll. Because a single poll can be, can have errors, it can be static and well, this is his mo, him and Brian Tyler Cohen. This is what they do all day, every day. Lord help me, I wish the right was that fucking stupid. I'd have a million views.

[Kyla]

See this is, and this is. So the left will look at the right and they'll look at Tulsi Gabbard defending Iran and then they'll pull up her shirts, right, and be like, interesting, right? You'll look at, you've got RFK Jr.

[Tim Pool]

Who'll do the exact same making.

[Kyla]

So this is why the smarts line is also dissatisfactory to me because nobody's going to agree on it, right?

[Tim Pool]

So when we.

[Kyla]

Everyone's gonna feel unfairly, like punished by this system. Which is why I go, probably universal suffrage is over 18 incidents is the best measure we have.

[Tim Pool]

We on this show, yes. With a disaffected to right leaning audience, specifically addressed Tulsi Gabbard's tweet. How she did not make an assessment and just defer to Trump and that she sold shirts saying no war with Iran and that I Support her in 2020 specifically for anti interventionist regime change policies because the people on the right expect the context.

[Megan McArdle]

And has the news been getting you down? I'm Megan McCardell and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic. And it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. Every Wednesday I'm going to talk to people who see a path forward.

It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together to solve problems where they are.

[Tim Pool]

You know, I am a believer in America and it's worth fighting for.

[Megan McArdle]

Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tim Pool]

The nuance, and it's very difficult to keep them in the same room together. When I pull up the only person I ever give credit to on this, despite not really liking the guys, Hasan Piker, that he actually discusses a variety of topics and his thoughts and opinions on him, even when I think he's wrong or contradictory. And then I pull up the most prominent of liberal pundits and I'm like, they just make fake videos. Like David Pakman made a video saying Donald Trump poops his pants. Which is just like, yeah, that literally didn't happen. And like if, if I could get away with that on the right man, I'd be making 10 times as much

[Kyla]

as his biggest content creator is Candace Owens.

[Tim Pool]

She is a liberal.

[Kyla]

She is on the right. There's no question. She is completely on the right. There isn't a qu. I don't know what to tell you. She's for traditional values. She wants conservative fiscal policy. She was pro Trump. Right. Like she is on the right. She is on the right. She's not part of the left. And what do you have? We have one receipt where she strings together a whole narrative theory.

[Tim Pool]

Say she's neither.

[Kyla]

I. We couldn't say that she's either right or far right, but.

[Tim Pool]

So she's anti Trump over Epstein. She's anti Trump of the Iran war.

[Kyla]

Yeah. She's jumped off the Trump ship now

[Tim Pool]

a long time ago. Is left two years ago. Nick Fuentes has been advocating for voting Democrat for like four years.

[Kyla]

No, actually he advocated for voting for Trump. It only with the Iran stuff he swapped it Democrats. Would you actually try to say that Nick Fuentes is.

[Tim Pool]

Nick Fuentes said not to vote. Not to vote for Trump and he also said JD Vote for JD Vance and now he's explicitly saying vote Democrat.

[Kyla]

Yeah, because he would argue he's a

[Tim Pool]

Democrat or a liberal.

[Kyla]

Well, he's definitely on the right. He's far right because he's a theocrat.

[Tim Pool]

Well, I will just. The first thing we should clarify is what does far right mean so that we understand what we're saying.

[Kyla]

When I say far right, I basically mean they're. They are probably going to share a lot of cultural values of a lot of conservatives. They're probably going to be pretty critical of trans stuff, might be critical of gay stuff. Although obviously conservatives vary a lot more on the gay stuff. Right. So they're going to be right on this culture war stuff by and large, like more traditional values. Right. Nuclear families. And then when you're getting to the far right, they're going to be accelerationist and usually like anti Democratic. Maybe you want to take away.

[Tim Pool]

So. So it's fair to say then if that's your view of the right, the right is completely fractured.

[Kyla]

Yeah, I think the right is schism right now.

[Tim Pool]

The left is largely not.

[Kyla]

The left is very fractured because we have what are the last sessions we have like the communist socialists that want to take away property rights. And there's this huge question of right now on the left of what like.

[Tim Pool]

So among the like prominent left, YouTubers, Twitch streamers or otherwise. So we know Nick Fuentes. He gets, you know, 50K concurrent viewers. He's not show I'm talking about right wing. Yeah, sorry. So Nick Fuentes, he is an element of the right, as you describe. And I'm not saying I disagree.

[Kyla]

We've got Hassan who won't vote for Democrats, tells people not to vote for Democrats and says that, like.

[Tim Pool]

So he's kind of like, he's like. In a certain way.

[Kyla]

In a certain way. Yeah.

[Tim Pool]

So. So when I look at the most prominent left channels, they usually agree. I'm gonna look at the right channels. They're all fighting each other.

[Kyla]

The liberals agree. The liberals agree. But we have. The issue is like the arc schism happened a lot earlier. Right. And it, it's somewhat. That affect what disaffected you guys, Right. Is that a lot of lib liberals

[Tim Pool]

couldn't figure out what a woman was. Well, no.

[Kyla]

We shook hands with the progressives and we said, we're just like you and the progressives. Like, yeah, except some of the progressives just. It's an aesthetic. But a lot of them were communists who were like, yeah, we want to take away private property rights. And at no point did the liberals go, hold on. We're actually not like you, because we. That's a, that's a rights that we're not willing to get rid of, actually. And we don't even want to do it democratically. Right. But we pretended that we were the same, which led to this culture war, like, takeover where we were like, canceling and. Or boasting ourselves. And it was, it was awful. I don't think that it's a good thing. And I think we're seeing the same unfortunate dance happening on the right right now, I think.

[Tim Pool]

Are you saying that, like, Republicans shook hands with people who are for things that people don't agree with?

[Kyla]

Yeah, like theocrats.

[Tim Pool]

I mean, I mean, not good. Tucker Carlson claims he's facing a criminal referral. The White House has denied it. Trump says Tucker's lost his way. I mean, they're outright saying no to these people.

[Kyla]

Yeah. Which is. Which is great. And yet we have Joe Kent that's defecting to their side. Right. And so there's this huge question of who went. So I'm not saying that the right has to look identical to the left in homo. The schism falls out. Right. In a lot of ways. What we had with the. The left sweep is a lot of progressive candidates in a blue state aren't being successful. Right. And so it seems like there is a resurgence amongst the left for more moderate, more traditionally liberal. But the reality is, like, we were a lot More especially performatively sold out to the further left.

[Tim Pool]

I think the, you know, we were asked the other day if, you know, one of our, one of our callers, if the Democrats can start winning back the disaffected liberals because of the route some of these people on the right are taking with, like the Israel post stuff. And, you know, my first point is largely that I'm Israel ambivalent. What I, what irks me is when every problem in the world is specifically about Israel and they ignore the history of the region, the liberal economic order, the petrodollar, etc. But if it came down to policy and they said, you can vote for funding Israel or not funding Israel, I'd say we should not be funding Israel. Our money should be going to our people here in this country, helping the working class. I'm for some form of universal basic health, health care. We should be spending money in that direction. If you come to me and then say your choices are the war machine or politicians who five years ago advocated for cutting off children's testicles and, and breasts, I'd say, I will never vote for that person. No matter what happens, it's never going to happen. And that's, and that's just me.

[Kyla]

But then I would look at you as the voter and be like, oh, my goodness, like you're, that's your single topic.

[Tim Pool]

No, that's what I said. That's just one hyper example. Like when you take a look at, at all of the stuff that we had seen throughout the censorship era and the COVID era, I'm going to be like, we've got a litany of issues. We can start with the, the charges against Donald Trump, which were ridiculous. The arrest of his lawyers, which is shockingly terrifying. I'll never support any of these people. By all means, you can claim Trump did something wrong, but they arrested his lawyers in Georgia and Wisconsin. I mean, that's nightmarishly terrifying. Well, I'm not going to.

[Kyla]

Lawyers did something illegal.

[Tim Pool]

No, they didn't. You can't charge a lawyer with RICO for drafting a letter on behalf of their client. And that's what they did in Georgia. And in fact, if, if, if Jed Ellis did not plead guilty, the charges would have been dropped because they eventually dropped all charges because they're unfounded. That's nightmarishly insane. So you've got Democrats in office now who supported that. And if they came out and said, we are not for transing the kids, we are not for appropriating property, we want to help the Working class. We want to secure our borders. We're not for illegal immigrants. I'll be like, bro, four years ago you were for all of those things. So get rid of all of those people and bring in a new Democrat who's got a little bit of charisma behind them.

[Kyla]

We're talking about Jenna Ellis, who tried to overturn the presidential elections. Right.

[Tim Pool]

Tell me what she actually was charged with and why.

[Kyla]

I'm not sure what she was charged with.

[Tim Pool]

She drafted a letter for Trump to the election officials in Georgia requesting information to challenge the election. They argued that was in furtherance of a conspiracy. So she got two counts of rico. She was literally hired as a lawyer to draft a legal letter. Now, by all means.

[Kyla]

Well, was it illegal? Because. Right. For example, in the case of. I don't want to get into all. Because I don't know all of the details of 2020, unfortunately. Right. But there are absolutely illegal things that happened from multiple lawyers. Right. And they were intentionally. Some lawyers. So my understanding is some lawyers were under the presumption that genuinely they needed to call into question the electoral slates, and some allowed to. They. That is. That might be allowed.

[Tim Pool]

Right.

[Kyla]

And others were under the presumption that they knew that they were submitting. Here's what you're not.

[Tim Pool]

See, this is why I'm never going Democrat.

[Kyla]

Here's what you're not allowed to do. You can't submit false elector slates.

[Tim Pool]

You can't do that. Ellis submitted a letter requesting information to challenge an election. She wrote, I think, like, one letter, and they gave her two counts of rico. They dropped all of the charges in Georgia. All of the people who refused to plead out had their charges dropped. This was insane. You take a look at the charges against Trump in New York over fraud. They said that he falsified the records to secure beneficial, more beneficial terms from Deutsche Bank. What were the terms? Apparently, in one of the filings, they argued that Trump's penthouse, which was 10,000 square feet, roughly, was actually 30,000 square feet. However, it was testified in court that the Trump administration, first and foremost, Trump didn't draft the documents. Why would he? He's the CEO. And the documents always came with a disclaimer that they may have gotten things wrong and required the banks to do their own due diligence to verify to which Deutsche bank did. Came back and said, your information is incorrect, and reduced the terms of the deal to which the Trump Organization accepted. They called that fraud. Even when Deutsche bank testified. We were not defrauded. We clarified this we made money and we would love to do business with Trump in the future. Yet you go to Democrats and they say Trump was convicted and found guilty. He was on liable for civil fraud. And I'm sitting here being like, man, I followed that case. It's insane. You take a look at the falsification of business records, which for the first time in New York State history, there was a claim of falsification of business records without an underlying crime found unanimously by a jury.

[Kyla]

So Ellis drafted not just a memo, but a memo very explicitly and specifically outlining how she planned to overturn election results. Right. Not just question the results, but to. To overturn them directly with knowledge of falsified electoral.

[Tim Pool]

No, that's an argument that was never proven in court. And the charges are all dropped for everyone else. Now, she pleaded guilty to that because she was terrified that the machine had come to put the boot on her neck. So tell me why the charges were dropped for everybody else. And I'm sure the Democrats will just say, because Trump put pressure and won the election. Look, all I'll say is this. Donald Trump was accused of falsifying business records. He got how many. How many felony? How many felons? 30, 31, 34. Yeah. This was a misdemeanor charge that was upgraded. And the case is Trump's lawyer, Cohen, decided to pay Stormy Daniels, but Trump never told him what to do. But he knew what Trump wanted and there was no unanimously agreed upon by the jury underlying crime that was being covered up for the first time in New York state history. So they decided to upgrade a misdemeanor to a felony. 30. Some. I thought it was 31, but 30 something odd times. I'll check and then claim that Trump is a felon. And that case for some reason is still pending. It's been like two years, a year and a half, and the case still pending. But I'll just put it like this. Make any argument you want. If we are dealing with.

[Ian]

It was 34, by the way.

[Kyla]

So the main ones. So in Georgia, where Ellis was relevant, a lot of the people who did not get charged were not charged because they were given immunity deals to give details on Ellis.

[Tim Pool]

People who had charges had their charges

[Kyla]

dropped, some of them, but a lot of them didn't actually have it dropped. A lot of them actually went to jail. The ones who are a little bit. I can. I can ask specific names. I'm looking at the information right now who went to jail or was fined, but we're gonna.

[Tim Pool]

There's Wisconsin as well.

[Ian]

We're gonna get AI on the show one day that you can just ask and it'll tell you. It's gonna be awesome.

[Tim Pool]

It'll be like, I'll tell you the answer.

[Kyla]

While I'm letting that. While I'm letting it search. I'm just gonna run to the wall.

[Tim Pool]

I'll just. I'll just say it like this. For this reason, I will never vote for a Democrat. Never going to happen. Fix the parties.

[Ian]

Like, less communism, less theocracy, more balanced, nuanced. Because what's happening is the machine state is wrapping its tentacles around our genitals as we speak.

[Tim Pool]

We.

[Ian]

We need to resist it and untwist this, like, big time. We talk about, like.

[Tim Pool]

Like, give in to the machine state.

[Ian]

I don't think I can give it.

[Matthew Marsden]

Let it do it.

[Ian]

I'll let them do what they need to do to me. But what we talk about, like, stakeholder capitalism. Stakeholder. You know, we were like, what's your stake in the system when you vote? It used to be land ownership. That's how people had stake in the system. The COR want to go from like shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism because they're trying to create corporate governance. Kyle, I should. I want to tell Kyle this. When she's here, she might already know this stuff.

[Tim Pool]

So now that she's gone, she's wrong. I'm right about everything. And she can't rebut, like, what makes

[Ian]

you a stakeholder in the corporation. And that's kind of. Kind of miasmic. You know, it's up to the corporation

[Tim Pool]

to decide if you actually have a

[Ian]

stake in this or not. And then do you have a right to protest our system or not? Boy, without her, that was kind of

[Tim Pool]

meant for, you know, I wonder about everything. It's hard to track all these patterns, see what's really going on. There's a million and one different conspiracies as to what the political machine is actually doing. The one that there's several. One of which is that Trump's been in it the whole time. And the machine state just keeps shifting the narratives that nobody can get a footing and that we had woke versus Anti woke intentionally crafted by the machine so that the left and right would fight. And then now we're getting the, like, the right is being broken apart through the, you know, like the Tuckers and like the Joe Kent versus the neoconservative. And then we're going to see an evolution on the Democrat side where they start to try and come back to the Moderate point. And in this new decade of 2030, I would not be surprised if we're sitting here being like, I can't believe the Republicans are saying these things. They've gone nuts and the Democrats are the only ones speaking clearly. Now. I wouldn't be surprised. I predicted that before because it happened during Occupy Wall street and I am predicting it again. During Occupy Wall Street. I was. The left loved me. They were like, tim Pool's the greatest. He's for free speech. Occupy Wall street gave me private security. This is, I'm telling you, they were volunteers. Volunteer, volunteer security guards that occupy Wall Street. And when the far leftist black block types, we call them, we didn't call them antifa physically attacked me. The organizer said, tim, we're going to have these guys watch your back while you're streaming because the coverage you do is so important. Even when I had filmed far left is vandalizing police vehicles. The organizers of Occupy said, you were right to do it. This is not what we're all about. Thank you for filming. Now these very same people are like, Tim Pool's far right. You know, he's crazy or whatever. Now we're going to see a shift on the right. And what I was saying before you got got back is that the Democratic party is going to shift in the next several years and start to look sane and the Republican party is going to increasingly become insane and moderates are going to shift the other direction again. And my thought was, I wonder if the machine does this intentionally. Many have speculated constantly shifting what left and right is to keep everybody spinning so they can never actually form a real populist uprising.

[Ian]

Yeah, what I said while you were

[Howie Mandel]

out is about, hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my how we do it gaming team take on Gilly the King and wallow two six seven's million dollars gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right [e-mail] that's globalgamingleague.com everybody games.

[Megan McArdle]

Has the news been getting you down? I'm Megan McCardell and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post opinion called Reasonably Optimistic. And it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. Every Wednesday. I'm going to talk to people who see a path forward.

It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together, to solve problems where they are.

[Tim Pool]

You know, I am a believer in America and it's worth fighting for.

[Megan McArdle]

Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ian]

A shared stakeholder, like you were saying. What kind of stake in the system. To vote to control the system. And it used to be land ownership in the United States. Now it's just, you know, you sign the paperwork, you have a Social Security number. But the corporations want to do stakeholder capitalism, where they're going away from shareholder capitalism. Who owns the corporation to decide the future of the corporation. But do you have a stake in the benefit of the system that the corporation is a part of? So they're really like. And then they get to decide what that means in any given moment. If you have a right to participate. That's like, I don't have a point to tie it to, but that. When you guys were talking about voting, I think that is very much the future of what the corporations are trying to do right now. I don't think it's a left and a right thing. Probably never has been. There are obviously sects of people that. That spin up, but this global technocratic oligarchy really wants to control our speech and shut us down.

[Tim Pool]

Ah, damn.

[Ian]

That's all I got right now.

[Kyla]

All right. Kenneth Chesabro pled guilty. Five years probation. So basically nobody went to jail for this, which, to be fair, and if they waited, I would have been happy for people to do more time. One of the issues is probably a lot of these charges that ended up sticking aren't like necessarily jailable fines. A lot of people got community service. A lot of people lost their licenses. A lot of people were fired. Right. There was a lot of misdemeanors. There was also a lot of immunity deals that happened. Right. Ellis entered in cooperation agreements and had

[Tim Pool]

all the charges dropped.

[Kyla]

Yep. But like, entering into cooperation doesn't mean she didn't do anything wrong.

[Tim Pool]

So when people plead guilty, that. That proves they did something wrong.

[Kyla]

That's not what I'm saying.

[Tim Pool]

Have any of these cases been proven or are they just plead outs?

[Kyla]

You don't take a. Hold on. You don't take a plead out if you don't think that the court has a sufficient case against you, you take a plea doubt because it's a better deal than what you're otherwise facing. That's why you typically.

[Tim Pool]

I know you don't actually Believe that this is. Come on, come on. We can't really do this, can we? You know about the trial tax, right?

[Kyla]

Sorry?

[Tim Pool]

You know about the trial tax, Right.

[Kyla]

Unfortunately.

[Tim Pool]

I wish I had a majority of people plead guilty regardless of whether they're innocent or guilty, because of what's called the trial tax Tax. The trial tax is a trial tax. Yes. It's a known facet in U.S. law that the judges will intentionally give you harsher penalties if you try and fight. So if they come to you and say you're getting 40 years, but you can take a year of probation, everybody just says, give me the year of probation.

[Kyla]

Yes.

[Tim Pool]

This is the majority of court cases in the United States. So one of the problems our justice system has is the overwhelming amount of innocent people being punished by the system.

[Kyla]

Sure.

[Tim Pool]

Tremendously.

[Kyla]

I wouldn't look at Ellis's work and go, that's an innocent woman, though.

[Tim Pool]

I mean, you're talking about, at bare minimum, like a process crime.

[Kyla]

No. Somebody who knowingly was submitting false electors and directing. Not just doing it, directing other people explicitly and knowingly to submit false electors.

[Tim Pool]

So, you know she knowingly did.

[Kyla]

Yes. In the case of Alex, how do

[Tim Pool]

you know that she knowingly did? It was proven in court.

[Kyla]

In court. She writes this out. So you're saying because Chester was like, a little bit more like.

[Tim Pool]

Because she pleaded.

[Kyla]

Who knows why we're doing this? We think legitimately, these. These electors might need to be submitted. But she. She did know. Yes.

[Tim Pool]

You're saying that it was proven in court. She definitively knew that what she was

[Kyla]

doing defined, proven in court. I would say, yeah, but it's.

[Tim Pool]

Pleading guilty to me isn't proof of anything, because we know tons of innocent people plead guilty to avoid satisfied beyond reasonable doubt.

[Kyla]

In the case of Alice, you might not be right, but I would say not her. Her email specifically are sufficient evidence of saying, I think that she knows what's going on.

[Tim Pool]

She knows essentially that in the Nixon v. Kennedy election, where they submitted alternate electors, despite the fact that, you know, Nixon could have won Hawaii, the argument was that it didn't matter anyway. So they weren't going to count these electors. They submitted electors for Kennedy which were not certified by the government, and that was the precedent by which Trump's legal team said, we can submit the alternate slate. Then once the court cases are. Once they are officially adjudicated, they will update, just like with Kennedy v. Nixon. So the argument that I have is, regardless of what you think about John Ellis, let's go to the procedure of 2020, the only process by which you could challenge an election that. That you did believe was stolen is to file the paperwork of an alternate. Alternate slate of electors and then wait for the court case to be resolved by a judge. Otherwise, according to our electoral system, the deadline is, like, December 17th. There would be no paperwork filed at all. And even if you won in court, you'd be past the deadline.

[Kyla]

Why not? Like, you could just do this is

[Tim Pool]

the precedent set in. I think it was 1959.

[Kyla]

Sure. But, like, we've done recounts multiple times. Right. There was, like, the famous Al Gore case in, like, Florida where the vote was decided by, like, 500 votes. And yet all precedent to just, like, ask that we, like, redo the slates and then verify and audit all of the votes. Right. And, like, there is a process by which if you legitimately think something has been falsified or tampered with, like, there is a process for that. And I'm for that process. Right. I have no problem with auditing votes necessarily. Right. And the issue is, in the case of Ellis and Chesbrough, they explicitly were not doing these things.

[Tim Pool]

What did they do? What should they have done?

[Kyla]

Gone through the proper processes.

[Tim Pool]

Which is what.

[Kyla]

I don't. I don't know it off the top of my head, but this is exactly. Imagine why Pence was opposed to this and basically said, I'm not touching any of this shit.

[Tim Pool]

I would imagine it's the Republican elector slates fill out the paperwork as if they did win. They are submitted as. This is pending adjudication. That's. I'd imagine what you do. Right.

[Kyla]

Yeah. How do you challenge election results?

[Tim Pool]

Presidential election, which is specifically Electoral college. Right. My view would be just like in. I think it was 1960 with Kennedy v. Nixon, when Hawaii challenged the election results, even though it was Nixon who won. They sent an alternate slate of electors after the fact without certification. And even though it wasn't even adjudicated, they said, look, it doesn't matter anyway. So we're gonna. We're gonna let it slide. So if you did have a disputed election, and the difficult with our. With our legal system is how long it takes, I'd imagine the process would be file the paperwork as though you won while it's pending adjudication, and then if a judge approves, it's yes, if not, it's no, no.

[Kyla]

So you ask for a recount, you file an election contest in state court in whichever state you're concerned about, litigate before certification and during canvassing. So you get A court recount. And after the state results the result, after the state resolves the result, the state sends its lawful electors to the Electoral College.

[Tim Pool]

It's not ever what's happened. And again, the precedent from Nixon v. Kennedy is that because adjudication was taking too long, they submitted an alternate slate of electors before there was official adjudication, and that was deemed acceptable. And that was the precedent by which the Trump legal says, Trump legal team said, we'll do the same thing. And then to be fair, one of

[Kyla]

them, one of my understanding is one of, one of the main lawyers involved. I believe it was Chesabro. I could be wrong about which one did this. Look, this argument 24 believed that there was faulty votes, there was faulty issues, and he looked it up and he was trying to legitimately have the election audit. There was like a genuine belief that it was stolen. Well, then one of the lawyers in the emails explicitly knows that this is false and is trying to follow through with Trump's.

[Tim Pool]

Sorry. There was a, there was a report a few months ago that they found something like 300,000 ballots that were illegitimate in Georgia or something like this.

[Kyla]

I've looked into that. I remember being very questionable.

[Tim Pool]

You know, to be completely honest, I'm not super concerned with, with what happened in 2020. You know, I'm more said it's big

[Kyla]

enough that you won't vote for Democrats.

[Tim Pool]

I won't vote for Democrats for a variety of reasons. One, that they have consistently defended child sex changes and like, even Gavin Newsom is wishy washy on this and struggles with it. And it's like, if you can't just say no to that. Like, if Bill, like I like Bill Maher. Right. He's got Trump derangement syndrome. But that's okay. You're always allowed to criticize the president, not like the guy. And Bill Maher made a really great point. I love it. He said the Democrats lost a crazy contest to a crazy person. And that. That really hits. Hits. It hits the nail and the hammer for me. Trump, for all of his faults that he can be criticized for, is the less crazy of the people running, which is just Trump. Yes, Democrats. I'm going to say it again. Bill Maher, lifelong liberal guy, he, in my view, represents what Democrats need to be saying. The Democrats lost a crazy contest to a crazy person. He does not like Trump. He views Trump as crazy. And I will say it again, for all of Trump's faults, he is. The less. He is the least crazy of the people who ran for president to Be fair. I'd vote for Dave Smith over either of them. But he didn't run. I'm not gonna vote for Chase. And the gay good contest in the Libertarian Party.

[Ian]

The Democrats lost the crazy contest to the crazy person. That was the point, which is the

[Tim Pool]

point he was making. They couldn't be crazy enough.

[Ian]

You know this. No, Sorry, Kayla. Kyla, what are you saying?

[Tim Pool]

I don't know if that makes sense in the way you're interpreting it because that would not be a point of contention. It would be. I'm glad they lost. Yeah. Like Trump beat them and he should have the point he was making.

[Ian]

I'm going to insert myself into this.

[Tim Pool]

It was the podcast I did with Jerry o' Connell where he was saying that the Democrats have continually embraced people who are out of touch and don't know how to speak to regular Americans. So they embrace insane issues. And I mean, as you know, like Bill Maher has been very anti Islam. And so he's sitting here looking at everything the Democratic Party has been doing and he's like, these people have gone crazy. But I don't want to harp us, we should, we should segue because we keep the conversation going with this story. We've got this from Fox News. GOP governor is AG's back. The Trump Save act push warn. The system gives undue influence to states with illegal aliens. The coalition argues current registration systems give states with large illegal populations undue influence over the federal elections. I am here to tell you all that everything everyone is telling you is fake and a lie. The SAVE act requires proof of proof of citizenship at the point of registration and would would require a an ID when you vote. However, the Republican argument is incorrect and they're doing this because they're oversimplifying to make people want to support it. Republicans are arguing that there's voter fraud and Democrats want illegal immigrants to vote, which no, that's not really the issue either. Democrats are saying this will disenfranchise 20 million plus voters. There will be women who will struggle to register to vote, which is also not true because you don't get booted off registration from the SAVE Act. The real issue is that by allowing anybody to register to vote without documentation, you can do rock the vote. Voter registration drives voter in the park and this means you can go to people who normally don't care and wouldn't take the time and register to register them the vote. You combine that with universal mail in voting and or ballot harvesting and you have a massive voter base of people who will passively vote, vote. The Republicans can't do this because they're predominantly rural. So if an individual goes to an urban center, like in New York City, you can go to one apartment building with 1,000 people in it, and in one day, two activists can get hundreds of ballots from people who normally don't care. Republicans can't drive door to door in rural areas because some of these houses are, you know, what, half a mile from the next one. So overwhelmingly that benefits Democrats who are trying to convince as many people as possible to vote.

[Kyla]

But by that logic, doesn't that just assume then that the people in the apartments are already Democrat? They're just facilitating these people to vote?

[Tim Pool]

Whereas I would, I would refer to them as. We call that default liberal, meaning they don't really pay attention to politics, but they lean a little bit left and you go, you knock on their door and say you're registered. And they'll say, no, sign this. And you are. And they'll go, sure. And so it's very easy for Democrats to get the numbers, which is very difficult for Republicans. But I will just my final point on this. Republicans don't want to publicly admit they are intentionally trying to create barriers to stop low interest voters, and the Democrats don't want to admit that they win elections through low interest voters. So both are creating their own version of why this shooter should not pass.

[Kyla]

The issue is. So say you get, like, the issue is this one. This could affect the popular vote, but that this type of logic actually wouldn't necessarily change like the electoral college because the way that electoral college splits up and all these lines and stuff is to try to balance out the.

[Tim Pool]

Sorry, it'll change Congress in the swing states and the swing districts and it will greatly affect swing states as well.

[Kyla]

Maybe. But in swing states specifically, we can probably presume that in these apartment buildings, Republicans could reasonably go and collect ballots from all the same people and they'll.

[Tim Pool]

But they're gonna vote Democrat.

[Kyla]

Why would we assume that in a

[Tim Pool]

swing state city, major cities are even in West Virginia. They're all liberal.

[Kyla]

Yeah. But I imagine if they're passive enough, a Republican can probably have a sufficiently like, compelling argument to like move them up.

[Tim Pool]

We just again and revert to the previous argument of why it is that Republicans don't invest money in like D 20 districts and why Democrats don't do the same. It's largely, it's a cost benefit analysis. Republicans are going to say, look, if we go and ballot harvest in these areas, it's going to take 10 times the effort to get half as many ballots from Democrats. So we're better off passing the SAVE act and just slicing off Democrats low interest voter base. And Democrats are saying you will disenfranchise voters because women will have to get their marriage certificates. And like this convoluted argument. Look, Republicans are going to claim it's about illegal immigrants voting, which is not the issue. The issue largely is that illegal immigrants count towards congressional apportionment. But Democrats can easily bow harvest. They do. I have done voter initiatives for Democrat nonprofits. Republicans can't. So they're trying to make it difficult for low interest voters to vote.

[Kyla]

I don't think that there's sufficient evidence that Republicans can't though. Like like of course they can.

[Tim Pool]

It's like difficult.

[Kyla]

Well go to go to like more like working class areas that have like a lot of construction and union guys in your to be able to talk about a gradient.

[Tim Pool]

Right. We're talking about how densely urban areas it's overwhelmingly liberal. And when you go to the suburbs you will, you will have to go door too in the like. Let's use Chicago as an example. The city of Chicago is Democrat everywhere and only in the past election did we actually see the edges start to turn red. So my neighborhood on the south side near Midway Airport has been slowly shifting Republican for some time, which is very interesting. If you go to my neighborhood in the city, it's still 60, 70 democrat. Well actually no, my neighborhood actually is red. But the bulk of like the Midway area which includes like two or three neighborhoods, it's actually shifts more blue. As you get closer to the city. You are going to be going door to door, house to house. Okay. Going to a, a building on like Michigan avenue with like 50 apartment units. You will be able to get two or three times as many ballots harvested and voters registered than you would in the suburban areas where you're going door to door or drive. That's my point. Dense population areas tend to be liberal and that makes it harder for Republicans to ballot harvest as effectively as Democrats may.

[Kyla]

Again, I don't even know if I'd grant that because I have a suspicion that a lot of Republican voters that often probably don't come through in voting would be.

[Howie Mandel]

Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my how we do it gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow. $267 million gaming in an epic global gaming league league video game showdown. Four rounds, multiple games, one winner plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right [e-mail] that's globalgamingleague.com everybody

[Kyla]

games like for example, like working class construction workers or truck drivers and stuff that often probably have a lot of the same limits to voting that like low income left. They often do live in this city.

[Tim Pool]

Like are you actually arguing that cities have. Are like Republican?

[Kyla]

No, no, no. I, I think that cities tend to fall left, but I think that's because like, like Chicago's been run by Democrats tend to fall. I think that cities tend to fall left because I think that Democrats have good policies that are better for cities and better for running them. Like I think that that's why I think if Republicans wanted to be out or able to farm cities, they should probably have policies that city people like. Right. But they don't. They don't.

[Tim Pool]

I don't think you really believe that.

[Kyla]

Which Republican.

[Tim Pool]

That cities policies that make cities run better than Republicans.

[Ian]

A lot of it's based on land ownership.

[Matthew Marsden]

Sorry, what are the biggest.

[Tim Pool]

Well, let me ask you, let me ask you.

[Kyla]

California, number four in GDP in the world.

[Matthew Marsden]

Like yeah, I lived there for 20 years.

[Tim Pool]

It's a hole department in San Francisco. But let me, let me ask you a question.

[Kyla]

Sure. It's also what are all the red states? They're poor. They're have nots. They can't get on top of their

[Tim Pool]

poor in West Virginia despite being poor too. It's below the national average. Sure, sure. But let me ask you a question, Let me ask you a question. Where are you from?

[Kyla]

From right. Where am I living? I live in town.

[Tim Pool]

No, what city are you from? Like where originally?

[Kyla]

Yeah, I'm Canadian.

[Tim Pool]

You're from Canada? Yeah, Canadians. So let me ask you Democrat policy in Chicago with a hundred, 100 years of, of super majority. So there is numerous territories neighborhoods in Chicago that were overridden by black gangs. Do you know the Democrat policy was.

[Kyla]

I. No, I have no idea.

[Tim Pool]

It was to tell the people who lived that they wanted to renovate the project housing so they would be temporarily relocated and then they bulldozed their homes and poured dirt over it and never did anything again. That has consistently been what the Democrats of Chicago have done to deal with the problem of impoverished black neighborhoods. How about the policies of redlining and blockbusting in Chicago? Redlining literally comes from Chicago's red line where the cultural practice at the time under the Democrats was to force black people to live in impoverished areas and they wouldn't sell them property outside. The Democrats do not create policies that benefit these cities. In my experience, growing up in a city that was run by Democrats for 100 years, you couldn't do anything because the processes by which they collected the votes made it impossible to actually change this system. System. Then why like Los Angeles? A great example as well, where they have the worst homeless problem in the developed world. Yet for the life of them, they just keep dumping money into what we call the homeless industrial complex, a series of NGOs and government programs that dump money to corrupt individuals.

[Kyla]

What percentage of homeless people in California are even from California, do you know?

[Tim Pool]

It is actually a minority, but a good chunk. The issue with homelessness in Los Angeles is that the weather is nice and it attracts homelessness.

[Kyla]

And they have. And they have. So it's not just that. I actually from Edmonton where I'm from, we have one of the largest homeless populations in Canada despite it being one of the most northern major city in almost in the world.

[Tim Pool]

It's a liberal city.

[Kyla]

That's a red city.

[Tim Pool]

Oh, interesting.

[Kyla]

But we have huge, huge. We just have an incredible nonprofit sector. It's actually where my husband and I met is working for the same homeless shelter. But we have such great resources that people will get bus rides to Edmonton as a homeless person to take advantage of, of the system that they have. Right. So what's often happening is red states aren't educating people. They're getting them hooked on jobs, giving them construction jobs. And then when they become well, yeah,

[Tim Pool]

like the government is not getting people hooked on drugs people.

[Kyla]

Right. They're not educating them. They're not building successful economies that scale up to allow people out of just construction jobs. Which is why you're right, Republicans don't have reds, very big red cities because Republicans don't build good cities. It seems to be the case. It seems like, like if cities have to be ontologically left, we have to ask ourselves why? Like collectivism city talk to any city person. They're not just this like collective.

[Ian]

They have the nature of cities as you collect in an area.

[Tim Pool]

Well, I think the issue is the process of lowest common denominator population basis. So cities are multicultural, multi demographic whereas like rural areas tend to be less so they tend to be more homogenous. So it's really easy to win a red district that is overwhelmingly white. White. And like traditional American values, Chicago is much more difficult. If you look at the election of Brandon Johnson, remarkably every Every neighborhood voted based on race. 100. What I find truly remarkable is that in the black neighborhoods, you had the top three candidates. You had. I forgot the guy's name. There was the white dude. There was Brandon Johnson, who's a black guy. You had a Hispanic guy. When you go to, like, the Pilsen areas, top candidate was the Hispanic guy guy followed by the white guy. You go to the white areas, top candidates, the white guy go to the black areas. This is where it got interesting. The top three candidates were three black people. And the reason Brandon Johnson is because only one neighborhood defected. And it was the Loyola University area, like near Evanston, where you have a. You have a predominantly young leftist base that voted for the more socialist black candidate. And so you combine that with the racial demographics and they voted for a candidate just because he was black for the most part part. Like the progressives probably did, too. He was like a socialist and he was black, and they didn't want white supremacy or whatever. But that's a small portion of the Chicago base. Chicago votes based on race, right? This is not a function of being a Republican or being a Democrat. It was literally just the black neighborhood saying we were only going to vote for black people. And the white neighborhood saying we're going to vote for the white guy. And the Latino neighbors neighborhood saying, we're going to vote for Latino guy. And it's not necessarily that it's overtly about race, although I do think that's a component of it. I think it's who's speaking to who. If you're a white, working class, suburbanite kind of guy and you meet like a firefighter family, and you say, like, I used to bring my kid to go play baseball. You go, hey, me too. I like this guy. And then if the Latino guy goes to that same dude and says, we used to bring tamales out and we'd sell him on a porch, the guy's gonna be like, I don't know what that means. And so they're not gonna feel that rapport. You know what I mean?

[Kyla]

I know that this isn't what you're saying, but what it sounds like you're arguing. And so clarify where the nuance is here. It sounds like you're arguing when I say, why are cities just ontologically left leaning? Like, I don't think that they have to be. Right. Assuming I don't think that they have to be. And it seems like your answer is black people are in cities who vote for black people.

[Tim Pool]

Well, let me.

[Kyla]

Because there's definitely more white people in.

[Tim Pool]

It's called lowest common denominator politics. If you have three distinct cultures that do not agree with each other, in order to win, you need to find the point at which they do come together. And so it's actually quite simple. I'll give you free stuff. So we'll give you free welfare benefits, we'll increase ebt and this will get you the largest share. If you go to like the, the, if you go to Chicago and you take a look at like the midway neighbor which is voting for Trump, you're gonna say no free stuff. You gotta work hard, you gotta roll up your sleeves and live a good life. They're gonna be like, I'm voting for that guy. But if you go and say that in, you know, Loyola, for instance, they're gonna say you are completely discounting the experience of marginalized people. And I will not vote for this.

[Kyla]

This.

[Tim Pool]

You go to the upper class area and they're, and, and you, and you say we need to create social programs. And they're going to be like, well, this is an affront, the lowest common denominator for maximizing voting. This is macro level politics is to say, I am going to give you your benefits. If you, if you go to like, if you go to a, a rural Republican area, you are going to find generally cultural homogeneity for the most part. You're going to find over a large swath of land of a district, most people are culturally and ethnically homogenous to a great degree. When you go to cities, you're gonna find it's gonna be multicultural. So let's say you go to Chicago,

[Kyla]

but they're also less educated, less innovative. They're not typically on the bleeding front.

[Tim Pool]

So that's not material to advocating for a vote. Right?

[Kyla]

Well, it's this question again of why is the left ontologically, why are cities.

[Tim Pool]

Are you arguing that the, the impoverished black neighborhoods are more educated than the white areas of the same city?

[Kyla]

I'm saying that cities generally are an ag. I'm actually saying, I think that the reason why cities tend to dominated is because they have policy that appeals to city voters the most but appeals to most people except apparently rural voters.

[Tim Pool]

Right.

[Kyla]

Just like too smart to, to do

[Tim Pool]

it or because you do you understand macro level politics?

[Kyla]

I understand you're saying I, they try to make generalized policy. I slightly disagree because they don't say we want to give you your benefits. They try to go which policies are popular right now?

[Tim Pool]

That's a common denominator.

[Kyla]

So how.

[Tim Pool]

Which will. Which policy connects every group of people

[Kyla]

as much as possible. Yes.

[Tim Pool]

So again, in a rural area, they need only go apple pie. And they go, woo. And they need to go like, America. And they're like, yeah. And then you go to a city and if you say America, people are going to be like, america's white supremacist. And the other guy's going to be like, I've been American my whole life. You can't send. So they say, tax the rich because that's not you. So they say, we want to do programs. And then people go, how are you going to pay for it? We're going to tax the rich. And look what's going on in New York. Actually, we should pull up what's going on.

[Kyla]

Where are the richest people in the world? Cities. Dubai Cities. Yeah, cities actually, that we know of. In fact, we're the poorest people in Dubai.

[Tim Pool]

Let me, Kyla, challenge this. We have this story from the New York Post. Desperate Hochul begs wealthy New Yorkers to come back as Mamdani pressures her to hike their taxes. They say Kathy Hochul is begging wealthy New Yorkers who fled the city to encourage their rich pile to come back and continue padding the Empire State's lavish public handouts. Hochul made the case against caving to mayor made the case against caving to Mayor Zormani's demands that she hike income taxes by saying she not only wants fat cats to stay in the city, but also by clawing at those who have moved to states with better business climates like Florida. Hey, I'm one of those people. Wait, I. I left New York for a variety of reasons, not entirely because of high tax, but that was a component. Moved further south largely because of riots and violence, went to New Jersey, and then New Jersey had crazy taxes. So we got out. Now we're in West Virginia, although we're currently enjoying the beautiful weather here in Austin. I was recently asked, as, as I've explained quite a bit, there are big investors, media companies, looking to buy out podcasts and get in the space. And so of course, as many of you know, we've been having negotiations with companies for years in various ways. It doesn't mean we'll take any deals. But I was recently asked by a company if we'd be willing to relocate to New York City where there's a lot of infrastructure, high profile guests, celebrities, great opportunity, all of the big podcasting network companies. And I said, never gonna happen. And they said, what is prohibitive about New York And I said the taxes are too high. Even with those benefits. When we do the cost benefit analysis, we lose money. By going to New York, it is not worth it. Now Florida and Texas maybe, but New York, no. And now New York's facing a massive deficit where Zawarmandani explicitly stated, if they cannot tax the wealthy, they will have to tax the middle class.

[Kyla]

That's, that's somewhat true. Are you opposed to progressive taxation?

[Tim Pool]

Literally what he said? I'm in favor of a degree of progressive taxation. However, you can't. You, you have to recognize freedom of movement. And I think there's, there's. Are you familiar with the Laffer curve?

[Kyla]

I, I'm not actually. Tell me.

[Tim Pool]

So this is a, it's, it's an understanding and tax policy that, that there is a point at which you increase the tax rate and you decrease tax revenue because you'll either stagnate activity or you'll pressure people to leave.

[Kyla]

I'm familiar with.

[Tim Pool]

So there is a happy medium where people will be satisfied paying a certain percentage of their income at a certain level if they feel like the benefit is worth it. However, New York has been experiencing a lot of problems recently. Notably, they've had a massive dog feces problem, which is new. I think this is a component of low trust society. You've also had high profile cases of subway people being pushed on subway tracks. Whether this is more than normal, it is certainly popping up in media and it's causing people to freak out. So you've had, since COVID lockdowns, a mass exodus. Now you have, with increased taxes, a continued exodus where we're not just seeing the upper class, the wealthy leave. You're actually seeing middle class people leave the city because they don't feel that they're getting their value from, from the city. I would also throw it back to when AOC joined in these protests against Amazon, which was, which is projected to bring in somewhere around like $30 billion in tax revenue. And she came to these financial district protests ultimately, whether intentionally otherwise, created a hubbub that pressured Amazon not to create, not to put their warehouses in New York in Queens. And that cost the city billions, which they were, they were hoping to get to fix their crumbling train infrastructure. So for a lot of people live in New York, it feels like the taxes are just not worth it. It. Whatever may be, I just can't find.

[Kyla]

So here's the issue, okay?

[Tim Pool]

Governor Hochul is literally begging them to come back because they did leave the

[Kyla]

New York Post is the word.

[Tim Pool]

No, no, no. No, no, no.

[Kyla]

I'm sorry.

[Tim Pool]

You're not going to argue source. The governor literally did this. The governor literally said please come back. That's, that's, that's not for dispute.

[Kyla]

Where's her. What's her quote specifically and does she have evidence for this?

[Tim Pool]

I mean we did play the video earlier. Yeah, we play the video for you. Give it to me, Kathy.

[Ian]

I'm looking forward to hearing her voice.

[Tim Pool]

Hokul made the case. Came against quote. Maybe the first step should be to go down to Palm beach and see who we can bring back home because our tax base here has eroded. I have to look at the fact that we are in competition with other states who have less of a tax burden on their corporations and their individuals. Trump. The comments are a far cry from our much to write a remarks in 2020 election campaign where she ripped her GOP opponent Rep. Lee Zeldin as the then duchess. Blah blah blah blah. Trump and Zeldin and Molinaro just jump on a bus and head on to Florida where you belong. Okay. Get out of town because you don't represent our values. She said blah blah blah blah. We have to be smart about this. But we can fund what we we want to fund with what we are already taking in. The state has been facing its own multi billion dollar budget gap that was largely patched after a great year on Wall Street. Caused bonuses to shoot up 25 over 2025. Blah blah blah. I am focused 100 our affordability issues. It appears actually there's two quotes because I played this video earlier where she's sitting at a conference meeting saying like we need to get the wealthy to come back. This is how Trump revitalized New York. He created these luxury towers and then told wealthy people this is where the high class is. They came back in. Combined with Giuliani's broken window policing which really just means heavy law enforcement crackdown and it became more appealing to wealthy individuals and corporations which then boosted its tax base. Oh, like the controversy as as thus far. Which is not up for dispute. Zoran Mamdani gave a speech to the city saying we must tax the rich to fund these programs. If we do not, we are going to have to tax the middle class.

[Kyla]

I so I understand and I understand why he's saying that and I agree with him that we do need to tax the rich. Right. So when I'm looking into like this Laffer stuff, my understanding is that like

[Tim Pool]

you're not going to tax me. I left.

[Kyla]

So most wealthy individuals do not leave from taxes. Only 2%. So millionaire tax flight is only about 2% of top earners are moving in response to higher taxes.

[Tim Pool]

And you're talking about generally. Yeah, New York specifically over the past several months.

[Kyla]

Well, every time I've looked up New York it said there is no mass exodus happening at all. There is like been a general trend of like some rich people going to Florida because of no state income tax.

[Tim Pool]

I just googled it. So we'll just pull up whatever Google says. How about that?

[Matthew Marsden]

I'll continue.

[Tim Pool]

New York City is experiencing a significant ongoing exit of high net worth individuals driven by high taxes, steep living costs and remote work flexibility with many relocating to low tax states like Florida. Despite this, that she remains a global wealth hub with over 33,000 residents worth 30 million or more as of July 2025. That's interesting. I wonder what is motivating the governor to be like, please come back. I'm going to have to go down to Palm beach and see who we can bring back. Like, clearly she's saying this because she's experiencing a problem. Right?

[Kyla]

She well, possibly like taking politicians at the word. It's like one of the worst things. Especially when we have a quote in the exact same article of her saying literally the opposite like two years before and saying before, if she was saying,

[Tim Pool]

why don't you leave?

[Kyla]

Yes, that's what I'm saying.

[Tim Pool]

Wasn't governor at the time.

[Kyla]

Right. So now she was running.

[Tim Pool]

Actually, I'm sorry, sorry. She was lieutenant governor who assumed it from Cuomo and was in the campaign saying she wanted to run.

[Kyla]

Right. And she was saying screw those people. If they want to leave, they can leave. And saying basically the opposite of everything.

[Tim Pool]

Escape From New York 2025 Millionaire Edition what you are. Other articles say this, you know, Tim Rich New Yorkers threaten to leave, then they find out how hard that is. That's a funny one. Brokers discuss Mamdani feud Wealth exodus fears Yahoo Finance the Center Square Mom's tax plans could exacerbate.

[Matthew Marsden]

Could.

[Kyla]

So like one of the issues have to think with why people move. Right. Some people do just move purely for wealth. But a lot of rich people have families. They have kids, they have plugged in, they have all of the local restaurants, they have all the digs. Right. They have this entire life and community connection connected to the city. Which is why I agree there is some little bit of pressure of if you tax the rich, yeah, they might like move elsewhere which would just make a better argument for greater federal taxes. But that's the Canadian me Right. But it's local wrong.

[Tim Pool]

Is who is Hokul wrong? Or like they're not leaving? Are all these articles wrong? Are they not leaving?

[Kyla]

I suspect it's to be disputed. Right.

[Tim Pool]

Like all these articles are wrong? Well, the issue is the news is wrong.

[Kyla]

Well, the articles here are saying 2%.

[Tim Pool]

That's. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. A general, a general comment on cities. Right. Where people may or may not leave is not the same as literally me pulling up a series of articles where they're like, the wealthy are leaving.

[Kyla]

This exodus. That's a really sexy. We're talking about news articles versus a data driven thing that's saying here, which

[Tim Pool]

is not material to just New York City.

[Kyla]

Sure. It's actually looking at the taxing.

[Tim Pool]

Right.

[Kyla]

Would you, would you say that, Would you say that this policy of taxing the rich would make them leave would hold true regardless of whether it's New York

[Tim Pool]

about New York?

[Kyla]

So are you denying that the data that I'm showing you that is not from.

[Tim Pool]

I'm saying it's not material to a conversation about New York.

[Kyla]

How is generalized data about this principle not going to be applicable to a city in which we're talking about the same principle?

[Tim Pool]

New York City is experiencing a wealth exodus. Yes or no?

[Kyla]

It seems like. No, it seems like calling it an exodus.

[Tim Pool]

These articles are just not correct.

[Kyla]

Yeah, shocker. People are fear mongering. It sounds like some people are leaving,

[Tim Pool]

but so it looks like it's the governor.

[Kyla]

2% rate.

[Tim Pool]

The governor fell for fake news.

[Kyla]

I don't know what she's doing.

[Tim Pool]

Maybe she felt like she's saying we need to bring these people back.

[Kyla]

It could be a multitude of reasons.

[Tim Pool]

This is why I'll never vote Democrat.

[Commercial Announcer]

Why?

[Tim Pool]

Because I'm like, I'm just reading the news.

[Kyla]

You're. Yeah. You're reading headlines and I'm reading.

[Tim Pool]

And the, and the only conclusion I can come to when the governor says, please come back and the news reports say they're experiencing a wealth exodus is that they are.

[Kyla]

So if the governor says trans kids actually need to transition, we just believe the governor now because the governor said it.

[Tim Pool]

When the governor says, we have a boss budget shortfall, we need wealthy people back, I go, wow, that's interesting.

[Kyla]

That's not what she said. She just said, we got to go down to Palm Springs and bring them back.

[Tim Pool]

Palm Beach. Specify.

[Ian]

Is it 2% of the top earners left or 2% of the wealth is gone?

[Kyla]

No, 2% of top earners leave.

[Ian]

So what percent of the New York economy was commanded by that 2% of people.

[Kyla]

Well, I'm not sure. Probably. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant probably like the top. Like say, say we've got 100 people. People, right. And 10 of them are the top earners. And two of those people leave. I wouldn't even be surprised if the top top earners are the ones that leave. Necessarily. Right. But the issue is that calling that an exodus is over, inflating the issue. It makes. It sounds like millionaires are packing up their rich, blonde, beautiful kids into their beautiful Land Rovers and they're driving down to Florida in mass. And that's not happening. What's happening is probably a select few of the top 20 top performers.

[Tim Pool]

Probably, sure. Between 2019 and 2020, the number of New Yorkers earning between 150 and 750 fell by 6%, while the number of true high earners dropped by 10%.

[Kyla]

Wait, fell?

[Tim Pool]

According to c. Independent Budget Office. This erosion matters because cities tops 1%. About 41,000 filers pay more than 40% of all income taxes. The top 10% pay about 2/3, which means the remaining 90% of taxpayers contribute only about one third of the city's income tax revenue. When even a small share of these high earners disappears, the impact is sizable. So recent migration trends confirm the damage. More than 125,000 New Yorkers have fled to Florida in just the past few years, carrying nearly $14 billion worth of income with them. According to the Citizens Budget Commission, about a third of these movies movers, more than 41,000 people went to Miami Dade, Palm beach and Broward counties between 2018 and 2022. The. The. Those escapes alone stripped New York City of an estimated $10 billion in adjusted gross income. When money and mobility align, no amount of political rhetoric can stop people from voting with their feet. Feet into this fragile situation steps Zar Mandani and et cetera, et cetera.

[Ian]

So the top. Did you say it was the top 2% of earners left or.

[Tim Pool]

How did you phrase that?

[Ian]

The top 2% of the earners in New York.

[Kyla]

Of the top earners, 2% of them leave.

[Tim Pool]

Okay, well, according to the city budget

[Ian]

from New Yorkers, is that like 95 to 100 the top earners? Do you have that data?

[Kyla]

I'll have to look for it.

[Ian]

The data kind of defunct until we can figure that stuff out.

[Matthew Marsden]

Because if.

[Ian]

If 2% of the people left and took 40% of New York's GDP, that's an exodus. That's a legit like catastrophic change.

[Kyla]

It's an exodus to the budget, but it's not an exodus of people.

[Ian]

Correct.

[Kyla]

Right. But the issue is that when we're talking about this, what we're making it sound like is that people en masse are moving. What we're really saying is the richest of the absolute rich won't share the pie. And if anything gets hiked up on them, those people, those select individuals, leave.

[Tim Pool]

Since April 2020, New York City has experienced a significant population decline, losing nearly 500,000 residents, or 5.3% of its population, in the initial years following the pandemic. While the population outflows slowed in 2222, 2022, the city saw a net loss of 216,778 residents in the end of 2023, largely driven by domestic migration. They. They did recover a little bit in the past year or so, but that's

[Kyla]

not only from taxes. Right.

[Tim Pool]

That's everything.

[Kyla]

Yeah. Because housing prices.

[Tim Pool]

We are seeing mass migration. So I'll say two things.

[Matthew Marsden]

Sure.

[Kyla]

For like, housing and stuff as well. I'm not surprised that people might be leaving New York.

[Tim Pool]

We're try and grab. Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but we. I'm going to try. I want to say a couple things, and then we got to get some of these, these, these rumble rants and chats. We'll go a little bit long because we've. I've been having fun. I enjoy the conversation. So I work 16 hours a day. Today I will have recorded five and a half hours of content. I record more podcast, talk radio, whatever want to call it, than any other person on the planet. Now that's just being hyperbolic because there's probably some dude in his room who talks for eight hours.

[Kyla]

I was gonna say, except claviclear. Right, right.

[Tim Pool]

But. And, and people say Hassan streams for eight hours, but he doesn't actually talk for eight hours. I actually have hard straight talk for five and a half hours, which is about eight or nine hours. Well, it's. It's about eight or nine hours of, like, research plus talking. So I work for about 16 hours a day with business stuff in between. I lose money by doing it because of progressive taxes, which has driven me to the point where, like, my wife and I had the conversation about, like, we probably shouldn't anymore, but, you know, like, what. What would make this work? So here's how it works. The. The first eight hours I work, I make the bulk of my money. After this, we decided to do Tim cast IRL in which I'm working for 16 hours, but I'm a salary based individual. And then of course we have a profit margins because I pay more taxes after a certain amount. That means the more hours I work, the less amount of money I make. If I stop working these hours, 30 to 40 people will lose their jobs. However, I'm looking at a diminishing return on working these extra hours. I would be rich if I didn't. This is the problem with progressive taxes. Should these producers and personalities who work in this industry lose their jobs because the price of tax system is punishing me for working extra hours? The assumption with the, with the taxing the wealthy is that these are people who are just, they're working 40 hours like everybody else, therefore they're earning a salary, they should pay more. More. When the reality is, at least for me, I'm only making more money because I'm choosing to work 80 hours a week or more and getting punished for doing so. That, that, that's great. That creates a perverse incentive which would tell people not to run their businesses, not to work. And for that reason I largely disagree with, I would call it like higher end progressive taxes. That is a greater challenge because there are some people who barely work at all, make a ton of money. But the problem with a blanket tax system is that, that not everybody makes money in the exact same way, but they will all be taxed in the same way. That creates a problem, problem for productivity and it creates a detriment to working class people who rely on CEOs who are going to work 80 hours a week.

[Kyla]

Right. And so when I talk about progressive tax.

[Tim Pool]

So why should I get taxed for working more?

[Kyla]

Sure. The main thing that I would say is we need a distribution system that allows for. Right now what we seem to have is a distribution system where there's like a K going on. This is what a lot of economists are calling it. Right? Right. You're either getting poorer or you're getting richer. And there's a diminishing middle class. What I want is actually a taxation system that is most incentivized for the common man. I want the middle class to have the.

[Megan McArdle]

Has the news been getting you down? I'm Megan McArdle and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic. And it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. Every Wednesday I'm going to talk to people who see a path forward.

It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together to solve problems where they are.

[Tim Pool]

You know, I am a believer in America and it's worth fighting for.

[Megan McArdle]

Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Howie Mandel]

Hey it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my How We do it gaming team take on Gilly The King and Wallow 2, 6 $7 million gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Down four rounds, multiple games, one winner plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right [e-mail] that's globalgamingleague.com everybody

[Kyla]

games tax system built around them. Actually I think that that would be the best. I think that there should be way more tax credits for middle class earners, small business owners, these types of individuals and there should be a lot more scrutiny. Looked at corporate businesses, right? For example, if you've got a corporate corporate like Walmart or these like major, major companies and their corporate profits have gone incredibly high over the last few years, but their wages have stagnated for the past five years. We need to look at that and figure out a way to redistribute it. Maybe we find that company and we just force. Maybe we don't need to do all more taxations. Maybe we need to force companies to pay workers more.

[Tim Pool]

I completely agree that like Facebook making $160 billion, they should be taxed on it because we just need money to blow up brown people.

[Kyla]

More importantly, pay their. No, no, no. Pay their workers back.

[Ian]

She agrees.

[Kyla]

No, not at all. Not at all.

[Tim Pool]

Taxes after the fact is that the money is going to go to the war machine. For the most part you get close relationships.

[Kyla]

Sure.

[Tim Pool]

How about we reallocate the existing tax infrastructure and figure out after that if we do need to raise taxes.

[Kyla]

Sure.

[Tim Pool]

I mean unless you're saying taxes should be punitive.

[Kyla]

No, I want them incentive based. Like for example, I want families to be able to claim things like, like gyms public.

[Tim Pool]

No, no, I agree, I agree.

[Kyla]

Public uses.

[Tim Pool]

Forgive me for interrupting, but real quick question. Got a show. Do you think we should stop funding like massive military budgets and stuff like that?

[Kyla]

I think we need some military budget, but I don't.

[Tim Pool]

Sure. But like it's kind of a lot, right? Like a trillion dollars probably.

[Kyla]

The issue is I have no, I don't have a good idea of like what Military budget was necessary in an age of like China and Russia. We need to be stronger than them.

[Tim Pool]

Are you. Are you in favor or opposition to the Iran war?

[Kyla]

I'm opposed to the Iran war in how it's handled.

[Tim Pool]

Do you think that I'm not opposed

[Kyla]

to the killing of the Ayatollah?

[Tim Pool]

We. We should reallocate. We should basically look at where the tax money is going and then assess whether or not we are wasting money. Waste, fraud and abuse tends to be the term, but I don't like that as a single issue because, you know, maybe we don't need such a big military budget. We do need. We want a good one. Don't get me wrong, but would you agree that we could probably reallocate the existing. Existing tax. Tax base, like tax revenue to better things?

[Kyla]

I'm sure there's many areas I would happily.

[Tim Pool]

I think the solution is we do that first, then we go through the budget and figure out where we need to tax more, if we need to fund other things. Because I feel like we can probably find a bunch of missing money from waste, fraud and abuse, but also programs we don't like and then be like, hey, we could put that money towards things we do like.

[Kyla]

Sure.

[Tim Pool]

Then after that, we might not need as much taxes as you think.

[Kyla]

This is why I hated Doge so much, is it was this opportunity to properly audit government spending and ask the questions of where they went. And they. They didn't reduce the deficit. They chainsaw hacked, they destroyed US Aid, which was. Especially if you're. Especially if you're. Well, if you're dovish. If you're dovish, which I believe you are.

[Tim Pool]

Dovish.

[Kyla]

Dovish.

[Tim Pool]

Dovish, yeah.

[Kyla]

Like not war. Hawk. So.

[Tim Pool]

Oh, yeah, Trump is a hawk.

[Kyla]

Right. It probably means you probably prefer diplomacy. If there's any foreign intervention that you have to do, you probably prefer diplomacy first. You probably prefer soft power and negotiation. I'm assuming something.

[Tim Pool]

I could be wrong. I would. I would argue that I'm like, if. If. I don't want to say left or right. Let's say up or down. If up is dovish and down is hawkish, I'm just slightly above the center towards dovish.

[Kyla]

Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of what I presumed. I don't. I don't think you're an extreme. On. Yeah, I'm sure you understand people.

[Tim Pool]

Up.

[Kyla]

Yeah, I understand World War II happened and, you know, Hitler and the.

[Tim Pool]

Angela was not a good guy. And I don't cry.

[Kyla]

I don't shed a tear. Exactly. There Was Bashar alone Facade. I brain fart. I don't know where I was going.

[Tim Pool]

Let's. We're gonna get some of your rumble rants. These debates are always fun. Rumble rant. We're gonna have the uncensored portion of the show coming up, but we'll try and get as many of these as we can because we're, you know. I'm sorry. I was enjoying the conversation too much. Gonzo says we'll come back to watch but wanted to follow Tim cast tradition. My wife is currently being induced. Welcome to the world, Cody Gonzalez. All prayers are welcomed and appreciated.

[Kyla]

Yay.

[Ian]

Thank you.

[Tim Pool]

Congratulations. Reading.

[Kyla]

Good job, baby.

[Tim Pool]

Do you want me to read the mean ones?

[Kyla]

Sure.

[Tim Pool]

Dan Vicious says Kyla is face corking from all the amphetamines.

[Kyla]

I don't do amphetamines. I don't know what you mean by face.

[Tim Pool]

I post. I. I posted this on X earlier because people comment that I'm on meth or like Adderall and I'm like, I take it as a compliment because I've never done any hard drug. The worst thing I've ever done is smoked pot once when I was 16. I didn't enjoy it. I don't drink, don't smoke. I have no tattoo, no Adderall. I have a cup of. A cup of coffee every morning around 8:00am that's it. A single cup. And then I don't drink coffee after

[Ian]

10am it's just that I get him so high when I'm sitting next to him. He gets all stimulated.

[Tim Pool]

Actually, the secret is Ian's got a cattle prod. And when I start getting tired, he just walks in the room and shut the. No, no. He says, talk more. Go. So it's like, I'll record my first segment. I'll be like, ian, I'm just too tired.

[Ian]

Sixteen hours today, Tim.

[Tim Pool]

Let's go sleep. Says to keep the tradition going. I'm in the hospital with the. With the. And the wife is pushing baby girl number three. Help. I am now massively outnumbered.

[Ian]

Too many.

[Kyla]

There's a lot of babies in the super chats.

[Tim Pool]

It's a. It's a tradition, people.

[Kyla]

Oh.

[Tim Pool]

And for some reason, people have decided to make a meme trend where when their wife is giving birth, they go on and chat like it's now we're doing it, but we love it because it's a counter.

[Kyla]

That's very cute.

[Tim Pool]

Cute.

[Kyla]

Well, congrats on the baby again.

[Tim Pool]

JD Says so according to her, to be right wing, you are just against the Alphabet people. She's literally half an inch deep. Puddle on politics.

[Kyla]

I'm sure if you debated me anytime, I'm happily slop you up. Okay,

[Tim Pool]

let's see. What is this? JDEV says it's funny watching Tim debate against not so erudite. I mean, Chat GPT.

[Kyla]

Good one.

[Ian]

Were you using chat GPT during the debate?

[Tim Pool]

It.

[Kyla]

No, for the most part, if I use it at all, it's usually to just like search for resources. I'm mostly on Google looking for like, articles and stuff.

[Ian]

I like Chat GPT. I mean, I have no problems with it. Just transparent.

[Tim Pool]

Yeah.

[Kyla]

Frankly, if anyone's actually like looked at ChatGPT, I once tried to use it for debate prep to be like, debate me on my ideas to see what my opponent would say. It's trash. It's like garbage at debate.

[Tim Pool]

Badmouth bandit says, did you see James o' Keefe put a video out undercover as a homeless man on skid row, catching petitioners paying homeless people for signatures and paying them to register to vote? Indeed I did. And guys like I worked for. Do you know what the per groups are? The group, it's redundant. It's the public interest research groups. It's a series of non profits. And they had me go out and do voter registration. And like, literally I walked into people who are like, I don't know. And it's like, we'll just sign up anyway. Like, okay, I guess. Like, these people don't pay attention. They don't care what's going on in the world. I think that in order to vote, you have to sign up for selective service, men and women alone. Like, then you get a voter ID card after you do, and then you can vote as you see fit. All right, let's see. LEF says there's no mass exodus, just a steady stream of the richest people leaving. That means you're wrong because I'm arguing a term you didn't say, semantic BS and avoiding context on purpose. Oh, YouTube super jets crashed. YouTube always crashes. I swear, like YouTube's. YouTube's been shadow banning the show. Like everybody's complaining about it.

[Ian]

Weird that there's a super chat bug with YouTube and it hasn't been fixed in three years.

[Tim Pool]

Is it because most shows don't get

[Ian]

50, 500 super chats in a night?

[Tim Pool]

No, it's because you're nodding. YouTube controls who is seen and who is not. A year ago, YouTube had us on the front page. This is crazy. Like, if you went to YouTube live, we were the default live show. Someone clicked the button and then someone else got pissed and then dropped the hammer on.

[Ian]

You guys got to understand, if you don't fix that bug, you're not going to eclipse the level that we're at. We. You need to. I don't know what the problem is. We'll fix it.

[Tim Pool]

It's been three years.

[Ian]

Okay.

[Tim Pool]

I'm cool. All right, let's grab, let's grab some here. What do we got here? Pariah says press iron here. As is Tim cast tradition at 4:43am Pacific Time on this day, our son Kai was born. Congratulations.

[Ian]

Good job, man.

[Kyla]

That's cute.

[Tim Pool]

Congratulations. Way to push yourself.

[Kyla]

This is a cute tradition. I like this.

[Tim Pool]

All right. I know. It's all over the place. SA Federali says, listen, I never heard of this Kyla hottie. And left to watch the last YouTube I could find. Jesse Lee Peterson. Questioning her is the funniest thing you'll ever watch. I'm still laughing and choking. Cheers, fam.

[Kyla]

That was a very fun interview.

[Tim Pool]

He's a funny guy, but it's like he's unassumingly funny.

[Ian]

We gotta have him on.

[Tim Pool]

Does he travel?

[Ian]

I think he said he, he wasn't

[Tim Pool]

traveling, but we should only the truth says the rich are leaving California because of a new proposed tax. Indeed. We saw the Starbucks guy leave and Starbucks is relocating to Nashville. They're moving a good portion of their headquarters and right around the time that they announced they're going to be putting an income tax on high income individuals.

[Matthew Marsden]

I was going to tell you I had in my just anecdotal, nine families from my area in Los Angeles moved to Texas to the same area in Texas. So there is an exodus. I mean you could say it's anecdotal or not, but that's nine families.

[Tim Pool]

I mean we like, like I said earlier, we were asked by a production company if we'd consider being in New York. And we're like no 13.7% or whatever it is because you've got, you've got city, state and federal combined. I'd be paying like 60%. It's. It's nuts.

[Matthew Marsden]

And for what? What would you get out of it?

[Tim Pool]

I don't know, a dude pushing someone onto the subway tracks and like dog crap in the sidewalks.

[Kyla]

Like, I don't know if this would be our approach. So I. There, there's a sweet spot here. There has to be, right? Taxes shouldn't. Your question to taxes shouldn't just be, well, what do I go out, get out of it. Cuz part of the Point of taxes is we all get something, right? The reality is like I'm willing to pay a certain amount of taxes so that if my employees have some sort of nightmare in the future, they can claim an unemployment and like have a life raft. Right? There are like, there are good things that come out of taxation.

[Tim Pool]

But I, I disagree. I think this country would be way better if people were just voting based on self interest interest.

[Kyla]

Wait, that was my argument.

[Tim Pool]

I know. I'm glad you caught that.

[Matthew Marsden]

Bugs Bunny, huh?

[Kyla]

Sure.

[Tim Pool]

So, so the wealthy people should say I am going to vote based on what benefits my life.

[Kyla]

They do. The issue is that.

[Tim Pool]

And then they leave.

[Kyla]

Well, they do. It's just that they, they are always going to be outvoted by like, by like common man interest. Right. And so this is why I said there has to be a sweet spot. Right? Tax the rich doesn't mean I'm not for, I would never be for like a 90 tax tax on rich people. I think that that's silly. I think it's a bad progressive talking point. But like land value tax for example, is so much better than property tax. It's genius.

[Tim Pool]

How does it work?

[Kyla]

Okay, so property taxes basically disincentivize you from developing property, right? Because if your property gets better, they charge you more despite you con contributing to society, right? Land value says you can develop it as much as you want. But if that piece of land, say you have 40 acres and it's in downtown LA, you're going to pay out your ass because it's high prime land and you have a lot of it. Whereas if you have 40 acres in bum nowhere, you're going to get taxed almost not.

[Tim Pool]

So you're saying like the government should appropriate people's property?

[Kyla]

No, it's, it's very much the opposite. It's saying we decide how much value a piece of land is worth based on its location, based on the size of plot and you get taxed on that instead of.

[Ian]

The problem is inflation.

[Tim Pool]

Because if you don't. Let me, let me finish the point. So are you familiar with, with like how, how property breaks apart and how, how, how, how value taxes are appro. Government appropriation? I'll just, I'll just explain it. So you have 50 acres in 1800 and you're, you're in an empty area that no one really cares about. You do a little bit of farming there, but 50 acres isn't really enough to do any kind of substantial farming and it's relatively small plot for, for back in the day. You build a house, you die, your kids get it. 1900s come around and there's some development around your 50 acre plot of land. And so the value has more worth now because of the ex. So what used to be just kind of wilderness trash now actually is reasonably valuable for anybody who wants to develop. But for the most part, they don't. Think about it. However, property taxes for your property. So let's do it all based on just modern property values. So you have a property that's worth $100,000 and you got to pay a property tax about two grand per year. And you make that money from your job or whatever it is you do, and then you pay those taxes, you give the property to your children, they inherit it. But now, because there's some development around which you can't control, the Property is worth 300,000. You got to pay $6,000 this year. Well, you're the people. Your kids who inherited are just working the same farm they always did. They're not making $6,000. The farm generates just enough to get by. So what do they do? They parcel a piece of that land, they. They carve it off and they sell it off. After 75 years, the land is now 50 different single acre parcels owned by a random spattering of people. Or the worst part is they can't afford the taxes. So the government seizes the property and appropriates it.

[Kyla]

Sure. But in the case of property tax, now we have a different incentive structure where they sit on their land and they let it get increasingly dilapidated over time because if they improve it, if they warehouse.

[Tim Pool]

But your argument of a land value tax functions the exact same way. Slightly differently.

[Kyla]

Slightly differently. In a, in a way that I essentially am saying I have preference for, like you can be opposed to. But I think it's a better tax

[Tim Pool]

if you have 50 acres. And we say we're not taxing the development, so we're not going to consider the structures as per the value of that land.

[Kyla]

Right, right. It's. Yeah, it's going to be like spaces and stuff.

[Tim Pool]

Then I build a like aluminum plant which brings 500 jobs and people start developing around my acreage. They set up a coffee shop, they set up a bank. Now you've got the makers of a small town from this refinery. That refinery and development did increase the value of the land it sits on. It won't be the same because the refinery is going to be one worth tens of millions of dollars. But that land will go from 400,000 to 4 million overnight.

[Kyla]

Yeah. And then it'll be more likely to be built into like a city leader. And I think that this. So again, your argument has to. Against. This has to be all taxes are bad.

[Tim Pool]

Right.

[Kyla]

And I'm not for.

[Tim Pool]

It's that. It's that taxes are bad, like a wealth tax or a property tax or a land value tax or, or like, like paying tax on the, on the value of your car.

[Kyla]

How do you tax land then? How do you tax property?

[Tim Pool]

You don't.

[Kyla]

So just no taxes.

[Tim Pool]

You can pay sales tax, you can pay income tax, but the point is.

[Kyla]

So just never move.

[Tim Pool]

What does that mean, never move?

[Kyla]

Well, your incentive in that place, if all we tax is like sales, for example, then everyone is going to be incentivized to just keep property in the land. We're going to have extremely low mobility.

[Tim Pool]

Is your argument that we should, we should create a system by which people can lose their land to the government to incentivize them?

[Kyla]

Well, it's not losing their. They're. They're choosing to sell it off, usually.

[Tim Pool]

Oh, right. The government put a gun to your head and said, do it or go to jail. So they sell their property.

[Kyla]

There's no. No.

[Tim Pool]

Will you go to jail so you don't pay your taxes?

[Kyla]

I think eventually, but like, very rarely. It's very rarely that, like in cases where people refuse to take.

[Tim Pool]

Will they seize your property? If you don't pay taxes up to

[Kyla]

a certain point, they won't take like your first home.

[Tim Pool]

So when you tax someone's property and they've inherited the land, I can't tell you. I bought a piece of land that was for pennies in the dollar. It was inherited by the family that owned it. And they were like, we don't make money that can afford the taxes on this place. Sure.

[Kyla]

But I'm in favor of some taxes. Right. I'm obviously in favor of taxes.

[Tim Pool]

I know, but when you take someone's land, you're basically saying there will be no generational wealth.

[Kyla]

Well, arguably what you're saying is that while generational wealth will be maintained, but there will be no housing development ever at any time. Because if you sell things off, you lose money. Yeah. Because if you, if you are the person arguing that. No, I'm, I'm not saying that. I'm.

[Tim Pool]

If, if a housing development emerges around dead acreage, that acreage becomes worth more money, though.

[Kyla]

So if you only get taxed on what you sell, which is your model, then you're never incentivized to ever sell.

[Tim Pool]

Right, you are.

[Kyla]

Why would you Ever sell? If you're. That's the time you're gonna get taxed on it.

[Tim Pool]

Well, if someone inherits a piece of property and says I don't want to live in West Virginia, so they sell it. Why don't you just rent and they retain the. The. You certainly could. But yeah, that's what most people would

[Kyla]

probably do is we would end up in major landowner situations.

[Tim Pool]

I'm gonna say this. I don't think you have any experience with rental markets or. Or how that system works because most people don't want to do it.

[Ian]

It.

[Kyla]

I have a decent amount and I understand that a lot of rental properties. No. My. One of my like close family.

[Tim Pool]

Miserable. No. And everyone's advocating against it. You've got Mikey Taylor shout out to Mikey Taylor, who's a real estate developer, saying you don't want to. You don't want to own, you don't want to rent. You want to be a renter.

[Kyla]

Sort of one of the largest contributors to American gdp. So we are definitely renting and there is definitely incentive to be better off relations. What I'm saying is that we have two different tax systems. I'm taxing either way. I think my system works and I'm fine with people selling off their property because suddenly grandpa's property from 300 years ago is worth $17 million and then they can go buy a farm and probably buy six times the land. Yes, I think that that's a better system. Although. Yeah, not everyone's going to be in favor for it.

[Tim Pool]

Sell it off.

[Kyla]

Huh?

[Tim Pool]

The government forcing them.

[Kyla]

It's not force.

[Tim Pool]

It is forced. How is it not force?

[Kyla]

It's not forcing because you could choose to default on your.

[Tim Pool]

But that's like. And then they'll seize your land because

[Kyla]

if in this case you're saying that government's forcing you to never move.

[Tim Pool]

What do you mean they're forcing everyone. You choose to move if you want to move.

[Kyla]

If you don't, you choose to sell. If you don't want to sell.

[Tim Pool]

If the government tells you pay this bill or we will take your land from you.

[Kyla]

If the government says if you sell this thing, we will take a bunch of your money. That's force.

[Tim Pool]

That sales tax.

[Kyla]

Mine's property tax.

[Tim Pool]

And you can still sell a property and retain the majority of the value you have on it without ever having to parcel it away. So, yes, you can literally say, I don't want to sell my land and keep it. And if you decide to sell it to move on, then you pay a Tax. Fine.

[Kyla]

So nobody will ever sell.

[Tim Pool]

No. Some people will.

[Kyla]

Very rarely.

[Tim Pool]

Most people won't. They'll retain the value.

[Kyla]

You're right.

[Tim Pool]

Most people won't become rentals, won't turn into rentals. And most, most people who inherit property from their, from their parents sell it because they don't want to live in those areas.

[Kyla]

So here's the issue. I'm not a libertarian. Yes, I think the government is allowed to do some level of coercion. And I think while you might not like this, I think my idea of land value tax is a better tax system than property taxes. But yes, I do want taxation on land to some degree. Degree. I think it's a valuable thing for municipalities.

[Tim Pool]

We're gonna go to the Rumble uncensored portion of the show [e-mail] Timcast IRL. Matthew, do you want to shout anything out?

[Matthew Marsden]

Just Matthew d. Marsden on YouTube and on the, on all the socials.

[Tim Pool]

Yeah, right on.

[Matthew Marsden]

Yeah.

[Kyla]

Not so erudite everywhere.

[Tim Pool]

You could do like, oh, I'm eating

[Ian]

Crossland if you need it. If you didn't know if you tax their property, but if they rent out their property, you stop taxing them while they're renting. As long as they're a renter. But anyway, I was going to shove that in during the show. I didn't have a chance because it was so good. Catch us on Rumble. See you there.

[Tim Pool]

Carter.

[Ian]

Carter Banks.

[Tim Pool]

Yes. Damn.

[Ian]

Looking forward to the after show. Let's get into it. I guess we're technically still on the show.

[Tim Pool]

We'll see you [e-mail] Timcast IRL and it'll be the same conversation but with swear words. Thanks for hanging out.

[Megan McArdle]

Has the news been getting you down? I'm Megan McArdle and I'm here to help. I'm the host of a new show from Washington Post Opinion called Reasonably Optimistic. And it's an antidote to the pessimism that's riddling America right now. Every Wednesday, I'm gonna talk to people who see a path forward.

It does seem to me that there is some awakening of a desire to act together to solve problems where they are.

[Tim Pool]

You know, I am a believer in America and it's worth fighting for.

[Megan McArdle]

Join me Wednesdays on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Howie Mandel]

Hey, it's Howie Mandel and I am inviting you to witness history as me and my Howie Do It Gaming team take on Gilly the king and wallow $260 million gaming in an epic global gaming league video game showdown. Four rounds multiple games one winner, plus a halftime performance by multi platinum artist Travy McCoy. Watch all the action and see who wins and advances to the championship match against Neo right [e-mail] that's globalgamingleague.com everybody games.