Trump Isn't Confused, He's Doing This on Purpose | Andrew Bustamante

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Trump Isn't Confused, He's Doing This on Purpose"

Podcast: Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu
Guest: Andrew Bustamante
Date: June 18, 2026

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Overview

This episode takes a deep dive into the motivations and outcomes behind recent U.S.-Iran tensions under President Trump’s administration. Host Tom Bilyeu and former CIA officer Andrew Bustamante break down the strategic reasoning (or lack thereof) in Trump’s approach, examining its impact on U.S. allies, the military-industrial complex, financial markets, global order, and the American psyche. The discussion is wide-ranging, covering geopolitics, economics, systemic fragility, and the interplay between political theater and real financial incentives.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Iran as a “Good” Threat for the U.S.

• Military and Economic Benefits
  • Maintaining some instability in the Middle East is beneficial for the U.S. arms industry. Uncertainty ensures steady weapon sales (01:55, 07:00).
  • “Economically, you want a little bit of uncertainty in the Middle East because it drives the American military industrial engine.” – Andrew (07:03)
• Regional Allies’ Dependency
  • U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Israel rely heavily on American military support, further entrenching America’s influence and economic gain (06:59, 07:00).

2. The Trump Doctrine: Leverage Over Peace

• Strategic Approach
  • Trump is less interested in a peaceful resolution with Iran and more focused on using the conflict as leverage, both domestically and in foreign policy (05:02, 26:44).
  • “I don’t think he wants peace. I think he wants leverage.” – Andrew (05:06)
• The Limited War Problem
  • The U.S. is violating its own lessons by engaging in “limited wars,” which history (Vietnam, Afghanistan) has shown don’t work (12:58).
  • The concept of “overshoot”: the U.S. is committing more resources to conflicts than it can sustain, which jeopardizes goals and credibility (12:58, 13:10).

3. Propaganda, Nuclear Narrative, and Black Boxes

• The Nuclear Threat From Iran
  • The Trump administration’s narrative about Iran’s nuclear threat is described as “pure propaganda” and “nonsensical” by Andrew (20:19, 23:23).
  • “A program can’t be eradicated, but also be an imminent threat. It doesn’t make sense.” – Andrew (23:23)
• Intelligence Gaps
  • America lacks reliable intelligence (“Iran is a black box”), which is compounded by conflicting official stories (21:33, 23:23).

4. American Alliances and Waning Influence

• Allies’ Frustration and Shifts
  • U.S. actions are leading some allies (UAE, Saudi Arabia) to distance themselves, questioning if America can be relied upon as a security guarantor (12:23, 12:51).
  • “We have shown we can’t be trusted, not only by our allies in the Middle East, but our allies in the Far East and Western Hemisphere.” – Andrew (13:10)
• Burden-Sharing Doctrine
  • The latest U.S. War Doctrine calls for allies to “share the burden,” whether in cost or lives (11:52).

5. Financialization, Political Theater & the Real Game

• Financial Markets vs Political Reality
  • The “magic trick”: Political chaos and conflict may distract from, but do not deter, the upward march of financial markets and wealth concentration (35:37, 36:22, 40:25).
  • Wealthy actors and global funds shift money across borders based on returns, not ideology (36:22-37:32).
  • “I have every ideological reason to say, fuck the Chinese… but when it comes to the bottom line of ensuring a legacy for my children… I couldn’t say no.” – Andrew (36:22)
• Late-stage Financialization, Not ‘Capitalism’
  • Tom argues what we call ‘late-stage capitalism’ is actually hyper-financialization and abstraction, decoupled from real economies and democratic oversight (44:08-47:20, 52:29).
  • “The system you actually have is a layer of people who are incredibly savvy with all the financial instruments… the game is, you will not win if you do not own assets.” – Tom (47:38)

6. Declining Empires & Systemic Fragility

• Systemic Interdependence and Unpredictability
  • The world is now defined by intertwined systems (AI, energy, finance) that are highly vulnerable to shocks (31:33).
  • “If any one of those three sectors fails, the other two fail along with it… It’s very difficult for any of us to know what will happen in the future.” – Andrew (33:27)
• Parallels to the Past
  • Direct comparison to the Soviet Union in 1991, the Ottoman Empire, and Rome’s decline, but at unprecedented speed and scale (34:22).

7. Populism, Division, and the Decline of Civic Glue

• Rise of Demagogues Left and Right
  • America’s inability to reconcile its multiple crises is leading to the emergence of populist figures on both sides (Barack Obama, Trump, Bernie) (56:02, 56:30).
  • “We spent 20 years fighting extremists only to now essentially be radicalizing ourselves.” – Andrew (57:30)
• Is Regeneration Possible?
  • Andrew expresses pessimism about a return to civic engagement, suggesting lasting confusion or generational decline is more likely (58:43, 60:35).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Military-Industrial Strategy:

• “Iran being a threat to the Middle East is a good thing for the United States.” – Andrew, (01:55/07:00)

On Propaganda:

• “If anybody still believes there’s a nuclear threat from Iran, we have completely let go of actual, factual information.” – Andrew, (20:08)
• “A program can’t be eradicated, but also be an imminent threat. It doesn’t make sense.” – Andrew, (23:23)

On U.S. Overshoot and Credibility:

• “We’ve shown we can’t be trusted, not only by our allies in the Middle East, but our allies in the Far East and Western Hemisphere… Because the United States could do anything it wants.” – Andrew, (13:10)

On Financialization and Elite Behavior:

• “The wealthier they get, they seem to decouple themselves from things like national identity and religious zealotry… their diversification is tied to empirical evidence, not ideological promises.” – Andrew, (36:22)
• “Political theater is a magic trick… there’s something happening on the table and behind the curtain that we don’t get to see.” – Andrew, (40:25)
• “If you don’t understand something like the yen carry trade… then that’s why you’re going to get gobbled up by the current system. It is late stage something. Late stage financialization, late stage mathematical abstraction, late stage gambling.” – Tom, (52:29)

On Systemic Crisis:

• “We don’t know what failure looks like anymore. We don’t know what are the telltale signs of collapse right now.” – Andrew, (33:27)
• “If there’s anything I would say, I would say that we’re living in a world now that demonstrates that the primary messaging that we’re receiving is inaccurate and it’s intentionally inaccurate.” – Andrew, (34:00)

On the Future:

• “I think the United States is going to go through a full generation of confusion and disarray… A solution will either present itself that I can’t imagine right now, or no solution will present itself and we will decline as our competitors continue to grow.” – Andrew, (60:10)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:55] – Iran’s “good” threat and U.S. strategy
• [05:02] – Trump’s goals: leverage, not peace
• [07:00] – Middle East arms economy and allies
• [12:58] – Limited war, overshooting resources
• [20:19] – “Pure propaganda”: the Iran nuclear threat
• [23:23] – Conflicting narratives and intelligence blind spots
• [31:33] – Explaining systemically interdependent fragility
• [34:22] – Parallels with past empire declines
• [36:22] – The ultra-wealthy and decoupling from nation-states
• [44:08] – The “MYC fic and tick” (military, financial, tech complexes)
• [47:38] – Why ‘owning assets’ is the game
• [52:29] – Late-stage financialization and global money manipulation
• [56:02] – Internal American division, rise of populism
• [58:43] – Can America recover civic cohesion?

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Conclusion

This episode of Impact Theory offers a dense, honest analysis of American power, decline, and the elaborate interplay of geopolitics, media propaganda, and financial interests. Far from offering easy solutions, Bilyeu and Bustamante challenge listeners to recognize uncomfortable realities: that the “show” of politics often hides deeper, more mercenary games, and that systemic change (if it happens at all) may take a generation or more. Through sharp analysis, memorable metaphors, and candid critique, the conversation captures the complexity — and the uncertainty — of the world in 2026.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Iran being a threat to the Middle east is a good thing for the United States.

[A]

What?

[B]

So economically you want a little bit of uncertainty in the Middle east because it drives the American military industrial engine. Because we keep providing weapons to Israel and Saudi and UAE and Qatar and Bahrain and all the other major parties out there that have a problem with Iran. Even the Trump administration is having a hard time helping us understand why we're doing it. Instead, they seem to keep target hopping and the current target now is Cuba.

[A]

How do you begin to predict what the future is going to look like? Andre Bustamante, welcome back.

[B]

Thanks for having me, sir.

[A]

Dude, as always, this is a pleasure. We need to stop doing it though, because every time we sit down, something weird pops off with Trump. Some world affair. So we're back having an issue in Iran. Trump just said that Iran was totally destroyed. That is a quote. And then they shot down an Apache helicopter.

[B]

Isn't that amazing? Just think about that for a second.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Obliterated military, but it still has the ability to shoot down a modern day Apache.

[A]

Yeah. I feel like maybe I'm being lied to about how far we've gone. So we just get attacked. We're in the middle of peace talks. There's a smart response that Trump could take and there's a dumb response that Trump could take. What are each.

[B]

So there's so much here that were not allowed to know and frankly that people just don't know. Right. The Apache helicopter was on a, a watch type of routine mission. It was shot down. It was shot down in a way where both pilots survived. It's kind of difficult to imagine a rocket hitting a helicopter. Right. The speed difference between a rocket and helicopter is significant. And then the helicopter being able to not only identify that the missile was coming, but also successfully eject. There's so many difficult things to put together here to understand how this could have been an intentional.

[A]

A rat. Like, do you think this is a fake story?

[B]

It doesn't. No, not a fake story. It doesn't smell like an intentional attack. It doesn't sound like Iran was hiding in. In the tall grass waiting for an Apache helicopter so it could surprise attack and shoot it down. It sounds like maybe it was a mistake, maybe they sent warning, maybe they thought it was an Israeli aircraft. Something like that may have happened. So the Apache had time to gain distance, take maneuvers, prepare to evacuate, and then they were able to successfully rescue the pilots with unmanned drone boats and then bring them to another place where they could be evacuated by helicopter that wasn't shot down. So there's multiple pieces here at play. That doesn't make it sound like Iran was trying to violate a ceasefire or violate American soldiers in the battlefield. But Trump is certainly taking that approach it when he says it cannot be unresponded to or cannot be unanswered to.

[A]

I think as of right now, he's already begun the response. At least that's the early words. So one, is that part of the smart response or the dumb response? If you're actually trying to get a peace deal, what's the play here?

[B]

I don't think Trump wants a peace deal. So I think that's really important to understand.

[A]

All the people involved, I thought he's the one person actually does want peace.

[B]

So I don't think he wants peace. I think he wants leverage. And, and that's an important thing. When you, when you look at the Iran conflict, it's such a unique conflict compared to the narco terrorism war that we were fighting against Maduro and in Mexico, it's very, very different than the Ukraine conflict with Russia. It's, it's categorically different in so many ways because you've got Iran involved, you've got Lebanon involved, you have the various proxies related to Iran. And then this Iran conflict has been multiple years in the making. If you just look at modern history, it's three years in the making. If you look at longer history, it's, you know, 30 years in the making. So at the end of the day, what we realize is Iran has made a fool of the largest economy and the largest military, modern military in the world. We went in to assassinate Ayatollah Khomeini and we came out with a new Ayatollah Khomeini that's the son of the, the hardliner son is now the Ayatollah. So we don't, we can't even claim credit in terms of title for actually assassinating their leader, let alone destroying the Islamic revolution. We, we just, we can't. So what was it all for? In addition to that, the Straits of Hormuz have now become the property essentially of Iran. We don't know whether or not Oman is going to take ethnic exercise their right over the other side of the Straits of Hormuz, which is putting global oil in a tailspin. And global oil is separate from American oil, but still kind of the same because it's all one global marketplace. So even the efforts that we took to secure oil in Venezuela by capturing Maduro doesn't really quite work in our advantage with what's going on in Iran. And at the end of the day, Iran being a threat to the Middle east is a good thing for the United States.

[A]

What?

[B]

Because you have all of the other Sunni American allies in the region that, like Saudis and UAE that are buying American weapons, invest in American tech and aren't capable of fully defending themselves. And who are they going to lean on? They're going to lean on the United States to help defend them. So economically you want a little bit of uncertainty in the Middle east because it drives the American military industrial engine, because we keep providing weapons to Israel and Saudi and UAE and Qatar and Bahrain and all the other major parties out there that have a problem with Iran.

[A]

Okay, so the last time we talked about this and I said, what do you think Trump is doing? You said, I think he's protecting Trump's legacy. Forget America for a second. Somebody who just wants to project power, look strong. If we take that framing. It's not my framing, but if we take that framing, what. Why would he read that situation so differently? Like, if you're saying that actually is a good thing, why would he target that them? Why wouldn't he go? I mean, he had just come off such an incredible win in Venezuela. Why take the huge gamble in the Middle East? Because I always saw it as Trump is trying to secure the $2 trillion of promised investment. He sees Iran as a destabilizing force. He wants to make sure that, you know, we can get the money into the US Basically into AI infrastructure, protect America, which has just become a financialized hub. But if we would have been better off with instability there, why would Trump move in?

[B]

It's not that I think we would have been better off with instability. The. When I.

[A]

What you just said or did I.

[B]

No, no. What I'm trying to say is the United States, when it goes into any area of active conflict, it's weighing against two opposing outcomes. There's one outcome that is your preferred outcome, but then you always go in with a plan B. What happens if my preferred outcome isn't met? How do I change the narrative? How do I spin the story? How do I capitalize on the momentum that's going to be gained from what I didn't want to have happen? So we have. So if you look at it, if you look at it through this lens, Donald Trump talks to his panel of advisors, Whether it was panel of, panel of advisors pander to Donald Trump or whether they actually give him their honest opinion, none of us know. But they come off of this Maduro raid with, like you said, great success. Look at how powerful the United States is. It carries out this almost perfect mission, capturing a world leader, changing the course of. Of the future for the Western Hemisphere. It's hard not to have bravado coming out of that and say, you know what? Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Because through Donald Trump's eyes, he could be the president that didn't get the Nobel priest Prize, the president who was never supposed to be the forever war president, and he could just decisively carry out these limited, what's called limited war actions in different countries, and he could essentially topple the four major thorns in America's side. Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, Iran. Eventually, like, he could just topple them all in one presidential streak, and that would cement the Trump legacy forever. Whether you like him or not, whether you like the name or not, whether you agree with him or not, he did something that decades of other presidents couldn't do in one term, potentially in two years. Right. If he's trying to beat it, race it in before the midterm. Right. So that's plan A. Plan A is, hey, let's take advantage of this thing and let's, let's do what we're going to do. Iran is like foaming at the mouth to, to destroy the, the Islamic Republic or the Islamic Revolution. He's excited to come in and do this. They've got outstanding intelligence. They've been, They've been preparing for it their whole existence. They are truly. Iran was only ever an existential threat against Israel. Even our own national intelligence.

[A]

Sorry, you said Iran wanted to overturn. Did you mean Israel or Israel, the people of Iran?

[B]

Israel wanted to destroy. Yes, destroy Iran, because Iran is an existential threat to Israel, even though Israel. Iran has been presented to us as an existential threat to the United States. Incorrect terminology, but they were, in fact, that kind of, that level of a threat to, To Israel. So Israel's close, closely supporting us. They have all the intel, they have the weapons, the firepower, everything they need, and plans on the shelf for how they would eradicate the Iranian leadership. So Donald Trump is like, yeah, let's, let's pull this off. Let's do this. Basically, best case scenario, we completely obliterate Iranian leadership. Iran rises up. They need someone to guide them. It will fall to our Sunni neighbors to help rebuild Iran. Everything's in our best interest. What if that doesn't work? Well, if that doesn't work, Iran perseveres and becomes a greater threat in the near term in the region, which then means that our partners in the region need us more than ever. Because now it goes from being a theoretical threat to a clear and present danger. And even if they're pissed about the fact that they're getting bombed because of us, they will still turn to us to be their ally. This is actually documented in the Department of War's 2026 strategy doctrine, where it's called burden sharing, where anything the United States does, our allies should understand that they have to share part of the burden, whatever that burden is, whether it's cost or lives.

[A]

Okay, so has that actually happened? Because the. At least the propaganda that I'm falling for, I guess, is that it hasn't driven them into our arms. It has made them realize that we are not strong enough to protect them. That, as you said, Iran has made a fool of us. And so those guys, they're not looking at us going, okay, I'm mad at you that you got us into it, but you're the strong guy, so we're still going to align with you. Feels more like they're kind of pulling back and saying, yeah, I'm not sure you're going to be the future solution here.

[B]

I agree with you. And I think. And you're seeing that, especially with the UAE leaving. I think they left opec.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

Saudi Arabia is. Is engaging, but not engaging to the extent the United States hoped that they would. Israel. Israel continues to press on or wants to press on. This whole conflict in Lebanon is kicked off. So what. What we're seeing is something that the intelligence world calls overshoot. Overshoot is when you commit more resources than you actually have access to. And we're overshooting on a limited war campaign, which is kind of a double doctrinal violation for us, because even I, when I went through office or candidate school, you learned very early on you don't engage in limited war. Because we learned in Vietnam that limited war doesn't work. And yet when we learned again in Afghanistan that limited war doesn't work. But we continue to execute these limited wars, and then we overshoot, meaning we commit more resources than we currently have access to, to that effort. So now you run the risk of failing to meet your objectives and burning through what resources you need that you don't actually have access to. So Donald Trump is in this sticky position now, and the United States, because we are following the Trump Doctrine, we're all in this sticky situation where we have. We have shown that we can't be trusted, not only by our allies in the Middle east, but our allies in the Far east and our allies in the Western Hemisphere. Nobody really knows what we're going to do next. And none of our promises are really worth much salt anymore because. Because the United States could do anything at once. We unlocked, we opened Pandora's box on the idea of cutting the head off of leadership assassinations and renditions, which we have already deemed to be illegal from our own war on terror. A rendition is what we did of Nichol Maduro. So we've done two. We violated two different forms of international law that we ourselves set in motion. So what does that mean for the future? There's a the instability is greater than it's been in the past, and even the Trump administration is having a hard time helping us understand why we're doing it. Instead, they seem to keep target hopping and the current target now is Cuba

[A]

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[B]

I think the big question there is what's the outcome that we're looking for? If we believe that the outcome Donald Trump is looking for is to follow through on the objectives that they've stated for Iran, which is to end the role of the Ayatollah and to overthrow the government of Iran.

[A]

He has, well, he's banged on recently about nuclear. Nuclear, nuclear, nuclear for sure.

[B]

But nuclear is, as a nonsensical argument, it is. If anybody still believes that there is a nuclear threat from Iran, we have, we have completely let go of, of actual, factual information.

[A]

So that is just pure propaganda.

[B]

That is pure propaganda. The nuclear threat from Iran is pure propaganda. And you can literally read the public documentation going back multiple years from The DNI from CIA, from the nuclear watchdogs themselves, talking about how Iran has enriched uranium to 60%. That is true. 60% is not weapons grade uranium.

[A]

No, but it's on the path. Like you don't need anything over whatever, 16%. I forget what the real number is.

[B]

It's.

[A]

And you said this last time, but my real question is that you, you have Iran going down that path, clearly trying to do something. And then you've also said Iran is a black box. America doesn't have good intel there. And so I start putting those together and I go, I don't know that. In fact, you started by saying there's a lot of this that we're not even allowed to know. So given that, do you look at the actions of the U.S. do you look at the actions of Iran and go, yeah, clearly, forget the documents because again, black box. Maybe we just don't know. Do you get the feeling based on the actions that you can see now, that the nuclear threat is fake?

[B]

I get the feeling based on the actions that we see now that the nuclear threat is misunderstood. We eradicated their nuclear program in July of 2025, according certainly we were told to believe so according to some people. Right. And then we are told now that all they have is nuclear dust. But they seem to have more than nuclear dust. The, the challenge here is also, if Iran really wanted access to nuclear weapons, their indigenous program is just one of several avenues that they would take, especially if they're close allies with both Russia and China. Right. And a, a nuclear threat. A nuclear weapon threat requires both a bomb and a delivery vehicle. And the science required for both of those is incredibly complicated. It's why North Korea has the explosive bomb, but they fail to have the delivery vehicle even years after they've demonstrated that they can detonate a nuclear device. So when we're told that there's a nuclear threat from Iran, what does that mean? Does it mean that they're close to having uranium? Does it mean that they're close to having detonatable uranium, AKA a nuclear bomb? Or does it mean that they have a detonatable uranium attached to a targetable delivery system that can also reach the United States? Those are three very different storylines, but they're all being wrapped together in a way that is incongruent with the message that we've already been told, because as of July of 2025, it was completely eradicated. If you go to the White House's webpage still today, it says, even though the program was eradicated, in July of 2025, we're still going in to make sure something. I don't even know how they're spinning it right now.

[A]

Make sure something, something, something.

[B]

But it's nonsensical. It's nonsensical. And it's. To an intelligent American, it's kind of insulting to be told things that are so diametrically opposed. Two things that can't exist at the same time. A program can't be eradicated, but. But also be an imminent threat. It doesn't make sense. If there's an imminent threat, it's not coming from Iran, it's coming through Iran. So if it's the Chinese that are giving Iran missile technology that's nuclear capable, let's talk about that. Don't just tell us that Iran has a nuclear program that was supposedly obliterated and is apparently still alive. And this is what's the black box. The United States may have little to no intel on Iran, but that doesn't mean that Israel is blind to it. It also doesn't mean that some of Iran's, quote unquote, allies or even countries like Turkey or Japan don't have intel on it. Right. And they could share that intel with the United States. It just means that our own native, original intel is lacking.

[A]

If we're trying to identify what the outcome is that we want so we can determine what's a smart play, what's a dumb play, you're taking the nuclear thing off the table. So if it's not that, are you. Do you have any guesses based on the behaviors that you can see or the things that you know from your training that tell you this is the one or two or three most likely outcomes that they're attempting to achieve right now.

[B]

I think the, the most likely outcome that, that the presidency that the Trump administration is trying to achieve is they're trying to find a way to end active hostilities with Iran. Because we have overshot. We have broken our own doctrine. We don't have an end game, we don't have an exit plan, and we failed to meet the majority of our stated objectives. So how do we end this in a way where essentially the press moves on to something else, the American people move on to something else, the public focuses on something else, and especially they focus on something that's a good news story because the longer we focus on Iran, it's just a confusing bad news story. So that's what they're looking for. And they know they can't do that as long as there's constant hostilities happening. But at the same time, Donald Trump has this. This make America great again mantra that he has to feed. And he has this very radicalized base that believe in Donald Trump even more than they believe in the United States, even more than they believe in, like, democracy and the purpose of the United States. They believe in Donald Trump, so he has to meet their needs, too. And how do you make America great again if you look the other way when there's a battlefield accident? If he were to take that approach, if he were to be able to say that consistently, I think people would follow him. If he were to say right out of the gates, hey, there was a shooting or an aircraft got shot down. We don't know the details yet. We're digging into it, but our American troops are safe. Later on, he might be able to come back and say, you know, it was an accidental shooting. We don't believe that this was intended to be an attack on American troops. You know, and we're telling Iran sternly that we're keeping an eye out for our people. You can do that, but that's not how it starts. Instead, it starts with some radical tweet or some kind of crazy accusation, and you can't walk that back.

[A]

Okay, so in that scenario, if he. So you've said two sort of motivational things for Trump. So one is he wants leverage. Not necessarily peace, but he wants leverage.

[B]

And.

[A]

And he wants an end to the hostilities. So if those are the sort of merged outcome that we want, an end to hostilities, that puts us in a highly leveraged position. What's the play here? What should he do?

[B]

There's two ways to gain that leverage, right? One way of gaining that leverage is to create a peace outcome, a ceasefire outcome, an ongoing protective outcome where Iran is dependent on the United States to kind of protect them as they rebuild, protect them from Israel. Right? So that's what you're seeing as he tries to tell Netanyahu to back off, even as Turkey and Pakistan and other countries tell Netanyahu, hey, don't attack Lebanon, don't attack the Right, don't attack Iran. Israel doesn't listen to them. But once Donald Trump and the United States step in, now Netanyahu temporarily is kind of gagged, right? So that's demonstrating to Iran, hey, you want to negotiate with the United States? Because we can keep the dog on your doorstep out of your yard. That's one way of gaining leverage through peace. But Donald Trump has demonstrated multiple times that he likes to offer the white flag, but then in reality, allow some sort of unannounced or unexpected attack to happen, something, some stick that accompanies the carrot. Right, Right. Some secondary attack, like what we saw with. With the Maduro takedown. So what that means is that countries never know if they can actually trust the outstretched hand. So Iran has to play the game themselves, where they somehow both accept the peace deal, accept the ceasefire, but also have to prepare for when that promise is violated, because it's almost certainly guaranteed that it will be violated. We've been watching this with Donald Trump ever since Elon Musk ran the. Ran. What? I just. I already lost at the efficiency office. Doge. Doge, Right. Elon Musk and Donald Trump were close partners in the whole gaining efficiency of government employees. And Doge cut all sorts of jobs and all sorts of expense out of the government. And then if we recall. Right. The two ended up fighting on Twitter, publicly debating and arguing about everything. And. And Elon Musk didn't get the contracts he was probably expecting to get. But you could see Donald Trump doesn't really have loyalties. He has outcomes that he's aiming for that other people seem to not understand.

[A]

Okay, so is this an eternal quagmire that we are stuck in for the foreseeable future?

[B]

Absolutely. And that's. I've been saying that since the beginning of the Iran conflict. There is no graceful exit for the United States from the Iran conflict. We can turn our back on it and we can let it do its own thing, which abandons our allies in the Middle east and gives Iran the credibility of being able to say, hey, look, Iranian people, everything we've ever told you about the Western devil is true. And despite their superior technology and outstanding information and their alliance with the great devil Israel, we are still here. That radicalizes a whole nother generation. A whole nother generation. And then when you look at that, paired with what Israel has done in Gaza, radicalize another generation of Hezbollah. You're talking about, all we've done is. Is gift wrapped a whole nother two lifetimes for our children and our children's children fighting this radical Islamic threat. Because Hezbollah is going to come back and the Iranian, the radical Shia Islam is going to come back again. And all we've done is cement, make real their accusations for the last decades that we really are just out to undermine them, kill them, destroy them, hold them down.

[A]

Okay. And also, I think they have. Israel has managed to radicalize an entire generation of people in the west as well, which you see that animosity growing by the day mixed with a very healthy dose of what I'll consider conspiracy theory. But not everybody will agree that they're overstepping, but that seems pretty clear to me. But when you put all of that together, is this just the obvious and predictable misstep of a declining empire? Like, how do we make sense of this moment? And for anybody that's trying to step into the future, even if just from a purely economic standard standpoint, how do you begin to predict what the future is going to look like?

[B]

We live in a difficult time for prediction, in large part because we are developing in multiple fronts at a pace and a volume faster than we've ever developed before.

[A]

Develop what?

[B]

Develop. So when we talk about one of the things that CIA tries to focus its officers to. To understand is, is speed and volume. Speed is the. Is the pace at which something moves forward. Volume is the mass at which something moves forward. In our history, if you go back to World War II, if you go back to the industrial revolution, if you even go back to the 1990s, right under. Under President Clinton, pace and volume were slower and smaller. We didn't have tech breakthroughs as large as the tech breakthroughs are we have now. And we didn't develop those breakthroughs at the pace that we developed those breakthroughs now. So the world has always been simpler than it is currently. On top of that lack of simplicity that we used to have, that we now have complexity. On top of that, we also have this thing called systemic interdependence. Our systems are no longer able to survive on their own. They're interdependent with other systems. So AI is inherently bound to. To energy, and they are both inherently bound to labor, because you need human beings to still code part of AI development, and you still need human beings to develop the foundation for the energy sector that's needed for the AI sector. So now, in the past, if any one of those three sectors failed, the other two sectors would be insulated. But we live in a world now where if one of those three sectors fails, the other two fail along with it. Which is why you see so many issues with the hiring freezes in big tech and the development of the advancement of our AI and the advancement of our energy sectors. So because we have this complex system that is systemically interdependent right now, it's very difficult for any of us to know what will happen in the future, because we don't know what failure looks like anymore. We don't know what. What are the telltale signs of collapse right now. So when you look at it through that lens, we look very similar to the Soviet Union in 91 and the Ottoman Empire and the, and the fall of Rome because they were all on the precipice of multiple advances and multiple fields before suddenly it all came crashing down. But that doesn't mean that that's what's going to happen to us. If there's anything I would say, I would say that we're living in a world now that that demonstrates that the primary messaging that we're receiving is inaccurate and it's intentionally inaccurate, which is something that we've never been able to see so clearly in the past. In large part because of the pace and volume of development, of technology, of education, of access to information, we're able to see now that we're being lied to within hours, whereas in the past it might have taken weeks.

[A]

Okay, so that's terrifying to anybody that's old enough to understand the weight of you saying that we're like the Soviet Empire in 91. That's pretty wild. That is the precipice of complete and total collapse. I do think from an economic standpoint, we're on a 10 year clock, probably closer to nine years now in terms of our debt ratcheting up and it just becomes literally fiscally impossible because you will have to inflate the money supply so aggressively to get your 39 trillion down to something manageable that that alone will be insane. So all of that forces me to ask a question that is, am I looking at the real show when I look at Donald Trump, Netanyahu versus the irgc, or is that sort of the puppet layer of the show and there's really a higher level of, call it international money. And the globalists who were like, all right, cool, America's had its moment and now we're going to begin essentially migrating our financial assets to whatever the next play is going to be, whether that's China, whether that's just no longer in any one place. It's going to be, you know, something that's spread out across the globe.

[B]

I going to answer this with a little bit of a, like a story, right? Because I, I've always thought that I was intelligent. I never thought that I was the smartest guy in the room. I don't think I'm the most intelligent person, but I've never thought of myself as dumb. And there are these humbling moments, especially in the last three or five years, where I realize how completely ignorant I was about something that's been around for A long time. And most of those lessons surround themselves with are. Are based on the idea of wealth. And I didn't. I didn't come from a wealthy family. I'm not a wealthy individual now, but I am the first millionaire in my family.

[A]

Let's go.

[B]

Which is very exciting and also shocking

[A]

if you're a millionaire and don't consider yourself wealthy.

[B]

That's wild. But. Okay, but, but the people that. The people that I have to surround myself with now financially know so much more than I ever even realized existed, right? How millionaires protect their wealth, how they grow their wealth, how they invest in ways that don't hide from taxes, but are incentivized by having reduced taxes. And I didn't know any of this even existed, right? So I say that because what I'm realizing now is that the global monetary market, wealthy people, the wealthier they get, they seem to decouple themselves from things like national identity and, and ethnic identity and religious zealotry, because they realize that if they're going to truly protect the asset that they've built, they have to constantly diversify and that their diversification is tied to empirical evidence, not ideological promises. So I say that because I was recently having a conversation with my own investment banker, and my investment banker was saying, hey, this is what we're going to do. This is what I recommend we do with your portfolio. We put 30% of it into China. And I was like, dude, you realize I was almost a prisoner in China. And he was like, yeah, I read your book, but all the numbers show that the Asian market is strong, stronger, growing faster than the United States market. And that's what I would recommend we do. We diversify you in that direction. Not too much and not in anything that we can't pull out very quickly. And there's all sorts of other tricks in the financial market about harvesting losses and all this other stuff. And I was just. But I was stunned because I couldn't say no to that. I have every ideological reason to say, fuck the Chinese. I have every personal, patriotic reason to say I'm not going to do anything that's going to boost the Chinese economy. But when it comes to the bottom line of ensuring a legacy for my children, my children's children, and the opportunity that may be part of that legacy is built on the back of temporary Chinese growth. Like, I say all of that because I think we have to separate. I'm learning that we have to separate the puppet show of politics from the financial reality that is based in objective and empirical evidence, because the one only sometimes is aligned with the other. And the challenge that politicians have is that they have to find a way to get people to take certain financial actions based off of promises that may or may never be delivered. Meanwhile, the wealthiest people out there at most will only partially invest in the promises to diversify against something else. And that's what I would say in response to what are we actually seeing? What we're seeing is Donald Trump has to radicalize a base of people that are not always super wealthy, while recognizing that the super wealthy supporters he has really only need one thing to happen for them to continue supporting him. They need the stock market to go up and their investments to grow. And in all of this chaos, guess what's happened since April? The stock market has grown with a failed embarrassment in Iran. The stock market has grown. The energy index is healthy and going up. Gold has gone down as a, as a reserve currency, but gold as a asset that's being held in international banks has gone up. So wealthy people aren't losing, especially not wealthy people who are properly diversified. So there's two very different. It's like a magic, it's like a magic trick, right? There's a hat, there's a rabbit coming out of the hat, but there isn't actually a rabbit coming out of the hat. There's something happening on the table and behind the curtain that we don't get to see.

[A]

We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. Let's talk about longevity. I'm not talking about living longer in theory. I'm talking about actually building the cellular foundation that makes performance sustainable for decades. If you know me, you know I am obsessed with longevity and with performance. I think about what I eat, what I drink, what I do every day that compounds positively over time. That's why I'm a fan of Nandica from Peak. It's like the Rolls Royce of coffee alternatives for longevity. It's got fresh full spectrum Reishi, one of the most studied longevity mushrooms on the planet, combined with fermented pu erh tea from 250 year old trees and ceremonial grade cacao. So if you're serious about upgrading your energy and thinking in decades instead of days, check out Nandica. Get 20% [e-mail] impact that's P I Q L uelife.com impact let's talk about why selling online marketplaces feels so broken today. 20 years ago, you were selling to a person, you knew them, you knew what they liked. You could set things aside for them. But the algorithm has flattened all of that out. Now you're just a listing in a sea of listings competing on price, hoping someone scrolls past at the right second. The person to person model might be dead, but. But Whatnot is making shopping great again. Whatnot is the largest live shopping marketplace in the country. Sellers go live, show their products in real time, take questions, and build real relationships with buyers. Sellers on whatnot move 10 times more product than on other major marketplaces. And the number of people making over a million dollars a year on this platform has doubled. Buyers spend more than an hour a day in the app. That's not just random browsing. That is people developing a real relationship with the app. Beauty, collectibles, electronics, luxury, fashion, even cookies. Every category. Real businesses are being built in real time on Whatnot. Download the Whatnot app today and get free shipping on your first order. Just search wh at not whatnot in the app store and start scoring amazing deals right now. We'll return to the show in a second, but right now, I want to talk about the slowest part of running a business. It's not the work itself. It's getting the answers you need to do the work. You Message three people wait on two reports. Check four dashboards. And by the time you actually have the clarity you need, you're already behind. NetSuite changes that entirely. You probably already know NetSuite. They're the AI powered business management suite that's trusted by over 43,000 customers. It connects your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM all into one single source of truth. NetSuite Next is the next massive leap for them. AI is now built into everything that you do. Whether your company earns millions or hundreds of millions, this is where Your business meets AI for the first time ever. You can now try NetSuite next for free. If your revenues are at least the seven figures, go to NetSuite AI theory. It's built for every industry, ready for every boardroom. Netsuite AI Theory. And now let's get back to the show. Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action. The bad news is I think a lot of the stuff that people think is behind the curtain is not as behind the curtain as they think. Do you know who Simon Dixon is?

[B]

I've heard the name, but I don't know why.

[A]

Enjoy that rabbit hole. So he's got a really fascinating hypothesis. I'm not yet sure how much of it's true, but I Think it's somebody who can feel an object inside of a black bag. And so he's got a pretty good sense of how hard it is, how big it is. And so he talks about this idea of the MYC fic and tick. Yes, the mcfic and tick. So military industrial complex, financial industrial complex, and technological industrial complex. And he talks about this being like this sort of supra thing that sits over everything else. And these are very much my words. And so he may not recognize my full explanation of his own thing. So people should definitely go check him out. I did an interview with him, which you can see here, I'll point up. So the idea being that they basically, people do not understand how financialized the world is, because people really don't understand how financialized London and New York are. Once you begin to really understand that, to your point, this is global money that's just gonna, the money is gonna go wherever it's going to be treated best. And they essentially move like a locust from one empire to the next, draining, you know, everything they can of its resources. And as a country, this really is heavy. Simon Dixon here. As a country gets to the end of its empire stage, you get into like this hyper kleptocratic, just strip everything that you can because you know you're about to move on to the next one. Now, I'm not entirely sure that it, that it would be possible to coordinate at that level. There are just too many variables that can go wrong, like what's happening in Iran, like even thinking that you can control Trump, even if you're one of his mega donors, there's just too many variables, too many things that could go wrong. But you certainly get closer to what's actually happening when you understand how easily a hyper financialized market is to manipulate that. You can manipulate the price up or down with a single tweet that, you know, I mean, if the numbers can be believed, Trump has made billions of dollars since he's been in office, because he knows a little faster than everybody else when something's about to happen. He's just trading like a fiend. And so that kind of stuff really, I think, begins to reveal the game. And the game is you will not win in this environment if you do not own assets. Now, I hear people call it late stage capitalism all the time. That drives me crazy, because it, it isn't. Capitalism is not your problem. Capitalism is the thing that will save you. We do not have a capitalist system. Capitalism's bad. It does bad things. It's just way better than everything else, far less murderous. So this is not me saying that capitalism is flawless. It is just by far the best system we've seen for pulling people out of poverty. All right, setting that aside for a second, the system that you actually have is not that. The system that you actually have is a layer of people who are incredibly savvy with all the financial instruments, and they understand how to. Like you're saying, you go into the different places where there's something happening. Really easy example for people is the yen carry trade. Now, as I have learned more and more about Japan's actual history post World War II, it is utterly fascinating. It is one of manipulating a culture to tremendous economic effect. Only to have that because it was the US Manipulating their culture, they then start taking off economically because we did a little too good of a job of teaching them how to be extraordinary at it. We end up doing the same thing with China, which we'll get to in a second. But so you teach Japan all these incredible tricks to help them grow back out of World War II because you need them as a bulwark against what was at the time Mao controlled China. So they're as red as you can get, as communist as you can get, as aligned with Russia, which was our big threat, as you can get. So it's like, cool. We need these guys to be capitalists. We need them to be democratic, more or less took to the democratic part, but definitely took to the capitalist part. They go shooting off like a rocket. In the 80s, we realize, oh, like at one point they had something like half the world's wealth. It's. It's a figure so staggering that every time I encounter it, I'm like, I must be misremembering this. It's just absolutely insane. And so we go, well, we can't have that anymore. We start doing protectionist stuff and we sort of backwater them. But they end up the bank of Japan. Through the very unique culture that they have, they end up being this place that literally, after the bubble burst in 89, they can't. Can't get inflation to start. So, like, no matter how much cheap money they try to flood the market with, people just won't spend it. They're so traumatized by the bubble bursting that they just save, save, save, save, save, save, save. And they have this like, we're all in it together mentality. And so they just start making money as cheap as you can. So the rest of the world goes, oh, I get what we do here. They Go to Japan, start borrowing money like crazy because they can get it effectively at zero interest, buy into the US Stock market. The US Stock market is everything for the reasons that you just laid out. All the big donors and all of them need the stock market to keep going. It also fuels our economy. So even the average worker who's not invested in the stock market needs the stock market to keep keep going. And so taking money from the bank of Japan at effectively zero interest rates, pouring it into the US Stock market, largely into the tech sector, it just goes absolutely parabolic. And you realize, oh cool, if you don't understand something like the yen carry trade, like if right now you are thinking about clicking off of this video because you're, everything I'm saying is like some big mystery to you, then that's why you're going to get gobbled up by the current system. It is late stage something. Late stage financialization, late stage mathematical abstraction, late stage gambling. Like all of those would make sense to me. Late stage capitalism does not make sense. It is the layer of people betting on those things, of using financial instruments. Like most people don't even understand how a central bank works or why it is the single most evil thing on planet Earth. All of that to them is just completely confusing. And that is now we've sort of long ago, I think Simon Dixon would agree with most of the things I just said. But we're now deeply in my worldview of that is the game, that's the game of manipulation. So when I'm watching Trump and Iran, I'm like, okay, how does this make sense at the level of the people who understand the financial world, what are they thinking now? The really bad news is I think they think he's a buffoon. And I think they go, nice try, shame about the execution. And I think this was all about getting the dollars that the GCC had done the most phenomenal job of transitioning off of oil into investments, largely into technology. And now all of a sudden Trump in maybe trying to secure that money is just completely fucked it up. I am so aware that the words I'm about to say are never going to come out the way that I think they will. So I know that. So people don't need to waste time clipping this in six months and saying, see, I told you so. I will simply update my thinking. But as of right now, today, the way that this looks like it's going to play out is you've got Iran going. Okay, cool. These dumb asses have had to learn yet Again, if you're not willing to do total war, then the little guy can fuck you up forever. We're now going to charge a toll on the Strait of Hormuz. We'll push all the way to Oman. They might end up having beef with Oman. Who wants to, like, control their half? But maybe they work something out. But they're going to clamp down in that waterway. The Houthis have already said they're going to clamp down on the Red Sea. And so now you've got two waterways that are being clamped down on. I don't think people go quietly into that good night. I think the global community goes, hold the phone. The one thing you can't do is something that messes with energy. To your earlier point about we're all tied to energy. And so it, it creates this level of destabilization that is this insane knock on from what is almost certainly late stage financialization, debt problems on behalf of the US that created populism, that created a demon summoning circle which we, we will pull forth a right leaning demon in the form of Trump, but we'll also pull forth a left leaning leaning demon in the form of Bernie or Mom Donnie. And so it's like, pick your flavor of demon. But they're both results of what I'm for, at least this interview calling late stage financialization. And so you've got that madness which is sort of being controlled by the publisher, but only in as much as you have hyper sophisticated people like Larry Fink at blackrock or the guys that run Jane street who know how to fucking manipulate these markets and make unimaginable amounts of money off of this stuff. And I think that Trump just somehow became the fly in the ointment. I mean, we'll see. I'm sure they also have their plans where it's like, all right, if we get Trump into office and he does something dumb, how do we make lemonade out of those lemons? But, ooh, buddy, none of this feels like anybody could possibly be going, yeah, this is exactly what I hoped would happen.

[B]

I agree with that. I agree. And that was such a strong and extended case, but one that was relevant and powerful for where we stand today. Because essentially what we're saying is there is a reality that has been there that is coming to, for that people are starting to realize. And it's not an encouraging reality. Whether it's the reality that the American president that was reelected by the, by the American people is a buffoon, whether that's the reality that's coming to for a reality that many people thought to be true, other people thought couldn't possibly be true. And I believe that what we will see in November is, is a huge, what I call a blue slap, where people will vote blue not because they believe in blue, but just because they want to put a cap on what the President can do by controlling both the Senate and the House. Because they've come to the conclusion that the President isn't working in the best interest of the United States, maybe doesn't know how to run a country, and maybe is in fact out for his own legacy more so than the American dream, the American promise, the American ideals. If there are still Americans who even believe in those ideas, There are so many Americans right now that are just trying to survive. And when you're, when you're up against not being able to feed your kids versus parroting the American promise, the American dream, you're gonna default to feeding your own kids, even if it means stealing bread from your neighbor. Right? So we're in a very real place right now. It's fascinating to me that earlier in the conversation you said that you're anticipating. I'm, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna use the correct words, but 10 years before we kind of unfuck this mess.

[A]

No, no, no. Before we implode.

[B]

Before we implode, the debt will blow up. So you've given us this 10 year timeline. And what I find fascinating is completely separate from this conversation. I've been talking about the United states going through 10 very difficult years, and I've been talking about it for maybe two years now because of our ideological kind of fits right now, our ideological convulsions right now.

[A]

We. Between the left and the right, between

[B]

ourselves, between what we all believe to be true about America, separate of politics, but what we believe to be true about justice and checks and balances and democracy and freedom of, you name it, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, the right to bear arms, trial in front of a panel of your peers. Like everything we've ever believed about America has essentially been challenged and proven that there's a way around it in just the last two to four years. And the rise of the populist politician is, isn't something that we have to attribute to Donald Trump. It goes all the way back to Barack Obama. So we have these, just like you were saying, we've spawned a demon of the left and we've spawned a demon of the right. And the question is, how do we get back to a world where we aren't spawning demons, we don't have to spawn angels. But how do we get to a place where we're not pulling forth the most aggressive damnation, you know, conflict oriented, manipulative forces? How do we find a way back to checks and balances? How do we find a way back to inviting cordial conversation with different points of view, not just in front of a camera like this, but in front of like actually at the congressional floor? How do we get back to that? How do we stop encouraging extreme activity? Because we have spent, we spent 20 years fighting extremists only to now essentially be radicalizing ourselves. And, and that's not in our best interest. If we plan on maintaining our position as the world's wealthiest country and kind of the global leader, if we plan on giving up that role, we can do whatever the we want. But if you want to keep that role, we have to make some very rapid corrections. Because to my earlier point about money goes where money goes. Wealthy people follow their money and where they diversify their wealth, they also start to diversify their own security and their own safety. And one of the things that makes America so powerful is not just our wealthy indigenous Americans. It's all the wealth around the world that chooses to come here and invest in this economy and invest in this place, this property, this system. And if, if I'm a wealthy Malaysian, I'm looking at some other options right now besides just the United States to put my wealthy money.

[A]

Okay, you've asked the right question now. No vagaries. How do we get back into that place?

[B]

I don't know that America really wants to be back in that place. I am a little, I'm frankly concerned that the vast majority of Americans have become so complacent and ignorant that they won't take the responsibility for the actions that they have to take. They won't seek peace with their neighbors. They won't let go of their political leanings. They won't take the time to research who's on the, on the ballot before they vote. They won't change what they watch, whether it's Fox News or cnn, they won't. They are so ingrained in their behaviors that they're not going to change. Which leaves all the change that we need to the younger generations. And younger generations historically lean, very progressive. They lean to the left. They have big dreams and big ideologies, and they haven't had enough life experience to understand real risk. So what that, what that means is that we will not have the grassroots change that we need and what grassroots change does happen will be very progressive, very left leaning because it will be led by people who don't have a financial stake in the future of their own country. And then that's just going to spawn another counter effort to to counter the left. And then we're right back in the same cycle where we are now. I would love to have an optimistic idea of the future of the United States. I just don't have it. I think the United States is going to go through a full generation of confusion and disarray and it will A solution will either present itself that I can't imagine right now, or no solution will present itself and we will decline as our competitors continue to grow.

[A]

That's it for Part one. Make sure you are subscribed so you don't. Do not miss Part two. Coming up soon. 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. I started Ornod in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on shopify.com.