Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 2/11/25: Trump Threatens Gaza 'Hell', Elon Floats OpenAI Buy, Chinese EVs Dominate US Competition, Stephen A Floats Presidential Run

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump threatens Gaza with 'hell', Elon floats OpenAI takeover, Chinese EVs obliterate US competition, Stephen A Smith floats Dem Party takeover.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com   Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Donald Trump being asked here about Palestinian right of return in his plan to own Gaza. He says, no, that's not gonna happen, actually. Let's take a listen. Beautiful communities for the 1.9 million people. We'll build beautiful communities, safe communities. Could be five, six, could be two,

but we'll build safe communities a little bit away from where they are, where all of this danger is. In the meantime, I would own this. Think of it as a real estate development for the future. It would be a beautiful piece of land. Would the Palestinians have the right to return? No, they wouldn't because they're going to have much better housing, much better. In other words, I'm talking about building a permanent place for them because if they have to return now, it'll be years before you could ever. It's not habitable.

It will be years before it could happen. I'm talking about starting to build. And I think I could make a deal with Jordan. I think I could make a deal with Egypt. You know, we give them billions and billions of dollars. So, yeah, that's where could make a deal with Egypt. We give them billions and billions of dollars. So yeah, that's where we're currently at right now. Not only is the quote unquote right of return and all of that being thrown out the window,

but they're all just willingly going to go to Egypt and to Jordan. The King of Jordan actually is here in Washington today. He'll be meeting with Donald Trump around 1130 in the morning. I'm curious to see what happens from that. Right now on the White House schedule, actually, there's no joint statement between the two, which I'm very interested in. Because usually, like with Bibi, if you remember, there was that press conference. It's usually a declaration of a statement, a policy. We agreed on these two things. There will be, currently, there is no ability for the

press to be able to ask any questions. I know this is getting technical, but what that means is that, you remember, there's those sessions where he'll be in the Oval Office with the King of Jordan, and then the press will come in and shout questions. Right now, on the White House schedule that I'm looking at, both of those are closed, which means that they will not be making a declaration. I'm thinking at the request of the King of Jordan. But this just – I can't even wrap my head around where this bullshit came from because the crazy thing is that these statements are coming from the president of the United States. So it's not only a declaration of we're going to own Gaza and we're going to like split it up into a great international zone where no U.S. troops will be there. The Israelis will watch it, but they're not going to have sovereignty because we're going to own it

and we're going to rent it and then we'll rebuild it. And in the meantime, people will go to Jordan and to Egypt where both of those countries said they would rather go to war than to do that. And what exactly is, why did we decide to underwrite for the destruction of this place? And now we have to pay for it and administer. It's the most insane thing. The only thing I can hang my hat on is that poll we showed yesterday, which is only 13% of Americans were like, yeah, that's a good idea. Actually, by the way, I want to meet those people. Who are you? Who is out there? Because if you stack it together with everything that is happening right now, it is clear that we are talking about one of the most ambitious nation-building projects in American history.

To have to rebuild a place burned to the ground by supposedly our foreign ally, we have to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of this territory, use U.S. policy to force other countries to take that population, and then we have to pay for it. I mean, I don't remember this being a significant part of the campaign or, you know, put aside the anti-war stuff. Just think about at a basic level this whole idea of make America great again. When we're talking here about a unilateral nation-building program for a foreign nation, for a foreign population. It's like on every level. It is absolute madness.

And on probably the most sensitive, some of the most sensitive land on the entire planet. I just, I genuinely, I don't know where this shit comes from. What concerns me the most is, like you said, the apologia that we largely see from MAGA, media and others who are just like, because we saw this in Afghanistan.

You know, everybody just turned, all of a sudden, when we withdrew from Afghanistan, it's like, oh, well, we should have held on to Bagram and all of this. And then you ask Trump, and you're like, well, we actually should have kept troops there the whole time. You're like, okay, so you didn't actually. You never meant it.

Yeah, well, and the other thing is, like, the position that, oh, this is the opening negotiating position. Yeah, to what end? Who are you negotiating with also? For what purpose? Like, what are we trying to get out of this? So what is the end negotiating position? Like, even if you buy that, which I don't particularly buy that, especially at this point, you know, he said it, very intentionally said it. He's been asked now multiple times, keeps reiterating it, making it clear that this is what we're going to do.

And Palestinians, world people will be allowed to go there, but Palestinians will never be allowed to return. We're going to keep it, not temporarily, permanently. It's just like, I don't know what makes you think that this is some casual first bid proposal. And also, even if you think that, like, where do you think that this is ultimately going? It's absolutely one of the most destructive, immoral, and dumbest ideas I have ever heard in my entire life. No part of it makes sense. And to go back to the King of Jordan being here, Trump has threatened them with tariffs, number one, which I don't think would really do, I mean, it would cause them pain, but I don't think it would move them at all because

both Egypt and Jordan see this very much as an existential issue for their own power and regime and uh he has also threatened to cut off the aid the very large dollar amounts of aid proportionally that we give to egypt and jordan and seeming to not understand like the whole reason we give those countries that much aid it's basically like a bribe for them to be nice to israel that is the purpose of that yeah well yeah it's it like a bribe for them to be nice to Israel. That is the purpose of that aid. Yeah, it's part of the Camp David Accords. Yeah, exactly. We're like, we give them both equal amounts. I actually don't think it's a bad idea. You're like, hey, cut it out. And actually, if you look at the policy, it was very successful for many years. What we're

effectively saying is that now we will move away from peace in the Sinai, which did, look, you can make fun of it for all you want. It stopped. There were two wars in the 1960s and 1970s that U.S. policy largely was able to just buy off the two sides and say we're not going to do this. I would say that's decent, you know, 50 years of no fighting between those two nations, especially because that's an existential threat to the Middle East and obviously with our current political system that would have drawn us into the conflict. Now we're talking about leveraging and moving away from that Camp David process specifically to facilitate the expulsion of all Gazans so that we can own it, occupy it, pay for its rebuilding to what end? That's why I reject this negotiating thing. The negotiation only makes sense in terms of I'm going to stop the conflict. The only way to stop the conflict is to say, okay, Israel, Hamas, we got to figure out a way that this is going to work.

And now we have a lot of leverage actually on both sides. But the reason why I'm even more concerned is that all roads currently lead to some disastrous intervention. So Donald Trump has asked yesterday about the hostage deal. And we're going to talk a little bit about it. There's been a breakdown in the ceasefire. I think saying that we're going to facilitate the expulsion by Saturday at 12 to Hamas, I will cancel it. All bets are off and let hell break loose. Let's take a listen.

Should a ceasefire then be off? Well, I would say this, and I'm going to let that be because that's Israel's decision. But as far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't returned by Saturday at 12 o'clock. I think it's an appropriate time. I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. I'd say they ought to be returned by 12 o'clock on Saturday. And if they're not returned, all of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two. Saturday at 12 o'clock. And after that, I would say all hell is going to break out. And I don't think they're going to do it. So what does that mean? You know, what hell can be unleashed that has not yet been

unleashed? And actually, I think I have an idea, which is Israel has not held back anything other than a nuclear weapon. Can we agree on that? Yeah. So what's left? America. Okay, so we're going to bomb Gaza? Great.

Great image to be able to see. To what end? So that foreign hostages can get released, even if they're dual citizens. I don't remember us ever doing that before. For what purpose? Well, also those hostages are in the zone that all hell will be breaking

loose in as well. You know, and we know that hostages have been killed through IDF operations already. According to the released hostages, not, you know, from others. They're the ones who are saying that. Exactly. We're not like making this up. This is confirmed. So it's, I don't even know what to say at this point, but number one, as you were pointing out, Sagar, like what motivation does Hamas have to stay in a deal when you openly have the President of the United States saying, what we're going to do is complete ethnic cleanse, get every Palestinian out of the Gaza Strip and personally own the territory. Like that kind of strips any kind of goodwill reason why you would continue in a deal with these people. And, you know, the other pieces,

of course, the way that the media frames this is all, oh, Hamas is backing out of the deal, blah, blah, blah. But also Israel has never really technically abided by the terms of the ceasefire. They never have had a total cessation of violence. You know, Jeremy and our friends over at Dropsite have done an effective job of tracking the fact that they've continued to shoot and kill Palestinians even after the ceasefire.

The, you know, the Hamas also says, and, you know, we don't have verification of this, but this is their side of the story, that some of the aid provisions, requirements for humanitarian assistance that were part of the deal have also been violated as well. So they're saying Israel is in breach and we're not going to continue to go forward. But I do think that really the governing factor here is what incentive do you have to continue in a deal with these people? And they're openly broadcasting. Like, number one, Bibi is always openly broadcasted, basically like there is not going to be any phase two. We're going to go back to bombing as soon as phase one is over. And number two, the United States of America, which really holds all the cards here, let's not pretend it's otherwise, is like, oh, we've come up with a

final solution for this territory. And anyone who thinks, like, if you actually think Palestinians are just going to leave the Gaza Strip and not fight and not, like, lay down their lives, as they have for decades now, to try to preserve the homes that they have there and the land that they have there, like, you have got to be the dumbest person on the planet if you actually think that is the case. And you don't have to be an expert in, you know, Middle Eastern relations or the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict to know that that is the dumbest thing you could possibly believe, that people are just because Trump says so going to be like, oh, you're right. Now we'll give up our multi-decade long resistance struggle to go and live in the desert in Egypt or Jordan or whatever.

Utterly preposterous. Yeah, let's put B5 up there on the screen. It says Hamas says it will delay the release of more hostages, putting the Gaza ceasefire at risk. Now, what has happened is that we have B7. Can we put that there on the screen? In response, the IDF is saying that they're, quote unquote, being on high alert, complete violation of the ceasefire deal and a hostage deal. It just looks like, it points to, it looks like it would just lead to a resumption of the war. And, you know, obviously that's something that the world and all has dealt with. But with the subtext of Trump here saying the United States is going to take over Gaza, you can just imagine this is exactly what happened back in 2005. What took Iraq from

a intra-country sectarian conflict into a global magnet for jihad was by making it into a fight against the American evil empire, by drawing every global jihadist from across the world to Syria and others. That's what turned it into this horrible civil war and war against our own soldiers. I foresee exactly the same thing happening here. There are however many people are alive, 1.7 million. I think we could reasonably assume that hundreds of thousands will fight to stop from being expelled from the territory that they think is theirs. And, you know, what is the alternative that will happen for all of this? So none of this is good because, like I said, at the very least, even if there is no U.S. occupation and it's just Israeli conquest of the territory. And it's the United States

sponsoring that. What will that lead to in the future? And even that, like I said, I don't think it's good. But I don't think there would be huge pushback here necessarily at home. But there is no way in any way that even 10, 15, 20% of this can occur without hundreds of billions of American dollars, not to mention security guarantees. I mean, we railed against the Gaza humanitarian pier. How much construction material and security is going to have to be run to facilitate some rebuilding? And yeah, even if the Israelis take it over, it's not going to be easy. There's going to be a massive insurgency across this entire place, which we have seen. I mean, you know, even if the Israelis take it over, it's not going to be easy. There's going to be a massive insurgency across this entire place, which we have seen. I mean, you know, it doesn't make the news anymore, but every day, if you look when the war was going on,

five IDF soldiers killed, eight IDF soldiers killed, West Bank, there's stuff that's popping up. Yeah, we haven't even talked about that. So I don't know. This is a nightmare situation. He easily could be sleepwalking us into a foreign intervention and take all of that out and just talk about politics. This is the easiest way to sink your presidency. Americans do not want American soldiers to die for Gaza or for Israel. Nobody signed up for that. And this is some scheme where he thinks that by talking tough and all of that, that he can negotiate. And what he doesn't understand is we're dealing very much

with the same type of revolutionary force that we had in the past, where if their only option is to continue to fight for the existential purpose of existence on that land, why would they ever negotiate? They will fight to the last. And I mean, I guess we can oblige them their death if we want to, but why would we even want to? This is not land that's ours or that we even particularly want. Nobody signed up for this. And then, you know, even after that, to what end? So nobody can answer that question. I don't know. I'm, I'm the, there, I've said out of everything that has happened, this is the one I'm most worried about. It's the area where he has more unilateral authority than any.

I mean, there's no court system that's going to stop you from going into Gaza. There is no Supreme Court order that's going to be happening. The president can tomorrow order U.S. military jets start bombing or American soldiers start running security or this pressure on Egypt and on Jordan for this expulsion. And, you know, remember those three American service members who were killed by that Iranian drone? That happened in Jordan. We have a lot of people who live in Jordan. Do you know how many Americans live in Egypt? I mean, it's got to be tens of thousands of U.S. citizens.

It's a green light on all those people as well. So I'm very worried about the situation. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone.

In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you. But then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

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And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Let's get to AI. This is speaking of Elon Musk. Attempted coups. Well, we have another attempted coup here by Elon. Although I got to tell you, on this one, I'm actually pretty on board. Not necessarily with Elon, but against Sam Altman and the evil empire of open AI. So let's go and put this up there on the screen.

It broke out yesterday. A consortium of investors led by Elon is offering $97.4 billion to buy the non-profit that controls OpenAI. Okay, everybody stick with us because this gets into complicated contract law and also law as it pertains to NGOs, nonprofit organization, and the conversion of nonprofit to for-profit. So what has happened is if we step back in the past, back in 2015, Elon and Sam Altman start OpenAI as a nonprofit. Now, after the success of ChatGPT, what happens? OpenAI, the nonprofit, establishes a for-profit sub-entity of the nonprofit, which does deals with Microsoft and becomes a for-profit entity that is then governed by this nonprofit institution. Led to a bunch of drama in that coup where Sam Altman was

ousted and then he was brought back in and there were all these questions about what the hell was going on. What Elon and his group of investors are doing is saying, let us buy the nonprofit that oversees the for-profit. The reason is because Sam Altman is currently trying to turn the company from a nonprofit that owns the sub-entity into a total for-profit enterprise. I know this is extremely complicated, and it's very obvious what happened here. It started out as AI for the good of humanity, and now it's, how do we juice enterprise sales at Microsoft? So that's the subtext of everything. Put your feelings about Elon and all of that aside. The point that at least he makes here is, hey, you solicited funds for the nonprofit and under false pretenses of it being an open, hence in the name, open AI, open source platform that was supposed to be the

good for everybody and have turned it into a big technology company that's worth hundreds of billions of dollars. So this unsolicited offer is to the board to try and to forestall that conversion into this. Now, Sam Altman has now replied in an interview. He is currently in France at the AI Summit, where JD Vance, Sundar Pichai, and all these other leaders, people like Narendra Modi and others, are currently in attendance. And he responded in that interview. So guys, let's go ahead and take a listen to what Sam Altman had to say. The headlines right now, Elon Musk making a bid for OpenAI. Your response, you're turning him down for $97 billion. I mean, look, OpenAI is not for sale. The OpenAI mission is not for sale.

Elon tries all sorts of things for a long time. This is the late, you know, this week's episode. You take it seriously at all? What do you think he's trying to drive out with this? I think he's probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor. It's, you know, he's working hard and he's raised a lot of money for XAI and they're trying to compete with us from a technological perspective, from, you know, getting the product into the market. And I wish he would just compete by building a better product. But I think there's been a lot of tactics, many, many lawsuits, all sorts of other crazy stuff.

Now this, and we'll try to just put our head down and keep working. Does it make it more difficult to move from that nonprofit model to that for-profit model for OpenAI? We're not moving to a for-profit model. We're, I mean, we're not sure we're going to do it all, but no matter what, the nonprofit will continue

to be extremely important. It will drive the mission. It will continue to exist. Do you think Musk's approach then is from a position of insecurity about XAI? Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy. You feel for him? I do, actually. I don't think he's like a happy person. I do feel for him. Do you worry that he has this proximity to the president and he can influence the decision making of the U.S. presidency and policies around this agenda on AI? Not particularly.

Maybe I should, but not particularly. I mean, I try to just wake up and think about like how we're going to make our technology better. So shots across the bow says he's an unhappy, insecure person. But just look at the sliminess of him. Like, oh, well, it's not technically we're moving. It's like, no, dude, that's exactly what you are doing. You obviously directly violated the original spirit of the company.

But this stuff matters because, you know, what we've talked about since the beginning of the Trump administration, it's arguable that this will be the legacy of the next four years for AI deep seek. We obviously saw the impact on our stock markets here at home, but what the future of this technology and how it's governed. And this just shows you how much it's like basically a plaything of 10 different people who get to decide the fate of this entire sector of our economy. That's exactly right. And my understanding was like, part of Elon putting in this bid is it then puts a valuation on the nonprofit piece and then may make it more expensive or more difficult for them to be able to convert over. That was my, like, very rudimentary understanding of the business move that was going on here ultimately. And also, I mean, it's just like typical Elon kind of like trollish behavior. But, you know, Sam Altman was really hardest hit

in the whole DeepSeek development because a bunch of the assumptions that he has really made about the way that AI will progress were really dealt a blow with DeepSeek being able to, you know, come online, be at least as technically proficient as ChatGPT is with much less funding. I mean, whatever the real funding number is, we have the technical papers to see that they did innovate and they are doing things in a more efficient manner, even to the extent of when you put in

a query to ChatGPT versus when you put in a query to DeepSeek, DeepSeek uses a massively lower amount of energy than ChatGPT does. So they genuinely innovated there. And Sam was betting on two things. Number one, that after an initial foray into making this all open source, they flipped and decided that the future really was in closed models with partnerships from big tech giants like Microsoft. DeepSeek kind of blows some of that up, being an open source model itself. And then the other thing he bet is that the development

would proceed by which company had the most billions of dollars to throw at effectively building bigger and bigger data centers. And DeepSeek secretly sort of blows up both of those things. So he's in a kind of a difficult position right now and sort of grasping and all of those sorts of things. Elon senses that. Elon also, you'll recall after Trump had Sam Altman at the White House announced his big $500 billion Stargate like boondoggle effectively at this point, Elon immediately chimes in to shit all over the whole thing, which was extraordinary because, I mean, normally Trump would never brook something like that.

And he just took it. And he got asked about it, and he was like, well, Elon hates the guy, and I harbor my own hatreds, too, or something like that. It was a very Trumpian response. I don't think he particularly likes one of those individuals. He said hate. He has a hatred for one of them, I think is what he said. But I mean, in a certain sense, like the language was very Trumpian. In another sense, it was very unusual because Trump typically, when someone is outshining him, getting too big for their

britches, overstepping, undercutting him. Like, he would not tolerate that. You just ask Steve Bannon, who was out of the first administration, like that. And so there's something different here going on with Elon. I don't know if it's just the power of like Elon's mythology of being this great inventor genius that sort of captured Trump and that he's fallen into. I don't know if it's just like they have this very mutually beneficial relationship right now where Elon sort of serves in a sense as a bit of a heat shield for Trump and, you know, brings to bear obviously Twitter and the power of that megaphone brings to bear his nearly limitless wealth that he can use to threaten primary challenges against

anyone who would challenge the Trump agenda. You know, it could just be this like mutually beneficial relationship. I'm not really sure. But it has been, that part has been very out of character for all the rest of the, you know, dozen people who are at the forefront of AI development here and really calling the shots, etc., like, they want to automate your jobs out of existence. They think that, you know, the future for humanity is like transhumanism and, you know, humans plus, as Steve Bannon put it, they have all of these almost religious notions of what AI is going to do and the way that it's going to save humanity. And it makes them very dangerous people, not only because the technology is very dangerous, but also because anytime you have someone who casts themselves in that role as like the sole savior of humanity. And they really believe that. And I mean, Elon definitely believes this,

but I wouldn't be surprised if Sam and some of these other guys believe that as well and have cast themselves in this hero and savior of humanity role. It starts to justify all sorts of things that are really not justifiable. And also, we didn't vote for any of these people to be our saviors and to, you know, re-engineer the social contract or automate all of our jobs out of existence or even try to do such a thing. They've appointed themselves in these roles, and it is extraordinarily dangerous, the games that they're playing.

Yeah, let's actually put, can we please put C6 up on the screen just to show that none of this is slowing down? It's a graph here from the Wall Street Journal, the tech giants doubling down on their massive AI spending. So currently, the increase in the last quarter, well, actually, there was a huge increase in the capital spend despite all of this talk around DeepSeek. And I think the reason why is because it gets to the question about cutting edge of technology and training new models versus being able to execute things at a much cheaper way. And I mean, this gets to some bigger questions too about how the DeepSeek thing was even able to happen. They estimate it probably cost over a billion dollars to train a model before it supposedly cost six million. But it does still justify, at least in the minds of Meta, of Google, of Microsoft, and Amazon, of just like ungodly amounts of money that is being spent right now on AI. And the reason why is because

all of them think that if you spend, like in the case of Google, we're talking about $52.5 billion in a single year that is just spent on AI development. All of them say, well, let's say you burn several hundred billion, but you create the breakthrough, AGI. Well, the enterprise value of that is trillions. So even then, the capital expenditure, even though it's a ton of money in absolute terms, in a fraction of what the value of what it would mean to be the first to the actual breakthrough of the technology. And it's terrifying because what they all seem to be saying behind the scenes is we're much closer than anybody seems to think. Now, there's maybe an element here of some alarmism and all of that, but we can see the rapid development

and the ability to use these programs for a series of white-collar tasks. Like, that alone is already, that's a big step change. I mean, I use it all the time. I probably use it every single day for a variety of research tasks and others. It's just better in terms of, you know, if I be like, compare the production value of BYD versus Tesla. It's like, it sounds stupid, but previously you have to Google BYD production value, then you have to Google Tesla, and you have to manually do it together. Right. If you use, I can have it in two seconds. Get through paywalls and whatever. Right, yeah, paywall, use archive or whatever, and just like in two seconds, I literally get the answer. That's just an example for something that I do. I can't even

imagine if I still had some spreadsheet jockey job, like have these guys in finance finance. This is probably one of the greatest things that's ever happened for them. They can compute and have models built in seconds that probably manually would have taken forever. So you can easily see how it's going to change right now. And so I have no idea how it will even look in the future. There also could be, I mean, to go back to that chart that we just put up on the screen, it's also possible that this is contributing to a massive stock market bubble because— Oh, because of Nvidia. That's good point.

Yeah. Well, not only that, but I mean, all of these companies, their valuation is really dependent on the idea that they're at the forefront of AI development and that that is going to be this just like profoundly valuable development. And there's questions about that, especially after DeepSeek. There's questions about that. I was just looking it up on Financial Times, not on ChatGPT. But Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla, they accounted for half of the S&P 500's gains last year through October. So, you know, the stock market lives

and dies by what happens with these handful of tech giants. And there's a lot of assumptions about AI that go into those valuations that makes it quite vulnerable. The other thing that I think is worth really keeping an eye on as we watch what Elon's doing in the federal government is we know they've already unleashed AI on the Department of Education. And I think one of the goals is to use the federal workforce as kind of guinea pigs in this direction of automating a lot of jobs and automating the workforce. And, you know, maybe you don't have a lot of like personal sympathy for quote unquote federal government bureaucrats. Although I would say that you should because many of them do very important jobs and forego higher salaries that they could be getting in the private sector in order to perform those

valuable functions. But even if you don't feel that way. Some, I assume, are good people. Absolutely. Absolutely. So in any case, even if you don't share that way. Some, I assume, are good people. Absolutely. Yeah, some, I assume. So in any case, even if you don't share that empathy and sympathy and admiration for the civil servants working for the federal government, you know, what they unleash there is not going to stay there. So if they are able to, you know, use AI to automate a massive part of the federal workforce and use our public goods and public like civil service infrastructure as effectively a science experiment to see how many human beings they can get rid of. You don't think that's going to have spillover effects. You don't think that that's like, you know, a model for how they're going to roll things out across the country and how companies are going to look to out across the country and how companies are

going to look to that and use those learnings in order to automate their own workforces. I mean, these are real things that are on the table. And I think that's certainly part of the plan here with what Elon wants to do with the federal government as well to try to, you know, innovate in that job loss department. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper. And his stage name?

Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like, thanking you. But then I see, my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own. Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? or wherever you get your podcasts. Cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute season one, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Let's move now to Chinese EV maker BYD, which has just made a huge announcement that could potentially change the EV industry. Let's put this up there on the screen. News came out of China just yesterday. BYD will now offer, quote, God's Eye self-driving system on all of its models. So BYD obviously is the largest electric vehicle maker in China, and it now has a quote-unquote advanced self-driving system. Now, every video I've watched says it's roughly equal to the Tesla full self-driving. It has some important differences that the L3 nerds will dig into, but let's just say it's better than what's on your Toyota or your Honda CR-V assisted autopilot. So we leave it at that. But the extraordinary part of it is

not the real fact that it's rolling out, but the fact that it is now installing it on every single model that they sell, including the Seagull budget hatchback, which it currently retails inside of China for $9,600. Yes, you heard me correctly. This is a huge deal because it challenges the Tesla market share abroad. So in the United States, obviously, you cannot buy BYD. You can't buy any of these Chinese EVs. But China, which we're about to get to, is a net exporter, actually, of cars. Their electric vehicles are highly desirable for many people across the world, in Europe and elsewhere, in a lot of areas, especially with cheaper cost of living. They have genuine innovation in a lot of their electric car industry. They have

a battery supply chain, which is heavily relied on by Tesla and other U.S. automakers. So they are, I would put them almost 15, 20 years ahead of us. They also, they don't have no EPA telling them what they can and can't do. They're like, if you can extend the range, if you need regulation, the government is there to help you because it's an instrument of national power. And it's extraordinary, you were talking in the intro, how Americans currently have a real boomer mindset around Chinese cars. I love electric vehicles. I'll be totally transparent.

If these weren't from China, I would buy one in a heartbeat. They are better than any cars that we sell here in America. No, if we didn't have just a block on these cars. Oh, I would buy them. Yeah, there's no question. Any other country I would buy. Our domestic EV industry would be dead. Dead. Over. Dead, I would buy them. Yeah, there's no question. Any other country would buy them. Our domestic EV industry would be dead.

Oh, dead. Over. Dead as a donut. Over. There's only a few select people who are telling Americans and others how good these cars are.

And one of these guys who I follow is Forrest. He does Forrest auto reviews. I love the way that he does reviews, but he's able to get his hands on a lot of different

Chinese EVs. I watch like every video that this guy does. So we thought we would put together a mashup of some of the cars, the Chinese EVs reviews that he's done in the past. The very last one that we'll show you is the actual Seagull from BYD that we were talking about, but this is a range of luxury EV down to the most budget model. So you got to see here what we are missing out on. What is up guys? Right behind me is a car from China, which is a big deal because there's currently

no Chinese manufacturers in America, which is kind of a shame because this car is really cool. So obviously you can use your key or you can leave your key at home and use NFC. This car is a plug-in hybrid and on just the battery, it can do about 60 miles, which is more than any plug-in hybrid in America. And on a full charge and a full tank of gas, it can do well over 650 miles.

If I push the button on the side of my seat, that'll fold down my armrest. My seats are heated, ventilated, and massaging. I have an area right down here for my phone, have built-in sunscreen shades. If I push this button, my cup holder comes out, and I can do this. I'm six feet tall for reference. You can be seven feet tall and still lounge back here.

But what if I want to watch a movie? A TV can't fold up into this small space, but a projector can. Yeah, this is pretty sweet. You also get a built-in fridge. Behind me is what $8,400 can get you in China. This is the Wuling Bingo. It's a tiny four-door EV. It starts at $8,400, but even fully loaded, it's only $12,000. You get full LED lights, these tiny cute wheels, and it can do 250 miles on a full charge. You also get a lot of space in the trunk.

You guys see what I'm talking about? I mean, look, let's be honest. These cars are sick. There's other ones, not even BYD. I can't pronounce them. But the self-driving tech, the lounge, and they retail for like $60,000. There are several Japanese similarities, not EVs per se, but Lexus and Toyota models that are only available in Japan. But they're not sending their best over here. But I wanted people to understand this because the rest of the globe has access to BYD and they like it. And this is one of the most extraordinary differences now because Tesla obviously is probably the most successful auto startup of all time in the United States. It is currently the crown jewel of the American EV industry. Obviously,

Elon and all of that removed. It's one of the top sellers of cars in almost every state in the United States. I believe the Tesla Model 3 or the Model Y was one of the top sellers in the state of California. We've done a lot of bets through the IRA industrial policy on this saying, oh, we're going to try and compete. But the truth is, it's like we are getting our asses kicked at a very structural level. You can see here clearly how even just four years ago, the United States and China were roughly tied in terms of the car exports to the rest of the world. Well, in the last four years, they've gone stratospheric. And now they have more cars exported to the rest of the world than Japan, Mexico, Germany, South Korea, and the United States. So there has been a massive shift in the

way that Chinese car exports have become a central part of their ability to trade with the rest of the world. And this goes to the central heart of the problem between the U.S. economy and the Chinese economy. They build shit, and they do it well. Their government policy is all organized around finding people like the BYD CEO and being like, what do you need? You need a supply chain? We'll build it for you. Oh, you need expedited approval and market share and all of this industrial capacity? Done.

And five, ten years ago, or actually even 20 years ago, a lot of people didn't believe, Charlie Munger, our famous investor, he said that the BYD CEO is one of the smartest people who we ever met in his entire life. And that if he could have bet more on the company, that he would have. I listened to the last interview that he ever gave with Acquired. Highly recommend it if you can. But just to give people an example of how they back their critical entrepreneurs who make stuff in the physical world. And the payoff on their technology is that by getting 10, 15 years ahead of us, they are now exponentially in just four years, topping the United States, even Japan in terms of the number of net exports. Without export control, it's over. It's over in terms of electric vehicles.

Now, maybe we can catch up. You've got to buy us 10, 15 years, but we don't control the European Union. We don't control the export laws of a huge number of US allies. And what is the most revealed preference of all time across the world? Consumers want what? Good products at cheap prices. And if you give them the option, they're going to buy it. So this is an existential problem that we have. And their ability to compete, to offer full self-driving for free on a $10,000 car. In the US, if you buy a Tesla, you want full self-driving. You either pay up to $100 a month or $8,000 up front. $8,000 for the software, which is roughly, what, 20% less than the price of the car in China. So that's what we're dealing with here. Now, obviously, it's a tiny little hatchback, but still, I mean, what's a Toyota Camry go for these days? $20,000, what, probably

$30,000? I'm guessing. Here, I'll look it up while you react. Well, I was going to say, you know, a part of why they have so many exports of their vehicles is there's been a huge shift, which has been incentivized by the federal, by the government in China towards electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. So half of the new vehicles bought in China now are either EVs or their plug-in hybrids. So now they have all of these traditional gas-powered vehicles that don't really—Chinese consumers no longer really want. And so that's a lot of what is being offloaded into Europe and other places around the world and has been very popular in the Middle East, very popular in, like, Latin America because they're so, like, cost-efficient. But I think the piece about the differences between the economies is really important because they did 15 years ago. They identified that a particular Chinese premier who identified EVs as one of their's Belt and Road Initiative, part of their effort of

projecting soft power and building goodwill around the world, was about establishing these supply chains specifically for EV batteries. And they have done a tremendous job in locking up a lot of those mineral resources. USAID, as Senator Chris, it was a Chris Murphy, I think, that kind of let the cat on the bag about what USAID is actually about. Like one of the things that he name checked was securing rare earth minerals around the world. And he's right about that. I mean, that is part of the goal of USAID. So, you know, for example, the HIV program that PEPFAR that has been in place since the George W. Bush administration, one of the countries where it has been incredibly important and been a genuine lifeline for people

is Zambia. Well, Zambia had a huge problem with HIV and AIDS. It's in a much better place now because of the investments that we made there. But also Zambia happens to have a lot of mines of things like cobalt. And we have invested a lot of money andia happens to have a lot of mines of things like cobalt. And we have invested a lot of money and been able to have those partnerships in Zambia of securing those rare earth materials, as Chris Murphy said, in part because of those more sort of like, you know, humanitarian investments that we made in the country. So when we talk about just to give this is like a real world example of when we say soft power projection, I know that can sound very abstract. That's the sort of thing that we're talking about. And that's what China has really accomplished with their Belt and Road Initiative very, very effectively. But because they have been so much more intentional about their industrial policy and really got, you know, while we were still in full-on neoliberal mode and industrial policy was like, and tariffs were like a dirty

word, they were planning for what the industries of the future would be and where they wanted to lead. And now with BYD, we see the way that that has really paid off for them. Shocking. I mean, you know, 8% to 9% of new car sales in the European Union as of early 2024, according to Claude, are made in China. 8% to 9%. This is after a 39% increase from just the year 2023. So in a four-year period, they are gobbling up European car market share. And like I said, I mean, their ability to compete

in the supply chain, compare those BYD vehicles to a Rivian. Look, no offense, I think Rivians look cool. They cost like $80,000 and they go like 200 miles. And if you get into...

I think they look dumb, personally. Really? I think that I like the look of them. You have more of an affinity for these like futuristic. I do. I'm not a fan. The Cybertruck, I think, is the ugliest thing I've ever seen.

I like both. I like futuristic stuff. I really love retro stuff. So stuff like a Ford Bronco or the old. Yeah, those are cool. That I'm down with. But, yeah, I mean, Rivian, fine. It's a hot-selling car.

People really like them. But they're paying $80,000 for it, okay? In China, if you pay $80,000 for an EV, it's going to be like that projector car. It's going to have two recliners in the backseat and a nice little tray where you can eat hot pot with built-in chopsticks. If you want a car like that here in America, you're going to pay $200,000. And you probably still won't even be able to get half of the features that are inside of it. That's the stakes of what we're talking about. So I'm worried.

I don't see any indication that we're going to get our act together. One thing the Chinese do, which I think is amazing, is they have these gas generator EVs, which is just a plug-in hybrid or kind of equivalent, where they have an 800-mile range, where you have a gas generator on top of an EV battery that has 300 miles. I mean, that would be incredibly useful. It basically makes it so that you can have hybrid systems where you can fill gas and a supercharger network. Stuff like that doesn't even exist here. You know, our plug-in, what's the best plug-in hybrid in America? I'm trying to think. Probably a Toyota RAV4. If I had to guess in terms of affordability,

I don't think that thing goes more than like 40 miles on a range. So just think about the difference that we have in terms of what, and we pay more than their cars, not to mention insurance and all this other bullshit. Well, and I mean, Trump has made it quite clear that any sort of EV support, you know, that was previously provided under the Biden administration, he wants to roll back. I know they've specifically stripped the funding from the program to build out the charger network, which obviously makes it much more feasible for regular people to be able to have EVs and, you know, also helps to provide a market for domestic EV producers. So it's the opposite of a priority from the Trump administration. So I don't see any indication why we would catch up at this point.

Honestly, maybe it's the right thing to do because like, why should we even compete at this point? It's like, let's just buy gas vehicles. it's like that's all we're really good at. We pump a lot of gas because they have so clearly cleaned the – they have so clearly gotten ahead on this that without direct investment now, we wouldn't even be able to compete for a decade. I still just can't get over that chart of the four-year period of their ability to export. It's insane. So, look, I've said it before. People think I hate China. It's like, no, I respect them.

In terms of my criticism of America, it's that we don't even come close in so many areas of their ability to think strategically, to think long term, to develop an industry if they want to. You know, even the deep seek idea is what? Is let's do the same thing for cheaper. You know, you can't help but respect a lot of competition even if it makes you look foolish. I mean, I also think it was so, and maybe this is a sort of overemphasized part of the deep seek story, but the fact that the Chinese government was like, we don't want our best and brightest going into the financial sector. We don't want them to just be like financial speculators. Oh, and by the way, they're like, we're not crypto. We're not doing that shit. Well, yeah.

We're not doing that shit. That's the Indians too. They also hate crypto. They're smart. I mean, because yeah, we're funneling like some of our brightest talent into these just like brazen Ponzi schemes and crypto and financial engineering on Wall Street is like the more refined version of that. And we're like, you know, they were like, we're not really interested in doing that. We're going to cut the salaries for financial type jobs and, you know, push our best and brightest graduates into research and technology, whether it's AI or whether it's EV battery development, et cetera. And that also is an important component of this is like, you know, where do your best minds, your best technical minds, where do they go?

And in the U.S., oftentimes, it's McKinsey, it's Wall Street, it's Goldman. Yeah, absolutely. The summer of 1993 was one of the best of my life. I'm journalist Jeff Perlman, and this is Rick Jervis. We were interns at the Nashville Tennessean, but the most unforgettable part? Our roommate, Reggie Payne, from Oakland, sports editor and aspiring rapper.

And his stage name? Sexy Sweat. In 2020, I had a simple idea. Let's find Reggie. We searched everywhere, but Reggie was gone. In February 2020, Reggie was having a diabetic episode. His mom called 911. Police cuffed him face down. He slipped into a coma and died. I'm like thanking you, but then I see my son's not moving. No headlines, no outrage, just silence. So we started digging and uncovered city officials bent on protecting their own.

Listen to Finding Sexy Sweat coming June 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1

Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6

on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. You know who's going to fix these problems, Sagar? Who?

President Stephen A. Smith. Honestly. You could do worse. You could definitely do worse. I told you, he's against weed. I'm pro-Stephen A. Smith. Is he really? Yeah, his Stay Off the Weed is one of the most famous clips.

Really? I didn't even know about it. Our producer. Yeah, I guess we should have. Yeah. Thank you, Stephen. In any case. Thank you for preaching against the dangers of the neurotoxin cannabis.

Sensing a dearth of talent on the Democratic side, Stephen A. Smith is floating the idea. Maybe he'll take a run at the presidency the next time around. Let's take a listen to what he's had to say. I'm trying to help. I don't want to see you get your ass kicked in another election. I don't want to see you lose in the midterms. I don't want to see you lose four years from now in advance with J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio or somebody being the next president of the United States just because they're opposite you. I want the best candidate for the country to win. That cannot happen. That can't happen if you have no voice and you but i was just trying to make a profound point

and that is is that i think the democratic party in the state in the state that they find themselves in i think somebody like me could actually win i certainly think that i could beat any of those candidates that you put on the screen i can tell you that right now i certainly think if i was running up against somebody like you i would win win that race too. So when you think about the candidates that you'd possibly go up against, why don't you run for some sort of office? I think you'd be great. You'd have my vote.

Please answer. Huge fan. Peace and love. First of all, the only office I would ever be interested in is the presidency of the United States. That's it. I wouldn't be interested in being a governor, a mayor, a senator, damn sure not a congressman. I don't want to be one of 435. I don't think I would be a very

good campaigner because I ain't the greatest in the world at shaking hands and kissing babies. But I know I'd make decisions and I wouldn't hesitate. We're going to do business in the United States. Businesses ain't going to be scared to open their doors and only let two or three people in at a time because somebody going to get robbed. Oh, hell no. Not under my watch. So I have consumed a lot of Stephen A. Smith over the past number of years because Kyle loves this guy. Really? That's hilarious. Yes. Even though his politics are very centrist-y. Leftists are sharing a tweet that he put out years ago where it was like, listen to Bernie Sanders and he's exactly right about everything.

To be like, oh, maybe, maybe. But, I mean, we know his politics are very, like, normie, always hewing to the center. He's a real buddy-buddy with Sean Hannity. Loves this, you know, loves him. Loves the, like, the whole mantra of bipartisan sort of norms, et cetera. But he is at least charismatic. He is at least charismatic. He is at least charismatic. He's at least unafraid of like, he's not afraid of controversy. He's not afraid of, you know,

actually saying what he thinks and stating it in a clear and unequivocal manner. And I think in terms of putting aside my own like political ideological project, I think so much of the discussion, especially after this loss about like, oh, how does this issue poll and that issue poll, and maybe they should have, you know, said a little bit more about this or said a little bit more about that based on the polling, et cetera, et cetera. I really think one of the core issues for Democrats is just a lack of someone who is compelling, who will say something brash, defend it, be unafraid, not be, you know, shrinking violet and running from every controversy, who could certainly go on any podcast Stephen A. Smith could and make his case and be comfortable and be likable and all those sorts of things.

Like, if Democrats want to win again, they do need to look for a character who is like Stephen A. Smith. And just in terms of winning, again, not in terms of what I want to see ideologically happen, just in terms of winning, that is very much the direction that they need to pursue, more so than any of the, like, poll-tested, adjusting themselves on this issue or that issue. Yeah, it gets to a vibe question. I think that's objectively true. It's like willingness to fight. Remember what was the top word that people

associated with the first weeks of the Trump administration? Energetic, right? That's a real part of it. I mean, people have made fun before, but I've talked about how so much of the Kennedy presidency was just described by vigor, vigga, as they used to say at the time, as people were just amazed after you had the 60-year-old president, Eisenhower, who was like golfing all the time, was just like 40-year-old young guy who turned out to be on meth, who is currently, you know, he's just everywhere. He's always appeared young and vibrant, you know, in front of the camera. And that's really appealing to a lot of people. And that gets to the vibe of Donald Trump. I mean, there is something genuinely astounding about Trump in a certain way,

where you have a nearly 80-year-old man who sleeps four hours a night, impervious to the shittiest diet that would put most people in the hospital. And it's like, in a certain way, he is indestructible. Something that you read a lot about in every presidential biography is some version of they were just built different.

And I think what Stephen A. Smith has, similarly with Trump and others, is what does this guy obviously love? He's got plenty of money, all of this other stuff. He likes attention. He enjoys the game. And he knows how to get it. And so that, there's, inside all these politicians, to give up all your time with your family and all the bullshit that comes with this,

you need a black hole inside your chest that is unfilled and that never ends except where you only feel alive in the moments when you're in the midst of a controversy. I just Googled it. Apparently, there's something going on with Serena Williams. Please don't even try and explain it to me. But that's the top headlines.

Like, Stephen A. Smith said he would divorce Serena Williams over appearing in the Kendrick Lamar halftime show. And it's everywhere. And you and I both know he feeds off of that. Trump is very similar for that. And so, yeah, I think obviously he's built a huge career. He's a household name. I previously floated people like The Rock and others. This is why.

Because this is part of the Trump strategy. I still think McConaughey should have run for governor of Texas. I think he would win. I really do. But, you know, these guys, they also see what it will cost eventually. He says he's not interested in anything but president. So maybe he should run, you know? I think he would do okay.

He knows, he understands the attention economy and he's not afraid of it. Yeah. He knows he understands the attention economy and he's not afraid of it. And that puts him leagues ahead of so many of the Democratic contenders that you could talk about. He has made a few interesting political comments over the years. Let's take a listen to – I know one of these things is most recently he came out and criticized Trump on Gaza and Palestine. Yes, that's right. Which was, that to me was a signal because most people who aren't political, who haven't like, it's a very uncomfortable topic for people. Because they feel like, and they've been made to feel, oh, I don't understand. It must be really complicated.

I'm just going to stay out of it. And they have a sense that it is such a hot button issue with tripwires all over the place that no matter what you say, someone is going to absolutely hate you for it. And that is 100 percent the case. But, you know, he's unafraid of just going ahead and jumping in and saying what he thinks on the issue. So I think we have that. And I think we also have a clip for him talking about trans rights. Let's take a listen to both those. It hits me because, and I've often said this to a lot of people. I've said this to black folks. I've said this to folks, whether you're heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transgender. I don't care. You know what I've said oftentimes? When you're talking about civil rights and civil liberties for every human being out here,

that is a fight worth fighting for. I will fight on behalf of the LGBTQ plus community any day of the week, just as much as I fight for the black community, just as much as I fight for the heterosexual community. I don't care. Right is right. When it comes to your civil liberties, you realize the real estate property that exists out there,

that's what you're going to say? That's what you're going to open your mouth and allude to? It ain't about money. It's about something more than that. They can bring up religion. They can bring up a lot of things. When Trump's first administration was in place, what did they do? Move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. They said, this is where it's at. They took sides in a lot of people's eyes. You really, really think that the folks in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinians are going to support that kind of movement, that they're going to want to be displaced? Egypt and Jordan already said, absolutely not. The anticipation is that the entire Arab world will say, absolutely not. What are we doing? I'm not trying to get into this issue to talk about something I really, really don't know about. I'm really addressing this because of

the displacement, the potential displacement of over a million people. That's why I'm bringing this up. Interesting. Yeah, not afraid to jump in there. Obviously, I disagree with the guy on the trans thing, but that is probably the best way you can get yourself to, you know, galaxy brain about why it's good to have trans women or whatever in women's sports.

But I do think the messaging there, his instinct for it, of just being like, this is civil rights, just like I'll fight for black rights. You know, that civil rights framing is actually something that people agree with, even if you put aside the specific question of what league people should play in in terms of sports. But he has an instinct for how to frame this as just like basic civil rights that would be appealing to a lot of normies.

I could see it work. Yeah, it's probably the best way that you could get there. But I mean, if anything, I think Trump is doing these people a favor and they don't have to debate it anymore. But if you get yourself on the Gaza thing, I was like, huh, that's an interesting way how you would explain it to a normal person.

To a normie. To somebody who has zero, you know, who hasn't really given it much of a thought. But I genuinely, I don't even think it gets to the substance of it. It's just about that approach, the need for attention and others. And that's what Trump ultimately was, you know, incredibly successful at. And Stephen A. Smith, I think, as I understand it, because, again, I don't watch a lot of sports, and I especially don't watch sports commentary. But from what I understand of what he is so good at, it's specifically inviting controversy and, like, out of nothing. You know, giving the hot take not only for the sake it, but to invite the controversy with his fellow panelists

or whatever. And obviously he's been incredibly, tremendously successful. I think he's one of the major draws, right, at ESPN. It's like the only thing that's still keeping them afloat. Obviously it has pushed a lot of people out, but being divisive, as we learned under Trump, is not necessarily a bad thing. He's also funny, which is another thing with Trump. He's had some good moments. He's just entertaining. He was great on Hillary, too, if you remember. He was going,

it was sometime in the election, I forget exactly what he was, but he was going after Hillary Clinton, which I enjoyed. So clearly he's got his eye on the, he's got his eye on

where things are right now. And yeah, maybe he could be successful. I don't know. I would like to see it. I'd like to see paradigm shifts. Exactly. At the very least,

it would be fun. I would enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Sorry, there's some scheduling issues that we ran into with Sora. We're going to have him on the show on Thursday. So just make sure we're getting the show out on time. We love you. Great counterpoint show for everybody tomorrow and we'll see you later. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country

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