← Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tom Bilyeu's Impact Theory
Tommy Robinson's UK Rally was BIGGER Than Anyone Expected, Trump's $1.7B "Anti-Weaponization" Fund is BLATANT Corruption, Thomas Massie LOST to $20 Million in AIPAC Money | Weekly Recap
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- [00:01]
Tom Bilyeu
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- [00:58]
Drew Binsky
Tommy Robinson had another massive rally this weekend. This is his breakdown of it.
- [01:03]
Tom Bilyeu
We're on the march. We're walking up towards Trafalgar Square. The crowd, Parliament Square is already full. The crowd stretched from here to Houston
- [01:12]
Drew Binsky
station, apparently, which is Miles.
- [01:14]
Tom Bilyeu
Okay.
- [01:16]
Guest or Interviewee
And Miles. This is the biggest event in British history. This is the moment, a turning point for Britain.
- [01:21]
Tom Bilyeu
A message to the leaders. Drew and I cannot confirm or deny that this is the biggest event in UK history, but we were at the event and it was massive. And at one point it was funny because we got there early and didn't realize we were early. So I was like, man, I kind of expected more, I'll be honest. And then it just kept filling up and filling up and filling up and filling up until finally at the end, even when we were leaving, it just went on and on and on. And seeing the footage was wild. The drone footage, how far back? How many people? I think one of the biggest questions that's going to be asked across the Western world over the next 10 years is how to deal with immigration. And so obviously knowing this is a hot button issue for people, but I wanted to see it up close, see how people were acting. And at least where we were completely peaceful, everybody was chill. There is obviously a very strong message coming from Tommy Robinson, that is for sure. It was very interesting. It was very, very interesting.
- [02:22]
Drew Binsky
I came from it the other way. I treated it like a journalist. Hey, this thing is massive. We should go over there. We got into the media pen, like you said. We got there about two hours before the event. While there were people there. The square was like 20% empty. So we are 20% full. So we're like, oh, this might be a flop, Was this a waste of time? And then cut to four hours later, the square was packed. You would have thought it was an actual concert there. People not being able security having to escort people out. And then as us leaving and we left the event about two or three hours earlier than it had to. We were still going through people, restaurants were closed, streets were shut down. So it to little brother, this event like it was four people angry and a beer. That would be the wrong case. However, I went into the streets of London this weekend. I was talking to people, talking to girls, stuff like that. The response to us going is the equivalent kind of like of MAGA on the us it's like, oh wait, you went to, you went to a Trump rally, like that's the type of thing. And I was like, oh no, coming as a journalist, want to cover the event. They're like, oh, okay. You can see like there's still this toxicity of it. So it was very interesting to see the disconnect of what the everyday downtown partying London night might say versus the older people that we saw at the square who were there for six, seven hours waiting for Tommy to come out.
- [03:30]
Tom Bilyeu
I think the key is don't go after the girls with the blue hair and the septum piercing.
- [03:34]
Drew Binsky
That might be it.
- [03:35]
Tom Bilyeu
If you had a different, different taste in women, I think you would have had a different response.
- [03:38]
Drew Binsky
Too bad this one was blonde haired, blue eyes. I thought this was a, this is an Aryan fastball, so I doubt that was it.
- [03:45]
Tom Bilyeu
That's hilarious.
- [03:46]
Drew Binsky
No, but, but it is interesting though to see what people say about these people and then what we kind of seen on the ground and I don't know if you said this, this different like juxtaposition of like, oh, those are just the racist people, like that's the underbelly. Nobody cares about them, but they have to feel something because nobody. People wouldn't be outside for eight hours at that level of like that much people at that type of population if it was completely nothing. You know what I mean?
- [04:07]
Tom Bilyeu
So my take on this is that I think it is patently insane for people to think that you're going to be able to bring in hundreds of thousands or millions of people into your country depending on the size, not assimilate them and expect there not to be a problem. All of life is a values collision, period. End of story, full stop. Countries have been going to war over values forever. There is in group, there is out group. And when you have two groups that each see each other as the out group, you are going to have a problem. And if they're, remember, Catholics and, and Protestants who believe in the same God, the same Jesus still killed each other for decades in Ireland. So if you can get people that have that little bit of a difference killing, killing each other over and over and over, imagine what happens when you put Jews and Palestinians next to each other or Christians and Muslims next to each other is going to get weird. And the fact that people are acting like this isn't a thing, like that's so nonsensical. You don't have to think either of them is bad. You just have to recognize, recognize that they are not aligned on a values perspective. And there's going to be a tremendous amount of friction. And so we're now living in a world where people are asking you to pretend like there aren't problems that are coming along with this. And also the big question that's going to be asked is, is there a cultural problem with Muslims coming into Christian nations? Like, is there a fundamental, like collision of values that is irreconcilable? And the flashpoint is oftentimes over women. So people will it to Sharia law or whatever they want to say, but this is really about the treatment of women. And so it is something that people will have to reconcile. And you see the Nordic countries dealing with this. And while immigration doesn't factor in largely to the deep dive, it is one of the punchlines at the very end, which is like, okay, this is all the things that Sweden are doing that are working. But by their own admission, they've made a huge mistake with the number of immigrants that they've allowed into the country. What's happening in terms of economics, but what's also happening from a values collision standpoint. And so now they're paying people to leave, like $30,000 just to leave. That's pretty wild when you stop and think about it. And so that is going to be the question. And so if people can't have that debate in good faith, we're never going to get on the other side of this. It is a very real phenomenon. It creates a very real amount of friction. And we've got to sit down and say, okay, what is the values that we're fighting for? What is a yes, what is a no? What do we expect from. What does any country expect in terms of assimilation? If we don't expect people to assimilate, then what you're saying is who has the stronger belief in Their culture and higher birth rate is going to win. And as long as everybody's okay with that, then we're going to be in good shape. But I think this really is a real question that people have to face. And so shouting somebody down and saying that you're racist or whatever is so it's insincere, it's stupid and quite frankly it's boring. Like if you don't have any real way to understand human nature and what it looks like as it plays out, exit the conversation. So if your only way to talk about this is with emotional appeals of the conversation, so figure out what it is like you're trying to get somewhere. Drew, we good? Drew's trying to shout me down here with Tommy Robinson.
- [07:29]
Drew Binsky
I lost control of the computer. Everybody.
- [07:31]
Tom Bilyeu
People are going to have to define what they stand for. They're going to have to. Meaning what? What is my country about? What do I. How do I expect people to behave if they're in my country and then what they're going to do if those people don't behave in that manner. And so all of this is going to have to be dealt with.
- [07:45]
Drew Binsky
So. Yeah, I think it's interesting though that this is the same. It's the same not. And I think that's as much as
- [07:52]
Tom Bilyeu
like the same notion as what as America.
- [07:54]
Drew Binsky
It's the same we. These people are coming in, they're getting five star hotels, they're getting free money on their debit card. It is the 2020 talking points that a lot of people are saying when we were doing the five star hotels in New York and they're coming over taking like that. So it seems that even across the pond there's still the same sentiment as the othering of those. That population is what's impeding on our rights here. Yeah. And I know you always say that that just breaks down to the economic pie and I'm seeing other people getting slices that they may be entitled to or something like that. But it comes to that economic problem, do you think that that is the solution universally like both in the US that's the pretty much way you can sum it as you were there yesterday.
- [08:32]
Tom Bilyeu
Do you say that? Let me give you a thought experiment. If every immigrant you brought in major country wealthier, like you personally, it's like my life just got better economically because this person is in. Do you think that we'd be importing more people?
- [08:47]
Drew Binsky
Yeah, because everybody's life will get better.
- [08:49]
Tom Bilyeu
Right. So that's the big part of it. Now there are other things like, you may see dilution of your traditions. So I know a lot of people, whether they were making more money or not, they hated Merry Christmas getting turned into Happy Holidays. So there's some people there that feel like, whoa, these are my traditions and you're messing with them. And I think that there's something very real there. Like, I don't think Japan is worried about jobs being taken away from Japanese people. Their population is declining so rapidly that they have a massive incentive to bring people in. But what the Prime Minister has said in Japan, Japan is better for us to have a declining population and have to solve that problem than to cease to be a country because we have no national identity. And I was like, yeah, that's true. So the national identity part I don't think people give enough credence to. I think partly because Americans lie to themselves and say that we don't have an identity, which is stupid, we very much have an identity. You can spot an American miles away if you're in a foreign country. And so that is just partly being insincere. We're also telling a very strange story to ourselves in America about what it means. And then on the west broadly, there has been what they call the long march through the institutions. And so a lot of this seems to be born out of the French thinkers who were basically like, colonialism was this unmitigated disaster, which actually isn't true despite being evil, just actually isn't an unmitigated disaster, shockingly enough. And then it is. If you only tell the story of the bad things, the downside, and you don't see like, this is what we actually built. We built something extraordinary. And that belief systems play out in behaviors and that some behaviors from a another culture's perspective will seem worse. Not even asking anybody. I believe that there are cultures that are actually better or worse because I have a metric by which I judge everything which is human flourishing. And I think some belief systems are worse for broad spectrum human flourishing from that perspective. I have an opinion about that, but I'm not even asking people to have an opinion about that. I'm just saying, like, as you look objectively at what happens when you bring people in and you don't assimilate them, you start running into a problem. But yes, the core foundation of all of this is economic, but there is another layer on top of that. It's just that the economic part is so big that people are confusing distortions at the economic level for racism or whatever.
- [11:07]
Drew Binsky
Yeah. And then now I want to Jump into the demographics of it all. I would say that the crowd there was mostly older, a lot of older folks. I've seen a lot of older women, surprisingly to mine, and I'm talking about like boomer age and older than that, like those generations. And then I've seen a lot of younger men, whether it was 17, 18, 19 year olds and they were just effing around. But I did see people those ages with the flags coming through like they came for the rally. They didn't just wander off because they were hanging outside and wanted to follow the crowd like they came to see Tommy. So it's interesting how those demographics, I didn't see a lot of 45 middle aged guys in ties there for, you know, there's just certain demographics that weren't visible there. Do you think that that's something that also speaks to maybe those are the people that are feeling it the most? Or what did you think about the demographics of the people that were there?
- [11:51]
Tom Bilyeu
I think it's a very similar thing to why young people, old people, hate AI the most. It's when you're in your prime economic years, you've really got your head down, you're trying to build, you have a sense of agency. You don't feel as helpless as you do when you're young. When you're young, you're very confused. You're looking for an ideology that's going to allow you to have direction, to get moving. I just remember how confusing my late teens and early 20s were. I just, I did not know how to make things happen in my life. And so you're far more prone to being swayed by messaging. And then as you get older, you can see the change. So now that I'm 50, I mean it started happening in my late 40s, but you really have a sense of life did not used to be like this. It actually was palpably different. And so because you see like, oh, this has changed and not all of the change has been for the better. And you can identify this thing was better. It was better for this reason. And I wish for you that you could experience what I experienced because that thing was great. And so I think that is they have the perspective. They're also at a point where for them the only thing that's going to influence their money is largely political. And so they're outside of their prime earning years. They may be an actual pensioner where it's literally like if this money is going to immigrants, it will not go to me. I cannot out earn them because I'm on a fixed income. And so now if the government's in financial trouble and they're delaying pension payments and things like that, like, yo, I'm going to specifically be impacted by this. And so I think that's why you see that the middle demographic not being represented as heavily and young and old people being there, doubling down.
- [13:27]
Drew Binsky
Yeah, I think not to get on my soapbox, but to talk to like the UK voting bloc, definitely you have to figure out what to do with this block of people because I think
- [13:35]
Tom Bilyeu
that this is this block of people,
- [13:36]
Drew Binsky
the block of people that went to that rally that were politically active, that were so inclined because the dismissive othering Piers Morgan getting on X, kind of making fun of them. It's funny when you're sitting on the other side and you're like, okay, haha, he's poking fun. But the fact that those were a lot of people and if those people all went into a local community or a local election, they can sway the demographics like that, they can get power and before you know it, it'll be a Tea Party MAGA situation. Kind of how the US Was where you have four or six new politicians that are all coming from the same like, party, like the same group of people with the similar ideology. So they were definitely activated. And it was just fascinating to me still that when I talk to average people about it, they're just so, oh yeah, whatever. And then the seeing the people on the ground, like, no, this is existential. I have to do this right now. It's like there's a, there's a cultural energy here that's way more motivated and if you lose track of where these people are, they can, you can find them in some corner of the society you didn't necessarily want them to be in. However that like manifest and looks like.
- [14:28]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, I would say that. Not like it's, I mean, this month or anything, but England is now at that last peaceful exit where this doesn't become a violent collision between the two cultures. If they keep going down this path, there will be a violent collision between the two cultures. And that's the thing I don't think people are being honest about. And since we have seen this play out in Israel, which you and I have talked about, I'm pretty sure I've talked about to chat before. But to me it's like, okay, if you look at what Israel did to become Israel, where it was like, all right, we're here, bunch of us here, but you know, whatever, we're a minority and you're like, but if we import more people, we can become politically powerful and economically powerful, and then ultimately we can get our own space, our own law. And they did exactly that. And now we see eternal warfare between Gaza and Israel. So that is the same playbook that's being run right now in the uk, in Belgium, in Sweden, in France, in Germany. Like, there's a bunch of place where this same playbook is being run. And if you're fine that Jews did it in Israel and you're fine with Muslims doing it in the places that I just mentioned, great, you're at least consistent. Now you have to look at the aftermath, which is so far, this has not gone great at the border between Israel and Palestine. Don't expect it to go great here or wherever it's happening, because there are a lot of people that are going to feel displaced. And this rally was their peaceful attempt to say, we feel it, we don't like it, we want something to be done about this. And so you ignore them at your peril. That is what I will say this. It isn't violent now, it will become violent. These values collisions don't go away. And if people are thinking that they do go away, they are being ignorant to history and even forget the ones that are hot. Now look at Spain. Do you know the story of Spain?
- [16:20]
Drew Binsky
I don't know the story of Spain.
- [16:21]
Tom Bilyeu
Muslims came in, took over for hundreds of years, and Spaniards went up into like a little mountain village and just bred and bred and bred until they were a big enough army to come and kick them back out, which they did. So there was much bloodshed. And they eventually. I forget how long it took them to finally get them out. A long time. And so. And there are calls within the Muslim community to retake the areas that they once conquered in Spain. So these, these are not problems that just go away quietly. And so I don't understand people's like, sort of nonchalant, like, this is just about compassion attitude. It's like, hey, I hear a lot of noise about people not being happy about Israel. But then when you get to the same playbook being run in a bunch of other countries, all of a sudden it's like, no, no, no. What do you mean?
- [17:05]
Drew Binsky
Is this a unified playbook, similar to how China, you know, 25, playing the long game, do you think?
- [17:12]
Tom Bilyeu
I think it is partly that. I also just think it's like, like, let me give you the positive spin. I'm Muslim. I believe that I represent the true word of God and I want to save people. And I want to see my people thrive and multiply. And so there are new opportunities for us in insert country here. And so we want to go and we want to find new converts and we want to welcome them into. I don't think they use the phrase kingdom of heaven, but you get the ide. Like, I want things to go well for you. I want you to know the love of God, and I want you to be welcomed into his embrace in the afterlife. And so, yeah, I say this with love and I'm here to, you know, make the world a better place in the name of Allah. And so they fucking go to town and they bring more people and they have more kids. And so many people should have kids. Like, I love that. I'm not mad when they do it. But it's like the math of it all is that that's what ends up ends up. They will continue to grow as a population, and they will obviously want things to go well for them, and they will want to make the world the way that they believe is right and just. And so they'll keep pushing for that and the tensions will keep ratcheting up because you have two people that don't agree on what the vision is going to be when you're separated by a ton of geography, no big deal. When you are splitting London in half, big deal. And. And again, the problem that so many people consider intractable in the Middle east is exactly this. You have two peoples, and everybody tries to get everybody else to see the great irony of so many Jews look exactly like Palestinians because they're basically the same people. I'm not talking about European Jews, but, like, so many of them legitimately are from a 23andMe perspective, the very, very similar people. And yet they'll just kill you other until the end of time because they don't share values, man.
- [19:04]
Drew Binsky
All right, that is. That's bleak because I'm looking at it from, like, the history perspective of, like, if everything is tied, then if that's the case, we're overdue for a massive world war. Like, we're on the massive timeline of just chaos and conflict.
- [19:17]
Tom Bilyeu
And yeah, I mean, this one's probably not the world war. You're going to run into a world war long before you get there with other things, whether it's Russia and Kiev, which are now, like, really seems like Ukrainians are, like, really making some progress. I don't want to jump ship over there because I think what we're talking about now is far more radioactive. It is Going to have to be dealt with. Putting your head down is a recipe for delayed violence, but when it happens, it will be extraordinarily bloody. And boy, do I not want to see that. So it's like, let's slow down. Let's make sure that we're able to integrate them into society. You know what I mean? Like, part of this is just the speed. Like they say the dose makes the poison. It's like, this doesn't have to be bad, but you got to slow down. You got to make sure that people are living in the same country and that they're not building two separate countries.
- [20:03]
Drew Binsky
Jordan Sheffield, great question. Why does white population decline always lead to immigration restriction and not a conversation about white birth rates?
- [20:10]
Tom Bilyeu
I don't know that I would agree that that is what happens. But if we're going to accept the premise of his question, I think it is very important for people to talk about, like, where, where is our level of care in terms of do we care about the population decline? Are we taking a Japanese approach where it's like, I don't want to see this unique culture go by the wayside. If we do care in a place like Germany where they obviously have a very strong, very old national identity, if we do care in Italy or France or England, same thing. Well, then you're going to have to do something about it. And you've got two options. You can continue to invite people in at a pace that's absolutely insane and I don't advise it and try to out breed them, or you can slow down, take a far more metered approach to immigration, make sure that people are assimilating and becoming a part of that culture. And if they are becoming a part of that culture, great, it's wonderful. If they're not becoming a part of that culture, then, ooh, pump the brakes. Like, we need to make sure that people are actually integrating. But yeah, you're going to have to have that conversation. But it isn't a problem. It's not like, oh, if you don't have kids, you don't have a right to the land or whatever. That would be a crazy, crazy argument.
- [21:22]
Drew Binsky
Is it economics that lowers those birth rates or is it, you know.
- [21:26]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, but in a weird way, what
- [21:27]
Drew Binsky
do you mean by that?
- [21:27]
Tom Bilyeu
If you want to lower the birth rates, don't worry about reducing the wealth of the nation. When people are poor, they have way more kids. Sometimes they have to because so many of them die. Or it's a agriculture heavy economy and so they need kids to work the fields. And so they'll have like eight kids, 10 kids. So poverty is not the problem. Poverty is not why people don't have kids. People don't have kids once women have opportunities. So if a woman can do anything she wants with her life, a very substantive portion goes, I don't want kids. I want to go do this other cool thing when it's like basically educated
- [22:03]
Drew Binsky
women in lower birth rates.
- [22:04]
Tom Bilyeu
But that, that is true. And so people don't need to be tense about that. Like, that's what happens. The more options you give somebody, the more options they will choose. You're not giving them options and then presuming they're not going to take those options. Like, that's crazy. So you've got birth control pill and women being educated and put into the workforce is always and forever going to drive your birth rate down. And then like, if you demonize women for being trad wives, then you're really going to have a problem. But to some extent it will bounce back. And you know, these things are a pendulum and they swing. So people will now, and we're already starting to see it. People will start celebrating the trad wife and all of that. That's just how society moves. So I would never want to see women artificially limited from opportunity. But I also don't want to see people pretend like an inconvenient trans truth is any less true. It's like that just is true. If women have a whole bunch of options, some of them are going to say, yeah, I'm going to go do these other fulfilling things. I'm not going to have kids.
- [22:58]
Drew Binsky
Is there a prescription for that? Is there something to quote, unquote, fix in that scenario? Or is that.
- [23:02]
Tom Bilyeu
I mean, there are things you can do certainly to alleviate it. So one better tax policy so that you do. Because what ends up happening from an economic standpoint is people that are used to being wealthy don't want to be slightly less wealthy to have kids. So you want to put them in a position where they're not like, oh my God, we're struggling to make ends meet, make that a nice easy economic choice for them. So there are things you can do from tax policy. There also celebrate it culturally. Like, if you want to see people have kids, then when they have kids, be like, yo, that is dope. I love it. Like, I actually, and I don't mean this figuratively, when I meet a parent, I thank them for their service. I am so grateful to people having kids, partly because I opted to not have kids. And I know that that would be a much worse choice if other people weren't having children. And so I'm very grateful to people that are raising kids well. And so taking the time to celebrate them and letting them know that you care and that you want see them thrive and all that, I think goes a long way. Religion is a big thing, making it a part of, like, oh, in our family or in our culture, like, we have kids. That's what we do. And like, I was watching home videos. So we're here. My wife is from London. We're here in London, and her mom was playing, like, these old videos from when my wife was, like, 3 years old, and there's just kids everywhere. And I was like, yo, that's so, like, Greek of you. And it was just like, that was the. That's what Greek people did in the 70s. They had had kids. They had a lot of kids. And so all of the, like, brothers and sisters had three, four kids. And so, like, it was just like these big families and kids everywhere, and it was celebrated and it was expected, and it was like you were getting tons of pressure from your family to do it. And there was still just enough friction with women going to work that they were just all having kids. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.
- [24:53]
Drew Binsky
Trump's DOJ 1.7. I don't even know where to start on this. If it's the number, it's the audacity, it's the setup of the fun. What was your.
- [25:00]
Tom Bilyeu
Take them one at a time. This one. This one is rough, to say the least. Now, obviously, getting into the specific details of what it actually is is probably important. So the shorthand of it is this is an absolutely grotesque abuse of power from where I'm sitting. But what he is doing is he had all the big lawsu that had remained unsettled. So during the Biden administration, you had somebody at the IRS leak his. It was a Boz Allen contractor leak his tax returns. He then sued for $10 billion, which is absurd on its own, but nonetheless, that's what happened. And so now that the DOJ is back under his control, he. The doj has signed off. So Todd Blanche has signed off on a deal that basically wraps a bunch of things that Trump had going at the same time. So the Russ, I think one other thing as well. So he had all of these lawsuits that were pending. They wrap it all together. And they give him this incredibly sweetheart deal on an addendum, which Blanche didn't mention in his testimony, that says that, okay, in addition to him wrapping up all of these things and no longer pursuing them, and he doesn't get a payout, but they've created this fund. There's two things that are giving people heart palpitations. One is the 1.776 billion, obviously a reference to 1776, trying to make this feel nice and patriotic. That will go to people who feel that they were wrongly persecut. And to be honest, I think that the government does wrongly persecute people. And so from that perspective, I love it. But it can't come from the guy doing it. And that's where this just gets completely absurd, is you can't be mixed up in it and be the one to essentially give yourself a pardon, which I think is how this feels to a lot of people. I'll certainly speak for myself. This feels like a variant of the president pardoning himself, which they absolutely cannot do. You can't do that. The legal precedent on which this stands is questionable. But you've got the two elements. So you've got the slush fund that is made for people that are saying that they were wrongly persecuted. This will almost certainly include January sixers. And then you also have the second part, which is Donald Trump Jr. And Eric and the family organization, I think were the actual named entities. All of them are immune to investigation for tax returns filed before the date that the investigation was launched. So it's not like on into the future, which was the one thing that I found a little bit of solace in. But if I'm honest, I expect this to be legally struck down. Certainly not while he's in office. Probably not. Unless it goes to the Supreme Court. This will almost certainly be challenged, AKA struck down by any subsequent Democratic administration. So it's a bit performative for now because the doj, the irs, none of them are going to go after Trump while he's in office. Take that for what it's worth. But this is just in a laundry list of things that look absolutely terrible. This is one of them. So even if all we had was pure optics, this is still a terrible idea. And the odds that this is pure optics, given how recklessly this guy has traded. For instance, if ever there was somebody that we would want to be exposed to, just a good old fashioned audit. And here's the thing, I hate that this guy has been gone after as ruthlessly as he has, because so Much of what happened in the past really was bull, or it seemed like bull. And from that perspective, I was just like the Democrats weaponizing the DOJ against such a bad look. This is going to come back to haunt them. And so it gives him enough cover, certainly with his base to go after something like this and do it when in reality you want your president to know, when I get out of office, they are going to go through everything that I did. I better be above board. I need to have my nose cleaner than anybody else. And him being able to do this, at least for stuff that was before that date, it's just terrible now. I don't think it covers things that he's doing while the president. That would be the only sort of good news to come out of this. But I would need to look deeper into it to be confident in that statement. Because I have a feeling that some of the things that he's doing from a trading perspective fall into the same kind of corruption that we're seeing with members of Congress and the Senate. It is so out of hand. It's gotta be nipped in the bud. And if he feels like he's got
- [29:23]
Drew Binsky
carte blanche, good Lord, yeah, I wanna hear it from him. He was asked about it yesterday. He took questions from reporters. And then we could jump to some of the speculation. Cause there's definitely been rumors flying around who's gonna benefit from the fund doing this? Where's the trust? How is that money going to be dispersed? Some people are saying this is just his way to buy elections. But again, let's see how he thinks he should do it and then we'll talk about it.
- [29:45]
Tom Bilyeu
Justice Department has this new fund that was announced today, $1.7 billion. Why should taxpayers pay for the January.
- [29:55]
Guest or Interviewee
Well, it's been very well received. I have to tell you. I know very little about it. I wasn't involved in, in the whole creation of it, and, and the negotiation. But this is reimbursing people that were horribly treated. Horribly treated. It's anti. Weaponization. They've been weaponized. They've been in some cases imprisoned wrongly. They paid legal fees that they didn't have. They've gone bankrupt. Their lives have been destroyed and they turn out to be right. I mean, it was a terrible period of time in the history of our country. And they worked on it. I know the Justice Department, it's really been working on, on it very hard. There's been numerous other occasions over the years where things like this have been done, but these were people that were Weaponized and really treated brutally by a system that was so corrupt, with corrupt people running it, and they're getting reimbursed for their legal fees and the other things that they had to suffer.
- [30:48]
Tom Bilyeu
This is really going to get wild over time. And when you have both sides warring against each other and they're able to use the bureaucracy against each other or to try to protect themselves like in. It is really distressing to see how visible our slide into a We're not a banana republic yet, but, boy, are we getting close. Like, it is really, really unnerving. And I'm really. So my goal is going to be, however quixotic this may become, my goal is going to be to try to paint a picture for how all of us can move forward together in a way that is sensible. My appeal to people, people young and old alike, but especially to the young people that are going to be taking over this country. You really have to create something where the playing field is fair, where as you create policy, you know that it's going to be used by you and against you. And so you want something that really is fair, that is just completely ignorant to who this is going to help or hurt in the future. And right now, instead, what we see is people, like, tailor making things specifically for themselves. As a CEO, Lisa and I talk about this a lot is whenever you make a policy, policy, like, someone may come to you and they have some crazy extenuating circumstances, you think, wow, I really want to help them. And then you think, but how do we make this a policy that affects everybody? When you're forced to do that, it really does make you step back and go, yeah, I don't know who this is going to apply to. And so I need to be way more thoughtful about what this policy is. And we're not doing that anymore. This is just complete. Like, it. It really was weaponized against Trump. There's no doubt about that. But now they're going to try to selectively protect themselves. And so the next administration is going to try to selectively effectively protect themselves. And so this just turns into madness. And nobody has a sense of, I am beholden to the people of America. And look, I get like, a lot of the things that we're told about Washington or Lincoln or whoever is mythology. I understand that. But in a world where we have a breakdown of mythology, given the volume and velocity of information that social media brings to the table, you really have to have people. You've got to seek people out that want to live up to some of that mythology that want to tell us a story of what we look like at our greatest and when all we have is example after example of doing the thing that is best for yourself, being incredibly selfish. I think it is dangerous when you forget that kids just soak all that up. So adults may have already made up their mind as to whether or not they're going to do this, but kids really haven't. And so if they look out into the world and they just see a never ending parade of bull, they see a never ending cavalcade of people yelling and screaming and hating each other and shooting each other. I mean, it's just the world that you will leave behind is one of madness. And man, do I want to see us reel that in.
- [33:33]
Drew Binsky
Yeah, it's one of those things where, like, when you really mess up as like a teenager and your parents kind of sit you down and they say, I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. Yeah, it's one of those situations where it's just like, the crypto coin was bad enough. The Howard Ludnick Sons being on the board of the company that manages the Terror of Reef, that was bad. Like there's all these things like, yeah, that looks nasty, but okay, maybe it's not that bad. Okay, that is a little weird. Normal. Normally presidents don't do that, but that's a little bad. I feel like when it comes to this one, it kind of falls right into his feet. Like, yes, I did to make this fun. Yes, it's going to help those people that were benefited. Yes, those are my supporters. And yes, this is ahead of the. And it's just. Is it really just this transparent how we're operating in politics?
- [34:12]
Tom Bilyeu
What's interesting. So I have less of a beef with the, the slush fund for people who've been attacked by the government. Unless he deploys all of that money during his term, that I would dislike. But having the government being accountable to the people and not trying to intimidate the people, but being like, coming into service and being like, my job is to make your life better and I will be judged accordingly so that, like, I really do think that the justice system has been weaponized, but I would very much want something like that to be put in place knowing this is going to also fund people that I don't like. And if you can do it with, with that sense, okay, cool. And obviously a balanced budget because you know how I feel about cutting more checks. But that part, that one doesn't get under my stand. It's interesting. It Seems like that may bother you more than the tax returns. Unless I'm reading that wrong, the tax returns to me is the far more traumatizing. And I get that he doesn't want to be in that fight. And I get that he doesn't want to leave himself vulnerable. And I get that he knows that as a president he can't pardon himself. And I get that he knows when he gets out of office that he's going to be attacked. But man like this just isn't the
- [35:20]
Drew Binsky
way you believe that he's going to get some of that money. It's going to end up coming back to him.
- [35:25]
Tom Bilyeu
I don't think the One Point Company said nothing. I mean, Jesus, I'll never rule that out. That it goes out and somehow comes back. I don't think he's stupid enough to take it directly. I think he's doing so many other things that in the fullness of time, we will look back on and go, that was just blatant corruption. Whether it meets the technical definition of insider trading. The spirit of, I have information that you'd. You don't. And, oh, look, somehow, some way that information is making it back to the people that are investing on my behalf. Maybe I'm cynical. I'll accept it. I am not the one that should be making this decision. It does not matter that I look at it and say that this looks terrible. This is the kind of thing that should be investigated by an independent party. I feel like both sides of the aisle have just completely gone independent. What do you mean? Like, this is a sword that I get to wield when I'm in office. And I had a realization when I was in Italy that it's a very sad thing that we are living in a time where people do not build monuments to the things that matter to them. Again, mythology. I fully accept that. But to tell ourselves a story in. In the physical world, I think is really important. And we. The only story that we could plausibly tell ourselves right now is I hate you, you hate me. And we're willing to fight about it. And instead of going, what are our shared values? And I want to focus obsessively on what they are. I want to artic. I want to say them out loud. I want to live according to them. And when I betray those principles, I want people to call me out on it. That's part of the interesting thing about doing the lives is people will make me either say, I have evolved my beliefs and I no longer believe that thing that I said before, which is why I'm now contradicting myself. Or they will harangue me if I get, you know, if I start saying something different just because it ends up being convenient for me. And so being held accountable to my belief system, to having to articulate why something has changed, I think is incredibly meaningful. We just don't expect that out of our politicians. We don't as a society concretize those beliefs into physical things. And I get it. It's partly because we can agree on what matters.
- [37:30]
Drew Binsky
Good to bring that point back up, though. I think we used to be at least on the same page that corruption, politicians getting exorbitantly wealthy while in office, all that stuff was gross and we didn't necessarily like it. And it was just Nan's. When it was Nancy Pelosi, everybody had the smoke, everybody was mad, everybody was on board. We really need to have a change. But now, whether it's the Trump announcement, he's been also been trad. There's now these corruption. There's now Mike Johnson is justifying it. Now people are like, well, if I was a CEO, I have insider information, I'm allowed to trade my company. Why can't politicians do this? And there's kind of this backwards okaying and kind of revisionist history of how I felt about corruption. And it's not as bad as I thought. To me, that's the most. That's more, that's more important versus what is that what the headline is saying? It really doesn't matter how much the fund is. It really doesn't matter what the law says. Lawsuit was. It now matters that everybody says corruption was wrong four years ago, three years ago, probably give me two and a half. You would say that. But now it's, well, it depends who's doing the corruption or what's your definition or how do you define. And it's just a slippery slope of us just kind of. It's another thing that we lost from the moral aspect of the society. Yeah, I think what was, oh, I get it. I'm living in Pollyanna land. I love that that was supposed to be the societal agreement, you know what I mean? You know, corruption is cool and well, we'll see what happens. Happens. And it's like, wait, this was five alarm fire a couple years ago when Nancy Pelosi was doing it. And now that Trump has gotten so wealthy in office, it's kind of like, yeah, well, he's rich now, so that's how rich people operate. And it's just kind of I don't know.
- [38:57]
Tom Bilyeu
I think the part of it is like 2 degrees off from that. And it's. I don't think when my team does it that it is corruption. And they can either they actually delude themselves into believing that it's not corruption, or they're just willing to lie. And so the thing, the thing that this drives home for me is populism is all about team sports. When if people could just look at things rationally and say, I don't care whose team gets me to where I'm trying to go, but I have a very clear end goal that I'm trying to get to. I've articulated mine a gazillion times will do it a gazillion more, and that is have a thriving middle class. And if you can say, this is where I'm trying to go, and then we can talk policy and say why we think it will get us there. And then as we begin marching down that path, we can either show that it actually is working or it's not working and we need to put pivot. But when it is simply, I'm on a team, this is my identity, and so whatever happens on this side, I'm going to justify that is a nonsensical way to live your life. Again, the only thing I'll say is the only person I will make foolish decisions for is my wife. I get why people will go to bat for their kids or whatever, but outside of that, any of that stuff is just. It's toxic to the culture. And so people have got to find a path back to. These are the things that are objectively right. And I don't mind myself being held accountable to this either. Taking a short break, but there's more impact theory after. Stay tuned. Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it.
- [40:22]
Drew Binsky
All right, let's jump over to Kentucky now. And honestly, all around the world, Trump was, I think it was 20 and 0 in all his endorsements in the primaries in different states yesterday. So he has pretty much flipped the board. People are now rephrasing the entire conversation as people who are dissenting from maga. They might have a base online, they might have some YouTube and podcast views, but when you're in real life and you're actually talking to voters, they're still all on board on Trump. MAGA is still a movement. Trump winning against Massie as the biggest race kind of shows that's popular. Did you have a similar takeaway?
- [40:55]
Tom Bilyeu
I mean, it is, it is pretty wild that he, the whatever the CNN guy has been trying to tell us for a while that among MAGA Republicans he has 100% support. So the debate was always, and to be honest, I kind of laughed at that because I was like, well, how much of the base is actually mega Republicans? And I would have guessed that it was substantively lower than it is. But if the Massey race is anything to go by, it's like 60 40. So it's not like some slim ass margin like he won handily. So if that is any indication, if the Republican Party is a 60:40 split in Trump's favor, then he's still like we just saw going to be able to pull a lot of rabbits of the hat. So it is an interesting question that is eternally being asked, which is how much do the voices online represent the voices in reality? It is a very difficult to pin down question and we're seeing right now that there's a lot more juice for Trump than I would have thought.
- [41:55]
Drew Binsky
Yeah, it reminds me about the press conference that wasn't a press conference that he did earlier in his term where he was like, I'm gonna talk to everybody to the nation on Tuesday and I'm gonna do all these things. And he basically was just reading out his tweets from the last two weeks and that kind of, we talked about it. It solidified to me that, okay, his base is they're not chronically online YouTubers. They are the older folks who are still watching traditional TV who go to bed at 7 o', clock, who watch their stories, watch their news and that's their day. So a lot of times having that TV commercial donation money and able to attack that older population on traditional media, you can definitely reshape the narrative a lot easier than you can on a podcast or something of a lot of these, these alternative medias. Let's pull up this tweet. This is from Hawk. I enjoy Enjoyer talking about the Massey race specifically he said someone who has never, someone you never heard of, declined eight debates. And this was your point, you can't, you shouldn't be a politician if you decline debate and took 20 million in donations from I'll say APAC, not Israel, won a primary from an eight year constituent were cooked. This is the underbelly of that conversation though, is this just lobby's gonna lobby and Massey pissed off the wrong lobby and they got, got him out of there.
- [43:03]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah, this, this is a naked display of money in politics. This is why you should hate everything about money in politics and why we need somebody to put Forward a better way to do this. And then we need to pressure the life out of our Congress to actually pass something like that, which of course is going to be very difficult. But this, this is wild and grotesque and it, I, I beseech all the rich people out there that are throwing money around in politics. Do you guys not get the moment that you live in? Do you not understand how the Internet works? Like this stuff is going to be disse broadcast over and over and over. And every day you lose one of the older people that you are counting on that don't have access or don't avail themselves of the velocity and volume of information and you are telling yourself a story that is completely nonsensical, which is that you still have the power, you can do things as normal, but you are radicalizing generations of people, not just a generation. These people are going to be unforgiving as they amass more power as they become a bigger part of the voting block. And so seeing people make such a stupid rookie mistake is just absolutely wild. You are playing such a short term game that doesn't need to be played like this. Like if you want to be inspired by somebody who's just willing to take people on, on the strength of the ideas and the actual like record of what the person has done, look at Spencer Pratt. So you've got somebody who just says, hey, this is what they did, this is what I plan to do. And if your guy Galrane can't win on this is what he did, this is what I'm going to do. Now we have something that is going to radicalize people, I promise you. Because the people who are online, whatever percentage of the base that is, it grows by the day because people are growing up in this environment now. This is just how they're going to get their information. And so they will always be awash in an amount of information that the people that I think you're winning over, if the numbers actually reveal what I think they reveal, that you're swapping, you know, younger voters for older voters and that constituency is going to die off. It is a bad trade. And if you need to look at anybody to see how fast things can change, you don't have to look any farther than aipac, man. They went from like default like Judeo Christian, like we're in this together to being seen as the global villain.
- [45:21]
Drew Binsky
Yeah. Now you have to answer that question. Did you take APAC money before you can run?
- [45:24]
Tom Bilyeu
Yeah.
- [45:25]
Drew Binsky
But here's the demographic breakdown. So from 18 to 29 year olds that's 10% of the the voting block. Massey won 79%. 30 to 44 year olds, about 23% of the voting block. Massey 1, 65%. But the older you get, the older it gets. One, the more people are voting in that generation and two, the more people were voting against Massey. So from 45 to 64, 35% the largest base, it was still 53% Massey, but it was a 65 and older crowd, 33% of the vote that swept them. 65, 35. And remember this is an eight year income, eight incumbent. So these people, 65 plus they have been around with Massey, they known Massey like. So it's, it's just crazy to see how stark these demographic pictures are coming after how much energy and online was about Massey over the last couple of days. But to your point, lobby's going, lobby
- [46:15]
Tom Bilyeu
lobbies are going to lobby, people are going to pursue financial interests and ultimately we're all going to pay the price for this. People have to build a mental model of how the world works. People have to begin to connect the dots in a way that's grounded, that allows you to make different choices and get a different outco, build a worldview that is hopeless. But we really do have to look at the way all of this is transpiring. We are in a position right now where basically the American economy is being strip mined. And by that I mean, in fact, let me be very specific about what I mean by that. They are leveraging deficit spending and money printing to take money from everybody. But obviously it's going to disproportionately hurt the middle and working class and they are able to create a funnel into assets. You're talking to somebody who benefits from this tremendously. And I'm screaming as loud as I can to stop this, for the love of God. And so when you're looking at somebody as a politician, whether we want them in power or not, just think obsessively about that. The guy we just booted out was the one mother wearing the pin that tracked the debt. Like this is so infuriating. So yeah, the great news is that we have a voice and so we don't have to be just online denizens. We actually can make our voices heard. Not in a psychotic way, just make a better argument, make a better argument. That ends up being, I think, the most important thing, cause and effect. Why does making this change lead where we want? And so what I'm beseeching you all to do, the more you understand it, the more you'll be able to articulate it. And if you don't understand it, then all you're left with is the emotional side of it. And look, I'm preaching to the choir. I appreciate you guys being here. I am really grateful for all the people that tune into the economic deep dives. I am really trying to paint a picture for what is actually happening so that people can understand it, they can make better decisions. But it is admittedly heartbreaking that of all the people to get booted, it's the guy that is most aware, which of course is why he got booted. Trust me, you don't have to point that out. I'm aware of the irony. We've got to pick that up collectively. We've got to carry that torch. Yeah. Otherwise we really are cooked.
- [48:22]
Drew Binsky
And a lot of people are taking victory laps around Candace Owen, Jake Shields, Dave Smith, Tucker Carlson, including Megan McCain who tweeted out shout out to Tucker Carlson, who was 0 for 5 in candidate endorsements. So a lot of people are saying Tucker Carlson and Thomas Massie lining with him, pulling, talking about the Epstein files, alleging Trump being in those files. That was the beginning of his downfall.
- [48:44]
Tom Bilyeu
And well, so, I mean, there's an interesting story to be had there, which is I'm not sure what those guys are doing when I look at them. I won't put Dave Smith in there. I think while Dave Smith and I come to different conclusions, Dave really does seem to be trying to track cause and effect the best he can. I think he's gotten too myopic on one topic. Topic. But when I look at those guys, they map better to, oh, this person's trying to get clicks. Then it's like, got it. Like you found white space. You know, you have to say something different. You have to say it in a way that like really hooks people. I get the temptation as somebody on the Internet, oh boy, do I understand it. But it is really bad long term. And especially like I often think, okay, what if I'm on the wrong side of this issue? Like, I think about that a lot with AI. What if I'm on the wrong side of this issue? Because I really think, and obviously I've been predicting, predicting this for a long time. I think it's going to get violent over AI and I will clearly be on the quote, unquote, wrong side of that. But because I actually believe that we've got to do it. Well, it's not going to not happen. I've made that case many, many times. So now how do we do it. Well, I think that's where the focus needs to be. Every technological transition in history has led to more jobs, not less. So we should be with an eye towards that. But nonetheless, the temptation to. Ah, let me just, let me just go over here. You feel that pull? I think it's a mistake. And in the fullness of time, you're either going to be right or wrong. And if you can look yourself in the eye and be like, well, I really believed it, you've at least got something. But, man, if you're just saying whatever you think you need to say to be popular in the moment, ack, ack.