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The Political Power Play: Shutdowns, Spin, and the ACA’s Unintended Consequences | Tom Bilyeu Show - Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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The Political Power Play: Shutdowns, Spin, and the ACA’s Unintended Consequences | Tom Bilyeu Show

Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory

Thu Nov 13 2025

Tom Bilyeu and Producer Drew dive into the political fallout from the government shutdown, break down the chaos in healthcare reform, and tackle the explosive truths behind the AI boom and global free speech crackdowns.

Summary

Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu

Episode Title: The Political Power Play: Shutdowns, Spin, and the ACA’s Unintended Consequences
Date: November 13, 2025
Host: Tom Bilyeu
Main Theme:
An unfiltered, dynamic deep dive into high-stakes U.S. politics, the government shutdown aftermath, healthcare policy, the economics behind recent headlines, legal battles over free speech, AI’s “bubble” status, and the social impact of emerging tech.

Episode Overview

In this no-holds-barred episode of the Tom Bilyeu Show, Tom and his co-host dissect the true forces driving recent U.S. political maneuvers, focusing on the motives and consequences embedded within the government shutdown, the fracturing Democratic party, and the ongoing debate over the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In parallel, they pivot to pressing issues like economic strategies in U.S. foreign policy, the ethics and risks of current legal actions, censorship trends overseas, tech stock bubbles, and the cultural implications of AI-generated art.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Government Shutdown: Tactical Stalemate or Power Play?

(Begins ~01:47)

Shutdown as "Nothing Burger": The recent 41-day government shutdown resulted in no significant legislative changes—ACA subsidies, SNAP benefits, farm language, and key Democratic priorities remained untouched.
- Quote: “We spent 41 days shut down and there was no additional bill passed... None of those things have happened. And I feel like from that perspective, you did 41 days to then like fumble the ball.” (01:47, Co-Host)
Schumer's Motive: The theory that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer orchestrated the shutdown as a political move to make the Trump administration look weak, laying groundwork for the upcoming midterms.
- “It’s about power. It’s always about power.” (06:38, Tom)
- The internal Democratic "civil war": Establishment vs. populist wings, with the latter led in spirit by figures like Mamdani (and, traditionally, Bernie Sanders).
  - “The populist Democrats…their spirit animal is Mamdani.” (04:17, Tom)

2. Democratic Party Infighting & The Rise of Populism

(Starts ~07:05)

Bernie’s Legacy: Debates on whether Mamdani's rise signifies an evolution or just a new form of Bernie’s populism.
- “Bernie was the OG populist back in 2008. He didn’t make it.” (07:23, Co-Host)
Political Branding: Populists’ mastery of the algorithm and social attention, contrasting with establishment figures’ failure to resonate organically with voters.
- “He knows how to win over the algorithm... He’s so good at it that if you give him a dollar of campaign funds, he’s going to be able to make it perform like 10, unlike somebody like Schumer.” (08:09, Tom)

3. The ACA & Healthcare System: Subsidies, Math, & Unintended Incentives

(Starts ~14:40)

Critique of ACA: Tom denounces the ACA for structurally driving healthcare costs up, exacerbated by government subsidies creating “perverse incentives” for insurers.
- “I am coming to believe…that [the ACA] can be blamed for how high the prices are... It’s $600 if you’re not insured. It’s $1300 if you are insured. That is toxic. That is extremely bad and that is where we are.” (14:45, Tom)
Subsidy Spiral: The co-host emphasizes the loss of the individual mandate as a pivotal change that broke the math of the ACA’s design.
- “That was the kind of the justification: In 2017 that individual mandate was removed. So now you don’t get penalized if you don’t have insurance. So of course younger people flee and then that raised overall costs, period.” (17:29, Co-Host)
Moral & Fiscal Policy: The hosts agree on the need for balance between economic physics and social safety nets, debating phased vs. abrupt policy changes.
- “You can’t lock people legally into a system that is predatory on them, which is exactly what we’re doing right now.” (24:44, Tom)

4. Economic Policy Power Moves: Argentina Swap Line

(Begins ~31:31)

Scott Besson’s Interview: Dissection of the “bailout” critique regarding the U.S. Treasury’s currency swap with Argentina; Besson’s economic credentials and Wall Street success lend him credibility, despite media backlash.
- “He’s an economic gangster…That’s why I revere Ray Dalio so much…If anybody’s got a shot to pull us out of the economic morass that we’re in, it’s them.” (35:31, Tom)
Geopolitical Context: The hosts assert the move is strategic in the ongoing “cold war” for influence in South America against China.

5. Lawfare & Free Speech: Social Media, Outrage, and Overreactions

(Begins ~39:32)

Case Study: Elijah Schaefer being sued for $5M for posting a public photo, considered “gross lawfare” and an abuse of the legal system to intimidate or control speech.
- “Whatever you think about Candace, that tweet is bang on…You don’t hate lawfare enough.” (40:06, Tom)
Broader Trends: Criticism of public figures who deploy lawsuits as a means to silence critics, equating these actions with the behavior of political enemies.
South Korea’s Crackdown: New president’s push to criminalize “disinformation” and hate speech; Tom’s impassioned argument for freedom of expression.
- “If you find yourself saying disinformation should be made illegal, that is—you’re a categorical moron. You need to be immediately removed from office.” (47:46, Tom)
- “Once you understand, we don’t even understand quantum physics…so what are we supposed to do…people are not allowed to say what they believe to be true, but ultimately be wrong?” (48:14, Tom)

6. The AI Tech Bubble, Markets, and Economic Instability

(Begins ~52:00)

AI Bubble Concerns: Noting major investors (SoftBank, Buffett, Burry) dumping Nvidia stock and questioning inflated tech valuations—potential for a “bubble burst.”
- “Michael Burry's put a short on Nvidia...He called it fraud, just straight up fraud.” (52:09, Co-Host)
- “This is a PvPVE game…You're actively going up against human beings that are trying to take your money.” (57:02, Tom)
Advice to Ordinary Investors: Advocates for long-term, diversified investing—cautioning against day trading and short-term speculation.
Sam Altman, OpenAI, and Too-Big-to-Fail: Analysis of Altman’s defensive comments regarding OpenAI’s massive commitments relative to revenue, and the danger in assuming government will bail out major tech firms.
- “The state shouldn’t get involved in capitalism. The state should be laying infrastructure...We need to get away from this idea of things are too big to fail.” (59:56, Tom)

7. Societal Risks: Economic Crashes & Social Fallout

(Begins ~63:59)

Danger of Wealth Inequality: Tom warns that societal breakdown is more likely to result from growing inequality than economic depression alone.
- “What almost always takes a country down—it’s not a depression. It’s wealth inequality. And so if we have a depression, it'll be brutal, but it's not people getting murdered in the streets. The wealth inequality…is murder.” (65:40, Tom)
Current Civil War Analogy: Rising anti-immigrant sentiment, political polarization, and real-world violence are signs that social fabric is fraying.

8. Cultural Shift: AI-Generated Music Tops the Charts

(67:50 – end)

Embracing the Inevitable: Rather than fight AI creative tools, Tom suggests people should harness them to create new opportunities during a transitional “five-year window.”
- “It’s really good. Like, I really like it…So I really am saddened by people that are like, I’m going to fight against this because all through human history, every time we fought against the technology, it worked. Oh, wait a second. No, it didn’t.” (69:06, Tom)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On The Reality of Power Games:
“This wasn’t about the Affordable Care Act in the first place. This wasn’t about benefits for the poor and working class. It’s about power. It’s always about power.”
(06:38, Tom)
On Populist Political Strategy:
“He knows how to win over the algorithm...He’s so good at it that if you give him a dollar of campaign funds, he’s going to make it perform like 10...”
(08:09, Tom)
On ACA’s Impact:
“I am coming to believe...the ACA...can be blamed for how high the prices are.”
(14:45, Tom)
On Legal Battles Against Speech:
“You don’t hate lawfare enough. I will just tell you that right now.”
(40:06, Tom)
On Censorship and Free Speech:
“If you find yourself saying disinformation should be made illegal, that is—you’re a categorical moron. You need to be immediately removed from office.”
(47:46, Tom)
On the Stock Market:
“The market is a PvPVE game. PvP is player versus player. PvE is player versus environment...You're actively going up against human beings that are trying to take your money.”
(57:02, Tom)
On Technology’s March:
“I have all the copium in the world in the form of, I know what I’m going to do in an AI world where AI is better than me at everything. And as long as it doesn’t kill me, I’ve still got a strategy.”
(69:21, Tom)

Key Timestamps

Government Shutdown Analysis: 01:47—07:05
Populist Democrats & Political Branding: 07:05—14:34
ACA and Healthcare Incentives: 14:40—26:00
Argentina Currency Swap & Economic Power Moves: 31:31—39:32
Lawfare, Lawsuits, and Free Speech: 39:32—47:18
AI Bubble & Tech Sector Analysis: 52:00—64:02
AI-Generated Music Tops Billboard Charts: 67:50—End

Episode Tone

Fast-paced, irreverent, and unsparing—the hosts blend the intensity of Wall Street analysis with the blunt candor of deep political commentary, peppered with humor and cultural references. If you want a conversation that calls out party spin, economic obfuscation, and the dangers of overreach in both policy and tech, this one's for you.

Summary prepared for those seeking rich context, direct insights, and memorable exchanges without the need to listen to the full episode.

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Transcript

A (0:00)

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B (1:47)

Let's talk about the shutdown because I feel like it's a whole big nothing burger. We spent 41 days shut down and there was no additional bill passed. There was some language about farmers and things like that, but nothing. That was what we were fighting about. The ACA subsidies didn't budge. SNAP was solidified for the next year, so that way they can't get held up again. But what Democrats said they wanted the subsidies that come back, all the things that they listed. This is why we're standing out. None of those things have happened. And I feel like from that perspective, you did 41 days to then like fumble the ball.

A (2:20)

You're going to have to look at this from the perspective of does this push Schumer out of power? If he push. If. If it pushed Schumer out of power, then it was a complete loss. And I don't know what was in his head, I don't know what he was actually going for. But they won the sort of midterm midterms. I don't know what the right thing to call that is, but there was a blue wave. And if that wasn't a wake up call for everybody knowing that we're going to start campaigning in the summer. And so you better get your shit together because we are a year out from midterms. And if they happened right now, the Republicans would get their ass handed to them. So Trump is doing a God awful job of either delivering the actual goods. Although, like, if you listen to Besson, it's like things might be better than they seem, or he's just spinning so we'll find out. All politicians do a spin. So if Trump is doing a bad job at communicating it or it just isn't happening. And Schumer was like, I just need the government to be shut down right now. So people see like we're fighting for the every person, which of course they're not, but if we can create that image, then we're gonna win. And they did win. So if he is like some next level political genius who's like, no, no, no. That needed to be the story. I needed people to believe, like, we're here, we're fighting for you guys. But really I just need the Trump administration to look bad, to like, hey, they run the government and they could do this if they wanted, but they don't. And they just want to steamroll you guys and they want to double your, your health care costs and they don't care if you're starving to death. Right? So it was a battle of everybody was saying the other person is responsible. But clearly right now, Trump is in a weak position. People are not feeling it. So they're like, just give me the other guy, whoever the other guy is, I don't really care, just not him. So if you had said, tom, predict what the Democrats are saying right now, I would have said, oh, they're stoked that he got the blue wave and they're all behind him, but obviously they're not. And so they're having their own internal civil war. They really are pissed. Half of them really are pissed about the fact that they didn't get the ACA stuff. So it's like this is starting to feel like, call it establishment Democrats which are playing one game, and then populist Democrats, which are playing another game. The populist Democrats I'm telling you right now, they are being led. Their spirit animal is Mamdani. Okay? You. You, like, he may not be the one in the room telling them what to do, but their spirit animal is Mom, Donnie, for sure. I'm ten toes down on that one. So you've got that side. All they want is, like, top down, give people more, spend more free stuff. Like, that's all that matters. And so you didn't you, Chuck Schumer, did not get more free stuff added to the big, beautiful bill. The big, beautiful catastrophe that would be BBC. I don't know that we want to go with that one, but you heard it here first. So, yeah, the very catastrophic bill, we want to make it more catastrophic. So all of that is at least trackable. You can understand that you've got two wings now of the Democratic Party that are really clearly establishing their identity. You've got politics as normal. You've got Schumer going, listen, there's a political game here that you guys aren't playing, that we can get what we want, but it really has at least temporarily eroded his position in the party, as far as I can see. Like, you've got a lot of big voices, including Ro Khanna coming after Schumer and saying, yeah, you're feckless. Like, you didn't get us any of the things that we were actually fighting for. So I think that part of the party feels very blindsided by, oh, wait, like, this was all just political. You weren't actually interested in any of that stuff, which is why you. You sent out the eight Democrats. This is people's read on it, that he sent out the eight Democrats saying, I didn't authorize this. What are you talking about? But in reality, Closed Room tells the eight Democrats who just happen to not be up for election at midterms and says, all right, you guys go cave. Let's get the government open back up. We got what we actually wanted, which was to get these other people elected across the country, to get the gerrymandering done in California, to get the new da, like, you know, all the different things that went blue, we got it. So now we're good. And this wasn't about the Affordable Care act in the first place. This wasn't about benefits for the poor and working class. It's about power. It's always about power.

A (8:37)

Listen, listen. He could be. I will not doubt that at all. But I will need to see policy moves that make me believe that there are new foundations here, which I do not see. I think that he has energized his base. He's a very slick politician. He knows what he can and can't say, and he's just getting better at that game. But, dude, the mountain of stuff that you can find of him just saying the most unhinged shit. So, anyway, I think this is somebody with a very deft mental model in that he understands there are certain things you can say in public. There are certain things that you can't. I think that he has become a lightning rod for social attention, which is the lifeblood for any politician. I want to be very clear. If you want to get elected, you have to get attention. To get attention, you either need money or you need the ability to win over the algorithm. He understands how to win over the algorithm. So he's able to get that, like, bottom up, literally. I Teach this to entrepreneurs. So if somebody comes into Zero Founder or they come into Billion Dollar CEO, one of the first things I tell them because they will ask all the time, like, how do I do paid advertising well? And the answer to doing paid advertising well is to be so good at organic, unpaid content that you're just putting a couple, you know, bucks behind it. And it takes off like crazy because the content organically is just so good. He's so good at it that if you give him a dollar of campaign funds, he's going to be able to make it perform like 10, unlike somebody like Schumer, who just does not know how to get attention. And so AOC was that. And I think that she still is contemporary enough. She's just not hot, she's not new enough. Whereas he's like, he's pushed even farther. He's new. And so there's always just the like, oh, like, I haven't seen this before. He has shown them. Oh, there's a winning strategy here from a populist standpoint. 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Shopify's world class enterprise handles it automatically. No integration headaches. Just start selling. Turn your big business idea into reality with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.comimpact. go to shopify.comimpact again. Shopify.comimpact thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. The Affordable Care Act. I am coming to believe early days. Early days. But I'm coming to believe is an atrocity and that it can be blamed for how high the prices are. Or it's part of the blame that we have a wildly dysfunctional health care system and so trying to force the government to just pay more and more of that, which will exacerbate the problem because you have a flywheel of government subsidies are the very thing that create this perverse incentive for insurance companies to go it's $600 if you're not insured. It's $1300 if you are insured. That's crazy. That is toxic. That is extremely bad and that is where we are. So I'm saying I don't want them to get more subsidies for the aca. I want them to solve that problem.

A (19:59)

Start the policy being here now? I am not a repeal it overnight. This is the same reason I'm like, if you told people illegal immigrants or otherwise you're going to get SNAP benefits, you can't just shut it off one day. You've got to say, all right, this is going to expire at this date. You've got 90 days, 120 days, whatever period of time, but a reasonable period of time for them to figure it out. So I don't support the just on off switch. You told people you were going to do that thing. It's perfectly acceptable to change your policy, but there's a reason that laws usually give you some period of time to like, hey, this is coming to effect. It's going to go into effect in three tranches, whatever, so that people can adjust their behavior, adjust their lifestyle. So I would never say, hey, you've made all these promises, but just turn it off. That is not what I would do. But I think that there we need to approach healthcare from the perspective of, from the physics of how these ecosystems work. How do we drive costs down? And we've not done that. We've done the exact opposite. And this is the, the big problem with big government people is they do not understand the government is going to drive costs up and make things worse always and forever. There's no exceptions like period. Just that is the truth of it. And so you'll sometimes accept that because there's no free market incentive to pursue a thing that we decide we want to pursue. Going to the moon to beat Russia. Right. So we just wanted to signal to Americans on a vibes perspective that we're better than our Cold War competitor. That's actually dope. That's super meaningful. That matters a lot. But as we're seeing now, the second that there was a private sector way to do this SpaceX, then it became infinitely cheaper. So this is, I'm not saying that you don't ever jump start things with government dollars. The Internet came out of darpa, Love it, amazing. But then you get the out of the way. And so I'm just saying the government is knowable, it will everything up because it, it is not subject to the forces of competition. The forces of competition and the selfish desire to get richer than your neighbor is the thing that gives us all of our lovely world that we see. Like this is all the result of that people being extremely selfish, wanting to get richer than their neighbor. And so people don't like that. I get it. But that's causing them to make really stupid decisions. And so I'm just like, oh my God, like we have to get to the physics of these situations. So when you get to the physics of health care, you have to open it up to the competition in the market. You've got to make it so that a health insurance company can go out of business, so that people go, yeah, that helped. That insurance company sucks. I hate everything about what they're doing. This one's dope. You've got to get rid of all the regulatory capture that made it possible for Americans to pay the burden for drug discovery and the rest of the world gets everything super cheap. Like that is wild. So you've got to get rid of that kind of stuff. And at the same time, if we go as a country, hey, we're going to balance our budget and the thing that we really care about is we want to make sure that nobody goes broke from a catastrophic illness. Okay, like then let's look at that. Let's say the one thing that we don't care about is pre existing conditions. But ooh, buddy, are you going to have to like deal with the low level stuff? So if you look at right now this, I should have pulled the link. But if you look right now, the example that I gave $600 without insurance, $1,300 with insurance is a real example that I'm using of a guy who recorded his phone call with the health insurance company and he was like, hey, you guys sent me the bill for $600. I sent you my insurance. And then you sent me a new bill which is higher. And they said, yes, because if you have insurance, then you get the insurance cost. If you don't have insurance, then you get a discount that is so maddening that I don't understand how people don't go, wait, hold on. First of all, you're going to pay some ungodly amount of money until you hit your deductible anyway. So all of those costs matter. The incentive that the insurance companies have is that they're going to. Or the doctor, whatever that you're talking to, they have is that, well, I've got to make money somewhere. So I'm going to send this to your insurance company. Your insurance company is going to negotiate with me, but they're still going to pay a lot of. And so they get a sense of like, okay, the procedure costs this much. Your insurance is only going to cover this. And so you're going to be out of pocket that much. And if you haven't hit your deductible, then you're just going to ring up. I mean, it could be 15 grand, it could be more. So all of that stuff is terrible. And you've put people in a position where they have to have it. So it's like you can't lock people legally into a system that is predatory on them, which is exactly what we're doing right now. So again, I'm not a pull the plug today, but I'm like, we're going to have to start talking about this. I can already feel that to get to my goal of a balanced budget while making sure that the country has the things that they believe in, I'm gonna have to start talking about this stuff.

A (27:06)

If you make it a Ponzi scheme, you're going to have Ponzi scheme problems. And so if, for instance, your actuarial math comes out to go, okay, we have to have at least 40% young and healthy people paying into this pot, otherwise we can't support it. Well, then you need to have a mathematical table that says what you do when it becomes 39%, 38%, 20%, whatever. Because you can't guarantee that you're always going to have 40% of young, healthy people paying into the system. So if you've got a plan for that, then, yeah, I'm totally open. Remember here, here is how governments ought to work morally. You ought to have a balanced budget, and then the budget ought to be allocated to what people believe in. And so if people are like, like me, I'm going to bang the drum for innovation. Innovation has saved more people than anything ever. It's pulled more people out of poverty than anything ever. Freedom is a prerequisite to innovation. But, like, I've got my who. I can walk you through all the, like, why it works and all that. But, like, if I'm a lone voice because I don't trust myself to be right and everything, I'm like, okay, well, I'm prepared to live in the world where the quote unquote dumb voter overrules me. Okay, like, I get it now. It doesn't mean that I'm just going to stand there and take it. Like, if the dumb voters are doing things that I think are too crazy, you bunker up, you move, you whatever. But I do believe that is the way things ought to be. Taking a short break. But there's more Impact theory after Stay tuned, hang tight. Because if you run a business, this could be the most important 60 seconds of your week. Here is the reality. By the time you hear about a supply chain issue, a tariff change or a cash flow crunch, it's already cost you, revenue's gone, time's wasted and momentum is shattered. You cannot afford to run your company in the dark. That's why over 41,000 businesses trust NetSuite by Oracle, the AI powered business management suite built to give you real time visibility across everything that matters. Accounting, inventory, HR, financials. All in one platform, one dashboard, one truth. NetSuite does not just help you track problems, it helps you see them coming. With AI driven forecasting, automation and global visibility, you get the power to pivot fast. Right now get your free business guide demystifying AI@netsuite.com the guide is free. Just go to netsuite.com theory again netsuite.com theory let me hit you with a serious holiday upgrade. The holidays are about family, tradition and showing up with something incredible on the table. But if you're still grabbing mystery meat from the grocery store just because it's convenient, you are doing it wrong. Because I care about what I put in my body and I care even more about what I serve to the people I love. ButcherBox delivers 100% grass fed beef, free range organic chicken, humanely raised pork and wild caught seafood straight to my door on my schedule. And right now they're doing something absolutely wild for new members. You get to choose between a free whole turkey or ham in your first box or ground beef for life plus $20 off your first order. Go to butcherbox.com impact and use code Impact to claim your choice of holiday protein ham or turkey in your first box or ground beef for life plus $20 off. Again, that's butcherbox.com/use code impact.

A (31:37)

Yeah, speaking of like is we got to play this out because you got to see him like bite the guy of costs and prices and affordability. How does a $20 billion bailout of Argentina. Argentina help Americans? Do you know what a swap line is? It's currency swap. Yes, yes, but what, what is that? That's. You're the Treasury Secretary. Yes, but why would you call it a bailout? That is how in most bailouts he, he should have let that hang because he had the guy dead to rights. And as an interviewer, if you're going to go on the attack, you better know your cause and effect. And I think I'm a terrible debater, so I will only like, get spicy on stuff where I'm like, I can build this up from cause and effect. So if somebody gives me an argument that breaks my cause and effect, then I can be like, I know right where to slot that piece of information in. Cool, Understood. Thank you for updating my mental model. And if they can't break my cause and effect, well, then I just keep going, this leads to this, leads to this leads to this point to the part in that sequence that is incorrect. And it becomes much easier. This guy went on the attack as a partisan hack, basically, and didn't have cause and effect, didn't even understand what he was trying to bite him on. And if Bessant had just sat there and said, what is it? The guy would have been like, I don't fucking know, man. And so then he's going to have to like, double down in the. Well, you're the treasury secretary, you're the one that we pay to understand this. But at least it would have been clear. And Besson could have been like, look, this is part of the problem. If I were coaching him, I'd be like, this is where you go, this is part of the problem. You guys are fighting my agenda all the time. But the reality is you don't understand it. And because you don't understand it, you're going to feel like you know what I should be doing. But the reality is you don't understand the cause and effect of the economy. And people that do not understand the cause and effect of the economy should be very careful trying to put forward economic policy. And so here's how it works. And then you just lay out as briefly as you can what the cause and effect is. That this isn't a bailout, that anybody that's using that is either ignorant or they're being a partisan hack. And the way that these things work is they're actually a revenue generating opportunity. He goes on to explain it. So we'll, we'll let him go. But, yeah, messaging. You got to win the messaging game. All right, let's hear it.

A (34:09)

The Treasury Secretary Bessant joins us now to talk about this. Sir, good to have you here in the studio. Hey, Rob. Good to see you again. That was a. That was, I thought, the best moment of the morning. I enjoyed watching it. The entire media, and I mean the entire media has been slamming you in the Democrat Party as well for this move that was made with Malay. They know Malay is a very close friend of the president's, their allies. But it sounds like nobody actually knows exactly what you guys have just done. And I think everybody figured it out this morning. I think so, Rob. And look, we use the US Balance sheet to bolster a great ally of the United States. I call it the peace through economic strength. And how much better to put up the credit and full faith, the United States government make money and bolster an ally rather than end up with something like we've got with the Maduro regime, where we're having to target these drugs and take military action. The question was, how is this good for Americans? And all the, the vitriol, the back and forth, all that stuff really does make me sad because you just. You're backing people into a corner unnecessarily, and nobody gets it more than me. I understand. Like, even the way I'm talking right now doesn't have the bombast that it needs to have for us to retain viewers. I'm so aware of that. But, yeah, anyway, it makes me sad that that's where we're at. But. So Besson is somebody that people. I think he says it in this, or maybe the interview with what's Her Face, Laura. Something where he's like, he was more understated than I'm about to be, but basically, I fucking murdered it on Wall Street. I had a career there. Like, I try to remind people when I'm teaching business, I try to remind people, yes, I make millions of dollars a year teaching people business, but I've made over a billion dollars, billions of dollars running businesses. So it's like the thing that I'm teaching you how to do, I used to just do. There were no cameras. There was just. I run businesses. It's what I do. And they generate billions of dollars in revenue. So Besant is an economic gangster. Like he was on Wall Street. You either figure it out or you go broke. And he made himself. I think he's a multi billionaire. I don't know that for sure, but I'M pretty sure he was part of the team that made a billion dollars in a single day, which is wild. So it's like, this is somebody. This is why I revere Ray Dalio so much, that people can talk a big game, but if they put their own money at risk and they walk away with, like, some big W's, they know what they're doing. The guy that we were watching, the MMT guy who couldn't explain mmt, he's not winning in the marketplace. That's a guy that knows the right people, gets cushy consulting jobs. Bessant is an economic gladiator. He's in the ring going up against, like, governments and other economies and like. Like that. Do you know how crazy it is to risk your own money trying to break the back of the British pound? Because if you're wrong, you lose all the money that you were using to force them to capitulate. And so it's like, man, you've got some brass cojones. And if you win, it means you actually understood something. And this is a guy that won over and over and over and over and over. Now, you can say that Wall street is immoral, fine. But you've got a guy that knows how to play that game game. And so you've put them in a position where it's like, all right, you've, like, made this insane amount of money winning in economics, and now I'm going to put you in charge of the largest economy in the world. Let's go. So it's like, I still don't know if these guys are going to pull it off. But again, if people want to understand why I appear to be less like, drum bangy on these guys, I'm looking at them going, if anybody's got a shot to pull us out of the economic morass that we're in, it's them. I think that they're still making catastrophic errors, but at the same time, they've got a shot. They've got a shot. So I don't know that I love the risk that we took on Argentina. When I look at it from the way that they're billing it, which is basically, oh, we made a bunch of money. I almost certainly a stupid idea to do from that perspective. It's just not enough risk and reward. But when you put it in the context of, please remember you're in Thucydides trap with China and they understand that. And so for Bessant and Trump, this was a move to protect us from China. Like, we are in a battle with China, a cold war battle right now with China for South America. And so they saw an opportunity where it's like, okay, you have a very popular leader. Remember something like 72% of all people under 34. That number is directionally correct. It's not literally correct, but 72ish percent of all people under 34 voted for Malay. So the youth of Argentina are 100% on his side. Like, they want what he's doing to work. And so he's very pro America. He's certainly pro capitalism. So, anyway, I get from that perspective why they did it.

A (40:21)

Yeah, this is bad churning news that I was being sued for $5 million by Kash Patel's girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins. And the reason why might actually shock you. About a couple months ago, I posted this photo on the public social media platform X. I posted it with no caption, no suggestions of any mal intent or any slander, defamation, or criticisms of character. I did so attached to an X post shared by another account that I'm not connected to that talked about government agents being compromised. Now Alexis Wilkins is saying that I owe her $5 million for damages, the exact evaluation of my company, and if I cannot come up with that money, that I'm going to have to shut down my business, give up all of my digital assets and my entire voice online in order to pay her back. So this is crazy. Yeah, that, like, okay, so obviously being in the public eye, you get to the point where people say enough horrible about you that you go, all right, am I gonna pursue people or am I just gonna have some testicle fortitude? And, bro, if somebody posts a photo of you insinuating In a trolley manner that you're a honeypot or whatever. Like, deal with it. Like, God, like, I don't understand. Like, like it is going to be used against you. You. When you do this kind of thing, then somebody looks for the opportunity to do it back to you. Letitia James, I'm looking at you. It's like, it's terrible when either side does it, but like, don't be a part of the problem. So God, you'd have to do like even. In fact, dear Nintendo, what the actual are you doing with your pal world? Lawsuits. Like, that's wild. So if you, if they went after them for a trade dress problem, that I would kind of understand because they really do look exactly like fucking Pokemon. But they didn't go after them for that. They went after them for game mechanics. It's like, come on, don't be that guy. And right now, what's his face's girlfriend, Cash Patel's girlfriend is being that guy. I just, I can't respect it. I can't respect it. It's a terrible precedent.

A (47:46)

If you find yourself saying disinformation should be made illegal, that is, you're a categorical moron. You need to be immediately removed from office. I don't care who Trump. My favorite pick. Anybody that you think I like. If they're like, misinformation should be illegal, done, disqualified, out, impeach, 25th amendment, whatever the one is that's like, they're unfit for service, like, a thousand percent. Like, no, absolutely not. You are crushing dissenting voices. Like, that is the most draconian 1984 shit ever. That is somebody who just believes they're right. Like, the Obvious question is, bro, have you legitimately never been wrong? No, I've been wrong before. Then why the would you ever say that people shouldn't be allowed to dis inform when you're wrong. You are quote unquote disinforming the public. So nobody is going to be right all the time. Nobody should trust themselves. History is a never ending litany of we thought this, then we realized we're wrong. We thought this and then we realized we were wrong. We thought this and then we realized we were wrong. Once you understand, we don't even understand quantum physics, we don't understand it. So we don't understand the most fundamental building blocks of the universe. So what are we supposed to do? Like, people are not allowed to like, try to think through it. They're not allowed to say what they believe to be true, but ultimately be wrong. That, that is the dumbest shit ever. It is so crazy to me that people think that you can make progress as a society while saying I am the arbiter of what is true and therefore if you say something that I disagree with, you are incorrect and you've got to be shut down. Like, did you people not live through Covid? Like, we were just wrong about everything. We were lied to about a whole bunch of. And the takeaway should have been, oh yeah, the only way to get to the right answer is to let everybody say what they believe to be true. Begin to parse it out. You're gonna have to sift through a lot of but. But like things will rise to the top. And over time, science is going to show these are the things that work, these are the things that don't. And you're going to get flat earthers on whatever the topic. And guess what flat earthers are not going to do? They're not going to build the rockets that take us to Mars so they can fuck off. And the people that understand how space actually works, they're going to be the people that build the rockets and build the thing. Skills have utility. And so the people that actually know something and that something is meaningful, they're going to win. The guy that can't explain modern monetary theory is not going to make money in the way that Scott Beth is going to make money because he actually understands how economies work. And so it's like follow the people that have the skill set to do a thing in real life. And once you like hook onto that. Oh, that's right. Skills have utility. Skills that you do a thing other people can't do. So it's pretty easy to find the people that have the skills. Now, you may misidentify what the skill is. The skill may be, oh, they're really good at manipulating. They're really good at blackmail or whatever. And so they can get people to do what they want to do.

A (59:56)

I don't know what's happening with OpenAI. I don't want to pretend that I do. It is very weird that he was effectively asking for government guarantees, AKA bailout. He denies that that's what's happening, but I've also heard him say that at some point. I don't remember if he said OpenAI specifically, but that was the implication really is too big to fail. That they're too important to the infrastructure of US AI. That the government is basically de facto gonna have to back them. This is why the state shouldn't get involved in capitalism. The state should be laying infrastructure that all of the AI companies can use and the ones that do that well survive and the ones that don't go out of business. We need to get away from this idea of things are too big to fail. We yeah anyway could do a whole tirade on keep the government out of it. But that is admittedly that disdain is somebody who is both getting a little too cocky and I'm sure has just had to answer this question over and over and over and he's getting Tired. I think Sam Altman is in battles behind the scenes that none of us know about. That it is constant and never ending. His own family was suing him at one point. So it's like I'm sure this guy's just, just under siege at all times from international companies, companies in the us he's going up against Elon all the time. You've got Meta poaching his best employees. Like that is a level. There's a reason I don't own a public company by the way. This would be one of them. And so I get it. Like it doesn't look fun. I don't know why people do that shit. Yes, you can make a lot of money, but God damn you are gonna like you deal with stress, just non stop violence and it's already stressful enough being an entrepreneur. I don't need that next layer. So anyway, what will ultimately come of all of this? I don't know. I will say Sam Altman strikes me as a survivor. But even more than I read into what he's saying, I read into the way that he's saying it now. Admittedly it's a pretty good clapback because he's right as of right now, today, he would have no trouble selling whatever shares he just moved the window to. My side wants to get rid of. So. And Brad isn't going to get rid of his shares. Let's just start with that.

A (65:40)

Always takes a country down. It's not a depression. It's wealth inequality. And so if we have a depression, it'll be brutal, but it's not people getting murdered in the streets. The wealth inequality, running away is murder. So that's where it's like, okay, we want to look at historical things. So looking back, depression, very bad, very bad and ups the odds of war, probably a lot. Because now it's like, Trump listens, listen, you want to get out of this? All you got to do, piss off China, make them make a move, do something like start saying some about Taiwan. And then we can spin up the military machinery. We get everybody all patriotic. We tax everybody. Not just the rich. We tax everybody. And yeah, we get everybody super comfortable with that. We get people jobs, building the war machine, and we do our thing. I'm not saying that's what's going to happen. I'm saying the odds of that increase. So that is a scenario that I hate. The other scenario is we keep spending money as if printing money doesn't reverse. Robin Hood, everybody. And the wealth inequality gets intolerable. And there's like, are you guys paying attention to the ICE stock stuff? Remember, ICE is an economic problem. ICE is just economics. So it isn't. In fact, let me lay that out. The anti immigrant sentiment is rising because you have a shrinking pie. It is actually shrinking because that pie is actually shrinking. You are fighting over finite resources. And it's a populist moment. So the left and the right hate each other, which is all born of economics anyway. Everybody's forced into these camps. So now you've got two sides fighting over a shrinking pie and they each want their portion. We're in a super weird moment where whatever one side does, the other side has to be the exact opposite. So right now, because Trump's in power, whatever Trump does, the left becomes the exact opposite. So if Trump says deport, well, we gotta be a thousand percent opposed to that. And so these are the things like when people say, like, how would you hear this question all the time? How would the Civil War actually play out? It's playing out. You're watching it right now. It's escalating. So you're seeing moms being like lookouts for places that they think ICE is going to be. You see people throwing rocks off overpasses at cop cars. You see ICE officers being shot at. So this, this is how it plays out. So you've got guy with authoritarian leanings who anytime a blue state says, you can't come here, he's like, well, somebody needs my help and he's going to send him in because you don't get to tell him what to do. And then that gives them the exact excuse that they want to push back. So becomes these little incursions and so those will just continue to escalate.

A (69:23)

It's already in the rotation. I've already listened to it today. So yes, yes. It is absolutely fantastic. So I really am saddened by people that are like, I'm going to fight against this because all through human history, every time we fought against the technology, it worked. Oh, wait a second. No, it didn't. Not once ever. So I get the meaning in crisis, you need to have a solution for that. And I guess part of. Part of why I'm so embracing it is I have all the copium in the world in the form of I know what I'm going to do in an AI world where AI is better than me at everything. And as long as it doesn't kill me, I've still got a strategy. Now, if it kills or enslaves me, I'm going to be like, whoopsies. But yeah, right now. So it's going to happen. It's amazing. Use it to your advantage. Go write the song you've always wanted to write. Create the thing you've always wanted to create. There's going to be, call it five year ish window, where you just get to make things and you get to make it and it's all cheaper and you're going to be able to do things you just weren't previously able to do. Seven to 10 years. That one's going to be a little harder. That's. You're going to be like, huh, I don't have a job. I don't need a job because I'm being taken care of. But I don't like the way that feels and all the really cool things that Tom is talking about. We're still not a Kardashev type 2 civilization yet, so this kind of sucks. And there will be a good 10ish years of that which are going to be unfun. There's no way around it, man. All right, everybody, that's it for today. We will see you on Friday. And until then, 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 different. AG1 NextGen delivers what your body actually needs 75 plus vitamins and minerals, five 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 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 drinkag1.comimpact to get started again. That's drinkag1.com impact.