America’s $39 Trillion Crisis: Iran War, Fraud, and the New Economic Reality | Tom Bilyeu Show LIVE

Summary

Podcast Summary: America’s $39 Trillion Crisis – Iran War, Fraud, and the New Economic Reality | Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu (LIVE, March 18, 2026)

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Overview

In this episode, Tom Bilyeu and his co-hosts tackle the tumultuous intersection of geopolitics, economics, and culture amid America’s $39 trillion national debt, the ongoing Iran war, and widespread allegations of fraud. They discuss the political, strategic, and financial consequences of current US policy, dissect the backstory behind the resignation of a top national security official, and offer blunt advice for everyday Americans seeking to survive – or thrive – in this new landscape.

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Table of Contents

• 1. Iran War: Joe Kent’s Resignation and Its Fallout (03:09 - 38:06)
• 2. Israel's Influence and US Policy Debate (19:22 - 38:06)
• 3. The Escalation of the Iran Conflict & Global Reactions (43:10 - 50:33)
• 4. The $39 Trillion National Debt: Why It’s a Crisis (56:57 - 74:50)
• 5. Economic System Failure: Progress, Inflation, and Hopelessness (57:33 - 80:33)
• 6. Asset Holding as Survival (79:34 - 85:19)
• 7. Fraud Investigations and Political Cynicism (90:27 - 94:50)
• 8. Culture as an Economic Mirror: Reality TV Madness (85:19 - 90:24)
• 9. Quotes & Memorable Moments

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1. Iran War: Joe Kent’s Resignation and Its Fallout

(03:09 - 38:06)

• Who is Joe Kent?

  • Recently resigned Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, highly decorated Green Beret veteran, former CIA paramilitary officer, and Gold Star husband (his wife killed in an ISIS suicide bombing).
  • [05:15] Tom: “Anybody that tries to handwave him away or just be dismissive of him, I think is a huge mistake.”

• Resignation Letter Key Points

  • Kent resigned due to opposition to the ongoing Iran war, claiming Iran posed “no imminent threat” and that “we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.”
  • Accused the administration of misinformation and failing to justify the war’s necessity to the American people.
  • Urged President Trump to “reverse course and chart a new path.”

• Political Reactions & Fallout

  • Trump and the administration dismiss Kent as “weak on security.” Reports swirl of infighting, leaks, and whether Kent was pushed out or resigned preemptively.
  • Tulsi Gabbard, his direct superior, distances herself and defers to the President’s judgment.
  • Kent’s break signals fractures in the MAGA/right-wing coalition, with notable centrist/right commentators (Tucker Carlson et al.) critical of the war.
  • [18:54] Drew: “He’s a decorated war hero… even I don’t have jokes for that. Like, that’s respect. Hats off, whatever. Move on to the next person.”

2. Israel’s Influence and US Policy Debate

(19:22 - 38:06)

• Underlying Questions

  • Is US policy in Iran driven by genuine US interests, ally obligations, or manipulation by Israeli influence?
  • The conversation explores intelligence sharing, lobbying, diaspora loyalties, money, political relationships, and possible blackmail.

• Tom Bilyeu’s Perspective

  • Israel delivers high-utility intelligence, technology, and lobbying power; US presidents keep Israel close because “it is higher utility for me to get the things I want for my nation to remain a very close ally to Israel.”
  • Argues problems with wealthy lobbies, not uniquely Israel/Jews – “hate the game, not the player,” urging systemic, not conspiratorial, fixes.

• Debate on Fixes

  • Money’s influence in politics (e.g., Citizens United) is identified as a core problem, but removing money from politics is recognized as “next to impossible.”
  • [37:02] Tom: “So if we can please just say the rich people thing is the problem, let’s start isolating that.”

3. The Escalation of the Iran Conflict & Global Reactions

(43:10 - 50:33)

• Military and Diplomatic State

  • The US is facing military isolation – France (Macron) has openly rejected involvement, NATO is alienated due to Trump’s belligerent approach.
  • The US finds itself spread thin with adversaries in Russia and China empowered.

• Tom’s Strategic Parable

  • Advocates for strategy over short-term emotional gratification, both in business and geopolitics.
  • Warns that burning alliances for emotional wins invites later disaster.
  • [45:06] “If you just beat them about, you’re going to be in trouble… this works in a marriage, business, geopolitical negotiations.”

• Major Events

  • Israel’s assassination of Ali Larijani (highest-ranking Iranian official since Khamenei) underscores Mossad’s intelligence power.
  • [50:49] “This is so impressive. How do they do this, dude?”
  • The war’s consequences directly undermine the US economy and threaten a wider global crisis.

4. The $39 Trillion National Debt: Why It’s a Crisis

(56:57 - 74:50)

• Scale & Impact

  • The debt, about to cross $39 trillion, is “so insane” it’s “tearing this country apart” and making it “impossible for young people to get ahead.”
  • “Dumbest thing any society can do to rob the young of their starting momentum.”
  • [69:07] Drew: “39 trillion seconds is approximately 1.24 million years.”
  • [70:06] Tom: “Traditionally, what happens when you get this indebted is you default and you devalue… and at some point tell people, we’re just not going to pay you back.”

• Structural Deficit

  • Neither political party is serious about fiscal responsibility; both spend recklessly for different flavors of populist satisfaction.
  • “The only difference between the left and the right now is: what flavor do you like your authoritarianism in?”

5. Economic System Failure: Progress, Inflation, and Hopelessness

(57:33 - 80:33)

• Hopeless System for Young & Ambitious

  • Systemic inflation, compounded by deficit spending and asset bubbles, means working hard isn’t enough to get ahead.
  • Rising costs for housing, cars, education, and healthcare—outpacing income growth—create a fundamentally unfair system.
  • Encourages asset ownership as the only path to survival in a rigged economy:
    • “The easiest way to get ahead is to make sure you figure out who is a game rigged to help. The very brief answer is: asset holders.”

• Concrete Examples

  • Since 1971, real incomes may only be up 20-30%, while home costs have doubled after inflation; healthcare up 5x.
  • “If you use inflation against them… they realize okay, maybe I really can’t do this.”

6. Asset Holding as Survival

(79:34 - 85:19)

• Basketball Analogy

  • Tom likens today’s economic system to trying to play basketball with an “iron dome” zapping every shot—so learn to dunk (get close to assets) or be shut out.
  • “If I can learn this stuff at almost 50, you guys can learn this stuff at whatever age you are. It just comes down to how badly do you want it?”

• Skill-Building & AI

  • Learning new skills, especially leveraging AI and technology, remains a rare path to economic escape.

7. Fraud Investigations and Political Cynicism

(90:27 - 94:50)

• Nick Shirley’s Investigative Work

  • Young YouTuber exposes massive government fraud in Minnesota, now in LA—“one in every ten dollars on home healthcare in the entire US is spent in LA county alone.”
  • Facilities report inflated numbers or are totally empty, while operators drive luxury cars.
  • Governor Newsom responds with personal attacks and memes, rather than substantive rebuttals.
    • [92:18] “If you’re doing a cool thing, say the cool thing you’re doing”—Tom, on evasive hospice owners

• Systemic Failure

  • Fraud, waste, and grift are pervasive – on both the “welfare” and “military industrial complex” sides.

8. Culture as an Economic Mirror: Reality TV Madness

(85:19 - 90:24)

• Cultural Pathologies

  • Discussion of a “Bachelorette” show casting a mother of three facing domestic abuse allegations as a contestant is positioned as symptomatic of economic despair.
  • Tom: “When people do not feel like they can get ahead, all of a sudden it’s like you start lowering your standards, people start acting crazy…”

• Linking Economics and Culture

  • Modern relationship norms and reality show antics are framed as downstream from a fundamentally broken economic system characterized by toxic inequality and lack of opportunity.

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Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [05:15] Tom: “Just as a reminder to dig a little bit deeper before you form a really intense opinion.”
• [19:22] Caroline Levitt (WH Press Sec.): “There are many false claims in this letter, but let me address one specifically, that Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.”
• [31:26] Tom: “President after president after president is like, it is higher utility for me to get the things I want for my nation to remain a very close ally to Israel. And what I see is Americans having an emotional reaction to that and saying, I don't want anything to do with this anymore.”
• [57:33] Tom: “The national debt is expected to cross $39 trillion today or tomorrow. That number is so insane and it is tearing this country apart.”
• [69:07] Drew: “39 trillion seconds is approximately 1.24 million years.”
• [70:06] Tom: “When you just don't pay people back, it's like breaking your credit… your only option is to print money, but you can't export that to other people.”
• [80:33] Tom: “Skills have utility, skills have utility. And when you develop those skills, it means you can do something other people can’t.”
• [90:24] Tom: “When you break the economics, a lot of things in culture that seem completely unrelated begin to disintegrate and break down, period.”
• [92:18] Tom: “If you’re doing a cool thing, say the cool thing you’re doing.”

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This episode balances critical commentary, economic analysis, and cultural diagnosis, highlighting the inextricable link between America’s financial mismanagement, political opportunism, and everyday chaos. The hosts challenge listeners to see through the noise, understand incentives, and take actionable steps toward personal and societal resilience.

Transcript

[A]

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That's a clicktastic inventory. And check out the financing options payments to fit our budget. I mean, that's Clickonomics101. Delivery to our door. Just a hop, skip and a click away. And bot no better feeling than when everything just clicks. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. Spring starts at the Home Depot and we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season. Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under $300. Like the next grill 4 burner gas grill that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout. Then set the scene and turn your outdoor space into the go to spot with patio sets for every budget. Bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot. Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. Exclusions apply. See homedepot.com Pricematchfordet details Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Tom Bilyeu show live per usual. There is plenty going on in the world for us to discuss and I appreciate you guys being here with us to go over it all. The US national debt just crossed or is about to cross $39 trillion today. Tomorrow, $39 trillion is a lot of money. We're going to be talking about that because it's destroying your life. Please be more outraged than you are that the government absolutely refuses to balance the budget, which makes me want to chew through the microphone. Iran's latest leader, Ali Larajani, was assassinated. So, hey, not bad. We'll be going into the details on that one. Depending on where you fall on Iranian leadership will determine your emotions on that one. This one's going to be a lot harder, though. Joe Kent, the director of National Counterterrorism, has resigned, saying there's no justification for the war in Iran. And this guy has a pedigree that makes him absolutely impossible to ignore. Nick Shirley is in California speaking of people that are impossible to ignore. This time he's exposing fraud here in the Golden State. And Newsom's reaction is predictably stupid. Would have used a different word there, Drew, but it's too early in the show. Stephen Miller, speaking of words that I won't use right now, would like you to believe that if we can get rid of all the illegal immigrants, the budget will magically balance itself. True. What do you think? It's poof.

[C]

Poof. That's it.

[A]

More coming on that later. Magic wand and now we have a reality show where men are competing to marry a woman with three kids and a domestic abuse charge against her. No one is that hot. Okay? So just as a PSA to my young men out there. No one is that attractive. Boys and girls, please, please. And what's crazy, Drew, you will not be surprised. My take on that. This is economic. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. This is like my six degrees of Kevin Bacon. I've got one degree of economics with every ridiculous thing that people are doing in the world right now, and I really mean it. So I can't wait to talk about it. All right, without further ado, welcome, everybody. It is wonderful to have you.

[C]

The head of the National Counterterrorism center resigned yesterday. This is Joe Kent. Before we get into his assassination of his character that is happening live on X, let's jump into the letter and kind of lay out what is being presented and then we can kind of talk about some of the different responses. This is the letter that he. His resignation letter that he sent out. President Trump, after much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as director of the National Counterterrorism center, effective today. I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby. The support of the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned in on 2016. 20. 2024, 24, which you enacted in your first term. Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle east were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth and prosperity of our nation. In your first administration, you understand better than any other president how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Kassam Solami Soleimani by defeating isis. Early in this administration, high ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your American first platform and sold pro war sentiment to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States and that you should strike down. There was a path to swift. To a clear path. There was a swift, clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic that Israelis used to draw us into the disasters Iraq war that cost the nation, our nation, the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again. As a veteran who's deployed to combat 11 times, and as a Gold Star husband, we lost my beloved wife, Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel. I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people, nor justifies the cost of American lives. I pray that you reflect upon what we are doing in Iran and who we are doing it for. The. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward declining chaos. You hold the cars. It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation. Joseph, Kentucky, what was your initial reaction?

[A]

Yeah, so this one is rough. My initial reaction was to find out what's really going on. I didn't know who he was. I didn't know a lot about him. And as Drew was saying, what you see immediately online is the populist response left and right. Either he's the greatest thing ever, or he's a buffoon that's been betraying the administration for a long time. And so just as a reminder to dig a little bit deeper before you form a really intense opinion. Opinion. But just going by the facts, you've got the highest ranking Trump official that is now breaking with the administration over Iran. He just walked out the door. He obviously did not go quietly. So Joe Kent, who's the director of the National Counterterrorism center and one of Tulsi Gabbard's top deputies, by the way, resigned yesterday. He posted that letter that we just read. He posted it directly to X. The key line in it for me was Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it's clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel. Israel and its powerful American lobby. The reason that that's going to become incredibly important is that's really the debate around Iran, largely. I'm trying to get people to look at this through an economic lens, but that really isn't the debate yet. Right now, the debate is, is Trump a puppet for Iran? I don't think the evidence is there for that, but I'm certainly not willing to throw Joe Kent out with the bathwater, given what he's been through, given how very intimately he knows the sacrifices that American families make for the war effort. So I think it is very good to pull all this stuff into the light, to discuss it openly. When I was interviewing Gad Saad, this is one of the things. So he's obviously Jewish and Being able to talk about this stuff and not letting it become taboo, I think is very important. Not becoming conspiratorial brained, I think is also important. And so everybody seems to be breaking into two camps, like, oh my God, you can't talk about Israel, you talk about Jewish people or they run the world, everything is because of them. It's just wild to me. So having a nice, even keel conversation about all this, I think is going to be important. And Joe Kent is a really interesting lightning rod. Now, in his resignation letter, he added that he could not support sending the next generation off to fight and die in the war that serves no benefit to the American people. Obviously, coming from him, these words hit really hard. But Kent is not a disgruntled bureaucrat. And you're going to see a lot of people, or at least not that he might be disgruntled, he might be very frustrated. But anybody that tries to hand wave him away or just be dismissive of him, I think is a huge mistake. This is a Green Beret veteran, a former CIA paramilitary officer whose wife was killed in an ISIS suicide attack that also killed 19 other people. And again, somebody who's lost their wife, the mother of their two kids, who, when she was killed, their sons were 3 and 18 months old at the time. She was even posthumously promoted to senior Chief Petty officer, awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart. So this is the guy that you say, okay, we're going to have to have a very open and honest conversation about this, which I think is critical to, given that Kent was Trump's own nominee. It was confirmed by the Senate in July of 2025. And by the way, Trump has done an absolutely horrific job of selling this war and its necessity to the American people. And where anybody falls out in terms of whether we should be in Iran, whether the economics of this justify it, whether Iran did pose a threat, whether we should have gone after them. I don't think anybody can make the case that the administration was coherent in getting us involved in this war. I, at the beginning of all this, I didn't even understand what he was doing. I didn't know. Like, he hadn't mentioned nuclear war, the nuclear warheads, in like a while. So it was like, it was so confusing. So they get an F, as far as I can tell from anybody paying attention on selling the American people, selling our allies, on why this was necessary. So again, forget for a second, assume it even is necessary, that upon further reflection, as we get into all the facts, we go, yes, we need to Be in Iran, dude. This was just not made clear in the beginning. So using this moment as a way to go. Okay, let's really talk about why we're here. What are all the factors? And I don't expect Trump to be the one to lay them out, but certainly us that are covering this, putting all the different pieces on the table in a way that can be followed from the position of cause and effect. Even if your take is just, you know, Israel's completely unhinged. Walk me through it. Walk me through why you believe that. Walk me through in a way that is in alignment with what I believe to be true about humans, the world order, all of that stuff that's going to be important. People are obviously forming opinions very fast without necessarily getting into first principles, cause and effect. So anyway, that's going to be my approach as we talk about this, as we continue talking about the Iranian war. I just did an interview. Hopefully you guys all know who Professor Jiang is. Had him on the show and drops tomorrow. Yes, please watch it. I think it is a phenomenal episode. I had so much fun is maybe the wrong word, but it was so high utility doing the research and then actually being able to sit down with him. One of my first questions was, do you understand this conflict first and foremost as an economic thing? And he said, yes, this is economic first. And then went on to say, here are all the other things that it's nested inside of. So anyway, we'll keep trying to map all this stuff out from that, from first principles. Going back to Ken for a second. So he ran for Congress twice as a hardline mega guy. This is another reason that I think just dismissing him is a bad idea. His entire identity was built around America first. And if you guys don't feel the fractures happening within the right and specifically the mega base, well, okay, there's a new poll that came out that if you isolate down to just people who self identify as mega, there's like 89 to 91% different polls. But support for what's going on in Iran, I think the numbers are still in the 70s if you're looking at the broader Republican base, but they're just really certainly on social media, there is a growing fracture in Trump's base. And this is that really high profile shot that we're seeing with people not being able to agree on how this should be handled. Now the White House has moved. Asked to contain the announcement, Press Secretary Caroline Levitt called Kent's claims insulting and laughable. Trump told reporters from the Oval office. I always thought he was weak on security. It's a good thing he's out. There's a bunch of reports that he was leaking. There are reports, allegedly, allegedly that he was iced out and wasn't getting information on Iran. There's further reports that, you know, he's a known leaker and that they have been trying to basically get Tulsi Gabbard to fire him and that his, his resignation maybe because he thought that he was about to be fired. This stuff will come out more as we go, but it's hard to say at this point what exactly is happening. Again, there were claims that the White House had already pushed him out before this. So Gabbard, Gabbard herself, by the way. I don't know if you guys saw the statement that she posted, but she's clearly distancing herself from Kent without directly attacking him, saying that basically it's President Trump's decision as to whether they posed an imminent threat. He said they did, and so we all need to get behind that basically was the gist of her post. So now the backstory gets a little more complicated in that Kent apparently met with JD Vance the day before submitting his resignation. Vance told him to go talk to Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Supposedly he did, but then he still went public. Tucker Carlson has been among one of the loudest right wing critics of the Iran war. I think everybody will agree with that. He called Kent the bravest man that I know. Joe Rogan, Theo Vaughn, Tim Dillon, all of these guys, the large cadre of the podcasting voices that help Trump win, are all beginning to sour over the Iranian conflict. So, yeah, I think this one is going to play out in some pretty strange ways. Those guys I don't really consider to be super. Right. So anyway, there, I'll put them in the centrist camp, but even on the right, I think that we're going to start to see more and more issues here, so we'll find out. But yeah, this one, this one I think is worth people stopping, not doing the traditional name calling and being like, why is this guy turning on it? We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. A great wardrobe is not complicated. A few pieces that fit well, hold up over time and work in almost any situation. That's it. That's what you need. The problem is finding them without paying luxury prices. That's exactly what Quince is built around. I picked up one of their cashmere sweaters and let me tell you the softness is amazing and the quality actually caught me off guard. This is 100% Mongolian cashmere. That makes it easy to build a great wardrobe. 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[C]

I think that's the interesting thing about this. You already talked about him. He's a decorated war hero. He's not a bum. As much as we dump on Cash Patel and Dan. Yeah, Dan Bonge. He killed himself. Giano. Like, I think those guys, they're easy punching bags. We can kind of talk about him. You were just a podcaster, now you're in administration. Whatever, whatever. But this guy's an actual veteran. He's an actual hero. I talk spicy about everybody, but I'm like, okay, we're a veteran 11 times.

[A]

Like, whose wife was killed in the suicide bombing.

[C]

Yeah, like, even I don't have jokes for that. Like, that's respect. Hats off, whatever. Move on to the next person. So the fact that as soon as he submits his resignation, he's now a liar, a fraud. Trump called him weak on security, even though in his inauguration, this is the biggest security guy ever. So you can kind of see this flip in real time, but I want to zoom in on the Caroline Levitt response. Now. She sent a resignation letter of her own. I feel like she wrote a book about this, but I want to zoom into the first couple of paragraphs.

[A]

She sent a resignation letter?

[C]

No, no, I'm just saying she sent like a book in response to his tweet. It was like, what, a three page tweet, but something that she said at the first couple of paragraphs. There are many false claims in this letter, but let me address one specifically, that Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation. This is the same false claim that Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over. As President Trump has explicitly has clearly and explicitly stated he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first. And then when we go back to last weekend after ABC renounced reported that Iran is threatening to attack California, she then reposted that tweet and said this post and story should be immediately retracted by ABC News for providing false information to intentionally alarm the American people. They wrote this based on one email that was sent to local law enforcement in California about a single unverified Tip. The email even states the tip was based on unverified intelligence. Yes. ABC News left out this critical fact in their story. Why? To be clear, no such threat from Iran to our homeland exists and it never did. So now people are retweeting that and saying, wait, is there an imminent threat to our homeland? Was there never a threat to our homeland? We're now starting to argue about the T, as you would say, versus the actual crux of the matter. If we were to take a step back, can we justify this Iranian war other without the lens of Israel, can we just say independently the United States had to fight this war, or do you think it is tied to Israel in some way?

[A]

Well, I think everything is going to be tied to your allies for sure. The question that people need to get very comfortable with is what is it that makes Israel such an important ally to us? I don't think on that front that people are holding all the variables in their head. So to swag it out to me, the thing that I never hear anybody talking about is I have a feeling that Israel has intel that is probably ill gotten where we would all be. I don't know that this is true, but my mental map is that Epstein was certainly connected to probably our own CIA, to the Mossad. Like I said, that's my mental map. It may prove to be incorrect over time, but right now my belief is that Epstein is a type of person, not the only person. So I'm sure that there are many things, I mean, you don't have to go very far in the CIA to find that the US does from a moral standpoint, absolutely horrifying things to defend our nation against other people. So I have a mental map that says basically all nations do this. This is hardwired into the human mind. We are like that. There are those among us who will do the most horrifying moral things in order to get what they want. And governments will avail themselves of that to get what they want, which may be protecting their own people. And hey, that feels good and justifiable. But it's not always that. Sometimes it's just, I want to take your shit. And so they'll leverage all of this stuff to that end as well. And so if people are turning to Israel for incredible technology, for just unbelievable intel and they have like a vision, okay, wait a second, these guys might be able to help us do something like the Abraham Accords, where we turn the Middle east into a big repository of capital that we can then deploy back to, certainly from a U.S. lens back into the U.S. like, all of that tracks for me. Then on top of that, you've got the Jewish Diaspora being this incredibly potent part of a game that some humans play. And if people clock it as just Jewish people, it's literally absurd. And the game goes like this. I have amassed a huge fortune, and I'm going to leverage that money because people are motivated by money. I'm going to leverage that money to get them to do what I want them to do. People leverage the media to control what people think. People leverage money to control what people think all the time. And so I always get annoyed when people make it out, like, only Jewish people do that, or only Israel does that, or even just lumping all Jewish people into Israel. It's just like, wild. Like that to me is people are letting themselves slide into brain rot. So I'm trying to hold the conversation because they're queuing off of real things. I think that probably. I've never run the official math, so this is me going off of cultural cues, but probably the Jewish Diaspora is better than anybody at amassing a fortune and then leveraging that fortune to political effect. And so I'm just like, okay, but that, like, that's just a game that we all play. Like, money is all over in politics in the U.S. get it out. Like, instead of being. I hate to say it, Drew, hate the player, not the. Or hate the game, not the player. It's like, they are very good at a thing that is shitty, but go address the system that they're exploiting and being very good at, because they certainly are not the only player. And so that always brings me back to the Thomas Sowell quote that if the Jews want to stop being hated, all they have to do is fail. And it's.

[C]

I want to separate that, though, because I hate this intersexuality intersectionality between Jews and Israel. Let's keep it Israel. The Israel as a nation does have the most powerful foreign lobby in America. I think that's fat. That's not. That's papers, numbers, whatever we have, you want to measure it.

[A]

We have to tease that out. Because I think part of what that people are missing is the Diaspora. I think part of what makes them so effective is people that are tied to Zionism. I want Israel to exist as a nation. They live in other countries, so they are citizens here that have a moral compass that says, this is right, this is just, and maybe even theocratic or a theocracy tie is a better way to say it to, like, it's What God wants. And so now it's like, when you try to then just say, well, let's just keep it about the Israelis, you run into a problem because there are people all over the world that are like, I want this thing to exist. Now imagine me and I moved to Singapore, and I'm just like, yo, fucking America is really fallen. I got to go. And I go to Singapore. Well, I'm always going to be pro America. So I get it. I get why there are people who especially, man, if you were aware of World War II and you understand what that would do to the psyche of a people, where you would just be like, never again. You, in some ways overshoot, go from being bullied to the bully who's able to do, like, all this crazy shit. And now that's starting to influence people's popular perception of you. But you do have a lot of people that are like, hey, this country is constantly attacked and it has a right to exist. I'm not asking everybody to share in that belief, but that's what's motivating them. So now if you just go, well, this is just a problem with Israelis. It's like, no, this is a problem with a very successful group. You cannot lump them all. You can't say every Jewish people is in this group. But I'm saying you have a very successful economically, politically group, but they're diversely spread across these countries. It's a brilliant move from the Diaspora perspective. And if my mental map is right, that you've got the nation like a hub and spoke thing going on, where there is some percentage of Jews in the Diaspora that are extraordinarily loyal to Israel, but they are also in the country that they're in now. We all have to go, okay, to what level do we say, hey, you're a citizen of this country and fuck you. You can't think about another country. Okay, well, are you willing to go to people in the Somali community and be like, fuck you, you can't send money back to Somalia. So it's like you start.

[C]

I mean, that. That is a legislation that they're trying to pass, though.

[A]

But people have that massive pushback. But what I'm saying is the very people that want Somalis to be able to send money back hate that the Jews have a loyalty to a nation that's not theirs. And so I'm just saying good luck teasing all of this stuff out. That's why it really does come back to this Thomas Sowell statement of all the Jews have to do to Stop being hated is to fail. They just, just, they're, they're doing it better than other people are doing it. And so when you really look at it, you're like, well, wait a second, there's a lot of people that run this strategy, but there's one group that we really hate for.

[C]

I want to bring us back to the war, though, because I think that was a slight bit of a fractal because going back to Joe Kent's resignation, I don't want to be pulled into a war based on Jew. Based on. I don't want to get pulled into Israel's war. Israel and its powerful American lobby. Quote, unquote. Yeah, I think that term right there. Israel and its powerful American lobby.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

We can say that it at least had an influence on the administration.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Trump's son in law is Jared Kushner. Jared Kushner is.

[A]

Yes. But we're gonna, we're gonna derail again because my. I understood what you're saying.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

My whole point is, why are they able to influence people? That's the part to focus on. And I'm saying, you've got intel that they're gathering that probably is gathered in a way that the US Is like, we can't touch that. But then the question becomes, is it still valuable intel? So there's that great speech in A few. Good note. Yeah. A Few Good Men, where Colonel Jessup admits, yes, I do evil things, but I keep you safe. So it's like, okay, what do we do with that? And if we just say, no them, like, they're immoral, we can't have it. Get rid of them. Okay, that's a stance. There is the money in politics. So the people that are getting elected are being oftentimes, not always, but being funded by a very deep pocketed Israel lobby. Okay, get money the fuck out of politics. But they're going to get money as of right now, today. They're going to get money from somewhere. And so it becomes, what interest do you want them to be swayed by? There is a huge faction of people saying, well, I don't want them being swayed by the Jews. And so then it's like, okay, is it intel? Is it money in politics? Is it just relational? Is it that we see an economic opportunity in the Middle east that we need their help with? Is it, you know, what is it? But that's where we have to start going, okay, what are we saying when we have this allergic reaction to Israel? What are we saying exactly? Money manipulation? Do we think it's Blackmail. Like what? I just want people to name what the thing is that they think mine is. I think we get intel from them that people aren't being clear headed about, that we don't want to lose. I think we're getting access to technology from them that we're not being clear headed about. We don't want to lose. I think the Diaspora is hugely influential largely because they're able to garner wealth. They're also plugged into a lot of companies. There are plenty of conspiracy people that will give you a whole list of all the companies that are run by Jewish people. So it's like, like, yeah. So if all of those extraordinarily powerful people spread out across the Diaspora are able to go, hey, we all have a little bit of influence and you don't want to get rid of my company, my company, my company, my company. My access to information, my access to money, and all of a sudden it's like, yeah, okay, so these guys are extraordinarily powerful. But if you. The thing I want people to ask is president after president after president is like, I'm not breaking ties with Israel and nobody gets to the why of it all. And that's the thing that drives me crazy. They, they're, they're doing a thing which I have just laid out what I think that thing is. I want to be very clear. People are going to act like I didn't. I've just laid out what I think they are. I'm not saying that it's moral. I'm just saying it's super high utility.

[C]

It is what it is.

[A]

And so president after president after president is like, it is higher utility for me to get the things I want for my nation to remain a very close ally to Israel. And what I see is Americans having an emotional reaction to that and saying, I don't want anything to do with this anymore. And I'm just like, okay, but do you feel like you clearly understand what you're giving up? Because this is the Putin moment where everybody who talks a big game about no Israel then gets into office and all of a sudden they've got a yarmulke and they're touching the wall. And so I'm just saying, ask yourself why, what, what do they see that makes them go, actually, I am going to do this. There's something. And maybe you think it's that they have blackmail on them. And every president is just like, Israel has Epstein files on Trump abusing young women. Okay, like, lay out your thesis, let me know. I Certainly don't know that I'm right. I'm just saying that's where it, it leaves cause and effect for me and goes into emotion. I don't like the way that this makes me feel. So fucking get rid of him.

[C]

My thesis is this is an unnecessary war. Trump was convinced to go into it by Benjamin Netanyahu and intel that he thought was more actionable, hence the echo chamber that Joe Ken is talking about. And I think domestically we could have reallocated those $21 billion in funds that we have spent so far in the war into things that would have grew the middle class in a more substantial way.

[A]

I love all of that. Now the part that I'm trying to get back on the table is. And yet despite that, the most hot headed president that we've had in any of our lifetimes who clearly is not afraid to go do his own thing and tell anybody else to fuck off, goes, yeah, I'm going to do it for these guys. And so that's where I, which I don't agree with, by the way. I don't think that's why he did it. I think he's influenced by it. I think that that played a factor for sure. I think Trump is 100% control, legacy, third term, like all that, you start thinking about that, he's going to make a lot more sense than I'm a puppet of Israel. That's Tom's take. But if you take the path of this is just Bibi Netanyahu able to puppeteer Trump? Then I just go, okay, through what means, through what means has Israel become so potent that they can get everybody to dance to their tune? Do people think it's blackmail? Do they think it's money? Like what is the thing?

[C]

I think it's influence and I think it's money. I think every Netanyahu has been saying this for 40 years and presidents have just been saying, no, it's not worth it, it's not necessary.

[A]

Okay, now so we have your hypothesis. This is about influence, Cool. Influence via relationships and money or anything else.

[C]

Relationship, money, specifically in political power.

[A]

Okay.

[C]

He can primary people, he can get you reelected, he can get you an elected, he can change the media narrative around you. He can have is internal base attacking you as opposed to supporting you.

[A]

Perfect. And then blackmail or no Epstein file,

[C]

seems like there's a blackmail component to it, but I don't know if that's what Netanyahu put on the table and slid to him. I don't know if he slid.

[A]

Do you Want me to include it in a part of your analysis or not?

[C]

Not mine, but nationally, yes, I'll speak for the chat because I know that there are some F scenes, so we'll asterisk that as well.

[A]

Excellent. So we've got money, political relationships, and potential blackmail, and that's basically how they get people to dance to their tune.

[C]

Specifically how they got Trump to go from. This is not a number one prior. It wasn't in our threat assessment at the start of 2020, 25 to. This is the most imminent threat we have out there, and we need to do something right now.

[A]

Got you. Okay. With that on the table, I'll just remind everybody that in whatever. I forget what year he said it, but while he was running for president, when asked about Iran, he said, I'll bomb the shit out of him. So Trump has been all for doing this. He's been talking about Iran since, like, back in the 2000s, long before he's a political candidate. So just keep, keep that one on the table. But addressing those, then I go, okay, let's say that we're going to attempt to undo Israel's influence based on those three things. So my first question would be, do we think anybody else does those three things? Does anybody else have money in politics?

[C]

Yes, okay, absolutely.

[A]

Anybody else have political influence?

[C]

Yes, absolutely.

[A]

Okay. Does anybody else run blackmail?

[C]

Yes, absolutely.

[A]

Okay. So now it's like, okay, how do we stop everybody from doing those things? And then again, I will put back on the table Thomas Sowell saying, the only thing Jews have to do to stop being hated is to stop being successful. Because.

[C]

But I don't think any other. I don't think any other people who will do those three things have been directly responsible for a war.

[A]

Right. Because they're not as good at getting the American government to do what they want them to do now. So this is where I'm like, if you want to address a systemic problem, you have to address the system. So money out of politics. It's an easy thing to say. It's next to impossible to do. But that one is like, where you start. So if you're like, okay, I've got these guys, they're really good at this thing. I want to lop them off. You create a power vacuum. Other people will just pour in and start doing it. This is exactly how I felt when Elon Musk started throwing his money around. And I was like, well, okay, if we hate it when Jewish people do it, I still fucking hate it when he does it. So I'm like, yeah, Jewish people are not the only rich people. So if we can please just say the rich people thing is the problem.

[C]

Cool.

[A]

Let's start isolating that. I just want people to grapple with the problem in a way where they can actually solve it. To do that, you have to say, this is a structural problem, and the Israel, Israeli government and all those associated with it are just better at it than other people. So to solve that problem, not create a power vacuum that'll just be filled by the next billionaire, we have to say, no more money in politics. Because I don't like it when Reid Hoffman does it. I don't know.

[C]

George Soros. George Soros. I don't like it. Perfect.

[A]

So now we go, okay, we got to get money out of politics. Influence, I think, is quite literally impossible. I don't think there is a way. This is the iron law of oligarchy. There's always going to be a small group of people that will be in rooms with each other, and there's no way to address that one. I think that would violate, effectively, the laws of physics, of humanity. There's no way to strip that one out. So you're always going to have influences. It's going to be a tricky problem to solve. The blackmail thing, is it possible? I guess. But I think that humans will find very quickly that you need Colonel Jessup on that wall. I don't like that that is true, but I'm gonna guess that really is true because your adversaries will do the evil shit.

[C]

I love that. Ipso facto.

[A]

Yeah, but it's like, I don't. We're not gonna get anywhere. I'm really curious. I. I so usually avoid this, but I'm super curious if anybody in chat has, like, the silver bullet that will make my argument not make sense to me, because Lord knows I want a solution here, and if somebody has one, I could not be more open.

[C]

I feel like getting rid of Citizens United is that solution, but it's just as ominous as getting rid of the fake.

[A]

They can't believe that. They can't believe that. When we say Citizens United, are we saying money out of politics?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

Okay, so not get rid of the group. Make it impossible for people to leverage money. Okay, that word. It'll help. It won't end it, because take the most accurate assertion I think that you can make against Trump, that doesn't even need to be proven. It's just so damning. And this is what will come into play if you get rid of. If you attempt via that mechanism to get money out of politics. I don't know that Trump is being bribed. I don't know that Trump did this to be to make it possible for people to financially incentivize him. I don't. But it is. What he did with his Trump coin is the most corruptible thing like it could be used so easily. Where people now have a path, oh no, money in politics. Don't worry. I just really believe in Trump Coin. And so now you have a way to to put billions of dollars into his pocket. That isn't technically money in politics. So it's one of those. It won't be easy. People will find other ways. Now, I don't want to throw up my hands and say it's impossible, but just know this aim near. It's not going to be. It's not going to be easy.

[C]

Well said.

[A]

Taking a short break, but there's more Impact theory after Stay tuned. Let's talk about the hidden cost of running your business off personal phones. We know everybody's doing it. When someone leaves your company, they walk out with customer relationships and conversation history in their pocket. You have zero visibility into what your team is saying and you're mixing business with personal, so nothing is secure. That's exactly why over 90,000 businesses switch to Quo, the number one rated business phone system on G2. With over 3,000 reviews, you get one shared business number for your entire team. Everyone sees the full conversation thread so there's no more disconnected handoffs. Quo's AI automatically logs calls, generates summaries, and highlights next steps. Make this a season where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try quo for free. Plus get 20% off your first six months at quo.com impact that's Q U.com impact quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. Let's talk about gold. Gold is the right asset these days, but most people are using it wrong. They buy it, hold it, and then wait for the price to go up. But that price is still denominated in dollars. So you haven't actually escaped the system. You're still playing by its rules. That's the shift monetary metals helps make possible. They've built a way for your gold to earn yield paid not in dollars, but in more physical gold, up to 4% per year. More ounces compounding in hard money every single month. You're growing the quantity of the hardest asset on earth and storage and insurance are included so there's no hidden fees that are going to eat away at your yield. Most people are passively absorbing Inflation. This is exactly how you actively compound your weight. Out of that, click the link in the show notes or visit monetary-metals.comimpact to learn more. Again, that's monetary-metals.comimpact this is a paid advertisement. Let's talk about a clock you can't see every day. Without active cellular support, you're compound damage you won't feel until it's too late. By the time you notice, you're already playing catch up. Most people's longevity plan is just avoiding bad stuff. That's not a plan. Real longevity requires offense. Actively fortifying your cells every single day. That's what Nandica by Peak is built to do. I've tried it and I'm telling you right now, I am a fan. Nandica is a ceremonial cacao nootropic designed to support your cells from the inside out. Every ingredient is selected for maximum bioavailability. The result is calm, sustained energy, elevated mood, sharper focus, and you're actively building long term cellular resilience with every cup. Stop playing defense with your health. Get 20% [e-mail] impact that's P I Q U E life.com impact this stuff is really good. Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.

[C]

Moving on to the Iran war itself. A quick update for those that might not have been paying attention. Week one, we won. Week two, we're winning. Week three, send help. The strait's still open for Everybody except

[A]

the U.S. that is rough.

[C]

Continuing on that French President Macron has now openly revolted against the US and Israel. France did not choose this Iran war. We are not taking part in it. Nobody can force us, bro.

[A]

They are giving the lines that the US will say back to them when they want help with something. This is one of those. I want to be very clear. This is. It's like Israel, Palestine, you can start the clock wherever you want to decide whether your side fired the first shot or the other side fired the first shot. NATO didn't pay their fair share for God knows how long, but still expected us to protect them. But if I can start the clock with Trump in his second term, he has acted in full retard fashion against his allies. Like it is so dumb and he's alienated himself. So for him to be surprised like it's like a toll booth guard. If you were an asshole to them on the way in and they've got a way to make your life difficult on the way out, they're going to do that. So this is them saying yeah, fuck you. Like you deal with it. You created this. We didn't get into this. So, yeah, I, Trump should not at all be surprised that this happened. And now NATO should not at all be surprised that if Russia gets the upper hand and bursts into Europe, if Trump's like, well, good luck.

[C]

And that's the interesting thing too, because the sanctions were lifted off of Russia, Russia is still exporting, is now able to buy oil, which will finance the war for a couple more years. So Ukraine is looking at all this like, hey, guys, and Ukraine themselves have offered to help us more than, I would say France and Europe. But to your point, they need the help as much as they're willing to offer the help.

[A]

It is absolutely wild. It's one of those where. So in business I have a rule, never do what's emotionally satisfying. You've always gotta be thinking strategy. And so this is like the number one collision between my wife and I. She would run the business purely from an emotional state. If you make her mad, she's going to strike back and that's that. Whereas we have come to an agreement that the part of the reason I'm the CEO is I'm going to step out, I'm going to routinely be strategic and I'm not going to ask myself what is emotionally satisfying in this moment. I'm going to ask myself what is strategically advantageous towards my long term goals. Whenever I am teaching entrepreneurs, I say, let's start with tell me where you're trying to end up, because that's going to dictate what are the things that we need to do in order to get there. There. There is a phrase that plays such a major role in my life and my success, and that is goals make demands. Once you know where you want to end up, there are only certain actions that are going to take you there. So we all wish that we could do the thing that feels emotionally awesome in the moment. But the reality is that humans are complex. And if you do the thing that makes you feel better, oftentimes makes the other person feel worse. And at some point in the pursuit of your goals, you may find yourself necessarily needing that person's help. And if you just, just beat them about, you're going to be in trouble. This works, by the way, in a marriage, this works in a business, this works in geopolitical negotiations. If you try to win an argument against your wife and you break her will and you make her accept that she is stupid and she's not smart like you, that's going to come back to haunt you a thousand fold in the future if instead, when you go into that negotiation, you remember the thing that I most want out of this is a thriving relationship. And yes, there are going to be things that I'm going to compromise on, not because I need to, but because. Because it is strategically wise for me to actually achieve my long term aims. Trump does not have that gear. He thinks, I'm going to smash somebody in the face right now because I'm bigger and stronger and I can smash them in the face and I can get what I want right now. And the problem is when an unintended consequence arises, like, ooh, it's a little bit harder to keep the Strait of Hormuz open than I thought it was going to be. And, man, this would be a lot simpler if I had a whole bunch of allies coming to my aid. You suddenly realize, yeah, making them feel small and stupid, mocking them, threatening to take Greenland, none of these things were a wise strategy. Oh, and by the way, constantly reminding them that we don't really need NATO and, you know, we might just back out. Well, if you've seen the movie Almost Famous, you know that when the guitar player threatens to quit all the time, eventually the band just goes, quit already, already. Because the looming threat of it is more obnoxious than actually having to deal with a person being gone. So, yeah, Trump is having his own game of fafo here. But as a PSA to the Europeans, remember, this will also come back to you. And so there's going to be a moment where you need Trump. And if you weren't able to be the bigger person and recognize that he's acting like a petulant child. But that doesn't mean you have to act like a petulant child. And when you want something from him, he's not going to be there and you're going to be left turning, turning to somebody strong. Guess who's strong on the world stage? Russia and China. You've got Russia, China and the U.S. now, who are you going to turn to? If you turn to Russia and you make them stronger, guess who's going to create problems for you in the future? If you turn to China, then you have to ask, do I really want a world where China is in the lead? And if you do, hey, go for it and see how that plays out over time. But I would advise you to look very closely at Chinese history. I would advise you to look very closely at the purges that Xi is doing and ask yourself, does this feel more like Dang xiaoping who pulled 400 million people out of grinding poverty. Or does this feel more like Mao who murdered 45 million people for my money? He feels a lot more like Mao. So just be careful, boys and girls, because when you divorce yourself from the US you're gonna have to get married to. To somebody, because this is a big, bad, scary world and you do not have the military to walk around like you do. So remember, the statement is carry a big stick and speak softly, not speak softly and have no way to defend yourself. So be careful.

[C]

The fafo is going to be funny. I hope we don't have to stick around for that because that will be the trigger of the world war. But we shall see.

[A]

We're going to be at the center of all this. At the center of all this stuff, whether we want to be or not. And listen, America can isolate itself largely literally by being physically isolationist. It won't be a better world. And the kids that you have, all the kids that we have, all. Because I've been here too. God, this one really does. I don't like this, Drew. We have stolen from the children. It is God awful. And now you're just gonna deal with another heaping shovel full of on top of their heads by launching them into whether it escalates all the way to a world war. But it would be terrible for the economy.

[C]

So, bro, yeah, we need just hang out with South America, Central America, get the Caribbean on board. Let's just do that. Let's just, you know, we can just rule this planet. Let Russia and China fight over over there. Let the west be the West.

[A]

That's one way to do it.

[C]

On one side though, I was talking junk about the war, but Israel has been doing a victory lap. They struck some key Iranian figures. So the war is not completely moot. We are still making advances and we are still attacking key leadership in the irgc. Break that down for us, Tom.

[A]

All right. Israeli forces dealt a major blow to the Iranian leadership structure when they eliminated Ali Larajani. He was the highest ranking official that's been killed since Khamenei himself was killed. This was confirmed by Iranian sources, Israeli Defense Minister, various international outlets like Al Jazeera, the Guardian and CBS News. So I think we can believe this one. Reports noted that he also died alongside his son, a deputy, and protection team members as well. Lara Johni was put in power by an interim leadership council. That's what you have to do. According to the Iranian constitution. His job was to manage affairs temporarily until a new Supreme Leader could be selected given that Khomeini's son, who was made Supreme Leader, is believed to either have been badly wounded or potentially killed in a strike at the beginning of the war. Odds are that Lara Johni was still acting as acting leader despite Khomeini's Khomeini being moved up to Supreme Leader. So Lara Johnny was often called Iran's security chief or national security chief in coverage. Many considered him the de facto leader after the original Khomeini's death. Death and in Iran's political system. Because I was like, wait, why doesn't this go to the president? But in their political system, the President is not considered the primary or ultimate holder of power, especially in a time of crisis. It's just the way the Islamic Republic was structured when it was established back in 1979 during the Revolution. So ultimately, the Supreme Leader is a guy that holds the highest authority under Iran's constitution. He is the commander in chief of the armed forces. He controls key institutions including the judiciary, military, state media and foreign policy. Bro. At a constitutional level, you can tell this country is going to be a problem. He's also the one that appoints major officials, has veto power over elected bodies. This is wild. I don't know who in their right minds would ever agree to this. And this is really terrible. Just at a structural level, please, kids dumb. All right. The president, while elected and technically responsible for day to day executive affairs like overseeing the economy and domestic policy, when you could be overridden by the Supreme Leader on everything, you lack the kind of control over strategic things like the military that you would need to actually be a leader. So this guy was the one that was doing all of the functions of the Supreme Leader while Khomeini's son is either waiting for resurrection or he is somewhere in a hospital struggling. So we'll see. Nobody knows

[C]

you had a post. When me and Tom are preparing for this show, we send each other links and we give each other captions. And the caption that Tom chose to use for this link is that Israel treats the IRGC like bomb ready Pokemon. And then when I see the actual picture of like, yes.

[A]

You're like, wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

The IRGC commanders, they booked 15 hotel rooms thinking they were safe out of

[A]

the 15 hotel rooms, but only stayed in one. So you had a one in 15 chance of getting these fucking guys. There was RNG on this hotel and

[C]

they still, there were multiple identities. They reserved the 15 rooms, gathered into one room for a meeting, disabled all the hotel cameras and still got popped.

[A]

Okay, this, Drew, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Where presidents are like, do I want to lose that intel from Israel? This is so impressive. How do they do this, dude? So listen, I already ran this idea by Bustamante and he laughed me out of the room. But there's a rumor that there were Israeli linked. They probably weren't actually Israeli, but Israeli linked people that got jobs over like some ungodly long period of time to be dentists. They prioritized the people in the Iranian leadership to get them as their clients and then were implanting things in their teeth. I know it sounds ridiculous, but, bro, when I see things like this, I'm just like, is it, Is it ridiculous? Because if there was a guy that's like, hey, hold on a second, Timmy. Every time you like go on a thing with Timmy, he goes out to like get a stick of gum and then everybody gets killed. Timmy's been at nine of these things chewing the most gum ever. And all these are dead. Like, you go, ah, fucking Timmy.

[C]

And you kill Timmy.

[A]

Timmy gets beheaded. Right? Can we just be honest? Like, if you really had some basic bitch like that Timmy's. So this is not that they just have people that are there in the mix. They clearly have that as well. But that kills cannot be your only thing. Like you are doing something else either. Basically everybody in Iran is on the take. And so it's like the cleaning lady, the person you checked in at the hotel, the security guard watching the cameras like, whatever, whatever, whatever, or it's some really crazy shit. It almost certainly is not the things in the teeth. I accept that. But I'm just saying whatever they've got, they've got a lot of it because it is so hard for these fucking guys to hide. It is crazy.

[C]

And the beeper thing, we can't leave that out too.

[A]

My favorite thing ever started, a beeper

[C]

shot over 10 years. And you was just a regular beeper shop like you. It wasn't a glamorous beeper shop. It wasn't a beeper shop for the stars. It was in the trenches beeper shop. And then they pressed the button and all the beepers blew up.

[A]

That is wild.

[C]

Yeah. I want to jump into this 37 trillion dollar, 39 trillion dollar debt problem that we're having right now. Now, however, I want to put a couple things out because we're getting conflicting reports. We have Nick Shirley doing the reporting that needs to get done, pointing out fraud in Minnesota and California. We're not going to talk about the other guy that reported on another community in New Jersey because we're not allowed to because we're compromised by APAC money. That's what everybody in the chat is saying. You're so team APAC because you're. You get paid. So that's why.

[A]

That's rad.

[C]

Am I.

[A]

Where's the money though? Because I'm having a hard time.

[C]

And I told him, I was like if I. I would have got fired if time to cut that. That deposited that check. But so as. As we're going through this back and forth about the identification of fraud. Vance is now the fraud czar to formally get it to get through it. We do have a $39 trillion debt though. Stephen Miller said something yesterday that I think outlined the confusion that might come up with this. So I wanted to just ground us. Your Mr. Economics. I always come to you with problems like these. Can you contextualize a $39 trillion debt before we get into the he said she said of where it comes from and things like that? I don't people. I don't think people realize how much $39 trillion is.

[A]

Yeah, I don't think people realize how much the $39 trillion is. I don't think people realize how absolutely toxic the entire system is or how late stage we really are. But the national debt is expected to cross $39 trillion today or tomorrow. That number is so insane and it is tearing this country apart. It is also making it impossible for young people to get ahead. It is the dumbest thing any society can do to rob the young of their starting momentum. You should expect the young to be willing to work hard. You should expect them to be willing to fight for everything they get in life. They should have zero expectations that anything will be given to them them. And at the same time, you should ensure that the system is not designed to hurt them and hold them back. No one works hard in a Gulag. No one works hard in a Gulag. Okay? If you put people in an economic prison by promising them free things. Dsa, I'm looking at you. By facilitating fraud by bailing out banks and then using money printing to cover the gaps in your just horrific deficit spending, you make hard work the thing only morons do. Think of life like an open world survival crafting game, okay? Like a Minecraft. You go into the world and you gather resources to build a life. And when things are set up correctly, you're able to accumulate resources. You do it fast enough that you can trade up on the next cool thing, you're having fun. You feel the progress in your life. If you're clever and you work hard, even though quality comes at a cost, even though the finer things in life cost more, you can actually accumulate resources fast enough that you're moving up in life. As Tony Robbins once said, progress is a foundational pillar to human happiness. If that is true and you make it impossible for people to make progress, notice he did not say that you have to achieve goals. He did not say you have to become rich. He did not say that you have to go farther than other people. The foundational pillar to human happiness is progress itself. You want people, especially young people, to be in a position where they can move up, because moving up gets people excited. And so they work harder and smarter and longer, and they innovate. And that's better for everybody. When they feel their progress, they're excited, they're motivated. Now people start not only having cool stuff because they're working hard and being smart and getting motivated and all that, that. But they're able to build a nest egg and begin doing optional things and investing in their future, making their community better, making their country better, those kinds of things, making their family better. They feel confident enough to have kids to plan for the future, they become more ambitious. And some of them will literally shoot for the stars and do incredible things, and all of us are the beneficiaries of that. But they'll only do that if they feel progress, Especially in the beginning, when their psyche is the most fragile and they're asking themselves, is this even possible? They don't know. They're young. They haven't interfaced with the world. They hope it's possible, but they're being told a terrible message. That their ambition is somehow toxic, that being aggressive is somehow bad, that work is for chumps. All of those things create this terrible downward spiral. And if, when they dare to test to see if maybe they could get ahead, they get smacked back by inflation, then they stop. They're not excited, and they realize, okay, maybe I really can't do this. So if you use inflation against them, as they're trying to amass their resources, what they encounter is that even when they work hard, the cost of things rises faster than they can collect the resources needed to get ahead. And if every time they go to the trader, if the cost of the goods is higher than the last time, and the increase in the cost goes up faster than any normal person can collect those resources, people just stop trying. And if you do it long enough, they start punching that trader in the face, it's all just too unfair. That is how they will all feel. And when you're demoralized, you don't just stop trying, you stop dreaming, you stop reaching for something better and you just start trying to hack the game. And I hope that sounds very familiar. You do dumb little side quests that don't go anywhere. At least they're easy. You gamble, because why not? Can't afford the cool stuff anyway. You begin bonding with others, specifically over how stupid the game is. And those that already have the resources just keep playing the game because the game for them actually is awesome, because they're still able to make progress. Now, I've got more to say about some of the recent data that people are passing around on X. There's this big tweet that was getting a lot of attention about how far things have gone since 1971. But I want to make sure that, that people really sit with what I just said for a second. Because the way that the system is set up, we are damaging young people's willingness to pursue, to grow, to be aggressive, to be ambitious, to get better, to go ham. Remember, the easiest way to get ahead is to make things that other people want to innovate a solution that didn't exist before. And that's why the world has continually progressed and progressed and progressed and progressed. And I know a lot of people have this very delusional sense what history was, but history was an ultra violent, short experience that was basically going to guarantee that you were going to die by some microbe. We have made this world better on immeasurable levels, largely on the back of people realizing, oh, I can make progress, I can work hard, I can get ahead, yes, get ahead. That I can strive for a level of inequality, meaning by working harder and smarter and outperforming, I can get ahead. That's a good thing. But we created a system that created toxic inequality via inflation. Now, back in 1971, typical costs were much lower in raw dollars. But one of the misconceptions is that you can compare nominal prices to post inflation prices. And that creates this really delusional comparison where it makes it seem like 1971 was this dream and now it's just this pure hellscape which breaks people's ability to engage with what's really going on. This is very similar to the way that I feel about the problem of Israel's lobbying influence. Once you make it this like detached Alex Jonesy conspiracy theory level, it becomes easy to dismiss. Whereas if you reground it and you talk about what's really going on, you can actually contend with the process problem. So Looking back in 1971, a medium home was around $25,000. New car was about 3,600. A year of private college was roughly 2,900. Average healthcare spending per person was just $350. The median family income hovered around $10,000. Now when people hear those numbers today, they have a seizure because they think $350 for health care. Yes, please. The cost of a house, the cost of a car, it just all feels manageable with today's dollars. But that's because they're not thinking about inflation. So if you fast forward to today, those sticker prices have jumped. So homes are around 400k. New cars average like about 50k. Private college tuition is about 45k. Healthcare per person is about 15,500. A median household income is around 84,000. With family income estimates a bit higher in some measures. And that looks just absolutely shocking at first. And you'll see this was going around on X people saying that the prices have multiplied 10 to 40 times. But most of that jump is inflation. And so you would have to adjust the dollars. Overall, prices in the economy rose roughly eight times. That's the real number. It's not 40 times eight times now. That's horrific and you should be mad as hell. But when you start talking 40 times, people that actually understand the numbers just immediately dismiss you. And so getting people to grapple with the banality of how bad things have gotten so that we can have a real conversation, I think is very important. It's more important than people realize. When you adjust for actual inflation, the real increases are far smaller and more targeted. So real family household income has gone up by about 20 to 30% after inflation. Home costs roughly 2x more after inflation. That's horrifying. You don't need it to be 10x or whatever, a doubling if you didn't. When your income only goes up 20 to 30% and home prices double, that's all you have to say. You've got a problem, you need to address it immediately. That's the kind of thing you take to your congressperson and you say this, you just can't have this. You can't have real wages go up 30%, houses go up 2x. We've got a problem. We need to address the amount of housing, we need to address whether we want businesses to be able to buy up all these single family homes, etc. You don't have to paint this insane picture, the simple math, it's grounded, it's real, it's wildly traumatic and it completely explains what you see. Cars are up 75% in real terms again after inflation. It's terrible. College has roughly doubled. Same thing. Doesn't need to be 40x for you to go. This is not sustainable. Healthcare stands out as the biggest problem. It's risen over 5x even after adjusting for inflation. So the core issue for me, you don't need to paint a picture of some cartoonish runaway train. I think this is part of why people just end up ignoring this stuff. They just put their heads down and they ask for more free things. We've got to get people to understand that the reason things are outpacing the cost of things are outpacing people's ability to make more money. It's multivariate to be sure. But if you just look at inflation is bad always and forever. 2% inflation is better than 3% inflation. But they're both bad. They are both stealing purchasing power. They both add up over time. And when you see the national debt crossing $39 trillion dollars and you think about what the def or the interest payment is on that alone and you realize, yeah, young people are never going to be able to get those early wins. It's just so stacked against them. So when you strip the hyperbole away, you get out of the emotions and you just get into raw cause and effect. It doesn't take many data points to see we've created a system that is inherently broken and we have to fix the system. That's my plea.

[C]

I was getting radicalized just now because I googled like, how much is 39 trillion? 39 trillion seconds is approximately 1.24 million years. Yeah, 39 trillion seconds is 1.24 million years.

[A]

Yes.

[C]

Let's, let's say this in another way. If you lay 39 trillion, $1 bill end to end, you can travel to the sun and back twice.

[A]

Jesus.

[C]

To the sun that we've never been as a civilization.

[A]

And back and back.

[C]

Yeah, you can do two round trips. That's ridiculous.

[B]

Ridiculous.

[C]

That's way too much money.

[A]

But more free things, please, Drew. More free things. And the bad news is it will still get you elected.

[C]

That's what's crazy at this point though, can we, we, are we ever going to address this deficit? I feel like this is one of those things we just got. If I was a consumer, I would just like bankruptcy, start all over, put it in rice. Like how can we.

[A]

What hat do you want me to answer with. Because this really is a probability chance question. There's, there's no guaranteed way that this ends. And so when I'm in my darker moods and they do come, I'm like, this is really properly hopeless. And then when I'm like, okay, hold on. Only ever think from solutions. Don't allow yourself to wallow. What are the solutions? They're there and they're so simple. It's just humans won't do them. So it's, it's very tough. So traditionally, what happens when you get this indebted is you default and you devalue, and so you drive the cost of your or the strength of your own dollar down, which Trump is already doing, and you at some point tell people, we're just not going to pay you back. Back. Now, the problem is just like alienating your allies comes with these huge consequences. When you just don't pay people back, it's like breaking your credit. And so now you're in a system where you're not going to be able to print money anymore because the world will never buy your debt again because you just told people, you can hold our debt, we're just not going to pay you back.

[C]

True.

[A]

And so now you can't run a deficit. It's. It is literally impossible. Your only option is to print money, but you can't export that to other people. And countries that do that hyperinflate their currencies, so you end up backing yourself into a corner. So the signal, like the way that I think about the debt is like this. If I were offering marriage counseling to somebody and they come in and the husband's like, yes, I do beat my wife. But both of us are very eager to work this out and, and find a way to move forward in the relationship. And I would just say, okay, have you beat your wife in the last week? Yes. Well, you're never going to move forward until every time I ask you that question, the answer is no.

[C]

First and foremost, stop beating your way.

[A]

Correct. So it's, that's how I feel about the budget. If you come to me and say, does America have a good future? I will say, have you balanced the budget? Budget. And if you haven't balanced the budget, you're still beating your spouse and you're not going to recover from that. So step number one, balance the budget. Once you balance the budget, we can talk about wars, we can talk about all kinds of free health care. We can do a whole lot of things. But first, stop beating your spouse. And we have not stopped beating our spouse, not by a little bit.

[C]

We're on the precipice of another election cycle. And on the right, we have fiscal responsibility. I but also national security, which means increased budget for, well, so the right.

[A]

You have an echo of what the right used to be. The right is not fiscal responsibility anymore. Once Trump said the words, I know a lot of you want to balance the budget and so do I, but remember, we have to get reelected. Like, that was the eulogy. It was already dead before that. But he read the eulogy. The right does not give a shit about balancing the budget. So you could say that the right wants to grow the economy enough to overcome the fact that they're not going to balance the budget. But even that I think will end up being a mirage because they're not showing any signs of at least spending a little bit more than budget enough that you could hope to grow. But when your growth rate, I mean, if you're posting 5, 6, 7% growth, then okay, you can spend money a little more recklessly. But when you're talking about what was the growth last quarter, like 1.9 or something stupid like that. So it's like, bro, what the are you doing? So you can't do that. So they're completely hopeless. The only difference between the left and the right to me now is a what flavor do you like your authoritarianism in? And to be honest, I actually prefer my authoritarianism coming from the right. Right. At least I can be open and honest about that. Everybody prefers it from one side or the other. And then the. So the right is going to do national defense and focus on growing. The left is going to open borders and give more free things to everybody and confiscate wealth. So it's like, yeah, what do you prefer? So, yes, I prefer the side that's like, I'm trying to get rid of your taxes. I'm going to still steal all your money via inflation. But the left is like, I'm going to raise your taxes and steal money via inflation. So that is why I slightly prefer my abuse to come from people that are at least trying to free the economy. But it is abuse on both sides.

[C]

X is having issues right now, so I can't bring up the Stephen Miller clip currently, but there is talk, reenact it for you. There is talk on the back of the foundation of the fraud coalition that illegal immigrants have done a large part to drive this deficit up. Now, we just talked about the number 39 trillion. I know we had a Couple learning centers in Minnesota and a couple hospice centers in California. I don't think Those equate to 39 trillion. But what are some things that are happening in the nation that should be stopped that you think has caused us to be in the financial situation this dire?

[A]

The, the only real answer to that is you can't use modern monetary theory. So you would have to severely limit or abolish the Fed, you would have to balance your budget and you would have to have a no tolerance policy for fraud. What we're going to find I think on the fraud side of things is that that's basically the left's equivalent of military industrial complex. So when you look at the military industrial complex, you will be mortified to your core at the cynicism, the abuse, the just complete willingness to pilfer from the American people via inflation. And then you'll find the same thing on the side of fraud where it's like, yep, let as many illegal people come in the country as you want, let's get them benefits, let's not audit people that are leveraging fraud because we want to be. I forget what they call it post America, post imperial, there's some name for it where it's like we don't believe that America was founded on anything just. And so whatever wealth America and Americans have needs to be redistributed back to the less fortunate. And so fraud is a way to redistribute those ill gotten gains. So it, I think it's going to break something like that. And I want to make sure people understand again, this just comes down to what flavor of abuse do you like? Like you're being abused by the military industrial complex. You're also being abused by welfare fraud, by daycare fraud, by hospital fraud, et cetera, NGOs. So it's happening on both sides. Now in the final analysis, will one side be worse than the other? Maybe. But right now I would say focusing on the fact that both sides beat us is probably the right place to start. And then when we're only talking a matter of degree, we're in a much better place than we are now. But both sides are so abusive from a deficit spending, money printing perspective that it's like it really just does come down to people are, and I think rightly so, we have temperament is a massive spectrum that goes from far left to far right. And we have people that fall all along it, both by birth, birth and by how they were raised. And so that's just how the human mind works. But I Just want everybody to wake up. No matter where you fall on that spectrum, like you're being abused and taken advantage of. It is so easy to explain. It's not, maybe not as easy to understand, but it's very easy to explain what's happening. I can point to all the cause and effect. So many people can. It's not like I have some monopoly on this, this. So yeah, but it's. Can you get people to stop doing it? That's the question.

[C]

You kind of covered this in the last deep dive. But with the way that America is posturing right now, we are as an empire stretching a little bit beyond our borders in this war. We're in a new region. We're getting attacked on all sides. There's possibility that our biggest adversary China is moving on another sovereign land in Taiwan. We are also supporting a third war between Ukraine and Russia while also South America protests and unrest is starting to bubble up.

[A]

He's talking about taking Cuban out.

[C]

Yeah, so. So it seems like we have our hand in four pots. Fiscally we are down bad. A way to put it down, put it nicely. The nicest way to say that housing is still unaffordable. The job market is evaporating via AI. There's a lot of headwinds that is facing the US citizen right now. A lot of people in the chat are talking about friends that they have that are just lack of hope, lack of dreams, lack of pursuit, lack of things to kind of navigate it. Are there ways that we can use this news to. Unfortunately, this is the best way, I can say enrich ourselves or make sure that us and our family and our communities are good and we don't get caught in some of these decisions that are, are made by people that don't have our best interests in mind.

[A]

Yeah. The easiest way to get ahead is to make sure you figure out who is a game rigged to help. The very brief answer is asset holders. Become an asset holder and get a meaningful amount of every paycheck. Whatever you have to do to scrim scrape, get it in there. And I get it. That's going to be brutally difficult. If you don't, you will just continue to fall farther and farther down the K shaped economy. The problem with the stock market just to round it to something simple is that you have to have a long term horizon. If you have a horizon that's less than 10 years, you're. You're going to be in for some rough times. So that's where the advice is both real and extremely tricky. So yeah, that that is the only escape right now with the system that we have set up, plain and simple, you cannot save your way to success. They are stealing your savings, very specifically through inflation. So you have to own assets, period.

[C]

But I feel like when we say own assets, I think we got to start a little bit downstream. I think assets are the bottom of the waterfall. But I think if I'm. I can't afford anything to buy assets, to me that seems like a chasm.

[A]

Let me use an analogy.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

Life is basketball ball. And in America and most of the world, we have created a system where there is an iron dome. And if you shoot the ball, a laser explodes the basketball and it never goes into the game, into the hoop. And by the way, if you don't score points at the end of the game, they just kill you. So now you're in a position where you have to score points, but as soon as the ball leaves your hand, it gets lasered into oblivion. So what's the answer that remains?

[C]

Dribble. The ball leaves your hand.

[A]

So. Well, we won't count dribble. Let's say that you can move around the court by dribbling. Yep. What's the one way to shoot where the ball doesn't leave your hand until it's already in the basket?

[C]

I had dunk it.

[A]

Correct.

[C]

Got it.

[A]

Now what happens, Tom, if I'm five four and. And dunking feels out of reach, what do you do?

[C]

I gotta get more springy shoes.

[A]

Correct. You're gonna have to find a way to dunk the ball because remember the lasers. So I get it. It's unfair. I understand why people are mad as hell. But you either change the system and turn off the iron dome that kills every ball that leaves your hand, or you Mugsy bogues it and you've got to find a way to dunk it. Spud Webbit, right. Both two real short guys. And they found a way to dunk. So. But that's it. They're. There isn't another answer given the setup. And so to get back to the hard reality of it, the setup is such that you are in a position where, via globalization, your ability to negotiate an ever increasing paycheck has been wildly diminished because jobs just spread out all over the world to wherever things were cheapest. And then you also are in a position where, because the government doesn't balance the budget and we keep electing people that promise free things, the deficit just grows and grows and grows and grows and grows. And that is basically the equivalent of raising the rim. And so now dunking, it gets harder and harder and harder, but the reality is that it is what it is. And there's so much regulatory capture that even the one asset that people understand intuitively and the desire to get laid pushes you towards which is a house, even that one becomes out of reach. So now all of the. The evolutionarily placed algorithms running in your brain that you can just expect to push you to do the quote unquote right thing in an environment where you need to own assets, they've made that impossible. But people don't understand regulatory capture, and they think it's a good thing. And the people that have a house, they want their house values to stay high, so they don't want you to build and they want regulatory capture. And then you get the split between the generations that we see now. I mean, it's one of those things where I can give you the rah rah speech. And honestly, I am game to do it anytime, anywhere, to make the people that fall into the 2% to understand how much power you really do have, that you really can win. And at your individual level, it is shocking how good you can get at dunking. I don't care how short, you start off like it is wild. What you can accomplish as an individual person, once you realize, oh, learn how the game is played and I can win, cool. I'm going to learn how the game is played. And that really is life. And you're at the moment where you've got AI, you've got access to the greatest tool ever to figure out how to outplay all these geriatric that have been trying to hold you back. They're not going to avail themselves of that technology. So, hey, here's your chance. Learn how the game works and outplay people. This is why I scream and beat my chest and try to get people to understand. Skills have utility, skills have utility. And when you develop those skills, it means you can do something other people can't. And so if I could just get you guys relentlessly focused on skill acquisition. And I don't care how old you are, because I know some of my audience is my age and older, you can get good at something. I'm learning how to actually program video games. Programming might be a stretch, but build them at a technical level. And so. So if I can learn this stuff at almost 50, you guys can learn this stuff at whatever age you are. It just comes down to how badly do you want it? So I'm game to do the rah rah speeches, Drew. I still love them. I still believe in people. But the game is what the game is, and they have to play the game that exists.

[C]

All right, moving on. X is still down, so I had to bring up a article from People. Tyler, Frankie Pauls, that's the woman with the domestic violence investigation and three kids who will be featured on the next Bachelorette.

[A]

That's wild.

[C]

She is a former Secret Lives of Morvan wives contestant.

[B]

It's a reality show.

[C]

Reality show? Yes. I don't know.

[B]

They're like, all tik tok moms, and I. I know too much lore about that.

[C]

I'm about say, yeah, this is Ryan. Okay, wait, wait.

[A]

Ryan just, like, bumped up a notch here. He's no longer at the silent community. Guy like Ryan say more.

[C]

Forget. Forget the deficit. He's like, wait, I know about the Mormon wives.

[A]

Let me jump in.

[B]

I just binged it with my friends recently because they were like, ryan, you have to watch this show. Blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, fine. And so we all watched it, and basically, it's this show of TikTok moms. They're all Mormon, and they all have horrible stories. Like, some of them were groomed young. Obviously, Utah has, like, the 16, you know, age of consent. But it basically, it's a reality show that follows their lives, kind of showing and deconstructing Mormonism and how it affects women. Really fascinating show. But obviously, since it's a reality TV show, there's a lot of silly stuff like this whole Bachelorette thing. But the girl for the Bachelorette, she. The guy she's with, they're both abusive towards each other. They've had multiple scandals where they abuse each other.

[A]

Jesus.

[B]

And they always go back together. And so when the Bachelorette aired this last weekend, this story came out, and they had to stop filming of the next season of the show. And so no one knows what happened between the two of them because they're both saying different things.

[A]

They had to stop their lives. The scandal around the abuse is so horrifying that the show is in jeopardy because no one will watch it.

[B]

Well, they've also got a kid, and I think this time the kid was involved. But again, no one knows because they're both liars and they're saying all types of different things. So the case is playing out in court, to my knowledge.

[A]

This is wild. Reality TV is wild.

[B]

But learn this all in a weekend. So.

[C]

Wow. Okay.

[A]

Well, we know what we can tap into Ryan for.

[C]

Yes. And you said at the top of the show this is all economic. So I would love to see how you spin this one into how I spin.

[A]

Spin. Yeah. So this is not spin, man. If you want to know why a bunch of guys would compete on a reality TV show to be with a mother of three who has a pending investigation for domestic abuse against her. It is very simple. When people do not feel like they can get ahead, all of a sudden it's like you start lowering your standards, people start acting crazy. The culture gets completely out of pocket. We are at a point now where there is very little restraint being placed on people. Where we set an ideal and say, okay, this is what a good boy acts like. This is what a good girl acts like. And I get it. I get that those things feel like a shackle when you're young. And part of the joy of youth is getting out from under all the things that your parents wanted you to be. And then why in your mid-20s do you turn around and go, huh, mom and dad might have been right. Because you encounter the real world and you realize that there are problems, that you need to be disciplined, you need to push hard and all of that. Problem is, we're not teaching kids that now, because when you get out, the government's just going to steal all your money anyway. You've got regulatory capture to death. You can't get ahead. And so now it's all just like this really weird culture colliding with social media, online dating, gamble culture, because why not yolo? You're not going to be able to walk the old school path anyway. If you fixed economics and you made it so that people could play a traditional game, that they could walk a traditional path and that they could actually grow and get ahead and all of that. Now all of a sudden, you've got people that will want to build together. If you think about women and men. So men are gambling literally, financially, because how do they succeed in the dating market? Historically, they got ahead. From a resource perspective perspective, what are women doing now? They are gambling in terms of their youth on somebody that's going to give them access to a lot of money. It's not literal gambling, but you get the idea. It's them playing the card that they have left, which is their youth, their beauty. Now you've got to ask. This was always a game that people played, but you didn't have this level playing out where you've got a whole bunch of women competing for a ridiculously small number of men. Those men then do not have to to actually commit because they have access to all these women that want access to the resources. There's an absolutely fascinating insight that Brett Weinstein talks a lot about, which is that monogamy is culturally contextual. And when things are doing well and you have a thriving middle class, people tend to be monogamous because there's a lot of choices. Men and women can group up and they can scale the ladder and things go well. When you start getting wild, toxic inequality, then all of a sudden you get harems because women are like, well, I'd rather be the seventh wife of Jeff Bezos than the first wife of this guy who's never gonna be able to get ahead because the system is so rigged he can't get any momentum going. And so I'm saying, when you break the economics, a lot of things in culture that seem completely unrelated begin to disintegrate and break down, period.

[C]

I didn't think it was possible.

[A]

All economic.

[C]

I didn't think it was possible, possible, but somehow we landed there.

[B]

Nick Shirley just dropped the new video investigating fraud in Southern California. As Vance becomes the new fraud czar. Trump even floated the idea of kicking all welfare back to the states, something I'd suggested previously.

[C]

Thoughts?

[A]

Yeah. So the whole Nick Shirley thing is a big deal. I love, by the way, that this is happening. I hope that he keeps doing this city after city after city and that Americans wake up and realize that we should not want this kind of abuse. We should not be tolerating this. This, this is a big problem. I think we're going to find more and more of this stuff. And for those of you that don't know, the intrepid 23 year old YouTuber Nick Shirley literally just went and did what California's own government refuses to do, which is investigate the obscene amount of fraud that's taking place in California. Now, if you don't know Nick, this is the same kid that exposed the obscene fraud taking place in Minnesota. And the video that he drops about 40 minutes long, it claims to be exposing over $170 million in fraud tied to government funded hospice centers and daycare facilities all across Los Angeles. It's already hit like 10 million views just on X in a couple of days. So this is another one that's catching fire. I think people are not enjoying this in terms of they don't enjoy that the fraud is happening. What Shirley found was that one in every ten dollars spent on home health care in the entire United States is spent in LA county alone. Now, that's not Nick Shirley making up that number by the Way. That is a documented number from official sources. But as you might expect, not all of the facilities that he went and visited are actually doing what they claim to be doing. We've got some clips, I think if we can throw those up.

[C]

Up.

[A]

This is wild.

[C]

What do you do for work here? What do you do for work here?

[A]

Why? Oh, we're just looking around.

[C]

We're seeing all these hospitals.

[A]

Everybody just gets so suspicious. Why? What? Like if you're doing a cool thing, say the cool thing you're doing. Word got out that I was inside

[B]

of the plaza and all the fraudsters

[C]

started hopping in their cars, leaving the scene. Excuse me.

[A]

It is pretty crazy. You've got.

[B]

Just answer our questions.

[C]

Hello.

[B]

Can we ask you question a quick question?

[A]

Doing hospice care, driving out in a brand new M8. They can't get out that Mercedes. And how can I get an M8 as well?

[C]

Should I open up a hospice?

[A]

Now listen, driving out in a brand new M8. This is a side hustle.

[C]

BMW M8 competition. Listen to this thing.

[B]

This is the sound hospice money.

[A]

All right, that's my man Nick Shirley doing his thing, going up to people. Shirley and his team visited facility after facility where enrollment numbers just did not match the bodies that are actually on site. So they would say, oh, we've got a ton of people. And then you go and there's 012. But there's nowhere near the numbers that a lot of these places are claiming. Some locations had no one present at all during business hours. There was one place where he went up and the kids were completely alone. He asked him like eight different ways. Ways because you hear by yourselves, there's no adults here. No, no one here. Wild. Other facilities obviously couldn't be entered or there was no one there to answer the door. Now meanwhile, parked outside, as we just saw in those clips, you've got Custom wrapped Cybertruck BMWs, Mercedes. A healthcare worker that Shirley interviewed on camera said that the hospice fraud trend started during COVID that people are actually building out hospices and they and selling them like they were businesses. Keep in mind these are funded by the state. The number of hospice agencies in LA county has reportedly surged 1,500% just since 2010. California's own state auditor flagged the problem back in 2022. Has Newsom done anything about it? Little to nothing. CBS News even investigated it. But. But say it with me now. Nothing happened. Governor Newsom's response to Shirley's video. His press office posted an AI generated image implying that Shirley had an unhealthy interest in children. He didn't give a rebuttal or say, listen, this is what we've been doing, or here's our counter fraud initiatives. He didn't provide any counter evidence. He just memed. Just memed. So that went over about as well as you would expect. If you look in the comments, which was fun. Shirley's own comment on the post ratioed Newsom to death. And all Shirley did in his comment was point out that he's just exposing fraud. Man, if you are exposing fraud and there is an allergic reaction to what you're doing, you found the problem. Now, I want to be clear. Citizen journalism like this brings awareness to these issues. But you do have to be careful. You've got to let the legal system play out. Not everything that Nick is saying or pointing out is going to end up being true. I'm sure some of these people are legitimately be legit. Everything is going as. One would expect that there was a reason they couldn't get to the door that day or whatever. But given the incentive structure that is at work here, the odds that there isn't substantial fraud is effectively zero. So let us all hope and pray that people start digging into what's really going on in these places, finding out the fraud, getting rid of that so we can actually help the people that we want to help help. Now, I think Stephen Miller is out of his mind saying that all we have to do is magically get rid of illegal immigrants and suddenly the budget is going to balance itself. It's not going to work out like that. There's going to be plenty of fraud. You're going to struggle to get it to zero though. That should be the goal. I don't think people should just give up on that. You'll struggle to get it to zero. It is not the cause of your full deficit. The cause of your full deficit is that you will spend money on whatever you want. Want to make sure that there is no short term pain from people making poor economic choices. Plus, remember, by doing that, you distribute the pain across everybody that holds dollars and you accrue value. By doing that bad thing, you accrue value to the wealthy people in the world that own assets. And so the incentive structure is so terrible. This is always going to keep playing out like this. So want the fraud to be found. Be super suspicious of anybody that has a negative reaction to you trying to expose fraud. They should be like, oh damn, tell me more. What'd you find? Like, yes, this is awesome. Thank you so much point us in the right direction. That is the only acceptable response. Excellent. You guys. The next zero to founder masterclass I'm going to be giving is Thursday, April 9th at 1pm Pacific. If you want to learn how to leverage AI to grow a business business, to start a business, to start scaling that revenue, make sure you sign up for it. Remember, I did not start my life on YouTube. I've been building businesses for almost two and a half decades. I was one of the founders of one of the fastest growing companies ever in the history of America. So I've been at this game for a long time. I've had a lot of success at it. And if you want to know how to use AI to do it faster and better even than the things that I've done, now is your chance. Coming up Thursday, April 9th at 1pm Pacific, I'm offering a free masterclass. All right everybody. And if you already know that you want into Zero to Founder, make sure you sign up today and I will see you guys on the inside. All right everybody, see you Friday. Peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine burns, breaks, everything tends to break and that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop 8 ounces of water and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics, nutrient dense superfoods. 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[C]

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