The Real Reason Trump Backed Down Has Nothing to Do With Iran | Tom Bilyeu Show Live

Summary

Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu

Episode: The Real Reason Trump Backed Down Has Nothing to Do With Iran

Date: March 23, 2026

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Overview:

This episode takes a deep dive into the real drivers behind President Trump's abrupt backtrack on threats to bomb Iran, challenging the conventional media narratives and memes. Tom Bilyeu unpacks U.S. geopolitics, economic realities (especially the bond market and petrodollar), propaganda in Cuba, Elon Musk’s audacious new Terrafab project, and recent culture memes, all with a focus on understanding cause and effect amidst global chaos.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump's Iran U-turn: What Really Drove It? (Starts at 01:00)

• Headline Recap: Trump threatened to bomb Iran’s power grid after Strait of Hormuz closure threats (03:43), then abruptly claimed “talks are productive” and called off strikes (04:08-05:02).
• Tom’s Thesis: The decision is less about diplomatic progress and more about economic pressure, particularly from the U.S. bond market.
• Quote:

  “If you want to understand why Trump is actually backing off… look at the bond market… the timing of everything, all of the announcements can be mapped directly to the bond market’s response.” (Tom, 05:12)

• Insight:
  • Trump’s key metric is the 10-year Treasury yield, not the stock market. As yields rose sharply, threatening U.S. borrowing costs, Trump sought to calm the markets (05:12-12:00).
  • Historical pattern: in April 2025, Trump adjusted tariffs not due to a stock market crash, but a bond market “heart attack” (10:30).
• Notable Analogy:

  “It’s mappable… announcement goes out, yield spikes; he walks it back, yield drops.” (Tom, 08:00)

• Conclusion: Economic self-preservation—specifically the U.S. debt load and bond yields—forced the backtrack: "It is smart to back off given the dire consequences from a retaliatory strike perspective and its impact on the bond market." (12:30)

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2. The Escalating Petrodollar War & Iran’s Leverage (21:05)

• Iran’s Power Play: Iran restricts oil transit to tankers paying in Chinese yuan, challenging the petrodollar system (21:05-24:30).
• Massive Stakes:
  • U.S. risks economic implosion if petrodollar dominance is lost (now $39T in debt).
  • If Iran wins, global oil trade shifts toward yuan, hastening U.S. economic decline and accelerating de-dollarization (22:10-25:00).
• Quote:

  “Iran formalizes yuan as the price of passage through a chokepoint that controls 20% of the world’s oil supply… it accelerates the de-dollarization that Russia, China, and the BRICS nations have been fighting for for years.” (Tom, 25:45)

• Insight: The longer the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the more global buyers will bypass U.S. sanctions, using alternative currencies and undermining U.S. financial power.
• Memorable Moment: Tom hammers home the existential risk:

  “Oil being priced in dollars is the foundational architecture of American global power, going all the way back to 1974.” (24:50)

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3. European Allies, False Flags, and Nuclear Tensions (26:59)

• Allies’ Dilemma: New intelligence suggests Iranian missiles have double the range previously believed, theoretically threatening major European cities (26:59-28:30).
• Tom’s Take:
  • Unless Europeans feel direct imminent threat, they’ll remain hesitant.
  • Discusses historical precedent—Lusitania sinking in WWI—as an example of how "false flag" events push nations into war (28:30-31:30).
• Quote:

  “Countries use, for real, for real, false flags all the time to draw people into war.” (Tom, 30:20)

• Insight: Public willingness to engage is shaped less by facts and more by perception, propaganda, and manufactured outrage.

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4. Propaganda: Israel, Gaza, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque (32:56)

• Netanyahu’s Messaging: Uses English intentionally to appeal to the world after Iranian attacks on Israel (33:40-34:06).
• Tom’s Analysis:
  • All sides spin atrocities for leverage. Accusations of war crimes are rampant, but both Israel and critics engage in “whataboutism” (36:44-43:42).
• Quote:

  “Israel is propaganda. You say whatever you need to control the narrative, and it doesn’t matter that you’re guilty of that stuff.” (Tom, 36:44)

• Key Takeaway: Political leaders employ emotionally charged events (like attacks on religious sites) to rally support, muddy waters, and cement in-group loyalty.

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5. Online Discourse: “Right to Exist” and Political Game-Playing (43:42)

• Segment: Examines viral debates between Tucker Carlson and a journalist about “Israel’s right to exist.”
• Tom’s Critique:
  • Labeling such debates as more about rhetorical games than honest seeking of resolution.
  • Suggests a more fruitful approach would be to dive into core assumptions and cause-effect reasoning.
• Quote:

  “When your goal is to actually find a resolution… say, ‘Here are the things that I think lead us to that point and here’s why.’” (Tom, 44:55)

• Memorable Analogy: Compares word games in politics to the Monica Lewinsky trial and Clinton’s infamous rhetorical dodges.

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6. Cuba, Useful Idiots, and the “Durante Playbook” (51:01)

• Situation Recap: Influencers in Cuba paint a positive picture, party in luxury hotels during national blackouts, effectively whitewashing the regime’s failures.
• Tom’s Rant:
  • Cites New York Times reporter Walter Duranty’s covering-up of Soviet famines as a blueprint for today’s propaganda (“useful idiots”).
  • The real outrage isn’t the generator-fueled parties, but whitewashing a repressive regime.
• Quote:

  “The influencers down in Cuba right now are basically fighting for a regime that represses its own people… running the same useful idiot playbook that Walter Duranty ran for Russia…” (Tom, 51:38)

• Core Insight:
  • Misguided activism and propaganda obscure the grim realities under communism.
  • The tragedy isn’t isolated policy but the perpetuation of systems "so bad and so hated… that it requires violence to keep them in place." (Tom, 55:55)

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7. Good News: Elon Musk’s “Terrafab” and Building the Future (62:09)

• Elon’s Announcement: Tesla is building “Terrafab”—a massive, vertically integrated U.S. chip factory, producing AI chips at unprecedented scale (62:09-63:36).
• Mind-blowing Scale:
  • Factory is more than two miles long; designed for recursive improvement; aims for 100–200B chips/year.
• Quote:

  “If you wonder if you’re living in the future, you’re living in the future. This thing is more than two miles long.” (Tom, 63:49)

• Tom’s Take:
  • Praises Musk’s engineering mindset, relentless innovation, and ability to overcome “the disease of scale,” drawing from his own experience growing Quest Nutrition from 3 to 3,000 employees (63:49-68:08).
  • Criticizes those who begrudge Musk’s wealth: "He became the richest man by being able to do this thing that nobody else can do." (Tom, 68:21)

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8. Culture Rapid-Fire: Introspection, Sex, and Civilization (68:48)

a. Introspection Debate:

• Marc Andreessen & Elon on Introspection: “Introspection causes emotional disorders.”
• Tom on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy:
  • Pattern interrupts stop negative self-talk; “You become what you repeat.”
  • Focus on actionable lessons, not wallowing in past mistakes (69:34-75:29).
• Quote:

  “If it made me feel badly about myself and that wasn’t serving me, I wouldn’t do it, even if it was true.” (Tom, 73:48)

b. Men, Sex, and Civilization:

• Classic Meme:
  • The drive to sexual access is behind men’s motivation to build societies, and monogamous societies thrive for this reason (75:44-78:08).
• Japanese PM Takeachi Example:
  • Criticized for being “girlish” and flirtatious—Tom explains that femininity is biological power (78:08-82:31).
• Memorable Story: Tom shares how he and his wife, Lisa, consciously leverage these dynamics for pragmatic reasons.

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9. Political Gridlock: The TSA/ICE/DHS Shutdown (83:11)

• Current Crisis: Ongoing partial U.S. government shutdown, ICE agents supplementing TSA amid massive airport delays. Political deadlock over funding (83:11-87:41).
• Tom’s Frustration:
  • Calls for transparent, simple bills; rails against pork-barrel politics and legislative gridlock.
• Quote:

  “This is the political process holding the American people hostage. This is one of those times where our government is not afraid of us and they need to be afraid of us.” (Tom, 86:57)

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• “Trump does not watch the stock market the way people think he does… he’s watching the bond market. Specifically, he watches the yield on the 10 year Treasury note.” (Tom, 07:55)
• “People do not want to do the work of trying to figure out what is real. Even I… when a belief that I have… gets challenged, I’m always like, oh man, I have to do so much more work now to figure out how to update my mental model…” (Tom, 36:54)
• “They just want to cook up that same omelet. That’s what people should be pissed about, not the party. They should be pissed that these guys are just another batch of useful idiots that don’t want the world to understand [Cuba’s suffering].” (Tom, 56:45)
• “Think like an engineer. Always be thinking up from physics, literally physics… Fix the system, then optimize only that which has proven its right to exist.” (Tom, 63:49)
• “You become what you repeat. Whatever you do frequently will become easier. And so then you’re going to do it even more. So it becomes a self-reinforcing loop.” (Tom, 75:04)
• On civilization and sex: “All the greatest things in society are because men were trying to get laid.” (Tom, 75:44)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Trump & Iran, Economic Drivers: 01:00–21:05
• Petrodollar & Iran’s Leverage: 21:05–26:59
• European Allies, False Flags: 26:59–32:56
• Israel, Gaza, Propaganda: 32:56–43:42
• Viral “Right to Exist” Debate: 43:42–51:01
• Cuba, Useful Idiots, Propaganda: 51:01–62:09
• Elon Musk’s Terrafab: 62:09–68:08
• Culture: Introspection & Sex: 68:48–83:11
• Political Gridlock/Shutdown: 83:11–87:41

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Summary Takeaways

• Economic realities, not diplomatic spin, are driving U.S. geopolitics, especially U.S. debt and bond yields.
• The petrodollar’s fate is a global leverage point; Iran’s confrontation has far-reaching economic risks.
• Propaganda, both overt and subtle, shapes public opinion, with “useful idiots” playing a recurring historical role.
• Massive innovation (ex: Tesla’s Terrafab) is a rare light in a turbulent world—championed as the real lever of progress.
• Human nature, biology, and evolutionary incentives underpin much of society’s structure, from economics to culture to sex.
• Tom urges rigorous cause-and-effect analysis and skepticism of easy narratives: “The game is propaganda on all sides.”

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For listeners who missed the episode:
This summary covers all the critical, thought-provoking topics discussed—save the intro/outro and ads—retaining Tom Bilyeu’s sharp, irreverent, analytical tone. If you want a bold, reality-based take on today's chaos and how to make sense of it, this breakdown mirrors the dense, incisive style of the original.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

And critics say it's one of the best superhero movies of all time. Marvel Studios the Fantastic Four first steps now streaming on Disney. Rated PG 13.

[B]

What is autonomous defense? It's clobber time.

[A]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to another Tom Dillou show live. We are coming to you from the bunker in Greenland. As somebody said in chat, I thought that was too funny to pass up. So here we are, boys and girls, things are getting weird again. As you might expect with the war in Iran. Trump threatens to bomb Iran back into the stone Age. Then he suddenly takes it all back, says talks are going great. Iran calls him a liar. And we've got the full breakdown of everything that's really going on. You guys are going to want to hear that. I think many people are going to be very surprised by what is almost certainly going on. What accounts for all the timing, the push, the backtrack, all of it. It's mappable. We're going to map it out. Iran apparently has rockets that can reach farther than we thought. Was Trump actually right about their ambitions to strike Europe? Or as some are claiming, are the rockets actually false flag from somewhere else? We're talking about that. The markets continue to be ridiculously fragile and reactive right now. So to all my fellow investors out there, I feel your pain. All of that is having a major impact on the war. We're going to talk about that. More and more countries seem to be flirting with the idea of going around the US to get their oil if the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. That's going to be a big deal if that happens. And speaking of big deals, useful idiots landed in Cuba and they ran cover for a communist regime. I feel some type of way about that. We're going to talk about that. It's ties to history. And please remember, as you think about everything going on in Cuba right now, the Game is propaganda on all sides. Trump is going to spin the life out of it. The whole administration is going to spin the life out of it. But all of the counter messaging is also trying to control the way that you think about that. We're going to try mapping cause and effect and see if we can actually get some logic into that one. It's driving me crazy. And so we're definitely going to need to talk about that. And then this one, man, this blew my mind. We're going to spend some time on this today. Elon has announced that as a part of becoming an intergalactic species, he's got to start building his own ships here in the US and the facility that he's building is absolutely insane. If he can pull this off, and I have no doubt that he can, he will be creating one of the most sophisticated manufacturing facilities on planet Earth. He says that as mapped, there's nothing else like this in terms of its ability to recursively improve. So I'm very, very inspired by what he's got going on here. A little bit of good news in an otherwise chaotic world right now feels completely destabilized. So seeing somebody build something that forward facing is very encouraging, very exciting. So, Drudicus, how are we doing?

[B]

Good. I was a little bit worried over the weekend because there was threats that we had 48 hours till actual war. I think we're still calling it an escalation or an excursion or tea party. Yeah, I forgot what the term. I didn't get the new download from the Talking Points, but this is the tweet that Trump sent out over the weekend. Friday night to be exact. Iran doesn't fully open without threat.

[A]

A lot of caps in here.

[B]

Straight up Hormuz. Within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump.

[A]

Yeah, the ratio of all caps in that tweet are extreme.

[B]

And then a prompt backtracking Monday morning right before the markets open. I am pleased to report that the United States of America and the country of Iran has had, have had over the last two days very good and productive conversations with regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostile hostilities in the Middle East. Based on the tenor and tone of this in depth, detailed and constructive conversations which, which will continue throughout the week, I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iran's power plants and energy infrastructure for a Five day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussion. Thank you for attention to this matter.

[A]

That one's in all caps, even, even which with that is the most amazing typo ever. Shudder to think what look like if I were tweeting this much.

[B]

Eron backtracked. Israel started another round of launches this morning.

[A]

So, yeah, nobody should be surprised that this is all up in the air. The question is, what can you map this to? I know a lot of people are going to assume that Trump is just all over the map, that he doesn't have a strategy, and I think that that is an absolutely nonsensical way to look at him and what he's doing. I think Trump, whether you think the things he looks at are intelligent or not, he is tracking certain things very closely. And if you want to understand why Trump is actually backing off his threats to decimate Iran's electrical, electrical infrastructure, you need to look at the bond market. Now, you guys have heard me say a thousand times, these things are economic in nature and when you try to map them to something else, it is eternally confusing. But when you look at the timeline based on something that has an economic consequence, all of a sudden it becomes very easy to find the thing that's like, oh, there's where it goes up. He makes this announcement where it goes down. He makes that announcement. It goes back up on that news, back down on this. It's wild. We're going to put up a graphic that shows you guys this. But there is no doubt that Trump should be deeply concerned about retaliatory strikes. Okay, that it's not like that doesn't exist. That should be a massive concern. But the timing of everything, all of the announcements can be mapped directly to the bond market's response. Now, if you guys think back to the birth of the taco meme, the chaotic movements of tariffs around Liberation Day, you'll recognize the pattern of what's happening right now. Trump does not watch the stock market the way that people think he does. It's not the broad market that he's paying attention to. He's watching the bond market. Specifically, he watches the yield on the ten year treasury note. Been talking about this for a while. If you have to be concerned with debt and the US does, that is a number that you have to pay attention to. And that number, a single interest rate on a 10 year government loan is arguably the most powerful constraint on Trump's presidency. The 10 year yield is the benchmark that sets the costs of borrowing across the entire American economy, mortgage rates, car loans, credit card debt, corporate financing, government borrowing. When it rises, everything gets more expensive for everyone. And when the federal government itself has to roll over trillions in debt, a higher yield means paying hundreds of billions more in interest. Okay, we're already choking to death on our interest rates, but this would be more money that America does not have that would just be slathered on top of our already existential debt. This is one of those where I don't want to freak people out, but at the same time, the vast majority of Americans simply do not understand why the debt should cause an immediate change in behavior of on behalf of the US Government. The Republicans are spending like they're actually going to grow their way out of this, which is a huge set of question marks. We don't know that that's actually true. And the Democrats are spending like you can give everything away for free and there aren't going to be consequences. They are both out of their minds. When you start mapping the behavior that we're seeing from Trump right now to the existential reality of the debt, suddenly it will click into place. Trump making jerky moves based treasury yield has already happened before. So we can even look back in history and say, okay, what's this likely to look like? On April 9th of 2025, the 10 year yield surged to 4.5 to 4.6, depending on who you talk to. But roughly right around there as Trump's Liberation Day tariffs hit markets. He didn't blink when the stock market was tripping all over itself, losing trillions of dollars in value in a single trading session. When he blinked was when the bond market had a heart attack. He paused his global tariffs within hours. He even said that's why he was doing it. He said, and I quote, I was watching the bond market. The bond market is very tricky, end quote. Fast forward to today. Since Operation Epic Fury began, the 10 year yield has climbed approximately 45 basis points, the same speed it moved during Liberation Day. And it's now sitting somewhere around 4.4%. That's what it was when I wrote it. It is moving fast enough that I will not plant a strong flag in the ground, but it's in dangerous territory. The pattern's repeating as the yield approaches 4.5, 4.6. Trump is already signaling that he's looking for off ramps. He announced a five day pause on strikes against Iranian power plants and called the talks productive, which by the way caused a major drop in the interest rate. I don't know if we have the Full one. It's like the BC lever. Yeah, yeah. So if you're looking at your screens right now, you're going to watch all this play out. So he says, hey, talks are productive. The 10 year rate comes way down. Iran then immediately denies it and the rate goes back up. And then Trump is, they said Trump is basically just trying to calm the markets, which is Almost certainly true. P.S. by the way. And it worked until Iran opened their big mouths denying it, which of course is part of the strategy. But then Axios reports that, no, for real, for real. Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan really are passing messages between the US and Iran and the rate came down again. So regardless of whether that's all the world's most impossible to believe coincidence or it's actually the cause and effect being seen in the bond market when you have $39 trillion in debt and you need even more, the US economy simply cannot stain something. Pressing up against 5% on the 10 year treasury yield. You just, you can't afford it. You couldn't back in April, you can't now. So Trump is going to be forced to find ways to calm the market and keep that rate in the below 4.6 ish range. And if that means that he has to back off threats of destroying Iran's power, then he back off. And it's actually smart. And I get that people are going to clown on it, but it is smart to back off, given the dire consequences that that could have, both from a retaliatory strike perspective and from its impact on the bond market. So you can think that it was stupid that we attacked Iran in the first place and still realize that escalating, escalating, escalating. When you're getting signals from the world that, hey, this could be deeply problematic, it's wise to do so. So I'm at least thankful that regionally he's doing something that makes sense, even if in the grander strategy, I don't see a clear off ramp out of Iran other than just the chaotic withdrawal and saying, hey, we won, we did everything we came to do, boys and girls, trust me, it's all great. And then letting whatever happens to the Strait of Hormuz happen. We'll see. Man, this is, this is not going to end smoothly. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. The people who win, they're not smarter, they just absorb more ideas faster. There are thousands of books right now on business, psychology, leadership books that have already changed how the best Operators think. And every one you haven't read is a gap between you and the people who have. This is a bandwidth problem, not a discipline problem. 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[B]

We ran a poll today to start the show off. Why did Trump back off from his threats on Iran? 33% said he's winging it, 28% said it was taco, 27% said he was protecting the stock market, and 12% called it 5D chess. To your point of spin, there's going to be a lot of different discussions and things like that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

If you were in Trump's ear, do you as he put these beats together, as you just laid them out, based off of the bond market, based off of you called Trump a bluffer before he tries to oversell his hand. To use a poker analogy, do you think he was in the right to kind of threaten Iran? But maybe just that that threat is now losing its power because Iran is controlling the strait. Why do you, what do you think is the thing that he's not seeing that has dragged this war out a little bit longer than I'm sure he thought it would have taken?

[A]

If I had to guess as to what Trump is not seeing, it would be one simple thing. When you back an animal into a corner, they are going to fight to the death because they have nothing to lose. And I'm surprised he can't see that because he is in the same position politically. And so what we have are two essential animals that feel that their life is threatened. Trump knows that if he gets impeached and then booted out of office that he is going to be hounded. They're going to try to put him in prison with everything that they have. And he is now acting from a it's sort of Mount Rushmore or bust mentality of I'm going to clean up the whole world, I'm going to get everything going in the right direction. America is going to re establish its dominance. We're going to deal with all of these threats. I think Iran really was a threat. I think there is a reason that every president has been like, damn, I wish I could have done something better with Iran. Everybody wanted to do something with it. But I think Trump is also learning that there's a reason that they didn't, that it wasn't just them being chicken, it was them realizing that you can get yourself into a quagmire that is very difficult to get out of. Remember, it's easy to get into a war. It is very difficult to get out with anything that approaches real success. And so there is a big mess in the making then. He's not mapping Iran well in terms of like, dude, you're killing all of us. So we're just going to keep fighting until the bitter end because we know that there is a contingent within our own country that want to see us out of office. And so if we don't maintain power, not only do the GCC countries want to see us go down, not only does a certain contingent of our own people want to see us go down, you're bombing the life out of us. And so we're going to do the same. And so on that front, I'm not sure what ends up happening to a president in this kind of position, but I think it goes something like this. Our military is so extraordinary, surely there's nothing that we can't accomplish and we'll just keep battering them until they give up. And these aren't the insurgents that we saw in Afghanistan and to a lesser extent, Iraq. These are like the Venezuelans. And so we're going to come in, we're going to slap them around, the people are going to rise up, they're going to take over their country instead of realizing, no, it's probably more bitterly divided, like we are here in the us and yes, you have a massive number of people that hate the regime, but you also have a distressingly large number of people that like the regime. And the regime clearly willing to kill lots and lots of people has the terror factor on their side. And so when you look at their willingness and ability to strike out against their neighbors, to hit the GCC countries to say, cool, you're gonna strike us, we're gonna strike even companies that simply have US shareholders that you don't have the escalatory dominance that you thought you did. And so if they're willing to fight like their literal lives depend on it, you can find yourself in a very weird position. And you can't, because you have a stock market to worry about. You are a democratic leader. And so you can't just turn the guns inward and start killing everybody that disagrees with you. So, like, if I were in Trump's ear, the thing that I would be screaming over and over is, walk me through the cause and effect of how the fuck you get out of this mess. And if that answer is, which I imagine it's going to be because it's going to be something like we're just going to keep blowing them up until they finally back off. And for that you would have to show me some really, really clear evidence that the Iranian people are going to rise up. Because if you try to force a top down regime, this is how we ended up with the original revolution that led us here. So that's where map it out for me. Show me the cause and effect. Show me how you're first of all going to pay for this war. Because that's already super distressing. So without a cause and effect loop, I would be advising him like, bro, you have got to wrap this.

[B]

I want to keep that same energy going because the cause and effect loop of the actual war is one thing, the death, the casualties, the escalatory factor of it. But now we're seeing the cause and effect of the loss of the petrodollar, whereas we're seeing a lot of vessels that are paying, vessels that pay in Chinese yen are allowed to go unhindered through the passage of the Strait of Hormuz. The petrodollar was the one thing I feel like we couldn't lose. That was the one bargaining chip we had on the table that I felt like was very important. This is Iran does have the upper hand in this very specific sector. What does this mean from an economic perspective around the world,

[A]

the war in Iran is turning into a game of chicken between the US and Iran for the fate of the petrodollar. And this is something that the consequences of this would be absolutely massive. If the US loses, our economy implodes under the weight of its staggering $39 trillion and growing, by the way, national debt. If Iran loses, oil prices will go down massively, China is weakened and the petrodollar buys America time to use AI and deregulation to grow its way out of our absolutely ridiculous debt. The outcome, though, is far from certain as of right now. And anybody who's acting like, oh, this is all in the bag is out of their fucking minds, you're being spun. Ignore them immediately. While America doesn't rely on the Middle east for our energy. And I get that that puts us in a very aggressive posture. All the people propping up the dollar do so. This is one of those things. I know that Bessant understands this even if Trump doesn't. And by the way, Trump probably does understand this better than he lets on. But if people don't start acknowledging how important it is for us to deal with the $39 trillion in debt. We have to have the petrodollar. If they don't start acknowledging that and acting in accordance, we are going to find ourselves in a world of hurt. If they are forced, like our allies and other people in the world, if they're forced to go around the US and negotiate directly with Iran to ensure that their economies don't collapse. Because by the way, oil is the thing that's going to keep their economies from collapsing. So if the oil is not able to get out of the strait, then they're going to abandon the US In a heartbeat in order to get that done. So they'll start negotiating directly with Iran if that's what they have to do. And you can count on Iran, if they're in these direct negotiations with places like Japan, that they're going to require that the currency that's used is anything other than USD. Now, of course, rumors are flying that Iran is going to lean on the Yuan corridor that already exists. So there are already payments set up. Brics nations have already been doing this for a while, transacting in yuan. So you can expect that that's probably what's going to happen. And that would be very bad for the U.S. according to a senior Iranian official who spoke to CNN, Tehran is considering a formal policy that would look something like this. Tankers that price their cargo in Chinese yuan get to go through, and tankers that don't, don't get to go through. So you can expect that countries will jump at that chance. Even if Trump is putting pressure on them, they may not want to do it. They may want to stand with the US in solidarity. They may think that Iran is a real problem, but it's not as immediate as the lights going out in their country. And so they will, they'll take whatever negotiation they're going to have to. And so the architecture for that payment system is already up and running. Since March 1, between 11.7 and 16.5 million barrels of Iranian crude have already transited the Strait to China, paid in yuan, protected by the irgc, moving without interruption. So China's ships are sailing free right now and everybody else is locked out. India got two tankers through last weekend, but not by paying a new one. Iran released them in exchange for India freeing three Iranian oil tankers that had been seized before the war. Now, it's not a long term arrangement, but it certainly shows that there are avenues for the world that do not include the US now whether it stays where they're using the petrodollar, but they're finding other ways to negotiate it. All of that's up in the air. It's unknown at this point, but the longer that Hormuz remains closed, the more countries are going to get desperate and start making their own deals. And if a government can't keep the lights on, it will not survive. Remember, people will revolt against their governments. And the more democratic you are, the more at risk you are in terms of people turning on you, you immediately losing power. And if I'm right, and I assure you I am, politicians will do and say anything they need to, including killing their own people to stay in power. So once you map that part of the human political landscape, you realize they will go around the US if that's what they have to do. And oil being priced in dollars is the foundational architecture of American global power, going all the way back, by the way, to 1974. So if Iran formalizes yuan as the price of passage through a chokepoint that controls 20% of the world's oil supply doesn't just hurt the US war effort, it accelerates the de dollarization that Russia, China and the BRICS nations have been fighting for for years. And it does it in a way that the US Cannot sanction its way out of. So when someone calls your bluff, we were talking about that with Trump, you better still have the cards to win. And that is a big question mark right now. Now, I'm not counting Trump out. It is entirely possible to that we still win this and that we come out ahead. But, oh, my God, this is deeply uncertain. And he is right now literally playing a game of chicken. So we'll see. It's not even who blinks first. It's what are going to be the second and third order consequences that just absolutely send shockwaves through the global economy.

[B]

And then I got to put one piece on the table as well. I'm really trying to follow the cause and effect. You've taught me that. I appreciate that, Tom. It seems that now that they're realizing the economic impact of it, Trump has been rallying to get his allies to come to the table. And now new intelligence has been released that maybe Iran has been lying about its capabilities, and missiles can go a lot further than they thought. So a lot of the NATO countries, a lot of countries in Europe, they should be a lot more particip, more they should want to participate more in this war because their missiles are in range. So initially the reports were that 2,000 kilometers was the limit. That was the majority of the Middle East. Now they're saying it's actually 4,000km and it could get as far as London, Berlin, Munich, Paris and Rome as well. So do you think that this will motivate the allies to rally, to kind of save them, or is this another Israel play and I'm going to the Israel of it all next with the Netanyahu clip from the war site, too?

[A]

Yeah. So the way that I map that is that every politician is behold, unless you're a dictatorial regime, you're beholden to your people. So all of our European allies are going to be asking themselves one question. What do the people in my country want? I don't think the people in their country feel a significant imminent threat from Iran. Now, had those missiles landed, this might be a very different story. Now we'll watch. The head of NATO seems to be far more in Trump's camp than everybody else. He seems to be desperately trying to drag them into the frame of reference that Iran poses a bigger threat than you guys are letting on publicly. There's a lot of messaging around Europe behind the scenes is saying, no, no, no, this is good, but I have a political reality that I have to face where I've got to like, do this dance. And so if Diego Garcia got hit, if they proved that these missiles really were fired from Iran, because there's a lot of questions around that unless new reporting has come out since we went live. But prior to going live, it was like, no one's really sure where these came from. So I think that that will leave way too many question marks to change Europe's mind. Now, if we know that Iran launched missiles, it's not a false flag, it's actually coming from Iran. And it hits something that's within range, that might snap the political apparatus into focus because they'll become more worried about the political backlash of having to tell them, yes, we knew this was possible and we didn't get involved. This is definitely one where I really hate to put this on the table until we have reason to believe it. But if you look up the sinking of the Lusitania and you realize that countries use for real, for real false flags all the time to draw people into war, or at a minimum, they will make it possible for the enemy to actually do the bad thing. So sometimes it really is the enemy is really just doing the bad thing, which seems to be true of the Lusitania. They stocked it up with. So this is what drew us into World War I. They stocked up the Lusitania, they rebuilt it so that it could Both carry munitions and passengers, which is already like. It's like dressing up your friend as bait and tossing him in the water. It's like, this is probably a bad idea. I'm not forcing the sharks to eat you, but I'm doing everything I can to trigger their natural response. So they built it up so that it would sound like a war boat to the U boats that were in the region. World War II, I think I said World War I. So they've got all that going on. And now they loaded up with all this munitions, which they ended up. For years and years and years they denied it. There were no munitions aboard the Lusitania. Somebody went down to the wreckage, found it was just absolutely jam packed with munitions. So they lied about that. So they turn it into this boat that sounds like a military boat, stock it up with passengers. The Germans took out ads in the US newspaper saying, don't get on these boats. We will sink them. Don't get on them. They are trying to get U.S. casualties. And the State Department blocked all of those that went out except for one, which is how we know that the Germans were trying to do it. Because one of them ran next to the ad for the Lusitania. People still got on it. And then they were supposed to have a like fleet to escort them. They pulled them all back as they were entering the waters with the U boats. They had proof that there were U boats in the area. And they told the captain to slow down. So like everything to make him a target. Boom. Sinks, bunch of people die. Oh God, look at that. The U.S. decides, okay, like we're really going to get into all this. So we've been sucked into wars in ways like this before. Will you look up for me? I cannot remember if this is World War I or World War II. And it's going to drive me nuts because I know that I think, I think it was actually World War I and what's his name was involved. And that's what always confuses me because what's the guy, Churchill. So Churchill was part of this, but that was because he was involved with the navy at the time anyway. Okay, so false flags are real. We've seen them play out. We've got the historical evidence to know that this kind of thing happens. So would it be a major point of contention? Would it change the Europeans mapping of this conflict if they were hit with a ballistic missile that had the ability to go that distance? Yes, it would. Does that mean that these were a false flag? It does not automatically mean, but ooh there's a reason that when people are prosecuting a case, they say, what's the motive? There's so much motive here. So I'll be holding off on my judgment on this one until I see all the facts. But this one has my spidey senses tingling. If nothing else, it will be very

[B]

convenient if this were to happen. But one good thing I think came out of the weekend from Israel is that I do believe Netanyahu was alive. He released this video at the on the wreckage of Iranian attack on Israel. It's interesting to me that he hasn't been traveling. He has been staying out of the media. And then this is his opportunity to finally go live, be in front of state sponsored media and things like that. So again, everything has been. This maybe was just a political opportunity he could not let go to reinforce the support with Israel. But this is what Netanyahu was talking about. 48. After the last 48 hours of attacks, if anyone needed

[A]

an explanation of why Iran is the enemy of civilization.

[B]

Also just going back to Busamante. Every time Netanyahu talks, I like hear, what language is he talking to? That is his audience. They speak Hebrew in Israel. He's in Israel, but yet he's speaking in English. So that way the world can hear him and understand him.

[A]

Yep, the enemy and the danger to the entire world.

[B]

You got it.

[A]

In the last 48 hours, in the

[B]

last 48 hours, they fired a terror

[A]

weapon on civilians, on children. There's a children's nursery here. There's an old man, old person's home here.

[B]

Civilians, families.

[A]

They fire terror weapons on civilians. And often they use cluster bombs which are forbidden by international law. So we care about international law now. It's like broken. You got to pick a side on that.

[B]

White phosphorus is in the background as he's talking.

[A]

That could have destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The Al Aqsa mosque. Positive for a sec. The Al Aqsa Mosque, man, if that doesn't come into play in all this, I will be shocked. You want to talk about like a false flag? Ooh, buddy. If they can make out. Listen, if I'm Iran, I might bomb it just to piss people off and be like, us. Wasn't us. That's Israel, bro. Israel is claiming a false flag. They blew up the Alaska mosque. If I'm Israel, I'm going to blow it up and be like, oh, it was Iran. They did it. Like, everyone has an incentive to both protect it and destroy it. That, that one's wild. I Will be like that one wasn't even on my radar a few years ago. And now understanding like that's that one where everyone's like do it touch, just

[B]

touch it all rose out the book, it doesn't matter.

[A]

Like that one somehow gives everybody the ability to go absolutely ape. And it's my understanding that Israel like needs it to go because it's on top of like a holy site for them. And Muslims are like that is our third holiest site. Like if you touch that we are going to come completely unglued. So it is a, for me as a non religious guy, like it really is people fighting over a rock that they've decided is special. Yeah. And it's like damn, it's interesting. Everybody knows. Yeah, that's the one that you just. That's the line you don't cross. So fascinating.

[B]

You brought it up. I think we get the point with Netanyahu. You did bring it up though. He's talking about they just killed children. They just killed a nursery. It is still under investigation whether or not the US on bad intelligence, the US with clawed manufactured whatever happened, we killed the 150 school school aged girls at the girls school. We have dozens and dozens and months of footage of Israel's attacks in Gaza. Like I said, the white phosphorus was even being used in Iran as earlier as last week. It seems interesting that to your point war crimes and international laws now important and now being brought up is this the pot calling the kettle black.

[A]

Israel is propaganda. You say whatever you need to to control the narrative and it doesn't matter that you're guilty of that stuff. They are talking to their base and independence that can be swayed once you understand like especially now we live in a world where people just want to be told what they want to hear. It is so wild like it imagine people on their phones and their every pattern. They're never going to say it out loud. But the algorithm knows what you're saying is go ahead baby, lie to me, just tell me what I want to hear. Enrage me just right tickle me with the things that I already believe. Like that's what people want. People do not want to do the work of trying to figure out what is real. Even I like I'm obsessed with cause and effect because it is so high utility. It can make you so much money. It can allow you to do things in the world that are amazing. Even I when a belief that I have already neatly tucked into my narrative my way of understanding the world when it gets challenged I'm always like, oh man, I have to do so much more work now to figure out how to update my mental model, which I will do because it's the only thing that has an advantage. But God damn it, it is so time consuming and so frustrating that if you don't operate like that in the world and you're just like, I just need to know what to say to the people that I hate when they give me shit about the thing that I believe. Like, just give me the talking point, please, so that I have the thing to repeat. They give them the talking point and they say, just say this. And then when the person is. When they come back and you say, oh, man, they, you know, they bombed this old people's home. And then the other person goes, well, what about the use of white phosphorus? And then they go, well, what about this? This is where the whole idea of whataboutism is people just going back and forth with their talking points. And so it's. What I want to know is what, okay, you don't want people to go back and forth with talking points. What would you like them to do? Because now you're talking about asking people to navigate the world in a fundamentally new way. Now I have my proposal. Do it from cause and effect. Say I'm trying to get to this very known destination. I can say it very succinctly, here are the things that I think lead us to that point and here's why. And then someone can go, ah, understood, you're trying to get there. And I can either debate that's an immoral place to want to go, Cool, we can have that debate. Or I can say, well, I like where you're going, but I don't think that's the path to get there. And then if you're doing that, you can say, here are the base assumptions or core beliefs, whatever you want to call it, that one would have to believe in order for those steps to make sense. And so you can actually go to the architectural place and say, like a real architect would, you are building this on steel that does not have the appropriate tensile strength for the height of the building that you're trying to build. I don't need you to believe in anything other than fucking physics. And so getting people to map the world in something akin to the human mind works in a knowable way. Roughly, patterns emerge. Please. I hope that I can convince you all of that. When you look at humans en masse, given that those patterns arise, you're either in alignment with the patterns that arise over and over and over and over and over and over and over throughout history. Or you're not. And if you are cool, then yep, I can see why you would think that would work. Now. It doesn't mean that it will. Life is very complex, but at least I can track the logic. But most people that say they don't want to do whataboutism simply mean that they want you to take at face value their facts and ignore the other facts instead of realizing, oh, we're playing a stupid game so both sides lie, both sides will tell you whatever they need to. And I say that because a I think we all see it happening and b that's what humans do. There is a reason humans do that because it's effective. Let me be very clear. People will do whatever is effective. Politicians map everything to what keeps them in power. If you stick to that loop, the world starts making a lot of sense. This is why the book the Prince was written back. Was it the 1400s? It was a long ass time ago. Yeah. Taking a short break, but there's more impact theory after Stay tuned. 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That's cozyearth.com and use code Impact Spring starts at the Home Depot and we are bringing the heat to your backyard this season. Fire up the flavor with our wide variety of grills for under $300 like the next grill 4 burner gas grill that's perfect for hosting your spring cookout. Then set the scene and turn your outdoor space into the go to spot the patio sets for every budget. Bring it this season with grills that deliver flavor and patios that set the vibe from the Home Depot. Start your spring with low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot exclusion supply. See homedepot.com pricematch for details. Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.

[B]

Have you been seeing this right to exist conversation that's been happening on X? I don't know if you've seen this

[A]

is with Tucker Carlson.

[B]

Tucker and the woman from the Economist.

[A]

Yup.

[B]

It's interesting because other people have chimed in, of course, but going to your point of the political answer, I feel like it played out in this scene perfectly.

[A]

I'm so curious to know who you think was giving the political answer.

[B]

It.

[A]

We'll get to it. Let people. Let people hear it. It's interesting. You are critical of the government of Israel. Do you believe in the Israel's right to exist? Would you consider yourself a Zionist in that narrow definition? What does that mean, a right to exist? The existence the political state of Israel. But it has a right. What does that mean? Now he's playing political games. If right there he said okay, hiding in your statement it goes to violence. So let's skip all the bullshit rigmarole and get to what you mean by right to exist is they have a right to use lethal force against others to make sure that their borders are sovereign. Is that what you're saying? Is that what you mean by right to exist? He won't do that. I think partly because he wants to make her look stupid and he's very good at rhetorical games. I was actually very impressed with Tucker in this. Like he was wily. He was impossible to Pin down. But he is not actually trying to get to resolution because she'll look infinitely dumber if he'll just have the conversation of, here's what I think you're saying. Are you saying that. And then it will look like he knows, like he's building her worldview in his mind more effectively than she's building her worldview in her own mind, or she's going to have to say something very uncomfortable. Now, when your goal is to have a productive conversation, you offer the olive branch of saying, this is what I think you're saying. This is the part that's being unsaid, the violence part. And I want to have that conversation, but I need to first understand if that's really what you're saying now, what ends up happening in that conversation. 95% of the time, the person doesn't know what they mean. He thinks he looks good by just like, pushing, pushing and using sort of verbal aggression to point out that she doesn't know what she means. He could have taken her so much farther down to where either he shocks her and she does know what she means and she lays it out. Now we have a productive conversation, but he's not going to do that because he risks losing control because his agenda is just to make her look stupid.

[B]

Let's play a little bit more into this.

[A]

Continue in its existence as a state right now. So you do not agree with Iran, for example. Let me just ask, since you asked me the question, it's fair for me to get you to define the term so I can answer it. You've asked two questions. The first was, do you believe Israel is a right to exist? And the second question was, do you believe Israel should continue to go on as a nation state? And those are very different questions. So I often hear, having been created as a political entity in 1948, does it have a right to exist? Is that what you're asking? I don't want to get hung up on the right.

[B]

No, no, but that's. Does it have a right to exist? Yes, that is what she asked a minute ago. And now you're, like, giving.

[A]

So this is, again, I am simultaneously very impressed with Tucker. He was in control here. He was able to, like, push where he wanted to push. He knew, and I think she could sense it, that he's got a backup of seven or eight additional points that he's prepared to make depending on how she answers this, and he's trying to pin her down. Now, when your goal is to win the argument, this is a Deeply uncomfortable moment when your goal is to actually find a resolution. It's like, oh, this is interesting. Like, let's say I'm on the side of. Actually, I'm not sure what I'm mapping to Press me and let me see, like, if I can get there. So there are times, and I get it, when you're on national television, your career is at risk. You can go hyperviral. So the odds of somebody is going to do this are very, very low, which is why people need to distrust moments like this. But also, I still think Tucker could have really blown people's minds if he had shown what. And now, listen, I'm projecting onto Tucker. This is what I was thinking during the interview was like, okay, you're talking. This is really a question about violence. How violent can people be? Because he goes on to say, and it's probably worth. Unless the audience really hates this, it's probably worth playing more of this. But he goes on to say, does America have a right to exist? And that's where I would have been like, yes, amazing. Perfect. Now we're asking the right question. In fact, let's set Israel aside. Does America have a right to exist? Tucker, let's start there, because now you've got him in a trap. If he says America doesn't have the right to exist, his fucking base goes apeshit crazy. Unless he has a base that I do not understand. And so then it's like, okay, maybe he says, yes, America has a right to exist, but Israel does not. And then you go, okay, what's the difference? Or he goes, yes, they have a right to exist, but they don't. No one, not Israel, not anybody, should be able to go and kill innocents. Okay, word. I get Tucker, why that feels good. That's ludicrous. What you're saying is so fucking dumb that now let's talk about it. Let's run scenarios and see, like, make him show the cause and effect of what's gonna happen if you're not willing to stand up against people and use violence to back them down. And so this could have been a far more revelatory, far more useful for the nation conversation if people were really willing to lay out, like, what are the base assumptions upon which you're building your worldview? It was one of the things I knew, if I start going live, I'm going to have to, in real time, explain why I think the way that I think, and inevitably I'm going to run up against. Ooh, I'm actually no longer sure. Now what this is predicated on, and that for most people is just a non starter. And so they go into talking points, which is exactly what this devolved into. But I would say play it a little bit more. Should it continue to exist? That's how I define narrowly designed. Because. Because the phrase you used was devised by the Israeli government, of course. Does it have a right to exist? And so my question to you would be, what does that mean? Why don't you answer my question? It's a very simple question. I don't know what your question is. Are you asking, does it have a right to exist or do I want it? This is where he's being. He could say, look, I'm hung up on this word for a very specific reason. Here's what I think you're lumping into that. That makes me uncomfortable and why I would need clarification on that word for me to give you an answer. But refusing to put forward exactly what he's tripping on, These just become linguistic games that remind me of all things of the Monica Lewinsky trial, where the person defined sexual contact as. As penetration. And because it was only a series of blowjobs, theoretically, or at least that's what the only thing he knew that they could pin on him. He said, no, I did not have sexual relations with that woman. And then when he got called out, he was like, yeah, I thought it was super weird that you guys were defining it as penetration. It's like, well, bitch, then you should have said something when you were fucking on the stand. But you didn't want to do it because you thought you could get away with it. And so this is what that feels like. Like, this feels disingenuous on his part, but again, still impressive. He's very in control here.

[B]

Yeah. All right. In the next episode of the Democrats are making me look bad because I'd be trying to stand up for them. Let's go to Cuba. Last week on the show, I was talking about blackouts, how hospitals are going out of business, people on ventilators who've had threatened to be killed and dying and things like that. Cuba needs help. Russia was trying to send some barrels of oil. We blocked it. We're the bad guy. We really need to do a better job. And then a bunch of influencers came to Cuba, and suddenly they found a bunch of power, and there was AC and light, and everybody can have great productive communication. I don't know how else to spin this. Tom, break it down for.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, look, I'm going to do my best. You guys know that I'm wildly inflamed on this topic. I will do my best to acknowledge that I'm mad for a reason without getting sucked into the spin of just trying to make these gu look bad. I think there's a much bigger issue that people really need to focus on, and it isn't the fact that they had electricity for their party. Keeping morale up and all that stuff on either side is going to be important. I guarantee you our side will do things like this in the future. I try never to have size. I hate that I just said our side as I don't think of it that way. Whatever side you identify with in that moment is going to end up doing something like this. That. That's not the one to get hung up on. All right. The influencers down in Cuba right now are basically fighting for a regime that represses its own people. That's what I want everyone to focus on. They're running the same useful idiot playbook that Walter Duranty ran for Russia while they were busy starving their own people to death back in the 1930s. Okay. The useful idiot idea is like a real thing. It's an actual playbook that there's obviously it's a very derogatory word put on top of it, but once you understand it, it's like a real thing that people do throughout time immemorial. Hopefully you'll see it when it's playing out in real time and have the right aversion to it. Over the weekend, as influencers are flooding down to Cuba to protest on behalf of a communist regime, they were getting caught up in an argument that I don't think is the point of focus. So going through last week, I went through the entire litany of horrors that the Cuban regime has forced on its own people over the years. And as we talk about what's going on right now, I want you guys to hold this stuff in your mind. So Castro bragged that Cuba had 20,000 political prisoners. They drained prisoners blood right before executing them. They would routinely detain journalists. This is the regime that the influencers that I'm calling useful idiots are down there protesting on behalf of that regime has preyed on the family members of political prisoners. They're known for kidnapping and executing minors. They have a documented history of torture and mistreatment. And honestly, this is the thing that's had the most negative impact on just the ability to live a good life. They took their country from one of the most developed and successful economies in Latin America. To a failed state that relies on charity from foreign nations. And they have stayed there for decades and decades and decades. Even China was telling them, guys, you've got to start embracing some of the techniques that we embrace so that you can get your economy back on its feet. Really think about that, okay? China's saying, listen, man, you can be as dictatorial as you want, but stop fucking with the economy. Stop doing something that doesn't make any sense. We tried it, you tried it. Vietnam tried it. Russia tried it. Everybody understands now, except apparently you guys. This doesn't work, you guys and the dsa, okay? So stop doing it. Now the influencers are down there carrying water for these people because apparently history really does repeat. In 1932, New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer Prize for the lies he was telling about how great the Soviet. How great Soviet Russia was while actively covering up a famine that killed between 3.5 and 7 million Ukrainians. Now, I know those numbers are so big that people just like, meh, dude, really think about that. Think about how ape shit crazy people went that two people got killed in Minnesota, 3.5 minimum million people. Ukrainians starved to death. China, by the way, did 45 million people. But please read the book Red Famine by Anne Applebaum. It's the only book I have been unable to read at nighttime because it was so horrifying. I just. I couldn't believe it. Durante, the New York Times journalist who was there while this is all happening, knew what was happening. He just decided the revolution was more important than the bodies that were stacking up. That's where I want everyone to stop. That is the danger of useful idiots. They're not actually stupid. They are motivated. They have an agenda. They are trying to get an ideology pushed through. Now we've got a clip I hope that we can pull up quickly. That is footage from outside of the luxury hotel in Cuba that people were staying at. So you guys can see for yourselves what the hubaloo is all about. But this is. What you're seeing is a generator that's supplying lights and AC for the influencers. The vast majority of the island is completely dark. If you're looking at your screens, you can see there's one hotel that seems to still be bumping. Now there are going to be a lot of people that are mad about the parties and the bans going ham in Cuba, but that really is minor. Was it a waste of precious gas to run the generators for a party? Probably, but I really doubt that it was a choice of having that party or saving lives at the hospital. That would require there to be some sort of barter system where they're passing the gas back and forth or them to even know that that kind of thing is going on. Should they have known that they could take them to local hospitals and help? Probably, but that really isn't the thing to focus on. That is looking at a single tree instead of the forest. What everyone should be focused on is the fact that these guys are running propaganda for an economic system that is so willfully ignorant of human nature that it destroys entire countries every time it's used, causing unending misery and death. And these systems are so bad and they are so hated by the people inside of them, it requires violence to keep them in place. That is the legacy of the Durante playbook that we're seeing being run here in Cuba. Okay? Over focusing on the flotilla, over focusing on the generator use is just the wrong play. When you present communism as being good for people, which these useful idiots are doing, you ignore history and human nature in equal measure, and you prolong the inevitable suffering. You don't have to believe that the US Is doing a good thing by stopping Venezuela from selling oil to Cuba to understand that communism has kept the people of Cuba in a horrible place for decades. I understand the emotional trigger that people have over inequality. I get it. And I get that that is when combined with resentment and just a true desire to see everybody thrive. But when you put those three things together, you end up getting these murderous regimes because this. It violates the way that human beings actually are. And so when you've got contempt for capitalism combined with a worldview that reasons from emotion rather than cause and effect, only disaster awaits you. Durant, he had a famous line about this that you guys have heard. You just didn't know it came from him. He said, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. But what are the eggs? They were the millions of lives that were lost in the Ukraine in the 1930s. Millions. The omelet today is the people of Cuba that these guys are down there fighting on behalf of the government that is repressing them. The people in the hotel in Cuba just want to cook up that same omelet. That's what people should be pissed about, not the party. They should be pissed that these guys are just another batch of useful idiots that don't want the world to understand that the Cubans have been living under rolling blackouts since 2022, long before Trump moved on Venezuela, Okay? They've been living under rolling blackouts since 2022 because the regime has not been able to take care of the infrastructure, because they've chased off the builders, sent basically them all to, to Florida, and they have such a broken economy that they just don't have the money to make those repairs. And then I'm going to guess if you looked at it, there is tons of corruption because while they've been experiencing the rolling blackouts since 2022, long before Trump moved on Venezuela, the regime of Cuba was still exporting its energy profits. Guess what? In terms of history, repeat. As China was starving its own people, guess what they were shipping out of the country? Wheat. So the food that could have gone to save the people that you were fucking up with your horrific policies, they were selling because Mao needed the money. So he literally sold the lives of his own people to stay in power. That's communism. So I get that people think that communism and socialism will usher in equality. They won't. Guess what will. Balancing your budget, eliminating or reducing the ability for the Fed to steal money via money printing. Those things actually bring the K shaped economy back together. There's always going to be inequality. You want inequality? Just like, think about it this way. Will there always be inequality in the Olympics? Yes. It just is what it is. Will there always be inequality in professional sports? Yes. Some people are better at things than others. Some people have different interests than others. And there's horrifying things that go on to fuck up the system. Minimize the horrifying things and accept the reality that what motivates humans is that it's the ability to get ahead. People want to get ahead. It's a good thing that they want to get ahead. It's not a bad thing. And we have to stop talking about it like it is. But just like discipline can become abuse, you can break a capitalist system, as we have done, to create this kind of problem, but you have to actually solve the problem instead of doing the emotionally desirable thing. That only makes things much, much, much worse.

[B]

All right, let's jump over to future tech news. Elon made a stunning announcement over the weekend announcing his new terrafab facility. These are some quick hits of the things that we should be expected. It's a 10. These are 10 key points about it. Terrafab is a gigafactory, but way bigger. They will produce AI chips in enormous volumes. 100 to 200 billion chips per year. To meet Tes Tesla's need for autonomous driving Optimus robots and AI infrastructure, the Terra project launches in seven days. It's fully vertically integrated chip fabrication effort combining logic processing, memory and advanced packaging. Packaging in one massive US based facility designed to produce advanced chips like the upcoming Tesla A15. With 40 to 50 times more compute performance and 9x more compute performance than the A14. Tesla is actively recruiting right now while ramping up productions. Early estimates peg a starter fab at 20 to 25 billion making it one of the most expensive single projects in Tesla's history. Fixes supply chain bottleneck creating the volume of high performance AI chips needed for Tesla. Again US based. And the Terafab could reshape the AI hardware infrastructure by enabling high density inference servers using thousands of Tesla AI chips. Competing with Nvidia, Google and other leaders in compute power.

[A]

I'll be interested to see how Nvidia

[B]

responds to this tariff Means Tesla controls critical components internally to accelerate innovation and scale rapidly. A quote from Elon was this is going to take things to a level people aren't even contemplating right now.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I watched the majority of the announcement that he did on this. Dude, this is insane. Like if you wonder if you're living in the future, you're living in the future. This thing is more than two miles long.

[B]

Sheesh.

[A]

Think dude. More than two miles long. It's got to be close to a half to three quarters of a mile wide. It is gigantic. And he's now this whole idea of the recursive loop. I am so sad for humanity that a huge swath of people absolutely despise Elon. Here. Here is the thing that people really, really, really need to take away from Elon. It's so brilliant. Think like an engineer. Always be thinking up from physics, literally physics. And don't create layers of management between you and the person doing the thing. Get on the floor with them. Do the thing, have absolutely psychotic standards. And always be remembering that optimizing a broken system is a really stupid idea. First fix the system, which will already optimize it, and then optimize only that which has proven its right to exist. He's one of the few people that's been able to overcome the disease of scale. Scale is so hard. It is so hard. And look, because for the last 10 years I haven't been in like a really big company. I don't think, especially because my YouTube career hasn't really had much to do about it. People don't realize I scaled the company from three employees to 3,000 employees. I know this problem intimately. So when I'm banging the drum about what he's doing and how useful this is for other people to look at it, I'm saying from inside of a hyperscaled company, I'm telling you, right? And compared to the scale of what he's doing, it was an absolute fraction of that, but nonetheless, hyperscale. One of the fastest growing companies ever in American history was the company that I co founded. So I know this problem intimately and it is ridiculously hard to overcome the problems of scale. And what he is doing and the way that he's shaping the future is extraordinary. And people should line their kids up to say, listen, don't take any advice from him on how to raise your kids. Don't take any advice from him on marriage. But oh my God, in terms of how to combat scale, in terms of how to dream big, in terms of how to take a dream and through engineering, turn it into actual output, there, I don't think there's anyone in human history that can match it. So it's crazy, man. And we're living in a world where we get to not only see this happen, learn from it, but also be advantaged by the things that it will output. So you don't need to like his politics, you don't need to like his personality. You don't need to think that he's even like a just and moral person, whatever. But man, I'm now, this is part of the reason that as I watched the video game Kaizen Struggle for the first few years, I was like, oh, I have to understand the engineering of this. This is one of the reasons that I started actually, I say coding. I'm not doing C, but I'm doing everything short. And one day will I start doing C? Maybe. So it's like the closer you get down to the engineering of all of this, like of everything in your life, this whole idea of cause and effect, everything becomes doable. Hard, sure, but it becomes doable. So this was. I was just completely gobsmacked with what he's doing. This is insane.

[B]

The one thing somebody in the chat said, it's three times the size of Central Park. So that's crazy. Just a factory that's so big, huge. But I appreciate the fact that he's actually bringing something new to life. I think a lot of time the term entrepreneur gets thrown around so frequently and a lot of times it's like, I'm selling you something digital or I'm selling you a way to do this thing. And it's like iterations the whole 0 to 1 Peter Thiel of it all. Of I'm selling you iterations of what somebody else did, whereas he's like, hey, this doesn't exist. I want to bring this thing into existence. And I think that there's power to that, and there's something that should be inspiration, and that should be one of the stories that we tell our young people, that they will get status by doing things like that.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. I mean, this is. It is breathtaking in its scale. And to think that we could be alive when we become a truly interplanetary species, that's wild, man. That's so motivating to me.

[B]

Me. And to the point of this is for every criticism you have of Elon and his absorbing wealth, I at least appreciate swings like this. That, yes, the richest man should have the biggest factory and you shouldn't.

[A]

And also, he became the richest man by being able to do this thing that nobody else can do. That's what, of course, drives me crazy. People look at him like he went to a bunch of poor people and held them up at gunpoint and took their money. Everybody trying to escape inflation has to own assets, and he has built these companies that are some of the most incredible assets on planet Earth, and that's how he got wealthy. So, yeah, being mad at him for being wealthy is ridiculous.

[B]

Yeah. All right, let's jump over to culture. Now, there was a couple of things on this list that I wanted to get to, but I want to start with the Introspection causes emotional disorder. This was hilarious. For those that don't know, Marc Andreessen was in an interview and basically said he doesn't think about introspection. Like, the past is the past. I just move on. And then, of course, the Internet runs with that. People were memeing Marcus Aurelius books that said, like, no meditations or un meditations and things like that. And then so Mark Andreessen retweeted it after the conclusion, my big conclusion from this week. Introspection causes emotional disorders. Elon retweeted it. Reinforcing negative neural pathways via therapy or introspection is a recipe for misery. Don't cut a rut in the road, dude.

[A]

So this is cognitive behavioral therapy. Was. I didn't know it was called that at the time. So this is just me cobbling things together. But now knowing that it has been codified into something known as cognitive behavioral therapy was life changing for me because what I found was I would become whatever I repeated. I started researching the brain and realizing what Elon's talking about is a process called Myelination. So you're. We have this dual impulse from an evolutionary perspective where I want to be active and go out and hunt and kill and face danger and procreate and all of that. And then I have the alternate, which is to lay on the couch, chill, eat a bag of chips, and just do nothing. And I was always, why is that true? And the reason that's true is that your calories historically have been ridiculously hard to come by. The brain uses the vast majority of the calories per, like, body weight. It's like 3 pounds of mass, uses 25% of your body's caloric intake. So from just physical makeup of your body, it is ridiculous in terms of how much energy it requires. And so the brain has to go, okay, I have to become really efficient. So whatever, I repeat, I'm gonna insulate those connections in the brain so that the electrical impulses can travel faster and it requires less energy to run this thing, saying, it's really brilliant. But that means whatever you think about all the time becomes the easiest thing to think about. Whatever you feel all the time becomes the easiest thing to feel. And so, like, take overwhelm. I realized with my level of ambition, I was always taking on a lot of projects. And so I would get this feeling. The easiest way to explain it is it felt internally like the revving of a car engine where you're stopped at a light, but you just slam on the gas pedal and you hear that screaming, and it, like, the thing pegs into the red. And that's what it felt like. My brain was trying to speed up to keep up with all the variables that I was trying to track. And it was a miserable feeling. And so I started saying to myself, I don't do overwhelm. And by saying that, it would act as a pattern, interrupt to whatever that biological process was. It would start speeding up. And so simply by telling myself, I don't do overwhelm, it would interrupt that and it wouldn't hardwire. And so I started thinking. It's very interesting. I cannot stop myself from thinking the first thought, but I can stop myself from repeating it. And so if I think, just take a negative thing, I'm a loser. I'm never going to do what I want in life. That was all of my early 20s. I would just say, I don't allow myself to think negatively about myself, even if it's true. And the reason that I would say that is because as I would loop on that, I could feel that becoming the dominant emotion that I was having. And when I started saying, nope, I don't do that, I don't repeat that, I'm not going to allow myself to think about that. It broke me out of those patterns. And all of the brain science wasn't there yet. So I was just having to make this stuff up on the fly because this is back in the 90s. But it was, it was so transformative that even when people started saying like, oh, talking about all your problems and all that, like, that's what you need. Listen, there can be a very brief cathartic thing to put words to a thing, but then you've got to stop talking about it and move the fuck on, like, no matter what. And that one, two punch of like, okay, I'm going to articulate this, make sure that I understand it, and then I'm done. I'm not going to allow myself to think about that. I'm going to compartmentalize, I'm going to lock in a box, throw it in the ocean, and I'm not going to repeat that stuff. It worked so well. But trying to get people to understand that that's not really the play therapy is powerful, but you've got to use the right kind of therapy. And just wallowing in your grief, wallowing in your misery is going to literally, at a physical level, make that the easiest thing for you to think about, feel, talk about. It's bad. And yet that's what people do.

[B]

So your secret sauce was the pattern interrupt. So it's not that you didn't introspect, is that you introspect to a point where you found the root of the cause, let's call it. You introduced the pattern intercept, and then that was what helped you overcome that specific line of questioning that you didn't have to go down that road repeatedly.

[A]

Yes, I would pattern interrupt anything that was low utility. And so if it made me feel badly about myself and that wasn't serving me, then I wouldn't do it even if it was true. Like, hey, you really that thing up and be like, yeah, and I'm going to take a lesson from it. And then I'm never going to think about the up again. I'm just going to think about the lesson. And so every time I would have that flash like anybody else of like, oh, that really sucked, I would just go, yeah, but you got this. And so then I'd be like, this, this positive thing. And I would think endlessly about the positive thing because that would become the easier thing to think about. And then it really did become a negative thing. I would have a negative thought and it would trigger the positive thing that came out of it. And I would think about that, go, deploy it, use it. And it was like, oh, this is like the. The negative thing becomes a catalyst. But the only thought that I repeat is to take action, to focus on the lesson, all of that. And that became really useful.

[B]

So on one side, let's say you turn down the negative thoughts through this pattern interrupt method. Is there a way that you kind of ramped up positive thoughts or reinforced positive habits to kind of create new myelin? Is there a way? Because it's one thing to not think bad about yourself anymore, but that still isn't the way to get aligned with your goals. 110%. Is there something on the positive side you can do to reinforce that or get your.

[A]

You become what you repeat. So what? Whatever you do frequently will become easier. And so then you're going to do it even more. So it becomes a self reinforcing loop. And then if you don't want the outcome of your behaviors, then you'll never stick with it. And if you don't believe that you can get better, you won't stick with it. But if you believe you can get better and you actually want the thing you're pursuing, then it's just about repetition.

[B]

Copy, Copy. All right, one more thing about culture. It's funny how both of these stories came in over the weekend. So I kind of want to daisy chain the two of them. First, it's about societies. Great societies are a result of men just trying to get laid.

[A]

And then pause. Pause. Who is it that said Damon Dash? Pause. People need to drink that one in. All the greatest things in society are because men were trying to get laid. And it, it's one of those that dawned on me in my early 20s. Literally, it changed my life where I was like, oh, I've got to become worthy of sexual access. Got it. Then I had to figure out what women actually wanted. And then I ended up falling in love with a woman who had very sort of classical training, if you will, in a Greek family. And so she was like constantly pushing me. No, no, do more. Be more stretch. Nope, you can get that. Come on, let's go. Also while being loving and fun and all of that. Like, my wife was not a slave driver, but because I really wanted to have sex with her and she just kept pushing me to be more and I wanted her to look at me in that way that she looks at me. Oh, God. I think a Lot about, like, I really overshot the mark, like, because that dynamic was so powerful in my life. And then I was like, as I see people badmouth that and say guys shouldn't want to get laid or women shouldn't understand their sexual prowess, which I hope you're going to pull up the Takaichi thing. We're getting very confused. And evolution was like, oh, cool, I've got a strategy. Rad. Men, women, for very different reasons. You guys are going to want to come together. And women, I'm going to make you the sexual gatekeeper. Make them really earn this. And guys, I'm going to make you really want this thing. And then, yeah, cool. Everything else will take care of itself and it fucking works. But every now and then it breaks down.

[B]

All right, let's dive into the Frank Hubert of it all. B.J.D. unwin, 1934. Spend years studying old uncivilized tribes and massive empires. Want to find out why some societies built wonders while others just vibe in their own. Notice a pattern. Higher tier civilizations equal absolute monogamy. Zero easy access. Basically tells men, you want a girl, go build a cathedral. And event calculus. First massive social energy builds up because everyone is thirsty and working for it. Society reaches peak expansion, GNP power. Third generation gets rich and lazy. Wait, why are we being so strict? So let's just have fun. Sexual opportunity skyrocket. Skyrockets for everyone. Men stop building, women stop gatekeeping. Tensions hit zero social energy. Battery dies. Three generations later, the empire gets ruled by a neighboring tribe that still has rules. MFW. It happened every single time for 5,000 years.

[A]

That is hilarious.

[B]

It's a crazy trait. And then now to your point of the Japanese PM Takeachi. She's being, I think, called out, but I do think that this is using what you have. Her playfulness, her banter to a lot of other foreign neighbors have made her a warm welcome when she kind of is talking to people. And you can see people's energy when she comes home.

[A]

And I've never seen a photo of her when she was young, but I'm gonna imagine that she was quite attractive. And so I want people to remember she learned a lot of these strategies when she was young and beautiful. And now also just femininity is so powerful. If you guys are looking at your screen, you'll see what we mean. Like, so supposedly Japanese Twitter is like calling her out for basically being flirtatious. And they're like, she's in her 60s. Why is she acting like girly, girlish? And why because it works.

[B]

Every time she gets close, they start smiling more, they start leaning that, like, the body language just opens up. Like it blossoms like a flower.

[A]

Dude, people. Women have an ability that men do not have. They can be that cute, playful, demure, flirtatious, fun like, thing that guys are, you know, especially in this kind of setting, way more buttoned up. Guys. Like, listen, I'm sure it's not universal, but it's way more universal than people want to think. When you get in an elevator with another guy, you think, could I take him? Like, it's just. That's how guys are. It's such a different energy. And so especially when it's a male, female dynamic, when a woman comes up and is very warm and, like, has that little playful flirtatiousness about it, there's something really there. And listen, I've told Lisa about this and she knows this person quite well. But I went on a business, like, evening, went to see, like, I forget what we were doing, but we went out to something had to do with filmmaking. And we went to this event. And when I say that this woman touched my arm, like, constantly. And it was so funny because she's very attractive woman, touching my arm because she knows exactly what it does. And I'm sure that she has done this to countless guys before me. And they all react in the same way, which is she lowers your defenses, gets you to feel warmly towards her. And I was laughing out loud. I even said something to her about it because that's my way. Like, while we were doing it and I came home and I was telling Lisa, and I was like, the crazy thing is I knew what she was doing. I even pointed out that she was doing it. She kept doing it and it worked. And I was like, that is so funny to me that a beautiful woman can do something. If I was doing that to her, she would have been like, yo, me tooing me all the way home. And I was just like, people pretend like this isn't a real thing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I don't know why. Like, it's one of the powers. I remember this was way back in the day. I'm not even sure. Lisa. Yeah, we would have been married by this point, but we were married. We were shooting a film, and Lisa was like, hey, I feel like I have to say this because it feels a little weird not to tell you, but I flirted with the equipment rental guy so that I could get a better rate. And I was like, yes, please. I was like, we are so desperate for good rates wherever we can get them. I'm like, flirt away. I do not have any problem with that. And I'm like, plus, you probably made that guy's day. So I'm like, yeah. So to me, this is one of those. You fail to interface with the world at the level of biology at your peril. And somehow over the last, I don't know, 10 or 15 years, we have become completely unmoored from the idea that we're having a biological reality. And the great irony of my sort of public facing career is before I became aware of MeToo, the woke movement, any of that stuff, I was like, my mantra. I used to say all the time, I've said it to you guys, I want on my tombstone the simple phrase, you're having a biological experience. Because long before I understood that this was becoming like a weird cultural movement, I was just like, people do not understand their own biology. They don't understand how they interface with other people based on biological realities, only to find, like, the biggest cultural disturbance of our time was this belief that we could act from outside of, like, the gross base realities of our biology. That's dumb. Get locked back in. Understand that you're having a biological experience and the world will be a lot more logical.

[B]

And, you know, you catch more honey, you catch more bees with honey than vinegar. So, yeah, a smile and a pat on the back goes a long way versus aggression and vinegar.

[A]

Also, here's what I love. So she's got the most dominant political win. Like, I don't know if it's in all of Japanese history, but certainly modern memory. They're like 75% of parliament. They can do basically whatever they want. They can make changes to the Constitution without needing to get the other side on board. That's how dominant this woman has been. And yet people are going to look at it and be like, she doesn't know what she's doing. I'm just like, oh, my God. Like, guys, please. The results speak for themselves.

[B]

Yep. Nice. And today, ICE agents are officially helping out the DHS as they're coming in. Trump has deployed ICE to help out local TSA officers. For those that don't know, government is still partially shut down on dhs. That's fema, that's ice, and that's the TSA and a couple other smaller agencies. It's been a big circle jerk where Democrats have proposed we could fund everything but ice. Republicans said no. Republicans came back and said, if you fund all of dhs, we'll be able to move. Democrats said no. Now with the SAVE Act, Save America act being introduced to that now, Republicans won't even take the just TSA funding deal because they want to get the Save America act going. So it's just been this kind of circle jerk happening in the Senate. How do you feel about the shutdown? I think we're at day 20 or 22 now.

[A]

I think at some point I am going to have to start really looking at what are the, the procedural realities of the way that the government is run so that I can start banging a table about how ludicrous it is. I don't know, maybe I'll look at it and be like, no, it really does need to be this way. And gridlock is really amazing. And I literally have thought for quite some time that gridlock is probably not the worst thing ever. But I think that some of the ways that we get gridlock is now just becoming so pervasive. Gridlock when you're mostly in the middle country is great. It means that somebody's got something that's too extreme. When you're hyper polarized, the gridlock becomes just nonsensical. So yeah, the way that people cram things into a bill that have nothing to do with that bill, I think I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about this, but my initial reaction is that should enrage all of us. These should just be separate bills that should be very simple, very easy to understand and then people vote on them. And so the fact that they try to cram everything together is just stupid. It is some bizarre artifact of either a reality that I don't yet understand about the political process or just the political process being abused against the people right now. I think it's the latter.

[B]

Yeah. And I really think it just comes down to these pork based bills. We need to get back to a one by one column, line item by line item type of bill. Yeah, because that's the irony of this, is that the big beautiful bill that was passed, signed into law, had additional resources already for ice. So the Democrats holding it up to defund ice, ICE is getting paid regardless because that's now locked into the budget bill. So but they all, they're claiming that it's not to defund ice, it's to make sure they change the policies, no masks, they need a warrant, things like that. So again it's you said, she said, he said, they said, whatever like that. In general though, ICE has been there for the last three hours. I haven't heard of a shooting yet. So that's a Win right there.

[A]

So ICE is still or not? Sorry, not ICE, but federal authorities are in D.C. is that going poorly? I haven't heard anything about that.

[B]

So I assume when he said the feds. No, the murder rate drops. You talking about like on the streets doing.

[A]

Yeah, he's saying he wants to leave him there now for his full term or rumors are.

[B]

Okay, okay.

[A]

So I'm just like, okay. So he deployed federal troops there under his aegis.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And seems to be going great.

[B]

It did work.

[A]

Right now sending ICE into the airports is not so that they can snatch up a bunch of illegals. It's though. I'm sure some of that will happen, but this is so that we can actually get through airports. So as somebody staring at a bunch of travel coming up, it's like, yes, please get someone in there. I don't care what like send in the irs, but like get somebody in there running this stuff. This is crazy town. So. Yeah, you can't do this. This is the political process holding the American people hostage. This is one of those times where our government is not afraid of us and they need to be afraid of us.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

So this is crazy. We should definitely not be tolerating this. So if it takes TSA to get this done. Sorry, if it takes ICE going into tsa, great. But damn, like, you can't do this.

[B]

Yeah. There were reports of up to four hour wait times in Atlanta. LaGuardia before the accident was at three hours. Houston, I think was backed into the parking lot. New Orleans was backed into the parking lot. So. So it's been hit or miss. And then I hear some people travel no problem. So if you have any travel come up, give yourself some time, go a little bit early. Imagine drinking a coffee and hanging like make. Make the airport a thing again. It used to be a thing like used to go to the airport, walk to the shops and spend all day there. Go back to the 70s for a second. Just this once. Cool. All right, that's all I got.

[A]

All right, everybody, we've got a zero to founder AI masterclass coming up. This, this, I keep saying this. Thursday coming up Thursday, April 9th at 1pm Pacific. We're still in March, but I hope you guys will join me. AI, obviously is becoming the single most important thing as it relates to jobs. Whether you want to use it to be the last man standing in your company before the bots take over or you want to start your company using AI, that is exactly what we're going to be walking through. So that is Thursday, April 9th at 1pm Pacific. It is free, free, free, free. So I hope that you will join me. All right everybody, I'll see you there and have a wonderful Monday, Tuesday, and we'll see you on Wednesday. Later. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do? You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break and that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop 8 ounces of water and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics, nutrient dense superfoods. Everything that used to require six, seven different supplements and perfect planning now happens in one drink that takes about 30 seconds to make. Right now, AG1 is giving you $87 worth of free gifts with your first subscription. You get a welcome kit, travel packs, vitamin D3 plus K2 and flavor samples. Click the link in the show notes or visit drinkag1.comimpact to claim this offer. This is Mike Bolo of Lexicon Valley

[B]

and I'm Bob Garfield. Are you one of those people who sometimes uses words?

[A]

Do you communicate or acquire information with, you know, language? Hey, us too. So join us on Lexicon Valley to chew over the history, culture and many mysteries of English, plus some life scrags. Find us on one of those apps where people listen to podcasts.