After Party with Emily Jashinsky - "Daddy" Trump Comes Home From NATO, Sen. Rand Paul on the "Wimpy" Cuts in BBB, and Alex Thompson on Biden's Autopen

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Emily Jashinsky kicks off After Party #2 by discussing "Daddy" Donald Trump's consequential NATO meeting. Then Senator Rand Paul joins the party to discuss the fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel, the intelligence leaks we're seeing in the press, the status of the "Big Beautiful Bill" and the "wimpy" spending cuts, and more. Then Alex Thompson, co-author of "Original Sin," joins to discuss the Biden inner circle vs. House GOP, the truth about the Biden autopen, the Zohran Mamdani victory in NYC, and more. And Emily closes out the party with her take on why Mamdani's win in the primary should be a wake-up call for the left, and the corollaries to the MAGA movement. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, everyone. Welcome. This is episode two of After Party. Thanks for being here. Remember, we are on Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 p.m. So subscribe so that you never miss an episode. We're having lots of fun. Thanks, everyone, for the feedback on our interview with Tucker Carlson. It was a fascinating conversation. It was making some news. I mean, that's always the goal you like to make news. Speaking of which, we have Senator Rand Paul on the program tonight. He is actually going to make, I think, a little bit of news. He's a little bit of news. He talks about Iran, the intelligence, the intelligence assessment, which has been a football all day. You know, is it completely obliterated those nuclear facilities, or is it, according to the New York Times and CNN, just has Iran's nuclear program just been set back a few months? We're going to get the senator's thoughts on that, along with the big, beautiful Bill and his fellow Kentucky Republican, Thomas Massey. So stay tuned for that. We also have Alex Thompson, co-author, of course, of the book, Original Sin.

and a reporter at Axios, he's going to join us to talk a little bit about some pretty interesting developments in the ongoing Biden age scandal, which he has covered. So we're going to dive into all of that and also, of course, talk about Zoran Mondani, the Democratic nominee for Mayor of New York City. So let's begin, though, with something heartwarming. And you'll know what I play this clip exactly what I mean by that. I can mean one second. Here we go. Enjoy this. This is Donald Trump and the NATO Secretary General Mark Ruda, who were speaking today and had a very lovely conversation that then it just kept going. People had a lot of questions about it. You'll see why. I mean, we may do papers on it, Marco, maybe we're going to do papers. I don't even know if you need

them. They're not going to be fighting each other. They've had it. They've had a big, fight like two kids in a school yard you know they fight like hell you can't stop them let them fight for about two three minutes then it's easier to stop them and then daddy has all right wait for it it's about to get good sometimes use strong language to you get to yeah strong language everyone's going after you use a certain word i think we have to join our i mean we may do papers on it marco maybe we're going to do papers i don't even i'm going to stop them and then daddy has to sometimes use strong language to get and stuff There you have it. The NATO Secretary General calling Donald Trump daddy on the world stage, literally on the world stage. And of course, though, this comes as Donald Trump has basically secured commitments from NATO allies to double their defense budgets, their defense spending in NATO. So I suppose it's sort of appropriate that he's being called daddy by the NATO Secretary General. And this just kept going all day, pay close a time.

in this clip to Secretary of State, NSA, archivist, zookeeper, Marco Rubio. The NATO chief, who is your friend. He called you daddy earlier. Do you regard your NATO? Imagine that you are a reporter and you have to say that with a straight face. He called you daddy. Allies as kind of children. No, he likes me.

I think he likes me. If he doesn't, I'll let you know. I'll come back and I'll hit him hard, okay? He did it very affectionate. Daddy, you're my daddy. Mark Rutter, the NATO chief, who is your friend? You're my daddy. Okay, we have another one.

Now, Mark Ruta was asked about this as well. So let's take a listen to, again, we have another serious reporter putting this question to an official. Enjoy Mark Rudo responding. Hello. The language that you have used when talking to Donald Trump has been notable because of its flattery. Today you called him daddy. You sent a text message to him that was gushing with praise.

Is this the way that you feel you have to act when doing business with the US president through flattery and praise? Isn't it a bit demeaning and doesn't it make you look weak? No, I don't think so. I think it's a bit of a question of taste. But I think he's a good friend. And when he is doing stuff, which is forcing us to, for example, when it comes to making more investments, would you ever think that this would be the result of this summit if he would not have been elected president? Do you really think that seven or eight countries who said, yeah, somewhere in the 2030 we might meet the 2%. We've now all decided the last four or five months to get to 2%.

So doesn't he deserve some race? And when it comes to... I'm just stobbing it right there. it go a little bit longer because it's a really good answer. And it's an answer that for the last 10 years, world leaders have been afraid to give. And I can't believe that in the saga of Donald Trump being called daddy by the NATO Secretary General, I'm about to make what I think is a somewhat serious point. But he's basically saying, yeah, if you flatter Donald Trump, which again, if you've taken Donald Trump seriously for the last 10 years, just like voters in the United States took Donald Trump

seriously for the last 10 years, then you understood this is how to deal with him. You can hate Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister Justin. You can hate him. And you can still actually make good deals with him. Do you think Claudia Shinebaum likes Donald Trump? Of course, Claudia Shinebaum does not personally like Donald Trump. But you know what? Call him daddy and you might get a great deal for Mexico or NATO in this case.

And I'm being fastitious, obviously there. but it has been enormously frustrating for the last 10 years to just see the stupidity of world leaders, frankly of Democrats. One person who actually understood this, surprisingly, was Nancy Pelosi, who almost got Donald Trump, if you remember, to agree to come to the table with her on DACA of all things in his first term because she sort of understood the way to deal with him. Now, obviously, that all fell apart because she was being very responsive to her base

and Democrats had different incentives at that point. But if you are the NATO Secretary General, and you know Donald Trump is negotiating, and so one thing that Donald Trump's not going to do, at this point, he is negotiating. So you know that's happening. And you know that the man loves to be flattered. You know that he doesn't love to be slammed and criticized.

Everybody has the Zelensky meeting burned into their brains. You know all of this by now. You didn't even need the Zelensky meeting to understand this. The man wrote a book called Art of the Deal, like 30, 40 years ago. I don't even know when. That was basically a playbook to negotiating with him. And it's just been enormously frustrating to watch the stupidity. It's not even that I think people have, you know, Trump derangement syndrome.

Of course, they have that. And they have their own reasons for not liking Donald Trump. He's insulted a lot of other countries. But again, if you want to maximize whatever negotiation is happening, And again, it's happening. If you want to maximize that, you can. And it's actually not that hard. Now, transitioning to more foreign policy news.

In all seriousness, you know, Trump got these NATO allies, as you just heard Ruta say there, to double their defense spending targets, which was basically thought unthinkable. So if you're a realist on foreign policy, you've kind of watched Trump this week, get a great deal out of NATO, but also then sort of praise NATO, kind of an interesting thing. And then you have also watched him be praised by Jeb Bush for the Iran strikes. And he's been heaping praise on the intelligence community. And that's what I want to talk about next. Donald Trump has convened, or Pete Heggseth, I should say,

defense secretary Pete Hegsafe has announced that he's convening a press conference at 8 a.m. Trump put this out on true social just in the last several hours. And Hegsteth is going to address questions about the intelligence assessment on what exactly happened to Iran's nuclear facilities during the strike. This has become, like I said, at the top of the show, a football all day. And I'm going to share this post. This is from Rahim Qasem, but he posted this truth social. It's very meta.

It's a meta, a post about a post. This is about a truth social that Donald Trump put out regarding reporter Natasha Bertrand, which I think Glenn Greenwald has referred to as like the typhoid nellie of. of the Russia Gate hoax. And if you followed that story, you saw a lot of actually even like mainstream, quote unquote, mainstream media critics ended up looking back on Natasha Bertrand's reporting as really very damaging to the media's credibility at the very least. Very damaging to the media's credibility, but really malpractice, I think is the best way to put it. She kept getting promoted.

She kept getting better jobs as she kept doing bad reporting. It's remarkable, but also in some ways, like the perfect story of how the American media works. Now, Natasha Bertrand's name happens to be on the byline of a CNN story that is saying Iran's, the strike against Iran's nuclear facility. I'm going to share this quickly. The U.S. military strikes on three of Iran's nuclear facilities. You can see it over here last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early U.S. intelligence assessment that was described by seven people briefed on it. Now, Trump is going to obviously, or Pete Hegeseth, I should say, is obviously

going to address this in its news conference tomorrow. But this is being absolutely slammed by the Trump administration, along with a New York Times report that said something similar. Take a look at this. The New York Times lead, very similar to the CNN lead. A preliminary classified U.S. report says the American bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran set the country's nuclear program by only a few, set back the country's nuclear program by only a few months, according to officials familiar with the findings. So you can read those stories and make of them what you will in order to sort of jump on this as part of the Trump administration, CIA director, John Ratcliffe, put out his own statement saying he's confirming CIA intelligence, which contradicts

illegally sourced public reporting regarding the destruction of key Iranian nuclear facilities. Now, this is obviously something that I don't have the answer to because I don't have the intelligence. So I can't tell you what it says or what it doesn't say. I can tell you that I do not trust anything with Natasha Bertrand's byline on it. I can tell you Trump's frustration at Natasha Bertrand, seen here, is entirely reasonable given the years of doing. subduous reporting that she has put out while getting promoted. At the same time, I don't think the New York Times or the CNN reports are being debunked by the Trump administration. The Trump administration spent all day saying its intelligence assessment is that the nuclear facilities

were quote unquote totally obliterated. Ratcliffe's statement is very interesting because he says severely damaged. You can see that in his statement. He doesn't say totally obliterated. He says severely damaged. Iran's doing. nuclear program has been, quote, unquote, severely damaged by the recent targeted strikes. I'm not saying it's impossible that the nuclear facilities were, quote, totally obliterated in the strike. It looked like an incredibly impressive, successful mission. But the question of total obliteration is an absolutely essential one. It's a question that tells us whether we will be back in this cycle within a few months or a few years. It's a question that tells us about the ceasefire.

we now find ourselves in. It feels sort of precarious, but maybe, as Donald Trump said, it will last forever or, you know, whatever forever means by the grading on the curve of Middle Eastern ceasefires. You know, maybe it'll be a long-lasting ceasefire. We don't know right now. And I actually don't think the Trump administration has, as of yet, shown the information to debunk. As much as I distressed leaks, he's absolutely right as well. To be furious about leaks coming from his intelligence community. And that's something that I expect to hear much more from when it comes to Pete Hegeseth, when it comes to the president, they are going to want to know what's happening. Because that's basically the one thing that they said they were going to stop in the intelligence community under

their radar or when the intelligence community is under their purview. So we'll see what happens in the days to come. But I just thought it was worth kind of comparing here what the media is saying versus what the administration is saying, because it's such a critical question. And maybe the administration has it right. It would not surprise me one bit if the intelligence community was selectively leaking things to Natasha Bertrand or the New York Times.

Maybe the New York Times and CNN didn't even see the full report before reporting on it, or there are things that were left out in context that they didn't even get because they didn't know to ask for it. So we'll see. We will see. And we will obviously pay close attention to what Secretary Hegeseth says tomorrow morning. But on that note, I'm now going to queue up this interview that I did with Senator Rand Paul.

Earlier today, we talked around 5 p.m. and we start on this question. What does he make? He is the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee in the Senate. What does he make of the intelligence assessment? What is the current threat? What on earth is going on with the big, beautiful bill? and why does Donald Trump keep talking about Congressman Thomas Massey? All right, take a listen now to Rand Paul. Senator Rand Paul, thank you so much for joining us. Glad to be with you. Now, you're chairman of the Homeland Security Committee,

and I want to start with the question of Iran. The White House is right now absolutely insisting that the nuclear facilities, according to leaked intelligence reports to CNN and the New York Times, which are contradicting the White House. I should say, the White House is saying they've been, quote, totally obliterated and that the reports leaked to the New York Times and CNN were, quote, inconclusive, low confidence. CIA director John Ratcliffe just said those sites were, quote, severely damaged. So I wanted to start by asking if you share Donald Trump's confidence,

the White House's confidence, that these facilities were destroyed and that Iran was set back years, as he's saying. You know, I can only go by news reports at this point. I've not had any briefing. We're supposed to get a briefing tomorrow on the end of the end. intelligence, and that'll be one of the questions I ask. You know, what is the estimate of the damage? We do know that there are news reports that 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium may have been taken from the site before the bombing started. We also have some reports that the systems and the centrifuges and the nuclear enrichment

program might be set back months, not years. But, you know, a lot of these things will be debated over time. It's not like the Iranians are going to invite us in and say, oh, hey, let us show you the damage. You know, we're not going to see that. It'll be aerial photos, satellite photos, informants. And the truth is always the best we can make of the intelligence that we have. But I think it's probably wishful thinking to think it's destroyed everything and, you know,

they're done for and they won't do this again. It's a possibility, but it would take actually the will of the Iranian government to say they won't. And I think it's unknown which way they'll go. Now, I agreed with you last week ahead of Donald Trump's strike that a likely outcome would be long-term escalation and American deaths. I think it's probably still true that was a likely outcome, but it's also true right now that that has not been the case. So I asked Tucker Carlson this question on Monday, but do you feel you were wrong to worry

about catastrophe ahead of those strikes? Well, I think we're still not out of the woods yet. We don't know exactly what the response will be. One response will be that as Iran is chastened and there are no longer going to have a nuclear program, but the other response is that they will hasten and actually move on into a sprint towards a nuclear weapon. If that happens, you know, the warnings will have been well-founded. If next week, Iran comes forward, they meet with the U.S., and they say, we're sorry, we never

really wanted to develop a bomb, and we're going to discontinue all nuclear enrichment, and we want to be friends, then they will have done the right thing. So, but knowing what the outcome is, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a calculation. estimated estimate or a calculated guess in advance, and it still is. So it'll either be seen as a genius move if they stop enriching and they discontinue their program, or it'll be seen as a reckless move if they move on to a weapon. And we just don't know the answer yet. Just in the immediate near term, do you feel that the ceasefire is fragile,

that the risk for escalation still exists right now, potentially in the next even couple days, couple weeks? Yeah, no, I think the risk for reengagement is actually still very real. I appreciate President Trump's desire not to get involved in a land war, desire not to escalate it beyond this. And so, like I say, time will tell. But I would say the ceasefire is uneasy at this point. Yeah.

Now, I want to move on to the big, beautiful bill. Your colleague, Chip Roy, on the House side posted earlier today that the BBB quote was not where it needed to be in the House, but it's markedly worse in the Senate. He also said, quote, if Senate rumors are true, once to the House, it one potentially adds over $1 trillion to the deficit in the budget window. Two fails to terminate the green new scam, leaving hundreds of billions of subsidies in place. So I wanted to ask, Senator, from what you know about the text of the Senate bill right now, do you agree with Congressman Roy?

I would call it the big, not yet beautiful bill. I think it still has a lot of imperfections. I believe the tax cuts are a good idea. I supported them in 2017. I like the idea of making them permanent. I think the idea of having immediate expensing for big equipment for manufacturing is a great idea. So the tax portion of it I'm enthusiastically for. The spending cuts, I think, are wimpy and anemic and are many of them fake, not real.

And I believe that over the next two or three years, the deficit will get worse because of this bill. My main objection, though, is actually the raising of the debt. ceiling 5 trillion. This is the largest increase in the debt ceiling we've ever had in our country. I think it's a guarantee that we are going to borrow 5 trillion more, which means in all likelihood the deficit will go up. I asked Secretary Bacent just this week. He came to our Republican lunch, and I asked him if the deficit will be bigger or smaller. And he wasn't real definite on that. He seemed to think that maybe the deficit would be smaller in terms of the GDP. But I disagree. I think when you have these tax cuts go into place, not the continuation of the 2017,

but the new tax cuts are put in place. Inevitably, revenue will go down for the first year or two. If you get economic growth, it may come in and bring in more revenue ultimately over time, but I think you'll get less tax revenue in the first year or two, and you're going to get about $500 billion in new spending. There's $150 billion for military, $150 billion for border. there's $100 billion just for miscellaneous favors to pass out to people to get them to vote for the bill.

And then there's another $100 billion they're talking about now for hospitals. So they say, we're going to save money on Medicaid and then say, oh, but it's going to hurt the rural hospitals. So we need to save on one hand $100 billion, then we're going to give them $100 billion on the other hand. But we know there's $500 billion worth of spending in the bill. That will happen. That's real.

We know that one of the savings is getting rid of the Biden forgiveness of student loans. But they aren't doing that. The courts have ruled it unconstitutional, and it isn't occurring. So we're going to save $300 billion that really is never going to be spent. Is that a real pay for or a fake pay for? The bottom line is the only way we have to determine what the truth is, is add up what comes in in revenue, what goes out in spending,

and look at what the deficit will be. In September, I predict the deficit will be about $2.2 trillion. fast forward into the next year, I think it'll be 2.5 to 2.8 trillion because I think tax revenue goes down and spending goes up. And conservatives across the country are going to be a year from now scratching their head and say, what happened to Doge, what happened to the cuts, what happened to the idea of conservative government when they see that the deficit next year will be greater than this year? And I wish I had more allies, but there aren't enough of us. but if there were four of us saying,

take the debt ceiling off of this, we're not going to be responsible for the debt. The Democrats should have to vote for this. I think we could do it. But as of now, the spending levels are owned by the Republicans. In March, all Republicans, other than me and a few others, voted for the spending levels. So they're no longer Biden spending levels.

They're Republican spending levels as we speak. When we vote, when the debt ceiling vote comes up and Republican voices and votes approve it, So it'll be Republicans responsible for the spending levels. Republicans were responsible for the debt. And what happens to the rallying cry when elections come up and we say, Democrats are the borrowers and the spenders? Well, guess what?

Now the Republicans are the borrowers and the spenders and the difference, the distinction is going to be lost and we have lost our moral footing and lost our ability to make unhypocrical arguments. Yeah. Well, it seems like maybe the White House is having success on one of your allies. That would be Senator Ron Johnson.

and I think we can put this up on the screen, who said this week that the White House is working with him to get his vote by promising a budget review panel. I don't totally know that we have the full details on what that would look like. I don't think the senator is full details of what that would look like. Lindsay Graham is also floating the idea of a second reconciliation package, according to Politico, that would apparently appeal to fiscal hawks, sort of promising you a budget review panel promising maybe a second bill.

Would either of those things get you to a yes, senator? Sounds like kicking the can down the road to me. No, I don't accept the promises. Promises in Washington are not kept. And the idea that we're going to have a smaller deficit or less spending, we're going to have more spending next year and a higher deficit. Those are the only conclusions that come from all of this. Even if this bill turned out to be neutral, let's say it didn't add anything to the debt, we're still accumulating debt at about $2 trillion a year. That would be, I think, the best case scenario is that this the debt stays the same. But I think the debt goes up next year. I think we're going to have a significant increase in the debt. And I think people are going to scratch their heads and be disappointed and say, I thought Republicans were different than Democrats. And this, I mean, I don't envy you because it's an interesting cost-benefit analysis type

scenario where if you push too far, you end up losing a Susan Collins, for example, or a Lisa Murkowski. And then if you don't push far enough, you end up with a bill that adds to the deficit, which is something that Republicans and yourself included have staunchly promised to tackle. So I guess if I put my Donald Trump hat on and I were him questioning you, Senator, I would say, well, isn't it better to get all of these tax cuts

and no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, child tax card, all of that, then nothing at all. Yeah, a lot of my supporters are for the tax cuts, and I am for them too. I voted for them in 2017. And what I've told people is if I'm the deciding vote, they will negotiate. If I'm not the deciding vote, they won't negotiate. So if they have 49 votes and they need my vote, all they have to do is separate the debt ceiling.

They don't want to do this, so they won't unless they need me. But if they need me, I'm perfectly willing to vote for the bill with its imperfections if they remove the debt ceiling from it. So they would get all the substance of the bill. They would get the tax cuts, which I'm for. They would get the spending cuts as meager as they may be. and the only thing they would have to do is have a separate vote for the debt ceiling, and they'd probably get that too.

Look, what happens typically in the past is they put the debt ceiling on a vote to keep the government open. So government opens, government closes. Everybody freaks out, got to keep the government open. The Democrats have historically always voted to raise the debt ceiling. This will actually be the first time the debt ceiling has gone up with only Republican votes. It typically goes up with all the Democrats, and then a half-year-old. handful of the big government Republicans. But the big government Republicans are loving it this time because they've they've hoodwinked,

they've tricked, they've tricked the conservatives and it's saying, oh, just vote for this. It's no big deal. But guess what? Once conservatives vote for this, that's who they are. We lose our high moral ground. We lose our argument. And that's, to me, this is, it's devastating to the conservative movement in our country. It's devastating to those who believe in limited constitutional government, who believed in

that before there was a Donald Trump, and we'll believe in that after there is a Donald Trump, because this is a movement of people who truly believe that the founding fathers were right, that government should run balanced budgets, that it should be limited in scope, that the federal government should not do things unless they are expressly granted those powers in the Constitution. The powers not granted are left to the states and the people, respectively. This is a movement that isn't about a person. This is a movement that has been, for my entire life, really there's been a strong sort of libertarian conservative movement since World War II. And I fear that that movement is crumbling from within as we go along with something

that is inconsistent with our ideals. Now, actually, on that note, Thomas Massey, a fellow Kentucky Republican, is taking a lot of incoming from President Trump, who is now threatening him with a seemingly more serious primary challenge. There's a PAC, I think, that's a super PAC that's been formed. Do you think that Congressman Massey can keep his seat even with that serious threat from Donald Trump? You know, there's no one more faithful to the Constitution in the House of Representatives than Thomas Massey.

There's no one more fiscally conservative. There's really no one more thoughtful about the issues and about limited government than Thomas Massey in the House. I will support him. I've always supported him. I will support him again. I will campaign physically for him. And I found that he's very popular.

When I'm up there, I was in Northern Kentucky a week or two ago talking with people who are my supporters as well as his supporters, and he's very popular up there. So they can try to beat him, but not as easy as it sounds. You know, he's very well known around his district. He travels around his district. He's a very, I call it a home-spun sort of humorous way of presenting things. And he's a truth teller. People say to him what I often hear.

I don't always agree with you, but I trust you. You're honest, you're forthright, and you were always, you know, trying to work for, you know, bringing about balanced budgets and smaller government. And I think he'll end up being fine. Yeah, I mean, that seems to be the case. I remember talking to him in 2017, he told me this really interesting story

in my colleagues at the Washington Examiner at the time that when he was out campaigning for you and for your father, Around 2012, 2014, he remembered going to county fairs and all of these campaign stops and thinking, wow, all of these Kentucky voters are super fired up about libertarian ideas. But then in 2017, he said he reflected on that and realized that everyone just wanted to vote for the, quote, craziest son of a bitch in the race, which I think is accurate in some respect. But also, people do want the budget to be balanced. People do want fiscal sanity. in Washington, D.C. So my last question to you, Senator, is basically like, that speaks to a sense of populism,

but also something that's rooted in just appreciating people who tell the truth and seem to believe what they say they're telling you. That seems to be something that goes so far in campaigns, even when you get challenged by the president. I think honesty goes a long way. People have often said to me, well, Social Security's the third rail. Don't tell people what will be necessary to fix it. And I told them in my first election.

I've told them in every election, every speech I've ever given, you have to raise the age of Social Security. And people say to me, they say, well, do you hate old people? And I say, well, no, I aspire to be one. I'm well on my way. And I want Social Security to be for me, for my family, for others. I know people depend on it, but that's why I'm trying to fix it. And, you know, when you tell people that, they look at you from all-income walks of life, and they don't think I'm trying to hurt them.

They don't think I'm like a malevolent person trying to end Social Security. People are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. And politicians are a lot wimpier than they even appear to be. And they refuse to talk about it. But Social Security's gotten a lot more difficult. When I offered a bill to gradually raise the age 12 years ago, it fixed two-thirds of the shortfall for 75 years. The same proposal now to gradually work up to 70 fixes it for six months.

Because all the baby boomers retired in the last 12 years, We're almost a couple more years, all the baby boomers will be retired. They're all in the system. It's this enormous population of people, and we didn't fix it. And so we're behind the eight ball now. And if we do nothing, what happens is the poorest among us,

those who depend on social security completely for their rent, their electricity, and their eat, they will have a 25% cut in the next few years. 2034 is the date, but I think it may be speeded up, because if interest rates go up anymore, our interest payment is just sucking everything else, sucking all the air out of the room. You know, we're at a trillion-dollar interest payment

and we're paying about three and a half. As that interest rolls over, if interest rates continue to rise and we go to five or even six percent for our government debt, then we're talking about $2 trillion in interest payments. That could happen. I mean, do people not remember, 1979? We had 18 percent interest rates.

as people lost confidence in the dollar. If people don't show up to buy the treasury bills, the bonds that are being sold by government, the only way you get them to buy them is by offering them more interest rates. The supply and demand thing, and if people don't want to buy your debt because you got too much out floating around out there,

the payment or the interest rate goes up, but then it's a huge problem, which could happen precipitously. It might not happen gradually over the next 10 years. It could happen in six months. Nobody knows the future, but it could happen precipitously. precipitously, not gradually.

Senator Paul, thank you for your optimism. Much appreciated your time. Always good to hear from you. Next time we'll talk about optimism. Perfect. Mark it on the calendar. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you.

Okay. Well, if you were watching this live on YouTube, by the way, I was just in the chat because, like I said, that was pre-taped around 5 p.m. So it gave me time to talk to all of you. So make sure to do that in the future. I will be there. Now, I want to tell you, though, this month, Tax Network USA proudly celebrates our nation's birthday, honoring freedom, resilience, and financial independence.

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Now, I am very excited to bring in Alex Thompson, who is co-author of the book Original Sin. Also, of course, a political correspondent, the national political correspondent over at Axios. Alexeos, Alex. thank you so much for being here. Oh, my gosh. Nearly as many colorful thoughts about Mark Levine as Tucker Carlson did the other night, but I'll do my best to be entertaining. So I actually had a quota before we brought you in. You were going to have to say at least five mean things about Mark Levine.

I guess you're just checking out already. Well, you didn't say Laura Lumer. Maybe there would be a different standard there. But anyways, we can probably move on. Am I told that you have a beer? I think I always told me. Well, because you had one on your. Monday show. And your excellent producer, Kelly, was like, you know, feel free to bring a beer.

So, yeah, I got my flying dog right here. Oh, beautiful. Okay, great. Well, perfect. There's nothing like beer and breaking news. And Alex, you had a scoop today that I really wanted to talk about because it's kind of this ongoing question of what we're going to know. It's important to this ongoing question of what we're actually going to learn about the Biden cover up that you covered. in book length with original sin. So we can put this story that you wrote up on the screen. This is F3. This is how Trump is now denying nine former Biden aides executive privilege.

And then what happened today, Alex, I'm actually just going to let you explain it because you know the players better. This story then turns into another story. People dropping out, not wanting to testify. If there is no executive privilege, probably understandable if you're them. So tell us what you reported today on Axios. Yeah, so today Anthony Bernal, who is Jill Biden's top aide and also one of the most powerful people in the White House, abruptly dropped out of his interview, which was scheduled for tomorrow. And, you know, the chairman

of the oversight committee, James Comer, essentially said, hey, this is because the dropping of executive privilege, someone familiar with Bernal's sort of going back and forth, the then said, oh, you know, it was just a scheduling issue. James Comer then said he was going to subpoena, Anthony Bernal, and this is very quickly turning into a mess. Now, the reason why this is significant is because most presidents as just sort of protocol as a way of protecting the executive branch just usually do not waive executive privilege, even if their predecessors were from another party.

Obama, you know, protected executive privilege for George, Bush, George Joe Bush, did it for Bill Clinton, on and on, and on. Now, Joe Biden did not do this in very specific instance of the January 6th Committee. And it was acknowledged that in the letter that Trump's White House sent waiving executive privilege to the former Biden aides was phrased very, very similarly to the letter that the Biden White House sent to former Trump aides about January 6th, which is basically, it's not in the national interest. These are extraordinary circumstances.

And we are going to see because at the moment, they basically sent this letter to all of the top Biden aides who had already agreed in principle to a voluntary interview. Interestingly, they did not send one of these letters to Dr. Kevin O'Connor, who is Joe Biden's personal physician, who did already refuse the voluntary interview, already was subpoenaed, and is now set to be deposed on July 9th. Hmm. Okay, so let's take a look at this clip of Nira Tandon and Alex, I mean, some people know who Nira Tandon is, she's especially popular with the populist left, obviously, I'm kidding, but let's roll S5 here and you can tell us a little bit about what it means and what it pretends for the future. I just spoke with the House Oversight Committee, majority and minority council. I answered every question, was pleased to discuss my public service, and it was a thorough process and I'm glad I answered every question. Was there an effort to disguise President Biden's condition? Absolutely no.

Okay, so problem solved, Alex. Nothing surprising there from Narotanin this week, obviously, but is this what it's going to be like indefinitely from your sense? I mean, as you have sources, obviously, that you spoke with for Original Sin and for your reporting in ACios, is your sense that this is basically how it's going to play out indefinitely into the future? You know, I really don't know, which is why I actually wrote the stories, because they have, there has been some interesting moves that have made me feel they might actually uncover some new things that I was not able to get in my reporting with CNN's Jake Tapper about this story, you know, in part because we don't have subpoena power. I mean, the fact that they are going to get the president's personal physician under oath under subpoena is interesting. The fact that Neeratandin, while obviously was defensive, not just in public, but also in private, according sources that were in the room, you know, her opening statement was a little, you know, was very carefully worded

and that she said that after of May of 2023, her interactions with the president were very limited. Now, if you read our book, while Joe Biden lapses had, you know, trouble remembering people's names years before that, that his decline and the rate of it significantly increase, according to our reporting, starting in the summer of 2023. And so I did think it was interesting that she noted that in her opening statement, that her interactions were much more limited after she stopped being staff secretary. And it wasn't that she left the White House.

She was the chief domestic policy advisor after that. And our reporting also shows that especially starting in late 20203, that the inner circle of the White House basically limited access to members of the cabinet, other senior members of the White House to an extraordinary extent. And we even had one person said it was intentional that it was to hide the extent of his decline from the broader apparatus of the White House. And I've really seen a lot of chatter just concentrated on the right about the Autopenn's scandal, but Neartandah, I believe, is implicated in that, right, Alex?

Well, so New York Times was staff secretary before she was domestic policy advisor. And staff secretary is one of those jobs that sounds honestly not very important, but is actually one of the most important people in the government and thus like in the United States. They essentially control all the paper flow in and out of the White House. Now, you know, using an auto pen is not that unusual. You know, Harry Truman started using it fairly frequently. but what has been pointed out, and this is an analysis that I haven't independently corroborated to be clear, but there is an analysis, and I'm working on that, but there is an analysis from the Conservative Heritage Foundation that suggests that Joe Biden started using the autopen much more frequently, beginning in 2023 and 2024.

And if that's the case, some of that would go through, or if not some, all of it. it, depending on how it would work, traditionally, all paper goes through the staff secretary's office, would go through. And so the staff secretary would certainly be part of it, which is, I think, why James Comer wanted to make sure that she was brought in, because she was staff secretary basically through all of 2022 and to the first five months of 2023. When you said Harry Truman used the autopen, I was picturing like a wind up. I'm trying to think of what it's in the 1940s. I get to wind it up. And then I'm just, It's a great question. I actually have no idea. And it's also weird because Joe Biden at one point, I do remember reporting the story in like spring of 2022. He literally had a national security aid. I think it was the Ukraine aid bill, fly from Washington, D.C. to Tokyo with the actual physical bill so he could physically sign it. So like he did, he sometimes used it sometimes then, but there are some interesting questions raised.

by a, you know, it's not really in our book because no one mentioned it before, but I have been interested in some of the analysis of the increasingly frequent use of it in 2020, and 2023 and 24. Well, I was going to say, actually, that anecdote about the bill being flown to Tokyo raises interesting questions about why, if the president made a point about that at one time, does that mean that he wasn't the one calling the shots at other times? I'm not saying that's the case at all, but it's an interesting point of comparison. And Alex, I also wanted to get your take on the Zaraamamani news in New York City, and I know you've been following this.

It's interesting because I actually have this weird take that it's really similar to what, not similar, it's really directly related to what you report in original sin, which is that we saw public trust in institutions come into the COVID pandemic already at lows, record lows in some cases, for example, with media. and then after the pandemic, it just accelerated a lot of those trends. But I feel like for the left, it wasn't really until the Biden scandal that the damn broke. And an institutional trust and the sort of built-in goodwill that Democratic voters who have rewarded loyalty very often in the past had towards an Andrew Cuomo. It sounds crazy. But I just feel like there's something to that. I don't know. What do you make of what happened in New York City last night?

Well, so I'll give you a preview. I actually have a story about this coming tomorrow morning in Axios, which, you know, a lot of Democrats, prominent Democratic strategists in New York completely agree with what you said. And it goes even beyond that. It goes also to the point of the Democratic establishment of New York City propping up a candidate that their centrist candidate was an older, long time, you know, like Democratic politician. You're telling me he's old, but he has a nipple ring, Alex. So he's hip, at least. He's young at heart. You know, I had memory hold that factoid, and I'm now upset at you for reminding me. I had to think about it, so you did. Grateful. And I think there was this idea that it's like, you know, he's the best, and we're just going to pour money into him,

and we're going to ignore, you know, our voters, right? Like the voters were very clearly not completely on board with this idea. I mean, he did have to resign for a reason from being New York governor. And the entire Democratic establishment just sort of sleptwalked into this situation where now many. I mean, it is crazy that both of the leaders, the Democratic Party and both House of Congress are both from New York. And they both did not endorse the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor. today. They said they praised his campaign. They said, we're going to talk later, but they didn't endorse him. I mean, that's shocking and that's crazy. And I do think there is something, you know, where

the Democratic establishment is just convinced this is the best candidate, eat your vegetables, and, you know, even as voters are telling you no, you ignore them. And I think, you know, that not only happened in 2024 with the lead up to. to Joe Biden. I think you could also argue it happened in 2016 with Hillary Clinton as well. And so I talked to several strategies today that said, you know, this is a classic Democratic. And also the response from the Democratic establishment today has mostly been, is there any other way we can beat this guy? And, you know, a prominent strategist told me it was like it's a classic example where the day after it's more about lashing out than introspection. And I do think there is like a bit of a culture where they just thought,

hey, listen, he has Bill Clinton's endorsement, Michael Bloomberg's, Jim Clyburn. Like, he's got it. Jim Clyburn, the, I was going to say the kiss of death, but I'll say the kiss of success, really. I mean, it was the kingmaker for Joe Biden in 2020. And they were just like, got to bring him in, even though he's a South Carolina representative, you know, going into a New York mayoral race. Yeah, of course. Who could. win the New York mayoral race without Jim Clyburn. Let's put, this is F4 on the screen. Donald Trump unloaded on Zoroamundani today. Did not call him. This was a post on X, so I can't take credit for it, but like, Kami Mamdami, would have been good. Trump posted on True Social has finally happened.

The Democrats have crossed the line. Zoran Mamdani, a 100% communist lunatic, has just won the Dem primary and is on his way to becoming mayor. He then goes on to say, even our, quote, great Palestinian senator, Crying Chuck Schumer, is groveling over him. Yes, this is a big moment in the history of our country. But Alex, what's interesting is that contradicts what you just laid out, that Democratic leadership is really hesitant to embrace Moundani. That's obviously true. Another president that said nothing about Zoro Mamm Dani actually sees himself as the leader of the party still, and that would be Barack Obama, said absolutely nothing about him. So the establishment wing of the Democratic Party does not fully want to own the democratic socialism of Soran Mamdani so far.

But in a weird way, and I'm curious for your take on this, that might be what helps him. It depends on what Cuomo does. But there's this interesting balance, this tightrope he now has to walk between culture war issues and the economy. His primary was all about the economy. His campaign comms director told me last night, it was a quote unquote, relentless focus on the economy that put them over the edge. And I feel like that just, you'll, it's extra hard to do that when you're running against a candidate and Eric Adams or candidates that are going to hit you over the head with your old tweets about, what was it,

like the anti-feminist or like the queer feminism and the racism of the NYPD, like all of those things that just feel like DSA, circa 2018. Now you're running for mayor of the whole city. It's going to be a very odd balance for him. Well, and he was able to thread that needle in the primary, in part because there was a flawed frontrunner. And now you have a situation where the Democrats obviously want to win the race and they have somebody who has all of this, you know, he has his own baggage. It's never tweet, I guess, is really the – because there are a lot of tweets

that are going to be in every single ad for a long time. But also, as you pointed out, you know, Donald Trump doesn't care that the Democratic establishment is, you know, a little bit wary. He's already saying, oh, they already did it. They already have embraced them because the Republican Party, lots of parts of the Republican Party, would love for him to win because they believe that the mayoralty would be really tough for national Democrats and could be used to try to, you know, attach his national brand of his. him and AOC, you know, going forward for his entire four years. But your also point is true, which is that he, his entire primary, was really speaking to what I think some of the establishment figures just did not recognize is the incredible anger among the Democratic base and not just over cultural issues, over economic issues. And they felt that no other candidate was speaking

to them. And so he is going to continue that. And I think you're going to see an affordability the focus campaign the next five months. And Alex, before I let you go, I just wanted to say that you have put yourself at the center of such a polarizing, like the most polarizing conversation in American politics for the last couple of years. And, you know, like, Megan and I had a conversation about it.

Like there's been a lot of, I think, fair criticism and unfair criticism, but I just want to say, I feel like you've handled it so gracefully and so well. And I just really appreciate talking to you and you coming on the show tonight. Well, that is incredibly kind. I really hope, and I don't expect it will be the last time that we talk. And, you know, if you're not making trouble, then what are you doing? That's right. You sure as hell aren't doing journalism if you are not making trouble. Absolutely. Alex Thompson, he's the co-author of Original Sin and the National Political Correspondent at Axios. Thank you so much, Alex. So great being here. Awesome. Well, let me tell you about a story about a guy named Leo Grillo. While on a road trip, Leo came across a Doberman and this dog was severely underweight and clearly in trouble,

Leo rescued that Doberman. You can see him on the screen and named him Delta. Great name. Sadly, Delta was just one of many animals that needed help, which inspired Leo to start Delta. Rescue the largest no-kill, care for life, animal sanctuary in the world, in the whole world. So they've rescued thousands of dogs, cats, and horses from the wilderness, and they provide their animals with shelter, love, safety, and a home. This dedication and everlasting love to animals is Leo's mission and legacy. Delta Rescue relies solely on contributions from people like us, and if you want caring for these animals to be part of your legacy, speak with your estate planner because there are tax-saving estate planning benefits. Two, you can grow your estate while letting your love for animals live well into the future.

Check out the estate planning tab on their website to learn more and speak with an advisor. We call dogs man's best friend for a reason so you can help those dogs who need it most by visiting deltarescue.org today to learn more. That's deltarescue.org. I want to talk a little bit more about Zoron, Mom Donnie, just before we wrap the show here because I find this story to be very interesting. I had the opportunity back in November, actually, to interview Zaraamam Dani. This was on Breaking Points with Ryan Grim. I believe Ryan set the interview up, and nobody had any idea who Zeran Mammani was. He was like a Democratic Socialists of America, assemblymen in New York State,

and was very obviously from that wing of the broader left of the progressive movement. So not a whole lot for Zaron and me to even debate, but I found him really interesting and could tell that he was pretty talented, like just in a political sense, pretty talented. So I'm obviously surprised by what happened last night. Everybody's surprised that he beat Andrew Cuomo in the first round with a pretty healthy margin. The polling didn't show that happening. But I actually think that this is an interesting story for reasons that don't have anything to do purely with the polling. politics and go sort of deeper into our culture. And I want to start actually with this post on X, where it says, to understand Zoron, you must understand this and refers to an email that Peter

Teal sent to the Facebook team. And this is, I mean, some real big names on this email chain. Mark Zuckerberg, Nick Clegg, Charles Sandberg, Mark Andresen are on this, sent January 5th, 2020. And Teal goes on to say, I certainly would not suggest that our policy should be to embrace millennial attitudes unreflexively. Could not agree more, Peter. I would be the last person to advocate for socialism. But when 70% of millennials say they are pro-socialists, we need to do better than simply dismiss them by saying that they are stupid or entitled or brainwashed, we should try to understand why. And from the perspective of a broken generational compact, I'm reading this whole thing because I think it's really relevant here.

There seems to be a pretty straightforward answer to me, namely that when one has too much student debt or if housing is too unaffordable, then one will have negative capital for a long time and or find it very hard to start accumulating capital in the form of real estate. And if one has no stake in the capitalist system, then one may well turn against it.

Very well said, very salient, I think, even though this was written in 2020 by Peter Thiel. Obviously, Peter Thiel is a Republican donor, brilliant libertarian thinker, whether you agree with him or disagree with him, and part of the most powerful group of founders in Silicon Valley and has been for many years. So this is an interesting assessment from him. And I do think it's relevant to Mamdani. I would even extend it to say when he points out that people find it very hard to start

accumulating capital in the form of real estate, think about that actually just in a local context in New York City. You've lived in New York City. You love New York City. You are 30 years old. You're 32 like I am. And you look at your life and have basically no hope of ownership in the city, period. Like you'll have to definitely go out of the city into greater New York. You'll have to go to New Jersey, you'll have to figure out, or you'll rent for life, right? And part of, I think, what makes a lot of small town America work, and Thomas Jefferson understood this, but part of what makes America work for sure is that so many people own physical stakes in their immediate local surroundings, this is even more important as everything becomes digital, as so much of our

lives are out, we put so much of them into, we export them into the virtual world. And we lose our physical investments. And I'm not talking just about financial investments, although obviously homeownership and property, all of those things are financial investments. And people have rented for years and years in New York City, as long as New York City has been New York City. There's no question about that. But ownership is really important. And it makes you feel like you have a stake in a community. It makes you feel. feel like you have a stake in a building, a stake in a neighborhood. Maybe you own a small business. Maybe you, uh, you know, work in an office building. This is something so small,

speaking of non-financial investments, uh, that has such big ripple effects. You work in an office building where the doorman lives down the street from you and you are going to lunch from 12 to one with your other friends who work in the building. Maybe you meet your spouse that way. I mean, And all of these things are what happens when we invest physically in the world around us. And I wanted to make that point in the context of what Peter Thiel said since it's going viral here now. But also just if you are, again, somebody who voted for Zoran Lom Dhani, take a look at what Rod Dreher posted on his substack. It's Rod Dreher's diary. If you're interested, it's a very interesting subscribe.

but he posted this. Left-wing voters in New York City, like their Maga Pierce nationally nine years ago, lashed out against what they regard as a failed liberal establishment electing a charismatic populist who promised a clear break with the past. We on the right can shake our heads and laugh at how dumb New York liberals and progressives were to choose a Canada as politically inexperienced and radicalism. Donnie is, but don't miss that this was also a referendum on the Democratic Party itself and the party's style of politics. And you may be thinking, that's apples and oranges, maybe you're a Trump supporter, and you say, that's apples and oranges. Donald Trump had decades of real estate experience, business at the highest level, politics at the highest

level, for example, when he was saying he knew the system, so he alone could fix the system. Zoroamam Dani obviously does not have decades of experience. He's 33 years old, I believe, and, you know, it doesn't have anything near even decades of a real estate career, let alone a political career or a business career or a long career somewhere else that would allow him to bring a lot of experience into City Hall. I mean, I think the point about his experience is entirely legitimate

and it'll be litigated throughout the rest of the campaign. But, but in the sense that Zara Mondani is a person, a candidate that is carrying the baggage of his voters, anger, frustration, desperation and that last word is really critical, particularly their desperation. That's apples to apples with Donald Trump. And I want to say that with the caveat that it's actually because so many people disagree with whether your mom-dani or Donald Trump, that it's apples to apples, right? There are people

who voted for Zaraamamamani who do not want democratic socialism. They absolutely want nothing to do with it. They don't think that it's a good idea, but they heard him talking about housing being cheaper, and they were like, well, that's better than the elderly gentleman with nipple rings, who is telling me that it's not even hot out. It's 100 degrees outside and represents the failed establishment that, again, was like openly, flagrantly lying about the President of the United States health, you know, all of these, Andrew Cuomo is just a great proxy. He's like a mascot for the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. And so when you put someone like that, whether it's Hillary Clinton or Andrew Cuomo with a populist who is charismatic, who's a talented

politician, and who is, like Trump did again in 2015 and 2016, hammering kitchen table economic issues over and over again, that makes a huge difference. People are really desperate and, you know, that's not a good sign. It's not a good sign that people are desperate. And, you know, we have to hope that they find political solutions that help their problems. But if you have friends that live in New York City, if you yourself live in New York City or have ever lived in New York City, you know that the American dream is dead for the vast majority of people in New York city. I mean, you can redefine it to, you know, maybe the minuscule level of success, but like, you can't, you can't own, for the most part, you cannot own a home, own a spacious apartment

enough to raise a family in. My goodness, if you watched the horrible new Alec Baldwin reality show, you saw what they lived in. And that's Alec Baldwin. So maybe that's by choice, actually. maybe he just has a terrible taste, and Ilaria isn't actually as good at interior decorating as her European aura would suggest. But all that is to say, people are being pushed to the brink, and they, on the left and the right, and the establishment is not responsive to their concerns. I would argue the Republican Party's establishment has been forced to be responsive to their concerns. But I really just wanted to point out that I think this is much better framing.

And if you take a look at this, someone crunched the numbers. This is political data journalist, Owen Winter. It's actually a bit more mixed than this makes out, referring to this. I think this is from the New York Times or the Washington Post, medium income. It showed Cuomo voters, Cuomo was up plus 19 with people under 50K. Mom Doni was up plus six with 50K to 100K. And then over 100K, Mom Donny was up plus 13. So a lot of people are saying he's a Champaign socialist. Obviously, he has a pretty privileged background. But if you look at the numbers here, it is a little bit more mixed.

Cuomo's coalition, as Winter says, is of the very poorest and the very richest. And that's just Gotham to me. That is a man who is running for Gothen, who is running to keep Gotham, Gotham. That should be Andrew Cuomo's campaign slogan. It is for the very, very rich and for the very, very poor. So keep the poor on these measly handouts, meager handouts, you maintain this net of meager dependency and then continue to let the rich be rich and higher private security. It's just right out of Batman. And I wanted to make that point. Now, And by the way, I wanted to make that point because I hate saying this, but like, I am a millennial.

It's just like it feels dirty coming out of my mouth. I'm a millennial. But in all seriousness, I think there's a narrative that's pinging around about Mamdani that's not going to be helpful for the right. That he's just a sort of simple champagne socialist when, in fact, he's somebody who I think has, done the reading. He kind of knows how to campaign, whether you think it's cynical or not. He understands his voter base. He did in the primary. I mean, we're going to see now that he goes into the general. But I think he's savvy. And I think his voters are, you know, sad and desperate and deserve better. So I hope someone can offer them better than socialism. But before I go for

the night, I'm so excited about this. I'm watching this for the first time. I know we're over time. I don't even care. I haven't seen this, but the great producers of the show sent me this clip that the White House posted, just to bring the whole show full circle. We started with Donald Trump inexplicably being referred to as daddy by the NATO Secretary General in the White House at 9.54 p.m. So right before we went live, actually, maybe because we were going live, they knew. And they knew that I couldn't resist this. Put out a video. And the caption that they put this on. next with is Daddy's Home. Hey, Hey, Hey, Daddy. President Donald J. Trump attended the NATO summit in the Hague, Netherlands. That's all they're saying. So let's dive in. Let's take a look at this video. We're watching this for the first time. I can do the Trump. This is the first time hearing of it.

Ruth Badergens. It's just a NATO montage. This is the sexiest NATO montage of the whole time. I need to know if Trump saw this before it was burned out. Like just what I'm picturing now is Donald Trump watching this video. Or even Marco Rubio watching this video. I just want to thank you all for experiencing that with me. Because, you know, that's an experience you just don't get back. A first experience, you just don't get back.

So it was a pleasure to share it with everyone. Let that be a precious memory. Now, as a reminder, we are here Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 p.m., we have some insane guests lined up. Actually, I was going to say for the next couple of weeks, but honestly, for the next couple of months, the response to the show has been incredible. So thank you to everyone.

Whether you're a friend or somebody out there who's watching and reached out, I got your messages. I tried to respond as many as I could. Emily at Devil Maycare Media.com. Like I said, try to reply to as many of those as I possibly could. Appreciate it every single one of them. Thank you. This has blown my mind. We're like one of the top comedy podcasts right now, which is very cool, very gratifying.

My goal was to beat Julia Louis Dreyvis. I'm not sure if we've done that. But to get her back for refusing to give my friend Ryan and I an interview that last year's Democratic National Convention. So maybe we made that happen. Not sure. We'll have to check afterwards. That's really the only thing I care about. All that is to say, thank you, thank you, thank you.

I'm actually heading to the Aspen Ideas Fest for the next couple of days. So our Monday show next Monday, 10 p.m. Eastern is going to be live from Aspen. I've never been to Aspen. that fancy. But I guess after this I will be. Make sure you stay tuned and we'll be back here every Monday, every Wednesday, 10 p.m. Sharp. See you next time.