The Battle for America's Soul: Rent Control Failures, China’s Takeover & Why Both Parties Are Losing | Tom Bilyeu X Steven 'Destiny' Bonnell

Summary

---

Impact Theory Podcast Summary

Episode: The Battle for America's Soul: Rent Control Failures, China’s Takeover & Why Both Parties Are Losing

Host: Tom Bilyeu
Guest: Steven “Destiny” Bonnell
Date: November 12, 2025

---

Episode Overview

Tom Bilyeu and Destiny reconvene for part two of their far-reaching political and societal debate, with a focus on the deeper philosophical divides shaping America today. The conversation centers on Trump’s impact on U.S. democracy, the underlying dangers of authoritarianism, the economy, immigration, and broader questions about how the left and right shape discourse. Both participants dig into their personal frameworks for interpreting events, exploring where their instincts sharply diverge, and reflecting on how America might escape its current ideological traps.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Nature of Threats to U.S. Democracy

• Destiny’s View: Trump represents an unprecedented authoritarian threat, and recent actions are breaks with U.S. democratic norms. He cites the weaponization of the National Guard, pressure on polling places, and moves against press and opponents.
  • “We've taken several steps down [the authoritarian path] already.” (01:55 – Destiny)
• Tom’s View: While acknowledging some authoritarian tendencies in Trump, Tom doesn’t see the “amplitude” as existentially threatening. Instead, Tom sees analogies to comparisons with dictators like Hitler as overblown.
  • “The amplitude of him does not hit a threshold for me where I feel like this is a virus that's going to escape the lab and this is just going to go awry.” (01:58 – Tom)

2. Comparing Trump and Biden: Leadership & Cognitive Capabilities

• Cognitive Decline: The pair debate which leader is fit for office, with Destiny insisting claims about Biden’s incapacity aren’t borne out by evidence, while Tom is skeptical about Biden’s mental acuity.
  • “I've never seen somebody have to explain an executive order to Biden. Every single one that Trump signs is explained to him…It looks like he doesn't even know what he's…signing.” (19:07 – Destiny)
  • “I have to imagine Biden wouldn't be able to take his own medication without somebody explaining it.” (14:00 – Tom)
• Predictions & Retrospective Judgments: Destiny encourages viewers (and Tom) to write down political predictions and check them for accuracy over time for genuine self-assessment.
  • “We're very good at lying to ourselves. And if you have it written down, then you can start to see, okay, am I actually making good predictions?” (56:29 – Destiny)

3. Authoritarianism and Historical Parallels

• Destiny draws strong lines between Trump’s actions and authoritarian regimes, mentioning abuses of National Guard deployment and the treatment of dissent and media.
  • “Anytime your head executive of your country is saying, we're using the military for law enforcement, that's such an insanely scary idea…That should be a deeply unnerving thing.” (07:11 – Destiny)
• Tom pushes back, noting historical differences and the absence of direct, violent action against dissenters.
  • “You may have a mental map that that's the kind of person that Trump is. I do not share that mental map at all.” (07:54 – Tom)

4. Economic Policy, Entitlements, and the Spending Debate

• Both Parties Criticized: Tom argues both political parties have become fiscally irresponsible, but places greater blame on the left for expanding entitlements. Destiny counters that recent GOP administrations have outspent Democrats, pointing to the Clinton surplus and Republican-driven deficits.
  • “The last 40 years…they have both become completely irresponsible.” (23:55 – Tom)
  • “The last budget surplus we had was under a Democratic president. All the facts just seemed to lay out like very clearly…Republicans have been spending more than Democrats.” (26:17 – Destiny)

5. Crypto Policy: Innovation vs. Regulation

• Tom’s Perspective: Criticizes the government (especially under Biden) for cracking down on crypto innovations, warning this could cost America dominance in technology and financial innovation.
  • “Crypto is a legitimate thing. In fact, it is the only thing that's going to give people a life raft out of the absolute horrific mess that we are in from the dollar.” (28:21 – Tom)
• Destiny’s Counter: Argues Trump's “Wild West” stance invites corruption, but admits at least there is innovation, as opposed to an outright ban.
  • “The President of the United States is running the largest crypto scam in all of human history.” (28:36 – Destiny)

6. Populism, Protectionism, and Globalization

• Destiny sees dangers in the U.S. turning away from globalism, advocating for trade and international engagement as key to economic health.
  • “We should be the heads of all these multilateral trade agreements instead of retreating from trade… There are incredibly powerful incentives to have trade deficits, and we’ve benefited from that for a long time.” (42:07 – Destiny)
• Tom notes historical cycles—populist phases lead to protectionism—and questions if breaking out is even possible in times like these.
  • “Humans move in cycles, and when you're in a populist cycle, you're always going to be protectionist…The two will always go together.” (43:27 – Tom)

7. Media, Discourse, and Political Strategy

• Destiny contends right-wing media dominates the narrative by being “uncivil,” putting the left on constant defense, and evading accountability.
  • “The right is not [concerned with standards and governance]…So if they just lie with absolute impunity, everybody’s stuck trying to talk about it or defend it…you're never gaining ground.” (35:04 – Destiny)
• Tom wonders why “contagion” for challenging content isn’t greater, even as Destiny’s own visibility grows, raising questions about audience psychology and polarization.

8. Immigration, Assimilation, and American Values

• Both agree assimilation is key, but struggle to define exact “American” values. Destiny frames the U.S. as a place where diverse people can become their best selves within a set of core laws and principles.
  • “The US of A allows you to become the best version of yourself more than any other country does.” (49:20 – Destiny)
• Tom outlines his values: liberty, capitalism, growth mindset, individualism, and Christian-adjacent ethics as American cultural anchors.
  • “Freedom…capitalism…growth mindset…a spark of the divine in the individual that creates the right of sovereignty.” (48:43 – Tom)

9. Changing Minds & Audience Influence

• Destiny keeps his focus on shifting broad audience attitudes, recognizing that most adults rarely change, but group shifts can happen.
  • “All adults can change and only 2% will. Every time that I yell into the void, I am trying to find that 2% that will actually change.” (51:19 – Tom)
  • “We're like 99% the same. I think the thing that happens is our intuition gets hijacked…if you can just get people to realize a thing, then they'll be like, oh, okay.” (52:03-52:36 – Destiny)
• Useful strategy: “Write down predictions. Review them. Adjust thinking.” (56:29 – Destiny)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Authoritarianism:
  “Anytime your head executive…is saying, we're using the military for law enforcement, that's such an insanely scary idea.” (07:11 – Destiny)
• On Trump-Hitler Comparisons:
  “No way.” (06:21 – Tom)
  “For sure.” (06:22 – Destiny)
• On the Responsibility of Media:
  “If one side is led to believe there will never be accountability…it’s an evolutionary trap where they can just indefinitely take advantage of you.” (33:13 – Destiny)
• On Changing Audience Opinions:
  “Once the herd moves, then the herd moves. And so it just becomes a question of how do we move the herd?” (52:51 – Tom)
• On Personal Security as a Public Figure:
  “If you ever see a picture of me and I look fat, it’s just because I have my thick four plates of ceramic armor and Kevlar vest.” (55:39 – Destiny)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Opening Framework: Political Divides & Threat Assessment (00:45 – 05:00)
• Debating Authoritarian Rhetoric, National Guard, and January 6 (05:00 – 08:35)
• Comparisons to Dictators and Practical Limits of Power (08:35 – 11:30)
• Biden vs. Trump: Who Is Cognitively Fit? (13:33 – 22:00)
• Big Government, Entitlements, and Fiscal Policy (22:49 – 27:00)
• Crypto, Innovation, and U.S. Financial Future (27:41 – 31:47)
• Populist Cycle & Globalization (43:09 – 45:14)
• Media, Discourse, and the 'Drama Economy' (34:34 – 38:08)
• Assimilation, Immigration, and Core Values (47:55 – 50:38)
• On Changing Minds and Audience Influence (51:19 – 53:02)
• Personal Security After Public Debates (54:04 – 55:49)
• Destiny’s Advice: Write Down Predictions for Self-Insight (56:29 – 57:56)

---

Final Takeaways

• The crisis in American politics isn’t just about left vs. right, but about diverging fundamental assumptions about power, threat, and what constitutes responsible governance.
• Both parties are falling short of practicing the kind of effective, accountable leadership the country needs, in favor of short-term drama and power consolidation.
• Civil discourse, honest self-assessment (writing predictions), and a clear sense of shared values (even if debated) are essential tools for individual and collective progress.
• Change is slow, but possible, especially if the “herd” can be nudged by credible, persistent voices willing to challenge their own sides and encourage introspection.

---

Follow Destiny:

• YouTube: Destiny
• X/Twitter: @OmniLiberal (Warning: “gets pretty crazy over there” per Destiny)

---

This summary captures the key arguments, debates, and memorable moments in a spirited, nuanced episode that explores not just what’s happening, but how we think and argue about it.

Transcript

[Vrbo/Grainger Advertiser]

This summer. Don't squeeze in, spread out. Find homes big enough for your whole guest list on vrbo. That's vacation rentals done right? Book your stay now.

[Grainger Advertiser]

If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H VAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-granger. Visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm Tom Bilyeu and this is Impact Theory. Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Destiny. If you missed part one, I highly encourage you to hit pause and go check it out because today is where things get real and it builds on what we talked about last time. All right, here's where most people get destroyed. They don't know what they stand for, they can't defend their position and they walk walk straight into ideological traps without even realizing it. Let's get into how to avoid it. There are base assumptions that you and I don't share that make us look at the same thing and then walk away with very different conclusions.

[Destiny]

And what is of that? What is the most important base assumption you think we're different on?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Based on what I know about you, I think the most important thing is the threat level you feel from Trump. And your threat level from Trump is. I don't know if I think you would say that in at least in your lifetime, there has never been a politician that was more dangerous than Trump from we actually break the American system and we go down a super dark authoritarian path like in reality, not in haha meme land.

[Destiny]

Yeah, well, I would say we're already down that path. We've taken several steps down it already.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, yeah. So that's where we disagree. I don't share that assessment, even though I'll look at all the same things and I'm going to nod and be like, yeah, that's terrible in all the places you would expect me to. But the amplitude of him does not hit a threshold for me where I feel like this is a virus that's going to escape the lab and this is just going to go awry. Now, trust me, it is entirely possible that life teaches me that I am wildly misreading the situation because I do think that he has authoritarian tendencies. I do think if he saw a way to run for Another term, he would run for another term. We look at these things and can

[Destiny]

I ask us on that as, like, a thing. This is maybe a little unfair because I'm sure you talk to a lot of people. Maybe you don't have all this in your head, but can you think of. If you were to think of our talk, like, a year ago, we both made different predictions about what we thought Trump would look like. Do you think there was anything that I was majorly off on? And then. Do you think there was anything you were majorly off on?

[Tom Bilyeu]

When I hear you describe what's happening, it's not the world I recognize. So it would be. Is he doing authoritarian things? Yes. Did you call that? Yes. Is the stuff that he's doing freaking me out? No. So National Guard sending him into the States, it's weird. He shouldn't do it if they don't want him to. Unless something's really, like, out of pocket. That one, to me, feels like my wife, if she is about to come on her period, she really does parse data differently. Stimulus differently. She responds to stimulus differently. But I know you don't say it the first moment you notice it. You, like, you really gotta push in deep before you're like, okay, hold on a second. I think the stimulus no longer or the response no longer matches the stimulus. So it's like, you really gotta give it some room to breathe. So I personally don't mind what he's doing because I don't like the. Like, take the. The space outside of the ICE facility to me, like, law and order. Like, you gotta buckle down on that. You can't have people throwing shit, breaking shit, throwing roc. That's just a hard pass for me. So for him to go in and say, hey, we're cleaning this up. When I hear the numbers on something real quick.

[Destiny]

So you said, clean this up. So here's something I'd be curious about, because you know a lot of numbers in terms of when 130%, you know, debt to GDP ratio or 18 months is unsustainable, whatever. I'm curious how many countries have survived after the head executive has started to weaponize the military against its own citizenry. Curious what the standard survival rate is on a country past that point. Because what Trump is doing with the National Guard is something that I don't know since the Civil War. I'm never. I am not aware of any president ever abusing the National Guard in that way. They're not supposed to nationally. They're not supposed to deploy to a State without the consent of the governor. And they're generally supposed to do it in, like times of great emergency with the governor requesting.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So it's interesting again, you and I look at the same thing and we see something different. So I don't view what he's doing as weaponizing the military against his own citizenry. That. That is definite. Not what I read.

[Destiny]

Okay, well, but so factually just is for if a military person is turned for law enforcement purposes, that's the military against the citizen.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But if they're upholding the laws, they're

[Destiny]

not supposed to uphold the laws. That's not what the military is for. The military is to fight foreign enemies. Laws are upheld by, you can say federal law enforcement or state law enforcement, local law enforcement, but not the military.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So looking into the specifics of whether this is he's breaching the Constitution or not is a different question. But I will say, just like you feel like, ah, listen, there's checks and balances that are going to keep Momdani. Even though he has the same murderous ideology that has killed and killed and killed, there are things that are going to stop him from being able to kill and kill and kill. I don't think Trump is going to use the military to coup the cities or anything like that. And if he does, that would be a huge alarm bell for me.

[Destiny]

Even though he did try to do a coup before and even though he has said that he intends to deploy the military against the wishes of people, even though he is talking about extra security measures around polling stations, that he's.

[Tom Bilyeu]

The way that I see, and I think you're referencing January 6th, the way that, see January 6th is something along the lines of I'm not going to C the government unless you're going to do it right. One of those where it's like he's not coming out and saying it. I've seen what that really looks like. Like, if you look in history of people who are actually like, I'm here to coup the government, it looks dramatically different.

[Destiny]

It looks about exactly the same. Hitler looked exactly the same.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No way.

[Destiny]

For sure.

[Tom Bilyeu]

100% absolute madness. So this Hitler was amassing, like, private brown shirts, getting them to go and physically beat people up.

[Destiny]

Not like the biggest difference between Hitler and Trump, this is very unfortunate, is that Hitler had to be more intelligent and more subversive because Hitler didn't already have the support of the entire population. So where you reference brown shirts, Donald Trump is just deploying ICE agents and trying to fight with the Supreme Court. That he can racially profile people, or he is deploying the National Guard to places saying that he's solving crime. Like, anytime your head executive of your country is saying, we're using the military for law enforcement, that's such an insanely scary idea. Deploying. When Governor Newsom is speaking at some arena and for no reason, Trump is just deploying federal agents all over this. Like, this is one of the reasons why the Bill of Rights, why the Constitution was created, it's one of the reasons why we had the Articles of Confederation before our Constitutional Convention, is because states said, I'm not going to let a federal government send your shit in here and tell us how to do our stuff. And now conservatives and maybe the country, a lot of people in the country are like, oh, well, you know, if the military wants to do law enforcement, that should be a deeply unnerving thing. I just don't see much of a difference there in terms of Trump sending his people. Like, he's tried to get more people to sign up for ice, he's increased the budget of it, like 10x. He's written executive orders to try to facilitate more law enforcement joining his military. So people like the brown shirts eventually become things like the Gestapo or whatever. Right. Like the ss. Trump just is already in government, is already president, has it. So I just don't see a significant difference there, I guess.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So when I look at that, and with the. So reading Mein Kampf, seeing what his plan was, seeing how he enacted it, seeing how he would walk into a room with his thugs and be like, are you going to get on board? If they say no, he'd walk out and his thugs would just shoot him. So you may have a mental map that that's the kind of person that Trump is. I do not share that mental map at all. And because I don't have that mental map of Trump, I can't make the jump to like, oh, this is the kind of thing. It's just going to keep escalating and escalating and escalating.

[Destiny]

So when Trump says things about like deporting Mamdani.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Destiny]

That doesn't sound like it's approaching that, because that's the neck. That's the one step off of killing somebody is, I'm gonna deport you. I'm exiling you for my country. Because I don't like you politically.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Destiny. I like you a lot. But you will say the most unhinged shit, and I'll just be like, look, it's destiny. You gotta contextualize it. He's got a whole thing about you have to use this kind of bombastic rhetoric to get people's attention. But he's really a sensible guy. And so I am always quick to be like, I think I know who destiny is as a person. I'm gonna be. Give space for that.

[Destiny]

Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I feel the same way about Trump.

[Destiny]

Do you think that I would speak the exact same way if I was a president of the United States? There are ways that you talk to friends that I'm sure you would never talk to an employee. Like, there are ways.

[Tom Bilyeu]

How I've mapped you.

[Destiny]

Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You are extremely intelligent.

[Destiny]

Sure.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You have many gears, and you will use the gear that's effective. If you saw that you needed to do one of your patented. I say unhinged in a fun, playful way. If you had to do one of your patented Destiny. No longer Stephen Bondell, like, destiny unhinged rants because your base needed to know you were there, the thing that made them love you, that that person's still in there, that you've not become some cuck politician. You would do it. And I.

[Destiny]

So I guess I understand you saying that, but, like, there are things that, like, even in Mamdani's acceptance speech saying that, like, he's gonna be mayor for all of New York, and he's gonna try to do whatever he can to do right by all of New Yorkers or whatever, I'll say things like, I think maga's lost their fucking mind. I think half this country is insane. If I was an elected leader of people, especially if half my constituents were maga, I wouldn't say that. Right. I think it's a little bizarre to hold. To look at my speech patterns and then say, well, as long as Trump is better than that. We occupy totally different lanes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Better than that.

[Destiny]

I say a lot of unhinged stuff, but my role is entertainer, activist, pundit at most. Like, that's the lane that I'm in. If I was doing advocacy for a particular cause. If I was an elected politician or leader, like, my tone would change significantly to match the new role.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Sure, I get that. But if Trump doesn't view the world that way and is therefore violating the ethos that you have, this is an idea that's helped me a lot. If you look at the way somebody behaves and go, what would it mean if I did that? And then you're like, holy, that would be so crazy. You have to look at them and go, what does it mean when they do that? So I. And this is where we just read Trump differently. And I know I'm totally. Oh, if he ends up being a maniac, then I was just wrong and I could not read this guy. And I made.

[Destiny]

I understand you say that, but like, my, like, he has done all the things.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think you're misreading it. I think the view of amplitude that you have is way off the mark. So him sending in troops, if he.

[Destiny]

That's not a big deal to me.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Not at all.

[Destiny]

You think him playing games.

[Tom Bilyeu]

He sent him to la. What's different in la?

[Destiny]

Literally nothing and nobody and no other president has found the need to do this, to function this way.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, we're not. This is the first time we've been in a populist moment in modern history.

[Destiny]

And then the second thing is. Or another thing is, what about playing games with FEMA funds, telling some states that if you don't follow me politically, I'm not going to make FEMA funds. He was saying he was going to pull federal funding from Trump.

[Tom Bilyeu]

New York, weaponize anything and everything that he thinks he can get away with.

[Destiny]

Sure, but. So that's the thing he'll do, right? Yeah, but you just said weaponize anything and everything he can get away with. So why not deport Mamdani if he could?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. Would I be surprised if he actually deported Mamdani? Yes, I would be.

[Destiny]

Why?

[Tom Bilyeu]

But I think if I'm looking for

[Destiny]

leadership on this, I would look at Rubio and the State Department. I would look at the fact that they abolished all of USAID without any input from Congress. And I would look at the fact that they are selectively deporting visa holders based on their position on Israel, Palestine. That seems to be a pretty, that maps on pretty cleanly.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So you look at that and feel like, whoa, we have. We've gone full Gestapo.

[Destiny]

Yeah, he's, he's, he's taking the First Amendment rights away from visa holders for issues that he thinks are politically expedient, and then deporting people as a result of that, that's like, way beyond any American pale. That I would. I think that, like, it's so far gone. That's crazy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That, look, if he's violating due process in a way that I'm unaware of. Yeah. Bad.

[Destiny]

Okay. Suing pollsters because he doesn't like the polls that they do. Are suing the media companies, the fcc, pressure to get.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But so where we get into the dirty tricks? First of all, Jimmy Kimmel went back, so I don't think did come back

[Destiny]

after a huge Public outcry. There was pressure by the FCC to have him fired and then a threat to pull licenses from all the underlying companies if they didn't.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Right, but do you think that that's unique to him? Do you think that. Interesting. That does not match the reality that I live in.

[Destiny]

There's no example you can give on the Democrats side of anything remotely like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So when you look at all of the. The information on the Russia hoax, to you, not a hoax. Russia really was involved. That was all above board.

[Destiny]

One million. Of course.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so then.

[Destiny]

But I've read all the underlying documents. Yeah. I've read the Mull report, I've read the. Like it's all. Not only is it true, it's worse than most people.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Even your is Democrats, honorable Republicans, Trump especially unhinged liars who will do whatever to AMASS More power.

[Destiny]

100%. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Not my read in the slightest.

[Destiny]

Okay, so I'll just say that a year ago I made a bunch of predictions. I feel like, oh yeah, go. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Was Biden cognitively capable of being president?

[Destiny]

I think absolutely. I never saw any evidence that he wasn't.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Then we just, again, we look at the same thing and we see something different.

[Destiny]

If I were to point to an example, if I were to ask you, did Biden need his executive orders explained to him when they were brought, you couldn't find a single thing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I have to imagine Biden wouldn't be able to take his own medication without somebody explaining it.

[Destiny]

Sure, you can say that. But the difference is, is that Trump has already lied about his medical history. Do you acknowledge that. That his doctor has lied as.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't know, but would not be.

[Destiny]

He has the chronic venous issue that. Okay, so he did. He lied about his medical history. Biden never lied about his medical history. That we can see.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Then he doesn't know it or something. The. The man had dementia. Whether it was Alzheimer's or not, I don't know.

[Destiny]

But like, you can say that, but you have no evidence for that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes, I do.

[Destiny]

What?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Because the way he spoke my eyes. Because of the fact that inside of their own government administration they had a group that referred to themselves as the Politburo, which as you well know, is the group in a communist country that runs the country. So to me, like. And again, this is a. What. What are my sensitivities versus what are yours? I am totally freaked out by communism, socialism.

[Destiny]

Okay. So let's get away from the random reports of politics. How did that come out in a policy manner? What Was the. What is our external evidence, like my

[Tom Bilyeu]

map of the situation, that you did not for some number of years or some percentage of the time that Biden was not actively the one running the country.

[Destiny]

Because I don't have any evidence of that. Whereas today I can say so. Like, for instance. So here's the thing. We just saw Trump admit that he had no idea, I guess, that he pardoned the. The Binance guy or whatever.

[Tom Bilyeu]

He didn't say he didn't know that he pardoned him. He said he didn't know who he was.

[Destiny]

So who pardoned him?

[Tom Bilyeu]

This guy's telling me who I trust. You should pardon this guy because this is all bullshit. This is Biden going after these guys. Yeah, Biden going after anybody in crypto.

[Grainger Advertiser]

Cool.

[Destiny]

So what you've just described is a politic. There's somebody else running the government besides Trump.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Look, even as a CEO, it's not that you're not running the company, it's that you trust certain people to have a sense of, like, what's going on. They're going to bring it to you, get you to weigh in. But I'm saying if they're not bringing it to him, if they're him to weigh in, that he's just completely checked out because he can hardly talk and hold a thought in his head, that that's a very different thing than you're running an entire country. You've got all these international.

[Destiny]

So who's telling Trump who to pardon?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't know who. That person.

[Destiny]

That's supposed to be the, the power exclusively granted to the president.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So they bring it to him. They make the argument. He says, I'm here for it. Whoever the person was that came to him.

[Destiny]

Who is that? But if it doesn't bother you, don't even know who that is.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's a knowable name, right?

[Destiny]

No, it's not. We don't know who's giving.

[Tom Bilyeu]

They're going to, like, keep that under.

[Destiny]

I'm saying that the weird stuff that you're worried about under Biden, that we have no evidence of it ever happening. We see it happening. Right. TV with Trump, but for some reason, you're not perceiving that Trump is pardoning people and he doesn't know anything about them and he can't answer questions about them. There are politicians being killed in this country. It happened to the two Minnesota lawmakers. He didn't know anything about it. Sometimes, even though he did six months earlier, he told Walls, I'm not calling that guy. He's a white.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. You give such a pass to Biden in a way that I cannot reconcile

[Destiny]

because I'm trying to tell me what is the evidence of Biden being senile that doesn't involve him being a shitty debater.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Put the clips on there. There are. He literally can't speak at times.

[Destiny]

So besides him being a bad speaker.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, no, no. It's not being a bad speaker. That is cognitive decline.

[Destiny]

So you have no examples besides him being. If we were to compare.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So weird.

[Destiny]

Well, I'm curious. If we were to compare Biden's State of the Union to Trump's State of the Union, which one do you think sounded more coherent?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I mean, with Trump for sure. Far and away.

[Destiny]

Absolutely not. Totally disagree.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.

[Grainger Advertiser]

If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H VAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.

[Destiny]

Trump not only like so for instance, Biden was able to deliver his State of the Union while I think Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene were standing up and screaming at him in Congress, he had a comeback for him and he continued on. When Trump had any people making noise, Mike Johnson started saying he was gonna throw people out of Congress cuz he couldn't deal with it. Trump repeats the same five talking points over and over again. Right? Well the difference is like you can say, well just look and see. And I can give you example after example how many illegal immigrants came into this country. It started at 10 million under Biden, then it was 1520. The last I heard from Trump it was 25 million came in. I don't know what the actual number is. I see that he's lied about his. That seems to be the case. He just got an MRI recently. We don't know what it was for. They're not releasing the evidence one by

[Tom Bilyeu]

one because Wall of Facts is a very impressive technique that you use. But if you take them one by one. Should we have opened the border?

[Destiny]

Should we have opened the border?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, just open borders, let people in.

[Destiny]

No, but we never had open Borders, really? Correct.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So should we have treated the borders the way that we did? Like, you just hung up on the word open.

[Destiny]

Well, yeah, because open implies some, like,

[Tom Bilyeu]

did we do a good thing over Biden's term in terms of it positively impacting America with the border?

[Destiny]

We could have had better border enforcement. I think there were a lot of other issues going on in the country at the time.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Are you worried that I'm, like, gonna got you there? I'm trying to build a mental model of what you believe.

[Destiny]

Well, the conversation is, do we think. How do we think who is senile versus the other person?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, but remember, so you and I are probably involved in a very different conversation right now.

[Destiny]

So I'm just thinking in terms of senility, in terms of mental faculty, if I'm looking at mental faculty. So, like, so one at a time. So very first thing, I've never seen somebody have to explain an executive order to Biden. Every single one that Trump signs is explained to him, and oftentimes it looks like he doesn't even know what he's like, oh, this sounds like a good idea. And then he signs it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so on that, what I see is somebody who we've had all these policy discussions. I know what they're going to end up being when you present them to me. Just remind me which one this is, and then, yep, cool. Got it. This is not somebody who's like, I have no idea what's going on, and I'm befuddled. Okay, like, that is. Now, that may be your read, but that definitely is not my read. Like, that seems so, like, blase. Yeah, got it. Like, there's so many things, so many moving parts.

[Destiny]

So what are the moving. Okay, so then the second thing. Trump said he was going to Russia instead of Alaska to go and talk to Putin. What are the gaffes for Biden here in terms of mixing up even, like, the places he's visiting does that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Like, if he said, I'm going to Azerbaijan to meet with Putin, that might be a little bit weird. But if you say the country name of the person, the number of times I see people point out gaffes that Trump made that, I'm like, God damn, I could see myself doing the same thing. And I'm not in cognitive decline. So that one, like, just doesn't feel like a big gotcha.

[Destiny]

Like, tries to argue with Zelensky. You got invaded in 2015 instead of 2014. I don't know why he tried to argue that point.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, but now you're Doing the thing my wife does where you think you're average and everybody else is dumb. Like, your mind remembers facts in a way that the average person just is never going to be the average person.

[Destiny]

He's the president.

[Tom Bilyeu]

He's going to be good at different things. So he obviously knows how to aggregate people around him to get into power. He was, I mean, should have been an invisible real estate developer in New York that nobody ever knows about, but has been able to make himself absolutely the most famous person on planet Earth. You can hate that all you want, but it is.

[Destiny]

I don't hate it. So I acknowledge you want a popular contest. I got that. Okay, cool.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So, unfortunately, as you said at the beginning of the interview, that's really what today is about. We should live in that age.

[Destiny]

But you could be senile and be popular.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think it is important for each of us to understand that we look at the same thing and we walk away with a different read on it. And then we can explain why we think that. Like, I have tremendous fears of the, the distortions that happen on the pathology that happens on the left. I'm far more afraid of that. And when I look at Trump, even though I am afraid of the pathology on the right, I don't see Trump as having enough of the amplitude of those types of things. Having looked as closely as I've looked at Hitler specifically, I just do not see the amplitude. I get where people see, like, there are similarities here, but the amplitude is just so far off for me. So then I'm like, ah, I don't really have big concerns there now. I totally get it. One, I know I could be wrong. And so I don't over trust myself. And I'm not screaming to the world, hey, hey, hey, this guy's amazing. We got to keep him in power. That is not my take, but that, like, if anybody's just trying to understand me, not necessarily convince me, but understand me, it's like, like over here on the left. I have, because I've spent so much time reading about how we end up over here trying to do these things out of what I will say is resentment. Not a desire to help the poor, but resentment. I understand the mechanisms of how the economy breaks when you do those things. So I'm looking at it going, this is never going to work. And so even if we all say, nah, we can ignore Tom when he says something about Trump, but let's listen over here and maybe we say, oh, we can, Destiny. When he sounds an alarm on the right, you need to listen. He is super attuned. He's got some blind spots to people on the left just because maybe he gets it more. Whatever. Hey, I'm fine with that. I'm not expecting people to just listen.

[Destiny]

And I understand where you're coming from. I guess I'm just. My thing is that I've heard the war, the klaxon sounding about socialism and communism for 30 years for the Democrats, and I have yet to ever see, like, even a step early in that direction.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, let's address.

[Destiny]

Yeah, we've like, so far in. And I'm like, holy shit. Like, there's so much.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Is really enlightening. So let me tell you what that sounds like from my perspective.

[Destiny]

Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm looking at it and I'm like, over the last 40 years, we have gone so far with left policies. Lunatic left policies, unfortunately, both from the right and the left. But they both been running big government, big spending, deficits are fine.

[Destiny]

Why are these left instead of. These are just fiscal things. It depends on where you're spending it, whether it's left or right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm going with traditional definitions, even traditionally.

[Destiny]

So, like, Republicans used to be way more hawkish. Right. So the public spending there is going to be.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I would define small government by Republican. Like, Republicans want small government. Small government, to me means that there are just fewer costs.

[Destiny]

What about Iraq and Afghanistan?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. The last 40 years. Remember, I'm not a Republican.

[Destiny]

Yeah, no, I understand.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I'm just saying when I look at these two, they. They have both become completely irresponsible.

[Destiny]

Sure. I'm saying. When you say. Hold on.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Because you gave me a very specific thing that you're saying, and I'm trying to expl Explain how it sounds to me.

[Destiny]

Okay, sure.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And what I'm saying is you say, we haven't moved any to the left. And I'm like, what the is happening? In the same way that when I go, what do you mean? Trump's not. This is not crazy. Like, taking the National Guard into la. What's the problem, bro? And you're like, are you out of your mind? Like, that seems so obvious to you? You're like, can I even take this person seriously if they don't see this? That's how I feel about people who are not afraid of what's happening on the left.

[Destiny]

Real quick,

[Tom Bilyeu]

go ahead.

[Destiny]

I'm not disagreeing with you that it's bad. I feel like we're having a weird, almost no true Scotsman, ish, fallacy. Where we're saying that like here are bad left wing things and one is big government spending. And I'm saying big government spending isn't always a left wing thing. Pursuing a lot of wars you could argue is a right wing thing, depending on what you're looking at. But the government can spend a lot of money. Doesn't necessarily make it a left wing thing. If we're gonna define it that way, then we've almost like through definitions, just won our arguments. And then both parties are basically left wing party or actually the Republican would be even more left wing than the Democrats because they spent more than the Democrats.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I have a belief, okay, if this ends up being wrong and cool, I have a belief that the modern left, no matter what, they will keep funding entitlements, making them bigger. Because I believe that about the left, then I'm just like, yeah, this is never going to work. At least the right right now pays lip service to trying to grow their way out of this. Now this, the good or bad news is that is the only option we have. We collectively, left, right, everybody, center, everybody has let this get to the point where growth is the only option. Nothing else is going to work.

[Destiny]

Okay?

[Tom Bilyeu]

So now we've got one guy who's at least paying lip service to it, who's at least trying some things. They're probably crazy and they probably won't work, but he's at least trying. And so for me, as one guy, I'm just like, I am far more comfortable with that, that than I am with the way that the left is approaching the situation, which is we've got to take care of everybody. We let the borders be wide open and we want, when a horrific bill is passed, we're going to get our Red Bull no matter what. And I'm just like, yo, like, I can't, I can't do it, okay?

[Destiny]

And the horrific bill was a Republican bill by a Republican Congress and a Republican president. And Republicans have been spending more than Democrats and lead the spending and have worse economies and cause contracting economies more than growing econom. And the last budget surplus we had was under a Democratic president. I just, all the facts just seemed to lay out like very clearly and cleanly that the last time that the

[Tom Bilyeu]

average person's wages grew were under Trump. He's at least trying to do something on the world stage to get us back where we are. Not literally just handing our future to

[Destiny]

China by making enemies of every country on the planet.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, dude, look again, I'm not going to bat for Trump, you said he's

[Destiny]

trying to make everybody like us again, but not they'll hate us. Now, when.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Go ahead. When I run the experiment of what? There's a reason you're making sounds, and the reason you're making sounds is you're trying to convince me of a thing. And so then I go, what thing is he trying to convince me of? And I keep coming back to that. The next time that a Republican and Democrat go head to head, I should be wise enough to vote for the Democrat. And for me, what I'm saying is that will come down entirely to the person. So I have no problem voting for a Democrat. My beef is that if I hear economically just disqualifying words come out of somebody's mouth, it's going to be a hard pass. And so we can all say that's a trigger that he hasn't. I think it's completely justified.

[Destiny]

I actually 100% agree with you. But in that case, Trump has said so many more obviously disqualifying things than the Democrats.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Interesting. I totally disagree.

[Destiny]

Like, for instance, most Republicans right now don't even acknowledge that a tariff is an import tax. Trump still won't acknowledge that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That most. As far as I can tell, the entire left tried to shut down crypto, which is that.

[Destiny]

But that didn't happen.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Suicide. It did.

[Destiny]

It literally did not. We had four years of Biden. It wasn't shut down.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I got sued by the US Government because I was involved in crypto. I'm telling you right now, they were trying to chill that the fuck out. I've heard you make the same pitch about yo. When you've got Elon Musk coming after you. Like, if it were anybody but me, this is the kind of thing that has a chilling effect.

[Destiny]

Effect.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's exactly what it does. It's like, what? Like, crypto is a legitimate thing. In fact, it is the only thing that's going to give people a life raft out of the absolute horrific mess that we are in from the dollar, like you have right now.

[Destiny]

The President of the United States is running the largest crypto scam in all of human history.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Terrific.

[Destiny]

Okay. All right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But if you're talking about where, where do you balance all this out? I've got one person over here that's telling me you just shouldn't even be able to do this. Let's make sure that we're doing CBDCs. And then you got a guy over here that is fucking Wild Westing it, making it, like, just the easiest thing in the world to bribe him, which is God awful. But at least he's trying to make America the innovation home for crypto. Which when you know that growing is the only way to get out of this, he somebody has to lengthen the Runway on U.S. treasuries. And the best idea that I've seen, it may not be the best, but the best idea I've seen is to create a one to one bat stablecoin with Treasuries. And if you do that, you create instantly an international market for US Treasuries. It will not stop the problem but it will buy us more time for people to figure out what they're going to do.

[Destiny]

Is there already an international market for US Treasuries?

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, because people can't get right now if you tried to get into international Treasuries you already have to be in a government where you have access to that. So that already rules out God knows

[Destiny]

how private investors can buy treasury bonds. Yeah, we're not worried about those.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We're talking about the average guy in Kenya that has a cell phone and that's it. He's got a governmental currency that's terrible. And so he can't save money in that. He would be way better off in US dollars. He would be way better off buying US Treasuries. But he has no mechanism with which to do that. He doesn't even have a bank account. So so many people worldwide would suddenly be able to get access. Partly because it will allow people to innovate and create things like stable coins that they make available wherever. And as long as you have something that can be audited and you one backed with the stablecoin you are still going to get inflated. So people need to be aware of that. But the inflating USD is far better than virtually any currency on earth right now. So people all over the world would be like oh my God, there's now all of a sudden there's massive appetite for whatever appetite there is for the digital currency. There will suddenly be an appetite for the Treasury.

[Destiny]

How do you buy when who's, who's doing the currency conversion? If you're buying a stable coin coin. So like let's say somebody in Kenya wants to buy a stable coin in the United States. Is this being held like on a US owned Treasury?

[Tom Bilyeu]

The mechanism by how that would work? It would certainly be. One would assume the initial crop are going to be American companies that are going to, they're domiciled here, they know all the regulations, they build the stablecoin it's all backed one to one with Treasuries. And now they make it available for whatever. They make it available as a phone company, they make it available as a. A farming consortium, whatever. I mean, there will be untold amounts of innovation once there's clear regulation and people know what they can do.

[Destiny]

Okay. I don't know if that would work in practice, but. Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I obviously feel very strongly that that will and that we have to have some ideas around. How do we move forward with elongating the Runway so that people can migrate off of the dollar in an orderly, fast fashion.

[Destiny]

Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Because if that happened fast, that would be. That would make 2008 look like a trip to the bank. Like, it would be catastrophic.

[Destiny]

So with the US Government would just have no more control over the currency then.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Or the US Government, if it defaults on its loans, will not be able to get loans.

[Destiny]

The US Government should never default, technically. Right. Because they can always produce more money.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Just hyper inflate your currency. So at some point you go, either we hyper inflate and nothing matters matters or we recognize we have to default. Both are catastrophic, so pick whichever one you want. Okay, taking a short break, but there's more impact theory after. Stay tuned. Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it. I heard you say in a recent stream that you're putting yourself in this crazy position in terms of you've now really become a target, but you're doing it because you actually want to make things better in America. So what is that vision of America that you have in your head that would be better?

[Destiny]

Civility has to come back on the right and they have no reason to bring it back. And they've benefited too much from being uncivil for so many decades. And there has to be a recognition that you can't be civil with an uncivil side because it's an evolutionary trap where they can just indefinitely take advantage of you. It's like the thing I've leaned in a lot to is like the tit for tat strategies or whatever that, you know, dictate how two sides can treat each other.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so I've heard you talk about that before. The tit for tat strategy, though, they found that there was one strategy that beat tit for tat, which called tit

[Destiny]

for tat with like 10% forgiveness or something. Yeah, we're at like 10,000% forgiveness right now.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So to you, it's just. That's never going to work.

[Destiny]

It definitely doesn't work. And we've seen the Republicans take advantage over and over again of the environments we live in. They're pushing the boundaries on everything so much. I guess we disagree on the magnitude of that. But I mean, I would actually just point to things that the Trump administration is doing that have never been done in all of, or at least in any recent U.S. history. And I would say that the problem is that Republicans feel one, I only have to argue with people on the left or center about this because on the right, the Republicans understand this because they say the exact same things I do when they're talking to the right or independents and they know what I'm saying is true and they give that advice to their side. But then they come and they hand wring on our side and for some reason liberals seem to agree with their hand wringing. But basically if one side is led to believe that there will never be accountability for their actions, then they have no sense incentive not to be acting in the most unaccountable way possible. And I think that that's where the Republican Party's been at for a majority of my lifetime.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And do you think that if you. Well one, how do you plan to make that contribution? So if you are going to attempt to get the right to dial back the rhetoric, what's the strategy?

[Destiny]

Reframing and just making people understand the problem that's happening, I think is the first big thing because I think somehow the conservatives have gotten a hold of hold on every part of the media apparatus. On the right wing channels they can just lie with absolute impunity and with no shame. And then on the left wing channels you're stuck talking about the lies on the right wing. And the analogy I use is when you're on defense, you're never gaining ground. At most you defend your territory and that's it. And I think more people need to be aware that the right has managed to dictate the talking points everywhere and it's an unwinnable fight, basically.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Why are they able to dictate the talking points?

[Destiny]

Because I think the left is concerned with standards and governance and the right is not. So there'll be an impetuous child and they'll scream and they'll kick and cry and they'll beg the Democrats to come and save them like they're doing now, begging them to turn back on the government. Because for some reason we've had two of the longest shutdowns in US History under a Republican president with a Republican Congress or like when they lost their majority speaker seat and they Were begging Pelosi, can you guys, like, vote for. Not McCarthy, but whatever the next guy was, please? Because we lost our majority speaker seat somehow, for the first time in U.S. history, they just don't care about governing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But. Okay, so you're just saying the drama of acting like a petulant child just controls the news cycle?

[Destiny]

Basically, yeah. So they can lie with impunity about things. Everybody's stuck trying to talk about it or defend it then because they don't care about governing. So, for instance, right now, Mike Johnson is just totally happy dismissing Congress, not bringing anybody new in to avoid the Epstein file should avoid governing. They don't care. The government shutdowns, they don't care. Trump's not talking about opening the government again. As long as he feels like he can get away with it politically, he's totally happy to keep it going indefinitely. So if they're not concerned with governance, then they're just going to kick up whatever talking points they can, and then the left, for whatever reason, feels like they have to respond to those talking points, and then they're stuck in this weird trap of saying, like, we don't want to give 1.5 trillion to illegal immigrants for health care. Like, that's not. That's not even a real thing. It's a thing they say, but it's because they're not held accountable on any media platform. They can just lie and then walk away and nobody really says anything about it.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay. That seems to say more about the public than it says about them or it says more about algorithms. So you've obviously become very popular. You don't let people get away with lies. What? So from that perspective, why do you think the contagion of your content isn't larger? I'm not sure the right way to ask that question. But if you're already doing the thing, which is you control the discourse, you talk about what you want to talk about, you're obviously very good at it. You get invited on the biggest shows, you get on big stages. What does it tell you about the broad audience that that doesn't, I guess, catch more fire?

[Destiny]

Well, for the right, it's incredibly unpopular. Once I became more aware of these patterns, I didn't talk to any more large right wing figures because I wasn't willing to play the same game. Because they're not looking for actual critical pushback or challenges. They're looking for more performative stuff. Even Joe Rogan is too scared to invite Gavin Newsom onto his show, despite the fact that he'll Shit talk California and Gavin Newsom constantly, he's too afraid to have the conversation. When the right wing sees legitimate criticism or challenge, they avoid it like the plague. And then their own fan bases, I think, are deluded into thinking they are accepting challengers.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I think I have to ask a follow up question. So, sorry. So you're saying that we, the right controls the talking points and that's what makes the left sort of always just playing defense. Yeah, but why, if the right is able to control the narrative by being a petulant child and we're just saying basically drama gets clicks? Are you saying that the left is up against a fundamental part of just the human experience, that the left and the right both crave drama, and so the left and the right both watch right figures throw tampons?

[Destiny]

Well, the left is still trying to keep the country working is the issue.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And if the left, not the political chattering class, they should still be able to get cycles. Or are you saying the only cycles that matter are the government officials themselves?

[Destiny]

Well, there's two separate things. So, like when Biden came in, Biden tried to govern the country. He said he was going to be a president for both people. He wasn't on Twitter all the time firing off crazy things. He passed a historic amount of joint legislation, some of which Trump tried and failed to pass. Like Biden came in to govern the country and Trump came back to tell lies and to make a mockery of everything. And after we get through whatever we get through here, whatever this disaster is, we're gonna have to bring in Democrats again to govern the country. If Democrats want to play the same game Republicans are, they basically would have to give up in governing and say, okay, fine, I guess we're just gonna sink the ship with both of us now and we're not gonna keep us afloat anymore. So because Democrats are trying to actually govern, they're playing like a game where they're trying to practice, like, policy and play politics at the same time. And MAGA has abandoned policy and they're just playing politics, and it's kind of impossible to win that game.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So when you say policy, because I look at what's going on with Trump and I see the most active president in terms of trying to shape America that I've ever seen in my life. But because he's doing it by fiat, by illegally.

[Destiny]

Yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's where you're like, this isn't governance. This is some bullshit.

[Destiny]

No, it's a authoritarianism dictatorship.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But you're saying, like, so policy is Specifically, you want to see them engage

[Destiny]

with Congress like a real lasting policy, like Trump's tariffs. The next president could just get rid of them like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Right.

[Destiny]

And I think the Supreme Court, I think is hearing arguments on it now. I think the Republicans Senate just voted to rescind them finally, like, okay, maybe the President shouldn't be able to unilaterally dictate economic policy.

[Tom Bilyeu]

He can veto it.

[Destiny]

Yeah. I think that both sides have to come back to wanting to govern the country. It can't constantly be, I would argue, Democrats picking up the pieces from horrible Republican governance over and over again. The population needs to be better convinced that Republicans can't govern and they refuse to govern. And we're in the middle of another record breaking shutdown right now because of their refusal or inability to govern. And like, once the Republican Party has come back to being willing to govern, then we can have better conversations on policy and we can go back to that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you think in policy or do you think in like the cultural battle of it all? Like when you think about your contribution, is your contribution almost aimed at the audience and you're like, listen, this is how we should be thinking through this.

[Destiny]

My contribution is aimed at the audience. I'm not like a, I'm not part of a think tank. I can't like suggest policy to congressmen.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, very interesting. Understood. Okay, so do you think, like, would you, would you most like to reach the right or do you think that they piss me off so much I'm never gonna be able to speak to them? I think that's sort of a lost cause. So it's like, I've gotta speak to the left, tell them how to metabolize behavior.

[Destiny]

I think I have a gift for being able to speak to both sides if I'm trying to do this very effectively. And I did that for a while, but about a year ago, I guess I identified or I felt like I identified that the left trust doesn't have very many strong voices that are advocating for itself. And that especially now, as I've seen the second no Kings protest come up, I think there is a huge group of center left people in the United States to just feel unrepresented and unheard of. And then especially when I look at the success of Gavin Newsom just got Prop 50 passed, I'm like, okay, well these are like, we need more strong. Hey, this is a center left person that's not just trying endlessly to understand and be compassionate to an unhinged right that's taking us further and further off the cliff, like, there are things that we should stand for on the left. There are policies that we should fight for, and we can be proud and fight for those things without having to constantly capitulate or be, you know, understanding of people that are, in our mind trying to destroy the country.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Now, those you're not, you don't have a specific thing in your mind. It's just, I want to make sure that I.

[Destiny]

What do you mean by specific in mind?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, so I said, what policies do you want to see go forward? You're like, look, I'm not a think tank. I'm speaking more to the audience. But if there are policies that you feel like you're fighting for, for policies,

[Destiny]

I mean, in general, I mean, like I said, I don't even have policy debate anymore. But for policies like, basically a realistic assessment of the world world that leads to greater levels of financial and economic integration with the world. So we should be the heads of all these multilateral trade agreements instead of retreating from trade with other countries. We need to understand that there are incredibly powerful incentives to have trade deficits, and we benefited from that for a long time for reasons that people don't seem to understand.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Because you want to essentially create a market for US Dollars, kind of.

[Destiny]

It keeps our interest low basically on our debt, and it allows us to fund our debt without having exorbitantly high interest rates because a lot of people are holding USD and that USD makes its way back to the States in the form of buying treasury bonds. That's why, despite everything Trump tried to do with the tariffs and everything else, when the inversion happened on the treasury yield curve and the yield started to go up, it was because people were losing faith in the US Economy. It's good sometimes to have a lot of USD out there in the world because investing in US treasury is a very good investment and it helps keep our interest down.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you think globalism was a mistake, or is that something you want to see us get back to a sensible version of.

[Destiny]

No, I think it's crazy. I think it's very hard to say globalism was a mistake. I mean, there are always ways that you can. Can augment your policy to make it better. Right? Like if I had a, like a family member that died from a car accident, I don't think I would say, well, cars were a mistake. I'm going to say, well, there's things we can do better with cars. There's things we can do better with an integrated world.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you think that the world moves through phases where there's a time where globalism is going to work well, and then there's populist moments, like I would put forth. We're in a populist moment right now. And in a populist moment, you're always going to be protectionist. That the. There's. My read is that humans move in cycles, and when you're in a populous cycle, you're always going to be protectionist. The two will always go together. Or do you see a way, even in a moment like this, there's a way to break out of that. And it looks like, yeah.

[Destiny]

And that you have to take on leadership roles there to break out of those moments. To become scared and locked down and protectionist in times of uncertainty, I think just furthers the. The cycle, and it further entrenches you into the cycle. And I don't think it's usually producing the best outcome. I think America being a leader in the world in leading the way and trying to accomplish certain things, whether post 91 or whatever, it's like leading with NATO but not taking over all of Eastern Europe and everything because Russia's gone or the Soviet Union is gone. Whether that means making foreign direct investment in China or other countries that we might have traditionally seen as not being in our interest and then expanding our own markets as a result of that. There are ways to be leaders in these things. I don't know historically, unless I'm missing something, where the populist movement was healthy for the state of the country. I feel like generally these lead to bad outcomes. That populism always seems like a thing that has a phase. And then once people realize, oh, wait, I remember why this doesn't work, then you go back to the other thing actually working. I feel like that plays out over and over again. We're seeing it happen in Argentina now. For some reason, we're doing massive currency swaps with them because. Well, I know why. It's because Milei or whatever said nice things about Trump. Yeah. I would like to see that like a bold. A big, bold America that's like taking aggressive steps in the world to cement its place in the world, instead of being like a very scared child, I guess.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so as somebody who speaks to the audience, what is it that they're getting wrong that's led us into a populist moment? How do you talk somebody out of a populist moment?

[Destiny]

The most important thing that I think a lot of people misunderstand about the world, it's especially true of economics, is People seem to think that they're, that everything is a zero sum game game. So if I go to, if I work at Walmart and I earn 50 bucks and then I go to Walmart and I buy something for $50, people think that like, oh, nothing happened. Like there's always the joke of like, oh, an economist might say there was $100 of GDP, but in reality nothing has really happened. But that's not actually true. Like trade is generally speaking, as long as it's voluntary, trade is always mutually beneficial. If I'm giving you $20 for something and you're giving me something else, what I'm telling you is, is that your thing that you're giving me is worth more than my $20. And what you're telling me is the $20 I'm gonna give from you is worth more to me than the thing. Right? This is like time investment for money and everything else, right? Capital investment. This all works this way, you know, you know, you know, personally. So like getting people to understand that, that right now the biggest issue with the right in MAGA is that like, like if we have a trade deficit, that means they're winning, we're losing. Or if immigrants are coming to the country means they're coming here to win and we're losing. Or if we have H1B workers because they're winning and we're losing, or if universities are doing well, then the middle class, upper class is winning, the working class is losing. That idea that you have to fuck over everybody like the, the crab, you know, keeping people from climbing out I just think is incredibly corrosive to a positive environment where we can all grow.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So on immigration, which may be one of the most, when people get into a populist moment, they become very protectionist around that. What do you think about that? What's the right way to handle it for specifically American America?

[Destiny]

I think that you should look one is we need to come together and have an honest conversation about what our goals are. With immigration, which again I'm saying because parts of the country have ejected themselves from real talk, we can't even have that conversation. Like do we want immigrants from everywhere? Some people think we only want high skill immigrants. All immigrants are good. Low skill wages or low skill labor is also like incredibly important to keep the economy running in different areas. So do we want immigrant really fast?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Let me ask the obvious question. Is an immigrant good if they don't contribute positively to the economy, but they do take public funds?

[Destiny]

No, but that's almost impossible. Almost every Almost every person will have a. Will be a gdp, a GDP benefit. They might be a fiscal drain depending on. So like they might take more spend that money. Yeah. Because it's always spent in circulating through the economy. Right. But so it's up to us to big figure out like, well, what is the balance? How much can we take on, how much can we afford? And then what are our goals? Right. And our goal should be to grow the economy, to grow the country for everybody.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Right? Yeah.

[Destiny]

And to adhere to some like, core principle set of American values, whatever we define those as.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, that was going to be my next question. So does assimilation matter? Do you think that's a part of what's playing out right now?

[Destiny]

Yeah, I think assimilation is really important. But it's weird because people talk about assimilation, but they haven't identified what those core American values are.

[Tom Bilyeu]

If somebody could give you a list, would the list be enough? Or it's like, no, no, listen, it's got to be something like. Because like, I have a list. So freedom, I'll say liberty as a principle, capitalism and the rounded to a growth mindset that work hard, work your way up, get better at something, contribute individualistic in nature, vaguely Christian ethics in the background.

[Destiny]

Sure.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And by that I mean very specifically a spark of the divine in the. In the individual that creates the right of sovereignty.

[Destiny]

Okay, sure.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Now, does that feel roughly American to you, broadly speaking?

[Destiny]

Yeah, I would say so, yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay.

[Destiny]

I think my. The way I would conceptualize it, I'm gonna use different words, it's probably the same thing, but like, in a very, very basic sense, the. The liberal paradise is the idea that all of us can come from different ideologies and different moral codes and different ways of life, but we can come together and in some ways agree on some shared. For some things we'll say laws. Right. Like, even if I think that adultery is wrong and you might think adultery is okay, we both agree that murder should be illegal. Right. So there's room for people to have different beliefs and ideas. They might go to their own churches. But there's also room where we come together and we say, but for all of us to function together, we have to agree on some things. And protecting people's ability to basically pursue the best. One of the things I. Fuck. I wish I could remember who this quote was from. There's a guy who said something along the lines of like, my favorite thing about the United States of America is the US of A. Allows you to become the best version of yourself more than any other country does. And the idea of being able to go to the United States and to pursue that as well as you can while sustaining the overall general health of the country. These are very broad words. And you can get into the debate on what that looks like. Exactly. Which is part of the country is being able to debate what exactly that looks like. I would say, broadly speaking, that's what the country should be about. Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay. How do you get people onto that? Like, when you're talking to the audience, is it going to be stat based? Look at how immigrants have worked or this is how we should assimilate? Or how do you. Like, when I look out at the world and I see the people that are having the biggest impact on galvanizing people around values, I unfortunately see things like Nick Fuentes, who's very, he speaks very clearly, but. But I as a single person am mortified.

[Destiny]

I mean, it depends on who you're speaking to and it depends on where you're speaking. Like, if I was invited to like an economic forum to debate an economist on the fiscal pros and cons of immigration, then we're going to be having a numbers conversation about what types of immigrants contribute more to our budget, I guess. Right. If I'm talking to like a Nick Fuentes type person, then it's going to be a broader concept on like, what is the character of our nation? How have we gotten to where we are today? Today? Has immigration benefited us or hurt us? In what ways has it benefited and hurt us? And then going forward, how can we continue to capitalize on? Assuming we agree that America is a great nation, how do we continue to benefit from the ways that we viewed immigrants in the past and protect from maybe some of the negatives that we've suffered as other people have come here too?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Can I give you my darkest fear? And then I'll be very interested to see if your natural response is to be like, yeah, or if you will be able to talk me off a ledge. Okay. It is my experience that all adults can change and only 2% will. So every time that I yell into the void, I am trying to find that 2% that will actually change. But for the most part, all humans are automata. But some get a high role on changeability, others get a very low role on changeability. I think all kids are very changeable, but adults, not so so much. And so it does get a little disheartening sometimes to think, wow, like I'm really only speaking to 2% of people.

[Destiny]

I think that my personal belief is Your major personality traits are pretty locked in by the time you're like 15. I think it's very hard to, almost impossible to like fundamentally change people. But I think that fundamentally, like we're like 99% the same. I think the thing that happens is our intuition get hijacked and moved in different directions because of politics or groupthink or whatever else. And I think those things can change.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Meaning if you can get some sort of tipping point to happen in that group, then most people will just follow the group.

[Destiny]

Yeah. Or if you can just get people to realize a thing, then they'll be like, oh, okay. They don't really have to fundamentally change it, just an outer perimeter thing changes. And then they're like, okay, well this still comports with the thing that I feel is important.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's a very interesting insight and I think that you're absolutely right that once the herd moves, then the herd moves. And so it just becomes a question of how do we move the herd?

[Destiny]

Unfortunately, a lot of things, and I hate this. You said I'm very smart. I consider myself to be quite smart. And even I would say for myself, I've just had to learn a lot through experience. And I don't think there's a shortcut for that ever. I think a really. You can go on almost anything, racism or whatever. Guns. Right. For a lot of very far left leaning people, guns are scary. And they might think that they would even take the principal position of like, guns are bad. I don't want anything to do with them. Right. But it's probably not their position. It's more the concept of what they think guns are is bad. And even though that seems similar, there's a world where you take a leftist friend like, okay, well, let's go shoot him. I go to the range, have someone fun. You can see the people there are chill, we're chill, we have some fun shooting. When you come away from that experience, it feels like I fundamentally changed from thinking guns are bad to thinking that guns are good. That's not really what's happened. What's happened is your thought was never guns are bad. It's guns are bad because they're murder. Scary weapons that are uncontrollable to guns are actually okay because they're not murder scary weapons that are uncontrollable, then you can make the same experiential argument, I think, for a lot of different things.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Speaking of guns, you've become arguably the most prominent voice on the left, certainly the most bombastic. That's Going to get the biggest response when you go now into public, given what's going on, do you worry that you've become a legitimate target?

[Destiny]

I mean, a little bit. I think I still have the young man's energy of thinking he's invincible, I guess. So maybe if I get shot at him, maybe I'll dramatically change that. But I was gonna avoid going to events after the Charlie Kirk thing, but then I think it was Eric Trump and a couple Congressmen and J.D. vance and Elon Musk started, like, bullying me on Twitter. And I was like, well, no. Well, fuck, no. I'm not gonna leave now because I feel like I'm in, say, bullying you. Bullying me?

[Tom Bilyeu]

What is that? Bullying?

[Destiny]

God, like tagging the FBI or whatever. Yeah. So I think if I see that one of my big things is, to some extent, you have to lead by example. Example. And I'm in one of the most privileged positions possible. So how can you ever tell people you have to fight against the system. You got to do this and that. And they're like. But also, I'm too scared to go and speak at public colleges now. I don't know. I feel like for me to have any serious or real political opinion, I have to be willing to do that. Otherwise, what does it count for? If I'm not willing to step out and do anything, then. And at the end of the day, whatever risk exists for me. That risk might have been made 100 times worse after Charlie Could Kirk. But it's still probably a very, very small percentage. Right.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you wear a vest or have security or anything?

[Destiny]

There is a good amount of security. I'm not going to tell you what I wear. That's top secret. If I want people to know the caliber they need to penetrate my.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's crazy.

[Destiny]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's wild to think. Yeah.

[Destiny]

Actually, you know what? Yeah. If you ever see a picture of me and I look fat, it's just because I have my thick four plates of ceramic. Ceramic armor and Kevlar best. And that's the only reason. Otherwise I weigh 105 lbs.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Lbs.

[Destiny]

8% body fat.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Nice.

[Destiny]

Yeah. You know. Okay.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I like it. Well done. You said you're about to go on diet and gym journey.

[Destiny]

So I can fight.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I like in real life. I'm very interested to see how far that goes. Dude. Every time we get to spend time together, we don't always agree, but I do find you have a very sharp mind. You think through these things in. In a way that gives me a fresh way to think about. About this, if you were going to make one sort of appeal to the audience, you're willing to put yourself out there, you're willing to take risks, to sort of sway where the public is pointed to get the herd to move. What would be the final thing that you would leave them with if they were just going to focus on one thing?

[Destiny]

I think this is more feminine than masculine, but I learned this after my 30s. Writing stuff down can actually be really illuminating, I think, especially as men, maybe because women go through, like, hormone cycles. I think as men, I don't think we're always aware of how our emotional state impacts our are. Like, how we're thinking, like, cognitively. It doesn't feel like those two things are so connected, but they are. I think it's good sometimes to sit down and write out, like, in a general sense, like, where do you think the world is going in one, two, three years? Right. So if you're on the right, you might think, okay, I think that our economy will be up a little bit. I think that the fears about Donald Trump delaying the election or trying to take over the polling booth, I think that's dramatically overblown. That won't happen. Write these things down because it keeps you honest with yourself. And the same thing on the left. If you think that I think that Democrats are going to sweep the midterms because our messaging's gotten better. Whatever else, write things down. Because what it does is in a year or two when things start to happen, we're very good at lying to ourselves. And if you have it written down, then you can start to see, okay, am I actually making good predictions? And the important thing is that if you're making bad predictions, that's great, because then you can go back and you can say, okay, well, prospectively, from that time, what could I have thought differently? Like, what am I missing? And then, like, change your thought patterns accordingly. There might be a thing that you're constantly over indexing on or constantly under indexing on or something that you're dismissing. And then it's good to adjust your thought pattern as you go forward. Yeah. So writing stuff down and making predictions and then like really holding yourself to check those every six to 12 months. I think it's good because I think it's good for your personal life, too.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But no. Agreed.

[Destiny]

Very much so.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Where can people follow you now?

[Destiny]

Hopefully, if my channel doesn't continue to get attacked, It's Destiny on YouTube. Destiny and the Omni Liberal on X. But don't go to that one. If you're sensitive because it gets pretty crazy over there.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It certainly does. Awesome. Well, guys, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.

[Vrbo/Grainger Advertiser]

When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Grainger gets it and knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Grainger offers millions of products in fast, dependable delivery, so you can keep your facility stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.