Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 7/7/26: AI CEOs Panic Over Job Losses, WH Press Sec Attacks GenZ As Lazy, McConnell Still Missing After Heart Attack

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

Ryan and Saagar discuss AI CEOs panic over job losses, WH Press Sec says GenZ is lazy, McConnell still missing after heart attack.   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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An internal Treasury Department warning is warning about the dangers of AI. So there's a draft report that allegedly exists inside of the Treasury Department. It is set to warn the risks posed by an artificial intelligence market. liking key aspects of it to dot com that upended the U.S. economy in the early 2000s. The document, the existence and contents of which have not been previously reported is actually a huge departure from the public tone of the administration, which is part of why it's actually important. So here's what they write. Career treasury analysts found that AI firms are more deeply entrenched in the U.S. economy than their dot-com predecessors and pose significant risk

to the entire system if financial conditions change. Productivity goals are missed or various choke points stymai my growth. A downturn in the AI market would send shockwaves throughout the entire economic ecosystem. The report concludes an AI bubble popping would lead to less of an immediate crash than the U.S. economy experience in the early 2000s, but that the companies would cut back, investors would lose confidence, and the economy would likely grow more slowly should the industry falter. quote, stock markets, private credit markets, companies financing data center buildouts, cloud providers, chip manufacturers, and utilities would all feel the effects. Trump administration officials have never voiced similar unease in public and a Treasury department spokesperson dismissed the findings as, quote, unvetted and not representative of the agency's policy or views. Quote, the official position of the Secretary and the U.S. Treasury is that artificial intelligence would be a key driver of America's new golden age.

So they're betting the farm. This is basically, who is president dot com? Was it Clinton or Bush? By that one, probably, oh, it was Clinton, right. So when I think about it. So it was Clinton. I guess it's a little different because he was completely on the way. Different crashes, yeah.

March 2000 is really when it starts the down. Yeah. But if Clinton, I guess Clinton had a future, or Al Gore or somebody would be like, the future of our economy, he may probably disdance. I mean, it's interesting. The future the economy was the internet. Right, but in 2014. And just like with the railroads, the future was the railroad.

Yeah, but I'll get 20 years later. The canals, the railroads kind of eclipse the canals. What I think is interesting is basically just the, because it's, we've all been saying this, everybody knows it, to be true. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. However, having an internal report here, which warns about this against your public positioning, this is the type of stuff which can come back to bite you in the ass, right? Because it's kind of like, if I'm thinking back to, remember the bin Laden in 2001,

how Bush received that briefing in August 2001. It was like bin Laden determined to attack the United States. It was totally dismissed at the time, routine part of the CIA briefing. But then the 9-11 commission happens and people were like, hey, oh my God, how could you have done this? Or let's say in 2008, nobody, I can guarantee you at the time of,

what was it, Glass-Steagall repeal? Nobody said a word, right? Nobody was always paying attention. They were like, yeah, whatever, rubber stamp. It is what it is. But after 08, everybody's like, how did this happen? So I think that this is an example, I think, of what the future will look like. And, you know, having a draft report like this, which you dismiss, I mean, it's a scandal, right? Because you're saying, wow, you guys knew that this was a problem. You didn't do anything to cap any of the problems. You had these career analysts who were warning you, this, this and this. Right now, it's all gravy. I mean, let me check, you know, where are we at today? Yeah, S&P futures and this is pretty high. Yeah, the S&P's still up by 10% year to date, even though we had a massive, you know, know, Iran war, horrific situation in the last year, it's up by 21%.

We're a full-blown market. And it's like five years, and the S&P is up 72%. Right. So that's insanity. So everybody's in, you know, it's just like the good times. But I was reading a little bit about dot com several, I think it was a year or two ago. And I did not realize, you know, if you had invested at the top of dot com, the market did not reach that high again until like 2013.

So 13 years of a black hole, you're like, oh, my God. God. So, I mean, America has not been through anything like that. Basically, we had that and then 08. And 08, you know, even in terms of the recovery, it's not the recovery, I think that we want it. So the fear here, Ryan, is, I think, what they talk about on the back end. It's not about the AI companies going bust. It's that everybody, all the GDP spent is AI. The data center built out is AI. A lot of the, you know, big tech companies, which compromise all of the S&P 500, which is everybody's retirement accounts is all in Enviour. video and Google and meta and all of these other companies whose entire bet is on AI. I mean, Tesla is now trying to do AI. SpaceX is an AI company.

It's not a rocket company, right? You know, their biggest driver right now is like selling compute to Anthropic. And then Anthropic and Open AI alone are both going to be $2 trillion collectively when they go IPO. So all of that is just going to make up such a huge part of the economy where you're exposed no matter what. Like, no matter what you do, no matter what business you're in. And then that kind of capital crunch, which will come in if there's a downturn, it will have serious, serious problems for everybody. Yeah. And AI is here to stay.

AI is going to, like, you know, for better or for worse. But the idea that there won't be some pullback at minimum. That's the scary part. That's, like, what I would rather hear from a Treasury Secretary is like, yes, when we have these massive shifts in our economy, there is, always, and Zuckerberg has said this himself. Like, he's like, yes, there will be some multi-hundred billion dollar investments that will be a mistake and that will vanish. Yeah, he literally said that.

Yeah. It's like, okay, fine. At least you're clear-headed about how insane this is. You want to hear, don't, if it's, whether it's a railroad boom or, you know, the internet one, that you're planning for the pullback. okay, there's going to be a pullback, and here's how we're going to make sure we get a soft landing for the entire global economy. You don't want to hear, actually, it's going to be fine. The number is just going to keep going up and up and up.

Yeah, exactly. That's where you're like. Because everyone else, it was like, why would that be the first time in history that that is going to happen? Right. I was reading, I don't, I'm not a traitor. I don't know the exact, you know, the exact details. But I was reading about this new financial product, which Calci offers, which is like a highly leveraged liquid options market, which offers more leverage than a traditional Wall Street Bank. And I was like, oh, what could go wrong?

And they were like, this is the biggest growth center of our company beyond sports betting. And I was like, uh, seems bad. You know, it's like, isn't that illegal? Nothing's illegal now. Where's the SEC on this? It's not regulated by that. It's regulated by CFTC. So it's like, it's a different, you know, financial product.

But it's the same thing. I mean, you know, it just like... Is it regulated by the CFTC, or they're just doing it? Cali's regulated. Well, yeah, right, exactly. Technically regulated. But if you go back to 06, nobody knew what a credit default swap was. Nobody.

Everybody found out in 09 when they're like, how did this happen? Right. So there's all kinds of these products which are swimming out there and commoditized car loans and all this debt. And who even knows the leverage that exists behind AI? We have no idea. I mean, if the Iran war had not happened, the number one economic story actually would have been all of these private credit markets. There were all of these private lines of credit,

which were being called in by the big banks. Nobody even knew what was going on. I believe it's still happening as of today. By the way, what's also interesting about this is the tone shift in the AI CEOs. So let's put this one up here on the screen. This is C3, guys. And what they talk about here is that big tech after public opinion on AI has dramatically downshifted, is that the tech CEOs, Sam Altman and Dario and Zuckerberg and Jensen, are all suddenly not saying the quiet part out loud anymore. Now, it's no longer AI jobs. Well, AI is going to wipe out all of your jobs. It's about how AI is going to grow your jobs. So, quote, a year ago, the message from many business leaders was that AI was going to wipe out jobs. For the past month or so, tech CEOs have been striking

a more optimistic tone. In late May, Sam Altman, who has previously predicted, seismic shift in the workforce has now said, we've been roughly right on technological predictions and pretty wrong on the social and economic implications. Soon after, he told CNBC, our industry underestimated how much we're going to be able to keep people at the center of everything. Very big difference, I think, here. And now you also have here, they say, Dario, who in May of 2025, had said that there will be, you know, who in May in 2025, that AI was going to eliminate half of all jobs. A year later now says that companies, quote, can do the same thing with less resources, and that leads to things like layoffs, or they can do more with the same amount of resources. But that requires creativity.

In a June essay, the executive now writes that in giving warnings of job displacement, he had wanted policymakers to have the best chance adapting. He was not trying to be a, quote, profit of doom and also wrote the possibility of enduring job loss remained. So softening the fall, if this were to come. On Friday, we talked about Alex Carps, what people call the meltdown. That's just an Alex Carp monologue. It's not a meltdown. It's just, that's how he talks on CNBC. It's called autism.

There's a clear moment, though, in it that is so revealing where he's so angry at Sam Altman and these others, who he calls these prophets of doom, saying, you're going to get us a wealth tax. And that's what all of this is about. They feel like they have been too honest about what the implications of them. about what the implications of their technology are going to be for particularly the white-collar public, which still has some political purchase in this country. And they're going to use that remaining power that they have to implement a wealth tax. Exactly. And he's like, guys, stop talking about how we're going to make everybody unemployed because that's making them upset.

And they're going to come for us now. So stop. So now they're going to lie to you and be like, actually, this is just a... a little agent that's going to help you out in your job. There's going to be more jobs. Don't tax our wealth. Don't worry about it. And in the UK, they are, they may, they may move on a wealth tax. We'll see. And, you know, the UK was the first to move on a progressive income tax, 100 plus years, more than 100 years ago. And then that kicked it off around the rest of the world. And these oligarchs have very long memories. They hated the income tax when it came in and hit the

wealthy and they are desperately trying to avoid this wealth tax. I can't get my head around why somebody like Alice Carp. What's he worth? I don't even know. A hundred billion who God only knows. Seven, I think probably seven billion. Let's see. Like, why does he care about a wealth tax? Well, between 12 and 16 billion dollars. Okay, 12 and 16 billion dollars. What's he care? A couple billion, I mean a couple, two percent, pay it back. I mean, look, I'm not defending. Nothing he wants in this world that he can't buy unless he has some demented. Well, that's probably some demented demands. Here's the populist argument.

What's that, is it Steinbeck? Was it Steinbeck who said the problem with America is that every person sees themselves? Something about like a dispossessed millionaire, something like that. He said America will never have socialism because every American thinks that they're just a millionaire who hasn't made it. I've butchered the quote. I'm sorry, but I believe that was a Steinbeck quote from some time in the Great depression. So there is an element of it where, I mean, remember, what's the book? Thomas Frank? What's the matter with Kansas? I mean, there is a genuine element of it where people are like,

hey, that's not fair. These are titans of industry. These are titans of, you know, whatever. They've done all this great stuff for society. I think that might have been true, even, you know, in the industrialist stage where you could make an argument. And Carnegie and all those people were building all these temples to their own ego with the libraries. But these guys, they don't even pretend. Like, it's all just like, we're going to take your job and we're going to get filled rich off of it. And they need to maybe do a little bit. Yeah, they're like, right. We do a little better with this. So for them, they're like, hey, cool it. But their best argument that they have is like, well, it was a billion and now it's 50 million. So it'll

be one million or something like that. Right. And so the average guy could be worth a million. And generally, I mean, the most conservative people in the country are actually small business owners, right, because they're the ones who actually manage all of their own taxes. I get it. It's a literal nightmare having to do all of it. But part of the reason is that that block is usually, because they're the most tax people in the country, because of the way that they make money, these are some of the least tax people in the country. Generally, the way that they try to weaponize it is about innovation, et cetera. But I think if you look at the polling for how the people feel about the wealth tax, what it comes down to is they're like, look, we get it.

Maybe it's unfair to tax unrealized gains. But at the end of the day, we don't give a shit. You guys are super wealthy. We don't care anymore, right? Like, we need to punish you. And I mean, when they're affecting society in the way that we are, like, sometimes, the problem is they argue with well tax in terms of, like, fiscal, you know, oh, it wouldn't even be going to anything. For everybody else, they're like, it's purely punitive, and we're fine with that, right? They're like, we don't care. They're like, we don't care if it gets wasted. They're like, we don't care if it's.

You're wasting it. We don't like you. What they don't understand is people hate them. And here's a good example. Let's put, uh, what the zoo thing. Steinbeck, I think the quote you were thinking of, he called, Americans temporarily embarrassed capitalists. That's it.

That's what it was. It was something like that. Yeah, they're like capitalists. They just don't have any capital yet. Yeah, it was like he said something. It was in the Great Depression. I remember he said something. It's like his essay, A Primmer on the 30s.

There you go. That's the saga endorsed essay. I mean, it should go read. It was a genuinely insightful guy. Let's put C4 up here on the screen. So Griffin found this one. Perfect example. Like, when you're going to do stuff like this?

You got the Nashville Zoo. It is now a battle. in the data center race. So let's talk about it. So before the sun has risen, they say a club leopard, no longer than her hands, wiggles impatiently, wetting to be fed by the Nashville Zoo's Animal Health Director. The newborn sucks eagerly, its tiny paws paddling the air with every gulp. But now zoo officials say that a planned data center just beyond the perimeter, quote, could introduce constant noise, light, and industrial activity that may disrupt the environmental conditions critical not only for the leopard breeding program, but for the more than 3,000

animals that call the zoo home. Now, this is a classic YIMB-Ribing the mood-style debate. Yeah, you're going to ruin the leopards. You're going to introduce all this noise, and you can, I mean, what's the argument for it? Well, this is about technological innovation. It's a zoo. It's an animal. Ultimately, it's for our kids' entertainment, right? But this is the problem that the AI CEOs have never gotten to. Data Center, for what? What are you, doing for me, right? If you're really wealthy, my stock is going up. Okay, that's great, right? But for everybody else, you're like, oh, you say you're going to replace my job. I get a bunch of AI slop of kittens turning into dancing monkeys on my phone. That's it. Like, what am I getting out of

this, right? And that's fundamentally the problem, I think. What you're getting out of it is your job getting taken. Yeah, right. Well, according to them, previously, except not now. Oh, we've changed our Outlook, you actually flagged this. That guy you had on William Lawrence just has some polling. Let's put C6 up here on the screen. This is a new favorability that they found. Do you have a favorable or unfavorable

opinion of data centers? And in his poll, he found 19% favorable, 74% unfavorable. Yeah, man, he's in a three-way Democratic primary in a swing district, which is currently represented by a Republican this guy, Tom Barrett, Michigan. The other two candidates are kind of these corporate Democrats who are afraid to say anything about the data centers.

You know, they express concerns. He's like, no, shut down the data centers, data center moratorium. And as a result, according to what looks like, you know, his analysis of his own polling, and I think we can all agree that it's pretty fair analysis, is that his opposition to data centers is the thing that is elevating him in the primary. He's probably going to win the primary. even though he's the kind of most left-wing candidate in a swing district. And it's because people are like,

I don't care if you call him a socialist, or he was a co-founder of Sunrise Movement. I don't care if you call him an eco-socialist. He's against these data centers. I'm against these data centers. And if you're a Republican, too, that same poll showed that independence preferred him by 19 points over the Republican, which that's ballgame in a swing district,

if he wins the nomination, and if they don't, you know, pummel him with whatever. Right. And it's all about the data centers. So the independentist, like, I don't care if you call them a socialist. And they also polled your attitudes on the Democrats, Democratic socialism and a bunch of other things. The least unpopular was democratic socialism.

It was still a negative. Well, I mean, take a look at Utah and this whole Kevin O'Leary situation. What just happened? I mean, Fox News had to apologize. He smeared these people. They're worried about getting sued. as Chinese communist activists or whatever. And it's like really Utah is full of a bunch

of Chinese communist liberals, Utah, one of the most conservative states in the country. And this is rural Utah too about what we're talking about. Like, are you joking, dude? Like, no, that's not what this is about. And so, look, I mean, I just think for them, you know, you're talking about the wealth tax,

AI and all of that. Everybody can see the number go up, but number go up doesn't apply as much, right? It applies when you're worth $12 billion, 12 to $16 is a lot. It doesn't apply so much when you're, you know, Let's say you, what is it, 50 something percent of people don't even in retirement account. So the only number that matters to them that should go up is wages, which guess what?

Hasn't gone up. You know, the only number you see going up is gas. That's the key point. Western economies for the last 20 years or so have been growing at about 1%. The richest top 0.1% have seen their wealth grow by way more than 1%. That means we don't have a whole lot more wealth to spread around. so as they gobble it up, there's less for everybody else. That is just unless we can figure out a way to start growing the economy at 10%,

the wealthy growing their wealth at 10% gobbles our wealth. It's actually more than 10%. It's way more than 10%. I just gave you the numbers. It's like 20%. And as they get richer and richer and richer, they have to do something with that money. And what they do is they invested in assets, stock market houses, like commodities.

So they're buying up everything. And the power of exponential growth means they will own everything at some point, in the not too distant future. That's a track that we're on. Unless we tax their wealth. All right. Let's get to Caroline Levitt. Listen.

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Hey, everybody, it's the Jonas Brothers. This week on the podcast, Hey Jonas, we're so excited to be hanging out with Mika Abdallah from the hit show off campus. Congratulations on the massive show and massive success. Got through about episode five. I left the next morning to go meet the guys. Came back. It was like, cool, let's pick up where we left off. And that series had been completed without me.

Oh, no. That's like the number one rule of watching something. It's literally cheating. It's cheating. That's crazy. We talk about what it's been like watching the show become such a massive hit. What's next for season two? And just how close the off-campus cast really is.

We're genuinely so close. What's the group chat called? If you can say, if it's allowed to be said on the, pod. That's a great question. One of them is off-campus Brazil. Okay. Love it. Shout-up Brazil. Shout-up Brazil. And then the boys have their own group chat

called Dean's B-Bez. Our conversation with Mika Abdallah is out now. Go check it out. Listen to Hey Jonas in the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Turning now to Caroline Love with the White House Press Secretary, so she was enjoying the Fourth of July

festivities with Jesse Waters, Ryan's old friend, who was not even wearing a suit. Outrageous? Yeah. It is outrageous. If Zorn and Mom Donnie can wear a suit when he's swimming in a pool, what the fuck are you doing? Right?

But let me put that to the side. So, Jesse Waters, sitting down. They're just shooting the shit. We're here with Caroline Levitt. And in that, Caroline drops this nugget on Gen Z, her fellow Gen Z, how they're lazy with silver spoons in their mouth. Let's take a listen. Thinking to come here right now.

Some of these kids, and I call them kids because they're in their 20s. And they've never had real jobs and they're complaining things are expensive. Yes, things are expensive when you don't have a real job. Right. Do you think that's getting traction, complaining? Unfortunately, I do because this generation, my generation, I hate to say, a Gen Z and those younger than me have been raised with just silver spoons in their mouths, just getting everything handed to them.

That's not the values this country was built on. It was built on meritocracy and hard work, pulling up your sleeves, pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, and achieving the American dream. And we need to protect it with all we got. Is it laziness? A little bit? Is it because the professor said countries corrupt, it's evil, and we just need to shake them down and hand money out? It's laziness and it's the liberal indoctrination.

You bring up a great point about our education system. However, I will say a silver lining, so many parents that I talk to across the country are homeschooling, are turning to private education, are turning towards Christian schools across the country because they don't want their children being taught these communist and liberal ideas slam down their throat. It's why President Trump in the White House has advocated so strongly for school choice across the country. We want kids to be taught to love our country. They should. It is the greatest country in the history of the world.

All right. I say, you know, if they misbehave, just make all these young kids join the Army, right? Shape them up. I almost have to. Or send them to Cuba. Send him to Iran. They'll want to come back real quick. Okay.

So if you're Gen Z, you're mad about house prices, you're mad about gas prices, you're mad about McDonald's prices, drink price, whatever. Whatever weed prices, probably, that you people are mad about. That's one I'm not going to fight for you on. But you're mad. You're mad. It's because you're lazy and you got a silver spoon in your mouth. Now let's put her clarification up here. She says, I am seeing a lot of bad faith actors. Take my comments from this interview out of context. So here's the full interview, let me expound. The interview was about the rise of communism on the left. I was asked by Jesse Waters, why so many young people are buying the false premise of free stuff being sold by communist politicians. My answer, a combination of laziness, yes, and the liberal indoctrination that has been taking

a place in our education system for far too long. These far-left educators are pumping students out of garbage, convincing that hard work and sacrifice won't pay off down the road because they want them totally reliant on the government instead. I went on to say President Trump is a huge advocate for school choice, blah, blah, blah. I care enough about our country to tell uncomfortable truths. It's an undeniable fact, a growing number of young people in our country are falling for the lives of socialism, communism, sold to them by anti-American politicians who never built anything, offer no real solutions, are intent on tearing everything down that makes this country great. At the same time, it is true that many Gen Z Americans are hardworking, entrepreneurial,

deep, be patriotic, and it's vital we protect the American dream for them. That's why I'm honored to work for President Trump, and on behalf of administration that's implementing the right policies to lower taxes, less regulations, stopping Wall Street from purchasing single-family homes, Trump accounts the deportation of illegal aliens who are taking our housing and jobs. There is more work to do, which is why Trump and our entire administration won't stop fighting to make life better and more affordable for young people. So here's why I think that's going to fall very, very deaf. She explicitly said that they're lazy with silver spoons because they're bitching about

affordability. And that's, look, really, I actually think it all comes down to housing. And the more I meditate on it, the more I talk to people about it, the more radical I get, actually, whenever it comes to housing and, like, housing solutions. And this is where they just, it's funny because they talked about it endlessly on the campaign. Inflation, inflation, inflation, right? And inflation, because that was, it was the bedrock of the affordability conversation, which eventually, you know, leads to people like Zora and Mamdani, which is very effectively.

Remember his early ads about the halal carts, making it $8 again, like those. That is exactly what people care about the most. And it's genuinely what just sucks all the money out of any of your disposable income. Because people keep pointing to, well, people make more money. It's like, well, things cost a lot more. And then the wage to income ratio, the wage to price ratio of housing, compare it to 2000, 1980, 1970. I mean, it's exponential compared to where things were before.

So for people who have either student debt or let's say you didn't go to college and you're looking at your upward mobility, you do not see the same path that your parents had. That's why so many people live at home with their parents now. That's not the American dream. It might be financially prudent. It's not the dream. I don't think anybody wants to wake up at age 29 saying, yeah, I live at home. You know, with mom or dad, I have no ability, upward mobility.

I have no ability to even foresee being able to buy a home to achieve any sort of independence. And then they complain about people saying, you know, falling for rent or free stuff or whatever. It's like, well, in some cases, part of the reason why you may go in that more radical direction is because the middle path, which was always told that was going to be achievable for you, you know for a fact is not financially attainable in this moment in time, especially if you live in a medium to high cost of living area. It's incredible to think that Jesse Waters is the lead prime time hosts of the biggest kind of right-wing news outlet. And Levitt is the spokesperson for the president of the United States. So these are effectively the two leading spokespeople for what was sold to the American public as a populist movement. And not just sold. I mean, it actually worked.

Like people under $100,000 voted for Trump. Right, absolutely. That has never happened before with a Republican, ever. Right. So they successfully sold that to people. And if you listen to them now, it is the most bankrupt, reactionary, like, just. just like Mitt Romney on steroids. Just yelling at people for being lazy.

Like, are you, like, what even is this? And also just so, like, like, watching those two intellectual heavyweights go back and forth, like, batting around these, like, these high ideas is just kind of embarrassing. Well, did you notice that if they complain that we're going to send them to Cuba and Iran? We're going to, yeah, send them to Iran. Come on now. That's like czarist Russia. You know, he's like you take the best that you send them to the front line.

Or actually, even though. the communist did it. Stalin did it too. It's like, oh, you complain we're going to send you to the worst? I mean, also a little late on Iran, we already lost that war. Yeah, right. So where, how are you going to send them? I mean, I do think that this is important because, you know, this actually triggered a big right wing meltdown, at least like with a lot of the influencer. Because they're not stupid. Who I noticed they ripped Levitt personally. Yes. Because it's like, you married some like super rich guy. Like that, okay. So, okay, great advice. Everyone go out and marry some super rich guy 30 years older than you. Like, congratulations. Like,

And nobody was, I mean, obviously she's very talented and hard worker and like blah, blah. But nobody is judge, nobody previously to that had been making a whole thing about her personal life. But you can't be standing on the shoulders of married wealth whenever and talk to people and say, you're late. That's, you know, come on. Let's all be honest here. Like, you can Google the press secretary salary. I'm pretty sure it's like 175 grand, which here in Washington is just not that a lot of money anymore. And I think that's actually what gets to it, is that even the people who work very, very hard, they, and make a lot of money, like objectively make a lot of money in terms of the American economy. Even they are struggling. And it's all because of housing.

And yet Trump, I missed this. I tried to be completely offline. And yet so many people sent me this that was one of the few things I actually saw. While I was off, here it is. Trump says he wants to drive housing prices up, not down. Let's take a listen. There's so much talk about, oh, we're going to drive housing prices down. I don't want to drive housing prices down.

I want to drive housing prices up. Yeah, great. Let's just bail the boomers out even more. They don't have enough money. We've got to pile of them. Let's just cut their property taxes. Let's make it even more unattainable. Yeah, he's like, people will be sad if you, right, if their housing prices go down.

I saw a chart going. Housing prices going down is indicative of a healthy condition because, and again, I get it. If you bought your house, it sucks. Okay. But sorry, we have a literal natural. You'll be okay. You have a house. Right now, yeah, you have a house. Whereas if you look at Austin, if you look at any of the other metro areas where they permit a significant amount of housing, they were able to drop overall

rents by a lot, like 13, 14%. I'll give you a perfect. You know, one of my friends, she lives in New York City, she was posting apartment listing for her old apartment in 2021, which is now three times the price today for rent for the same place. Nothing else has been done. She's like, I paid X and this is what it's now listing for. That's insane. sanity. And this is the one which is actually at beyond nuts and relates to AI. Let's put D4 up here on the screen. In San Francisco, this was alluding to, even 180 grand, tech salaries are no longer enough. If you go and you, this, this blew me away. The median home price in San Francisco, what do you think it is, right? Oh God. The median, median home price. Just how's it? San Francisco's

median home price, according to red. One point five million. 1.7 million is the median home. 1.7. Half of houses are more than that. Yeah. Is the median home price. The national median is $450,000. And if you go and you take a look,

what they see is that the average apartment rent is now surpassed New York City reaching $3,800 a month. And that's not a nice apartment. So we're talking about the average apartment rent is $3,800 a month, with the median price at $1.7 million. They specifically point to the AI boom.

They're like, look, Uber made a lot of people wealthy, but this thing is going to make people like orders of magnitude more wealthy. There will be 10,000 new millionaires, multi-millionaires, 10 deca millionaires, not to mention, you know, not just trillionaires, like hundreds of billionaires, like Dario and Sam Altman and all these other people, all the, you know, even a junior level executive. off of these IPOs is going to net 15, 20 million.

So you're talking about insane amounts of wealth in this one tiny little city, which is nimbied to hell. This is what happens. Now, San Francisco is a very extreme example, but it is also the rest of the nation. If you take a look at the places which build the least housing,

of course, you see massive increases in home values. And at the same time, you have the boomers who live in those homes. They're only lobbying is to make sure but they have to pay less in property tax. They don't care. In fact, most of them lobby

against building any new housing. And I am not one of these yimby insane people who's like, oh, we should just build ugly glass apartments everywhere. Like, I don't think that's family-friendly or any of it. It's great if you're 22 years old. But if you're 32, like, what are we doing here? But, you know, where's the 1,500 square foot

single-family ranch or home? They don't even exist. Nobody builds them. There's no federal government program. There's no state program. If you try to build it in a dense neighborhood, God help you. The boomers, they will do everything to try and to torpedo. You know, you be able to, oh, what about the schools or any of that?

It's like, shut up. Like, you don't even care about schools. I just read a great story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. Boomers who are bragging about living in schools that they grew up in. So they're taking schools, which have been decommissioned because the fertility rate has gone down. And now converting the school into luxury apartments. And this woman who's like 65 years old I grew up here, it's so nice to live here.

I'm like, yeah, I must be nice for you. She was nice for you. Like literally went to school there? She literally went to school there. And now it's a luxury apartment for boomers because the fertility rate's gone down and because no families can afford to live there anymore. That's sick or it's sickness.

And guess what? I bet you should be lobbying for a drop property tax. Not just, you know, that particular one enraged me. Your property tax would go down if your home value goes down. Yeah, yeah, exactly. There you go. Think about that, so you can think about that. I don't know.

I mean, just it genuinely enrages me because, you know, we, you know, we meet a lot of people who do this, you know, who watch the show and all this. And this is the number one thing we always hear about. Everybody's locked out. Everybody's locked out. They're like, man, how's it? And, you know, when people pulling, you know, they profile people in this story who are making like $400,000 in San Francisco. And they're like, can't afford it. Literally can't afford it. They're like, they applied for a $5,000 a month apartment. And there were 38 people who applied at the same day. Yeah. $5,000, $60,000 a year in rent. Yeah. Can't afford it. I mean, they're like, oh, maybe I need to move or we've got to do long distance. I mean, ruins your life. And especially with now you've got in-person work mandates, which are ratcheting up in tech, especially, who are all lucky to have a job in the middle of the AI.

So they have no negotiating or bargaining power whenever it comes to a worker. So, yeah, I have become extremely radical on the housing issue and watching things like that when people are either drowning. in student loan debt, credit card debt, with no upward mobility whenever it comes to wages, and a median home price of 450K. And if you look at the median home price ratio to income, compared again to 20 years ago, like you've got no business telling anybody that they're lazy with the silver spoof. Well, this is a huge crisis. So this is actually a good transition to our next segment. Let's see how the political system is responding to this existential crisis that so many people are facing.

And let's see what the former Senate Majority Leader is doing. Listen, and you're there for heart-wrenching knockouts. The world's biggest stage. And breathtaking triumph. In 2026, FIFA World Cup, the knockout stage. Every match, every moment. Listen on TSN radio. Join the globe on the road to the July 19th final.

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It was like, cool, let's pick up where we left off. And that series had been completed without me. Oh, no. That's like the number one. role of watching something. It's literally cheating. That's crazy. We talk about what it's been like watching the show become such a massive hit. What's next for season two?

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We haven't heard much about Senator Mitch McConnell lately. Let's throw this up here. According to the Associated Press, he's continuing his recovery, but details are scarce after a lengthy hospital stay. Saga, I think the word recovery there is doing an awful lot of work Because as you and I and probably our viewers understand the word recovery, it suggests that there's some physical therapy going on. You're working toward recovering your health or some version of it.

That does not seem to remotely be the case. Let's put up A2 here. So what happened is that Mitch McConnell suffered a heart attack at home on June 14th. When paramedics finally got there, they immediately began performing CPR. CPR was, you know, they continued to perform CPR on his way in. If you have a heart attack and you're at home at McConnell's age, and by the time EMS gets there and they find you unresponsive and begin CPR, your brain by that point, has been without oxygen for so long that the likelihood of you kind of recovering consciousness is just vanishingly low.

He's 84 years old. 84 years old. There's no evidence that he has regained consciousness at any point since then. Here's what his spokesperson says. Senator McConnell is still working closely with staff on Senate business and Kentucky matters as he continues his recovery. However, he will not be voting this week. That was his spokesperson, David Pop.

And that was actually given on July 1st. So that was six days ago, as of what he said. Now, the more recent one is that he is continuing his recovery. They offered no explanation. Working with staff? Really? Well, look, I mean, in the old days, maybe you could take that to the bank. In a post-Dyne Feinstein world, come on, all right?

We all saw it. We watched it. Who was it who leaned over and was like, just vote yes? I couldn't believe that. And she looked, look at the way that she looked. Like she looked dead. And she died a week later. Yeah.

It was disgraceful that they did that to her, that her staff sat around and dealt with. I mean, all of it. Like, it was outrageous. And the circumstances of this are nuts because this is a United States senator, a extremely powerful person who, you know, if he's incapacitated, then his people should say so. Maybe even his wife. And yet, let's put this next one up here on the screen. She is in China. meeting with senior members of the CCP after his hospitalization.

Three days after he received CPR, Elaine Chow is now currently in Beijing and met with the Chinese vice president days after hospitalization. Chinese media shows Chow sitting across from Zhang on June 17th, discussing efforts to strengthen China-U.S. relations. Remember, you'll recall, if you've been watching the show for a long time, Elaine Chow is the daughter of some Taiwanese shipping billionaire who is extremely close to the Chinese Chinese Communist Party. The entire thing has always been objectively bonkers whenever it comes to his wealth or his power

and her extraordinary wealth and ties to a foreign government. But I mean, who does that? Like your husband's in the hospital and you're in China? What's going on there? No explanation. No, but like the point about this, you know, we're just talking about the housing thing, they just feel it's our business you have you have no right to question it did you see remember we we talked about that congressman who was missing for like three months and nobody said where he was his

staff and all that keen the new jersey guy said i had depression yeah you can't take three months a work bro just tell us that just say i'm deeply depressed i couldn't work i mean to be honest with you like that's outrageous i mean how many blue collar guys do you think are depressed and they don't want to go they don't get three months off yeah i couldn't take three months off yeah i couldn't take three off. No, we wouldn't allow that. I had a baby I took one month off, right? That's a much more, that's reasonable. And, you know, I know, we own the company. I guess I could do whatever I want. I wouldn't do that. We would just shame you every day. He's depressed. He's too depressed to work. I mean, that's okay if it's true. But, you know, I don't know. I mean, is that, should that really be

tolerable? Like, maybe you should resign. Should the people of your district just have three months of no representation. And, you know, that's, you know, a crazy case. But in this particular case, it's like, so the wife offers no update, the senator offers no update, the staff for apparently just thinks that we can all live in limbo for 21 days and just say, yeah, he's recovering. And we have no idea whether any of that is true. There's no proof of, you know, proof of any path to recovery. And so, look, there's all kinds of rumors that are circulating out there. Thomas Massey, let's put his tweet up here on the screen. He says, is America ready for my term limit legislation titled three strokes and you're out. I'm with you. Thomas, I am totally with you.

Three strokes. You know, a modest proposal, just three strokes, you know, just not one, not two, but three. You have three strikes and you're out. It's crazy. The entitlement is an 84-year-old man, literally went on camera, can't speak. What are his children doing? You know, you don't say anything. Your wife, your family, nobody says, you're like, hey, you got to hang up. I remember saying this with Biden. I go, does anybody love this man? If you really love somebody, how could you let them do that, you know, out in public? It's just, again, the gerotocracy, they're clinging to power, their narcissism, how the office serves them. They are never about serving you.

It's all on display in the same. Now, if McConnell is incapacitated or does die, then under Kentucky law, there would have to be a special election. They changed their rules back in, I think, 2024 to strip the governor. Right. Because they had a Democratic governor. Yes. So they said, if there's a vacancy, there has to be a special election. Right.

No gubernatorial appointments. And so, and this was when McConnell's health was failing then, too. This was understood to be about McConnell. So if he is incapacitated dead, there'd have to be a special election. And that's where Thomas Massey comes back in, because he would be able to mount a short-term kind of independent campaign. You know, it's, you know, everybody running in the same field, and that could draw votes away from the Republican and elect the Democrat.

You could even plausibly see a world in which Massey won. Now he'd only be in office for a couple of months. McConnell is not running for re-election. Right. His term is up at the end of 2026 to early 2027. But if McConnell is kind of on some sort of life support and being kept alive to keep Massey out of office or out from running, that is exactly what Mitch McConnell would want.

Oh, absolutely. So that is, that is, those are his dying wishes. Yeah. To make some petty partisan move with his ailing body. His dying wishes are to, I don't know, like fund Ukraine for until the end of time. To block Massey from. Look, again, you know, I don't want to smirch an 84-year-old man who is, you know, in bad health. but that's why you should have left a long time ago, right?

You made it our business, man. You are the person who made all of this our business. You could have left with dignity. You ran for re-election. You ran for re-election. You were 78 years old. That is disgraceful, especially whenever you were already having lingering health problems. And you had multiple health incidents on camera and still stayed in office.

It's crazy. So don't you want to do anything else with your life? I kept thinking about that in Maine with Susan Collins. Because how old is she now? She's like 70 something. Yeah. She had previously pledged, what if she had pledged only two terms. I'm telling you guys, this is.

It's 73. This is, this is almost, six more years? One of the most gorgeous places in the world, in my opinion, just my opinion. And I'm like, and she's a multimillioner, I have to assume, because they all are. We're tired. It gets great out of it. She's some lobster, you know, some oysters. What else do you need?

It's like you got sunshine. It's like you're in the middle of the woods. want to hike every single day. Go see the world, not on a codel. Yeah, go see the world. You can even fly first class. You don't even fly a economy. She can fly private. She's so rich. She could fly private. She could see the world and vacation every summer in Maine. She needs to be a lockstep vote for Trump instead. Yeah, right. And be very concerned about all his behavior. What is the psychology of these people? But that's it. They're waging narcissists. Tom Harkin, who I actually would have on the show soon.

Who's Iowa? Right. Yeah, Iowa Senator. Yeah. He was the leader now. American hero. Well, he ran for president. Was he ever a leader? I don't know. He was very powerful. I remember that. Lion of the Senate. And in 2014, he's like, you know what? I want to retire and my wife and I are going to sail around the world. And it cost Democrats to seat. But, you know, good for Tomlock. In retrospect, heroic, honestly. Joni Ernst is only a senator because of that decision. Or it was. That's right. That's right. Because it was in the Tea Party time. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. All right. Good bro show, Ryan. The people will have another bro show tomorrow. So we will see you all then. We're about to go do our AMA.

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