Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 11/10/25: Dems Surrender On Shutdown, Trump Ballroom Scandal, Dems Call On Schumer To Shutdown, Trump Calls Affordability A Con Job

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Dems surrender on shutdown, Trump ballroom enrages Americans, Ro Khanna calls on Schumer to step down, Trump calls affordability a con job.   Trillion Dollar War Machine: https://www.amazon.com/Trillion-Dollar-War-Machine-Bankrupts/dp/1645030636   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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Crystal? Indeed, we do a group of centrist Dems caved. So there is a shutdown deal. We will get to all of that. Rokana is also going to join us. He is calling for Chuck Schumer to resign. over this. Just coming right out and saying it. So I'm going to get his thoughts on all of this. There's also a bunch of weird policy proposals coming out from the Trump administration. We're going to cover one of them today, which is 50-year mortgages.

So just take on more debt, pay more to the bank for longer. That's their solution to the housing crisis. You will own nothing and be happy. Yes. You'll own nothing and be happy. Indeed. We're also digging into the way that data centers factored into last week's elections and are becoming an increasingly

potent issue in terms of our politics, something that we've had our eye on for a little while now. Sam Altman crashing out and appears to be asking us, the U.S. taxpayer, to backstop his potential losses. So that's a great one. Biden administration knew about Israel's war crimes and did nothing about it. New report reveals. And we have an author of a new book on the trillion-dollar war machine. So a lot of relevant things to get into with him. Yeah, that's right. I'm excited for all of that. We are going to have Rokana join us a little bit here on the show to give us a reaction to the show. shutdown deal, which we're very excited. Thank you to everybody's been signing up, breakingpoints.com.

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the details here of how the shutdown deal basically came to pass. The TLDR of the whole thing is this is a full-blown cave from the Democrats. And eight, you know, a so-called centrist, moderates or whatever, joined Republicans in advancing the, advancing the government deal, the CR deal, which was on the table from the House of Representatives. There are two important caveats to that. The Democrats say that what they got in exchange for voting for government funding was, one, a vote at some point in the future in December on the ACA subsidies, those health care subsidies. Put a pin in that because we'll return a little bit to the health care discussion. And two is a reversal of government firing, so-called rifts, reduction in force from October 1st,

2025, forward to January 31st, 2026. So basically, like a three-month reprieve from any firing of federal government employees, not previous federal government employees, just immediate federal government employees. That's it. That's basically all they got in exchange. And to be very, very clear, that deal was on the table from the very beginning. So John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader from the beginning was like, look, Dems, I'll give you guys a vote if you want in a few weeks. And from the beginning, they all said, no, that's not enough. We need the actual health care subsidies. We need to change the health care system.

We need, you know, rift stuff. We just came off this election. Actually, it looked like the Democrats were going to become even more emboldened. But instead, overnight, I personally think what happened is they got spooked from the airlines and from SNAP. I think that the airlines in particular, I mean, I was telling the crew, tens of billions of dollars per day in productivity. Newark Airport yesterday was an absolute nightmare.

Today, if the shutdown continues, they're saying there will be a 20% reduction in air traffic control, Thanksgiving, travel, and all that, you know, at that point, you're going to have to bail out the airlines, considering the number of losses that they would take. It would just basically bring it to a complete halt of air traffic in this entire country. So they decided they want, they would, you know, basically their bluff was called and they decided to cave and to give. And I think Snap was part of that as well. Trump was like, listen, I'll just, you know, hold up the snap benefits. And Supreme Court said that he could. And so in the interim, you know, 42 million people or so going into the holidays would have lost their stamp benefits.

Air traffic would have come to zero. Even though I do eventually think most of that chaos would have been blamed on the Republicans, these Democrats were like, no, we just, we can't deal with that. Yeah, I think the SNAP thing was big, you know, very Israeli-coded. Trump using food as a weapon of war here, basically, against the Democrats. And for these eight, you know, losers basically, it worked. I mean, it is utterly pathetic. It is utterly pathetic that, as you said, Zogger, this, they could have done this on day one, this, quote-unquote deal was on the table. You caused all of this pain and suffering now for nothing. You completely bended, completely caved, demonstrated to the American people that you

will not stand on business on anything. And at such a perplexing moment, like, they just secured some of the most impressive election for results that we've seen. We're going to cover the massive swing in Georgia, obviously Virginia, obviously New Jersey. Any state that you look at, there was a shift to the left, an absolute reckoning for the Republicans. Trump knew internally he was freaking out about the shutdown and realized this was a major problem for him. And that's the time that you decide to cave when it's never been more clear that you were winning the debate. It's never been more clear, made more obvious the American people that you were the ones that were fighting for health care. But no, that's the moment when you're

apparently at your strongest, based on the electoral results last week, to say, you know what, we're going to take the deal that was available literally on day one. It is so utterly pathetic. These people never fight for anything. Many of them have been looking for a way to cave from the beginning, by the way. And let's just read off the names of who it was that voted for this. It's also noteworthy, you know, who they are politically because it shows you they know the Democratic base is going to be fucking fury. They're already furious and not just like lefties, not even just sort of like the,

the rad libs. I'm talking like Matt Iglesias being like, what are you guys doing? Like, what are you thinking about here? Near Tandon, you know, pretty unified front of people saying this makes absolutely no sense. So here are the ones who voted yes. Catherine Cortez, master of Nevada, Dick Durbin, who's the number two in the Senate, John Fetterman, because of course, Maggie Hassan, Tim Kaine, Jackie Rosen, and Gene Shaheed. You know, the only one of them that I could kind of be like, I kind of see it, is Tim Kaine because Virginia is, you know, he's representing, so many federal government workers. But what's noteworthy about all of those people,

none of them is up for re-election right now. None of them. They're either retiring or they're not up until 2028 or even 2030. Those and the other thing to note about that is number one, that tells you they know the politics of this are absolutely trash for them. They know they could be facing primary challenges from their left for caving to the Republicans, caving to Trump in this moment. That's number one.

Number two, it shows you how organized this was. So Chuck Schumer, you know, sorry, Angus King was the other one who's technically an independent from Maine. But in any case, Chuck Schumer voted no on this and put out a video. We can show you some of it saying, you know, that's why I'm voting no, blah, blah, blah. There's reporting from David Dayan over at the American Prospect, one of his writers, that Schumer, of course, was involved in making this deal, cutting this deal from the beginning. So don't be fooled by the fact that he personally didn't vote for it. Schumer's hands are all over this thing, which is exactly why, and we'll get this from Roe v.

when he joins us, which is exactly why Rokana, and by the way, Mark Bokane as well, are saying, dude, you're not made for this moment. You got to step aside. Someone who understands the moment that we're living through, someone who is actually willing and able to fight for something as basic as healthcare, they need to take the reins.

So those are the things to take note of with regard to who specifically it is that voted for this thing. Let's go ahead and take a listen to. Gene Chaheen was one of the lead negotiators here of the cave. Let's go ahead and take a listen to how she justified this.

This was the only deal on the table. It was our best chance to reopen the government and immediately begin negotiations to extend the ACA tax credits that tens of millions of Americans rely on to keep costs down. It was the only deal on the table. And so basically, Republicans were like,

you know, normally in these things, there's some meetings, people are, no, there was none of that. And so ultimately, they found the Republican threat to just keep the government closed indefinitely, they found that credible and decided that even though they were getting literally nothing for their votes, for their capitulation, they were going to go ahead and cave.

And just on this, you know, I did, okay, there's going to be a vote in December they pinky promise. I mean, first of all, you can't trust these people. But second of all, let's say the vote probably, you know, let's say it happens. There's no guarantee. It's even going to be brought up in the house. You get some show vote in the Senate. Oh, congratulations. Way to go.

Like, this is going. They, they know that there is zero. percent chance that that show vote that they're getting in December, if that even happens, is going to lead to any sort of health care resolution for the American people. It's a joke, obviously. And I can just pretty much tell you no Republican leader or previous shutdown would have ever caved on these circumstances. They never would have. Because if you come off of successful elections, you just got a lot of your whole theory ratified about how energized people are, then, I mean, look, you are playing with people's lives, and I don't want to put

that to the side. You know, federal government employees got some 40 days or whatever without a paycheck. You had the snap benefits, air traffic control, the stock market. Like, things were not good, and it actually looked like things were going to go into shambles over the next couple of weeks. All that said, that's kind of the whole point of pursuing a government shutdown or a debt ceiling, you know, type of cliff, which many Republicans have done in the past, specifically to force what they want. I also want to just double click on what you said. where there has been this theory that the Democratic leadership did not endorse the deal. First of all, Dick Durbin, who is literal number two, who is retiring voted for the deal.

But two, the way that this always works is, you know, the Senate is the king of the limited hangout, where you take the moderator or whatever and silently 10 other people will agree, they'll say, look, I won't vote for this, but you do it because you're not up for reelection. You take, you know, all the shit or whatever from the base. And in the interim, you know, we will be, you know, cosplaying or whatever against a deal, but we secretly support you. I have been told that this is the way the stock trading ban works.

There's always like one or two guys that, you know, come out forcefully against it. Silently, it's like 99% of them who are like, yeah, thank you. You know, please, Rick, you know, keep fighting against this. Same thing works in the house. You let your bomb throwers work inside the system and the people more in the precarity, even though they agree with the more unpopular policy, they won't technically vote for it. So this is much more organized and a lot of people are thinking.

Senator Schumer is trying to hang his hat on the fact that he voted no. Here's what he had to say. For months and months, Democrats have been fighting to get the Senate to address the health care crisis. This bill does nothing to ensure that that crisis is addressed. I am voting no, and I will keep fighting. Again, let me explain a little bit more, Washington inside politics. Is great leaders, what they do is you have ironclad control of your caucus. You know, Nancy Pelosi just retired.

That's what she ultimately was good at. And look, we can disagree with many of her aims. You can look at your own record. I wouldn't think it's that great. But what she always was great at was delivering the vote. She could count the votes. She was able to wield power effectively by making sure that all of the Democrats in her caucus were very beholden to her.

The other person we have to shout out here, Harry Reid. I don't think Harry Reid ever would have let this happen. He was a very good mover shaker, not above, you know, the gutter politics, always able to move the caucus in its direction. If I think the greatest Senate leader in U.S. history, Lyndon Johnson, is always about internal politics, united front, using that united front to force something from the government. And I do think the Republicans were like a week away from something actually coming through, maybe not necessarily in the House, but in the Senate. And then the Senate and Trump may have caved, who knows, you know, where things could have gone. That's the whole point,

ultimately, of a shutdown. Because in the interim, one reason why people should be furious about this is they did shut our government down for nothing. You took the same deal that was on the table 40 days ago. If you get something out of it, okay, but you get a fake show vote, come on. I mean, it's a joke, right? Because no, you know, the House isn't going to vote for it. And, you know, even if it comes in December, I mean, come on, that's eternity in politics. That's a month, right? So you literally did nothing, I think, overall. And so, yeah, if you're a Democratic-based person, you should be furious. But also, even if you're American, you should be mad because, again, at this point, like, you really shut us all down and caused a lot of chaos,

billions and billions of dollars in lost economic, you know, productivity, whatever. So many people rely on various, they need IRS something, you know, from the government they weren't able to get through. So you emiserated a large section of our population for zero. I think that's pathetic. And, you know, that does, look, Democrat base and all of them are going to be upset about it. But, you know, this is a great view into our broken politics, man, because thank you for shutting our government down for, this is the longest government shutdown in U.S. history for literally

nothing. I mean, zero. If you couldn't stomach the pain, that's the point of a shutdown is you're going to, you're going to cause some chaos. You're going to make, you know, you're going to cause pain on behalf of using this leverage to extract something that you believe is going to be beneficial for the American public. Like, that's the whole idea. If you're, if you can't take that pain, don't do it. Right. Just just, just cave immediately. Right. It'd be better than, okay, we had on this chaos and you got nothing. You got nothing out of it. Maybe you're got some better results on election day. I don't know. Maybe it played into that and maybe that was your whole goal. That is actually disgusting. That is actually disgusting. Because that's the

other thing. As much as, you know, we were saying the Supreme Court coming out and saying, all right, we're going to basically let the Trump administration continue to deny stat benefits, the airline, increasing airline chaos. As much as I think that was part of this, I also just given the timing, I feel like these people plan to cave as soon as the election was over. Like, that was the goal. That was the plan all along is what it feels like to me. Because, again, these were the types who were looking to cave from day one. And you know what?

It would have been better if they did. If they just did it from the jump, that they never did this because you caused pain and you got nothing. The other thing you were talking about the, like, limited hangout in the Senate and the way that the Senate operates, you know, the other thing, Trump was threatening to get rid of the filibuster and so that they wouldn't need Democrats to pass anything, which to me, I'm like, good. You should get rid of the filibuster. And there were a lot of Republicans that were nervous about that because they were like, yeah, but then if Democrats get back in power, which increasingly looks possible in the next midterm elections, then they can do things like, you know, they can give D.C. to senators. They can give Puerto Rico to senators. They can put age limits or term limits or pack the Supreme Court. You know, it opens up possibilities. These types who just voted for this, they also don't want the filibuster to go away, even though some of them will claim that they do. The reason is, because then they don't. have an excuse to do nothing. Then you actually like have to take votes and it's actually consequential and things might actually happen. Many of these centrist corporate types, the last thing they want is actual power. The last thing they want is to be able to have to actually

explain why they're not delivering for the American people without it being the parliamentarian, oh my God, the Republicans, oh my God, the filibuster. They love having the filibuster as an excuse to do nothing that improves people's lives. So that was the other piece of this is the fact that Trump was starting to put pressure on Republicans, like, okay, just nuke the filibuster and pass it. Personally, for me, that would have been a better resolution to this because in either case, Democrats get nothing.

And in that case, it is abundantly clear, like, who forced the shutdown? The Democrats stood firm. And then, you know, you've got the filibuster eliminated and people can actually get what they vote for And, you know, you have a chance of Congress actually being forced to, like, govern and take stances on issues. Yeah, totally. You're absolutely right. I mean, look, yeah, the Republicans don't want it either, right? Because for them, you know, they're nothing they love more than being in the minority and doing nothing.

And then when they're in the majority. Everybody does. Yes, that's the secret. They've handed all their power to Trump. Look at the war powers stuff. And they're happy with that too. Yeah, look at war powers. You know, shortly after we wrapped our show on Thursday, there was this fake kabuki vote on the war powers resolution for Venezuela, which actually went down 51-49. in the Senate. But what happened, the reason, only reason why was because the White House came out and said, well, look, we promise that we aren't going to do anything right now, right now,

whenever it comes to Venezuela. I was like, oh, okay, here, Mr. Commander-in-Chief, you have the unilateral authority to not only declare war in an undeclare theater, but to depose a foreign government with U.S. troops and one of the largest deployments in the Caribbean since the 1960s, and we don't have anything to say about it. But Congress is pathetic. It's absolutely pathetic. You To your point also about the politics of all this, you flagged this thought from MSNBC, where even the libs on MSNBC are very angry. So let's take a listen. That is A5, please. Chuck Schumer should have negotiated a better deal.

He should be in the public more. He's just not a bad guy. And he's just not the right person at the right time. We're going to a different time. We're dealing with a GOP that's an anti-democratic movement. They don't care what the American people think on an issue like this. So I think, honestly, this is the end of Chuck Schumer's. What do you think of that, Anthony?

You know, I've never been a Chuck Schumer fan. Look at this. But I'm not ready to write his obituary just yet. I mean, you don't get to be the Senate Democratic leader for as long as he has without some raw political skills. I don't even, first of all, I don't know who that guy is. But second, that's Sunday evening fair there on MSNBC. But, I mean, look, I think they extend to the, the, the,

evidence at this point is this people are pathetic, absolutely pathetic. And I can tell you, you know, the Republicans never would have folded for something like this. Absolutely not. They never would have. Now, Trump had, Trump did in the past whenever it came to his previous longest shutdown in what was 2018, I think, yeah, 2018, 2019 that went into the long year over the, it was like the border wall funding. He definitely caved. Don't get me wrong. But in terms of the original Obama, she destroyed him. But when I think back to the shutdowns, the 2013 shutdowns, and more that they fought against Obama and including with some of the debt ceiling fights. I mean, you never would have seen this level of cave from them.

You can go back and you can read some of the history. They definitely at least got something out of it, whenever, especially on the debt ceiling and eventual like panels and other things for Social Security entitlements, et cetera. So, yeah, I mean, it's bad. Like you said, why don't shut the government down if you can't take the heat. The whole point is that the heat is supposed to do something. And especially after getting ratified in an election in terms of your, strategy against this. I think it's really pathetic for them as a national movement.

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or wherever you get your podcast. Let's consider the man who is like, you know, who they're caving to here, which is Donald Trump. So yesterday he went to the commander's game here in D.C. what was he do was like doing some of the announcing and stuff? He also, the announcers let him call some of the plays and he literally was like, well, we'll see what happens. Or he would do things where he'd be like, they scored a touchdown.

He's like, we need some more of those. It was like the worst color commentary that I've ever seen. But yeah, I'm a newer NFL fan. So maybe there, I think there's some guy out there, another awful announcer. I think he's Collingsworth. I think that's who he is. Who might be worse than Trump,

but that's pretty much it. Trey Collinsworth is that. I think it's Chris Collinsworth. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so anyway, he was there, and the crowd was not super excited to see him. This was some of the most aggressive anti-president booing that I think I've ever seen. This is A8. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.

I have seen your name. You saw all these where. Now I will support any fan. The Constitution of the United States It's all enemies. I mean, that was pretty wild. And he's trying to... Okay, to be fair, and I'm just saying this is the cope.

I feel far of them. You are in the DMV at a hometown game in commanders where probably three-fourths of the audience either knows somebody who has been fired or has been fired themselves, has been for a lot. If I was trying by, I would not show up. to that game. I'd be like, this is the worst. It's like, bro, you need to go to a Green Bay game or something.

That's actually, I mean, that's, that's just a fair point. Yeah, that's just true. But that's the point with, like, people are blaming him for the shutdown, right? I mean, the politics, Democrats, if they were squishing on the politics and who was coming out on top in terms of, like, the politics of this thing, the election results last week should have made abundantly clear that people were more blaming Trump. They were blaming the Republicans more for the pain, for the chaos, and the public never likes the shutdown, right? You know, I'm sure, actually, if you poll today and you ask the public, like, are you happy that there's a deal?

Most of the public is going to say, yes, right? But in terms of who was being hurt more, there's no doubt that it was the Republicans and Donald Trump in particular. There was another thing that's very interesting that I wanted to get your thoughts on saga, which is one of the pollsters did these, like, word clouds of negative things that you'd heard about Trump. And the number one thing actually was the shutdown. Shut down government. You still have tariffs in there. Immigration is actually on there as well. But then very recent, oh, Epstein is there too.

Very recently, things switched and take a look at this. This is fascinating to be. Ballroom, White House, East Wing, destroying, building. Shutdown is still there. But demolish food stamps and snap there as well. But, you know, I don't want to read too. much into it. But I do have to say the contrast of them denying people food stamp benefits, giving tax cuts to the rich, hanging out with all these wealthy people, you know, shutting down

the government. And then meanwhile, you're building this gilded ballroom for yourself and throwing yourself these fancy parties in Mar-a-Lago. I do think that is creating a certain sense among the American people. I mean, it is very like gilded age coded. And it's very detrimental to his brand, which was supposed to be, like, you know, about the working class and really delivering for the people, et cetera, et cetera. I think it just shows that America is a Lindy nation. Lindy is a concept that, you know, things that, it's kind of hard to explain. But basically, like, things that rang true in the past continue to ring true throughout time. Throughout all American history, especially, let's say, during the Great Depression.

I mean, think about it. During 9-11, if you recall, one of the most famous moments was not just what happened, obviously, with the attacks. it was George W. Bush's bumbling, right? Whenever he was being told about the attacks and he refuses to leave, like, symbology in these small moments ends up massively mattering. And things that, you know, in the aggregate,

did it really matter that Bush waited? I forget exactly how long he waited. But that was like a huge thing. During the Depression, if you've read a decent amount about it, Herbert Hoover's, like, multi-course dinners that were candlelit at the White House, they became legend in the world of Hoovervilles. And people who were very,

critical, let's say, of, you know, the Hoover administration would be like, he dines in the White House while we sit here in a Hooverville and we wait for our early pension. There was this veteran pension marchers that were happening and they were violently kind of thrown out. I think it was here in D.C. They were camping out on the National Mall. I'd have to go back and check. But the point is, like, these symbols become things that people really latch onto. And I think for a lot of people, it's about priority. At the end of the day, it's all about priority. He obviously is more laser-focused on adding as much gold Home Depot decor as possible at the White House and remaking it in the image of like a low three-star hotel of what he, I guess, perceives as good taste than he is

in terms of what's happening to you. That's the point. That's why the stuff matters. It's not about the gold, right? I mean, or I would hope so. Personally, somebody who loves and aesthetics and hates the current reformation of the White House. But I do think, you know, if things were going great, nobody would care. But the point is, is that when you were doing that, your laser focus on that, you see all this stuff in the news, and you see the bulldozers, the erasure, and the construction that's happening at the very same time that things are just not getting better for you. Let's put the snap and the air travel stuff aside. Because it's, people forget, it's not just about that. It's a culmination of, it's November 10th now. You got elected about

a year ago. What have you done for me lately? And that's the point. You know, in Inflation remains punishingly high. Healthcare premiums and all that are going sky high. That's not just because of the Obamacare subsidies. Even in the private market, they're up like 10, 15%. So if, or not, I mean, the employer subsidy market. So if you look at that, if you look at grocery store prices, if you look at the, you know, the AI stuff, data centers, your power bills, housing prices are either flat or have gone,

continue to go high. The basics of life are not getting better. And I do think what they underestimated is that many people, we've always said this about Trump. Trump is a bomb thrown into the system, and the theory behind a bomb thrown in the system is a system is so broken that nothing can be done except for choosing somebody who's choosing something truly radical. If you rewind to a year ago, part of the case I made about the cash Patels and the, you know, the RFK junior, I go, look, for most people, roll the dice. No more institutions. Nothing. No more guard, nothing. We need some radical shit to happen. And if anything, what's happened instead is, yeah, radical stuff has happened in the wrong direction, right? It's like, you're using extraordinary power, right, is you're using radical and extraordinary views or theories of executive power to either advance your own individual family's interests, to advance, let's say, like, a corporate interest or a tax bill or something, let's say some crazy shit on immigration,

but like at the end of the day, what's actually happening for me? That's what people want to see. People love radical stuff, as long as it's done in the right direction. Exactly. And so that is what I would say, the ballroom kind of, you know, comes together. It's the who, having the candlelight dinners. It's, I mean, throughout all history, it's like the symbology of it is about, cares about that, not about me. Yeah, and it's also about you acting like a king.

Yeah, that's true. You know, I've seen people make the point, like, what, you think he's building out this $300 million ballroom because he thinks he's going to leave, like who builds that for their successor? And that's the other problem for him is like, this is not some little quick,

you know, weekend renovation project. This construction is going to be ongoing. And he does have at least enough of a sense to realize it's a bit of a problem for him because he banned everybody from taking pictures of it. This is a man who understands branding, image, optics. Like, if nothing

else, that's something that he really gets. But he also loves a good, loves a good construction project with like laden and gilded with gold and just can't resist it. He's sending out all these pictures about his freaking marble bathroom. And then now, you know,

if you scroll on Twitter, you'll just see endless reels of what's going on at Maralaga. You know, this weekend they had some opulent seafood buffet with the stone crab claws that cost a ridiculous amount per pound while Americans are literally going hungry because you won't send out the food stamp money that is you're actually obligated to send down. So, you know, I want to give credit to Nera Dan, and she said, she said, like, they're going to lose the midterm elections because of this east wing double. I was like, come, okay, that's a little. I was like, I was happy about it. I said people join me. Maybe she has a point.

Yeah. Look, let's always remember politics is bred in circus, it's theater. And so any Democrat who is worth, you know, anything, who's running for office should be like, I will tear down the ballroom on day one. We don't care about the costs. We don't care about it. We will rip this ballroom to shreds. We will publish daily updates on demolition.

The gold will be smelted and whatever actual amount of carrot gold is in. in the fixings of considering that we will smelt the gold and we will distribute it to the American people. We will burn it quite literally, like in Game of Thrones when they melt it and then they pour it on the face of the opponent. That is what we promised to do. We will restore the Oval to its glory of John F. Kennedy whenever it was understated, it was a place of work, and it was one in which we could all see ourselves in the Oval Office and not instead the throne room at Versailles. See, these are all good things that I, like, but I mean, look, at this point, listen, obviously it's caught on. People are mad. They're mad about it. And I like it. I think

because, as you said, there's the kingly element to it. There's also something, I mean, I always said this about his demolition. I was like, dude, it's not about you. The whole point is that the White House is literally not about you. The White House transcends. And I don't even like the White. The White House sucks. If you ever been there, it's dingy. It hasn't been renovated since the 1980s. It's actually not nice. I'm not saying Trump doesn't have a point. I think the point, for all of us. It's like, yeah, but we don't, we didn't ask you to turn it into Marlago. Right. Like that photo of the Lincoln ball, a bedroom bath, that almost gave me a heart attack, okay?

That almost gave me a heart attack. I mean, I can't deal with this. I mean, we're not living in Las Vegas. It's like, it's actually going to make me have a meltdown. And it's one of those where I think there are a lot of people who go the same. Apparently, that was the normie. I love it. I love it. The normie sense was like, was like, now you've gone too far. Yes. It's true. Now you've gone to. not everything needs to look like the palazzo in las vegas or the trump international hotel or any of these but again the point is it's not yours to do the whole that's the whole point it's not for you to i mean the walk of fame thing in the colonnod that's the car it's the colonized

it's like that's where we take photos with world leaders and now we've fucking gold everywhere with a sign it literally looks like the venetian in vegas who needs to why do we need to label the Oval Office. You don't need a label on the Oval. It's the most recognizable room in the nation. You don't need a sign in the Oval Office. It's like going to some shitty golf course, like a public golf course that you pay like $50 for entry and there's a sign that says the clubhouse. You know, that's what it looks like. The script legit reminds me of like country club, like where you post, you know, the best golfers at the club or whatever. That's what it looks like. And just one last piece on this to the point, put A12 up on the screen. Like,

Meanwhile, this is what, I believe this is Newark looks like yesterday, all those planes waiting for takeoff. And by the way, you know, even, look, the government's not reopened yet, is going to take some time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, has got to go through the house, back to the Senate, et cetera, et cetera. But you had a bunch of air traffic controllers. And Sean Duffy came out and said this, who are gone. Like, they resigned.

I can't go without a paycheck. Like, screw this. I'm done with this job. This job is difficult. It's stressful. and now I'm supposed to work endlessly without getting paid. See ya. I'm out of here.

So these problems are not just going to like fix themselves. Once the government is reopened, it'll be better. But you've now lost critical capacity at our nation's airports. And, you know, rather than caring about that or the people are going hungry and there's literal breadlines and, you know, cities across the country and 70-some percent of the country says the economy's poor and you're giving the store away to a bunch of oligarchs and sucking up, you know, as much cash as you can in your own pocket. Instead of caring about any of the things that American, people actually care about you're building a frigging ballroom

for yourself. Okay. Got it. Got it. On the podcast Health Stuff, we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane de Bolo, comedian and someone who once Googled, do I have scurvy at 3 a.m. On Health Stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health. But also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes.

In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are. Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world that you, like, your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like, you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know.

It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in. Listen to health stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. She said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night. Along the central Texas planes, teens are dying. Suicides that don't make sense. Strange accidents and brutal murders.

In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to Paper Ghosts, the Texas Teen Murders, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robert Smith. This is Jacob Goldstein. And we used to host a show called Planet Money.

And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History, about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business.

The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses,

along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked. Like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. fortunate to be joined this morning by Representative Roe Kana of California. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, sir. Good morning. So you tweeted yesterday in response to a number of centrist Democrats caving to the Republicans

and voting for the shutdown deal. You tweeted this. Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can't lead the fight to stop health care premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for? What led you to that conclusion, Congressman? Just a moral disgust. I mean, I know personally, as I'm sure you do, people whose premiums are going to go up $1,000, $2,000 a month.

Millions of Americans are literally going to get kicked off health care. And we can't fight to make sure that their premiums don't go up after the Tuesday wins. It's just political malpractice. Here you have Donald Trump on the ropes scrambling, trying to make some deal. And we basically say, well, we don't care if the premiums go up. Like, what do we stand for? So he needs to be replaced and step down. More Democrats need to be calling for that.

The only reason they aren't calling for it, let me be blunt, is because you offend a lot of donors. There are a lot of billionaires. There are a lot of donors that contribute to the DSCC, that contribute to Chuck Schumer. But, you know, we've got to make a choice of this party. Are we going to be beholden to the donors that have gotten us two terms of Donald Trump? Are we going to listen to people? Sir, to the cope from the Schumer crowd is, well, he voted no. What is he supposed to do?

He can't keep his caucus in line. What's your response to that? Come on. Schumer's been in politics for 50 years. I mean, even he wouldn't say that with a straight face. He controls the caucus. He determines when a deal can be cut. He obviously gave them the green light.

I don't think he would even deny that. He didn't call up Dick Durbin, his number two, and say, hey, Dick, maybe you shouldn't be voting this way. So this is the typical game. It actually adds to the cynicism. I mean, if he had just voted for it, at least he could have made, maybe he has a principled argument.

But this is the worst of both worlds. It's like, look, I'm going to try to play a political game, but at the end of the day, the premiums are still going to go up. So, Congressman, let me play devil's advocate here. So what the center say is basically like, look, the Republicans drew a hardline. They were not vending. Trump isn't even negotiating with us.

They say they will not give us anything other than this. And meanwhile, you've got 40 plus million people who are going hungry without food stamps. You've got all these federal government workers who are out of work not getting paychecks. You've got increasing chaos at the airlines. I know yourself have suffered from some of the air travel nightmares. We're heading into Thanksgiving here. Like, we're trying to be the adults in the room. What do you say to that?

Well, look, obviously people are suffering. And in my district, they're suffering in terms of the SNAP benefits being cut. There's no doubt that on the airlines, I mean, I was just talking yesterday. I was in the airport six hours. There are a lot of lines cuts. Air traffic controllers aren't being paid. Congressional staff aren't being paid. Federal workers aren't being paid.

I get all of that. And what we should be talking about is reopening the House of Representatives so we can vote to extend staff benefits, pay troops. I think we had a lot of leverage to continue to put the pressure. on to do that. But you had Donald Trump literally saying we lost the election because of this. We need to get some deal. And I think we could have gotten an extension. Could we have gotten it permanent on the tax credits? Maybe not. But a year? I mean, there were Republican House members like Lawler who were willing to give a year. And the fact is that we've got nothing.

I mean, that that's what is so frustrating about the situation. And then, I mean, how do you think leader Jeffries is going to handle this in the House of Representatives? Congressman. So far, he is saying that we're going to fight it with any procedural vote we can. I mean, we need a few Republicans to break. They may break depending on what the bill is. So the Democrats in the House are going to stay united and fight for the stopping the premium increases. You know, back to on the point with Schumer, one of your colleagues, Mark Pocan, also tweeted this out. He said, don't endorse or say who you voted for in NYC. despite there being a dumb candidate, get dem senators to negotiate a terrible deal that does nothing

real about health care, screw over a national political party, profile of courage, of profile, I think he most meant to say profile of courage, question mark, next. So clearly your sentiment is shared by at least some of your colleagues. You know, and I think the point he makes there too about Chuck Schumer refusing to even say who he voted for in New York City, I think it's an important one as well. Because if you're going to be. a leader of the Democratic Party. And the Democratic base is saying, hey, this is Zora Mamdani.

This is our guy. Like, we like this guy. We like the direction he's going. If we're going to vote from the primary, we're going to show up in record-breaking numbers to vote from the general election, make sure that he wins. And you can't even say that you voted

for the Democratic candidate? I mean, how out of step are you with your own voters in the party, let alone your own caucus, let alone, you know, colleagues such as you. But he's also, and most importantly, wildly out of step with where his own voters are within the Democratic Party. So you're absolutely right. I mean, look, this was the straw that broke the camel's back. You had Chuck Schumer chairleading into the war in Iraq.

You've had Chuck Schumer cheerleading for a blank check to Net Miavo. You've had Chuck Schumer betraying us on the first shutdown. You then had Chuck Schumer given multiple opportunities after Zoran, one, the primary. to at least endorse it, even if it was a pro forma endorsement, he doesn't do that. And now he's not even willing to fight to make sure that the ACA subsidies don't increase. So to your earlier question about, are there difficult questions on SNAP benefits and fruit pay? Of course there are. And maybe if this was the only context, Chung Schumer would have some grace and goodwill and say,

okay, we disagree with this deal, but it's not enough to call for you to step down. But this is the culmination of someone who just doesn't get it, who doesn't get how much people are hurting, who doesn't get where the base of this party is, who doesn't get how upset this party has been that we're giving all this money to overseas wars and not doing health care here, who certainly is never going to support Medicare for all. He's just out of the time of that. She's not the future of the party. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us, Congressman. We appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. we are tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night. Yes, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally, a double board certified physician. And I'm Hurricane Dabolu, a comedian and someone who once Googled, Do I have scurvy at 3 a.m?

On health stuff, we're talking about health in a different way. It's not only about what we can do to improve our health, but also what our health says about us and the way we're living. Like our episode where we look at diabetes. In the United States, I mean, 50% of Americans are pre-diabetic. How preventable is type 2? Extremely. Or our in-depth analysis of how incredible mangoes are.

Oh, it's hard to explain to the rest of the world. Your mangoes are fine because mangoes are incredible, but like you don't even know. You don't know. You don't know. It's going to be a fun ride. So tune in. Listen to Health Stuff on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And she said, Johnny, the kids didn't come home last night.

Along the Central Texas Plains, teens are dying, suicides that don't make sense, strange accidents, and brutal murders. In what seems to be, a plot ripped straight out of Breaking Bad. Drugs, alcohol, trafficking of people. There are people out there that absolutely know what happened. Listen to paper ghosts, the Texas teen murders, on the I-Heart Radio, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What do you get when you mix 1950s Hollywood, a Cuban musician with a dream,

and one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time? You get Desi Arness, a trailblazer, a businessman, a husband, and maybe, most importantly, the first Latino to break primetime wide open. I'm Wilmer Valderrama, and yes, I grew up watching him, probably just like you and millions of others. But for me, I saw myself in his story. From plening canary cages to this night here in New York, it's a long ways. On the podcast starring Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Volderama,

I'll take you in a journey to Desi's life, the moments it has overlapped with mine, how he redefined American television, and what that meant for all of us watching from the sidelines, waiting for a face like hours on screen. This is the story of how one man's spotlight lit the path for so many others and how we carry his legacy today.

Listen to starring Desi Arnaz and Wilmer Valdez as part of the My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Turning now to affordability, the White House denying the affordability campaign of Zoran Mamdani in New York City, saying that it's a bit of a democratic hoax, but at the very same time acknowledging it's a huge problem, actually for them in the elections that are coming forward in 2026, and they've come up with some truly boneheaded plans. But first, let's start with Donald Trump on affordability.

Is it a problem? Let's take a listen. Walmart said that the Thanksgiving was 25 more expensive, 25% more expensive under Biden. That's a big, to me, that's a big number, because Walmart's respected. I mean, Walmart is Walmart, and, you know, they're giving you prices. So that would mean that the whole series of pricing and costs, you know, the groceries and everything else, it was a con job. It was a con job. Affordability, they call it.

they call it, was a con job by the Democrats. The Democrats are good at a few things, cheating on elections and conning people with facts that are true. Affordability was a con job. Trump has become Biden. Like, literally in the exact, he's like, well, they're lying to you about the numbers. And they're putting out charts. They're doing everything they possibly can.

They look, well, the stock market is near all-time highs. And everybody's like, yeah, but shit's actually still too expensive. Like, it's not that difficult. to figure it out. It's actually shocking how quickly you could turn from the people who correctly, in my opinion, made fun of Bidenomics, only to then do your only version of that. They also, borrowing from Biden, are doing boneheaded, idiotic proposals, which will do absolutely nothing and reveal how corrupt the entire system is. Let's just go ahead and put this one up here on the screen, shall we? So this is from Bill Pulte, who is the U.S. Director of Federal

Housing. To the Zoran Mamdani election, which was centered around affordability and around rent, he says, thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on the 50-year mortgage, a complete game-changer. Now, the theory behind the 50-year mortgage is, oh, hey, the 30-year mortgage, you know, that storied thing in the U.S. history that has financed the ability of the middle class and others to get in the housing market. the problem with affordability is that people's mortgage payments are too expensive. Definitely true. And so what we will do is we will extend it 20 years over its life cycle. And by doing that, you will save a couple hundred dollars per month, which, you know, not exactly a lot, but you will pay millions dollars of more in interest to the bank, and you will basically be a renter. And by the way, we're not going to do anything about capital being able to come in to the housing

market. We're not doing anything to incentivize first time on home buyers. We're not going to inject a massive amount of money to build more housing. We're not going to do anything on the supply side. We're actually just going to make it so that the demand side is slightly, let's say maybe 5% a little bit better for the potential buyer and it's, I don't know, 2, 300% better for the banks and for the financial institutions. If you don't believe me, just check out the math. And you can do this for yourself and any mortgage calculator if you want. Put this up here on the screen. I love this. $500,000 house, 2021. 3% interest rate, $2,100 payment, mortgage, 30 years, total interest payments, quarter of a million.

$20,000, $500,000 house, 7% interest rate, $3,000 payment, mortgage in a 50-year mortgage. So, they're 20-year longer, but with double the interest rate, total interest payments, $1 million, a million dollars in interest. Double the amount of the house, just in interest. Just in interest, double the amount of it. And by the way, that's the case in many of these 30-year mortgages, too. Part of the reason I'm Ramsey-Pill. Second discussion, we'll put that to the side.

you should all take a look what is it called the amortization schedule on your mortgage seriously please go and look at the calculators for these things the extending the life cycle of the mortgage barely saves you any money in terms of the overall period it is a boon to the bank in a way i can't even describe i mean look at that that's three quarters of a million dollars in interest that the bank gets for chase manhattan and all these other people to increase their uh to increase their stocks or whatever. It's a disastrous idea. It also, in my opinion, gives the game away as to how these people actually have genuinely no solutions whenever it comes to housing. Now, on the healthcare thing, we were originally going to do a segment about health care

premiums, and we can debate all day long, you know, Medicare for all, you've coverage, price controls, et cetera. The point, though, unfortunately, is that neither party actually believes in either of those. And I'm seeing that whenever it comes to housing as well. At the local level, people in San Francisco are fed up and, you know, they're trying to embrace yimbism, but they've got their local politicians currently bragging about bringing down like a six-story building. Not a joke, by the way, that actually happened. And the only state that has really embraced, like, true Yimbi policy, has been Texas. We've had relatively mixed results, but I would say overall it's good, but it's still very local. Nobody has a national plan to really do anything about it. And I thought that the Wall Street Journal actually summed up this all very well. Let's put this up here on the screen. Why lower mortgage rates aren't enough to make homes more affordable. What they have in front of you is something called a Housing Affordability Index. Just take a look. I mean, you can see in terms of the affordability index that we have reached a near all-time low ever since 2021, and we've just hovered around that for the entire time. And actually, if you look at something that's even more important

called the home-priced income ratio, and if you look at the overall 50-year average, between the 1970s and 2000, we were below a 50-year average. Things spiked during the Great Recession and the housing bubble in 2006, in 2005 period, whenever there was a ton of fake affordability happening because they were giving loans, like those no-doc loans, no-income loans, and those types of things out. Then it plunged right back to normal-ish-type levels. And then, yeah, ever since 2021, it went sky high. Home prices went up some 50 percent, and the price-to-income ratio has remained near the all-time high for the last five years. This is something I also find, as a a generational thing. A lot of boomer, if you think about this from a boomer mind, five years

is not that long time. If you're in your 60s, you're waiting for Medicare, whatever. It's just not that long. You've lived a decent amount of life. If you're in your 20s, five years is an eternity. Five years are those exponential years where you're trying to build a foundation. You might get married. You might have a, I mean, five years ago, we weren't even hosting the show. You know, I got married. I had a child. Like, you're liking radically change in five years. That's not the case for people who are much older. So people are like, oh, these millennials, they have no idea. It's like, no, I think they do have an idea. Number one, it's a, you know, five years in a 20-something year lifespan is just, you know, a decent, much more chunk of your life.

But they're the most important years in a lot of ways to be able to see that you're on an upward trajectory in life. And there's no denying that you're on a downward trajectory right now. And in my opinion, we've been on a downward trajectory for 25 years ever since the year 2000. So I feel like when you put those together and you look at housing, you see this ridiculous policy of 50 year as the best somebody can muster with, you know, radical thinking. I don't really see a ton, frankly, on the Democratic side either. I'm not against Yimbi. Like, let me be clear in some cases.

But also, I think the point just comes down to massive, massive, massive amounts, like Manhattan-level project amounts of grants to all the states with the requirement they must build housing. The people and the politicians in those states can figure it out, how they want to do it. You can build more single families, whatever. You know, it's up to you. Urban, mixed, residential, et cetera.

But you need a shit ton more supply. And people just don't, like, people just don't want to go there. Because the landed gentry is also opposed to it. So it's just a total misalignment of incentives. Right. Well, to stick with housing specifically, you know, you've got the new, like, abundance. It's not really new, but whatever. Abundance movement in the Democratic Party, which is very focused on yimpia.

Fine. It's not enough, right? Just rolling back the regulations, Texas, like you said, is a great example. It's not like it's solved all their problems either. You need that, but then you're going to have to not only tackle the entrenched interest, homeowners' very powerful political constituency, and they are really devoted to a lot of nimbism. So you have to deal with that. But then you also are going to have to deal with the developers. You're going to have to also deal with permanent capital, which has bought up a bunch of single family homes.

And, you know, as part of what is made, the housing market is so much more expensive. You don't have to deal with that. You have to deal with the like landlord cartels as well to deal with algorithmic pricing. That's the thing is you have to be willing to go up against entrenched interest, entrenched moneyed interest on a variety of fronts. Same with health care. And by the way, you know, what you're talking about is you, this isn't something you can just leave to the market. That's why neoliberalism has utterly failed in this regard.

You can't just leave it to the market. Developers, what they want to build is like high-end, you know, condos for rich people. people, because those are the people who have all the money. You're going to need a lot more, frankly, state central planning, whether that's at the state level or at the federal level or some combination of both. And that has been anathema to both the political parties for years and years and years. So it really requires a sort of revolutionary rethink of the relationship between the government and the people and how involved they are and going back to some of, you know, like New Deal era policies and learning from the mistakes of that and improving

upon the model from that era as well. Health care is the same thing. I mean, again, you'd have to take on these incredibly entrenched interests. And so instead of doing that, what did Obama do? We said, OK, well, let's come to a compromise with the insurers. Let's actually make it so that we're guaranteeing them a clientele. We're guaranteeing them that everybody's going to be in these markets so they can profit off of them more greatly. And at the same time, we'll put some restrictions into place so that people aren't getting

screwed over quite as badly as they were in the previous system. No, there's no compromise to be had with these forces. You have to actually confront them. And that's the place that we're at. And so, you know, the common sort of thread between Trump has now thrown out a bunch, several of these, like, oh, I got killed on affordability, what can I do, kind of policies. You've got the 50-year mortgage, total giveaway to the banks. I mean, just a preposterous idea. You've got this health care, okay, rather than doing the extending the premium subsidies, we're going to just send you money direct into your account, which, you know, I'm not like, I'm not like morally opposed to, but it doesn't fix the problem at all.

And it's actually going to, what it's going to end up doing is exacerbating the problem because then you're going to have fewer people. in the insurance marketplace, premiums for those remain are going to go up even further. You're just pushing us more into that death spiral mode, and you're not dealing with any of the underlying issues of a for-profit health care system. And then the big problem, just people feeling like the economy is shitty and they don't have enough money at the end of the month, he came up with this other brilliant idea of, oh, we're going to use the tariff revenue to send everybody $2,000, which I'm sure there isn't sufficient tariff revenue to do that.

But then, by the way, the Supreme Court is very likely striking those tariffs down, and you're going to have to send that money back to someone somehow. Not to mention Scott Besant went on TV and was like, well, the $2,000 could come at a variety forms. It might be the tax cuts that we've already passed. But again, even if you took him at his face value and he's sending out $2,000 checks, okay, we got stimmy checks before. Did that solve the problems of our economy?

Did that lessen inequality? It made it easier for people in that moment. It was better than nothing. But you still have stagnant wages. You still have, you know, them going whole hog on AI, which is meant to push all of you out of a job, you still have the wealthy basically rigging the rules and eating the economy and making sure that all the gains flow into their own bank accounts for getting Elon Musk about to be the world's first trillionaire. So none of these things, all of these are like

weird little gimmicky band-aids to make it look like he cares and is doing something, has some kind of a solution. None of it deals with the underlying problems. Yeah, you need to subsidize both demand and supply at the lower end or for first-time homebuyers. And of course, This is something that it could actually happen. You could literally, if you created it, if you wanted, you could have a home buyer tax credit, first-time home buyer. Make it so that if your first time or if you haven't owned a home, within a couple of years, you get a huge tax credit whenever that comes. You could delay their capital gains tax only for the first-time home purchase. And then, you know, people who own one or two or more homes aren't allowed to use that capital gains roll tax that they're very expert at doing.

You can also do demand-side tax credits for loans, make it so that suppliers, home builders aren't just substantive. subsidizing homes or building homes for boomers make it so that they can also extend significant right off. You can make it so that property taxes for people who are younger, first-time home buyers are either deductible or you can create some state funding thing that makes it so that they give relief to the, you know, I've talked about property tax relief. There should be property tax relief at the bottom end of the spectrum when you're getting started, not at the top whenever you're multi-millionaire already. And when you're already sitting on hugely appreciated homes, which are way too big and you have no business being in the first place. Like the whole system,

like you just said, top to bottom is screwed. I was just telling you today, there's a new study out from the University of Toronto. Let me read you a little bit of this. Rising housing costs have caused 51% of the total fertility rate decline between 2000s and 2010s and a 7% point fewer young families in the 2010s alone. Now, obviously, you know, the methodology, et cetera,

we can debate, it's pretty hard to say exactly 51%. But it does make a little bit of sense, no. If it's too expensive to have space where you can raise kids, then maybe you'll just have less kids. I see this all the time. In the DMV where we live, it is the single most expensive place to raise a family in the United States of America.

Number one in healthcare, I'm not exaggerating. You look it up from the Wall Street Journal. Number one child costs, number two, in terms of affordability in terms of housing. And there are four counties, four out of the five, counties in the United States are all here in the DMB. And you're like, I'm not joking, like you can be an hour away from D.C. And the median home price is like $1.2 million. Like, what are you supposed to do there? Exactly. Where are people who want more than two children

even going to live if you're leveraged up to the hilt at a 6% mortgage trying to buy a house like that? That's the fundamental problem. Nobody wants to do anything about it. I see very little actually being proposed broadly. Like you said, yeah, abundance is great for New York City or for San Francisco. What about in the suburbs? What about in the... Even there is not to be enough. Right, exactly. And even in New York, we've talked about it. You know, Zoron, he's like, oh, you know, his dream is to build 200,000 more units. Yeah, yeah, great. But it's like, like we said, look at the population. This is eight million people, right? I mean, that's not even, you're not even making a dent in terms of the overall percentage. So,

I don't know. I'm starting to believe in the grand unified theory of housing. Like, I actually think housing may actually be the central part of it. It's from politics. It's so central to America to property ownership. Like our literal common law is based around property ownership. We're very different society than a lot of renter societies throughout the world, especially in the developed world. For a long time, that was kind of the vision that was pushed by like the true neoliberals and now they're embracing that you need assets to be an independent man, to be an independent citizen, to have stake in your society. And we're really losing that. And I think that that is causing the radicalism like everywhere. And unfortunately,

we're just moving the opposite direction. Yeah, it's a big part of it for sure. I really, I really think so. I mean, it's so. I mean, it's so. core to being an American citizen. It's what really does set us apart from our wealth and kind of who we are to a lot of different countries around the world where it's baked in. You just live in an apartment. You pay rent for the whole. I mean, economically, it's also just the way our society is structured so that, like, that's the primary wealth building opportunity that is available to Americans. And so if you're shut down of that, I mean, you know, the legacy of like historic discrimination against black Americans, you can see how much lower their wealth

accumulation is and housing is a huge part of that. But yeah, if you're a young person and you're like, mom and dad bought a house when they're freaking 25 years old and here I am 35 years old and still don't have a prayer, yeah. I mean, that is one of, all these people who point out, things are better and you're definitely better off than your parents were and here's all the ways, et cetera, you know, on some really core things like education and housing and health care and literal how long you live, life expectancy, we're going backwards. And, Of course, that's going to create a radical politics. Of course.

And it should, by the way. Because clearly the solutions of the moment are not working, right? They have failed. And so you have to try something that is radically different. People thought they were voting for that with Trump. Instead, they got a gilded ballroom and whatever this mortgage messes. Yeah, that's bad. By the way, the best part is it's not even particularly going to happen.

Like the 50-year mortgage, because it's like some FHA loan. And a lot of people, to their credit, actually did speak out against this. Yeah. I genuinely did not see anyone who was not a member of the administration being like, this is a good idea. I'm sure there were some, but I didn't see any. It was pretty across the board. Like, this sucks. And here's the thing, too, you should have no faith that anything transformational will happen in the next three and a half years. One of the things, I think I was on leave during the big beautiful bill. But what I always try to hammer home, America only opens up the tax code once every five years. That's it. Five years. That's every single time. That's the only. time that we open up the tax code. That was the only shot that most people, if you're 25 years old, you're going to have to wait until you're 30 until you may have a chance. And having lived through two of these cycles now that you and I have covered, what has happened? Huge extension tax cut for the wealthy. And frankly, Obama, what? Permanent, he make permanent

Bush tax cuts? Yep. Bush does the tax cuts back in 2003? I want to think back. It's been 25 years since I've seen some radical, actually interesting stuff happened in the U.S. tax code. And And that's my entire adult life, including my teenage years for that. So think about that for people who are younger. You're going to have to wait now for years before somebody is even potentially going to be able to help you out, and they probably still won't. It's been since the Bush administration that we raised the minimum wage. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I forgot about it. I mean, that's just insane. Absolutely insane. The Big Take podcast from Bloomberg News keeps you on top of the biggest stories of the day.

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