Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 10/21/25: Josh Shapiro Pressed On AIPAC, Epstein Prosecutor Dined At His House, WH Blows Up On Ukraine Question, AI Bubble

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Ryan and Saagar discuss Josh Shapiro cranky about AIPAC, Epstein prosecutor dined at his house, WH blows up at reporters Ukraine question, dotcom bubble 2.0 with AI. Jeremy Scahill: https://x.com/jeremyscahill  David Dayen: https://prospect.org/    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Let's look at how he responded to it. Article in the New York Times about Democrats pulling away from APEC, so clearly it's having some impact on them politically if they feel like they've got to... I don't know. I mean, I think it's become a political issue. You've used it as a political issue. You've questioned federal representatives when they're on here on that. I mean, I think if I can say this to you, you know, not trying to offend you here,

but I think it's a little bit of a shortcut and a little bit of a late. lazy question. I think the better question is, how do you really feel about Israel, how you feel about a two-state solution? How do you feel about the war? How do you feel about, you know, the hostages or hungry kids or what have you? I think demanding answers on those questions is more important than, hey, what about this lobbying group or that lobbying group? Well, what do you say to the critics who argue that U.S. foreign policy on Israel is often shaped, not by national interests, but by the lobbying scrimp of these? I think that's a fair conversation to have. And I think it should be on any elected official at the federal level to say, hey, I'm listening to this group. But by the way,

there's groups on other sides too. I'm listening to that group. But at the end of the day, we want our federal representatives to be able to sit here in the chair and answer the questions about why they voted A or why they voted B or why they feel a certain way. And I think it's just a little lazy to say, oh, it's got to be because of that interest group. Maybe someone actually believes those views or maybe someone feels strongly about that particular way. And so the thing he said at the end there, and we'll get into Moulton in a second when we get Saugers take on this, I think he said at the end there, we said, okay, well, you've got the lobbying group A-PAC on the one side, then you've got the lobbying groups on the other

side. That's actually false. There is not a lobbying group on the other side. The only thing that would come remotely close might be CARE, the Council on American Islamic Relations, care's annual budget is like $10 million. dollars. APAC spent more than that in one house race last year, double that in one house rate. So the entire national budget of the organization that they would say is like on the other side can't even compete with them in a single house race. So it's just not true. And so

the problem I have was Shapiro's response there, and this is one curious for your take on, is rather than answering the question, too often when people ask this question, They're told you're not asking the right question. You should ask other questions. And it's like, no, you know what, we're adults. Like, this is the question I have, and this is the question I want to answer to. Dude, we will ask whatever we want. To say it's a lazy question is because you're uncomfortable answering it because you're pro-Israel.

This is what drives me crazy about these politicians is fundamentally, let's take Charlemagne, all right? Charlemagne is not one of us. He doesn't, as far as I know, he doesn't follow this stuff day in and day out. It's not full-time gig. It's just politics, right? So for him, A-PAC is a proxy for political control and Israel, and he's pissed off about the war in Gaza. That's it. That's the question.

So answer that question, which Shapiro doesn't want to answer. Why does he not want to answer that? Because he supports it, right? At the end of the day, he's one of those people who's like, yeah, Netanyahu's a real problem. But Israel is a place where gay people can get married, right? Like, this is the line that's basically baked into them. Remember also, what was that college op-ed that Shapiro wrote about the IDF? I'd have to go back and to check.

It was genuinely crazy, though. And it's one of those where with Josh Shapiro, this is going to be a political problem for him because I don't know what it is. I don't know why. It could be religious. It could be his own personal feelings. It could just be genuine, like not swimming in the world of today's democratic base. But him, Newsome and who am I, who is my missing? Who messed up on the APAC question?

But, I mean, these are the two highest profile on actual contenders. The fact that they can't do. Oh, Cory Booker. That's what was. The three of them, the fact that they have never grappled with this, it's like, I don't know. I'm sorry. Just sheer lack of political talent. Real talent is the ability to thread the needle on that question.

I haven't seen a single one of them. Been able to do that. Yeah, Newsom had a similar response. He flubbed it all of it. He said, I think it's interesting. Rather than answering the question, he confronted the idea of the question. Right, exactly. I find the question interesting.

Yeah, I find the question interesting. He's trying to make some illusions or something there. And then Booker also was like, you know, I don't get asked about this a lot. And like, you know, what about? And then he really face planted with the, why doesn't anybody ask me about Nigeria or Sudan? And if you check his like statements over the last five years, there's like one about Nigeria and had nothing to do with what he's talking about. It's like, oh, it's like, wait a minute, you don't talk about that either. So get out of here.

Also, are we funding that? That's what they always do. Christians are being slaughtered in Nigeria. I'm like, wow, that's horrible. How much are we paying for that? And they're like, yeah, exactly. Right. And so Moulton is trying to thread an interesting needle here because he's saying he's still very much pro-Israel, but he doesn't like the Netanyahu government. And he said A-PAC's problem is that they are too reflexively and unapologically supportive, specifically of the Netanyahu government. Let's roll C2 and then get Apex response and unpack this. Recent polling has shown that Democrats do not support what has happened in government.

and that they've pulled away from support for Israel? Or is it just that you yourself have seen the images of what's transpired in this war and that it's reshaped the way you see the United States relationship to Israel? Look, the United States relationship to Israel is incredibly important, but I strongly disagree with the current Israeli government under BB Netanyahu. And I've been very outspoken about this for quite some time. I mean, in fact, I wrote an op-ed just after October 7th, right after, for those heinous attacks saying that Bibi Netanyahu needs to have a political plan for

the future for Palestinians and for Israelis to live peacefully side by side. He still doesn't have that plan. So after months and months of pressuring the Israeli government, pressuring APEC itself to not just follow the Israeli government, I finally decided that I just cannot accept contributions from an organization whose mission is to support the current government in Israel. Congressman, but let me just follow up on that really quickly. How do you reconcile rejecting APEC money, but still voting for the same policies that APEC is advocating for?

You have continuously supported sending offensive weapons. I've frequently disagreed with APEC. No, I know you disagreed with APEC, but you have been voting for. Wait, slow down, slow down. I know, I didn't finish my question. I didn't finish my question. I was saying you voted for sending weapons to Israel, which is. something A-PAC has advocated for.

Okay, so sure, there are some votes that they will agree on. Very interesting, Ryan. I don't know. I mean, it's one of those where it does take some level of political courage to say, no, I won't take a single A-PAC dollar. Now, I'm not saying that his response. Running from Massachusetts Senate. And he's running from Massachusetts Senate.

And he's got a couple of things on his side, right? So he's young. That's number one. So he's running against an opponent who is much older. That being said, remember. Ed Markey survived a primary challenge from one of the Kennedy clan. Yeah, the first Kennedy to lose. Yeah, the first Kennedy to lose in the state of Massachusetts.

We are not required to remember which one it was because you lost. There you go. And what I remember, if I recall, again, the race, which I covered extensively with Crystal, was that he really embraced a lot of the youth vote. Green New Deal, Sunrise move. This time around, though, this is a very smart thing for Seth Moulton to do by, I mean, it's a big headline no matter what. And it's one of those where regardless of whether he's threading the needle or not,

The truth is, is that, and I've said this, I think we've all said this here on the show, what you want to do is to make your position politically convenient. Politicians are soulless scum. They believe in almost, almost all of them believe in nothing. So what you want is for your position to be the cynical choice. That's how you really win, all right? That's how the neocons won. That's how the Israel lobby won.

You think half of these people care about Israel? No, okay? They just thought free money, easy way to get elected. Yeah, you got to go and kiss the law. wall sometimes, it is what it is. Now, you flip that around, and that's really how, in my opinion, you win a sea change in politics. And he's looking over his shoulder a little bit, too, because Ayanna Presley has been eyeing this Senate seat and was hoping that Ed Markey would not run for re-election. He frankly shouldn't. I mean, come on, man, there's plenty of it. Go ahead. Like,

enjoy your life. Yes. Like, how old is he 80, something? Yeah, he's like 80. Yeah. It's too much. I know. Listen, I couldn't agree with you more between Janet Mills, between him, I mean, Schumer, and the rest of these people, I just, I feel like it's like a movie scene. I'm like, do you have any shame? Yeah. Like, have you no shame, sir? Seriously. And because Presley came in with the squad, you know, she's been critical of Netanyahu in generally, specifically, but also Israel more broadly. And so if she gets into the race two, that'll make it interesting. But let's throw up Apex's response here. We have it in front of us. Apex says, Representative Moulton is abandoning his friends to grab a headline, capitulating to the

extremes rather than standing on conviction. His statement, they should say business. When are people going to start saying in statements rather than standing on business? His statement comes after years of him repeatedly asking for our endorsement and is a clear message to APAC members in Massachusetts and millions of pro-Israel Democrats nationwide that he rejects their support and will not stand with them. Yeah, that is, I mean, no lies detected throughout that he definitely has been asking for their support. And then to go back to Amon Moyle Dean's point, he's still voting for weapons for Israel, which is still going to be a significant liability. But I think the public would at least prefer, if you're doing that, at least you're doing it because you really love sending weapons to a genocidal state.

But not and not because you're like being spot off. Molten's whole shtick in this town has been the national security Democrats as it came to Washington. I mean, a lot of us, a lot of people, we don't follow this stuff day in and day out. I remember in the old days when he was like, I'm the national security Democrat, right? And immediately after the election, he actually came out. What did he say? He said something about, because this is why this is relevant to our next element. I need to find it.

Why don't you put the next element up, right? I'll find exactly what he said. And he tried to organize a challenge to Pelosi around this kind of thing. So, yeah, put up the Dave Weigel element next. It says Senator Edmark, he facing a challenge from Moulton, where a trans rights flag during his no king speech, and Wigel correctly adds the context here, which is that. Moulton said after the election, he didn't want his daughters, quote, getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, unquote, saying that Democrats need to, you know, reorganize their position,

particularly when it comes to trans athletes and, you know, who plays in which categories. Yeah, I have the full quote. Democrats spend way too much time trying to offend anyone other, rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans base. I have two little girls. I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete. As a Democrat, I'm supposed to be afraid. To say that, to be clear, I firmly believe there should be reasonable restrictions on transester athletes in competitive sports.

Now, obviously, I'm not a Democrat in Massachusetts, so it makes sense to me, but apparently that's a, you know, very difficult position for some Democrats to take. It's very interesting because that's, it's like an 80-20 issue that where you're talking about, if you talk about post-puberty, like 80-plus, maybe 90-plus percent. of people will say that kids should play in the sports where they're assigned gender birth that this idea where you're going to have a high school who's like choose trans and switching

like when it comes to a general election they're losing that terribly it's very interesting that Marky thinks that in a Democratic primary he's going to win this 80-20 issue on the other side of it. I mean he might be right and he might be right. There's been a lot of trans retrenchment if you ask

me. I mean, it's kind of interesting. We haven't been able to cover it, but trans identification is at record lows already, basically proving it's a social contagion. Sorry, yes, that's correct, always has been. But the point actually broadly around the transports issue, and this is more of my political analyst hat on, is I could see how he would get attacked for what's the language they always use, like throwing trans people under the, even though quite literally he's talking about athletes, I could see how the activist in Democratic class would say that giving an inch in any way to the Republicans on this issue is cowardly. Again, this is not a general election point. This is a Democratic primary point. Nobody will talk about this honestly, though, because there are a lot of

trans activists who disagree with that and who say it is wrong to die on this hill. Because if we die on this hill, then we're all getting swept away. And there are plenty of trans people who are on the 80 side of this 80-20 issue. You're like, no, like, stop. Like, Leah Thomas should not be swimming against other women. Like, whatever Yeah, but I don't see a lot of those people speaking up, Brian. They don't. No, they're not.

That's the point. But if you talk to them either privately or yes, like, but you're right. Well, listen, I hope he wins for this reason alone. If they would have this conversation, they would find that it is, that there is not a monolithic kind of transposition on this.

Well, it doesn't seem that way with the, activist class. Again, we'll see. I don't know. I mean, I'm not speaking out of turn here, but I'm fairly certain that there, I don't remember exactly who. There was somebody in the, I think it was Emma Vigland who attacked him over this, if I recall, right? So there's going to be some activist pressure, molten, because this was at the very days after the election. He got hit by it. He got hit by hard. But that's my question is politically in the Democratic base, listen, I get it, because a lot of Republicans are like this too. They don't want to give the enemy a single inch, right? They're like, no, we fight together.

We don't concede a single point of what we got wrong or of what is unpopular. We just continue to fight. I could see Markey making that into an issue. But this is the other thing where issue and all of that aside, shouldn't it just be Presley versus multi? I mean, dude, you're 80 years old. Right. You need to leave.

You're going to be 80. Let me get his age exactly correctly. But I mean, it's just completely in. He's 79, right? He's running for re-election, or at least for right now, he would be 86, 87 when he ended his term. Why are we okay with that? I'm sorry. Like, how are you going to beat the Kennedys and say, we don't have dynasties in this country?

And then nearly put yourself in a position where statistically you're going to die in office. Right. It's the height of selfishness for all these people. Yeah, and I think Iiana Presley, if you're watching, you should just jump in. Yeah, you run and you can take the trans-Lea Thomas position, all right? And then we can actually have a real debate. And that might push Ed Bucky out. Yeah, maybe, right?

That would actually, see, that's when I can't stand more than the trans thing. I would rather it like, God, like, I'm so sick of these people who are hanging on the office. It's disgusting. It actually is. And it's so disrespectful, I think, to the people of Massachusetts. It's a blue, it's a hard blue state. They deserve to actually, like, have a raucous, interesting primary, new generation, actual representation in their state. That's who they are, right?

I mean, it's a very productive state, a lot of history. and all that. And to have somebody who's that old, like, I'm sorry, I know how the Senate works. They don't work that hard for you. They just don't. They have to nap all the time. They don't, they're basically like, you know, even for travel and everything, they just will not have the same amount of vigor in the words of John F. Kennedy that any younger person will. It's just, it's simple. Your time is up, dude. Like, yeah, he's been, he has served 20 terms in the U.S. Congress. That's insane. And he still wants to keep going. Was he classed 72? Let me find. 76. Oh, 76. I was in all. He's a newcomer. Spring shit. Here's the thing. Here's what you got. Here's how old Ed Markey is. As the U.S. Representative from Massachusetts to 2013, he entered the year

after the helicopter left the U.S. Embassy of Saigon, which is black and white photo. That is how old this man is. That's how, like the way that I think about a Ken Burns documentary, he was literally watching that on TV and served in the U.S. Congress the year after that. I'm sorry. Like, If you can remember that, you got to go. Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex in the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Daddy's looking good.

Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me, actors, musicians, creatives, highly evolved digital. of the life forms, and we talk about what they love. Sometimes I'll drizzle a little honey in there, too, if I'm feeling sexy in the morning. What keeps them going? And you're maybe my biggest competition on social media. Like, when a kid says, bra to me. And how they're navigating this high-speed roller coaster we call reality. In Australia, you're looking out for snakes, spiders, and fuckwise.

Right. Hey, he's no train me too, both chill. This is, like, the comments section of my Instagram. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday, and let's get weird together. in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one will end up dead. The other tried for murder.

Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stunned. But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular, circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble, and our couple retreat from reality.

They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping the world's economies and financial markets can be hard to spot. Even though they are such a powerful player in finance, you wouldn't really know that you are interacting with them. And even harder to understand. Donald Trump's trade war, 2.0, is only accelerating the process of de-dollarization, which in a way is just,

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Explain that. Why is that the case? And unpack what it means for you. Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsized indicators of inflation. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning out at Epstein, we didn't have time to get into this, and it actually is worth fully going through all of the new information. Let's go ahead and put this up here on the screen. This was from a new release by the House Oversight Committee, which details. a bunch of new Epstein files, as well as an interview with Alex Acosta, who was the prosecutor who

ended up giving Epstein his sweetheart deal. Julie K. Brown, huge shout out to her from the Miami Herald. She's been covering this stuff from day one, and I look to her always for some of her information. She has even more detailed knowledge of the case than I do. What she was able to uncover is that Matthew Menchell, who was the chief of the criminal division of the Miami U.S. Attorney Office and helped negotiate Epstein's sweetheart deal, which allowed him to be released in 2009, is listed multiple times as having dinner and meetings with Epstein after leaving the U.S. Attorney's Office. So this is a huge bombshell because this is years after his release. Oh, before you go on to that one? Yeah, go ahead.

Just this is for context for later. Notice on that one, 1130 appointment with Leon Black. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'll get back to that. Put that one in the pocket. Don't worry. Same day. I'm coming back to Leon. Right. All right. Leon, yes. But on the same day, having dinner with Matt Menzel, the very same prosecutor who was part of the office. In what world is that appropriate? You helped lock somebody away, allegedly, even with the sweetheart deal, for a registered sex offender, right? And then you're having dinner with that person three years later. It's like, do you have any, you know, semblance of making sure no conflict of interest? It's a man to knock stuff right here. Yeah, or even at a human level, at a human level. If you, Ryan, would you ever knowingly go

into the house of somebody who was a registered sex offender. No. Yeah, exactly. All right. And this is my thing. And he knows because he prosecuted him. I always think about this with guys like George Stephanopoulos and others who are like, yeah, I had dinner with him.

I go, you know, maybe it's just me. I Google everybody who asked me that dinner. Okay. And if you're even remotely sketchy, I'm like, yeah, it's not happening. And I can tell you I've been invited some sketchy stuff around here and why. Usually it has to do with arms dealers and stuff like. And even then, I'm like, yeah, I don't know. You know, who's paying for this, right?

It's one of those where there's some blood money here. the table. I don't want anything to do with that. Or I'll split the bill with you if I think it's interesting. That's the thing where apparently I'm a YouTuber and I hold myself to that standard. And these guys are like, oh yeah, I prosecuted you. And even though you're a registered sex offender, I'm just going to go ahead and I help lock you away. I'm going to go over to your house for dinner. And it's probably not with people. I don't know about him specifically, but it's probably not even though or despite. It's because he knows the details of what Epstein is into. Yes. He wants to hang out with him because he wants to get into the answer. He probably

investigate. He probably added some of his tax returns and stuff in front of him. He goes, yo, I need to get in on this. He's like, this is a good deal right here. By the way, speaking of that, as Ryan said, hold for Leon Black. Leon, I've talked about Leon from day one in the Epstein case. It remains one of the most mystifying. This is one of the Titans of Wall Street, $9 billion net worth, $150 million payment to the Jeffrey Epstein estate that has been revealed for, quote, tax advice. Nobody knows why. He's been friends with him for decades. Everybody, he's defended his relationship with Epps. He said he had no idea, put him on the board of his charities, decades-long friendship. Well, Leon's emails with Jeffrey Epstein came out, and they're pretty interesting, aren't they? They say Epstein was furious. For years, he had relied on Leon Black as his primary source of income, advising him on everything from taxes to his world-class art collection. By 2016, Black seemed reluctant to keep paying him tens of millions of dollars per year. So Epstein threw a tantrum. Epstein wrote in an email to Mr. Black, quote, he was another waste of money in space,

attacked Mr. Black's children as retarded for supposedly making his... That's relatable. For making a bet of his estate. The typo-ridden tirade was one of dozens of previously unreported emails reviewed by the New York Times in which Epstein hectored Mr. Black

demanding tens of millions of dollars beyond the $150 million he had already been paid. The pressure campaign, Ryan, appeared to work. Mr. Black, for decades, who was one of the richest and most high-profile figures on Wall Street, forked tens of millions of dollars in fees and loans, albeit less than Mr. Epstein had been seeking. Of all the relationships, his friendship with Mr. Black is the most important. He's served jail time for soliciting prostitution. Mr. Black kept him afloat for many years.

The new emails provide the most complete picture yet of their relationship. Now, to be clear, you know, for legal purposes. and with Mr. Black. I am simply noting how shocking it is for a Titan of Wall Street, a private equity giant, one of the most well-known billionaires in the city of New York, how completely opposite it is to the way that the Apollo Group and others would conduct business to seemingly constantly just caving to demands for tens of millions of dollars from Jeffrey. That's all I am noting.

You can draw your own conclusion very specifically as to why anybody would ever act like that who made $9 billion and doesn't conduct business that way in any other. Similar tone, similar tone, and Black denies all things. Yeah, he black, black, vehemently denied it. Similar tone from the New York Times article that Sager just put up. They write, and this is one of those delightful sentences in the New York Times, echoing Sager. And, quote, and for reasons that are unknown, Mr. Black wired hundreds of thousands of, of dollars to at least three women who were associated with Mr. Epstein, according to court documents and notes taken by congressional investigators that were shared with the Times.

Representatives of Mr. Black did not respond to questions about those payments to women. So in other words, representatives responded to a bunch of other questions of the Times sent, but ignored those questions. So I like this phrase. For reasons that are unknown, Mr. Blackwired hundreds of thousand dollars to release the room. We don't know why. Yeah, they are. Just good friends.

remain unknown to the same good good friends of with these women you know uh they were they were you know needed a little help get through the weekend or something it happens it happens you know who amongst us has not floated our friends girlfriends right i mean with hundreds of thousands with i i do it every day no of course and totally and we're going to insinuate something about that's outrageous right exactly um i'm sure my wife would be cool with it yeah she'd be totally cool with it uh so here we have here's my other personal favorite from mr black's lawyer to imply mr Epstein somehow had influence over Mr. Black is false and patently absurd. Okay. To imply Mr. Epstein, who demanded tens of millions of dollars and received tens of millions of dollars and called his

children retarded and also hectored and berated him, to imply he had any influence over Mr. Black is false and patently absurd. That's from Leon Black. Again, these guys, you think you just get nine billion dollars? You think somebody just hands it to you? No, you get it by being a swashbuckling dealmaker what if if i was running the apollo by the way these guys are legends on wall street right apollo does apollo just let somebody who they're doing a leverage buyout of demand certain terms of conditions is that how you got nine billion dollars in net worth no you would be a bankrupt right so we know he knows how to do business and to say no how to say fuck you that's literally part of being a wall street financer and he did event well yeah it's get to that

Yeah, like it, ish. But the point remains something for some unknown, for reasons that remain unknown, that he continued to hand him tens of millions of dollars. Okay. All right, let's go to the next part here. This gets to the interview with Alex Acosta. I read the entire thing, several hundred pages. Kind of boring, to be honest. They didn't do a very good job. But guys, please put D3, please, up on the screen just to show you. The signature claim from Alex Acosta is that any trial of Jeffrey Epstein, quote, would have been a crapshoot. Now, this is a central issue. Because remember, Alex Acosta was a labor secretary under Trump. He was the prosecutor who did the sweetheart deal with Epstein. After he resigns as a labor secretary, the Office of Professional

Review over the Justice Department does an internal investigation of the Epstein non-prosecution agreement. They find that Alex Acosta and his office acted improperly. Now, Acosta, contends throughout this entire interview that he did nothing wrong and that he got the best possible deal. Now remember, the retroactive review by the DOJ specifically says that is not true. So they find fault with the actions of his office. Acosta stands up for the actions of his office saying, effectively blaming the victim, saying, oh, well, they weren't credible enough to be able to bring them to trial. By the way, remember, that is a direct contravention of what some of the agents and the other people on the case said. So this is not 100% the view of the entire U.S.

attorney's office. It is the view of Mr. Acosta. I will say because there have been some sketchy questions here around the claim previously that he had said he belonged to intelligence. He claims that he never said that. He says, I never said it. So I want to make that very clear. Because that's a quote I've relied on in the past. It's one of the most famous places. So I want to be clear that he now emphatically denies. He said, I never heard that from anybody. I didn't tell it to Steve Bannon. I have no idea where that comes from. So let's be clear. That's what he said. Now, you know, I've laid out my other case for why I do think he was at the very least involved with multiple foreign intelligence agencies. But nonetheless, Alex Acosta says there was nothing untoward. I never had any indication he was intelligence or whatever. Nobody told me what to do, which, by the way, again, that doesn't fit with some of the past timeline. Like the previous timeline was that Washington actually made a phone call around this from the DOJ. But, you know, you have to get very dark and into the weeds.

on this. I think the fundamental premise, though, is even if we take all the intel stuff out of it and we just keep it focused on the victims, he basically was victim blaming throughout the entire thing. He said, yeah, they weren't credible. They made stuff up. MySpace page. They were sketchy. And so that's why the sweetheart deal is the best that we could possibly get. Again, that's totally disputed. So his mindset around it does not seem conciliatory at all. He still continues to defend his conduct, Ryan, which I personally find disgusting. Intelligence, if anything, it's worse. I'm like, oh, so you just, you know, they didn't believe. them. He even says, in there he goes, he goes, well, the times were different. People didn't

believe women at that time. I was like, so you're blaming the culture at the time? What is this? It was crazy. And the, uh, if you look through his, his emails and his, and the different appointments that he had, what, what you realize is that Jeffrey Epstein knew everybody. Like, he had pull with Russian oligarchs, Russian, you know, top Russians, the Israelis, Americans in both parties, like, and also Wall Street in like the banking world. Like he was at the middle of all of this stuff. And he had people who owed him and who he was willing to berate at the top levels everywhere. And so the idea that at minimum he didn't call in favors and that his powerful friends and do anything for him just is not remotely

credible. Yeah. Like that like even if you don't think, even if you don't think, even you dismissed the Intel part. But also, to me, the Intel part is a bit of a red herring because what we found going through all of these emails, he was absolutely doing work for people that are in the orbits of this Intel world. Which only backs up everything that we've said. Yeah. Is no one has said he was an agent for it. That's not how the world works. Yeah, exactly. That's what we kept trying to explain. There are these fixers. There are these shady characters. If you live here in D.C., you're familiar with them. They do contracts for Russia. They do contracts for Qatar. for the UA, they're hired guns. They have nexus. They have foreign bank accounts. They have a special

knowledge. What's the taken language? It's like a very specific set of skills that they have. And so, yeah, you guys released that report at drop site about the Israel deal with Mongolia. They're convenient actors who can just insert themselves in the process. Epstein started out working with Anan Khashoggi. Exactly. A literal CIA cutout. It's like this is a, it's trying to explain this to people who deny it is they are relying on will. full ignorance and the definition of terms, which are fake. Like, no one has ever said he was an agent for a moment. Yeah, here's his literal ID bank. Wait, actually, didn't the head of Mossad tell Barry Weiss that he wasn't? Oh, sorry. I forgot. No, never mind. Sorry. Thank you. We

apologize. We shout out to the editor-in-chief of CBS News for her great, her great journalist. She settled this one. She settled the question. She settled a question. Finally, let's put this one up here on the screen with the appropriate caveat. This is a new book of memoir come out from Virginia Goufrey, remember, one of the most prominent victims of Jeffrey Epstein. She did, unfortunately, take her own life recently. She'd lived a very troubled life. She famously was pictured in that photo with Prince Andrew. And in her new memoir, which was post-hosponiously released, she says she was quote, beaten, raped by a well-known prime minister in attack that broke the Epstein spell. Her memoir reveals. Now, Ryan, you will be shocked to learn to the New York Post said well-known prime

minister and did not name the country. Oh, New York Post's of its journalistic skills failed it, finally. What happened with that, right? Which prime minister? Who was it? And in fact, it doesn't even appear in the lead paragraph. You have to go all the way down past three different advertisements to say that in past, however, she had pointed to Israeli prime minister, Aoud Barack.

Now, to be clear, Mr. Barack denies it. And also, to be clear, yes, Virginia Ufrey was a very. very troubled woman, and she did certainly say some things in the past, which did not turn out to be true. Or that she's retracted. Or that she has retracted. Yeah. Yeah, which she personally has retracted. So all appropriate caveats and all of that said, you should not necessarily take it to the bag. But the one thing nobody can ever get away from is the photo exists of her as a very young girl with her arm around Prince Andrew. And that photo, I'm sorry. You can't make it disappear. Right. I just can't. And it was enough that Mr. Andrew, Prince Andrew, sorry, I

I apologize to the British. Randy Andy. Yeah. So Prince Andrew, his royal highness. Prince Randy Andy. Has still remained out completely of public life and had a complete meltdown of it. What was his defense? He said, I don't sweat.

He's like, I'm not a sweater. Do you remember that? I mean, if that's all you got, brother, I don't know, man. Pretty sure he sweats. Yeah, it's like, I'm pretty sure he's human. It's like, really, the British don't sweat? Even in heat, really. That doesn't fit with my experience.

But okay. And going through Epstein's emails with. Barack, because Barack also got his emails hacked. Of course. Yeah, you guys released that. And so there's some in there where he's like, hey, where Barack's like, can't wait to see you on the island. Maybe the security won't be there this time. Yes, I remember that. And there's another one where he's like, why don't, you know, why don't you talk to these

particular women that they're doing a business deal with? He's like, because you really have a way with women. Like, so like Barack, and this is post-conviction and sentence. So Barack, and also everybody who talks about Epstein is like the thing about. him. Even Leon Black said this. The thing about him is that he was always surrounded by beautiful women and young women. Guys, it's in the birthday book. Are we not are we stupid? Do you remember? He signed the birthday

book. He signed the book. Look at the cartoon where they have Jeffrey Epstein 20 years. It's like a cartoon cartoon drawing of him hanging out with young girls and them all in scantily clad bikinis giving a massage on the Virgin Islands

20 years later. It was out of the open. Six years later. Something gross. so gross. So that's your update. I don't even have words. The Leon Black stuff, man, I just wish, this is the problem with these, you know, the house and all of this, is get these guys. Wexner. Wexner is like 90. He needs to testify while his mind is still there, okay, before he can claim dementia or something like that. Get his ass on the record and, you know, undersworn testimony. Same with Leon Black. Same with, I mean, all of the top financiers. Because to a date, all we have are the bullshit denials of Galane Maxwell.

I don't think we mentioned this yet. His fee to Leon Black was $40 million a year. He said, I want $25 up front. Other times he would say I want $20 up front, $20 in January, $20 in July. That's what he was getting cranky about. Like, where is my $40 million? This is a guy who has no tax licenses. He's not even allowed to give tax advice without saying,

I just can't give a tax advice. Charging $40 million to give tax advice. And estate planning and art and all this. Yeah, it's such great taste, right? Like the photo of Bill Clinton in a fucking dress. Like, come on. What a joke. Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin.

You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex and the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Daddy's looking good. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me. Actors, musicians, creatives, highly evolved digital life forms, and we talk

about what they love. Sometimes I'll drizzle a little honey in there, too, from feeling sexy in the morning. What keeps them going? And you're maybe my biggest competition on social media. Like, when a kid says, bra to me. And how they're navigating this high speed roller coaster we call reality. In Australia, you're looking out

for snakes. Spide is And, fuck, right. Hey, he's no Shane McDougall. This is like the comment section of my Instagram. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday. And let's get weird together in a good way. Listen to what are we even doing on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over.

But one will end up dead. The other tried for murder. Not once. People went wild. Not twice. Stoned. But three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive,

and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble. And our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it.

They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Tick podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means the... We don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market. What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich, reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumer staples, and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation.

What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you? that the CPI can't. CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things,

whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a measure. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning now to Ukraine, we wanted to make sure we gave everyone an update.

Still some major developments here. President Trump reverting back to his original position, Ukraine has to give up some land in a peace deal. Let's take a listen. Friday, you said you had a cordial meeting with President Zelensky. During that meeting, did you tell him he needed to cede all of the Donbass region to Russia? No, we never discussed it. We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are, the battle lines. You have a battle line right now. The rest is very tough to negotiate. If you're going to say, you take this, we take that, you know, there's so many different permutation.

So what I say is they should stop right now at the battle lines. Go home, stop killing people, and be done. What do you think should happen with the Donbos region? Let it be cut the way it is. It's cut up right now. I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia. You leave it the way it is right now. They can negotiate something later on down the line.

But I said, cut and stop at the battle, I go home, stop fighting, stop killing people. So that's the position today. A couple weeks ago, Ryan, he said that they could take back all of Crimea, so I don't know. Nobody knows what's going on here. Let's put this up here on the screen from a recent, you know, this, by the way, very interesting. Not only that Zelensky and Trump met, but did anyone notice there was no joint press conference, there was no joint meeting, there was no statement afterwards by the president, Zelensky slunk in and he slunk out.

And the reasons why is from the financial times, quote, Donald Trump urged Zelensky to accept Putin's storm or, quote, be destroyed by Russia. the meeting descended many times, quote, into a shouting match with Trump cursing all the time. They added that the president tossed aside maps of the front line, insisted Zelensky surrendered the Dunbos to Putin, and repeatedly echoed talking points that the Russian leader had made in their call a day earlier. Now, you know, obviously that is coming straight out of Zelensky's mouth to the Financial Times, and we don't really know which way it's going to go. But it's just pretty obvious that this is the only way this was ever going to end.

You have the military power. I mean, the current U.S. intelligence estimate, apparently. I don't know if I believe this, but let's say it's directionally correct. Is 100,000 people have been killed since January of 2025. Do you see a single crack in Russian society? They don't care. Now, I don't get it. All right? If 100,000 of my guys were killed for some bullshit like this, yeah, I would riot. I don't know. For some reason, they have a different society over there. Be it propaganda. Maybe they believe in it. Who knows? But the point is, their economy's doing well. I don't see a single crack in their society. Putin seems humming along more than

ever before, they can throw as many bodies into this as we want. And Zelensky's like, oh, we need long-range missiles. That's going to make up the manpower deficit. You guys have 60-year-olds on the front line. It's not going to happen, right? From day one. So we're back to this. And yet, even this morning, this is what I love about covering this administration, what do I see? Marco Rubio's call did not go well with Sergei Lavrov. And the potential meeting with Budapest and Budapest with Putin may not happen because Russia has not backed off. It's maximum position. So Trump says they need to surrender, but Russia hasn't backed off its maximalist position. So we're stuck right back from where we came from. They can't get their hands around this.

Something like Israel Gaza needs to happen where they're like, yeah, we just got to have to talk to Hamas. Like you just have to accept the unacceptable. And when that happens, yeah, you can actually get something done. Yeah. And Trump also said on Putin and Zelensky, they hate each other and it makes it a little bit difficult. And then he also added, but it doesn't affect us. Right. he really thought this was going to be extremely easy it wouldn't happen if he was president according to him therefore once he becomes president it's going to end that hasn't happened and he's just he's just flailing at this point

as he told as Politico says Trump so Trump says he's going to meet again with Putin to discuss it he's going to go back to that and the Budapest location is interesting interesting, and it flows into this funny exchange between Svdate, a post reporter. And is Caroline Levitt or? Yes, Caroline Levitt. I'll read the text first.

So SV reaches out, is the president aware of the significance of Budapest? In 1994, Russia promised in Budapest not to invade Ukraine if it gave up the nuclear weapons it inherited when the Soviet Union dissolved. Does he not see why Ukraine might object to that site? Who suggested Budapest, thanks. Your mom did. I mean it's funny but it's not that funny I mean I'm going to laugh at any

I'll laugh yeah mom joke is he says is this funny to you and she said it's funny to me that you actually consider yourself a journalist you're a far left hack who nobody takes seriously including your colleagues in the media they just don't tell you that to your face stop texting me your disingenuous biased and BS questions as far as I know that's not the press corps's

understanding of my former colleague SV so then Caroline herself posted it for context as fee of the Huffing Post is not a journalist interested in the facts the left-wing hacked which she already said in there just take a look at his feed it reads like an anti-Trump personal diary he is pretty anti-trump no doubt about that he had okay let's be honest he has TDS I cover the white I cover the way he's pretty he's pretty he's TDS problem listen I don't care all right he's allowed to do whatever he wants to do anti-trump yeah he's is he's full-blown I remember him um in the press corps I got nothing listen I respect the dogged guys um anybody who wants

sit there and fire off questions the press secretary that's your job your mom jokes yeah pretty immature uh not a good look for you in my opinion so yeah i mean i don't know what else to say i don't you could just ignore it nobody said that you have to respond you know to the question uh it is a legitimate question i would tell sv to his face uh that the premise itself is retarded uh based on this whole idea of the budapest memorandum that they deserve you know why zelenski it doesn't want to do budapest because no he doesn't want to do budapest because orban is the only person in the EU who has a very different view of the Ukraine conflict, right? And actually, I mean, a lot of people forget this. There are ethnic Hungarians who lived in Ukraine. I saw many of them,

who are Ukrainian citizens, because when I visited Budapest, they're all living in Budapest now. And they don't want to fight in the war, which is very instructive, isn't it? But the point just broadly around Budapest as the location is because Trump has a great relationship with Orban, and Orban has a good relationship with Putin. So it would be neutral-ish territory for the two of them to meet. understand the prospect, but also what? Do they expect Putin to meet in Berlin? Like, what do you guys? Are we joking? Like, yes, where, other than Alaska, which was actually good, because it was halfway, it's still on U.S. territory, or they could go meet in Vladivastok or something like that. I guess, I don't know, for some reason, Trump doesn't want to go to Russia. Yeah, Beijing.

Well, that would be a real statement. Actually, if that would be the brokering ground. Budapest seems as good as any of a place to meet. You know, EU territory. Lovely this time of year, right? Oh, beautiful. Hey, beautiful city. I recommend everybody go. Gorgeous. Hey there, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, Sex in the City, or just the Internet's dad. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing? Where I embark on a noble quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Daddy's looking good. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me. Actors, musicians, creatives, highly evolved. digital life forms, and we talk about what they love. Sometimes I'll drizzle a little honey in there, too, from feeling sexy in the morning. What keeps them going?

And you're maybe my biggest competition on social media. Like when a kid says bra to me. And how they're navigating this high speed roller coaster we call reality. In Australia, you're looking out for snakes, spiders, and f***is. Right. Hey, he's no Tray McDougall This is like the comment section

of my Instagram. Join me and my delightful guests every Thursday, and let's get weird. together in a good way listen to what are we even doing on the iHeart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts in the new podcast hell in heaven two young americans move to the costa rican jungle to start over but one will end up dead the other tried for murder not once people went wild not twice stunned but three times John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive, and they're devoted to each other.

They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular, circular home, high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble, and our couple retreat from reality. They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts. Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the I-Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News dives deep into one big global business story every weekday. A shutdown means we don't get the data, but it also means for President Trump that there's no chance of bad news on the labor market.

What does a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich reveal about the economy? Our breakfast foods are consistent consumers. and so they sort of become outsize indicators of inflation. What's behind Elon Musk's trillion dollar payout? There's a sort of concerted effort to message that Musk is coming back. He's putting politics aside. He's left the White House. And what can the PCE tell you that the CPI can't?

CPI tries to measure out-of-pocket costs that consumers are paying for things, whereas the PCE index that the Fed targets is a little bit broader of a mess. Listen to the big take from Bloomberg News every weekday afternoon on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us now is David Day, and he's the executive editor of the American Prospect and a great friend of the show. It's good to see you, David. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me on. So, David, I have been fascinated by this term of vendor finance. I didn't realize, you know, I'm too young to actually remember.com. But luckily, we have experts

like you who can go through and can write all about how we're just living through the exact same crazy scenario. But before we actually even get to that, we wanted to get your reaction to the Amazon Web Service crash that just happened, which highlights this architecture, which runs our entire economy, our entire digital life, and a single point of failure, literally a prospect of what it's like to live under Monopoly. Let's put this up here on the screen. You know, everybody, especially here on the East Coast, woke up immediately multiple apps are not working. Huge outage. You had banks, you had music services, so many different things where you had the single point of failure from a single server here in northern Virginia in our

area. And I mean, just from a monopoly point of view, David, and especially the fact that their stock went up even after the crash. What does that tell you about this world that we live in? Well, I'm painfully aware of it because we couldn't get our newsletters out yesterday. They've run with a company that was involved in the mess. Yeah, I mean, I'd go back to a different recession, which is the Great Recession of 2008, which was characterized by what is known as tight coupling. In other words, the banks were all tied in with one another. And so when there was a failure in the mortgage back mortgage, sorry, mortgage back securities market, that cascaded throughout the rest of the economy.

And, you know, you see similar couplings here with respect to the cloud service and the Internet. And it's a really dangerous situation, obviously, because it's not just my newsletter and Netflix and things like that that are on there, but actually really important things on the cloud that people need to have every day. You know, like healthcare technology would be the first that I would think of as the kind of thing you don't want to go down, transportation as well.

How did, and then we'll get into this other reporting because it very much is related. How do you think AI and crypto and blockchain played into this crash and, you know, it was concentrated in Virginia, apparently the DSN finishes, like, right in here in Virginia, which also happens, I don't know what's coincidence, it also happens to be where the CIA and a lot of the other infrastructure around, you know, surveillance and backdoors as well. So you've got the surveillance,

AI, blockchain, and then monopoly. Like, what do you think is a driving factor here that produced this cascading collapse? Well, Virginia is maybe the data center, you know, head of the entire country. There is a tremendous amount of data centers there. And, you know, it stands to reason because there's so much compute needs. I just think that when you layer on and layer on onto these systems, and AWS is the biggest cloud infrastructure that we have in the world. And when you just keep adding and adding and adding,

adding to it, you do create these single points of failure. You do create the ability for things to break down. And they have bigger consequences when that happens. You see this in airlines where one glitch creates thousands of delays on flights. It's the same kind of dynamic. Yeah. And this really gets to the heart of what I wanted to talk to you about. Can we go ahead and put G3 up on the screen? And you write about the circular finance deals that continue to see in the economy, this prospect of vendor finance where basically what happens is you sign a deal with a company, they give you a part of that company, the stock goes up, which effectively erases the so-called price that you paid, billions of

dollars in so-called value have been created, but nothing has actually happened, been produced, and or been paid. It doesn't seem to make any sense, but it's fueling the rise of all of these different companies, and it's, even more importantly, we talk about single point of failure, it's the only reason our stock market is up at all. Without it, we would be in a recession. Yeah, something like 80% of the stock gains this year are related to AI-linked companies. And something, I've heard another stat that data center infrastructure buildout is responsible for maybe 50% of the gains in GDP. So obviously, we've put a big bet on AI.

And companies like Nvidia in particular, but there are others, these big companies that sell things. They sell in the case of Nvidia, GPUs, which are the high-end chips that run these AI data centers. They need customers. So what they're doing is actually creating their own demand. They sell or they invest in companies, start-up. companies, whether they are companies that make data centers like CoreWeave or even companies that make AI models because Nvidia just did a huge deal with OpenAI for $100 billion. So they invest in these companies and then these companies turn around and use that money to

build data centers which need GPUs, which Nvidia makes. So it's really circular. I've heard it called round-tripping as well. contributor at the prospect, Brian McMahon, referred to it as the auroboros, the snake eating its own tail. So help me understand how this keeps going, because I want to try to, it's very hard for me to get my head around this. So let's say I run an apple orchard, right? And I make a ton of apples, but nobody wants to buy my apples. So I take money that I have and I give it to my neighbor and my neighbor uses the money to buy my apples.

So now I have the same amount of money that I started with, but I don't have my apples anymore. Right. Explain to me how this doesn't just all end in tears. There are all these people on the sidelines that say, oh, you have, you created another, you know, demand for your apples. And so we're going to give you more money because you're obviously running a very good business where you have,

lot of demand. So I've doubled my mind. More money's coming in. That's the stock market, right? That's investors on the sidelines saying, this sounds good, Envidia, you're creating your own demand. And so it doesn't stop until the music stops. And we've seen this before, as Cigar alluded to. In the 1990s, there was an infrastructure buildout of, you know, fiber infrastructure that was needed for the web. And Cisco was really the company at the center of it. And they were engaging in this vendor financing for these startups that were creating, you know, fiber optic layout. And it was all great until it turned out that nobody really needed PetS.com anymore. And at that point, Cisco lost 80% of its value. So we have been here before. It sounds great and it works great

until it doesn't. We don't know when that time's going to be. If I knew that, I would be a very rich man. But what we know is that it doesn't feel like it can last forever. So that's my last question, David. One way I've been kind of coping on why it won't is the economy, in my opinion, was a lot more real in 1999. In 2000, like, you know, we actually did build stuff. We, you know, it wasn't great. It was still financialized, but it was still, there was something actually happening in the U.S. economy. Now, this is it. Like, if 80% and 50% of stock gains and 50% of data center is GDP, the system cannot afford a crash. Now, that hasn't necessarily stopped it before, but why wouldn't they just pull out all the stops to say, actually, no, the crash is not

happening because our entire economic livelihood depends on it? It's certainly possible that that's only operative if you believe in a they. If you believe that there's no other force that can thrust reality into being. I mean, the similarities, people are making a lot of connections to the 1990s and the dot-com buildout. And by the way, you can have a build-out of a physical good, but still have an end with a financial crash. I mean, railroads had bubbles when they were being built out, the transcontinental railroad. led to the panic of 1873 and things like this that were really terrible depressions. So technologies can be useful, but the financing behind them can still be really, really bad.

And so I relate this as much to the financial crisis as I do to the dot-com buildout. And there are even some of the same players. Ryan might remember the name Magnitar. They were a hedge fund that they would basically build these mortgage-backed securities. and then bet against them. This is like right at the end of the bubble. Magnetar is the leading institutional investor in Corweave, one of these companies that builds data centers.

Magnetar is still around? Yes, they never went away. And so here we are 20 years later, close to 20 years later. And Corweave is at the heart. This is one of these companies that they've never made any money, but they have a lot of investment. and it's kind of Wiley Coyote not looking down at the ground and seeing nothing situation. And so when I heard Magnetar was involved, I got heart palpitations a little bit.

And Zuckerberg actually, I'm sure you noticed this. He brought up the railroad example himself. You know, he said, you know, just like in the railroad example, you know, this was infrastructure that was needed and there was a huge bubble. and a lot of rail lines got built that went to nowhere because the companies went bankrupt and there was just money to be made in saying that you were going to build a railroad and then money would come in,

you'd pay off the politicians who would then give you the easements and you'd pay the politicians off in stock in the railroad. That was some of those big scandals at the time. And then the bubble popped and as Zuckerberg said and a lot of companies got wiped out but we had some rail lines laid down. And then the oligarchs could come in and buy up cheap assets, which also Zuckerberg said.

So what's going to happen from Zuckerberg's perspective, there will be a bust. I don't know if it'll be as bad as like the 1873 or the 1890s. But then the oligarchs that survive come in and buy up everything for very cheap and then kind of do it all again. And it took us until the progressive era and then the new deal to sort that out. I don't know if we're on a shortened time frame or what this time around. Well, I mean, certainly if you think about what would happen in the aftermath of something like this popping, and the pop can come from any way, whether it's China coming up with models that turns out they don't need a ton of infrastructure to be built to do, or, you know, we find out that AI has a plateau and it's, you know, cat videos aren't, you know,

God and machine, whatever it is. What do we think if it happens under this administration, we're pretty sure that there's probably going to be a bailout of some sort because, you know, we're seeing it right now in farming. I mean, you know, if you have a connection or a connection or a call. closeness to this administration, they're going to take care of you. And so that scenario that you just put out there where the oligarchs, the tech lords come in and they're kind of, it's almost that they're incubating themselves or isolating themselves from the pain by engaging

in these financial games. Because ultimately, it's going to be retail investors and these small companies like CoreWeave that can be sort of jettisoned off. And then the oligarchs that are throwing off their own cash flow can come in and take over. Thank you so much for your inside, David. Really rely on the work that you guys do. And I think that this is genuinely one of the most important issues in the U.S. economy. So thank you for breaking it down. We'll see you later, man. Thank you so much for being here, Ryan. We appreciate you very much, brother. And Ryan and family will be on tomorrow with the counterpoint. So we'll see you all then.

Hey, I'm Kyle McLaughlin. You might know me as that guy from Twin Peaks, sex in the city, or just the internet stand. I have a new podcast called What Are We Even Doing, where I embark on a noble, quest to understand the brilliant chaos of youth culture. Each week, I invite someone fascinating to join me to talk about navigating this high-speed rollercoaster we call reality.

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