Trump Just Called Tucker, Candace & Alex Jones STUPID, Americans Are Gaining Class Consciousness, Trump Is Bullying Allies Into China's Arms | Weekly Recap

Summary

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Impact Theory Weekly Recap (April 19, 2026):

Trump vs. Conservative Media, Class Tensions, and Changing Global Alliances

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Episode Overview

This week’s episode of Impact Theory dives deep into headline-grabbing confrontations—both domestic and global. The discussion connects growing class unrest in the US, the intensifying fragmentation among conservative media personalities as Trump publicly scorches former allies, and the ripple effects of America’s brash foreign policy pushing old allies toward China. Host Tom Bilyeu and his guests break down the systems, psychology, and consequences driving today’s unrest, aiming to clarify what’s beneath the headlines—and what the future might hold.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Violence and Class Unrest in America

[01:00 - 09:00]

• Recent high-profile acts of violence and sabotage (e.g., attacks targeting Sam Altman, city council members, CEOs, and warehouse arson) are not isolated incidents, but part of a broader pattern of class-driven anger.
  • Quote: “The anger that people feel is completely justified. The system is rigged. It is rigged against you. It is as problematic as people think.” – Kevin O’Leary [02:38]
• The disparity between productivity gains and stagnant wages since 1979, with the top 1% holding as much wealth as the bottom 90%, is spotlighted as a catalyst.
• Social media amplifies class resentment and catalyzes support for anti-system actors.
• The panel cautions that proposed “retro” solutions (trust-busting, heavy taxation on “the rich”) misunderstand current structural problems, which now revolve around inflation and deficit spending.
  • Quote: “The real wealth is in the middle class and the upper middle class. That’s where all the money is—it’s not with the billionaires... owning assets is the great protective mechanism.” – Kevin O’Leary [04:07]
• Major concern: Public anger is justified but misdirected. Violence won’t fix systemic imbalances; the underlying problem is the “machine”—deficit spending and money printing, not just greedy billionaires.

2. Understanding the Real Structural Crisis: Inflation & Deficit Spending

[03:29 - 09:24]

• Historic cycles of inequality either end in reforms or mass violence.
• The conversation highlights the faulty focus on “taxing the billionaires” while ignoring unbalanced budgets and money creation as the root cause.
• The K-shaped economy (“asset owners win, wage earners lose”) is explained as a direct result of governmental monetary policy, not individual malfeasance.
  • Quote: “The machine right now is a $2 trillion annual deficit machine that turns the gap between what you earn and what you owe into somebody else’s asset appreciation. That deficit is the thing that’s driving the K-shaped economy.” – Kevin O’Leary [05:23]
• Actionable point: Reform focus should be on balancing the budget and controlling inflation, regardless of political party.

3. Trump Turns on Tucker, Candace, Alex Jones: The Conservative Civil War

[10:34 - 14:30]

• Trump publicly lambastes prominent right-wing figures (Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, Alex Jones), calling them “low IQs,” “losers,” and “nut job troublemakers.”
  • Quote: “He’s saying that Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson all have one thing in common—low IQs. They’re stupid people. They know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it.” – Fritz, paraphrasing Trump [11:12]
• The group discusses Trump’s tactic of exiling allies when they slip out of favor—seen before with “sloppy Steve” Bannon.
• This incident is analyzed as evidence that the MAGA coalition was always united by opposition to progressivism; in its absence, fractures emerge over policy, especially foreign interventions.

4. Is the Republican Coalition Doomed? Navigating Fragmentation

[13:59 - 19:28]

• The difficulty of gauging true support within the GOP base is discussed. Social media, supermarket conversations, and poll numbers present wildly different realities.
• Trump’s coalition is at risk as prominent media “amplifiers” stop repeating his narrative, accelerating fragmentation within the right.
  • Quote: “When you start fragmenting your amplifiers... now a substantive portion of them are not saying the thing anymore. Now the narrative begins to fracture and people don’t know what words to say.” – Fritz [16:15]
• There’s uncertainty about potential successors—JD Vance, Rubio—if Trump’s hold slips. Donor and base support may diverge.
• Rubio and Vance are positioned for future roles, but the unpredictability of political tides is emphasized.
  • Quote: “If it’s April 2014... and I said, ‘the future of the Republican Party is Donald Trump,’ you would try not to laugh in my face... That’s what ended up happening.” – Eamon [21:11]

5. U.S. Foreign Policy and the World Order: America’s Allies Flirt With China

[22:48 - 32:19]

• Trump’s aggressive tactics—threatening to cut off Spain for not backing Israel, harshly criticizing allies, and endorsing hardliners abroad—have driven American allies to seek stronger ties with China.
• Example: Spain’s PM visits China just after Trump’s threats, signaling a diplomatic realignment.
• The panel expresses surprise at how quickly traditional allies (including Canada) pivot toward China, which is projecting itself as steady and rational in contrast to “unhinged” U.S. actions.
  • Quote: “The U.S. is doing all this crazy, unhinged [stuff]. We are the completely stable, rational, long-term vision people...that’s a message the world is like, ‘yeah, cool, let’s see what China has to offer.’” – Fritz [24:11]
• The psychological analysis: Trump applies a “smash, bully, belittle” playbook that worked in NYC real estate—but global politics responds differently.
  • Quote: “You are watching China walk softly and carry a big stick, and you’re watching the US walk loudly and carry a big stick.” – Fritz [28:32]

6. Consequences and Philosophical Reflections

• U.S. unpredictability is driving a wedge with allies, empowering China’s narrative.
• There’s a consensus that if the U.S. doesn’t balance its budget, the consequences will be dire—a message echoed throughout the show.
  • Quote: “If you don’t balance the budget, it is game over... It’s that simple.” – Fritz [25:57]
• The enduring punchline: Money has immutable “physics,” and ignoring economic fundamentals courts disaster.

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps and Attribution)

• “The anger that people feel is completely justified. The system is rigged. It is rigged against you. It is as problematic as people think.” — Kevin O’Leary [02:38]
• “The real wealth is in the middle class and the upper middle class. That’s where all the money is—it’s not with the billionaires... owning assets is the great protective mechanism.” — Kevin O’Leary [04:07]
• “If you don’t balance the budget, it is game over... It’s that simple. So it’s easy, but yet people will not embrace it.” — Fritz [25:57]
• “He’s saying that Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson all have one thing in common—low IQs. They’re stupid people. They know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it.” — Fritz (paraphrasing Trump) [11:12]
• “You are watching China walk softly and carry a big stick, and you’re watching the US walk loudly and carry a big stick.” — Fritz [28:32]
• “When you start fragmenting your amplifiers... now a substantive portion of them are not saying the thing anymore. Now the narrative begins to fracture and people don’t know what words to say.” — Fritz [16:15]
• “If it’s April 2014... and I said, ‘the future of the Republican Party is Donald Trump,’ you would try not to laugh in my face... That’s what ended up happening.” — Eamon [21:11]

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Key Timestamps

• 01:00 - 03:28: Class violence and economic frustration in the US
• 04:07 - 05:23: Wealth distribution and asset inflation
• 10:34 - 11:30: Trump attacks conservative media figures
• 13:59 - 19:39: GOP coalition fractures, speculation on successors
• 22:48 - 25:01: US allies’ realignment toward China
• 25:57 - 28:32: Economic “physics,” Trump’s global missteps
• 28:32 - 32:19: How US foreign policy methods are backfiring

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Memorable Moments

• The frank description of America’s present as a “rerun” of past class wars, but with dangerously outdated solutions.
• Trump’s social media scorched-earth rhetoric against his own “pundit” base, and the group’s amused breakdown of his attacks [11:12].
• The recurring motif: “Money has physics”—a reminder that economic reality, not partisan politics, will dictate future outcomes [25:16].

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Tone and Language

The tone is direct, analytical, and sometimes darkly humorous. The speakers critique both left and right, and aren’t shy about calling out economic illiteracy across the spectrum. There’s a sense of urgency but also skepticism about both mainstream and populist “solutions.”

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In summary:
This episode balances detailed economic analysis with sharp political commentary. The biggest takeaway: beneath the memes, class rage, and Twitter feuds is the cold logic of deficits and inflation—the “physics” that all political drama eventually answers to. The American right, fractured by Trump’s latest outbursts, faces internal and external disruption, while abroad, US influence continues to be tested and—potentially—diminished.

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Transcript

[Kevin O'Leary]

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[Kevin O'Leary]

When you look at all the violence that we're seeing in the last two weeks, someone threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman, San Francisco Home AI is bull Days later, two more people were arrested near his house after shots were fired in the neighborhood. An Indianapolis city council man who voted for a Data center had 13 bullets fired into his front door. A note was left on the porch that said no data centers. And before all of that, a 29 year old worker warehouse worker named Kamal Abdul Karim burned a 1.2 million square foot distribution center to the ground and then uploaded a video of himself saying that if they were just paying a living wage that the warehouse wouldn't have burned down. All you had to do was pay

[Eamon]

us enough to live.

[Kevin O'Leary]

Now nobody knows if all of these incidents are actually connected, but there is a crazy pattern that is starting to be very difficult to ignore. Luigi Mangione, who shot the health insurance CEO in cold blood on a Manhattan sidewalk. His legal defense fund has raised nearly a million dollars from 30,000 donors. The guy that burned down the warehouse said that he saw parallels between himself and Mangione. Roughly half of American college students sympathize with Mangione more than the man that he killed. Social media says that we're watching the beginning of a class uprising and these kinds of things have happened historically. If you guys know part of why Teddy Roosevelt ended up on Mount Rushmore, was he guy that saw us through the sort of last round of all of this stuff. And the thing that worries me is the arguments that are being put forward right now are to rerun what we did with Teddy Roosevelt. People are putting forward yesterday's solution to a totally different problem today. And the truth is that the anger that people feel is completely justified. Completely justified. The system is rigged. It is rigged against you. It is as problematic as people think. Since 1979, American worker productivity grew by 80.9% while wages only grew by 29.4%. The top 1% now hold as much wealth as the bottom 90% combined. For six straight years through 2025, the bottom 80% of earners failed to keep up with inflation. Specifically on the things that matter. Housing, grocery, energy, healthcare. These are the things that you can't cut without real consequences. And when you're spending 65% of your take home pay on rent, rent, people

[Fritz]

are going to go berserk.

[Kevin O'Leary]

But what concerns me is that people are not mapping the cause and effect. And if people were beating the drum about inflation and money printing, then I would have hope for the future. But we are not. We are beating the drum about greedy corporations and billionaires. And that is to fundamentally miss the connective tissue of how we have ended up here. That was what was happening back in Teddy Roosevelt's day. And that's why the things that he enacted actually worked. He broke up the monopolies. He made sure that worker like 40 hour weeks and making sure that they weren't being abused by a system that had virtually no visibility. That's what you had to do back then for sure. But now people are fighting back against billionaires. As if the way that billionaires are getting rich is isn't through inflation. And that's the thing that people do not understand. Owning assets right now is the great protective mechanism because the system is so rigged. And here's the hard thing that people like Mandani are learning right now. The real wealth is in the middle class and the upper middle class. That's where all the money is sort it's not with the billionaires. And so the great irony of watching someone like Hasan Piker talk about taxing people to death or somebody like, oh, the guy from Vermont, Bernie Sanders talking about taxing people to death is you will notice Bernie Sanders used to bang

[Fritz]

on about millionaires and billionaires of the problem millionaires and billionaires.

[Kevin O'Leary]

Ever wonder why now he only says billionaires because he himself is a millionaire. So what ends up happening is people realize that oh wait a second, not only when we try to tax the billionaires does it not work because they will leave, they will stop producing, which is by far the worst. They will hire accountants and professionals to help them avoid the tax. But no matter what you do, short of showing up with weapons to confiscate their wealth, you don't end up getting more money. Look up the Laffer curve. There is just a reality to be faced that there is only so much money that you're going to get through tax. And I just cannot stress this enough. If you have an unbalanced budget, no matter how much you tax people, it isn't going to work. For every dollar that we have taken in in tax revenue since 2019, the government has spent, it's like A$58. It's if that isn't exactly the number, it's right around there. So you will never solve this problem by taxing people more until you balance the budget. And no matter how many times I say that, it just, that's never the argument. What ends up being the argument is that people burn buildings by throwing Molotov cocktails and ultimately they're aiming at the wrong target. And if we could get people to understand that killing an insurance executive or burning a warehous house to the ground, going after AI CEOs, this isn't going to solve the problem. They are operating inside of a machine that they didn't build. The machine was built in 1913. And if you want to know who to be angry at, be angry at central bankers and politicians that keep voting for it to exist. The machine right now is a $2 trillion annual deficit machine that turns the gap between what you earn and what you owe into somebody else's asset appreciation. That deficit is the thing that's driving the K shaped economy. People think that they're stealing money, they're not stealing money. When you're mad at a billionaire whose net worth just keeps going up and up and up because they own assets, you have to ask why are those assets going up and up and up? Because money is being stolen from the middle class. It is being stolen from workers, but it's being stolen through inflation. That's the thing that we have to get everybody to focus on. And yet every major period of extreme inequality in recorded history has ended in one of two ways. Structural reform or mass violence. So the question becomes, what's the structural reform that would work right now? I believe that the things the left wants, the vision that they have for the future is the thing that's going to lead to increased violence is going to be problematic now. The left or the right is up so much right now, honestly, it's a throw them both in the trash and just look for a candidate that will speak to one very simple thing, the understanding of the connection between deficit spending, inflation and the growing K shaped economy. Because anybody that bangs the drum about taxing billionaires more does not understand the actual math. And the violence historically never fixes that math. It just makes things so painful that everyone is finally willing to accept the cause and effect of austerity, balancing the budget, making sure that we're not inflating people into madness. So the anger is right. I understand emotionally why people are so outraged that they would do the things they're doing, but the mechanism that they are calling for will make it worse, not better. And if the people who are mad are never able to map that difference, then the rage is only going to bring more suffering, not less. Teddy Roosevelt understood the mechanism of his day and he addressed it. We have to understand the mechanism of our day, which again is deficit spending and money printing that causes inflation in the K shaped economy. That's the thing. I'm thrilled to vote for a Democrat if they are just gung ho about we've got to balance the budget, we've got to stop any policy that isn't economically viable. And so yes, I'm going to continue to call out people that do things that don't make sense, like what Trump is doing now and that say things that show that they don't understand the economy. Like Kamala Harris's bumbling thing on the economy, or like one of Biden's senior economic advisors who could not explain modern monetary theory. Because we all have to call out the things that don't make sense. Because whether it's fun to talk about the physics of the economy or not, we're all beholden to them. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.

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[Kevin O'Leary]

Thanks for sticking around.

[Fritz]

Let's get right back into the action.

[Peter Zeihan]

Trump went against everybody calling out Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, Candace Owens, Alex Jones. Each of them came and had their own tweet responses. He called them a bunch of nut job troublemakers. Is this actually a problem or on true social people are definitely pushing back against it. So I'm not going to read the half a page. Yes, this is one of those.

[Eamon]

This is how boomers Tweet.

[Fritz]

It's like 500 words. This is literally like a deep dive script.

[Peter Zeihan]

I'm sorry to hear that. Or you know, whatever. I'm not reading on. Yeah, it's one of those situations.

[Fritz]

I'm sorry. Or congratulations.

[Eamon]

Yeah, yeah, I'm happy for you. I'm sorry that happened.

[Fritz]

He's saying that Candace Owens, maiden Kelly, Tucker Carlson all have one thing in common, low IQs. They're stupid people. They know it, their families know it and everyone else knows it. And it just literally goes on and on like that. They lost their jobs on tv. Nobody wants to hear from them. They're just dumb and they have no good ideas. Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy.

[Peter Zeihan]

These so called pundits are losers and they always will be. Yeah, or bankrupt. Alex Jones, who just was one of the dumbest things and lost his entire fortune, as he should for his horrendous attack on the families of savage Sandy Hook shooting victims, ridiculously came and it was a hook and Alex Jones was Team Trump.

[Fritz]

So what's interesting about this is there's such a civil war going on right now within the right. And so you keep hearing polls even from CNN that like Republicans are united in the mega wing. And then there's just these fringe characters that are outside of that. I don't pay enough attention to the actual different personalities within that. Do you have a read on whether this is fringe or whether the Republican Party is really starting to break apart?

[Eamon]

So I have Alex Jones tinfoil hat hanging my wall in my house. As you've seen, I don't like them

[Fritz]

putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin frogs gay.

[Eamon]

I think this isn't crazy because I think this is how Trump speaks to his strong base. So Trump likes to kind of send people to the wilderness and basically say this person's out group. Now I remember in his first term he did with Steve Bannon saying, oh, sloppy Steve was on his knees begging for his job back and blah, blah, blah. So he's very good at telling his loyal, rabid fans who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. I don't think what, what this is fringe in the sense that you don't have to be a Megyn Kelly or Alex Jones fan to be a Republican or right of center, be like, what the heck are we doing with Iran? And I remember I was on Tim cast and we watched Trump give that speech, and he was just like, everything's great, Iran's destroyed. Or if you don't do what we want, we're going to kill you more. It's like, but you just said they were destroyed. And Tim had to play Marco Rubio's clip, which was far more coherent, which is not surprising in retrospect, where he laid out the bullet points of the objectives of the U.S. you know, with this conflict, I mean, I think this is par for the course with Trump. But the premise of my book, which has come to fruition, is these disparate factions which combined to create the Trump coalition in 2016 and even stronger in 2024, the only thing they had in common was a hatred of progressivism. And if you take away progressivism, a cultural force, which it is on the back wagon in terms of dc, not in terms of a culture, all of a sud, these people realize they don't really have that much in common, this being US Interventionism abroad being a prime example. So it's not at all surprising, especially Alex Jones, of all people, how do we 25th amendment is asked, like, this war in Iran is crazy. This is the new world order, you know, coming to fruition. Not one more penny of American tribute should be spent on, you know, war in the Middle East. So, yeah, I'm not surprised that Alex and these others took this position.

[Fritz]

And if you had, like, rough swag, is this like a 50, 50 split in terms of voting base or.

[Eamon]

I get asked this question all the time, and I. This is a question I ask myself all the time. Because if you go on Twitter, you're going to have a certain perspective, and then you go in the supermarket, it's going to be completely different. And the issue, this has been an issue even for Nixon, when Nixon is running, you know, for president. 60 and then 60 and 72 is you have to get through the primary and you're. You're talking to the base. And then after you get through the base, you can Talk to the general, to the center for the general. That's getting harder and harder to do because if I'm a candidate and I'm tweeting something in October, having gotten through the. The primary, my opponent can throw things in my face or my fans, former fans, could be like, you're selling us out. I had this tweet about Lucy and the football with peanuts. JD Vance being an anti war Republicans because I think people are sick and tired of politicians claiming I'm anti war. Woodrow Wilson, 1916, with his campaign slogan was, he has kept us out of war. Months later, we're in World War I. Trump has been denouncing action Iran for a long time. At the same time, he's been denouncing the Iranian regime for decades. You know, in his head, I think to some extent this is finishing what should have been finished a long time ago when they took American hostages. So I think it's getting. I do not envy J.D. vance because he's trying to walk like two tight rows simultaneously, and I don't think he's doing a good job of it. But he's only one person.

[Fritz]

Yeah, it's interesting. I. The same way that I have a hard time getting a read on what percentage of the populace was willing to rise up and get shot in Iran versus who wants the theocratic regime. I have a similar sense of like, I or inability to gain a real sen. Of okay, in real life, what percentage of this base is for and against Trump. But it. The amount of chaos and inability to track what the narrative is, I think is going to make it impossible for Trump to keep the coalition together. There's just so much noise, the volume and velocity of information that social media allows for. When you start fragmenting your amplifiers, like, if you've got, I mean, what's he got, 10 to 20 people that he can reliably count on. They have a big audience and they'll say the thing. And now a substantive portion of them are not saying the thing anymore. Now the narrative begins to fracture and people don't know what words to say.

[Eamon]

Right.

[Fritz]

I've often said that part of what will always limit my growth on social media is that I have no interest in giving people the words to say. So I'm trying to map cause and effect. And so if somebody wants to hear me talk, that's what they're going to hear. I'm trying to figure out a case somewhere in this because I believe, and I think maybe we have a bit of a collision, but I believe that we live In a deterministic universe, we're automata. We respond in like these knowable ways that it's like, oh, you can map this stuff out. They're very complex systems to be sure. So nobody sees the future clearly. But you can really get a lot of useful information if you go, there's cause and effect here. The people that have been talking up to this point were giving everybody the bumper stickers. So when their left leaning friend was talking, then they could come in with their right leaning talking points and they felt like, ah, cool. It's like two supervillain or two superheroes shooting, you know, their red flame and the blue flame and they just sort

[Kevin O'Leary]

of stop in the middle.

[Fritz]

But now that's all going away. And so I don't know if Trump, given the state of the economy, given like how unpredictable the war is and now you're losing the people that were saying the thing for you, it's going to be pretty tough to come back.

[Eamon]

I just remember very vividly in 2020 when they ran the table on him all year on everything, right? The COVID times, like he just kept folding, folding, folding, folding. At the same time, I think there is a huge crack in the system in the Republican Party because I don't think the donors like JD Vance as much as the base likes JD Vance. They clearly like Rubio much more. He's much more of a reliable republic. I think the other thing people need to appreciate when people who are Trump haters from the Republican Party think he hasn't done more. I'm like, guys, you don't have the House, right? You're not in a position, there's like a one seat majority that doesn't function as a majority. You're not going to get the magenda through the House. And you have to appreciate that of those Republican senators, there are plenty who would be more than happy if it sued their interests to remove him from office. If there was an impeachment bill that crossed their desk. Collins in two seconds, Murkowski in two seconds. And that's just. Rand Paul would not be reliable. That's three already. So you're already at 53. You need what, 67. They were. They're worried about their reelection, they're worried about their bottom line. This guy has what, a little over like two, two years left in office. You know, at a certain point you're going to cut, you're going to fish or cut bait.

[Peter Zeihan]

Do you think that J.D. vance is the future of the Republican Party? Like I'm thinking 20, 28, is it him? Is it Rubio? Is it some, you know, Massey or Rand Paul or somebody like that? Who do you think has that cultural energy now that all these podcasters are kind of abandoning Trump?

[Eamon]

I think JD Vance is. Thinks he's smarter than Trump in all the ways that don't matter. I think he and Elon did the same bet with Trump. They thought, I'm going to use this dolt from their perspective and I'm going to use him to further my agenda. But Trump is really smart in ways that JD Isn't, which is he understands politics until five minutes ago, and he understands how to work a crowd. And he's got that kind of once in a generation political talent. I think JD the swing voter in America is Karen, and I think Karen hates JD Vance. Everyone likes the winner. When you're a loser, all of a sudden everyone's more than happy to throw you overboard. And how is J.D. going to run? Because this Trump is hypersensitive to people who are he perceives as disloyal. So the second JD Starts backpedaling on some things that Trump's done, it's going to be really ugly for him.

[Fritz]

So far, JD has shown that if the leaks can be believed, that behind the scenes he'll tell Trump, I think this is a bad idea, sure, but that he'll signal, I'm going to back you on this. And then he does a pretty loyal job.

[Eamon]

Right.

[Fritz]

In terms of directly answering who's the future future of the party. Right now, Rubio is the only other real contender. Now, we're a long way away, so you never know what's actually going to happen. But Rubio is the only other real contender. For someone with my personality anyway, I'm far more interested in Rubio. I haven't seen anybody on the Democrat side that I would even consider. The problem is that Rubio himself clearly sees some path where if I back J.D. vance, that I'm going to get my shot. And so he keeps saying that JD Is the next one that's going to be running. I'm going to support him with everything I have. Those two talk about being best friends in the administration. And so listen, this is me with a writer's hat on, but me click clacking on a keyboard. I would say it looks something like this. You've got Peter Thiel as a stand in for whatever cabal of people who've realized it's time to go behind the scenes. That includes Elon Musk. And it's like, okay, who are we going to get into The White House. J.D. is going to be our guy. We love us some Rubio, but Rubio, you need to wait, turn. We've got a plan. JD's way more in their pocket than I would expect Rubio to be. Rubio's a little more true blue politician, knows how to play the game, but really has like an agenda. And so he's going to be a bit more wild cardi. If Rubio has bought into that and it seems like he has, like, I'm not going to try to beat these guys. He's too shrewd for that. But he gets like, okay, we could have a real legendary run if Trump doesn't all this up. So that's a big right now it seems impossible, but that's the bet that they made.

[Eamon]

Here's the other thing. If it's April 2014, right. And I sat down here and I said, tumble you the future of the Republican Party is Donald Trump, you would try not to laugh in my face. And I say, will you bet me half a million dollars? And you'd be like, easy money. And that's what ended up happening. So we don't even know if JD's going to run. Yeah, I think this stuff with, with his wife is Usha is not things that she's particularly a fan of. We don't even know if Newsom is going to run. My theory, and I talked to Mark Halpern about this and he said it's his theory as well, is if JD starts to falter, some other Republican comes in the race not even intending to win. But it's a great way to build your brand identity, book deals, speaking gigs, donors are funding your run. You don't have to do anything. And if there's a crack in the fissure, then a Rubio or somebody else can step in and be like, all right, I'm trying to save the party. So I think the Rubio is trying to do Rubio, sorry, vance. Is giving Hillary 2008 energy where it's like, look, I'm the guy. It's already, let's work where the general, like, it's resolved. And at certain point someone's gonna say like, you know what? Maybe you're not the guy. So he's not been nationally tested. I think there's a lot of donors who'd be more than happy to open their wallets and fund somebody who they don't like military people. If I'm someone part of the war machine, and I'm not confident in JD Vance Being a war president, I'm gonna pour that money to Rubio or Rubio of surrogate. Why wouldn't I? Because I'm gonna lose billions if we have a peace president.

[Fritz]

That's interesting. That's dark, but.

[Eamon]

Yeah, but that's how it works.

[Fritz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kevin O'Leary]

Taking a short break, but there's more impact theory after.

[Fritz]

Stay tuned.

[Kevin O'Leary]

Thanks for staying tuned.

[Peter Zeihan]

Now let's get back to it from our allies perspective. There's kind of been this wave of things that's happening starting at the timeline, starting from the beginning and kind backwards. We have Trump announcing I will cut off all trade and cooperation with Spain because their refusal to support us in Israel. Two hours later, the Spanish PM arrives in China. This is his fourth, his fourth trip to China in like two years or something.

[Fritz]

Say, keep in mind this isn't a response to what's happening, but it's certainly going to influence what happens now. I for one am surprised by how quickly our allies are going like, yeah, China were good. That really surprised me. I mean this, this is a country that has a very different way of running the world, their part of the world, than the US does. And so seeing people as a child of the 80s where it was just like everybody in the west was breaking towards capitalism and really pushing hard back against communism and now all of a sudden though China I don't think really can claim the communist title, they can certainly claim the dictator title. Dictatorships work until they don't. And that's the thing where I'm surprised that people are moving as quickly as they are to embrace China. Maybe nobody more so than Canada. I don't know how deep Spain's ties are. This is more optics than reality for me just because I don't know the specifics. But that is fascinating and that is something that the US is going to

[Kevin O'Leary]

have to contend with.

[Fritz]

That you have a regional power that internally does things that are extremely questionable but, but externally are really trying to paint themselves as Steady Eddie and so being like, hey, the US is doing all this crazy, unhinged, we are the completely stable, rational, long term vision people.

[Kevin O'Leary]

And that's a message that the world

[Fritz]

is like, yeah, cool, like let's go

[Kevin O'Leary]

see what China has to offer and

[Fritz]

let's start making deals there. And that would be very problematic for the US and if the world sense of what the US is and what China is just basically completely inverts and the US is like this radical, unhinged country that you can't trust and China is a stable country, that's moral and doing things the right way. That would also be problematic for the US Problematic in no small part based

[Kevin O'Leary]

on what that will cause the US to vote for.

[Fritz]

And so we'll become reactionary in our own voting. I refuse to succumb to nihilism. I refuse to feel like there's nothing that we can do. But the punchline is just never going to change.

[Kevin O'Leary]

Money has physics.

[Fritz]

And so everything that we're seeing right now is because people are violating the physics of money.

[Peter Zeihan]

Money.

[Fritz]

And it doesn't matter in the US for sure. It doesn't matter left or right. They're violating the physics of money. And so they each have a different way of trying to right the ship. And the reason that I'm still more afraid of the left is their way of writing the ship is 100% guaranteed to make it worse. And the right, the way they plan to write the ship is to get unprecedented growth.

[Kevin O'Leary]

That would work.

[Fritz]

It's just that they're not on track to do it. And so right now they would need like north of 4% growth were 0.5.

[Kevin O'Leary]

So it's like we're way off. And that, that one's toug.

[Fritz]

So you've got Trump acting like a lunatic. Now you've got the left where it's

[Kevin O'Leary]

like, I know their policies won't work, but they might fail more slowly than

[Fritz]

the suicide, all or nothing gamble that Trump is doing. So it's like, ah, like this, this one is distressing. If you don't balance the budget, it is game over. And I it's like there, that's simple. So it's easy but yet people will not embrace it.

[Peter Zeihan]

There's a difference between simple and easy, man. Things can be simple, but that doesn't mean they're easy.

[Fritz]

Yeah, it's wild.

[Peter Zeihan]

But going to your point now of Trump, this unstable nut on an international level he has caused some people racist. So we're talking about the Hungarian elections that just got finalized. Trump personally endorsed Orban twice this year. Sent Vance to Budapest days before the vote. He got crushed in Canada Crush.

[Fritz]

It's either 75% or just below. So they're within shooting distance of being able to change their constitution. Yeah, same thing happened in Japan in mean they went to the right, but nonetheless you get in countries like swinging all the way in one direction or another. Now I sorry, I know you want to go through the whole list, but I haven't gone deep on Hungary and Orban yet. But some people are claiming that the guy that beat Orban is actually More to the right of Orban. So that's where I'm like, okay, wait, I'm gonna need to look at what's actually going on there. I. I don't know. I don't know enough. That seems surprising.

[Peter Zeihan]

Yeah.

[Fritz]

Because the European leaders are certainly claiming victory with whoever got elected, and I doubt they would do that if that person, person was actually to the right of Orban.

[Peter Zeihan]

But same thing happened in Canada. The Liberals were headed for a landslide loss. And then Trump went on his terror, his terrorist and 51st state rhetoric and flipped the entire race in Romania. That's Trump. Pro Trump candidate went into election day as a strong favorite, lost by landslide. Australia. You guys are kind of getting the thesis of this story. 64% of Europeans view Trump negatively. Only 25% of Europeans will consider us a friendly country.

[Fritz]

Isn't that wild, bro? Oh, 25% of Europeans consider the US a friendly country. That is wild.

[Peter Zeihan]

That's crazy.

[Fritz]

That is crazy.

[Kevin O'Leary]

So that, that is.

[Peter Zeihan]

That is nuts to your point. And I even got to give it to Peter Zehan because it's the first time he was the one that I heard champion this, that whoever was going to be the president was going to have to deal with some very, very tough decisions.

[Fritz]

Yes.

[Peter Zeihan]

So by no means was this 100% Trump's quote, unquote, fault. However, his reaction to this situation, I think is his fault. And I think that a lot of these statistics, they do lay at the feet of him. He thought he can art of his deal, the weight of it. He thought he can bombastically engage people. And just because I have leverage, you're going to fall to me and things like that. That works really well for New York's New York State real estate negotiating. It's a bit different when you're on an international level and there's alternatives and other countries and factions and things like that playing against you.

[Fritz]

You are watching China walk softly and carry a big stick, and you're watching the US Walk loudly and carry a big stick. I don't know what has happened in Trump's life that made him think that you can just smash people, belittle them, make fun of them, bully them, and that there won't be and third order consequences. That's the part that I just cannot figure out, like, what he's thinking there. I think that the US Absolutely had to use its leverage to position itself well for the changing world order. There's no doubt. I am not in the acquiesce to China camp. I want to see US Outmaneuver China. I want to see us be strong on the world stage and make sure that we are in a dominant position globally for sure. However, you cannot do that by alienating everybody, making fun of them, belittling them, all of that. If you want to behind the scenes, be ultra aggressive, but then publicly let all of them save face and make sure that they look good to their people, great. Then you've got a path to them getting on your team. But when you belittle them, dude, you're gonna, they will do things that are not in their best interests just to look strong. And so I'm like, yeah, I don't, I don't. That is so self evident to me that that's how humans behave, that I'm just, yeah, I don't know what he's saying.

[Peter Zeihan]

But in the American political system, he doesn't have that level of accountability. So this is the same guy that was calling Marco Rubio, little Marco, and Marco Rubio called him a threat to democracy. But then now it's like, I'm the president now, you do what I say. And Marco's falling right in line with that. So the same type of leverage that he's used previously in his work life, in his work life for his entire life, it worked in the, those aspects. So we thought, oh, okay, if I could do it in New York state circles, if I could do it in the city, if I could do this and win a presidential election twice, and everybody that was talking about me now wants to work for me, it could work with Europe too. It could work with like the Arabs too. It could work with all these other countries. And then I guess they're now realizing like, oh, wait, I don't have as much leverage. America isn't looked at as distinct as I thought. They were surprised when Iranians, Iran started attacking other countries. They're like, oh, snap. They didn't just obey us. Wait, wait. So I think now we're starting to see the break of like, you know what? We're not going to do it just because we're used to doing that. We're going to break up the way of things. And that spontaneity, I don't think he countered into his decision making. He thought, just like everything else that I tried, it fell to my, like that fell to my knees, it fell to my whim. And whatever I wanted to do, I was able to will it into existence. Now these other countries with other individual sovereignty, they're like, no, we'll, we'll suicide it. We'll rather be suicide bombers and bend the knee in other places. And that wasn't a thing, I think. And he's now getting, like, used to that being pushback.

[Fritz]

I'll be interested to see if he's actually getting used to that or if he still has a mental model of the world that you can just keep smashing people harder. So what we're watch Iran is Trump running an escalatory dominance strategy only to find out that it's very hard when you have asymmetric warfare. And then the same thing is happening at the ally level where he's just trying to escalate harder, call them bigger names, be meaner, all of that. And expecting at some point that they're going to cave. And I'm still. I get taken back to Steve Witkoff every time saying, you know, Trump is just surprised that they're not. God, what was the word that he used that they're not acquiescing? He used a stronger word than that, but that, that, you know, we're putting all these troops right off their shore. We're threatening to smash them with this hammer and we expect them to cave and they're not caving and just can't believe it. And that's the part where it's like, okay, like, you get it. Hopefully they've got given you the message. But he's just like, we're just going to keep escalating, escalating, escalating. And it reminds me of the very famous the beatings will continue until morale improves. And it's like, oh, Jesus. Peace through strength when coupled with diplomacy, where you're giving people the ability to join your coalition without looking weak, that I think is a very wise strategy. But setting people up such that they're going to look terrible if they get on board with you, even when it makes sense, is just a bad strategy.

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