Exposed: The Wall Street SCAM Hiding In Plain Sight -- And How It's Robbing You | Chris Josephs PT 1

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu

Episode: Exposed: The Wall Street SCAM Hiding in Plain Sight – And How It’s Robbing You | Chris Josephs PT 1
Date: April 1, 2025
Guest: Chris Josephs (co-founder, Autopilot; “Pelosi Tracker”)

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Overview: Lifting the Veil on Political Corruption and Wall Street

This episode tackles the explosive issue of politicians’ personal stock trading and how it connects to systemic corruption, insider access, and the growing wealth divide in America. Tom Bilyeu welcomes Chris Josephs, accidental whistleblower and co-founder of Autopilot, whose viral “Pelosi Tracker” and apps have brought mass attention to Congressional stock trades.

The conversation explores:

• How and why politicians keep outpacing the market
• The legal loopholes, lack of guardrails, and failure of reform
• The role of social media in exposing and amplifying these schemes
• Explosive examples implicating figures like Nancy Pelosi and Richard Burr
• Proposals to restore trust, possible reforms, and the deep frustrations brewing among millennials and Gen Z

The tone is blunt, bipartisan, at times exasperated, but laser-focused on getting to the root of political privilege in finance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why "Invest Like a Politician" Went Viral

• Origins of the Pelosi Tracker:
  Chris explains the genesis of his viral account: during COVID, with stimulus checks and mass retail trading, the sight of politicians making prescient, lucrative trades raised eyebrows. Influential accounts like Unusual Whales and Quiver Quantitative began calling out these trades on social media, sparking outrage and curiosity among retail investors. (02:55–04:16)

• Chris Josephs: “It shouldn’t be that popular. …But it started back in 2020, 2021, where anyone on social media would see these things going on… And it surprised me that…How is that even legal to begin with?” (03:10)

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2. Stock Trading in Congress: The Broken System

• The Legal Loophole:
  Before 2012, Congress didn’t need to disclose trades at all. Even post-2012’s STOCK Act, politicians can trade individual stocks with minimal oversight or penalty—and commonly do, despite clear conflicts of interest.

• Blatant Examples:

  • Buying stocks before beneficial laws are passed (sometimes sitting on committees directly influencing legislation)
  • Outperforming the market routinely, unlike the regular American restricted by insider trading laws.
    (04:16–06:30)

• Chris Josephs: “They are outperforming the market and I think the public is kind of pissed and fascinated with it at the same time.” (02:40)

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3. Real-World Corruption: Case Studies

A. The Ashley Moody Example
(09:06–12:07)

• Ashley Moody, Republican from Florida, was a leader in legalizing sports betting. She purchases shares of Genius Sports (a small betting company). Weeks later, legislation beneficial to sports betting is introduced and sent to a committee that she sits on. The stock soars 25%.
• Chris Josephs: “...Full circle and you’re like, holy crap, the politician’s been pushing for this the entire time… just bought a stock that will benefit… and now she’s going to be sitting on the committee that is going to oversee and kind of pass the bill. That’s the example of rules for thee, not for me.” (11:47)

B. Nancy Pelosi & the VISA IPO
(15:38–18:32)

• Nancy Pelosi and her husband access the Visa IPO before it goes public—making tens of millions as the stock soars. Her net worth jumps from ~$20 million to $250+ million during her time as Speaker, despite a relatively modest salary.
• Chris Josephs: “She and her husband were given special privilege to invest in the Visa IPO before it went public… Since that time the stock is up 20,000%. So she, she made probably 10 to 15 million, 20 million on that trade alone.” (16:42)

C. The Richard Burr COVID Sell-Off
(20:03–23:26)

• Senator Richard Burr, briefed on early COVID intelligence, assures the public “everything is fine.” The same day, liquidates his entire retirement account and his brother-in-law does the same after a two-minute call. Stocks crash a week later.
• Both were investigated—no legal consequences.
• Chris Josephs: “I don’t know how that’s not insider information.” (22:51)

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4. Lack of Accountability & Toothless Reforms

• The STOCK Act’s Limits:
  • 45 days to report trades; penalty for missing disclosure is only $250—“a parking ticket.” (24:20)
  • Congress, across party lines, resists meaningful penalties or real bans.
• Chris Josephs: “I think it’s a big club that we’re all not in. …They don’t want to change it for themselves, so they kind of turn a blind eye.” (23:47)

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5. Public Reaction: Outrage, Hopelessness, and Coping

• Gen Z and Millennials follow/track trades closely. Outrage is morphing into a sense of cynical inevitability.

• Chris Josephs: “The unified thing…is they are feeling left behind. …They are frustrated with that and rightly so are calling out and saying, why are these politicians getting rich in front of us? Meanwhile, I’m struggling to buy my eggs because, you know, inflation, things like that.” (58:12)

• On Using Autopilot:
  Many adopt an “if you can’t beat them, join them” attitude—using Autopilot to literally copy politicians’ trades, highlighting the hypocrisy.

• Chris Josephs: “There’s no better way to highlight the hypocrisy than to literally follow along and invest alongside with it.” (60:10)

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6. What Can Be Done? Solutions & Dilemmas

Three main proposals discussed:

1. Maximum Transparency:
   Real-time reporting of politicians’ trades so anyone can mirror moves instantaneously.

   • Still creates trust issues and optically appears corrupt.

2. Blind Trusts:
   Politician’s assets managed “blindly” by advisors.

   • Not foolproof; advisors can be influenced, optics still dubious.

3. Broad Market ETFs Only:
   Politicians can only invest in instruments tracking the broad market, not individual stocks—aligns incentives with national economic growth.

   • Best for public trust but raises issues with spouses, children, and potential disincentives for successful people to run for office (e.g., forced divestment from businesses).

• Chris Josephs: “The third solution that I like...is get everyone into the market where it’s like you sell out of your individual assets and you just put it in the S&P 500...When the markets go down, you feel the pain the same way that every other…American feels the pain. But we're all in this patriotic kind of group together.” (47:47)

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7. Trump, Meme Coins, and the Open Conundrum

• Trump’s openness about supporting assets like Trump Coin and Truth Social stock (DJT) is discussed; the transparency contrasts with Congressional opacity, but still violates public trust. (29:39–43:10)

• Raises new questions about lines between business, presidency, and public trust.

• Tom Bilyeu: “The sole purpose of the President of the United States is to make America better for the average American…The last thing in the world you want the President to do is play a short-term game.” (43:10)

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8. The Attitude of the Next Generations

• Millennials tend toward aggression and trying to beat the system at its own game (“I want to provide change…building an app that lets me copy them”), while Gen Z tends to accept and adapt ("just accept it, stop stressing"). (59:51–62:29)
• Gen Z is described as more “carefree”—not because they're oblivious, but because they view the deck as irreparably stacked.
• Chris Josephs: “Gen Z feels like no one has been looking out for them…They have the mindset of, like, why even complaining to begin with? You know, just accept it, stop stressing about it. Nothing’s going to change anyway.” (62:29)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Pelosi’s Wealth Accumulation:
  “She’s 10x’d that. She’s gone from [~$22M] to now $250, $260 million…How do you 12, 13x your wealth over that time period? A lot of it did come from the stock market.” – Chris Josephs (16:01)

• On Congressional Loopholes:
  “The fine if they break the law on [timely trade disclosures] is $250. It’s a parking ticket! …Why is it so low? Because they’re the ones…making the rules for the club that they’re in.” – Chris Josephs (24:27)

• On Real-Time Transparency as a Solution:
  “Dear Elon, dear Trump, dear Pelosi, dear anybody—this is going to be real time. When you make a trade in real time that’s broadcast…you effectively, through technology, eradicate the idea of insider information, because the second you move, everybody can make [the same move].” – Tom Bilyeu (39:29)

• On the System’s Harm:
  “That’s what irks me. That’s what makes me angry. …Meanwhile, the politicians are blatantly doing it right in front of us.” – Chris Josephs (11:52)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:55] Why the “Pelosi Tracker” and invest-like-a-politician meme became viral
• [04:16] Lack of stock trade disclosure prior to 2012; the ineffectiveness of the STOCK Act
• [09:06] Case study: Ashley Moody, sports betting, and timely trades
• [15:38] Timeline & analysis of Nancy Pelosi’s wealth and controversial stock trades
• [20:03] The Richard Burr COVID sell-off and failed enforcement
• [24:20] The paltry penalties for violating disclosure rules
• [29:39] Trump’s role: meme coins, DJT stock, and transparency vs. trust
• [39:29] Tom proposes real-time transparency as a radical solution
• [47:47] Three main solution pathways, complexities of real reform
• [57:13] Gen Z / Millennials: evolving from outrage to resignation, and differing coping mechanisms

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Conclusion: Where Do We Go From Here?

Chris and Tom conclude that trust in government is at a dangerous low, fueled by both perceived and real economic injustice. Bringing politicians’ financial lives into the daylight or outright banning private asset trading is essential for legitimacy. Gen Z, more than any group, is internalizing hopelessness but is also adapting—sometimes in darker, dog-eat-dog ways.

Tom ends with a pointed message: “You can, no matter what. …Skill acquisition. Keep your costs low. Do not take on inordinate amounts of debt.” (66:31–67:49)

Next episode: Chris will return to dive into AI, big data, and how the cycle of influence and financial gain is only accelerating.

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Transcript

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[C]

Money printing has turned the entire world into gamblers forced to risk it all in the stock market just to escape the crushing effects of inflation. Now today's guest is showing that even that game is rigged. Chris Josephs accidentally became one of the most important whistleblowers in finance. His app Autopilot started as a joke with a tagline invest like a politician, but ended up exposing just how deeply corrupt Congress has become. His online trackers show how how lawmakers like Nancy Pelosi appear to be profiting from insider knowledge while everyone else is left to try their luck. If you've ever felt like the system is broken, here's your proof and here's your roadmap for how to win even when the game is rigged against you. Has Congress just become a corrupt hedge fund? Because looking at some of the data that you guys are putting out, it seems self evident that they are trading on insider information.

[A]

I mean, I wouldn't go so far as to say that they are blatantly outright wanting to trade on insider information.

[C]

Very generous.

[A]

Yeah, I know, right? I'm covering my bases. But what I would say is they do a lot of sketchy stuff that align with things that could be portrayed and seen as insider trading for the everyday individual. You know, examples like buying a stock, having a law come out to benefit that stock, the stock goes up 30%. They then happen to be sitting on the committee that oversaw the law that passed. So now they're profiting from things like that. That is Happening on a day to day basis. Are they calling up their financial advisor or going right to their Robinhood app, doing it right while they're in those committees? I don't know, it's hard to prove but there is sketchy stuff going on. They are outperforming the market and I think the public is kind of pissed and fascinated with it at the same time.

[C]

Yeah. So the whole idea of invest like a politician, which is the slogan of what you guys are doing, why was the response to go, okay, well if we can't beat them, let's invest just like them.

[A]

The story on how the Pelosi tracker started that culminated into Autopilot which is, you know, again our app slogan, invest like a politician shouldn't be that popular. It's pretty popular and I think it kind of captures what you were kind of getting at. The if you can't beat him, join a movement. But it started back in 2020, 2021, where anyone on social media would see these things going on. Unusual Whales is an account on X. They deserve a ton of credit. Quiver Quantitative. They're an account on X. They call out these politician stuff too and they deserve a ton of credit as well. But back in 2020 when everyone and their mom was investing in stocks because Covid happened and the government gave you two grand to gamble with, people started trading stocks and people started being paying a lot more attention to it. We were one of those people kind of building our app at the time which was called Iris. It was a social investing app to follow your friends stock portfolios. When I'm, I'm the co founder of it and when I was thinking about how do we grow the thing, I turned to social media and I saw that Unusual Whales were starting to call out some of these politician trades and it initially caught my eye and I was surprised at it because the time I didn't necessarily know it was legal. Like I'm 29 now. I didn't grow up studying politicians trading in 2018 when I was in college. I noticed it in 2020 and it surprised me that how can that kind of be a thing? How is that even legal to begin with?

[C]

Why would it be illegal? What is the mechanism that you think is going on behind the scenes?

[A]

What's crazy is it was they didn't even have to publish their trades before 2012. Politicians, the entire time that we've been tracking them and I honestly, I think the entire history of the stock market, they've been allowed to actively trade in whatever they want there has Never been any guard guardrails saying, hey, you as a politician, you cannot trade that certain individual stock or that industry. The only things that have happened that have actually kind of capped this blatant hypocrisy has been the stock act in 2012, which forced them to publicly disclose those filings. And there's a story on how that all happened because they were trading on the housing crisis, which is insane.

[C]

Walk me through that though, because for. I think that the average person does not understand how money works full stop. They don't understand the stock market or even necessarily the fundamental idea behind assets. So what is it that triggers somebody like Unusual Whale say, hold on a second, this is bad versus this is a thing that's happening.

[A]

I think it's two things. One is the corruption where kind of we just hinted at it at the beginning. Like what caught Unusual Whale's eyes, what caught my eyes, I think it was just the blatant corruption of how are these politicians allowed to trade in. I came from a finance background, but how are these politicians allowed to trade in individual stocks while me, you know, my friends, we're all working in New York City, we can't do it. So that I think was like the first part you. Because so I have buddies that worked in investment banking. They would be covering, you know, a certain sector like health care. They have insider information on deals. They have insider information on the broader spectrum of the health care industry. They, per the SEC and per their, their employers are not allowed to trade individual stocks in health care. And it makes sense. You know, it's like if you're working on a deal of a merger with this one health care company and that one health care company, and if you know about the information the stock's going to go up, you would want to buy that stock. The SEC though, is like, no, you are not allowed to do that because that would be called. That would be insider information. The politicians are allowed to do that exact scenario, exact same thing. They sit on the committees though, and their employer is the US Government. But they can know things and they can go trade stocks and they can do things to set themselves up to benefit the news that is going to come out. And you know, Covid, Covid is where a lot of this stuff started with Richard Burry. And I, I can get into that story. But to answer your question too, on like why, what is the average American not truly understand about it is 60% of Americans right now are investing in the stock market. They know they have to do it. They don't necessarily really know why they have to do it. But you know, things like inflation, the stock market is the only really way to grow wealth. Everyone's got a 401k for the most part. They should be investing in the stock market. Once you get into it though, and you realize that the game is not rigged for the everyday retail investor, it's actually rigged against you, you then start realizing and your, your eyes are opening up to more and more kind of truths about how the stock market works. And you got to be careful because it's a dog eat dog world. There's sharks out there. Politicians however though are living in this whole nother world in the stock market where they're allowed to kind of do anything they want. Meanwhile everyone is out here trying to kind of hold their own, investing in individual stocks that they're trying to do and it, it turned into like a hypocritical opposition. And that I think is where social media kind of captured it all.

[C]

So what do you, what do you think is worse? The fact that they have potential insider information or that they can influence something? So like the CHIPS act, which is going to essentially pick winners and losers, which of those two is more problematic?

[A]

I think the first one, I think the trading on insider information because there's a really simple solution to it all. It's these politicians don't trade individual stocks. Put it in ETFs, put it in the broader market. The reason why I answer that is it's hard to limit the politician from picking winners with some of these acts. You know, there was a bill that passed this morning for the sports betting industry that obviously is going to be beneficial for the sports betting companies. The politicians should not be limited on how they approach and kind of run jurisdiction over that bill because they own individual stocks. I think the individual stocks is the problem part and you got to cut that piece out. And the solution is pretty simple. It's just put them in ETFs, put it in the S&P 500 or just don't own individual stocks to begin with. Go about your job being a politician, setting up regulations, making sure the American people are safe. Which whole other conversation, if they're doing that, give us some receipts.

[C]

So what are the, the big sort of things that an account like unusual whales or your trackers are picking up?

[A]

So my morning routine and unusual does this too is we have been studying this stuff for so long that we know the majority of the politicians which ones are doing it, we know what committees are sitting on and we know the stocks that would kind of what we call, you know, notable politician trade alert. It would flag it. An example this morning actually. So it's insane. Yeah, it's what, 11 o' clock here. I woke up at 7, went through my kind of morning routine studying the politicians, studying the trades. And I realized that there was a new politician named Ashley Moody, Republican from Florida. She is the politician that actually replaced Marco Rubio, Senate seat. She used to be the Attorney General in Florida back from 2021 to essentially 2024. During that time while she was doing it, she was very much pro getting sports legal, sports betting legalized. She on the record saying, you know, hey, this will bring $3.5 billion of annual revenue to Florida. We should do this, we should get this done. She'd filed the trade a week ago, but the stock was originally bought on February 24, 2025. That stock was a company called Genius Sports. Small $2 billion sports betting company. Wouldn't really kind of raise too many eyebrows unless you knew necessarily about this stuff. Turns out two weeks after that, on March 13, there was a Democrat named Richard Blumenthal. He proposed a new bill that essentially is creating legalized federal limits for sports betting. It is a path towards getting sports betting legalized for the entire country on a federal level. On that news, the Stock started popping 15, 16%. Then turns out that that bill is now got reviewed twice and got pushed to the next stage of this which is being reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Guess who sits on that committee. Oh God, it's Ashley Moody, the Republican that just bought the stock a month ago. Fast forward to today, it's up 25%. And when you we then went back and we studied is like, does she have any kind of relationships in anything with that Genius Sports, when she was the Attorney general partnered with a company called Rock Hard Rock Sports Betting. And Hard Rock Sports Betting is the only legal entity in Florida that is allowed to sports bet to some degree. So now you then kind of come full circle and you're like, holy crap, the politician's been pushing for this the entire time in her state of Florida just bought a stock that will benefit from this legislation if it does get passed. And now she's going to be sitting on the committee that is going to oversee and kind of pass the bill. That's the example of rules for the. Not for me. How are they allowed to do that? When you go back to the example that we were talking about with the health care investment banker, you know, a low level guy that isn't going to do anything. He can't do that. Meanwhile, the politicians are blatantly doing it right in front of us. That's what irks me. That's what makes me angry and that's what unusuals us and quiver quant the other guys in the in the space are trying to stop.

[C]

Do you see it as problem solved though, if the guy in the health care industry can also place the bets? Or is this a bigger problem than that?

[A]

I think it's a bigger problem than that. I don't think the solution is allowing these politicians to trade the stocks. And I think it is for one reason and one reason only. It's trust. I think that there's a lot more of distrust that comes out of politicians being able to do this, whether it's shady, whether it's not shady, whether it's allowed, whether it's not allowed. Them just having that optics I think creates a lot of problems that should not be allowed and we should cut it from the root right there.

[C]

Stay tuned, guys. We'll be right back with Chris Josephs.

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[C]

All right, we're back.

[A]

Let's get into it.

[C]

Okay, so I here feel a lot of pushback on this idea of oligarchy. Part of my drumbeat is oligarchy just means rule by the few. It doesn't mean rule by the wealthy. It's a different word. But I think ultimately there's two things at play. There is rule by the wealthy, which probably would really freak people out. But this feels more like a hot button issue to me of rule by the few that have insider connections, insider information and they're using that to get wealthy. Why do you think that strikes people as so grotesque?

[A]

Yeah, I got a good example to hit to set the stage for that conversation. And it's our. It's the queen of it, Nancy Pelosi. Um, because I think, like, what you're describing is exactly right. And it's becoming a bigger and bigger thing now that Elon Musk is involved with the government, you know, this and that. But, like, let's not forget, like, Nancy Pelosi, you know, we're talking about ruled by the few, ruled by the wealthy. Nancy Pelosi is worth 280 million. She's been the speaker of the House for, you know, 10 years. The Biden family, they're worth millions. Kamala's just signed a book deal for 20 million. You know, and Trump and them, they're not making it any better. But it's always kind of necessarily, it's always been like that. Nancy Pelosi, the timeline on her wealth is she got married to a tech investor, Paul Pelosi, back in, like, I think, 1994, 1995. They were not wealthy at that time. Maybe they had a couple million, you know, justified. They probably were wealthy, but not, not, you know, big. She has been a lifelong politician. Fast forward to the time when she became the speaker of the House, which was the first time, I think it was around 2008, 2009, which coincidentally was when the Stock act happened. Her wealth.

[C]

Stop trading on Congressional knowledge.

[A]

Isn't that insane? It's literally called stop trading on Congressional knowledge that if that wasn't a sign to begin with. Yeah. Her net worth when she became the speaker was around 20. 20, 21, 22 million. Still a lot. But the time of her becoming the speaker to now, she's 10x that. She's gone from 22 million to now 250, 260 million. It's not like she's getting paid anymore. She's been getting paid the 180, the $200,000 salary consistently for the past, you know, x amount of years. How do you 12, 13x your wealth kind of over that time period? A lot of it did come from the stock market and from her private investments and kind of things like that. And, you know, a good example of it is she made like, 20,000% on Visa. Whoa. She was able to get. She was one of the politicians. If you know about this stage of if There's a famous 60 Minutes interview where a politician is asking Nancy Pelosi, like, do you think politicians should trade Stocks. Do you think it's a conflict of interest that you and your husband are allowed to get into kind of these individual stocks? And the thing went viral because she essentially was like, no, yeah, we should be allowed to do it. It's not that big of an issue. When she was the speaker, her and her husband, her, her husband, she won't take credit for it, but her husband was given special privilege to invest in the Visa IPO before it went public. So how the IPOs work in Visa, you know, this is the largest IPO that at the time, back in 2008, 2009. The bankers, they take these baskets of stocks. They, because you know they're about to issue new shares and they go shop it around, they go to the banks, they go to the, the wealthy individuals, the private offices to sell those shares before they bring them public. I don't know how Nancy Pelosi got access to that, but she and her husband did and they were able to get into the IPO before the actual, before the shares were available to the broader public. And since that time the Stock is up 20, 20,000%. So she, she made probably 10 to 15 million, 20 million on that trade alone. So how do these politicians get rich? A lot of it is that and it's weird because they are only get paid $175,000 salary. But there are countless examples of them entering office being career long politicians and then leaving office wealthier. Whether that's from speaking engagements, whether that's from book deals, whether that's from insider trading. You can't deny that these people's wealth does go up while they are in office. And I think that's a big problem that has gotten to the point now where we're questioning everything and we're getting annoyed at Elon, we're getting annoyed at, you know, Elon and Trump. They have their own problems, you know, here and there. But I think it's a broader picture that has to be talked about more and more. How are these politicians getting wealthy while they are in office?

[C]

Okay, so let me ask, do you make a distinction between them getting wealthy off of the stock market, them getting wealthy off a book deal, a Netflix deal, any of that or is that all the same to you?

[A]

I think it's all the same to me. A little bit of a difference is the individual stock trading. The hard part is a lot of these politicians, their husbands and wives come, are working in kind of good jobs. You know, some of these politicians, there's a politician from Illinois or Iowa, his, his Wife sits on the board of a bank and they're getting stock from that, from that deal and the stock's up like 70 or 80%. It's called farmers Bank Insurance, small little micro cap bank stock. They are making money on that. He's a politician, she's sitting on the board of the bank. Is that a conflict of interest inside? Is that insider trading? Not necessarily. Maybe. But they are clearly getting wealthy from that while he's in office. And maybe there are things that are going on. We haven't seen any laws that have been passed to benefit that stock and benefit that bank. But they, the optics again, they still are getting rich from that insider trading. They've never been proven. Multiple politicians have been investigated. Richard Burr, Kelly Loeffler, that trade this morning from Ashley Moody honestly should get investigated. They've just never been proven. And I think that's also the frustration around, you know, is it a problem? Yes. Is anything going to happen to it? Not necessarily.

[C]

Walk us through the timeline on Richard Burr.

[A]

So this is the trade that I think started the whole microscope on them because it was so blatant. It was actually unbelievable. And also it was insane of what he did.

[C]

And it was investigated.

[A]

It was fully investigated by the SEC and doj, both of them. And then nothing happened. So the storyline goes on and I may kind of get the dates wrong a bit here, but this is.

[C]

I can back you up. I have most of this stuff written down.

[A]

Okay, perfect. Yeah. So this is 20, late 2019, early 2020. This is before the COVID scare happened. Early 2020. The public is starting to hear a little bit about COVID What's going on? How bad is this? How kind of severe is this? Richard Burr sat as the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. So he was receiving kind of information, he was understanding kind of what was going on, probably more than the general public. That's a pretty big position. Head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Oh, I think it was on March or February 7th or something around that timeline. He wrote an op ed to the American public, literally telling everyone, hey, don't worry, things are going to be okay. We have our eye on this. You guys should all go about your daily business, day to day, pretty much telling the public not to, don't worry, you know, it's fine. A week later he is briefed as the Senate Intelligence Committee. He probably hears something that again, the average everyday American doesn't know. He's now realizing like, holy crap, the severity of COVID is way worse than I originally thought. He calls up his financial advisor and him and his financial advisor liquidate his entire retirement account.

[C]

How long after the briefing was this?

[A]

The same day. Yo, they all know this because of what you just said. They got investigated by the DOJ and the sec so they had to publicly talk about these, these phone calls that happened. He liquidated his entire retirement account which like you're not going off and you're not selling off your retirement account for anything. You're doing that because there's clearly something happening. To make matters worse, he then called his brother in law and his brother in law called his financial advisor. That first 10 financial advisor didn't answer. So what did he do? He called his other financial advisor. They had a two minute conversation and then on the record after that conversation, the brother in law and that financial Advisor liquidated their 280, $300,000 portfolio all in that same timeline. So now you got the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee calling up his financial advisor, selling out of his retirement. That guy then calls his brother in law, his brother in law cause his financial advisor, they sell out of their retirement account. A week later, Covid kind of hits the broader public. Stocks fall 30% and they saved all that then and there. They then get investigated. The SEC comes in, they're like what the heck was going on? Doj, was there actually insider information? I don't know how that's not insider information. Yeah, that seems like the most obvious

[C]

blueprint code of any sort of public statement. The SEC or the doj, they said

[A]

they investigated and they couldn't find any actual wrongdoings. And you know Richard Burr, he stepped down from the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He's like, you know, while I'm getting investigated, I think it's a conflict of interest. The irony, it's a conflict of interest to be on this Senate Intelligence Committee. While getting investigated. He steps down, they don't find out any problems, he retires the next election cycle and he goes off into the sunset, no problems, no harm, no foul.

[C]

What do you make of that? Is it that these people just have too much power and so meaning that somebody that's chairing the head of the Intelligence Committee, he's not the guy that you want to make an enemy of the state as he's going to know a lot of things and he could go blab about it or is it, well maybe if I looked at all the same details, I would walk away going no, no, no, it's just fine.

[A]

Yeah, I think it's a big club that we're all not in. I think Republican, Democrat, it doesn't matter. They all have, they all are the ones making the rules and they all don't want to change it. So the, the accountability side of, you know, why does nothing ever happen, I think it's because they're the ones making the laws on mitigating and having jurisdiction over the people doing this. And they don't want to change it for themselves. So they kind of turn a blind eye and they don't necessarily look, an example of this is like the, aside from obviously going to jail. So per the stock act, they have up to 45 days to file those trades. If they violate that stock act, they are in violation of the law. They get penalized for it. These politicians can be trading hundreds of millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars. And if they don't have, if they can't file a trade into 45 days, like what are you essentially doing? Why is it taking so long? The fine if they don't, if they break the law on that is $250. It's, it's a parking ticket, you know. And why is it the fine so low? It's because they're the ones that are overseeing and they're the ones that are making the rules for the club that they're in. Why would they make it any bigger? What are the incentives that they have to change anything? And I think that is the problem. And that's like why we're trying to harp on this autopilot. The reason why we're essentially doing a lot of this stuff is we're trying to get them banned from trading. We're trying to bring change back into it, to bring trust back into the institutions. And it does start with them making the rules for themselves. They should not be allowed to trade stocks. And they also should not be the ones making the laws on them being allowed to trade stocks to begin with too. So I think it's a big rules for the and not for me. And it's a rich people club that we're just not in.

[C]

Okay, so you guys are banging the drum. You're posting about this on social media, certainly during COVID I mean this is. And fuego. This is catching fire. People are going crazy. How is it possible that in 2025 this is still going on? What, where is all of this breaking down? Because I would think that we the people could make enough noise that this would get changed, but it's not happening.

[A]

Yeah, you would think. And I mean on top of that, like this Is why Kind of the cool thing about Autopilot is it's one thing to call out the politicians and like, it's another thing to then kind of put some money behind it, you know, saying, you know, fuck it, if you guys aren't gonna change it, we're gonna start investing alongside it. We built an app that literally does that. And so now we have an app that lets you go and invest alongside the politicians. It's then a whole nother thing to have it become such a problem that there's $500 million copying Nancy Pelosi, Dan Crenshaw, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Mark Wayne Mullen, Republican, Democrat, doesn't matter. And that has turned into such like a rallying cry. And that's our biggest hope of why we think that we can kind of get something passed. Because it's again, one thing to call them out. It's another thing to follow them. It's another thing to actually get some money and invest alongside them. Because it perfectly portrays like the corruption and the blatant problem with it. 2025 has come around. We've been doing it four or five years. There are bills now that are being pushed to try and get them banned from trading, but nothing has ever happened. No politician has ever necessarily really reached out to us to try and actually get a ban across the. Across the. The finish line.

[C]

They haven't. Or because you said they haven't really had somebody or.

[A]

The only politician that we've had constant contact with is Rokuhanna. And he credit to him and also credit to aoc. They've been pushing for it. Matt Gates did a little bit. Rokahan is the politician that has been pushing for four things. One, a ban on congressional stock trading, two, term limits, three, ban special lobbyists and interests. And then four, you are not allowed to be a politician, have that job, and then be hired by, you know, a Lockheed Martin and a Raytheon, a mega healthcare company, to consult them of how to get a lot get away from the laws.

[C]

Now he's just flirting.

[A]

Yeah, I know, right? Like, can you imagine?

[C]

Is he popular? I've heard the name, but I know, yes.

[A]

And the funny irony of that is his district is San Francisco, so he comes from the tech world and Nancy Pelosi, also San Francisco. So I wonder.

[C]

Very different choices.

[A]

I know, right? He is popular with that 100%. He's still. Though he's not one of the more powerful Democrats, I think this is just me. I don't fully understand the power laws of these different politicians. And who's more powerful than the other. But that message that we post on our social media accounts, on Instagram and TikTok or Twitter definitely gets a lot of attention. And people do 1,000% support that. There's 86% of Americans support the politicians getting banned from stock trading. I don't know who the other 14% are, but they're related to politicians. Yeah. And if there's one thing that I think all Americans can agree on right now, you know, we're such a polarized nation, it's sad, but everyone agrees that these politicians should not be allowed to trade stocks. And Ro Kahana is one of those politicians that has been pushing for these bills and blatantly calling it out, trying to get a ban passed. He hasn't really succeeded with it, but we do chat with him.

[C]

Stay locked in. Up next, Chris breaks down a shocking trade by Nancy Pelosi that made headlines and what it reveals about the system. All right, we're back.

[A]

Let's get into it.

[C]

All right, let's talk about directionality here. So I love what you guys are doing. To me, it seems very wise to say, okay, if you guys aren't going to change it, then we're just going to ride along. But do you think Trump is a sign that we're moving in the right direction or the wrong direction?

[A]

Yeah. Trump is a tricky one because there's never been someone that is so big, so popular. You know, he's got his whole following with him. And there's also never been someone that has been kind of so vocally and so open about what he wants. He's very black or white. He's, I want tariffs. I'm going to push a terrorist. I want crypto. I'm going to push for crypto. Before Trump even started, we created the J.D. vance stock portfolio. And J.D. vance, because he was a senator, we were able to kind of see, and his holdings are roughly ETFs, but he also owned Bitcoin and he owned Rumble and a couple other salt Mahler stocks. So we've been tracking kind of the Trump Party, you know, for the past year and a half since J.D. vance was announced as the VP. Trump, though, again, does make it more complicated because of the conflicts of interests and the clear, blatant, you know, benefits that he would get if some of these things do get passed. An example is the Trump coin. That probably shouldn't have happened. I don't think that that did him any good.

[C]

Not sure. Or that.

[A]

Yeah, let me. That should not have happened.

[C]

Yeah.

[A]

That.

[C]

That one. I'm as pro crypto as you're going to get. I think people should be able to bet on meme coins all day long. But good Lord, the president launching a meme coin is pretty horrific.

[A]

Yep. And I don't know if this is just bad consultation. I don't know if there's people in his party or people in his group that didn't see the. The downside of that. Especially, like, if you come from the crypto community, you would know, like, Brian Armstrong, these CEOs are. They're calling it out. They're like, that probably shouldn't have been allowed. That should not have happened. And that, I think, set the standard and set the. The landscape for bigger kind of problems that could kind of come down the path from that. He has kind of backed away from the chump coin a little bit.

[C]

Really?

[A]

He hasn't. Well, actually, he. So the timeline was he released it right before the inauguration, and then the thing went up to like 35, 40 billion. He didn't speak about anything until probably a week to two weeks later when a reporter asked him in the White House, in the Oval Office, like, what do you think about the Trump coin? And they were like, what do you think about how your net worth went up, you know, however many? 10, 5 billion? And he kind of brushed it off. He's like, oh, I didn't. I don't really know too much about that. You know, playing the classic, kind of keep your hands clean of it. If you studied the unit economics of how the Trump coin was launched, these insiders do have a lockup period, and they have. I think it was 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, where after Trump launched that coin, he can't just sell it the day after because of this lockup period. Where it gets interesting, though, is a week ago, he tweeted, I love Trump coin, or something like that. And then the coin went up again a little bit after that. Yeah, exactly. Here we go. And on Twitter, people started calling it out, saying, like, are we getting closer to that lockup period? Is he trying to pump the coin right before? Yeah, we'll have to see. Because the. The beauty of crypto is you can track it all. You know, the wallets he's got. You can call it out right then and there. But again, the problem with it that I run in the Pelosi tracker kind of run into is we are very bipartisan. We call out everybody. Like, even earlier today, we were talking about Ashley Moody. We haven't even really necessarily gone into the stuff that Pelosi is doing, because we are very bipartisan. Trump being so open and blatant about that coin has to be called out by the Pelosi tracker. And we're trying to do our best to call out what is and what isn't, but with him, it's hard because there's just so much you don't want to tweet about it every single day. That we are trying to balance the. The calling it out, but not getting too political with him, because he is the most polarizing dude probably out there now, him and Elon. And that's kind of the landscape, the avenue that we're working on. But the public doesn't like that he did it either. I couldn't really find too many people supporting the President of the United States launching a meme coin. But he did the same thing with djt. You know, that what's.

[C]

Give people information.

[A]

DJT is the Donald Trump spec. You know, it's essentially like it's the company that oversees Truth Social. And, you know, I think that per their earnings reports, they have around 2 or 3 million dollars in revenue, but they're worth 8 or 9 billion. Yeah. And I think that that's crazy. Yeah, the multiples are insane on it.

[C]

But impact theory is bigger than.

[A]

Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, you could be. Yeah, you could probably go off and like, buy.

[C]

I don't think we're gonna value out at nine.

[A]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But what. What's fascinating about the DJT stuff is the. In kind of follow my path here. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on it is like, the DJT is a representation of the support for Trump he launched that everyone. It's so public that this. This company, True Social, like, yes, it might have promise. You know, it could be doing stuff that's great. Could not be doing stuff that's great. But at least, like, you know, you have the unit economics. They're making $2 million. The people are still buying it, though. You know, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the politician, she bought Donald Trump stock, and I see it as like a support mechanism for the stock market where when he was getting investigated by New York for the Mar A Lago, things like that support him or hate him. You know, he used the Donald Trump. The DJT stock as like a rallying cry to be like, they're trying to take all my money. You can support me with this. With this asset.

[C]

The world's biggest GoFundMe.

[A]

Exactly. And what is fascinating, though, about that, and this is why, like, Maybe he was in on the Trump Coin a little bit more than I would necessarily think. This is where I put my tin foil hat on, is the DJT stock is. Is the same kind of GoFundMe style thing for Wall street as Trump Coin is for the crypto industry. There's not millions and millions of people in the crypto world lining up to buy and support DJ T stock. So what do you do? You launch an asset in that world, Trump Coin, and now you can kind of sell your support to the crypto community, and the crypto community can come in and invest alongside and support that politician with the money, with their own money. And let me be clear, I. I think there's something to that, where your dollars should support the people that you want. You know, we were chatting off air a little bit about like the whole Alibaba and what we talked about in the Tucker Carlson podcast, your values, investor values. Yeah. Is there anything necessarily wrong with Trump being open and blatant about doing these things?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

With this, would you think? With the stock?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

The stock is a little bit trickier, though, because of that true social aspect of it, where there's an actually an underlying business to it.

[C]

Jesus, man. I. When. When he's not president, I love it.

[A]

Yay.

[C]

Hey. We have this formal civil former civil servant who we believe is being prosecuted, and we want to, like, do a GoFundMe where we can show support in a way, for an actual business endeavor. There is what I call a cover story, but I think you can paint the same picture for the whole stock market. Anyway, there's a cover story for why we want to do this, which is we believe in true social and we want to see this thing do well. But the. You, you started this by saying, look, there's just, there's no trust because even if they aren't doing insider trading, the optics give it such a look of that's what's happening. The growing wealth divide makes that untenable, where you just cannot be playing that game. So when I think about, I need to lay down in my own life, I need to lay down principles. So I don't want to look at Trump and say, oh, this is how Trump should be treated. I don't want to look at Pelosi and go, this is how Pelosi should be treated. I want to step back and go, this is how politicians should be treated. And whatever that, whatever effect that ends up having across the board, I actually want to be blind to all the potential things that could come in the

[A]

Future Trump, Biden, doesn't matter.

[C]

Yeah, literally doesn't matter. This is the policy. I think about this a lot as a CEO, you put in policies, you do not go, this person can go do this, this person can go do that. You just go, here's our policy. And then whatever comes of it, comes of it. And if I don't like the way that it's treating somebody, I'm going to adjust the policy. And now it will create a, an equal playing field for everybody else if I'm trying to solve that one off thing. So either, and this is something that I will certainly get to today, is there are two choices before us in terms of how we solve this problem. Choice number one is you just start outlawing all this stuff and you say, no, no, no, if you're going to be the president, hey, sorry, but you are going to have to sell out of that company. So, Elon Musk, if you pass a constitutional amendment and one day you want to run for president, you're going to have to sell out of all your companies and either don't run for president or sell. Those are your choices. Or we say, yo, I would. I want the best and the brightest. I want the most successful people in the world to want to be president. This is amazing. Therefore, I'm going to do maximum transparency. And I'm going to say, dear Elon, dear Trump, dear Pelosi, dear anybody, Anybody, this is going to be real time. When you make a trade in real time that's broadcast. And now anybody, a Chinese, foreign national, an American, anybody that goes, ooh, I bet you know something that I don't. Now, I'm going to be able to trade with you instantaneously. And you effectively, through technology, eradicate the idea of insider information, because the second you move, everybody can make that technology

[A]

and transparency of real time.

[C]

Right? I have not thought through this well enough to know which of those is going to be better. But that, to me, feels like the play. And what I hear you guys saying is we're doing the transparency thing because we can't get you to stop doing things that we view as at least optically so grotesque that something has to change and possibly this is just outright corruption. And if that's the case, then I say, well, okay, then that applies to Trump. And you can't, no matter how much, once you're president, no matter how much you want people to be able to support you, no matter how good. That was when we felt like you were being persecuted and having the justice system turned against you now that you're president, like, you just can't fucking do that.

[A]

Yeah, it's a good point. That's a good point in the contradiction of. Because like, maybe even like on the, on the policy side, maybe there's an argument to be made that, that the president is just the next level of like, that is a whole nother world. That is like the ruler of the free world, him launching meme coins, him even having, to your point, the Donald Trump stock, which is him even having interest in True Social, which is a public company, probably kind of can raise a ton of conflicts of interest. So I hear you on the, the hypocrisy or the, the contradiction of it. I guess the thing that I, maybe I'm kind of downplaying a little bit is my biggest belief is you're right, these politicians should not be allowed to trade. Maybe kind of truth, full transparency around that kind of should come into play here with Trump being the president. That again, maybe that's a whole nother world. Is there an argument where just full transparency into the whole thing and it turns into kind of the wild, wild west of these politicians. If they're all going to do it, let's get rid of the guard rails, for lack of a better way to describe it, and make it all transparent, all open and let the public decide on whatever they want to do. Right now we're at this point, this, I think, this problem. And now that I'm thinking about it, it's good that you're bringing it up because it's like on the one side, you got all the politicians playing this one game where they are behind the veil of the Stock Act. They still can trade, but they have 45 days to do it. They're still allowed to essentially kind of trade whatever they want, but they can hide behind a lot of those rules and they don't have to be so open and so transparent about it. On the other side, though, you got the most powerful person in the world blatantly doing it to a point where he is so overly transparent about it that you know exactly his entire game plan. You know how much money he's making, you know how much money his net worth is going up. And he's on the whole other spectrum of transparency with turns into just this whole crapshoot of like, which way is right because he shouldn't be allowed to do what he's doing, but his transparency in his way he's doing it, or his transparency in the way that he is kind of outlying how the whole Things work is the way that these people should be doing it if they're going to do it anyway. So do you, do you understand where it's like the line of the President is in a whole nother world, he is being probably openly transparent about it. Meanwhile, the Congress, they are not being transparent about it and they are using the Stock act and stuff to be able to kind of hide and do things that the American public aren't able to see. That's, I think like we see that on social media a lot. And Trump, I think, to your point, it's so tricky when your initial question was like, is it right? Should he be allowed to do it? No. But he is being so overly obviously transparent about it that it's so easy to call him out for it to the point where it's like, do we even call him out because he's telling the whole world what he's doing? You can't call him out if he's telling everybody to begin with.

[C]

You know, I do, I think it comes down to a fundamental question of what do we believe is the purpose of the presidency? I've never had to articulate this out loud, so forgive me if a week from now I say this is actually not what I think anymore. But my initial reaction is the sole purpose of the President of the United States is to make America better for the average American. Just to put a simple way to talk about it. And I have a feeling that given the truth of the statement, show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome. The last thing in the world you want the President to do is play a short term game. And even if you did something, because as you were talking, my initial instinct was, oh, this is create the sovereign wealth fund. The President, whoever they are, gets some piece of the sovereign wealth and some tiny, tiny, tiny piece of the sovereign wealth fund personally. And it's like, cool, if you make things better for all of us, then you get something. And then I just thought, oh my God, that will drive them to think so short term. Yeah. So then my thinking was, okay, we'll make it play out over the next 10 years. And they get 10 years after they've left office, whatever the average return is over the 10 year period that they get some ridiculously small percentage of that and that's their payment. And I can just see too many distortions coming, even over a period of time like that, that you're probably better off going back to the system that we had with George Washington, which was effectively Alexander Hamilton going, you're the only person I trust not to be corrupt that I can put in this position. And I know desperately wants to not be the president. And the only reason you're doing it is for the good of the country. And so you'd be willing to make all of these sacrifices. I think that that just is the right play. Now. We're not in that world right now. And so my thing is deal with the world the way that it is, not the way you wish it would be. And so we have a rat's nest that we have to untangle. But just to linger on the point of a George Washington, like, character for a minute, if we can create that kind of ethos in the culture, which I think the culture is probably closer to right now. They are so infuriated by rule by the few. They are so convinced that the few are either already rich and got rich through corruption, or if they weren't rich coming in, they're getting rich via corruption while they are in this, as you said, club that we don't belong to, because that's where America is at right now. It's like, you really have to find a way to create a scenario where, to your point, you're reintroducing trust in the government. And I think the only way you get there is by somebody who is saying, listen, I'm just going to eschew all of this stuff for now. Which sounds like what J.D. vance did.

[A]

Yep.

[C]

Uh, David Sacks did, where it's like, these guys made choices that were worse for them. Like, I love the idea that J.D. vance holds ETFs. So now it's like, well, if the American economy is winning, he's winning in the exact same way that anybody else would win. It's the same companies. He doesn't have any specific influence because it's such a large group of companies. So now it's just like, yeah, you're incentivized to make America better. One simple proxy would be the performance. I mean, GDP might be a better way to look at it, but you can't trade on that. So the thing that we can all trade on becomes the S&P 500. Again, just to oversimplify. So something like that. I like and feels like it probably just has to be that. And if you want to be president, then you're going to have to accept, I can't have my jdt, I can't have a meme coin. And we somehow, and this is way harder than I'm going to make it sound, we somehow get everybody to re. Embrace that sense of I become the president as a tremendous act of sacrifice, not as a, I expect to get wealthy.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Now, I will plant one seed, which is I love that these guys then make a ton of money on the backside by writing their story or whatever if they're out of office. And at that point, it's, as an American person, like, I want to know these things. I suppose it can still be manipulated a bit in terms of like the speaking circuit, where it's like, hey, once you leave, I'm going to take care of you.

[A]

Netflix, we're here.

[C]

You know, yeah, there would have to be guardrails around that. But I don't like the idea of a president dying broke. You know what I mean? Like, so anyway, there have to be something.

[A]

No, I mean, I think, like, because when we think about what are the different solutions to it, you know, we can. Again, this is why I love what we're building with Autopilot. It's like we are trying to create a rallying cry saying, hey, politicians, you aren't doing anything. So we are going to build an app to literally invest alongside you because you are not doing anything. And, oh, by the way, we now have half a billion following you and we're crushing it. We're making millions. Maybe you guys should take this kind of more seriously and, like, stop this. And like, that's our way to get more and more people. Eyeballs, more and more people to see it. And it's worked. You know, we got a million followers on Instagram, a million followers on Twitter, the Pelosi tracker. We're on shows like this. People wouldn't know about this stuff unless I think, like, the app is a great way to capture that emotion because your money is actually involved in it. When we think about solutions, though, it's like we are trying to get them banned from trading. And the ban is much more complicated because of the different nuances. And I'll get into that in a second with the. With what bills have been passed or what bills are getting potentially down the line, but the three kind of main solutions. And again, president's a whole nother world. You are completely right. One, get rid of the delay, Allow them to trade individual stocks, but open up that transparent layer where it's like, look, if you guys are going to trade, we'll let you trade. This is just one solution, but get rid of the delay. So now if you're trading, the whole American public knows that you're trading and they can copy you, not copy you. Do what they want. But the American people at least could be like we're making progress on this. They are at least being open and more transparent about what they're doing. Downside of that is you still have the terrible optics. People don't trust them. They still could be quote unquote insider trading, but at least you have the ability to see what they're doing. Second option is this blind trust idea where you take your individual assets and you give it to a third party financial advisor, quote, unquote, a blind trust. They could do whatever they want. You don't have any access to them. And to be fair, some of these politicians do have blind trust set up where they are not trading, but it's the financial advisor making trades for them. The problem with that solution in my opinion is I don't think that solves the optics issue whatsoever. I still think there's going to be American people being like, okay, cool, you got a blind trust. You're still calling up your guy, you're still talking to him at dinner. You know, you're not just going third party with this. That I don't think is the solution. The third solution that I like, and I think it is in agreement with you, is get everyone into the market where it's like you sell out of your individual assets and you just put it in the s and P500 where you don't. You still partake in the upside of America. You still partake in the growth, the gdp. You are still incentivized to grow us as a nation. But you are not doing it picking winners and losers in individual stocks. When the whole market goes up, you go up. So does everyone else's retirement accounts. You know all these people's retirement accounts, the majority of them are in these ETFs. When the markets go down, you feel the pain the same way that every other, every other individual American feels the pain. But we're all in this patriotic kind of group together because the politicians incentives is to grow as a country. And that I think is the best solution. The problem where it gets complicated is the kids and the spouses. So there was a bill that was passed by John Ossoff and what's his name, Josh Howley. They got a bill the farthest that's ever been gotten to in the Senate, the first bill that's ever made it to the Senate. In that bill they proposed three things. One, no politicians are allowed to trade individual stocks. Great, we get that argument. That makes sense. Two, the spouses and the children can't trade by 2027 start getting a little bit more complex where it's like, okay, I'm a politician, but can my kid who works at JP Morgan, is he allowed to trade? Is my spouse that's, you know, working at Amazon, are they allowed to trade like that? Is it constitutionally allowed to tell a spouse what to do? A little bit gray area, but still, I could see the argument there. The third thing though, that this new bill introduced, and I don't know if the majority of the American public know this is, and this is again, where it gets so complicated, is in that bill they would require all politicians to divest from private individual assets. So if I wanted to run for Congress, you know, I'm 29, I got a good little community behind me. Maybe I do. You know, maybe something changes when I'm 35 and I want to run. If I were to do that, I would have to sell out of Autopilot, which is a financial investment platform. Not necessarily really anything to do with politics, but it's still a private investment in my personal kind of wealth. And with that new bill, I would be forced to sell out of that. You, if you ever were to want, want to run for politics with that bill, you would have to sell out of all your individual assets. You know, impact theory, this and that. Is that allowed and should that be a thing? Because that opens up a whole new camera can of worms because you are now forcing individual private Americans to sell out of private investments. That is, how do you get liquidity for, you know, an impact theory? How do you get liquidity for a family business? Is it constitutionally allowed to get people to kind of do that? And my worry with that path is you then kind of divide up this whole quote unquote, career long politician angle and the people that you get into office, even where, even on a greater scale scale. That bill was being introduced in July of 2024. At the time, if you kind of remember, you had Kamala Harris and Tim Walls. Kamala Harris, Tim Walls, both relatively kind of career long politicians. Kamala was, I think, governor of California, not governor, attorney general or something like that. But she, she never really necessarily had any. She wasn't working at a, you know, a Facebook or anything like that. No kind of private experience. Tim Walls, ex teacher. The only thing he owned on a private asset side was a pension fund. He didn't even own a house, didn't own any individual stocks. And on the other side you got, you know, the Trump campaign and that team with a whole nother world they're all business people. Trump, you know, we already talked about what he has. He's got a million businesses. JD Vance, ex venture capitalist. He has his own private investments. You know, things like Andrew, he was a partner at Founders Fund to some degree. Going down the line, you had Vivek, you know, coming from the health care kind of angle. If that bill is passed at that time, there would be no, you know, there would be no Donald Trump, there would be no Vivek, there would be no J.D. vance, there would be no conversation around these, there would be no Elon's, you know, for better or for worse, but you would be turning off kind of a vast large part of society to run for politics. Is that a better America where, you know, you like. I think you probably could do a lot of things if you were to be a politician. You understand the people, you understand how social media works. You understand kind of where the direction and the public outcry is going. A lot of people that are politicians over 70 or 40, 50 years have no idea about the experience that you have. However, though, if you were to ever want to run against one of those people, you would theoretically have to sell out of your individual assets. Is it worth that? You know, maybe not. Maybe is, but you are turning off a massive amount of Americans from running for politics. That has been. There's been an argument being said that that's a kill pill, where it's like, oh, these politicians, again, we're not in the room. They put that piece in because they know there's Americans that won't support that and that will never get passed. So like Mitt Romney, who was ex CEO of Bain, he voted against that bill. But the problem is, you read the headline, it's like, mitt Romney votes against the bill to ban congressional stock trading. It's like, no, he supported the ban of it, but he didn't support that piece. So this whole topic is much more kind of complex and harder because when you deal with the kids, going back to what we were talking about with Trump, Trump can put his whole thing into the S&P 500. He should. All these politicians should. That's like what my personal belief is. I think they shouldn't own individual stocks, but I think they should have an incentive to drive growth in America. Donald Trump's kid, though, you know, Eric Trump, for example, he's the one behind all these ETFs. So even this morning he's talking about launching ETFs with true social truth. Social stock is up 10%. Donald Trump's individual net worth goes up however much percent because he owns it. But how is it constitutionally right to tell Eric Trump, you can't do this because your dad's the president? I think because he's the president, it's a much, much different level. There's clearly things that he probably shouldn't do. But if you're a politician from Washington and your kid is trying to do something, should you tell your kid that you can't do that individual thing because your dad is a representative from. From small district in Washington state? You know, that doesn't. Miles and miles away from D.C. not the most important. You know, you're not the ones moving the needle for the federal government, but you still are, you know, a person in Congress. That's where it gets much more complex and harder to kind of pass through. And why this entire topic is so nuanced. And also why with Autopilot and with the Pelosi tracker, we are trying to bring more eyeballs and transparency into it so people understand it and they can at least have a more informed way of making the decision around what they want and what they don't want.

[C]

Given what you guys do, I have to imagine that a big part of your audience customer base are millennials. Gen Z. Do you feel like you have your ear to the street in terms of what their vibe is like? Because from where I'm sitting, it feels like there is a lot of we're past frustration now and we're into outrage territory, we're into hopelessness, we're into burn it all down territory. What do they want to see with all of this?

[A]

Yeah, so, Jay, we do. We, we see a lot. So on the Pelosi tracker, that, that account has 1.1 million followers. On Twitter X, a little bit probably more conservative leaning. On Instagram, we have an account called the politician trade tracker. 900,000 followers. Probably a little bit more left leaning in that. So we see, you know, we post the same thing on Twitter, we post the same thing on Instagram. We see the two different arguments.

[C]

Same here.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. The underlying truth, the first principle kind of commonality between them all is I think people are kind of just sick of the blatant corruption in front of their own very eyes. Where people are struggling with inflation, they're struggling with the day to day stuff. They can't buy a house, they can't do this, they can't do that. And they are feeling left out because they are not part of this system. Meanwhile, the politicians are blatantly Doing these things right in front of everyone's face. And I think that's where the frustration starts boiling up and they all kind of call out the, the corruption in them just kind of not necessarily doing it. They do it in different ways. So like we still obviously do see, you know, the Gen Z millennials saying, hey, why aren't you calling out Nancy Pelosi? She's the one doing it the most. And then on the other side you get like, hey, why are you only calling out Nancy Pelosi? There's other politicians doing it as well. So if you comb all that stuff out, I think the unified thing of the Gen Z and the millennials is they are feeling left behind. They are frustrated with that and they rightly so are calling out and saying, why are these politicians getting rich in front of us? Meanwhile, I'm struggling to buy my eggs because, you know, inflation, things like that. Shouldn't you politicians be focused on that as opposed to trading, you know, your stock, your stocks every two weeks? That is what we kind of see a lot of. And it probably comes more from the millennials, to be honest, than the Gen Z. Gen Z, I think grew up with it and they just have accepted that this is the way it is and they are just like helplessness. Yeah.

[C]

That's terrifying.

[A]

It is, yeah.

[C]

How are they responding to it? Is it with an aggression, with an apathy? I'm gonna work around it. Like, what do they think?

[A]

So the millennials, they go with aggression and apathy and they use our product more. So I, I, I could look at the numbers, but I think like the average person using Autopilot is actually people with money that want to invest in, you know, the corruption and be like, look, if you guys are going to do it, I want to get in with the corruption.

[C]

Wow. Said like that. I hate that.

[A]

Yeah, I mean it's, no, again, you know, it's what it represents. There's no better way to highlight the hypocrisy than to literally follow along and invest alongside with it. Because if they're going to do it, I might as well join them. That's exactly, that's how autopilot is. 2 million downloads and half a billion dollars invested because of that kind of problem. Gen Z, though, I think it's more of like the dog eat dog world. And for better or for worse, I, this is like what I see and this is, I think just my, I have two brothers who are Gen Z. They see this too. There's a lot of ways to make money and I think they are kind of seeing like, oh, these politicians make money that way. It's clearly not right. It's clearly corrupt. It's clearly kind of problems. I'm going to go and I'm going to try and launch a meme coin and kind of rug pull, you know, yo, this other guy, I'm going to try and do this, this, these AI apps on social media and kind of grow them like that. It's more of a dog eat dog world. And you know, there's still a lot. I think the beauty of what Gen Z has is they don't take themselves too seriously and they don't get necessarily as frustrated. I think like they live a little bit of a less anxious. Maybe the data is wrong on this, but the way that I'm seeing it around the politics is they live a little bit of a less anxious life because they like are accepting of a lot of these kind of things and just how it is. And it's like I have to just figure it out on my own. And I think part of that is being shown with how they treat our account, but also how they go about trying to make money on their own.

[C]

Man. Say more. So how are they? I don't know if I'm. You're making me fall in love with Gen Z or if I'm not understanding what you're saying because I love the. I have to figure it out on my own. No one's coming to save you. That's my message. My producer, Drew, who's just off camera, hates when I talk like that because it is so it's certainly out of step with millennials, that is for sure, who want to be seen. They want to be recognized for how bad they've had it. And my thing is, I just want to help you navigate this. Well, you can, no matter what. Am I hearing you right about Gen Z or am I misinterpreting the idea of I've got to figure this out on my own?

[A]

Yeah, I think you're hearing me right. And maybe I can find probably a way to articulate it better where it's not like keeping money aside. I think what Gen Z accepts and probably is in the right is not necessarily. It's a. You are on your own. You have to figure it out on your. By yourself. It's. They have grown up with, you know, Covid, they grew up with. They weren't during the housing crisis, but they, they, they were probably, I don't know, seven or eight, six or seven around that time. So they Grew up with the fallout of that. The millennials had a whole different experience with that because they were probably a little bit older. But I think what Gen Z is kind of seeing and what they're realizing is there's a lot of weight. Like, you just have to. You can either complain about it or you can just accept it. Have a little bit more of a carefree lifestyle, saying, fuck it, you know, I'm never going to be able to buy a house anyway. Let me not stress about it when I'm 20. And it's also coupled with social media seeing, you know, how it works, you know, the best way to say it. I feel like Gen Z feels like no one has been looking out for them. And that is a little bit of the difference between the millennials. I'm a millennial. And like the Gen Z younger brothers that I have me as a millennial, I know that there were things going on and I know that I'm getting the bad end of the stick, but I still don't want it to be like that. That's why I'm complaining, saying, like, what the fuck? Politicians, you know, why are you able? That's why I'm building an app that literally lets me copy them. You know, I don't want you guys doing this. I want to provide change. I want to kind of get this to stop so that we can kind of keep moving forward. We can bring trust, transparency back in. Meanwhile, the millennial in that same scenario is like, why are you even complaining to me? Oh, yeah, excuse me. The Gen Z in that same scenario is like, they have the mindset of, like, why even complaining to begin with? You know, just accept it, stop stressing about it. Nothing's going to change anyway. These politicians are not your friend. They're in the club. You're not. Stop trying to change it, figure it out, and kind of live your life that way. That's, I think, like a little bit that of the difference for the Gen Z kids. They're, I think, really experiencing that now with. We've talked about college loans, student loans, for how long? Like 15 years. They've grown up with it. Their entire life has been hearing about how college is expensive, how people are complaining about college, college student loans, when they're 35, 40, 50, and they can't pay the things off. You would think that, okay, if you guys have been complaining about it for 15 years, you would have done something about it. Nothing has happened to it. And now in these, my younger brother is about to become a freshman in college. His tuition is 90 grand a year. Whoa. And it's like, when I started, I went to Villanova in 2014. Great school. My tuition, I think, was like 55, 60 maybe. So he saw me going to school, my older two brothers went to school, and now it's his turn and he's seeing 90K. It's like, what do you do in that situation? Especially when you didn't necessarily really have the power to do anything about it. You feel a little bit, not necessarily hopeless, but like you are on your own a little bit.

[C]

Is he still going to go to school?

[A]

I don't. I don't. I think he's going to go to a different school where he gets more loans and it's public. Yeah, but that was a private school. I mean, it was Villanova. Like, Villanova is a great school. He wants to go to the same school that I went to. And I think he said after room and boarded, anything was around, like, 87 or 88,000. What do you. Yeah, what do you do?

[C]

You want a real answer? Yeah, you don't fucking go to school. So my punchline is, if you can go to college, if you want to go to college and can do so without taking on obscene amounts of debt, cool. I have not deployed the things that I learned in college, so I won't say that it set me up like that, but it forced me to get disciplined because nobody was watching over me. So it was a great exercise. But at the end of the day, looking back on it, I walked out. I can't remember if it was 25 or $35,000 in debt I had between loans, grants, et cetera, et cetera.

[A]

That.

[C]

That's what I walked away. It was manageable. It was enough that it was stressful for the first, call it 10 years outside of college, but it was manageable. But now, 90k a year like that, that's insanity. So what percentage of that becomes debt? I'm going to guess he's going to be six figures in debt by the time that he graduates. Given how much you can learn from AI, given how much you can learn from the Internet, given how much you can learn from working with somebody else, you were just way better off going, pursuing the thing that you love most in the world that you can monetize, doing it right out of the gate and stacking those skills. This goes back to, what would I tell myself if I could go speak to me when I was 13 or whatever, I'd be like, okay, the thing that you most want to do in the world. Don't do some like, around it. Because my thing was I'm going to get rich and then go back and do the thing that I wanted to do. That was a mistake. Now that I know what I know about acquiring skills, I would have just gone into that thing and acquired those skills. I didn't have the Internet, so there's nobody to tell me all this stuff, but that's what I would do if I were him. Skill acquisition. Make sure that you keep your costs very low, do not take on inordinate amounts of debt. It's just you're making it impossible for yourself to get ahead. And given how powerful AI is, between that and real life connections, that's the game.

[A]

I, that's, I think what I told him when he told me the 90 came. Like, dude, like, who knows what the job market is even going to be like four to five years from now. Especially because he, he's a go getter. He likes to do things on his own, but he likes to do things with his hands where he, you know, he's the one starting the, the landscaping companies. You know, he's the one going door to door. Grew up in Boston, shoveling the snow for the neighbors, things like that. He isn't on social media.

[C]

So what's, what's, he's what, 18, 19.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

And he's not on social media.

[A]

Not on social media.

[C]

Is that like a thing for Gen Z where they're actively rejecting.

[A]

I think that was a thing for my high school. My high school, we went to a small private school.

[C]

That's interesting.

[A]

And yeah, he's not on social media. So like, he may not even necessarily see all the things that are coming with AI. And I don't know exactly how. It's a good point. I'll bring this up to him, be like, do you know what's kind of going on? But yeah, so he has an Instagram account with I think like 20 followers. He's not on TikTok, not on Twitter, just lives his life with his friends and that's probably the better way to do it. But the downside is essentially like what you're talking about, the, the AI stuff. How do you learn about that? How do you get, how do you stay up to date with where the whole world is going? College does play a part in that because you are surrounding yourself with people that have social media, people that don't, people that come from, you know, they got the side hustles. You get exposed to a broader range of bigger kind of pool of people in college to be able to do that. Is that worth $90,000? Absolutely not. Is that the skill set that you're going to learn in College, worth $90,000? Absolutely not. Like me personally, I was a finance major, went to school for finance, and I work in a finance app now, Autopilot. But I do all the growth, I do all the social media stuff. I have come become like a nerd, quote unquote expert of like how do the algorithms work? How do you dissect this one algorithm on TikTok and how do you reverse engineer it to make content to work on that versus headlines on Twitter, versus the organic authenticity on Instagram? So I know how all that stuff plays and I can kind of make content that will work on that. My younger brother would have no idea and I don't think he cares. I don't think he has any kind of interest in it.

[C]

Fascinating.

[A]

I don't know if that's a big

[C]

Gen Z thing or that's just a him thing.

[A]

That's just a him thing.

[C]

And do I want an answer to that question. That's it for part one with Chris Josephs, but trust me, we are just getting warmed up. In part two we're diving into how AI and big data are being used to predict political moves, how public sentiment is manipulated through trading cycles, and what it means when the people writing the laws are the same ones profiting off of the outcome comes. Plus, Chris reveals the jaw dropping data behind the most profitable members of Congress and what that says about the future of democracy itself. If you haven't already, make sure you follow the podcast so you do not miss part two when it drops. Until then, my friends, be legendary.