BREAKING: Charlie Kirk's Killer In Custody But Are We Past the Point of Healing? Reflections After Charlie Kirk’s Death

Summary

Impact Theory Podcast Summary

Episode: BREAKING: Charlie Kirk's Killer In Custody But Are We Past the Point of Healing? Reflections After Charlie Kirk’s Death

Date: September 15, 2025
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Guests/Contributors: Drew, Kaizen, (Clips from Matt Walsh, Chase Hughes)

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Episode Overview

This somber and urgent episode addresses the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination, the implications for America’s social fabric, and whether the nation is now past the point of healing from such divisions. Tom Bilyeu leads a nuanced discussion on issues of tribalism, violence, symbolism, and economic instability, drawing lessons from the tragedy and the reactions that have followed.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Breaking News & Political Affiliation

[00:45 – 01:11]

• Tom announces the apprehension of Kirk’s assassin, anticipating that questions about motive and political affiliation will dominate the news cycle.
• Drew reports more details: the alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, is a 22-year-old registered Republican from Utah, though cautions against immediate conclusions.

2. Team Mentality and Violence

[01:43 – 04:36]

• Tom critiques the “team mentality,” where being on any political “side” breeds certainty, confirmation bias, and, in extreme cases, violence:
  • "The very problem is being so certain in your rightness that you're willing to kill somebody. That's the problem." (Tom, 01:43)
• Kaizen provides a powerful spoken reflection:
  • "It's never just one bullet. The gun that is aimed at your enemy today gets aimed at you tomorrow [...] We are obese with knowledge but starve for wisdom." (Kaizen, 02:33)
• The group highlights the symbolism of Kirk being shot in the throat while speaking, reinforcing how the act was an assault on civil discourse.

Notable Quote

“He lived by the mic and died by the sword. This wasn’t just an assassination. It was an attack on civilization.” (Kaizen, 03:51)

3. The Rorschach Test of Public Reaction

[05:46 – 09:08]

• Tom reflects on how Kirk's death is interpreted through the lens of personal bias—supporters see an attack on free speech; others, disturbingly, at times see poetic justice.
• The event’s intense symbolism and the fact Kirk was a public speaker deeply impacts the public consciousness.

"This is a Rorschach test. You see in this what you want to see." (Tom, 08:13)

4. Possibility of National Healing

[09:08 – 11:29]

• Drew brings up whether capturing the assassin could be a step toward healing.
• Tom: Healing is elusive, as the killing is "a symptom, not the cause"; deep divisions existed long before and the act of violence is merely the spark on “kindling that’s been laid for years.”
• Tom invokes Ray Dalio: "I feel like the person on the beach with the tsunami rolling in calling for everybody to find their way back to the middle. I just don't know if it's possible." (Tom, 10:25)

5. Dueling Narratives and Social Media Reaction

[11:29 – 13:01, 14:07–17:23]

• Drew notes narratives diverging along community and racial lines, some viewing Kirk as a martyr for free speech, others likening the moment to “white America’s George Floyd.”
• Tom and Drew play campus reaction clips: students, disturbingly, react with apathy or approval at the news of Kirk’s assassination.
• Tom warns of the dangers of tribal thinking and glib acceptance of violence.

“Being on a team has a deranging effect to the way that people through a problem.” (Tom, 16:29)

6. The Cycle of Violence – Both Sides

[20:19 – 23:52]

• Tom and Drew discuss prior political violence (e.g., past events involving Trump supporters).
• Clips from Matt Walsh illustrate the escalation of rhetoric—accusing "the left" collectively of murder and calling for “the righteous to prevail.”

“You tried to kill our president. You killed one of our greatest advocates in Charlie Kirk... now it’s time for good to fight back against evil.” (Matt Walsh, 23:06)

• Tom pushes back, highlighting dangers of collective blame: “Team thinking does not lead anywhere good.” (Tom, 23:52)

7. Media, Manipulation, and Populism

[27:11 – 30:57]

• The discussion explores how both mainstream and social media create “supercuts” of the other side’s worst moments, deepening division.
  • “The meta problem of a populist moment is about teams. So we're dividing into us versus them, oversimplifying categories.” (Tom, 27:28)
• Tom warns that endless demonization fosters the environment where violence is seen as justified.

8. Symbolism, Irony, and the Gun Debate

[33:06 – 41:37]

• Tom and Drew dissect the irony some see in Kirk’s death, given his gun rights stance. Tom rejects the idea of "poetic justice," emphasizing that no one deserves to be killed for their views.
  • “Just because he believes that we have a right to bear arms does not mean … that he deserves to be killed.” (Tom, 40:41)
• They caution against both “surface level dunks” and ignoring underlying societal problems.

9. Empathy and Humanity

[42:35 – 44:36]

• Asked if people are entitled to empathy, Tom replies:

  • "I think it is unwise to approach the world from a place of entitlement. But your life will be so much better if you give empathy. If you find your way to empathizing with the people you disagree with the most, your life will be so much better." (Tom, 42:39)

• Chase Hughes: “The minute that your ideas require violence… they're already bankrupt. Every social collapse starts the same way. The debate dies; violence takes its place.” (Chase Hughes, 43:50)

10. Root Causes: Economy, Team Formation, and Anger

[44:36 – 47:57]

• Tom re-centers on economic insecurity as the true catalyst for division:
  • "It is the way your brain is wired. We are hardwired to do this and that has been triggered via the economic uncertainty." (Tom, 45:13)
• Explains anger’s addictive nature—people choose it for the certainty and superiority it brings.

11. Economic Warnings and the Futility of Quick Fixes

[47:57 – 55:37]

• Drew brings up the latest negative jobs report; Tom uses it to underline the mathematical certainty of economic decline due to debt, and sees no easy fix from rate changes or AI:
  • "Any economy with this debt to GDP ratio is in a bad place ... this is mathematical certainty." (Tom, 48:50)
• Suggests individuals focus on self-sufficiency, asset ownership, and not relying on government promises.

12. Media Consolidation in the AI Era

[55:37 – 57:12]

• Discussion briefly pivots to the consolidation of creative media companies. Tom is unconcerned given AI’s democratization of creative content; predicts robust opportunities for independent creators.

13. A Call to Choose Compassion over Tribes

[57:12 – End]

• The episode ends with Tom encouraging listeners to reject anger and divisive narratives, and to choose empathy, compassion, and an understanding of common humanity:

Memorable Closing

“We are capable of the horrors that we're seeing right now. But we are also capable of beauty and compassion and love. But we have to choose to look at that... It feels good to be the kind of person that doesn't allow themselves to be enslaved by their own emotions, to be blinded by the things that they feel. That instead, that you're going to rise up above that, that you really are going to see the humanity even in your enemies and try to find a beautiful path forward together.”
(Tom, 57:23)

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Timestamps for Key Moments

• 00:45 – Tom announces Charlie Kirk’s assassin is in custody.
• 02:33 – Kaizen’s poetic reflection on violence and tribalism.
• 08:13 – Tom on the Rorschach test of public reaction.
• 10:25 – Tom: “I just don’t know if it’s stoppable.”
• 14:07 – Campus reactions to Kirk’s death.
• 23:06 & 23:52 – Matt Walsh calls for "justice," Tom warns against team blame.
• 33:06–41:37 – Symbolism and irony in the gun debate dissected.
• 42:39 – Tom on empathy.
• 43:50 – Chase Hughes: violence as ideological bankruptcy.
• 45:13 – Tom on tribal brain wiring and economic triggers.
• 48:50 – Tom details consequences of US economic debt.
• 57:23 – Tom’s closing vision: choosing compassion over tribalism.

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Notable Quotes

• "We are obese with knowledge but starve for wisdom." — Kaizen (02:33)
• "This is a Rorschach test. You see in this what you want to see." — Tom (08:13)
• "Being on a team has a deranging effect to the way that people through a problem." — Tom (16:29)
• "Team thinking does not lead anywhere good." — Tom (23:52)
• "The minute that your ideas require violence… they're already bankrupt." — Chase Hughes (43:50)
• "It is the way your brain is wired. We are hardwired to do this and that has been triggered via economic uncertainty." — Tom (45:13)
• "Any economy with this debt to GDP ratio is in a bad place ... this is mathematical certainty." — Tom (48:50)
• "Your life will be so much better if you give empathy. If you find your way to empathizing with the people you disagree with the most, your life will be so much better." — Tom (42:39)

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Overall Tone & Takeaway

Tom Bilyeu’s tone is compassionate yet urgent, analytical yet emotional. The episode emphasizes that the nation’s current crisis is not merely about partisanship, but about the dangerous comfort of tribal certainty, the seductive power of anger, and underlying economic insecurities. The call is for personal responsibility—rejecting both simplistic group blame and performative outrage, and embracing empathy, dialogue, and first-principles thinking to move toward healing—even while acknowledging how difficult that path may be.

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If you haven’t listened to the episode, this summary captures its essential analysis, core concerns, and the moving debate about the future of civil society in a moment of extraordinary cultural anxiety.

Transcript

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[Tom]

Charlie Kirk's assassin has been apprehended and I think there are going to be a lot of questions about his political affiliation. His assassination is also proving to be a ghoulish Rorschach test that is bringing out weirdness on both sides of the aisle. The jobs report has come out and it is worse than expected. A rate reduction at this point seems all but inevitable. We're going to see what that means for the economy and AI continues to threaten the stability of the job market.

[Drew]

We just got breaking news. This is reportedly again I'm taking it from New York Post, but I have a Twitter link that actually shows the kid, 22 year old Tyler Robinson, who this person's probably on the team, was a registered Republican in Utah according to state records. They're kind of matching up showing that this is the dude that did it. So yeah, I hope that this kid's life is. I don't know if this is that person. I don't want to start digging through because I don't know where to go.

[Tom]

But here's the thing. This ends up being a Republican. Yet another reason why being on a team is the wrong level of analysis. So it is the fact that we team up that we get into this degree of I'm so certain. So for instance, there's a account that I follow that's Republicans against Trump and it's like they're just as teamed up as Republicans for Trump. So it's like don't, don't blanket before or against anyone, figure out what, what is the cause and effect of the situation, then take each thing as we go. So but yeah, I mean it'll be interesting to see how all of this plays out, but the very problem is being so certain in your rightness that you're Willing to kill somebody. That's the problem.

[Drew]

We could go to Kaizen's response. We haven't played that yet. Yeah.

[Tom]

This is great.

[Drew]

Let's jump to that.

[Kaizen]

And we applaud the executioner. But here's the thing. It's never just one bullet. The gun that is aimed at your enemy today gets aimed at you tomorrow. Suddenly the cheers around you now become the silence around your own grave. This is why we must condemn everything that comes after. But even if it comes from our own side. Yet we've become so arrogant. So certain we know the whole truth. That all the angels are in our tribe and all the demons are in theirs. We rage about media bias yet worship our echo chamber. We are obese with knowledge but starve for wisdom. The message that was sent by Charlie's assassin was clear. He was shot in the throat. And while speaking freely with those who disagreed and allowing them to do the same. He lives by the mic.

[Tom]

Crazy. What do you mean that he got shot in the throat? Like how do you. This is. We're in the matrix. Like of all places for him to be shot in the throat like that. I don't know. It's just so wild to me.

[Kaizen]

And died by the sword. This wasn't just an assassination.

[Tom]

Play with them in a game. I thought that was the best line in this.

[Kaizen]

And allowing them to do the same. He lived by the mic and died by the sword. This wasn't just an assassination.

[Tom]

Live by the mic and died by the sword.

[Kaizen]

It was an attack on civilization.

[Tom]

A big part of the problem.

[Kaizen]

Our nation is held together by a thread. And that thread is fraying. The social fabric is tearing and we must unite to weave it anew. We need humility to see not just the speck in the opponent's eye but the log in our own. Because this isn't about right or left. This is about good versus evil. And we're all on each side. So we all got a choice to make. We can choose to heal or an eye for an eye until we're all blind and cannot see.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Kaizen]

And then the next bullet may be aimed at you. Or it could be me.

[Drew]

Wow. Mike.

[Tom]

Yeah. No. Kaizen is phenomenal. Okay. So it is going to be a really interesting debate. If so. 1. If this guy's a registered Republican and let's say actually a somebody who really sees himself as on that team. Was the trans rhetoric on the bullet meant to deflect from who he is? If not. And this is a person who is a registered Republican but is like knee Deep in trans ideology, Then where do you put them on the political compass? That. That'll be a fascinating debate, but again, that's getting pulled down into the. Like, you've already passed the part that actually matters, which is somebody believing so. Believing so strongly that they are right that they're willing to kill. It's crazy. Yeah. It'll be interesting to see, like, is this guy mentally ill or is he just that convinced of his rightness? There were people pulling footage of somebody that looked vaguely like him debating Charlie at a previous event. So it'll be interesting to see if that really is that guy.

[Drew]

Like, he lost a debate and then he came back to get him type.

[Tom]

Yeah. So he showed up and he had. Again, I don't know that this is the same person, but people were saying, oh, it might be something like that, but he was speaking with a bullhorn to the mic, so. But yeah, I wouldn't say that in terms of winning the crowd over. He certainly did not. Charlie had the crowd on his side. I didn't see the full thing of it. I just saw a clip. So I won't say who made the better arguments, but if it was that guy, it'll be interesting because he certainly doesn't. He doesn't come across as being trans himself. Certainly there was nothing in his physical display that would lead you to believe that, but who knows? We'll see. All right, Drew, we are still in the after wash of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. It still is sitting on me pretty heavily. I was not at all surprised to see that my timeline is still just wall to wall. Charlie Kirk. This one really does feel different. It's been interesting to see people talk about that little aspect of this. Like, why does this one feel so differently? I think people are grappling with something that I think you get close to when you realize that this wasn't a politician. This was a guy that talked for a living. And so when the guy that talks for a living gets killed in, like, the most symbolic way, getting shot in the throat while talking about a political position that people don't agree with, it's just so rich in symbolism that he was somebody that was specifically aiming his message at young people, which, of course, is exactly where you want to aim a message, all of that, and that it was captured on camera so close up, it's this one. I don't think this one's going to go away. And so people are going to use this to advance what they already believe. That's the thing that scares me so I've seen everything from the direct, like, Charlie Kirk was standing up for free speech and American values, and so that's what was assassinated. I've seen the chance, which I assume we'll play a clip of later, where white men fight back. And I was just like, wait, what does this have to do with being white? So, everybody, this is a Rorschach test. You see in this what you want to see. And those kind of things get very dangerous. Because now everybody believes that they have, like, the perfect thing that explains why their side is right, which is the very problem that we're dealing with right now. Everybody's convinced they're right.

[Drew]

Yeah. White House reporter Elena Trin from CNN just announced that Trump said on Fox and Friends that Charlie Kirk's assassin is in custody. Quoted directly from Trump. I think with a high degree of certainty, we have him in custody. So if this is Cash, Patel said that last yesterday, it came out with a. He had some fire, had to deal with it when they had ended up having to release that hostage, that suspect. So if this is the person that done it, if they actually captured them, do you think that this will be a path to healing or is kind of cat's already out the bag?

[Tom]

Yeah, this. So this is a symptom. This is not the cause. People have been waiting for that spark. And the question always, when something like this happens and you have a spark that then catches fire, everybody focuses on the spark. But the reality is you should be looking at the kindling that's been laid down for God knows how long. We've been pulling at each other like crazy. We've had political assassinations in recent memory that didn't catch on the way that this one did in terms of the public consciousness, which is always fascinating when you look back, even at things like the civil rights movement, like why Rosa Parks? You know what I mean? Like, there was a hundred other things, a thousand other things that were as bad, possibly worse, but they aren't the one that, like, really sparks it. Sometimes because of the symbolism, sometimes because of the coverage, sometimes because of who will rally around them. So it's interesting to see the way that Charlie has become that thing that's going to push this forward. But the reality is there's been something brewing under the surface for a very long time that's now going to rage. The only question is how far there is no healing this. When I think about the stance that I have, which is, hey, we still have to find a way back to the middle. We still have to Find a way to give people a narrative that they can hold onto, that gives them the words to self soothe. I do sometimes feel like the guy on the beach as the tsunami rolls in. I just don't know if it's stoppable. And so Ray Dalio was recently on dire of a CEO and he asked him, are you optimistic about America's future? And Ray just goes, no. And Ray is looking at historical patterns for reasons of historical patterns. I feel like the person on the beach with the tsunami rolling in calling for everybody to find their way back to the middle. I just don't know if it's possible. It is. The very thing that I'm asking for that I know would be good for us is the very thing that I think defies the way the human mind actually works. Humans on an individual level are fine, but once you start getting into crowds, once cultural energy is rippling, I don't know that it's possible to stop without enough pain. So we'll see.

[Drew]

Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of like comparisons about how this is hitting different communities. It's there's this kind of sports commentator by Miami Jones on ESPN who says all the time there's really two Americas. And depending on where your Twitter feed lies in the algorithm, there's definitely two stark reactions. And it's interesting to me how some people have evangelized Charlie Kirk even comparing this to the slaying of mlk. Other people are saying this is their George. This is white people's George Floyd moment. Because it's like a public execution of somebody that looks like them over something that was unjust. And now this is rallying it. I see the chance on the other side. I see Charlie Kirk being a symbol for American values and American symbolism. He got a medal of Honor, so there are Medal of Freedom. So there's a lot of different reactions going across the spectrum is that I know we talk about populism enough and I don't want that to be kind of the buzzword that kind of bails us out. But to see such a stark point, this couldn't have just been over the killing. This is just the exposure of it. Like that bullet kind of lifted up the rock where all the ants kind of climbed and went away. But those divisions didn't get sewn once that gun was shot. It got sown. Decades, months, years, whatever time frame ago, it seems like, because this, how stark the difference is is just baffling to me. So I'm still processing it live, like even right now, like live on camera I'm still processing, but it's, it's just, it's fascinating to me.

[Tom]

Taking a short break. There's more impact theory after Stay tuned

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[Tom]

Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.

[Drew]

This is UT Austin.

[Tom]

Charlie Kirk got shot and killed. How do you feel? Happy. Goodbye. Wow, did you see that? Charlie Kirk just got shot and killed. That's good. Wow. That's good. That's good that people are getting shot just off a political view. Good that people are dying in America. Did you see. Okay, so pause it for a second. Some of this is youth like you're going to find. I am so glad that when I was this age that there were no cameras in my face because I would have said my share of unhinged stuff. The brain doesn't even stop developing until you're 25. You certainly, for the most part, some people will have. But the vast majority of people will not have thought through their views. Well, they won't have a map of reality where, uh, it's all interconnected and so they'll have individual thoughts that you can topple or even show that they have self contradictory beliefs. So I have deep empathy from that perspective. A lot of these guys are caught up in narratives. We're all caught up in narratives. But it is very troubling to me to see how pervasive and how extreme this narrative is.

[Drew]

What the good narrative?

[Tom]

No, no, no. On this side where. Oh yeah, yeah. Good that he's dead.

[Drew]

Oh, good that he's dead.

[Tom]

That it would. It should be extremely difficult to find people that will be that glib about somebody's Assassination. And we're in a moment now where people are all too ready to be glib about the fact that he died. But anyway, keep going because it gets worse as this goes. Kara got shot and killed today. Yes, I did. How do you feel about that? I don't really have any feelings about it. Who are you, Charlie Kerr get shot and killed today? We're just getting people's opinions. How do you feel about that girl? Someone had to do it. And that's how I feel at this point in time. But, yeah, I appreciate your honesty, I truly do. So you said someone had to do it. Yes. Try not to get all pulled up into that. But he was a misogynist. He was a disgusting person with disgusting beliefs. So if you had a magical wand, a magical button that you could press and keep him from being assassinated, would you press that?

[Commercial Announcer]

No.

[Tom]

I think things happen for a purpose. And if that's how his life was ended, then that's how it was ended. So, yeah. Okay, so I see some of the comments in the chat saying, hey, you know, these are like fringe beliefs. The very thing that I'm trying to get people to understand is this should be hard to find somebody that has fringe beliefs. You should not just be able to walk around campus over a. I mean, judging by the shadows, this is all in a pretty tight time period. Call it over a couple of hours in one location. You shouldn't be able to find five or six people that have that. What I will call just completely unhinged response to someone being assassinated, whether they are on your team or not. The. The thing that I'm trying to get across to people is we are on tribes, we are on teams. Being on a team has a deranging effect to the way that people through a problem. So the very thing that I want to remind myself in my own life, the thing that I want to put out into the world, the thing that I hope that people like, if I got killed, I would want people to say. He was always trying to get people to think from first principles. He was always trying to get people to map their values and then say, hey, here are the ways that I think by having this value system, it's actually going to take me to where my goals are. And what you're seeing here are people that they're in tribal thinking and their team has a set of beliefs that just make it easy for them to have such a glib response to something so tragic. And when your team's narrative gives you a take that allows you to look into somebody being assassinated and say, yeah, cool, that's good, yeah, no, I wouldn't undo that. Like this all just happens for a reason. That's the very thing that I'm worried about. So it isn't even the message from these young kids. It is that we have these pat messages that are pulling away from each other as fast as possible. That is the problem. So clowning on these kids for having a dumb belief, whatever, like that certainly isn't what I'm advocating for. If I saw any of these people, I would not be yelling at them and saying, you're so unhinged. The thing that I'm trying to talk people back from is don't allow yourself to slip into a narrative stream where you're not thinking about, okay, hold on a second, where am I trying to get to? Because if where you want to get to is my team is right, the other team is wrong, we're going to have to clear out. Like girl, somebody had to do it. That's somebody who's like, look, this, the, the opposing team is so dangerous, we just have to get rid of them. And so it's actually good news when somebody like that's to going gets taken out. You're not taking on the knock on effect. Even if you're just like, well it was good that one person did it so the rest will shut up. It's like, so hold on a second. You want to use violence to eliminate free speech because you can't get free speech removed. You want to eliminate free speech, full stop. You don't think that that has knock on effects that are going to be exceedingly dangerous for you. So that's where I am very unnerved. Ray Dalio is banging a drum and saying economic things are creating a hatred within the own, within our own country. This is a pattern that repeats in history. Watch what's going to happen. You get north of 130% debt to GDP and you break out into civil war. It's just a loop. And so it's like not being able to interrupt it, not being able to get people to see what's happening. That's the thing that scares me the most. Show the flip side. We'll show the joker thing in a second. I just don't want people to get lost in the oh, the left is a bunch of lunatics. And that's what just happened. We're witnessing the left being crazy. We saw the last political assassinations, at least that I'm aware of here in the US was what happened in Minnesota. That's as far as I know. That was a Trump supporter.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom]

Killing multiple people. Well, killing one, his spouse and then. Or her husband.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom]

And then trying to kill another and their spouse.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom]

So it's like. So that one didn't catch, I think, because people just didn't know them in the way that they know Charlie Kirk. But that's the other side being just as unhinged. So people getting into a narrative stream that this is all about the left being crazy would be a mistake. So anyway,

[Drew]

I was going here. This is where I was going with the.

[Tom]

Matt Walsh will be a perfectly good stand in for the right.

[Drew]

Gabby.

[Matt Walsh]

For hours I. I've seen some in the media, some of the very same people who intentionally stoked murderous hatred against people like Charlie Kirk and Charlie Kirk specifically now saying that we need to turn down the temperature and start having conversations. Well, Charlie tried to have conversations with you on the left. And you killed him for it.

[Tom]

And you killed him for it. So this is where this all starts to break really bad. There was a guy that killed him for it. Presumably. Technically, we don't know who actually did it. But all signs point to. First of all, the thought of a woman being a sniper killing political opponents just strikes me as the image release

[Drew]

seemed like it was a white male.

[Tom]

Yeah. While not impossible, certainly seems very unlikely.

[Commercial Announcer]

So.

[Tom]

But saying that you did it, your side, you guys, bad guys, that is the problem. Like, that's the very thing that we have to back off of. That is the mindset that that person was in. Now, whether we end up finding out that this is a punchline about a trans activist, which there was something written on the bullet that would lead people to believe that that is the case. We'll see fullness of time. Let that come out. But no matter what, that person was on a team, in their head believed. I see things clearly. So much so that I should be allowed to be judged during executioners. Really wild. And so now I don't think I disagree with Destiny who says this is a blatant call for violence. I wouldn't go that far. But he is revealing a stance that is certainly like very much. You guys are wrong. You have. You are a group. You are a monolith. You have done bad thing. I am on the right side of history. I am seeing this clearly. And so now you've pushed me in a position where we're gonna have to fight back. He does not ever say that we're gonna have to fight back violently, but fight.

[Matt Walsh]

All right, Let him Finish us in our churches. You tried to kill our president. You killed one of our greatest advocates in Charlie Kirk. You have been openly cheering for and celebrating and encouraging and committing political violence for years. Antifa blm. Well funded, highly orchestrated widespread movements based in and fueled by violence. You made a hero out of Luigi Mangione and you celebrate Charlie's death even now. Now it's too late to turn the temperature down. This is not a time to hold hands. It's a time for justice. It is a time for good to fight back against evil. It is time for the righteous to prevail for the sake of our country and for our families and our children. And for Charlie.

[Tom]

The thing that I take away from there isn't that I think his message is unhinged or anything like that. It is time for justice. It is time for the righteous to prevail. Now, will we agree on who the righteous are? Probably not. Will we agree on what justice is? Maybe, maybe not, I don't know. But the words he's using bother me only in as much as it makes it clear that he's on a team and he is lumping everybody. Like, we don't even know who killed Charlie yet. So for him to assume up, this is just the left. And you guys are all one big basket of things. You're all wrong. Team thinking does not lead anywhere good. So that's what I worry about. So, yeah, I hope people do not break along the lines of there are a good group and there is a bad group and we are now at war with each other. That is not how I think people should be looking at this. This is how do we get to the fundamental values? How do we get to the structure of structurally what is happening that's making this a problem. And I do admittedly feel very weird reminding everybody this is all coming from economic problems. Because that feels so weird in a time where people are emotional. Like if I were at Charlie's funeral and they asked me to speak, I'm not going to mention the economy, but I'm doing that out of social obligation, if that makes sense. You just know that's the wrong thing to talk about.

[Drew]

Wrong place, wrong time.

[Tom]

But it is the truth. And so this is where we start detaching ourselves from what's really happening. What are the actual underlying causes? And we go to what sounds right, how do we do the rallying cry? Like, if I had to lead people into battle, I wouldn't be like, now remember as we go down to fight that this all comes from Inflation, like you wouldn't do that. So I get how people are going to. They're going to feel what he feels. They're going to speak in an evocative way, because it feels so good to speak in that way, to get people rallied up. And then all hope is lost, because now we're totally detached from reality. We're at the level of what I call the T. It's pure emotion. We're fighting about something that's completely abstracted from what's really going on. But it is the thing that feels good. It is the narrative that is simple enough to spread, to get everybody to drink it up and then get their blood boiling. And then now we can have the real fight that people want to have, but it will be completely nonproductive. And at the end of that fight, with more bloodshed, all that people will have is fatigue. And if people could understand that the way that wars end is you kill somebody so much and they kill you so much that eventually maybe one of you wins and the other side just can't continue to fight. But by the end of it, everybody goes, whoa, this is way more horrible than I ever could have imagined, and I don't ever want to go through that again. Nobody goes, that was dope. We had a great time. It's. It is just horror from top to bottom, but people never see it until they've been through it.

[Drew]

Yeah, I want to bring up the joker thing because I feel like this is the mentality that a lot of people are perpetrating, that this is how we got to this point.

[Tom]

Before you play that, let me just set this up. So the narrative that we're all going to have to see through in the coming weeks is the left is unhinged. No, the right is unhinged. And both sides are going to be doing that. They're missing. The meta problem of a populist moment is about teams. So we're dividing into us versus them, oversimplifying categories. So this is an awesome video. If you're on the right, you're going to look at this and be like, yo, a hundred percent. But you can make the same video showing people from the right saying a bunch of unhinged shit when you miss that part. Because if you're on the right, this is going to feel true. If you flip it and show people on the right saying all the bad things and you're on the left, it's going to feel true. And so now both of them are going to have their super cuts. This is the Thing that drives me crazy about destiny is he's very good at reminding people the right says unhinged shit, but he glosses over the unhinged shit that the left says. I'm just, what are you doing? Like, he's very smart. He knows it's there. So I don't know. That's when it always feels like destiny steps into spinning a narrative. So the very thing that we must do to not end up somewhere full of blood is recognize. Ah, Everybody's being pushed onto a team. The act of being pushed onto a team is the problem. All right, so anyway, here's a team video for you.

[Matt Walsh]

Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.

[Tom]

Are they a threat to democracy? Yes. Are they going to take our rights away? Yes. Are they going to put people's lives in danger? Yes. Are they going to endanger the planet by not giving them climate change? Yes. People need to start taking to the streets. This is a dictator. I just don't even know why there aren't uprisings all over the country. And maybe there will be.

[Chase Hughes]

She's a genuine danger to American security.

[Commercial Announcer]

They're still going to have to go out and put a bullet in Donald Trump.

[Tom]

Even the way he's said that he sounds like an actor. Like, that's wild.

[Drew]

Biden never sounded that menacing ever, in all four years, 30 years he'd been in the White House or on the Senate floor, never sounded that menacing until this video. Hey, there needs to be unrest in

[Tom]

the streets for as long as there's unrest in our lives. Have a consistent narrative about how dangerous Trump is. President Biden has been clear eyed about

[Commercial Announcer]

the threat that the former president represents to our democracy.

[Tom]

I will say you. It is unwise to constantly say the other team is a danger. They're a danger. They're a threat. They're like Nazis, like, all that stuff. The only thing I can see people on the left is like, well, they're not calling for violence. If you say enough times that the other team is like the worst perpetrators of crimes in terms of what we teach young people to be aware of, and all of that over and over and over and over. Like, eventually people are going to get the message and be like, oh, these are the. Like, this is true evil. And I always said I was going to be the person that hid Anne Frank in my attic. This is my shot. Now, obviously it is a very small number of people that will actually take action on it, but you are creating that milieu and it is a terrible idea. It's a terrible idea on the left, it's a terrible idea on the right, but it does happen.

[Drew]

Yeah, I think we landed the plane on that video. I don't think we need to continue to perpetrate it. Is this one of those situations where we're just going to have to let it play out?

[Tom]

Because is there another option? Because I will scream into a camera as much as I possibly can, explaining to people, hey, like, you're getting sucked into a narrative. Hey, like, don't be a tribal thinker. Hey, by the way, cause and effect is all that matters. I will try. I will do everything I can. I will try to convince people that the world operates on a set of rules. Those rules are knowable. Once you understand the rules, you can understand how people are trying to manipulate you and therefore can eject out of the manipulation. It is not emotionally evocative. That's the problem. I have long lamented that saying what is true calmly and collectedly does not get people to pay attention. Like, you need the theatrics of it all. And I never used to break a sweat while filming. Now I do because I realize, like, I've got to deliver it in a way that cuts through the noise. And so I'm over here, like, freaking out and still trying to say a very metered, very middle of the road thing, but in a way that, that feels emotionally evocative. But, man, like, it just isn't it. It is out of alignment with somebody whose blood is already boiling. If their blood is already boiling, the odds that you can get them to calm down until they get to do their proper freak out is very, very low. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Tom]

Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. Here's Charlie talking about gun violence. Need to be very clear that you're not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. You can significantly reduce them through having more fathers in the home by having more armed guards in front of schools. We should have an honest and clear reductionist view of gun violence, but we should not have a utopian one. You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won't have a single gun death. That is nonsense.

[Matt Walsh]

It's dribble.

[Tom]

Yeah, this, this whole argument is, I don't know, this is a little bit nonsensical. I don't know that we're ever going to go anywhere with the should we have guns, should we not have guns Debate. But the thing that I think people are really talking about with this is, oh, what an own goal. Like, oh, what a fool. Like, he wasn't trying to stop guns and he got killed by a gun. Like, oh, I bet he wishes he had never said that now. No, he's not going to say that. What he, like, if you could magically speak to him beyond the grave, he's going to say something like, we. You have. This is what I think he would say. The left is out of their minds. And they used guns to silence a person who was non violent, who was debating. They didn't have any good ideas. They couldn't meet the challenge of the debate. And because their ideas are so bad that there's no way they can defend them, they had to resort to violence. Not what the writers of the Constitution intended with the second Amendment, blah, blah, blah. So this does not feel like Charlie, like scoring an own goal on himself from where I'm sitting. And you're not going to see anybody on the right be like, yo, it's so true.

[Drew]

Yeah, I don't think it's an own goal. I think it's. I'm going to paint this picture. Right. Hypothetically speaking, let's just play. Let's just connect some dots and see if it's emotion or if it makes sense. Dot number one, Charlie Kirk says that it's necessary. Certain people will have to die in order to maintain the second amendment.

[Tom]

Yep.

[Drew]

We got to be okay with people getting killed with guns.

[Tom]

Yep.

[Drew]

Dot number two, Charlie Kirk gets killed. Charlie Gert gets quoted that empathy is a made up concept. He doesn't believe in empathy for people. We need to talk about statistics, we need to talk about facts.

[Tom]

I need to see that.

[Drew]

Yeah, I can bring up that clip. But hypothetically speaking, again, I'm just connecting dots. Let's say that I can pull up a clip in two seconds that he says that, quote for quote, he gets murdered in a white campus by a professional sniper. It seems like 200 yards away. There were armed security standing right behind him. So to his point security. I don't know about the father status of the killer, but let's assume he had a father. Maybe he didn't have a father. Okay, cool. And then now he passes. And everybody's expecting empathy, they're expecting sympathy. And when other people don't have that sympathy, they're now getting villainized. So I think to say this is a sad tragedy. It's true, it is a sad tragedy. But when people are connecting those dots of. He was advocating that it's okay that some people die because of gun deaths. He got killed on a white campus. His last words were gun violence. His last words were gang violence. And he was killed by a white shooter. And so like as you're kind of putting all these together and then now it's like he died. He was always advocating for the right thing. Now you're kind of saying like, well wait, two kids died on the day he died. And we don't even talk about those two kids. Three kids died, or there was three people injured, shot. I don't know what their status is now, the next day because of it. Like there was two guns, there was two mass shootings. He got shot on the same day of a mass shooting. Like the irony is stacking on top, on top, on top, on top of. So when there's certain people that, when you say like hey, Charlie Kirk just died and people are like, that doesn't make them radical left murderous. And then to bring it back to the Matt Walsh thing, it's not antifa or BLM that are driving these things. Like so it, I'm putting all these things on the table to just say that yes, no parent should, no kid should have to live like no parent should, no kid should outlive their parent or no parents outlive their kid, whatever the saying is.

[Tom]

That's correct.

[Drew]

So the fact that like his three year old daughter and his wife had to see blood gushing from the neck on the front row, Deplorable, horrible, despicable. All the right things, every left, every left leader from AOC to Obama to Hillary to everybody that says we condemn the violence, it's terrible, it's horrible. All those things. So as I'm linking chain all these things and then you still get on, you still hear Donald Trump saying it's a radical leftist. This is crazy. You still hear Matt Walsh saying we need to fight evil with evil. You're hearing all these people calling for violence or fighting back. We have the chance of the white people getting. White men must fight back. Like Fight back against who? Where. Where are these coming from? Like, this is the. This is the type of energy that is coming from different sides that we're not talking about. So I'm not saying it's a own on Charlie Kirk, but when MLK died, they quoted the I have a dream speech when Charlie Kirk was passed. I don't know if we're going to quote the last five things he said before he passed. And I think that.

[Tom]

Well, they're already doing that, so they're already quoting the wonderful things that he said. And the right is 100% eulogizing him in a whitewashed way that's going to cover up some of the more controversial things that he said. So I don't know that I track that argument, but you've set a buffet of things before us. So let's say let's take one dish at a time.

[Drew]

Okay?

[Tom]

So dish number one, a guy who says not even like, as far as I know, this is not like Charlie Kirk's major plank, but has clearly talked about it before where he said, we're never going to get gun violence to zero, which seems like a very straightforward statement of fact. We live in a world where we have a whole lot of guns. We have. A constitutional mandate's not the right word. It's enshrined in the Constitution that we have a right to bear arms. So it's like, well, that, that. That is what it is. So people are going to use this as a. A moment to talk about that. We should be rescinding that or we should be putting, like, really strict controls on it. You know, whatever their takeaway is going to be. So if people want to use anytime that there's gun violence as a impetus to. Let's have the conversation. Let's do something sensible. Fair enough. But what I've seen with this is people using it to mock Charlie, to laugh, to say, see, like, all right, idiot, like, you got what you deserved. Which you'll see plenty of people saying exactly that. Either because of his stance on abortion, which we have a clip on, where a woman's like, I don't care that he died. He had a different view than I do on abortion, so fuck him. Or because it's, well, you seem perfectly willing to have a lot of guns, so fuck you, like, you should get killed with one. It's like that. The level of absurdity with that is crazy. So just because he believes that we have a right to bear arms does not mean that he's saying, or even that inevitably there's going to be a certain number of people killed by it. That does not mean that he deserves to be killed. So it's like, we've got to separate those. I'm not saying you're saying that, but I'm saying people are saying that. I have seen them say that nobody

[Drew]

deserves to be shot.

[Tom]

Correct. So now it's like, okay, well, if we can separate that out and if we can say, yeah, have the debate about gun control, all of that, but the laughing at Charlie because he said that there's inevitably going to be a certain number of people that die. If that becomes like the thing that we're talking about here. That's where I'm like, this is people getting sucked into the tea of it all. Instead of the, like, real underlying issue, which just to remind everybody is once you make people feel economically insecure, they get into their emotions. Once they're in their emotions because they are afraid, they go onto teams. Once they are on teams, they start voting for people that are essentially willing to fight against the other side to protect their way of life. That's the problem. Everything else is window dressing. So have the debate about whether we want to remove the second amendment. I mean, that's exactly what a democracy is about.

[Drew]

If people are here for, I don't think we should remove the second Amendment.

[Tom]

So, but like, if Charlie Kirk had said, listen, I don't think we should get rid of cars. There's always going to be a certain number of car deaths and then he dies in a car accident, would we say that he was a. For saying that there should be cars? Like, that just seems like a strange. It is a strange argument. That is somebody who's in an emotional place and they want to dunk on somebody, which, hey, fine, on that I will say, Charlie, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. In the sense that he like to dunk on people and so cool. You die, people are going to dunk on you for things. That just is what it is. But I just don't want to see people get lost in the surface level debate. Like, get down to the substantive part. Like, both on gun violence and how we want to handle that moving forward. What do we think is the right way to do it? And on the fact that we are being pulled onto these teams with oversimplified rhetoric. And I think that's where we're lost.

[Drew]

Do you think people are entitled to empathy?

[Tom]

Do I think people are entitled to empathy? I. I think it is unwise to approach the world from a Place of entitlement. But your life will be so much better if you give empathy. If you find your way to empathizing with the people that you disagree with the most, your life will be so much better. Empathy is a connective. Like it triggers a neurochemical cascade that makes you feel love and connection for your fellow man. And that is a very good place to be. So I don't like to use the word entitled, but I think that empathy is insanely powerful. Start from there. Next. Super chat from Mr. G. Chase Hughes just released a video walking through how division is being propagated amongst all of us. We are all being played with tribalism and get to the middle and stop claiming his side. Model your values and stand for them. Well, that sounds perfect to me. So yeah, I agree aggressively now. I don't know who Chase Hughes is, but that certainly sounds like one of my pitch.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom]

Oh, right, right. Okay, I got a clip on if I met him or not.

[Chase Hughes]

But the minute that your ideas require violence to inform, force or spread, they are already completely bankrupt. Every tyrant, every failed ideology, every social collapse starts the exact same way. The debate dies. Then violence takes the place of debate. And you can't argue with a gun. You can only kill with it. And when killing is the substitute for a conversation, society as a whole starts falling off a cliff. We all have been sold the biggest con of our entire life and this is that the problem is left versus right or Republicans versus Democrats. And that is.

[Tom]

I agree with all this. It certainly sounds fireworks show that they

[Chase Hughes]

want us screaming about while they're doing something else. This is a magician's trick and I'm about to really show you what Charlie, God rest his soul, has kind of exposed here. If you turned on cable news today, maybe you scroll social media, what are you going to see? The absolute fringe. They're going to show you the loudest, dumbest, most cartoonish people from the other side blasted in your face 24 7. You're not being shown your neighbor or your co worker or the mom next door who votes differently. You're being shown a bunch of professional lunatics.

[Tom]

I think he's wrong about that. So I think people want this to be a little more fringe than it is. So Chase and I aggressively agree on the fact that we are being pulled onto tribes. But to call it a magician's trick is probably a little misleading. It is the way that your brain is wired. We are hardwired to do this and that has been triggered via the economic uncertainty. And so this goes back to the spark versus the kindling. The kindling has been being laid down since basically 1971. We go off the gold standard, we start inflating the money supply like mad. It starts killing the American dream and a whole host of other policies. Obviously, when I talk about that, I'm oversimplifying something, but that starts laying down all this kindling. And now, as we get into the deeper and deeper innings of people feeling economically insecure, they are tribing up because the anger gives them the certainty. So as a psa, I will remind everybody that they did a study where they put electrodes in people's brains and they poked around on the different emotions. So love, lust, joy, and anger. And it was more than that, but you get the idea. And they then asked the people, hey, of all the emotions that I just triggered in you, which one do you want me to trigger again? And it was anger.

[Drew]

Wow.

[Tom]

So I know that shocks people, but there is something so intoxicating about the moral certainty that comes with being angry. When you're angry, you know you're right, you know what to do, you know how to move forward. It is a sense of superiority, authority, that the thing you have been aggrieved so much that you have a right to, like, go after that person. And that level of certainty feels so good. And so what's promised to people in a populist moment is certainty. It is hyper oversimplified. It is aggressive in nature, it is punitive in nature. And all of that feels awesome. I am the good guy, they are the bad guy. I have every right to go after them, to pursue them. And if you can get people to feel like that, oh, my God, like, they love it the most. This is why people use fear and anger. Fear is, I must solve this problem. I must learn what is causing this, what is going on. So people pay attention. Anger is, ah, I know what's wrong and now I'm fucking going after it. So, yeah, beware. But this is not like a big bamboozle that's being played by politicians. This is coming from the economic uncertainty that puts people into their emotions because they are afraid. And then they team up to get that certainty that they crave so much. That's the loop. But it's nature that played that trick on you.

[Drew]

Taking it now to the economy, since we've been talking about it. The jobs report came in. So this is the weekly estimate of unemployment benefits going out. Economists forecasted 253,000, but claims jumped up to 263. This is the largest jump in seven years, I want to say. Or seven months. Excuse me, I don't want to say that this is damning and this means the economy is on fire. But add that to the 900, 900,000 revision. Add that to the S and P being negative. If you take out six companies and Oracle has to be a seventh now after their crazy day yesterday. $83 billion in one day. The single biggest gain, bro, he made $83 billion and then told his son, go buy HBO. We're going to talk about that next. Crazy, crazy. But with the economy seeming like it's on its last legs, is this job report kind of move the needle for you?

[Tom]

So it, it certainly hasn't changed my vision of what the economy is. I have been saying for quite some time that I think that the economy is really in trouble. You want to talk about things I hate being right about? I hate being right about the fact that I've been saying for a while that we're going to break violent in America. And hey, here we are, breaking violent in America. Look at that. And how many people people said that Tom's overreacting. Like, oh my God, like he's just doing this for drama. No, when you look at the patterns of history, things start to make a lot of sense. When you are grounded in. You're having a biological experience. There are knowable things about the physics of the way human mind works. There's noble things about the physics of economies. It's like you're never gonna get it a hundred percent right, but damn, you can be directionally correct. And I'm telling you from a directional correctness, the economy is in trouble. How do I know? Because any economy with this debt to GDP ratio is in a bad place. And despite the fact that some people will try to tell you it's a nothing burger, it is a one way street to death and despair from an economy standpoint. So you either back out of that debt to GDP problem or you accept that over some unfortunately unknown period of time, 5 years, 50 years, 100 years, I don't know. But over some period of time that unfortunately isn't hundreds of years, you're going to implode. That's not a maybe. This is mathematical certainty. It's mathematical certainty. And humans are extraordinarily bad at looking at something where the math is simply the following. If you are in a submarine and you are at the bottom of the Marianas Trench and you only have four hours of oxygen and the human body can only go whatever the record is 17 minutes, 21 minutes without oxygen. And that's for somebody who's hyper trained. When you get to four and a half hours, everyone's dead. Like, that's the physics of the situation. The economy is the same. You cannot just keep stacking debt. Why? Because to pay that debt off, you will have to print money. When you print money, you devalue your currency. When you hit a certain point of devaluing your currency, nobody will invest in you anymore. When you can't get investments anymore, you stop growing. Those are the physics of money. People want to somehow believe that we are immune to the physics of money. We are not. I will remind everybody, and I know I say this guy's name a lot of people, but Ray Dalio built the largest hedge fund in the world simply by recognizing better than anybody else exactly where a given country was at any one time in the big debt cycle. So nothing about this jobs report changes my mind about where the economy is, because the economy is moving through the six phases of the debt cycle. This is inevitable. So it merely makes it apparent that we are going to have to lower rates, that the Fed will no longer have a cover story to not lower rates. So they are going to lower rates. And the problem is, as Lyn Alden so aptly pointed out, it won't solve the problem because you're now in fiscal dominance. As a reminder, fiscal dominance simply means government spending. I wish people weren't so weird about words because fiscal has sort of loosely come to mean monetary policy. That's not the definition of the word. Fiscal means government spending. So when somebody says fiscal dominance, they just mean that the government is spending so much money that that's all that matters. Literally, that's all that matters. So they can try to lower the interest rate all they want. It's not going to matter because the economy is already in a tremendous amount of trouble. And as they lower it, that's going to cause inflation. And if they try to raise the rate, it's not going to matter because the government is not going to stop deficit spending. And so now you start driving. The interest rate's so high for the government that it just becomes untenable. So they can't do that either. And so that's called having no more tools. And so the only thing that is left is a beautiful deleveraging. But nobody will do that because it asks everybody to suffer pain. So instead what people will do is whatever gets them elected, which is, guess what? Promise free shit. And what's the only thing that's a terrible fucking idea, promising free shit.

[Drew]

And so here we are, the promise of free shit. Is a Fed rate going to save us?

[Tom]

No, the Fed rate can't save you.

[Drew]

So, like, there's no. I understand what AI is imagine is the silver bullet. But until we figure AI isn't the

[Tom]

silver bullet, and here's the very dark news, I don't think AI is going to. Let's say that AI, it's the miracle cure of productivity that won't help you because it will be at the expense of people not having jobs.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom]

So now let's say even that you're able to get a ton of money right now. Your economy is under 4. Sorry, under $5 trillion. The amount that it would take to give everyone, I think like $16,000, which is poverty wages, is $5 trillion. Now, if the bots can grow the economy faster than that, and let's say that we get to 6 or $7 trillion, what are you gonna give people? Like $18,000? Like, it's still like people do not understand the math. Doesn't math.

[Drew]

Yeah.

[Tom]

So. And not only that, let's say that you gave everybody that amount of money and it was enough to keep everybody eating. People will still mouse utopia and they will freak out. So we have a real problem to face, which is we have an upcoming problem and not enough people are thinking about it. So we haven't yet come up with the solutions that we need to come up with. The only solution that I have come up with is I need everybody to focus on themselves and those that they love. And I hope that that means that we save society that way. And this comes back to, hey, Jesus, thanks for reminding us. Everybody has a spark of divinity, so it's okay to think about the individual. So hey everybody, think about mastering where to put your money. Don't pretend the economy isn't what it is. Don't want for free things. Figure out how the game works. It is rigged, but it's rigged in a knowable way. And so now go do the things that you would need to do. One, distrust yourself. Don't assume that you read the situation perfectly correct. So don't. I admire Michael Saylor's testicle fortitude. He has the largest nuts I've ever seen in my life. And yet I encourage people, don't do that. You're not prepared for that. I'm not even sure he's prepared for that. But for sure as the average person's not prepared for that, so go broad. Yeah, but you've got to own assets and you've got to be in something that approximates an all weather fund. I've done videos on this, so if you want all the specifics, just go watch the videos. The deep dives, the last. Like if you watch the last three deep dives, I think you'll get all that you need from what you should be doing with your money. Perspective. Yeah.

[Drew]

David Ellison, the son of Oracle Larry Ellis Ellison, who's clearly Ballin right now, is the head of Skydance, who just recently acquired Paramount. They're preparing to make a bid for Warner Brothers that would make them the largest conglomerate. Bringing together hbo, Discovery, Showtime, cbs, tnt, a bunch of sports contracts all under one umbrella. Some people are saying we don't need more consolidation in the media aspect. Some people think fresh tech money is what the media aspect needs. What's your initial reaction to this?

[Tom]

Because of what's going to happen with AI I'm not worried about consolidation on this at all. There are going to be plenty of outlets and opportunities for young creatives to get the things that they want to make seen. We were just talking about on Wednesday the fact that you're going to see the first AI generated animated film in 2026. They're expecting to get it done in nine months for $30 million, versus the normal three plus years for like $150 million. So I think this is, this is a golden age to be an independent creator because budgets are just going to be dropping, dropping, dropping. People are going to be taking more risks. So the reason that, that it gets bad when you see that kind of consolidation is now there's like odd gatekeeper. And if you're iced out there, then you're just never going to make anything. We just don't live in that time. We live in a time now where there's like no gatekeepers essentially on anything. So, yeah, not worried about it in the slightest. I'm more worried about them going out of business. So that's the thing that like scares me. So to stay alive, they may need to consolidate right about now.

[Drew]

All right, can you eulogize us a little bit? I don't think we need like a specific sign off. If you just give us something that makes us a little bit more inspirational. I'm not trying to tell you to motivate us, but I just, I feel like we need a little bit more than just a see you later, bye. You know what I mean? Fair.

[Tom]

Okay. So I will say this. Humans are a complex and incredible creature. We are capable of the horrors that we're seeing right now. But we are also capable of beauty and compassion and love. But we have to choose to look at that. We have to choose to put ourselves in that position. I am very grateful to the universe, to God, to whatever, that we have the ability to manipulate our own neurochemistry. So we can all choose right now to ratchet up, to spiral out of control with the ready emotions and the easy narratives that are all there to get us wound up. To be on one team or the other, to play a team sport, to want to win, to take that electrode and jam it in our brain, to feel the anger that will give us the clarity and certainty to move forward. That's one way. And a lot of people are going to choose that. Or we can say that we're going to take that same metaphorical electrode and we're going to jam it into something that is far different. We're going to force ourselves to see the humanity in the other people. We're going to force ourselves to want people to challenge our ideas. We're going to force ourselves to find what we share, to see the things that draw us back towards the middle, to understand that the cause and effect of that leads to far more beautiful things than fighting with each other ever will. And that it feels good to be that kind of person. It feels good to be the kind of person that doesn't allow themselves to be enslaved by their own emotions, to be blinded by the things that they feel. That instead, that you're going to rise up above that, that you really are going to see the humanity even in your enemies and try to find a beautiful path forward together. So it's not going to be super popular right now, but, boy, does it feel a lot better, and it leads to a lot better outcomes. All right, everybody, till next time, be legendary. Take our piece.