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

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Battle for America's Soul — Tom Bilyeu X Steven "Destiny" Bonnell

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

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Main Theme / Purpose

This candid debate between Tom Bilyeu (entrepreneur and host) and Steven "Destiny" Bonnell (political streamer and commentator) interrogates America’s current political divisions—especially concerning perceptions of authoritarianism, the failures and dangers of both major parties, threats to democracy, immigration, economic strategies, and the state of public discourse. Their exchange digs into how base worldviews shape reactions to Trump, Biden, left vs. right policy, and the media environment, revealing both stark disagreements and moments of productive challenge.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Perceptions of Authoritarianism: Trump and “Dangerous Moments”

• Divergence in Threat Assessment:
  Tom and Destiny discuss their differing "base assumptions" about Trump’s threat to democracy.
  • Tom: Sees Trump’s moves as worrisome but not existentially dangerous. He’s wary but believes there are still checks and balances.
  • Destiny: Feels the country is already far down an authoritarian path, with Trump setting new precedents and openly toying with using federal power in ways unprecedented since the Civil War.
• National Guard & Burning Precedents ([03:55]):
  • Destiny: “How many countries have survived after the head executive has started to weaponize the military against its own citizenry?...This is something that I don't know since the Civil War…”
  • Tom: Argues enforcement against chaos is necessary, and sees use of force akin to restoring order, not targeting citizens.

2. Leadership, Rhetoric, and Responsibility

• Trump’s Communication & Intentions ([08:20]):
  • Destiny asks whether Trump’s bombastic, at-times “unhinged” rhetoric isn't a sign of instability—or even intent to escalate. Tom equates Trump’s bombast to Destiny's own online provocations, suggesting role-driven communication changes.
  • Destiny: “There are ways you talk to friends that I’m sure you would never talk to an employee…if I was an elected leader…my tone would change to match the new role.”
• Drawing Parallels to Historical Dictators ([07:39]):
  • Destiny draws direct lines to historical authoritarianism.
  • Notable Quote: [07:39] Destiny: "Trump's just already in government, is already president, has it…people like the Brownshirts eventually become things like the Gestapo or whatever..."

3. Cognitive Fitness: Trump vs. Biden

• Debate Over Senility and Competence ([14:45], [22:31]):
  • Tom: Questions Biden’s mental faculties, suggesting his administration shields him.
  • Destiny: Counters there’s no evidence for Biden’s alleged incapacity and points to Trump’s inconsistencies and public gaffes.
  • Notable Quote: [21:16] Destiny: "Should we have opened the border?...No, but we never had open borders."
  • Notable Quote: [16:24] Destiny: “Because I’m trying to—tell me what is the evidence of Biden being senile that doesn't involve him being a shitty debater?”

4. Left vs. Right: Policy, Spending, and the Overton Window

• Economic and Policy Drift ([27:39], [29:13]):
  • Tom believes both parties are big-spending and irresponsible, particularly with entitlements.
  • Destiny argues “left-wing” and “right-wing” are too easily conflated with fiscal irresponsibility—wars, for instance, also ballooned government spending.
  • Notable Quote: [25:25] Destiny: "I've heard the war, the klaxon sounding about socialism and communism for 30 years for the Democrats… I've yet to see even a step early in that direction."
  • Tom feels America has swung far left, while Destiny says the narrative is overblown.

5. Crypto, China, and American Competitiveness ([31:12])

• Crypto Policy and Innovation:
  • Tom attacks the left for chilling crypto innovation, arguing only growth and extending US debt runway will counter China.
  • Destiny: “Right now, the President of the United States is running the largest crypto scam in all of human history.”
• Stablecoins as Economic Lifeline: ([32:24])
  • Tom argues for US-backed stablecoins to democratize access to treasuries globally. Destiny is skeptical about real-world efficacy.

6. Populism, Protectionism, and Globalism ([47:33])

• Both agree populism trends protectionist, but Destiny asserts these cycles cause damage and must be broken by leadership and integrated trade.
  • Destiny: "I don’t know historically… where the populist movement was healthy for the state of the country… generally these lead to bad outcomes."
• Destiny wants America to resume leadership in global trade and financial integration for both prosperity and influence.

7. Immigration & Assimilation ([50:29])

• Economic Value of Immigration:
  • Destiny: Immigration is almost always a net GDP benefit; assimilation is important but needs better definition.
  • Tom offers an "American values" checklist—liberty, capitalism, individualism, and Christian-influenced ethics—for assimilation.
  • Destiny agrees in broad strokes, emphasizing the shared ground rules that let diverse people sustain a single polity.

8. Media Environment, Accountability, and Political Tactics ([38:36], [39:08])

• Right-wing Dominance in Media Cycles:
  • Destiny: Right-wing drama hijacks the news, making the left reactive and unable to set the agenda.
  • “When you’re on defense, you’re never gaining ground.”
• Policy vs. Culture Wars:
  • Destiny criticizes MAGA for abandoning governance in favor of pure politics and drama.

9. Audience Impact, Change, and Strategies for Civil Discourse ([55:04], [56:12])

• Who Can Change?
  • Tom: Wonders if only ~2% of adults are truly changeable, making activism demoralizing.
  • Destiny: Most traits are set by age 15, but intuition and groupthink can be shifted—when the “herd moves,” most people follow.
• Actionable Advice:
  • Destiny’s final tip: Write down your political predictions and check them after 6-12 months to keep yourself honest and adaptable ([60:05]).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• [01:09] Tom: “The most important thing is the threat level you feel from Trump.”
• [03:55] Destiny: "How many countries have survived after the head executive has started to weaponize the military against its own citizenry?"
• [07:39] Destiny: “Trump's just already in government… so I just don’t see a significant difference [from historical authoritarians].”
• [10:55] Destiny: “My role is entertainer, activist, political pundit at most. If I was… an elected politician, my tone would change.”
• [14:09] Tom: “Yes, I do. What? My eyes. Because of the fact that inside of their own government… they had a group that referred to themselves as the Politburo.”
• [25:42] Tom: "Over the last 40 years, we have gone so far with left policies—lunatic left policies, unfortunately… but they both been running big government, big spending, deficits are fine."
• [29:13] Destiny: “The last budget surplus we had was under a Democratic president. All the facts just seem to lay out very clearly…”
• [32:24] Tom: “We’re talking about the average guy in Kenya that has a cell phone and that’s it. … He would be way better off buying US Treasuries."
• [37:05] Destiny: "If one side is led to believe that there will never be accountability for their actions, then they have no incentive not to be acting in the most unaccountable way possible."
• [49:02] Destiny: "The most important thing… people seem to think… everything is a zero sum game. …Trade is always mutually beneficial.”
• [56:38] Destiny: “Once the herd moves, then the herd moves. And so it just becomes a question of how do we move the herd?”
• [60:05] Destiny: "Writing stuff down can actually be really illuminating... Write things down because it keeps you honest with yourself."

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:09] — Foundational differences: Perception of Trump's threat
• [03:55] — National Guard, democracy, and precedents
• [07:39] — Authoritarian historical parallels
• [10:55] — The role of rhetoric: Destiny vs Trump
• [14:45] — The Biden “senility” debate
• [21:11] — Immigration and cognitive ability arguments
• [27:39] — Defining left vs right fiscal conduct
• [31:12] — Crypto, China, and economic innovation
• [38:36] — Media dynamics: Right-wing narrative dominance
• [47:33] — Globalism vs populism
• [50:29] — Immigration: economic and cultural effects
• [55:04]/[56:12] — Changing minds: groupthink and adult changeability
• [60:05] — Final advice: Write down your predictions

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Tone & Dynamic

The exchange is frank, combative but not hostile, with both participants openly acknowledging their interpretative filters, occasional points of mutual respect, and a willingness to challenge deep assumptions. Tom often plays the pragmatic, business-minded centrist while Destiny presses for empiricism and is laser-focused on authoritarian drift and policy accountability.

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Conclusion & Takeaways

The episode offers an urgent, clear-eyed snapshot of America’s contemporary ideological and policy schisms—covering everything from the specter of authoritarianism and the decay of both parties, to debates over immigration, economics, and the value of persuasion. Listeners will leave with a vivid sense of how base worldviews—and the effectiveness of rhetorical framing—shape how Americans interpret mutually observed realities. Destiny’s actionable advice underscores the need for self-reflection and intellectual honesty for anyone navigating today’s political climate.

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Transcript

[A]

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[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

So you said, clean this up. So here's something I'd be curious about, because you know a lot of numbers in terms when 130% debt to GDP ratio or 18 months is unsustainable, whatever. I'm curious how many countries have survived after the head executive has started to weaponize the military against its own citizenry. Curious what the standard survival rate is on a country past that point. Because what Trump is doing with the National Guard is something that I don't know since the Civil War. I am not aware of any president ever abusing the National Guard in that way. They're not supposed to nationally. They're not supposed to deploy to a state without the consent of the governor. And they're generally supposed to do it in, like, times of great emergency with the governor requesting.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

It looks about exactly the same.

[A]

Exactly the same. No way.

[B]

For sure.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

So when Trump says things about like deporting Mamdani.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I feel the same way about Trump.

[B]

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

[A]

Here's how I've mapped you.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

You are extremely intelligent.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

Trump is better than that.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

That's not a big deal to me.

[A]

Not at all.

[B]

You think him playing games.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

Weaponize anything and everything that he thinks he can get away with.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Yeah, he's.

[A]

He's.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

After a huge public outcry, there was pressure by the FCC to have him fired. And then a Threat to pull licenses from all the underlying companies if they didn't.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

One million percent. Of course.

[A]

Okay, so then.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

100%.

[A]

Not my read in the slightest.

[B]

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

[A]

Was Biden cognitively capable of being president?

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Sure, you can say that, but the difference is, is that Trump has already lied about his medical history. Do you acknowledge that, that his doctors lied as well?

[A]

I don't know, but would not be so true.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

So who pardoned him?

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

So who is telling Trump who to pardon?

[A]

I don't know who. That person.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

It's a knowable name, right?

[B]

No, it's not. We don't know who's keeping this thing.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

So besides him being a bad speaker?

[A]

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

[B]

So you have no examples besides him being if we were to compare so weird. Well, here I'm curious. If we were to compare Biden's State of the Union to Trump's State of the Union, which one do you think sounded more coherent?

[A]

I mean, with Trump for sure, far and away?

[B]

Absolutely not. I totally disagree.

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So how do you win?

[A]

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[B]

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

[A]

One because Wall of facts, sure. It's not is a very impressive technique that you use. But if you take them one by one. Should we have opened the border?

[B]

Should we have opened the border?

[A]

Yeah, just open borders, let people in.

[B]

No, but we never had open borders.

[A]

Really.

[B]

Correct.

[A]

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

[B]

Well, yeah, because open implies some like.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

He's the president.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Could be senile and be popular.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Okay.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

I'm going with traditional definitions. Traditionally even.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

What about Iraq and Afghanistan?

[A]

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

[B]

Yeah, no, I'm not a Democrat. I'm just saying when I look at.

[A]

These two, they, they have both become completely irresponsible.

[B]

Sure. I'm just saying, when you say.

[A]

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

[B]

Okay, sure.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Okay?

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

Average person's wages grew were under Trump. He's at least trying to do something on the world stage to get us back where we are, not literally just handing our future to China by making.

[B]

Enemies of every country on the planet.

[A]

Yeah, dude, look, again, I'm not going to bat for Trump.

[B]

You said he's trying to make everybody like us again, but not. They'll hate us now when? Go ahead.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

That's interesting. I totally disagree.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

But that didn't happen.

[A]

Suicide. It did.

[B]

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

[A]

I got sued by the US Government because I was involved in crypto. I'm telling you right now, they were trying to chill that the fuck out. I've heard you make the same pitch about yo when you've got Elon Musk coming after you. Like, if it were anybody but me, this is the kind of thing that has a chilling effect. Effect. It's exactly what it does. It's like, what? Like crypto is a legitimate thing. In fact, it is the only thing that's going to give people a life raft out of the absolute horrific mess that we are in from the dollar. Like you have to.

[B]

Right now, the President of the United States is running the largest crypto scam in all of human history. Terrific. Okay. All right.

[A]

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

[B]

Is that already international market for US Treasuries?

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Fashion. Okay.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

The US government should never default. Technically. Right. Because they can always produce more money.

[A]

Just hyper inflate your currency. So at some point you go, either we hyper inflate and nothing matters matters or we recognize we have to default. Both are catastrophic. So pick whichever one you want. Okay, taking a short break, but there's more impact theory after. Stay tuned. It's okay not to be perfect with finances. Experian is your big financial friend and here to help. Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app?

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[A]

Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it. I heard you say in a recent stream that but you're putting yourself in this crazy position in terms of you've now really become a target, but you're doing it because you actually want to make things better in America. So what is that vision of America that you have in your head that would be better?

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

It's called tit for tat. With like 10% forgiveness or something. Yeah, we're at like 10,000% forgiveness right now.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

Why are they able to dictate the talking points?

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Yes.

[A]

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

[B]

No, it's a authoritarianism dictatorship.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

Right.

[B]

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

[A]

He can veto it.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

What do you mean by specific in mind?

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Sure.

[A]

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

[B]

Okay, sure.

[A]

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

[B]

Yeah, I would say so, yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

Can I give you my Darkest view, fear. And then I'll be very interested to see if your natural response is to be like, yeah, or if you will be able to talk me off a ledge.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It is my experience that all adults can change and only 2% will. So every time that I yell into the void, I am trying to find that 2% that will actually change. But for the most part, all humans are a time automata. But some get a high role on changeability, others get a very low role on changeability. I think all kids are very changeable, but adults, not so much. And so it does get a little disheartening sometimes to think, wow, like I'm really only speaking to 2% of people.

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

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

[B]

Unfortunately, a lot of things, and I hate this. You said I'm very smart. I consider myself to be quite smart. And even I would say for myself, I've just had to learn a lot through experience. And I don't think there's a shortcut for that ever. I think a really, you can go on almost anything. Racism or whatever, Guns. Right. For a lot of very far left leaning people, guns are scary. And they might think that they would even take the principal position of like, guns are bad, I don't want anything to do with them.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But it's probably not their position. It's more the concept of what they think guns are is bad. And even though that seems similar, there's a world where you take a leftist friend like, okay, well, let's go shoot him. I go the range, have Some fun. You can see the people there are chill, we're chill. We have some fun shooting. When you come away from that experience, it feels like I fundamentally changed from thinking guns are bad to thinking that guns are good. That's not really what's happened. What's happened is your thought was never guns are bad. Guns are bad because they're murder scary weapons that are uncontrollable, too. Guns are actually okay because they're not murder scary weapons that are uncontrollable. Then you can make the same experiential argument, I think, for a lot of different things.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

What is that bullying?

[B]

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

[A]

Right. Do you wear a vest or have security or anything?

[B]

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

[A]

That's Crazy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's wild to think. Yeah.

[B]

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

[A]

Lbs.

[B]

8% body fat.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

Yeah. You know, Okay.

[A]

I like it.

[B]

Well done.

[A]

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

[B]

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

[A]

But no, agreed. Very much so. Where can people follow you now?

[B]

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

[A]

It certainly does. Awesome. Well guys, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. Most healthy habits are hard. Meal prep takes hours. Gym routines get derailed all the time. Complicated supplement regimens fall apart, often within weeks. But AG1 Next Gen is is different. AG1 NextGen delivers what your body actually needs. 75 plus vitamins and minerals, 5 clinically studied probiotic strains, plus prebiotics and superfoods. It replaces your multivitamin, probiotics and more in one simple daily drink. AG1 Next Gen comes in three new flavors, Tropical citrus and berry. All plant based flavoring with 0 added sugar, 0 artificial SW sweeteners, 0 erythritol. Every flavor maintains NSF certification for sport, so you know you're getting the strictest quality standards. Subscribe today to try the next gen of AG1 and if you use my link, you'll also get a free bottle of AG D3K2, an AG1 Welcome Kit, and five of the upgraded travel packs. With your first order, click the link in the show notes or just head to drop drinkag1.com impact to get started again. That's drinkag1.com impact.