← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Unpacking Ukraine, Venezuela, and Campbell’s Soup Scandal: Inside Global Chaos
01:26:38
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- [00:00]
Tom
A vacation rental shouldn't come with surprises. It should come with verbo Care and 24. 7 Life Support. If the hot tub's broken, that's a verbo care thing. If my teenager starts calling me Leslie, that's a family thing. Leslie VRBoCare and 24. 7 Life Support. If you know you're VRBO, terms apply. See vrbo.com trust for details.
- [00:15]
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- [00:44]
Tom
Download the app Today progress has theoretically been made in the Russia Ukraine conflict. Special envoy Steve Witkoff's back channel communications though from the negotiation have been leaked. Candace Owens has gone into hiding because she believes the French government is trying to assess assassinate her. Marjorie Taylor Greene resigns from Congress as troops continue to build up in the Caribbean and Representative Maria Salazar says the US Is about to intervene directly in Venezuela. James o' Keefe manages to get someone from the Governmental Accountability Office to confess on camera that they're hiding information about RFK Jr. A VP at Campbell's Soup got caught on a recording trashing the company's products and Google rides the AI inflation bubble to a nearly $4 trillion valuation. All that and more.
- [01:37]
Co-host or Interviewer
All right, the first thing we have up is Ukraine apparently signing the peace deal. So breaking Ukraine has agreed to the full terms of President Trump's peace plan. I believe that's the 20 point plan that we've gone over in the past to end the war with Russia, per ABC News. What makes this different from all the other times that we've talked about? Like they're getting closer. How close are we?
- [02:00]
Tom
Honestly right now, I assume we are no closer. Getting the specifics down on paper with Ukraine is very different than getting Ukraine and Russia to agree. So now look on this one, I really don't want to be cynical because I really want this to go well. War is a horror the likes of which I hope no human ever has to interact with. So if we're able to actually get this across the finish line, that would be an unmitigated good. But one of my favorite maxims is don't trust what somebody says, don't even trust what Somebody does, but always, always trust a pattern. And the pattern with Putin is he tells you what you want to hear. He glad hands and he moves things forward and then does whatever the hell he wants. It was so brazen when he had the falling out with the guy that marched on Moscow. I'm forgetting his name. Somebody in chat will remind me. And it was like, well, that guy's dead. And then like a month later, his airplane mysteriously blows up midair. It's like so wild. Like he's just that predictable. Like he's straight out of a black comedy. It's wild, wild. So, yeah, I, I, if I were a one man poly market, I would say that the odds are extremely low that they're able to actually come to an agreement. The, the sentiment that I get online is that Russia is in a very good position right now in terms of who's winning the back and forth. I won't call it winning the war, but like that they're losing fewer troops. They're able to push obviously much deeper into Ukraine. I know the Ukraine is launching like kamikaze drone strikes on Russia, and so they probably don't love that, but yeah, from what I hear, they definitely would feel like they have the upper hand in a big way. And so the odds that they take a deal just don't seem high. The relationship with China seems to be going well. As far as I can tell, the sanctions just haven't hurt them enough. So unless Putin is really feeling pressure from oligarchs or something like that that I'm just not deep enough in to know about, I don't see what would bring him to the T. So we'll see. But he's been pretty quiet.
- [04:25]
Co-host or Interviewer
From everything I've seen so far, it seems like people have been criticizing the 20 point plan and saying that Ukraine would, would never sign this, they would never agree to it. So I'm surprised that Ukraine is the first one signing like actually saying, yes,
- [04:41]
Tom
well, they reduced it. So the number of points has been reduced. I think it's a 18 or 19 point plan now. And they are supposedly pulling all the things that people thought, oh, they'd never agree to this. Now if people thought that they would never agree to ceding territory, that doesn't make sense to me. If enough of your people are getting killed and enough of the people in the territories that are in question already identify as being ethnically Russian, like at some point you just go, you got to cut the hand off to save the body. If you've got gangrene it's like it's going to either kill the whole body or you lop it off. Now, reports indicate that there is territory that Russia is saying, you're going to have to give up this area. We'll give up something else in exchange for that. That may be a hard and fast red line for the Ukraine because it's basically their Thermopylae. If you know the story of 300 from Sparta, they had to force the army that they, the invading army to go through a choke point. And by going through that choke point, they were able to still lo. But they were able to hold them off for a long time and just absolutely slaughter disproportionately. It seems to be that the territory that Russia is trying to acquire is something like that. That if they can control the choke point, then there's only open land between Russia and Ukraine in a way that they would not be able to patrol effectively and stop. So again, not being a scholar on this stuff, but from what I've read so far, it seems like what the Ukraine would need to do is make sure that they hold that, that they build up a big military presence, that that's going to be part of their go forward strategy in the negotiation is, no, no, we're going to have to have a much larger standing army. You're gonna have to remove any of the caps on that. We're going to need to hold that territory and we're going to need to beef up our military presence. And so if Russia wants to indicate to the world that, hey, we're negotiating in good faith, but these just won't be reasonable, they might draw a circle around that and say, wow, guys, listen, like, we've got good traction here. There's no reason why we wouldn't want to take that. Ukraine is going to say, hold on, what are you talking about? We have the good traction here. We're dug in. We can defend this point. There's no way that we're going to give this up. And so you'll get a PR battle that happens over that. But again, I don't think Russia is sincere. I think Russia is going to keep pushing until something absolutely forces them to stop. And so if you were going to run the betting market on this, you would be looking for the indication that there's something very bad has happened to Russia. So oligarchs are ganging up on Putin in a way that he feels weakened by that, that there's tremendous loss of life on the Russian side, that there is a economic struggle that does not seem to currently exist right now. Like, you would need that kind of pressure where Putin is going to say, I need a PR exit ramp. And so then I could see him coming to the table. But without that, I don't see why he would stop. If you step inside of his frame
- [07:59]
Co-host or Interviewer
of reference from the chat, essentially thinking about someone in America who is just trying to pay their bills, why should they care about the Russia, Ukraine situation?
- [08:11]
Tom
I mean, if you said, tom, this is a Lincoln Douglas debate, you need to be able to take either side of the issue. And now here's the case. I think they called them cases. It's been a long time since I've done Lincoln Douglas debate, and I have to defend a side that I don't believe in. But I'm going to give you the best argument. I would say something like, okay, listen, you've got all of Europe. Europe is in a very weakened state. You have Russia. Russia right now is being territorially acquisitive. You've got Putin, who has long believed that the fall of the USSR is a tragedy that needs to be rectified. And by invading Ukraine, has basically broken, like, 80 years of. We no longer do the whole expand your borders thing. And so we've had this border integrity where people respond very swiftly internationally to say, hey, like, this is an incursion across sovereign borders. We absolutely do not tolerate that anymore. And there's massive pushback the world over. If the, if the invasion of Ukraine is allowed to stand from an international community perspective, we basically said, nah, like, all right, a little bit of territory acquisition is fine. And you run the risk of all hell breaking loose into Europe again, where Russia now starts going into other territories. And so what becomes the brakes on Russia, or do they just start doing that? And now we're back in, you know, World War II era where. Where there's all these battles over who owns what territory, first, obviously by the Germans, then the US And Russia sort of divvying up parts of Eastern Europe. So it like, do we want to get back into that world? So let's say if I'm arguing this position, I'm going to pound the table. I'm going to say, absolutely not. I'm going to say, you cannot trust Putin, that you've got to understand that this is somebody that will continue marching deeper and deeper into the former Soviet states, gobbling them all up. Is there really going to be anything that's going to stop him from pushing deeper into Europe? You've got a Russia, China alliance. Anything that we can do to weaken Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, obviously you got the BRICS nations, but I won't try to lump them all together. But from that, like Russia and China running all these military operations, putting out public statements that there's never been a deeper tie between Russia and China. And if you know Russia and China's history, it's pretty terrifying to think that from a military perspective, they're more united now than they've ever been, given that they fought the war between what ends up becoming north and South Korea together, that there were a ton of Chinese troops fighting on the side of North Korea. And so you've got the. That allegiance is like, do we really want to see that getting stronger? The answer would be in this argument, absolutely not. Now, if I'm taking what I actually believe, America is going bankrupt, that will be devastating in a way to the average American, in a way that people are not, in my opinion, accurately mapping. It's one of those where I really have to decide if I'm going to keep talking about this. I have to find an emotional way to deal with this because it's forcing me to map the territory down to really minute detail. And the deeper I go, the more I zoom in onto the picture, the more sort of map every pixel of this image, the more I realize, oh, the belief that I have in terms of how the economy works, it doesn't change, it just gets more terrifying. I feel that we are standing on the precipice over the next decade, this is not like a next five months problem, but over the next decade, we will live through the process of what it means to go broke. And when you look at history, it is not pleasant. Now, it doesn't always play out exactly the same way. So it doesn't necessarily have to become a full blown civil war or anything like that. But keep in mind right now how panicky maybe the right word people are about the Affordable Care act, subsidies getting removed. Bro, it all goes away. Like when your country goes broke, it. You have to have a balanced budget, so that's $2 trillion a year instantly get vaporized. Then it's like, okay, well now that that's happened and we cannot borrow money internationally anymore, all we can do is print money. What ends up happening to the economy, what ends up happening to the dollar on an international stage. This is going to keep getting weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker and weaker. So you run. And then of course, getting people to understand that printing money hurts the poor middle class the most. So all of that feeds into my belief that you have two options before you. You become the world's gun store and you leverage conflicts to make money for the average American so that we're able to create military industrial complex jobs for a whole lot of people to make a whole lot of weapons. I get the moral implications, but I'm saying it is a an economically viable opt option for us to decide, hey, we don't, we're not going to get involved in these conflicts, but we're going to arm people to the teeth and we're going to re industrialize around weapons and artillery and all of that. Cool. Now they can fight as long as they want because you're making money. What we can't keep doing is sending money over either in the form of weapons that we're supposedly not going to use anymore. But if they're usable, obviously we could still use them doing that or just outright sending cash because that's a dollar that you're not spending here in America. Now I am the most worried about the cultural implications of America believing that you can just print money ad infinitum, that socialism is a good idea. That's the thing that terrifies me. So anything that gets people to focus on fiscal responsibility, I'm here for. So if extracting ourselves from conflicts that not near to our shores is the way that we get there, great. But I don't think this is the simplest thing in the world in terms of just be isolationist. We are still one of two incredibly important international powers and so if we completely extract ourselves out of that, you become isolated, you're not making friends, you don't have the allies that you may need at some point in the future. And so as I say, make friends before you need them. So this becomes. Getting the voting public to choose usually forces you to give them binary options like America first is rapidly become America only because you just need something that's really concrete, really easy to see and understand. But it's probably far better that we run a more nuanced plan of helping where we can getting fiscally responsible such that we have money to do things internationally with when we need to. But that is going to be a brutally difficult sell. But getting into the nuance and by the way, if, if these strands are not connecting for people, you need to tell me where people are getting lost. So I can really draw the connective tissue because like I'm getting into a, the nuanced web that makes all of this stuff difficult to parse through. I know this is where people tend to get lost. But it is a very hard sell to tell Americans, hey, I know that we're going bankrupt. I know that we have to spend less money domestically, but we also can't go to zero spend on the international stage because these are allies that we want and need. These are ways that we get some of the power that we have as Americans because we have so much influence the world over. And if you give up that influence, which is already waning, but if you give up that influence entirely, then you're going to economically down the road, be in a much worse position. But that's hard to convince people of. When they look around and they're like, I can't make ends meet already. This does not feel good in any way, shape, or form. The youth feel totally disenfranchised, and they believe they're disenfranchised because capitalism bad. Not realizing they're disenfranchised because we gave up on capitalism a very long time ago, and that the way to solve their problems is to move in the opposite direction. But good luck convincing them. In the middle of all of that, in the middle of people like me pounding our chest saying, we need to balance the budget, and also saying, but by the way, you probably do want to use money to make sure that you have killer allies the world over.
- [17:35]
Co-host or Interviewer
We've got people eavesdropping on calls with Russian officials while they're trying to end the war in Ukraine. Yeah, and I didn't think there was a ton in the actual transcript, unless I'm missing something.
- [17:48]
Tom
But it's not that there's a ton. It's that that the. It is utterly fascinating to get a glimpse inside of people's awareness of Trump's psychological vulnerabilities. We all have them. When I was teaching film, I would often show students bad filmmaking so that you could see the process. So good editing tends to be invisible. You don't understand how the trick is being made. You know how you feel, but you don't know how to structure that. So as a, like, growing editor, you're trying to figure out, wait, what do I do? And so I would bring things in where I'd say, okay, you can see what they're attempting to do, but they're doing it clumsily. And so now you can see, like, oh, fast cuts create this effect and things like that. So anyway, Trump is the psychological version of that. His tells are so big and so obvious that they give people a way to see how the psychological game is played. So what I found interesting about Steve Wykoff. Steve Wykoff has a job, this thing done. And Steve Witkoff believes in this exchange that he has information that would be useful to the Russians to get the job done, because he understands one of the pieces on the chessboard is Trump's personality. He knows another piece on the chessboard is Putin's personality. And so everybody involved is going to have mapped, just as I would expect you to have mapped my weirdnesses so that you know how to navigate me, because I'm important to your professional life. And so anybody smart is going to be like, okay, Tom's really weird about these three things. And so as people come into the company and you get to know them, it's like you look over your shoulder and you're like, listen, if you want to get around Tom, just, like, acknowledge these things, right? And so my message to people is always, the only thing that makes it worse is when you feel like you can't talk about it. So, like, I don't mind people saying, this is what you're like. We all know that. And so we all do this thing and be like, yeah, that is what I'm like. So you get to see Witkoff saying, hey, guys, listen, if we want to get this done, just start the call. Tell Putin to start the call by saying, listen, Trump, I'm very impressed with the peace deal that you brokered in Gaza, and I think you're a man of peace, and I respect you greatly. And he said, after that, the call is going to go great. And I was like, yeah, this is not the kind of thing that you want to leak to the public, because these kind of magic tricks only work when people aren't aware that they're being played. But for all of us that now get a glimpse into that, to see how all of this stuff goes, it's pretty fascinating. Now, again, I don't think this is necessarily going anywhere because I don't think Putin is ready to sign, but I certainly could be wrong about that. So we'll see. But that. That was why I found this particularly interesting. You've got potentially, the NSA leaking secrets of our own government, highlighting the fact that our own government is fighting against itself. This is tied to the James o' Keefe thing. Watch the series Death by Lightning about the assassination of the. Of President Garfield. It really shows how governments, like, even on the side that you think they would be cooperating with each other, they're fighting against each other, going against the other side, who they're also fighting against, who within their own party. They're fighting against each other like nps. This is why socialism doesn't work, because everybody's fighting against everybody else. And so people just end up going, this guy's my enemy. I'm just going to take all this for myself. You're having a biological experience. You've been programmed in a certain way. So yeah, we're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H VAC and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [21:57]
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- [22:28]
Tom
Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.
- [22:32]
Co-host or Interviewer
Here we are with Candice Owens. This is what's happening. She said urgent. Two days ago I was contacted by a high ranking employee of the French government. After determining this person's position and proc proximity to the French couple, I have deemed the information they gave me to be credible enough to share publicly in the event that something happens. In short, this person claims that the McCrones is it Macron, Macron McCrone have executed upon and paid for my assassination. Yes, you read that correctly. More specifically, the green light was given to a small team in National Gander Marie intervention group. I am told there is one Israeli that is on this assassination squad and reform alone. Again, this person provided concrete proof that they were well placed within the French government apparatus. Further to this point this person claims that Charlie Kirk's assassination trained with the French Legion 13th Brigade with multi state involvement.
- [23:23]
Tom
This is where my neck started getting longer and longer. When the French Legion got pulled in
- [23:26]
Co-host or Interviewer
I was like Journalist Xavier Poussard's life is also at risk. This is deadly serious. The head of state of France apparently wants us both dead and has authorized professional units to carry this out. And then she asked people to retweet. And I do not know who in the. The American government can be trusted, since this source claims our leaders are aware. But I have more specific information which is def. Definitively verifiable should they care to reach out to me, to the brave official in France who did this because they were so moved by the evil of Charlie's public execution to risk their own life. May God bless you, truly. And then. I love her last line. Let all be revealed. It's so. I mean, this is a serious situation. Yes, but that's all cinematic Gravitas.
- [24:09]
Tom
Yeah. Right. 43.5 million views on this tweet. Dude, this. This is, like, Elon Musk. Visibility. Very. I mean, as a content creator, we got to give this woman a round of applause.
- [24:27]
Co-host or Interviewer
So. Assassination attempt.
- [24:29]
Tom
I mean, okay, what we. We need to go through this piece by piece to give the devil's due. I. I have not been in any way, shape, or form. Unclear. My take on Candace is I do not think she is lying, and I think she's wildly off base. So this is somebody who I am in no way, shape, or form trying to diagnose Candace, because I don't think the following statement is literally true, but my old college roommate, his brother was schizophrenic, and his brother, he would go off his meds, and he. They'd, like, find him two states away, living under a bridge. And he was like, the Italian government is trying to get me. And I was always like, why the Italian government? But the Italian government was trying to get him. These are. This is all real. And, you know, he's, like, having to move from one place to another because they could track his thoughts, and, like, all the time, it's just really wild. And they would finally get to him, and they would talk him down, and they'd be like, remember, you're schizophrenic. You need to get on your medicine. And so they'd get him back on his medication. And this is the terrifying part. When he would get on his medication, he would realize, oh, yeah, they're not after me, but I kind of wish they were, because my life was way more interesting. And it's called secondary depression. So once you realize you're not the main character in some, like, huge drama, it kind of sucks. And so my friend, unfortunately, was telling me the story from the. He's gone off his meds again, and I'm not going to go chase him down. It's the life he wants. He wants to be important. He wants there to be this big conspiracy that he's at the center of, and that makes it more exciting for him. And I was like, yo, he's literally trapped in the Matrix. You pull him out, he's straight cipher and is like, yeah, I'd rather be in the Matrix. And so I'm gonna unplug and just, like, reinsert me. I don't want to be aware. Again, I'm not saying that Candace is schizophrenic, but I am saying that this drama is great tv. But pull up the one I said. This struck a nerve with me. Me.
- [27:15]
Co-host or Interviewer
Yep.
- [27:16]
Tom
So there's a guy that gives a breakdown, and I was like, this is how I feel when I look at this. And we'll get in a minute. To Officer Tatum, who seems reasonably credible, and he thinks Candace might be right. So remember, there's very much a second side to this story. But here we've got Kennecoa the Great, and he said, why not release the evidence to the public and show the world? Haven't you been saying the Trump administration was involved in Charlie's murder? So why depend on them now to release the evidence? So Israel, Charlie's chief of staff, his executive producer, his pastor, the Trump administration, an Egyptian plane, and the French Foreign Legion all work together to kill Charlie Kirk. And that's where I'm just like, yikes. Like, this is getting wild in terms of, like, all of the things that connect and all that. I stand humbly before life in that I've been wrong before, I'll be wrong again. It is entirely possible that this all unfolds. It's like, holy shit, they really were trying to kill Candace. This is insane. It is certainly not outside the realm of possibility that a government. I mean, we know governments kill people, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that. That they are. But who. Does it seem really unlikely to me that all of these dots actually connect together?
- [28:47]
Co-host or Interviewer
To me, it's like, it's too wild to think that she would go this hard without being truly convinced. And then Charlie did die. And so there. There's something. Now, maybe that was just one random person, but, like, what part of you it seems like you're leaning toward? I don't think this is actually real, but she probably believes it. What part of you makes you. Makes you think that it's not actually literally real?
- [29:16]
Tom
Occam's razor. So the simplest answer is usually correct, that there's a guy that was on the roof with a gun that could have shot Charlie, claims to have shot Charlie, gave motive for why he shot Charlie. So there's option A. Option B is that this is, like, the world's most wildly connected. Everybody's in on it, conspiracy. And it's just like, yeah, I mean, look, it is possible, but is it the most likely answer? So, again, I'll follow the evidence, and I am super interested in this drama. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. Like, this is. This is becoming the new reality tv. Like, for real. This is new reality tv, and I'm watching it. I love the Candace Owen show. Like, this is wild. So I want to find out. I want to see if she ends up getting sued into absolute oblivion by the French government. I want to see if they really did want her dead. I want to know who the hell killed Charlie Kirk. Was it actually Tyler Robinson? I want to know more information about the shooter and butler, Thomas Cook. What the hell happened there? Why did they, like, so quickly sweep this stuff away? So a thousand percent, and I'm very open, man. Whatever ends up being true. Let all be revealed. Let all be revealed. I want to see it all, but it's like, when I look at all the things, all the threads she's pulling on, I'm just like. It strains credibility for me, but. But all will come out in the wash now. The thing that I fear is that in the end, it's like, it's so convoluted that we never really know the truth and, like, what happened. And it's. We're just racing down as a society. Like, we're letting go of Occam's razor, and we are getting to the more convoluted, the more crazy, the better. And I doubt that that is going to be high utility, which is the thing that I try to always map the world by. I think that mapping the world that there's, like, all these crazy criminal geniuses that interact with each other in, like, the super sophisticated ways is far less believable than. The world is full of a whole spectrum of people from lovely, incredible, wonderful humans to just absolute predators. And those predators have uneasy alliances and they sort of hate each other and they're building blackmail, and they, like, do actually have sex islands. And people do know that you can get scary dirt on people, but that you, like, pull in the French Legion. And I don't know, it just starts to get too much at some point. We know that there are plenty of bad People in the world, we know that assassinations absolutely do happen. To your point, we know Charlie Kirk was just assassinated, but if you give me a simple explanation that tracks and a really convoluted one where I have to like, okay, we don't really have evidence for that. We just have vibes. But yep. And we have another video I want to show first to give the other side it's due. I want to show the Officer Tatum thing, but there's another video that we're going to show where it's like, let me walk you through the psychological principles that Candace uses. They're absolutely brilliant. He is like me, I think on the fence of like, I don't even know that she knows she's using them, but here they are. So anyway, here's Officer Tatum saying that, hey, there really might be something here. At a minimum, the US Government needs to investigate this. Supposedly he has seen the evidence himself. So let's hear it then, brother.
- [32:54]
Analyst or Expert Guest
The American government. I don't care how much you don't like Candace. I don't care how much you've been trashing American government and the FBI. They got to do something. And I'm gonna tell you what they will do. It doesn't matter right, wrong or indifferent. They got. They have to investigate this. They have to investigate this. And I think that if it is found to be true and the proof prevails, which I'm. I'm convinced after talking to Candace and the stuff that we talked about, I'm convinced then that mean that there should be dire consequences for the French government and whoever else was involved, the Macrons or whatever dire consequences I'm talking about, the American government should go after them like never before.
- [33:37]
Tom
So, I mean, listen, if the French government really is trying to assassinate Candace Owens, then yes, I would expect that to be a diplomatic problem. Now, governments do be kill people. So let's all remember the American government kills people daily off the coast of Venezuela. So don't be too shocked. Now, having said that, if we really did find that that was true, I would expect there to be some backlash.
- [34:05]
Co-host or Interviewer
Hill to Bay something.
- [34:07]
Tom
I don't know if I'll go that far, but I. If they, if we found out that a foreign government killed Charlie Kirk, then yes, I would expect there to be held to pay. But. But it's interesting that a plot is discovered that I would expect there to be a much smaller response to than an actual carried out assassination. So, I mean, we'll see. We'll see.
- [34:30]
Co-host or Interviewer
Makes sense. We also have the telegram Owner Pavel Durov saying that after going through everything Charlie Kirk ever said about France and Macron, I actually think Candace's claim about France being involved in his death is entirely possible. And then we'll add a former CIA officer, John Kyriakou, explaining that France assassinates Greenpeace protesters.
- [34:53]
Tom
And they're murderous too, you know. Murderous? Oh, yeah. If you're a member, for example, of Greenpeace, they're going to blow your brains
- [35:00]
Co-host or Interviewer
out if you try to, you know,
- [35:02]
Tom
take over a ship or throw paint on a ship or whatever. They kill a lot of Greenpeace activists. The French intelligence.
- [35:09]
Analyst or Expert Guest
Yeah.
- [35:10]
Tom
Like, not the paramilitary. No, no, no, no, no. They're happy to go out and kill people.
- [35:14]
Co-host or Interviewer
Have you talked to any of the CIA people that we have through here? Often you give me a silent nod. Does that mean you can't say much, like, about this specifically?
- [35:26]
Tom
I will read you a recent. I won't say who it's from because that doesn't feel right.
- [35:30]
Co-host or Interviewer
I'm breaking out his phone. Yes, we are getting.
- [35:33]
Tom
So it goes like this. I said, what do you think of Candace's claims at France? Put a hit out on her. I said something that would be a little too identifiable. And then his response was, regarding France, they don't use assassins. She's full of it. France is a tech heavy service, so.
- [35:56]
Co-host or Interviewer
Interesting. A tech heavy service.
- [35:57]
Tom
Yeah. Meaning they're gonna spy, they're going to capture information. But one. One intelligence community. Intelligence community. Person's belief. So take that for what it's worth,
- [36:13]
Co-host or Interviewer
but makes total sense.
- [36:15]
Tom
Very interesting.
- [36:17]
Co-host or Interviewer
You want to get into the breakdown of the psychological tactics that Candace is using.
- [36:22]
Tom
Yeah. So, yeah, we'll let this guy speak for himself. So we're not going to watch the whole thing, but. But you'll get a sense of it in the beginning.
- [36:31]
Analyst or Expert Guest
Candace Owens might be one of the most persuasive voices online right now. What she's really doing, whether she knows it or not, is one of the most effective persuasion formulas on the Internet. Her videos on Charlie Kirk's assassination have averaged millions of views. And Candace is incredibly good at one thing. Making people feel certain without ever proving anything. So I sat through all 36 hours of her investigation so far, every clip, every theory, just to see what's really going on. And what I found were five tactics that make Candace Owens not just convincing, but dangerously persuasive. And once you see them, you won't be able to unsee them. Now, obviously, a lot of people feel deceived and gaslit by institutions and in many cases rightly so. But that's not the only thing going on here. If you've ever watched one of our episodes, you'll notice it immediately. The odd footage, the timestamps, things that don't line up, the screenshots that don't make sense, and the random people who suddenly seem suspicious. But she doesn't just give you one or two of these. Every episode, she throws out more than you can count. Nearly 15 in this video alone, sometimes over 20. In fact, I say that this is virtually the entirety of her episodes. She gathers anything that could look suspicious, even if it could be random or unrelated.
- [37:47]
Commercial Announcer
On 9. 4. Kash Patel. As far as November and December. Then we have Frank Turek in October 7th. Well, Megyn Kelly.
- [37:54]
Analyst or Expert Guest
With so many anomalies being introduced every episode, at least a couple of them will strike you as strange. And given the sheer volume of her claims, your ability to think carefully about any of them gets drawn out by the sheer number of them. By the time you start to think critically about one date or rumor or insinuation, she's already moved on to the next. So eventually what happens is you stop paying attention to the quality of the evidence and you're overwhelmed by the quantity, leaving you to conclude that there's just simply too many strange things occurring for there not to be something more going on. This can be thought of as an anomaly overload. It's what happens when a flood of speculation starts to feel like evidence and when the gaps in our knowledge.
- [38:33]
Tom
This is what I feel when I'm watching her stuff. She's just trying to flood the system. There's so many. Like, I'm just. I'm just saying, like, if you. This is weird, right? And you're like, yes, it's weird, but the number of weird things that I've encountered in my life that when I go and actually look under the hood, I'm like, oh, yeah, got it. That happens to me with the economy all the time, where I'm like, what? Why would that be the outcome? And then you realize, oh, there's actually the underlying mechanism, whatever, that does yield that otherwise surprising thing. So, yeah, I'm always a little. When I see, like, the full episode with Candace, I'm always concerned what she'll take as evidence where it's like, okay, it's a coincidence. I will give you that. But I don't understand what you have that directly connects them.
- [39:27]
Co-host or Interviewer
Someone said Alex Jones was a pro at anomaly overload.
- [39:30]
Tom
Oh, my God. I'm sure at almost every day he's got a. Like, a World War III kickoff. We got to talk about it. And I'm like, like, bro, I. I only see you at the headline level. And I'm like, come on. Meow. Like, we see this a lot. How does he get everybody to believe. No, no, for real, today. I know yesterday and the day before, I said it was then, but, like, today, that'd be like. If I. Every day was like, the market is crashing today. Today, bro. And did that every day, all day. I don't understand. I think people just want to be in that feeling, I guess. I don't know. It's interesting.
- [40:06]
Co-host or Interviewer
All right, back to this video.
- [40:08]
Analyst or Expert Guest
Sinister is happening.
- [40:09]
Commercial Announcer
What's going on here? What are Egyptian military subcontractors doing in the middle of Provo, Utah, on the day that Charlie Kirk was assassinated?
- [40:21]
Analyst or Expert Guest
And even though she hasn't proven anything yet, within one episode, you've already moved on from curious to convinced. And all she had to do was to keep asking questions.
- [40:30]
Commercial Announcer
The crime that you were not allowed to commit, just asking questions.
- [40:35]
Analyst or Expert Guest
Okay, but her asking questions is exactly what's in question. If you listen closely to her podcast, often she is just asking questions, but in a way where people hear much more than just the question. Sometimes she makes the implications clear, as she did when implying that Donald Trump was involved in Charlie Kirk's assassination.
- [40:58]
Commercial Announcer
Where we all. We just know. We just know that he was truly betrayed in one of the most egregious ways that I think I've ever seen. It has made me lose faith in politics. It's made me fully lose faith in Trump. And I just, like. I just. My heart aches for the fact that he gave so much of his life.
- [41:16]
Tom
Again, whether she understands that she's using a technique or not, it is certainly a very evocative way to pose all of this stuff. This could be exactly how it's running in her mind where she sees and she's like, oh, my God. Like, come on, what possible reason to. Could there be? And that feeling gives her so much certainty that this obviously doesn't make any sense. Feelings can be very persuasive. Now, I know a lot of people are saying that she's got a ton of receipts. So this is where I'm like, listen, this is going to come out in the wash, like this one because of the lawsuit. I think this one's going to go all the way across the finish line. So it'll be very interesting to see how far this goes. Obviously, I hope it isn't true. I hope it isn't true. I don't want her as a journalist to be being pursued by another government trying to kill her. Like that would be the worst scenario. Great tv. That would be terrible. I don't want that to be true. So I certainly have a bias where, like the idea that this is true is just also anathema to the world that I want to live in. So in terms of having a potential blind spot myself, that would be it. But yeah, I mean, we'll be watching it closely, but this is wild. Taking a short break. But there's more impact theory after Stay tuned.
- [42:34]
Commercial Announcer
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- [43:05]
Tom
Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.
- [43:09]
Co-host or Interviewer
All right, let's move on to Marjorie Taylor Greene resigning from Congress. She put out a video. It's pretty long. I don't think we necessarily want to go through the whole thing. There is also a transcript. I found something interesting in the end of it. So first off, she talks a lot about the personal attacks and things like that. So maybe walk us through first, like what's brought her to this point of actually feeling the need to resign and go be with her family.
- [43:41]
Tom
My best attempt at getting beyond the PR of it all, knowing that I am not inside her mind. I've never been in a room with her. I think that's true. So this is speculation to be sure, but I think it goes something like this. She wanted to run for statewide office in Georgia Trump somewhere between don't fucking do it and hey, you probably would lose might be a little embarrassing. You probably shouldn't do it. I don't know which of those interpretations is accurate. I don't think anybody disagrees that that was sort of the starting point. But. But she did not like that and then turned on President Trump. I don't know the right way to represent that is neutrally but certainly started voting against things, pushing back, being very public against his agenda. And I would imagine that that invited. Now she's getting attacked from both sides. So that couldn't have been a lot of fun. And when I look at politicians, I have one question why the are you in politics? When I say, bro, no way. There is not enough money in the universe to get me to go into politics. Is there something. If you could somehow convince me that all good, at least average, intelligent people were dead and I was the only person left. Oh, yeah. I might feel an overwhelming sense of obligation, but I would never voluntarily go into politics. It is a level of misery that is just weird. So when I saw that, I was like, yeah, I get that. Like you now felt your own party did not have your back. If she really is somebody that connects deeply to people and felt like, well, because she was unhinged. From where I'm sitting, like, during the State of the Union, during Biden's last State of the Union, I was like, who is this maniac?
- [45:39]
Co-host or Interviewer
So
- [45:42]
Tom
she obviously put herself very far out on a limb. And if she did that because she felt like, oh, I've got this anchor of Trump that's holding this branch, so I know I'm not going to fall. And so now I'm that, like, hyper barking Chihuahua. That feels safe when I've got a fence or I've got a leash on. But the second you open the fence or remove the leash, I actually get very quiet and I don't bark anymore. So it's possible she just felt isolated and was like, I don't like this, man. Like, I'm getting attacked from all sides. Nobody seems to appreciate this. I'm getting stressed, I'm missing time with my family, and so what am I doing? And if she, she said she spent millions of her own dollars, so if she's like a multi millionaire already and can afford to blow millions of dollars to go and campaign on her own dime, she's calling in Rich. It's like, it is a constant temptation. I know from experience, when you already have plenty of money, you never have to work again. Every gnarly situation is judged against, hmm, I don't need to do this. So do I pull the rip cord? So it feels like either she realizes I'm just, my heart's not in this anymore, so I'm going to back out, or she realizes, like, if she is far more of a political animal than I realize and is, like, for me to go build for the next cycle, I need to eject out now. I need to go on a campaign, be totally anti Trump and spend the next, you know, whatever year being anti Trump and then running for Senate. I suppose that's possible or something at the state level. But she realizes, again, conjecture, realizes that being in Congress and having all this pressure to adhere to Trump is not the place to do this. Let me get outside the system, throw rocks at it, and then run off the back of that. We'll see.
- [47:36]
Co-host or Interviewer
A lot of the beginning of this transcript letter that she ended up reading is her saying, I've been cast aside by the Republican Party, but I truly care about the people. I can't get these ideals pushed forward. Like, it. When you just read it, it seems like she has a good heart, is trying to do right by her constituents, and then just can't push it forward and is sort of like giving up in defeat. How do you read that? Do you read it that way? Do you think there's some spin here?
- [48:10]
Tom
Do you think that everything is spin? Everything out of a politician, every dude, when you talk to your spouse, when you talk to your kids, it's your spinning. So humans don't know how to communicate without spin. Spin is just frame of reference. Now, how hard is she spinning? That? I don't know. But for sure she's gonna say goodbye in a way that puts her in the best possible light. But does that also sound plausible? Yes. I'm sure that that is very frustration. The best lies are always tied to something real. So I'm sure that she is very distressed at how much of the legislation that she tried hard to put forward just never gets to the floor. That would be a level of obnox that would be hard to deal with, that other people can sort of relegate you. And then she ran a strategy of, okay, I know how to get attention in this media age, and then went sort of full unhinged lunatic from my perspective at the end of the Biden administration, realized I don't love the reputation that that's giving me, began to reel it in a bit. And. Yeah, but is this just another political arc? It could be. We'll see. Like, it is so believable that somebody that has money that I don't know, if she's married, it sounds like she has kids. So it's like, if there are other things for her to focus on that will give her meaning and fulfillment, like a thousand percent do that. All of the work that I do, knowing that I never need to work again, is all predicated on meaning and purpose. And so it's like, if she's like, for a long time, felt like, okay, this is the most meaningful, most purposeful thing that I can do. And then just one wall after another, and then felt abandoned and completely isolated. And if she's like a Communal person, which being a woman, she's already prone to be. It's like, well, I can see her ejecting to go back to the core group in her life, her family, that give her all of those same feelings. And so why am I doing this? But I can also see that this is just a temporary battery recharge while she builds up a campaign statewide and is like, these guys, I don't need them, I don't need their support. I'm going to do this my way. She clearly knows how to get attention, so could also be that we'll see
- [50:19]
Co-host or Interviewer
toward the end of it. She says there is no plan to save the world or an insane 4D chess game being played when the common American people finally realize and understand that the political industrial complex of both parties is ripping this country apart, that not one elected leader like me is able to stop Washington's machine from gradually destroying our country. And instead the reality is that they, the common Americans, the people, possess the real power over Washington. Then I'll be here by their side to rebuild it. This gives me vibes of kind of when you talk about fighting for the soul of America and things like that, it gives me that kind of feeling. It feels like a rally or like a war cry. But then also, is there truth in that there's no plan to save the world and the power really is with the people. Do you agree with those statements?
- [51:10]
Tom
Well, plan to save the world. That is a very generous statement for any politician. But I if she said there's no plan to re empower America, I would say no, that's bullshit. There's clearly Trump, Besant, Lutnick. They are trying to re empower America. I don't need you to believe that they're doing it for any reason other than re empowering America will make them and their friends richer. But they clearly are acting as if they are trying to re empower America. Cool. Now maybe it's just a lucky stray that we're all catching that that will also be good for us, but they clearly have a plan. Now, whether that plan is going to be effective is totally different. Also, and here's the part that I think will distress everybody. You will learn about politicians exactly what you learned about your parents. When you were a kid. There was a time where you thought that they were invincible. They knew everything and they were just going to make the world safe and sound for you. And then you suddenly realized, oh my God, they had no idea what they were doing. They were falling through life and just making the best of it. The human interactions at scale are so complicated. There's no universe in which any president or anybody else can accurately map. I'm going to do this thing and all these series of things are going to unfold. It's what I call the chaos machine. Just like trying to run a business, everybody has a plan till you get punched in the face by the market. And so they're going to react, act. And so Trump is a intuitive counterpuncher. So he does everything by sort of gut feel and he'll respond. If you're positive to him, he'll be positive back. If you're a dick to him, he'll be a dick back. So once you understand that, it's like, well, that's what we've got in office. So you've got a guy that does everything by intuition. And so it's going to seem like he's just constantly changing his mind or whatever, but in reality he's just learned, oh, I can get ahead by going in, be open, see what's really going on, responding kind, and then like, we'll see where they try to back me. I think that he has an entire region of his brain dedicated to where's the leverage in this? And so he really does, I think, go into negotiations, understanding where his leverage is, where their leverage is, how things need to be maneuvered to switch, who has leverage, where. And so what you see is a guy that's doing everything intuitively in a counterpuncher style, all based on how do we get leverage. Once you start mapping him like that, it's like, oh, okay, cool, I get where this is going. And he has very thin skin. So put that all together and you get a guy that becomes more predictable in his unpredictability.
- [53:45]
Co-host or Interviewer
All right, so we're about to go into Venezuela.
- [53:48]
Tom
Let's go.
- [53:49]
Co-host or Interviewer
Or on Venezuela.
- [53:50]
Tom
Yeah.
- [53:51]
Co-host or Interviewer
However that that should be said with oil being a key reason. Now you put this link in from Ground News and when I was going through this, I just found it insane to look at the headlines between the left and the right. So like all the way at the bottom we've got a Republican representative says we should invade Venezuela because of the oil. And then if we go something lean
- [54:13]
Tom
that is unhinged, by the way, that's why, like, hey, you've got resources we want, we should just invade. That is so wild.
- [54:21]
Co-host or Interviewer
And then you read another one and it's like Republican congresswoman says quiet part out loud. Claims toppling the Venezuelan oil rich reg could be a windfall. Yeah, so, like, if we just topple their government, then we might get some stuff out of it.
- [54:34]
Tom
I mean, that's what people do. One of the memes that always, like, feels like a gut punch, because it just feels a little too true, is the just shows the American flag with a bald eagle in front of it and it says things like, I heard Venezuela has a bunch of oil. I think they need some freedom. And it's like, oh, God. So, yeah, there probably is a little too much truth to that. But I definitely come down on the this is a China thing. But that, again, I'm so biased, like, I'm so China obsessed in that way that I have to watch out for that and make sure that the facts all line up with that. But it does seem like this is when you map it to Trump trying to get leverage against China, it starts to make a lot more sense. And then it doesn't hurt that they've got assets that we want access to. But from what Maduro was saying, we could have had relationships with them around the oil. Now, maybe they didn't trust him, I don't know. But he was certainly signaling, like, hey, like, if you guys are doing all this because you want great deals on oil, like, let's do it. And Trump was like, nope. So I have a feeling that it's more than that.
- [55:41]
Co-host or Interviewer
Yeah. So back up just a little bit. What's going on with Venezuela? Why is this part of the conversation? And, like, are we about to go in?
- [55:49]
Tom
I mean, he has got a lot. 30% of all deployed troops are deployed to the Caribbean. So that does smack of somebody who at a minimum, wants you to know, like, if you don't do the thing I want to do, be a real shame if these carriers just had to roll up on your doorstep. So that wouldn't surprise me at all. But it also wouldn't surprise me if this is really about China. So China is building a gold corridor in South America, and they are trying to move everybody away from the dollar, reserve currency, which would be absolutely catastrophe for all Americans. And they know that no one's going to trust the yuan, and that if the yuan were backed by gold or if people just own the gold directly, that people aren't going to trust that China won't just confiscate it. And so they're trying to build this distribution network all across South America. So it's like, listen, the gold is in the banks locally. We don't control them. Like, you guys can do whatever you want, want. So if you own the Gold, you can go get it. Like, everybody relax. So they're making, like, big inroads into our own hemisphere. And so if the US has given up on trying to stop China, which is wise because nobody wants conflict, then now it's a game of where are the spheres of influence? And so if the US Is like, all right, we've got the Western Hemisphere, then it's like, South America's in our hemisphere, so you guys can just take a hike. And going in and trying to make sure that they're not getting the deals that they want with countries like Venezuela, with countries like Argentina, and making sure that those all remain allies of the US they're going to use the leverage for back to leverage whatever leverage that they have. And so they can bully Venezuela in a way that they cannot bully China. And they can certainly do a proxy battle with. With China in a way that they wouldn't be able to just do sort of naked confrontation. And so between, like, the anxiety and angst over China having the influence that they had over the Panama Canal, China sending a ton of ships through the Caribbean, and the US Just having a big force there to remind, much like China's doing the military drills off the coast of Taiwan and therefore off the coast of Japan. And Japan is now getting very nervous, and the US Is watching it very closely. We're now putting all this pressure on Venezuela, knowing that China's paying attention. And so in that context, all that behavior makes a lot more sense. And then also, like, just doing a little bit of PR of like, hey, the US Is the strongest military in the world. Watch us drone a bunch of boats. Just good theater for people that are in Trump's base. And once you remember that politicians are only about gaining and retaining power, it's like, cool. Economy is a little shaky. Gotta do something. Even the way that I'm deporting people, people aren't necessarily loving it. Let's upgrade to the Department of War and let's start shooting some missiles off the coast of America, man. Like, where you can see it, you can. You don't see the strikes, but you can see the jet scramble and all that stuff. Stuff. And it's just like, yeah, like, we're America, man. So in that context, this all makes sense.
- [59:16]
Co-host or Interviewer
And so one person in chat said, as a Venezuelan, we all agree with Trump, we need your help to get this socialism and dictatorship out. It's been 26 years already of suffering, hunger, and death.
- [59:30]
Tom
Listen, I get it. You're, you know, speaking to the thing that I love the Most, which is socialism bad. So, yeah, I mean, I'm with you, man. And I imagine that the people of Venezuela would like some freedom, but that has been pretty much a categorical disaster every time that we've tried to do it since World War II. So. Yes. But it's like, do they. Because they voted this stuff in. So it's like you have obviously this guy representing a faction of people, but if you think that I, for instance, represent all of Americans, and I came and said, yo, this Mom Donnie thing has got to go. I don't necessarily represent all of America. So not only. Not necessarily, I don't. So the guy was democratically elected in a landslide. So what do you do with that? So it's not like you're going to roll in, be enveloped in a hug and everybody's like, yay, thank you. Do wish it were like that. But alas, it is not.
- [60:35]
Co-host or Interviewer
So that's a bit of what's happening. And then how do you feel about that? Is this a good thing, bad thing? It's just politics playing politics or.
- [60:44]
Tom
Well, so I'm obviously a big China hawk, so I'm very concerned about China. So us doing things that let China know what's up. You have to do it. You can't abdicate that responsibility. You can't just, just give up and let China take over the world. Because while it might be fine for a couple of decades, you do end up in a position where now you have no leverage. China can get you. You become. Everyone becomes a vassal state to China in the way that everyone was a vassal state to the US and awesome if you're American, not awesome if you're not America. And so I'm not foolish enough to think that America or anybody is just benevolent, but do I think that America has a value system that makes it is infinitely more benevolent than China?
- [61:25]
Co-host or Interviewer
Yes.
- [61:27]
Tom
So I would much rather see a world in which America is a hegemon. And if we're going to be a multipolar world, then America's got to stand up and be America and draw lines and say, these are not crossable. And so I won't go to bat for drone striking the drug boats. There's just way too much risk in that for me in terms of whoopsies, wasn't a drone boat or wasn't a drug boat that time. So don't love the way that we're handling that. But overall, yes, America must project strength. Yes, America must build alliances in South America. So from that perspective, like, I'm not freaking Out. I'm not like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is happening. But the one thing I will say, and I know some people are already saying this, but I'm surprised. This is not like, a big deal. You've got. The guy campaigned on peace, peace, peace, peace, peace. I am the president of peace. He changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Like, and now has got 30 of our troops deployed into the Caribbean saying really gnarly things to Maduro and drone striking boats and expecting, like, the standing ovation. It's like, bro, this is off brand. So, yeah, that one. I'm like, that's weird. Now, I do think that he really is trying to run a peace game. And if he didn't rename the Department of Defense the Department of War, like, here on Brand would have been. It was already called the Department of War. He names it the Department of Defense, but uses it in an aggressive fashion that I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. Good pr. You've got the COVID of.
- [63:03]
Commercial Announcer
We.
- [63:03]
Tom
We took it from being the Department of War. We don't even think like that. These are defensive postures. Then you could be far more aggressive, but you at least have PR Covered. Suffrage. He's gone the exact opposite way, which is, bro, I'm not even saying you shouldn't be doing these things, but when you say that you're the President of Peace, you rename it the Department of War. And then you like, g up in the Caribbean, I'm like, huh, huh. This doesn't feel very PC.
- [63:30]
Co-host or Interviewer
All right, well, you mentioned the James o' Keefe thing, which is him catching a guy, admitting that the gao.
- [63:36]
Tom
And technically, I'm going to guess this was a very attractive woman working for James o', Keefe, which is how they get people to do this. Guys, if a woman with large breasts is sitting across from you and seems out of your league and starts asking you questions about your government job, it's James o', Keefe, bro. What is happening? This is a Scooby Doo episode. You gotta stop. You gotta stop. These guys just can't stop. It's never like, a dude that, like, oh, he's on my softball team. It's always, if you're gay, it's going to be a gay guy or a guy posing gay. If you're a heterosexual dude, it's going to be a chick. Boys and girls, can we please? I don't understand how people fall for this. It's so wild.
- [64:20]
Co-host or Interviewer
I feel like this really triggers you Ever since the Jeff Bezos thing, but here we are.
- [64:25]
Tom
Well, first of all, that's his woman. So I've got nothing but deep empathy for wishing that your woman wanted a dick pic. If she asks you for a dick pic, she's doing it to be sweet. Your woman does not want to dick pic. But yes, that is the foible of man. So because I'm not above it, that's why I'm. This is a PSA to myself. Yeah. Oh, God, men are hilarious.
- [64:48]
Co-host or Interviewer
Cool. So let's get into the undercover footage showing that the Government Accountability Office director admitting that they stole and backed up federal data to keep it outside RFK Juniors control. Make sure I work for the government.
- [65:04]
Tom
I'd watch out for the vaccine. Denying HHS it was going to ruin health care in this country even more than it already is.
- [65:12]
Commercial Announcer
Are they doing anything to stop him?
- [65:14]
Tom
We are in some places, administration has gone through and they've destroyed statistical agencies data source that looks and they've got delivery from like to lead in that and we have, you know, stolen and backed those things up. So that's something that can come back to D. And so I know if it ever come, if they ever find a way to get me, I'm gone. Hope nobody figures it out. Well, it doesn't look as he's saying on camera now, obviously he doesn't know he's on camera, but still, goodness gracious, this is so wild.
- [65:52]
Co-host or Interviewer
And so the main thing I'm thinking about here is what kinds of things would they be saving to then bring back up later in government that Trump is, is getting rid of? Like what, what would that be?
- [66:05]
Tom
Well, so this is where my biases are going to come flying out of my head. I don't know is the only honest answer. But anything that they think he will be able to use that to make his case. So let's say that you find data where it's like somebody ran a study and it shows something unfavorable about a vaccine or something like that. And so you're like, ah, like this is but one of the studies and the data overall is still great. But if he sees this, he's going to get a PR victory and he's going to run laps and so we just got to bury it. Obviously that's a guess, but I could see people being able to justify something like that to themselves where it's like, oh man, he's going to be able to make hay with this. But it's really not that big of a deal or it May really be a lot of evidence, but people feel like it's still on balance, it's important or. And this one scares me the most. They are just ideologically captured. Their side is pro vaccines. Therefore I'm going to make sure the vaccines get across the finish line. Basically, no matter what. It's probably different. People will fall on different parts of that spectrum. For some people, it's going to be the relatively innocent, like, oh God, this is just one small thing. But I know that he'll be able to use it as a political tool, so I want to hide it. For some people it will be like they just. They have an agenda. People are going to get vaccinated all the way to like, this is some Big Pharma. I'm on big pharma's payroll. I'm going to hide this. I'm not saying that's this guy. I'm just saying that is going to be in your basket of options of people who have just. They're all going to have different motives. That's going to be one of them. So, yeah, I have no idea who this guy is. I do not know which of those motives are his thing. But man, humans can convince themselves of some pretty wild stuff when they believe that they're right or when their financial future depends on them justifying something to themselves. People can get pretty scary.
- [68:09]
Co-host or Interviewer
So the end of this tweet was the most inflammatory piece for me, which is where they say, say he says when the Trump admin ends, they will reinstate Big Pharma vaccine rules.
- [68:18]
Tom
Yeah.
- [68:18]
Co-host or Interviewer
And I just know 2020 was not a good time, especially for me. Like, it. Yeah, Covet did not help careers and life and that kind of thing. Does this scare you? Does this make you mad? Does this even seem possible?
- [68:33]
Tom
Oh, it's very possible. We've already done it. So yes, it scares me. So my mental map, people hate it did well.
- [68:41]
Co-host or Interviewer
There was a ton of backlash from the way that the COVID policies and like rules went and it was horrible for the economy. And so, yes, we've already done it, but did we do it in a bad way where the public would never allow it again?
- [68:56]
Tom
Do you know those memes where the. It's like a sketch drawing and the person's like pulling their head back, giving you like side eye and then its neck gets longer and longer and longer. That's how I feel right now. So the public is. Is infinitely malleable if you can get people to believe that, hey, on to be on this team, you wear a mask you get vaccinated 12 times a day. Like you lock the down, people will go for it. This, this is how I feel when I hear culturally Chinese are like, bro, we've just had so much instability as a culture. Like, yes, all right, Mouse Star, 45 million people today, death. But is it really that many? We got a billion, bro. Like 45 is a rounding error. And so we want G to come in and just like be the strong father and just tell us what to do. I'm so not only Western, I'm American to my core. So for me I've got this just like hardcore. Don't tell me what to do. I am pathologically opposed to external forces trying to control my life life. So I have a very strong allergic reaction to that. But not everybody does, man. So it is entirely not only possible, it is hyper likely that we would go back to that if that ideology continues to gain steam. Now remember, and I've walked people through my logic before, that same energy is what you see in the socialist movement. Socialism is a movement of. And if you don't, I'll shoot you once you understand. Socialism is like the buses are free and if you don't fix them for free, I'm gonna shoot you if you don't give me your money so I can pay for these. Even though it's more than I said it was gonna be. I'll shoot you like once you understand that that is what happens. That's not me trying to be funny or hyperbolic. That's what happens over and over and over and over and over and over and over throughout history is it is a confiscatory policy and when put in the hands of people who fucking love to tell you what to do, yeah, a hundred percent. We will find ourselves back there again. There is. Humans are a thousand 20 sided dice roll on personality traits and you get groupings of people are kind of like this, right? You get archetypes, you get Karens, you get sociopaths like Jeffrey Epstein, right? You get the whole panoply. You get your Mother Teresa's, you get your Gandhis, you get your Martin Luther King juniors, Nelson Mandela's, your Putin's. You, you get the school teacher who made your life better in a thousand ways. You, you get all kinds of people. But one of the archetypes, and there's a lot of them, are people that really believe they are correct and that you are a monster for not doing what they say. And they love to see other people suffer. Offer and if you've ever Watched Molly's Game, which is a real story. Had her on the show. Real story about a woman who runs a gambling ring and supposedly, I think his name's Player X. In the movie, supposedly Player X is Toby Maguire. And this is the, if accurate, the most brutal part of the movie for me because I despise this kind of person. And he says, I don't even like playing poker. You know why I play? She's like, no. Why? So, because I like destroying lives. Now keep in mind there is a type of person that they'll try to reel you in in a poker game to get you emotional, to get you to over commit. Not just so they can win your money, which, fair enough, you've, you've entered the competition willingly, but they do it because they know you're going to have to go home to your wife and she's going to cry that you've lost the money. She's going to be devastated. Possible those kinds of things when put together, you know, with a personality type, just end up breaking up your marriage. And there's a guy that gets a hard on that he played some role in being the straw that broke the camel's back. I hate that kind of person with everything I have. So I am all too aware that they exist. They exist in distressing numbers and they go for positions in authority. So you're going to find them in the fucking government. So yeah, yes, this can and will happen again if we are not eternally vigilant, it probably will happen no matter how vigilant we are. But at least by being vigilant, hopefully we can keep the scale to a minimum.
- [73:41]
Co-host or Interviewer
All right, let's move on to something you brought up earlier, which is the leaked recording revealing Campbell's Soup executives shocking remarks about the soup's ingredients. This is quite funny. Let's watch the actual video where he says it.
- [73:56]
Tom
A former Campbell's Soup company employee is taking legal action against the food giants and he's making some explosive allegations about one of its top executives. Good evening. Good evening and thanks for joining us at 6. I'm Ty Steele. I'm Kimberly Gill. Those allegations are now at the center of a lawsuit claiming the company's vice president went on an hour long tirade attacking the company's products and employees before taking aim at its customers. And the former employee recorded it all. Eric Erickson shares that recording and what the company is saying about it.
- [74:27]
Analyst or Expert Guest
We have for poor people who buys our sh.
- [74:30]
Tom
And that's just part of an over an hour long rant says Former security analyst for Campbell's, Robert Garza of Monroe.
- [74:39]
Analyst or Expert Guest
I don't buy Campbell's products barely anymore. It's not healthy. Now that I know what the in it, even in can of soup, I look at it, look at me, bioengineered me. I don't want to eat a, a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer.
- [74:54]
Tom
You, here's the great news. Hopefully this is going to be such horrific PR for Campbell soon soup that they start putting better like ingredients in their food. That would be a good outcome, A tremendous outcome. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. Obviously the way that he's talking is horrific and the way that it sounds when you're out of context is horrible. I would be very interested to hear the whole conversation, especially the context, because you talk in a different way when you think you're talking to a friend. And there's no doubt that the way you talk to that friend is going to reveal things about like a cavalier ness or whatever. So. But I'll be interested to hear this whole thing because hearing him say like, I don't need our products anymore. They're like, could also be. And I want to make it better. I. But it could also be that he's just an absolute, absolute despicable. I have no idea. But yeah, this is going to be a terrible PR for these guys. I hope that they use it as an opportunity to put high quality food in there. It does not have to be overly expensive. But if you're a food company, caring about the food that you feed people like is so important. And I say that as somebody who ran a food company and was just like, we are going to make decisions based on metabolic reality, full stop. I don't care how much money it makes sense us and we put our money where our mouth was. We made an ingredient change because we thought that it made it metabolically better for people. Cost us a ton of money. But we're like, I don't give a fuck. Like, the whole mission of the company was to end metabolic disease. So we're like, okay, we're really going to let that steer the thing that we do. And yeah, I hold food companies accountable to that. You've got to be looking at. People are eating your product, man. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, people should be allowed to eat what they want. And if companies want to make food like Cheetos and great, yes. But don't make those like the chicken noodle soup where it's like, this is what you eat, like to be healthy. And then it's like 10 pounds of ass. That's bad mojo. And if the company inside, they know, like, that's gross.
- [77:13]
Co-host or Interviewer
This is a beard. A bit of a weird nuance, but one thing he said in there that stuck. What stuck out to me was the 3D printed chicken comment.
- [77:23]
Tom
I have to imagine he's sort of joking or not being literal. Yeah, but that they. I don't know, maybe they really do something close to 3D printing. But, like, if you take what's known as an extruder, you could kind of say that it's 3D printing, but protein bars are extruded. So what I have a feeling he's talking about is they put it into these big vats and then they have things that come down and blop, blop. Right. And so you're not 3D printing in the way that you've got a bunch of different ingredients and it just pulls them in and like laser prints something. It's just going to be. You make a big vat of mush that's like chicken flavored with proteins. And it's like, meant to congeal. So it kind of feels like chicken in your mouth, I'm guessing. I don't know that's how they do it. I just know how food is made. So it's probably something like that. But it's not like you would go into a warehouse full of 3D printers that are, you know, zapping it out. And by the way, no shade on 3D printing food. I really think that that's the future. Call it 20 years from now, you literally will buy ingredients and you literally will 3D print based on, like, amino acids and stuff. But you could get really healthy stuff. As long as they do the work to figure out, like, okay, but wait, when something grows inside of a body eating things that lived in the dirt, like, there probably is, like, things that we just have a hard time accounting for. Even when you mix amino acids. Acids. But with AI, it's possible that we actually know all the nuances of everything that's contained and we can watch how it impacts your body down at the cellular level. Be like, no, you're good. So, yeah, that'll be interesting. Now, as a side note to this, I really think it's shitty that we live in the era where people are just constantly recording each other. That is a dick move. I'm not saying this guy isn't an. And I'm not saying that. Thank God. Like, somebody now knows what's going on. On.
- [79:14]
Co-host or Interviewer
But yeah, yeah, so Google's parent company, Alphabet, was closing in on a $4 trillion valuation on Monday. That would set them to become the only, only the fourth company to enter that club. And so a 4 trillion dollar valuation you just talked about, they're trading so many times revenue.
- [79:32]
Tom
Yeah.
- [79:34]
Co-host or Interviewer
Where does that end up? So if a company becomes that valuable to where they are, can never make back the investors. The money, what happens to it? Is it just the bubble's going to burst and at some point everybody loses out, but it's like a fun ride on the way up or like, how does this go?
- [79:53]
Tom
You probably have to be a lot more specific to keep me from fanning out too far, but I'll try to speedrun the web and then you can push on anything that you think is useful. Okay. The way that this works is the valuations are based on vibes. Anybody that tells you different is not looking at the numbers right now. That's what the stock market is. The stock market is vibe based gambling. And yes, people that are vibe based gambling, they will either make a lot of money, lose a lot of money on the ups and downs because they're gambling oftentimes on very rapid movements. Now, much of what's driving the price up is debt. So people go to their brokerage, they are able to trade on margin, so they get debt. And, and that creates new money that is the same as like money printing, but it's only trapped in one ecosystem, so it can't spread out to the rest of the world, but it does inflate the cost of the shares. So Google is seeing inflated values largely as a response to the money printing inside of the stock market. So it's like the valuations probably shouldn't be read as literal. They're almost certainly going to come back down. We would normally start deflating these bubbles slowly by tightening rates. We're not going to do that because of something called fiscal dominance. So we're in fiscal dominance. The Fed can't raise rates meaningfully. Therefore people keep borrowing and trading on margin. Therefore, the cost of the assets continues to skyrocket because people are betting on oftentimes these like sort of daily fluctuations. Remember, volatility is what traders want. And so they don't care if it's going up or down. They just need it to move right rapidly. But when it moves rapidly, it often will wipe people out that bet wrong. And so this is how you get where the theoretical money, oh my God, we just lost $50 billion or whatever in 24 minutes. And it's like, yes, Sort of. Most of that value was theoretical because most people didn't sell at either the top or the bottom. But it does give you this sort of whipsaw thing if you're just looking at the candles. So the way it will play out, I think, is basically going to be the. The ultimate promise of AI will finally be delivered. You will justify, on a long enough timeline, the valuations that we have today, but the confidence in those valuations will break long before we're able to deliver on the promise. So it will look like 1999. This is exactly the Internet. And so everyone was like, the Internet's going to change the world. And then it did, but it took much longer. And so they crashed because people lost faith in the valuations instantly. Boom. It just. Even Amazon lost like 86% of its value or something. It was just absolutely massive. And so at that moment, people were like, there were companies that were saying, I don't even want my products sold on the Internet because it's so embarrassing to be associated with the Internet in 2000, that. That's real. So now you see, like, well, hold on. People weren't wrong. It's just the timing and the fact that the real value of the market is determined by Vibe. Vibes. So once the vibe breaks, even though there are some companies that have underlying structural reality, like Amazon, and so Amazon was profitable and so they were able to just keep building, keep making money. So in the same time period that they lost 86% of their value, or whatever it was, it might have been more than that. They tripled their revenue. So they grew out of it and on the other side, they were great. So we just don't know which of the companies are going to be the companies that survive this. Because pets.com, for instance, eToys, Lycos. Like, there were so many names that were supposedly going to be like, the can't miss big winners of the Internet age. They went away. But we did make good on the promise of the Internet itself. And if you held, especially if you held on to the ones that just survived, even though they were limping for several years after the crash, if you just held on to those for the next 10 to 20 years, you made an interesting, insane amount of money. Amazon went up by 100,000%. So you just have to believe in it still at the bottom.
- [84:09]
Co-host or Interviewer
When we have companies like this getting insane valuations, do you change? Not financial advice, but do you change your investing strategy at all? I know you're a boring guy.
- [84:20]
Tom
I'm super boring. And I try at all times to price in that the stock market is just gambling on volume tribes. So I am looking at sectors. So I'll go, do I think AI is going to be a sector that gets bigger over time? Yes.
- [84:35]
Commercial Announcer
Cool.
- [84:35]
Tom
I want to be in the sector, but I have no idea who are going to be the winners and losers. Also, P.S. i keep a ton. I've got about three years of cash and cash equivalents. It's not money at my house, but I keep about three years worth of just, just. I don't want to have to panic money on hand. So that way I'm like, yeah, if the stock market goes down for more than three years, then I'm going to be like, okay, well, we've got to do something. But I'm not tense and I put myself in a position very intentionally where the stock market could be down for 10 years and I would try not to sell any. Anything. So it could. I mean, look, there's definitely a scenario where it's so cataclysmic that I would need to sell some things. You know, I'd hold out for those first three years and not sell a thing. But if nothing came back up and I wasn't able to, like, get things together, then you start looking at, okay, do I adjust my lifestyle or do I start selling? I don't know. We'll see. I. I am not personally very addicted to the trappings of wealth, so changing my lifestyle wouldn't be that scary for me. But. But anyway, whatever. So for me, the game is to hold for a long period of time. Like, that's the game. And when you look even at the Great Depression, the Great depression was like 10 years long. So it's like, if you can get to the other side of 10 years, you just never really have to worry about anything. So it's just most people absolutely cannot do that under any circumstance while we're on investing.
- [86:07]
Co-host or Interviewer
Earlier you said it's harder to keep the money than make the money. What would you say to people that call on that?
- [86:15]
Tom
Oh, get rich. Try it. So maybe that is me saying because my personality is so much more prone to making money than it is to investing. But no, I mean, if you. Oh, God. Is it actually literally easier? How about this? It's easier to make money than keep money. It might not be easier to get rich than to stay rich, but it is certainly easier to make money like a living wage than it is to save that money and invest it well over time. Because there's so many things that are Attacking it. You're forced to gamble because of inflation and then the odds of your gambling, right. Over a long period of time, low. So the vast majority of people just don't have the discipline to set and forget in something that is likely to beat inflation over the next 10 to 20 years.
- [87:10]
Analyst or Expert Guest
Years.
- [87:11]
Tom
And because of that, most people don't keep the money. And then if you factor in the generational side where it's like, well, now I also have to train my kids and they have to train their kids, you see why once you start zooming out to three generations, it's effectively impossible. Almost nobody does it.
- [87:29]
Co-host or Interviewer
And then somebody in chat said, tom, it's not gambling, it's speculation. We're highbrow.
- [87:35]
Tom
Yes. That's nice. I like that. Whoever said that, I very much like that. Uh, yes. Normally people actually attack me. So halfway through that sentence, I was ready to really like come unglued on this person. You're like fists up, literally fists up so fast. Almost dislocated my shoulder. But they had me in the. What is it? You had me in the middle, but you won me over in the end. Yes. We're highbrow around here. Speculation, speculation.
- [87:58]
Co-host or Interviewer
And then let's tell people about Friday.
- [88:01]
Tom
Oh, yes. So everybody, this is a holiday weekend for us. So we will not be going live on Friday. Friday we give everybody the four day weekend. So you guys also have the four day weekend. So go enjoy. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Wherever you are in the world, may this weekend be wonderful for you. Your life quality will be determined by the things you focus on. So really do take time to focus on the things you're grateful for, the people that you love. All of that stuff sounds super cheesy, but it really does work. So know that I will be thinking about you guys. I am so grateful for this community, even the people that are hate watching. Thank you. You help us generate revenue dollars. It's amazing. We love you the most. Actually, not the most. The people that are here being supportive, helping each other, we love you the most, but nonetheless, so grateful for you guys. Hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will see you next week. Right, everybody, Happy Thanksgiving. Later.
- [88:54]
Commercial Announcer
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