Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/22/26: Trump Approval Craters, AI Oligarchs Fight Regulation, Trump Bends Knee To Xi

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump's approval rating craters ahead of midterms, big tech oligarchs spend millions to block regulations, Trump bends knee to China ahead of Xi summit.   Kevin Roose: https://www.youtube.com/@machinegodspodAlex Bores: https://www.alexbores.nyc/   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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Bell, connection is everything. Hey, everyone. It's the Jonas Brothers with the Hey Jonas. podcast. We've been catching up with some great friends, Paul Rudd, Michael Boubley, Seth Myers, and making some new friends while getting into what's really like to have sisters, like Alex and Ashton Earl. She likes to control everyone and tell everyone what to do. Okay, well control is a harsh word. Plus, we've been taking your calls, listening to your voicemails and giving advice. Listen to Hey Jonas on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Hey Jonas

and start listening on the free IHeartRadio app today. Hey Jonas is sponsored by Edible arrangements. Order yours today at edible.com. Lisa, tell them about our new We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Yuanu. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions, and at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, ready or not, 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.

We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, ad staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. I have an amazing show for everybody today. What are, Crystal? Indeed, we do. We're going to do a deep dive into the midter. has got a bunch of new polls out this morning that are quite interesting. And Trump has just officially hit 29% in his first approval rating to drop under 30%.

So that seems like a landmark we should pay attention to. Democratic candidates are apparently terrified of speaking out against AI because they are fearful of millions of dollars being spent against them in their campaigns. We're going to talk to a candidate who faced millions of dollars in AI spending about what the dynamics look like on the ground. We're anticipating also today a big meeting. later this week with Trump and Xi Jinping of China. Already, we're seeing some actually encouraging developments in terms of AI coordination. We'll break that down for you and how significant it is.

Trump has kicked a bunch of news outlets out of the White House. Now others are boycotting, participating in the press pool in solidarity, leading to some interesting and hilarious moments. Draft Kings was caught using AI to target gambling addicts. We also have some new really deeply disturbing video of one of those gambling addicts, how much they are putting down every single week on sports betting. And OpenAI announces they've solved over 100 outstanding math problems. Kevin Ruse, formerly of the New York Times, now launching his own podcast, is going to join us to break down the latest developments there. He's also going to take a look at some of these impending IPOs and what we may learn about the financial situation of some of these companies.

Kevin's great. He's been spent the last year also writing a book called The AGI Chronicles, which is going to come out in a little bit. So we're going to pick his brain on what exactly he's learned and what he can see. He lives in San Francisco. He talks to a lot of these people every single day. Thank you to everybody's subscribing to the show, breaking points.com. We have our free month trial going on.

As I said yesterday, and to which many of you listened, thank you to this pitch, is that they all just count for Ryan's total. So just don't even worry about me. Pretend it's not even my voice that is making this pitch. If you're watching this on YouTube, please hit subscribe to our YouTube channel. if you're listening to the podcast, share an episode with a friend. You know what we need to do? We need to get just like a video of Ryan that we can just play.

It's not bad. I actually thought about that. But knowing his sleep schedule, I was like, you know, asking him in the morning is pointless. So I was like, well, forget about it. All right. So as we said, with all of that, let's get to the midterms. So let's start with some video of real voters on the ground in Detroit, Michigan. This is courtesy of a Wall Street Journal reporter.

Let's take a listen. What I see is people who are frustrated with a system that has consistently failed them. Detroit's median household income is around $39,000 a year, about half the national median income. Jay Salada has run this auto shop for 15 years. Best shop in the city, man. Right here. He says when people's budgets get tight, taking care of their cars is one of the first places people might cut back.

You can tell people are not driving unless it's necessary. They're pushing a lot of the routine maintenance repairs further along. Do I put milk on the table or do I do an oil change? When would you say this started to pick up? Like you notice people just feeling a little bit more cash straps. It's been the past year kind of and then after the Iran war and I felt like it really put a strain on the stress that people already enduring. 6556. You said you only got 6510?

Yeah. All right, I'll adjust it for you. I'll help you off. Everything is one of other. Even though oil change, they used to be $40 and not 64. If you do vote this November after you do your research a little bit, what's like the thing you want politicians to focus on the most? Minimum wage. So a lot that's interesting there, obviously, Michigan being one of the most critical Senate races in the entire country. They've been hit by the war. I think it was interesting to hear him connecting to directly in struggles of his business with the Iran war. And also Michigan, more impacted in the trade war with Canada than other states as well. There's a new poll out this morning. This is from Suffolk, which is a pretty highly rated pollster. They have Abdul al-Syad at 47 percent and Mike Rogers

at 40 percent. So that would be outside of the margin of error. I think that would be about what you would expect given the partisan direction of the midterm elections that we've seen so far. to take a look, Nate Silver has Abdul at like a 75% chance to win at this point. It makes a lot of sense. I was telling you before the show, Michigan, and we will go through each of these battleground polls. Some that you wouldn't expect are tighter and some which you would, or sorry, we wouldn't expect are blowouts.

And some you would expect seem very tight. This is where the individuality of each state actually makes a big difference. Michigan has always been in the last, in the Trump era, the last 10 years, a genuine razor-thin battleground. Trump wins by only 10,000 votes in 2016, loses by some 100,000, wins the state in 2024 by barely a percent or so. Don't forget that the candidate Mike Rogers himself loses to Alyssa Slotkin, with a significant portion some 100,000 or so of crossover Trump-slotkin voters

at that time who decided not to vote for Rogers in that race. Put it all together, Rogers was facing a very dramatic, uphill battle. And this is where even the Iran war itself doesn't just factor in. What does Michigan happen to be near? Canada. They have a ton of cross-border trade. Also the auto industry. So the auto industry right now, we'll talk about this a little bit in China. They are not happy with Trump because one of the things they're currently flirting with is actually letting in a lot of Chinese automakers, which the entire, all of Detroit, I mean, they're dead if any of that happens. So they are lobbying Trump hard. you also have had inflationary pressures on a lot of the Canada tariffs for auto assembly,

add on top of that high gas prices. I think what's the average price of gas in Michigan? Michigan is one of those states where generally, yeah, 488. So it's actually up near $5 a gallon right now. I forget exactly why the local conditions make it so for those three particular Great Lake states. But the point remains that their individual factors were already, like not just lean D, but like tilt D, I guess, is what I would say. And then Abdul, on top of that, you have a better candidate. And, I mean, you know, you talk about candidate quality.

Having a guy who literally lost in a wave year, like, what are we doing here? Yeah. And it's worth saying they have been thrown. I mean, the Hassan thing, they've been going, you know, overtime for months at this point, hammering. How dare you associate with Hassan Piker? And it doesn't appear that that is going to be an ultimately winning message, although you never know.

We'll wait till election day. But if you don't want to believe the polls, I completely understand that because the polls have been very wrong. Instead, pay attention to what the candidates are doing and how increasingly desperate they seem in terms of their approaches, their attacks, and their communications. Here is Mike Rogers, who is the ultimate neocon of neocons, calling for some dramatic changes with regard to gas and also calling for an end to the Iran War. This is A5. Let's take a listen. Michigan families are struggling with the price of everyday life. Groceries cost too much. We have to bring prices down.

The war with Iran needs to end and end quickly. When it does, energy costs will plummet, but Michigan families can't afford to wait for that to happen. We need to do something now. I've previously called for the suspension of the state and federal gas tax, 70 cents a gallon. And another place we can start, diesel. Diesel fuels the trucks that bring groceries to this store.

It fuels the tractors that grow our food. And when diesel costs more, it costs more to grow it. ship it, stock it, and ultimately buy it. So until this war is over, I'm calling for a temporary embargo on American diesel exports. Mike Rogers has been supporting the Iran war for literally decades. Literally decades he's been pushing for this thing. So you know those poll numbers are bad when he's having to go, this needs to end. It needs to end quickly. Then everything will be okay. He's not the only one put A6 up on the screen, Ashley Hinson, who is the Republican nominee in Iowa. She says, is it very similar messaging?

I think the bat signal went out here. Iowans are being squeezed. Shouldn't have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran. We need to use every option in our disposal to provide some relief from high prices that includes suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports,

unleashing E15 everywhere we can. That's their ethanol thing, I guess. reinstating the $1 per gallon biodiesel tax credit, creating a diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers. While doing this, we should also ensure our highway trust fund is replenished, so Iowans don't suffer from crumbling roads and bridges.

These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end. I'm working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans. I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately. This comes on the heel saga of another ad that she had cut, where it was all about how she wanted to work across the aisle with Democrats on affordability. So again, you look at the way that. that she is behaving. She is not behaving as someone who is in a comfortable position in Iowa,

which is very heavily Republican state went overwhelmingly for Trump, very rural. These are the exact voters that Democrats have really lost and performed badly with over the years. And yet you can tell he or she is running for her life. Put what is it A10 please on the screen. This came out this morning. Numerous NPR poll, high quality pollster, actually, has the Senate race. Josh Turrick, the Democrat at 50 percent. Ashley Hinson. at 42%. And Josh Turrick is one of these classic, almost like blue dog style Democrats. He's doing ads with Donald Trump at the border. He's like, I pledged to work across the aisle. And, you know, he's just got exactly the right message, which is it's all about affordability. And this is kind of what

I was alluding to in the introduction. It appears that the Iowa race is much more lean D than Texas. How could that be? Let's take a look at Iowa, the state itself. This is a state which was dramatically hit by what happened with China. Remember, significant parts of their exports were hit with those massive tariffs after Liberation Day. They struggled initially with the tariffs, also with Canada. Then they got hit by the fertilizer crisis after what happened with Iran. And now they're getting hit by diesel. It's a triple wambi. So it's like, one of the of those where their crisis is not six months old, it's 18 months old, basically, from the start of the election. In particular, what happened with Liberation Day. So put all of that together. You have the exact same conditions where arguably you could actually say that Iowa, the Midwestern states, and particularly those that export a lot of stuff to China, worst hit. And then on top of that, you have diesel. So the conditions for where they are is also just looking, I think, the average price of gasoline in Iowa is around 435 a gallon.

So it's still, it's one of those where, you know, it's just high enough. Let me take a look at the diesel price. 631 a gallon in the state of Iowa. And then even in Michigan, you know, Mike Rogers in his previous ad had said, let's remove the federal and state gas tax. They would still leave you at 410 a gallon entire state. Josh, I wouldn't call him a blue dog. He's more of a prairie populist. That's fair.

He positions himself. So he represents. He's in the state assembly. He's a very good candidate, I think, for the state and just in general, has a really inspiring life story. He was an Olympic Paralympic gold medalist, and he represents the reddest district in Iowa that's represented by a Democrat. He represents it. So he's shown some ability to win over voters on a bipartisan basis. He's talking about cutting taxes for middle-class families, federal ban on price gouging on food,

raising the minimum wage, banning Wall Street private equity firms from purchasing single-family homes, focuses on unions, focuses on anti-monopoly, antitrust. That's sort of the lane that he's positioned himself in. But, I mean, really, the story has, I do think he's a strong candidate, but really the story here is the one that you're telling, which is that Iowa has been devastated. You know, that economy has struggled maybe more than any other in the entire country. directly because of Trump's policies on tariffs and on the Iran war. So they have really been hit.

And then as we were talking about yesterday as well, farmers are also really reliant on, you know, credit and what the interest rate is to finance their crops. So that has been a really devastating situation for them. Let's talk a little bit about the big picture here. So we can put 8-2 up on the screen. This is some details about how people are feeling about Trump, because this really is about the national mood here. They say Trump has hurt the economy.

41% approve of Trump, 56% disapprove. But we did just get, put A3 up on the screen, we did just get our first poll that has Trump at only 29% approval rating. Everybody's been kind of waiting for one of these to drop. This is from American Research Group. At this point, it's a bit of an outlier. It's the lowest that we've seen. But it's not that far off from what the other polls are showing.

This is a dismally unpopular president. People are disgusted. They feel betrayed. Some of his voters feel betrayed. They feel very unhappy with where the economy is. They feel obviously very frustrated with the fact that he got us into this war. As we heard from those voters earlier, they are directly connecting the war to the struggles that they are suffering in terms of their business and their livelihoods and certainly at the gas pump. And so it has led to an absolutely toxic situation for Republicans. Nate Silver put a seven up on the screen, had a really interesting. piece where he made the argument that a lot of the experts like the Cook political reports, the Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball type of expert ratings are playing it too safe and underrating Democrats' chances. So they have a bunch of races that are rated as toss-ups where he's like, these are not really toss-ups. You're just low-key kind of afraid to put yourself out there at this point. So he said that if he runs his model just based on the fundamentals, no polling, what between the combination of the president being unpopular and the typical midterm backlash would indicate is a roughly 8.5% Democratic margin. So Democratic popular vote victory. Then if you look at

the average of the generic ballot, you also get a roughly 8.5% Democratic generic ballot advantage as well. So he says, you know, it's kind of nice because these two things line up. And then if you consider how Trump performed in 2024, that would have been a very important. indicate an 11-point swing for Democrats. Well, that's very similar to what we're seeing in the overall polls. That would put a state like Texas in play. It would put a state like Iowa in play. It would even put a state like Kansas a little bit further of a reach, but make it so that it's not insane to imagine that Democrats could be competing there. If you truly are in an 11-point swing environment, that is exactly what you would expect to see. And that is, in fact, what we're

seeing in the polling. So I thought that was really useful to break that. down because some of these states you go, Kansas, really? Or Nebraska? Which would be in a sort of similar position as Kansas in this. Really? Is that actually on the table for Dan Osborne to be able to win there? And according to Nate, just based on the fundamentals, based on all of the polling, if you put it all together, those sorts of things are actually in play. And then the last thing that he says is, at least in some of these races, Democrats also have an advantage on candidate quality that seems to be leading to when you poll, like specifically, let's say, in Texas, that you have an even larger advantage for Democrats than what would be indicated by the generic ballot and those fundamentals.

And we do some quick math. I mean, you know, Dan Osborne, he lost 53 to, basically 53 to 47. So, okay, that's a six points thing. So if we assume D plus eight, well, now you're in that territory, right? So if you just do some back of the napkin math on a lot of these states, it all starts to make sense. And, you know, for some of our younger viewers, you know, even when I said the term blue dog, Some people may not even know what that means. It's been so outdated. And you're right to say it because the term blue dog became very loaded at the time where it kind of embodied these Democrats who represent Republicans but would often vote with Republicans.

That's why, you know, the term is very difficult. Like when I used it, I just really mean it in a sense of representing a very conservative district and somehow managing to get yourself in that territory. But that did exist in my lifetime. In fact, that is the politics I remember the most from when I was growing up. And so it's not out of the realm of possibility to have these types of candidates just arise in places like Nebraska or Texas or anything. I mean, Texas in particular seems very far out of reach. I think 1988 is the last time at Democrat won statewide in the race.

I believe the last Democratic senator is Senator Lloyd Benson, who famously had that moment of like, you're no Jack Kennedy in his debate because he literally knew Jack Kennedy. That's how old and long it has been. The long loading times. The glitchy video calls. That's your house asking for better internet. Switch to Bell Pure Fiber, Canada's most reliable internet awarded by Open Signal from $75 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for more details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Hey, everyone. It's the Jonas Brothers with the Hey Jonas podcast. We've been catching up with some great friends, Paul Rudd, Michael Vublay, Seth Mike

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Order yours today at edible.com. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana. Jeremy Colhane, Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the artists. on artists on artists on artist podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists

discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal. I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling? Yeah, it's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore. A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys done Terry Gross's Peloton class?

No! I've been dying too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Audra McDonald's at the Wonderland Bookstore of 14th. That's crazy. I went to the Wonderland Bookstore yesterday and I heard Nora Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30. No way.

You have to come to the last bookstore though. Kim Cottrell is reading the guitar tabs of yesterday. A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He winks on Halloween. He gets right up next to the microphone.

I hear you get the, almost here, the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on artists on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the Texas front, it's actually a lot tighter. And so I think we have that poll, guys. We can put it up on the screen.

I know I sent it earlier today. I'll just talk a little bit about it. But what it comes down to is Texas Southern, as University, has now released this very useful actually in parsing what's happening. So Texas Senate, they have at Tala Rico, 47, Paxton, 46. Now governor, they have Abbott 49, Hinyosa 45, railroad commissioner 4442, Patrick, who is the lieutenant governor, 4741, Middleton, 4742, comptroller. So basically the breakdown is it's like in a normal race, the Republicans leading by six or seven points. But in the tight ones or in the controversial ones, that's where you see effectively a tie within the margin of error, which is 2.3%. Now, why? Like how it doesn't actually make sense, Trump did not win Texas by more than he won Iowa. How could that be possible? That is where the individual factors come into play. Texas's economy is much more robust under the Trump economy than Iowa, in particular because, remember, they actually pump and sell the oil. So there are a lot of people.

there making insane, like generational wealth in the city of Houston or Midland or the guys who work in the port of Houston or any of these places, the refineries. I mean, they are making insane funds. They also had the data center boom, which yes, has a voter backlash in West Texas, but all of those blue collar workers are printing whenever it comes to their jobs that they're, you know, the electricians and all that they're working on their behalf. They also had a huge population inflow. They have much better housing prices than the rest of the nation. So the fundamentals of their economy is still very different. And gasoline there is still not even $4 a gallon with where things are right now.

So I actually does make sense to me that Texas is going to be a lot closer. And that's where if Paxton was a normal candidate, he's going to win that race. I'm almost certain of it. But this is, and I mean, I didn't think he'd win it by a lot, probably a Beto margin by Beats him by two. That's exactly, though, where, you know, I wouldn't yet call it. I think for Tala Rico, or, you know, I wouldn't call it for anybody, but I would say Tala RICO is facing not an uphill battle per se, but really the fight of his life. And the reason why is that the fundamentals of the state are just really, really different.

And you also have this ocean of money, which is now coming in for Ken Paxson. So the, you know, dynamic of the race has changed where a lot of these like MAGA billionaires are starting to flood the airwaves on his behalf, not just the Donald Trump, you know, MAGA Inc. The Texas oilman and all those, they're all starting to cut the checks. Elon's starting to put money. Remember, I mean, he's got a lot at stake. He's got Stargate and his whole company. I'm pretty sure he's in Austin resident giga, giga Austin and all of that. So all the businessmen who rely on the Republicans there to like run the state like a machine. But like for them, they're starting to panic and blanket the airwaves. So it's a much more competitive race. You do have Trump's

Polster who is saying, it took me a long time to believe that Texas is real, but Texas is real. Their Republicans have a problem there. And, you know, I think Paxton, as you said, is a real issue. Maybe without him, they'd be able to eke it down. I think it's a challenging landscape, but we'll see. I mean, Texas has long been the Democratic white whale. You know, there was an assumption that, okay, because of the demographics, there's a majority, minority population, that this should be a place that Democrats should be able to win. They've never been able to pull it off. So we'll see. I know they're going very hard in the pain against Tala Rica with a lot of ads about cultural So we're going to find out whether those have enough salience in a year when, you know, economic concerns are our top of mind.

But you mentioned money and this is a real, this is a real problem for Democrats put A8 up on the screen. Republicans have way more money. I mean, way more money than Democrats do. They have a financial advantage in terms of overall spending. This is not just with the candidates, but the super PACs and all in. They have an over. advantage in the vast majority of the key states here. So that is going to be a real challenge. The party and its allies of Republicans and their allies are planning to spend about $221 million more on advertising than Democrats and their allies from Monday through Election Day. That's according to ad impact. So they're tracking how much, how many TV ads Republicans have purchased versus Democrats. And so you have a massive, massive margin advantage for Republicans.

I think, I mean, part of this is because you've got a lot of business leaders who want to keep Republicans in power because they're friendlier to their agenda. You also have on the Democratic side a lot of big donors who are still dispirited about the whole Biden, Kamala situation and feel really burned there. Remember, there's a lot of questions about how the money was spent under Kamala. And then obviously they ultimately lost. And of course, the whole Biden cover up of his age and his frailty and his decline, mental decline, that was. left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. So there's, you know, still a very, even as Democrats are poised for this massive wave year, among the donor base, there's still a lot of apathy and a lot of disgust with the way that the party has operated before. Then you look at the DNC, which is a mess and it handles. And I mean, it's not even get into that. But in any case, it all amounts to Republicans having this massive financial edge. And I would just say, you know, I remember back to 2018, 2018, was a very good year for Democrats, no doubt about it. But some of the reach states, some of the districts that were like, oh my God, like the equivalent of Kansas this time, we were like, oh my God, there's no way Democrats could win there, but they're up in the polls. A lot of that shifted in just the last couple of weeks. Now, in 2018, it specifically had to do with Kavanaugh. I've seen the polling. I was involved in some of the races that cycle. I saw the way that partisans were energized and came home because of the Kavanaugh hearings and the way that all went down. You could see something similar happening this time around. That is, I'm a lot of. I'm a lot of. I I think very theoretically possible.

I'm sure Trump is going to, you know, what migrant caravan or something is he's going to try to throw some kind of red meat into the mix to try to get exactly that effect. Because I don't think Republicans can hold on to the House, but can they stem some of the losses in the Senate and some of those reshakes in the Nebraska, in the Kansas, in the Iowa, that could still be very much on the table if they're able to leverage both this financial advantage and some sort of political moment. that galvanizes the Republican face. Yeah, and that's one thing I would say about Texas

is just don't underestimate it. It's one of those where, you know, it's one thing for people who are on summer vacation to theorize Tala Rico. It is a whole other thing for the evangelicals and the church groups. And look, I grew up there. Like, I know these people.

They're not going to just sit back and let Democrats take over the state, especially Governor Abbott. Like, that is one where I would say it's a lock unless it's genuine, like, insane wave. where with Tala Rico, and this is beyond even the cultural stuff, this is a machine. Like, it's not about Ken Paxson versus John Cornyn. Like I was talking about with Elon, the whole state runs on Republican rule.

You can't just let that away. There's billions of dollars that are at stake whenever it comes to, I mean, is Tala RICO going to get you the same tax credit? Is he going to fight for oil and gas? I mean, this is existential whenever it comes to a lot of these things, how the entire economy is structured. And so I find it hard to believe that they are not going to crawl. over broken glass to prevent a Democrat from winning, especially if it's this close.

Iowa is different because for them, I feel like they're disgusted genuinely with Trump. And I think there's a difference between disgusted and disappointed and directly impacted. Texans are just not as directly impacted by this right now. That's my assessment. But I should say, as I said, I think I spoke to somebody very knowledgeable with real view in my home state. And he had told me that, look, in a wave election, we will see Hinyosa in the governor's mansion in Texas.

Like that would happen. However, the bigger panic button right now is Paxton. And that is where Paxton, the problem for him is that his candidate quality is just on that side where it's not just as scandals. From what I hear, the guy doesn't like to campaign. Like he doesn't, he's not even working hard in terms of like the way that Tala Rico is. And so that, I mean, it matters, right? Like if you don't come to the county, I'm not going to say this stuff matters a ton,

but it's like when you're dealing with margins of 100,000, 200,000 votes, whether you showed up in the town or not actually does seem to make a little bit of a difference. It's just enough there where people in the state are not energized by Ken Paxton. And so, I don't know. Like I would say, as you talked about with 2018, I would even, you know, it's not even just Kavanaugh. Reality has got to set in for a lot of these deeply conservative voters. They're like, oh my God, like this really could be it. I mean, remember the Virginia thing, where, which happened where they were changing the map. I mean, of course, the Virginia Democrats won that election.

However, Republicans came out to vote a lot more than people had expected because even though they were like, look, I don't like Trump and all the people, but they're like, this is it. Like, we have no representation, period. We got to come out and vote. A lot of people came out to vote for that. So don't underestimate that, too, when it comes to the Senate. People know the states, or at least they start to wake up around October.

Yeah. Last thing, just to reiterate this Nate Silver Point, because I wanted to get the specific states just to give us all kind of a mental framework here. So again, if we're talking about an 11-point swing theoretically from 2024, he says in 2024, Trump won Ohio by 11 points, Florida, Alaska, and Iowa by 13 points, and Texas by 14. So if you swing the entire political climate at 11 points to the left, Ohio becomes a pure toss-up, the rest become almost toss-ups, even Kansas, which was Trump plus 16, is not,

that far behind. So that's the type of environment you would have to be in where it's an 11 point plus swing to expect to see, you know, Florida and Iowa. By the way, there has been some polling that has shown Angie Nixon, you know, with a shot in Florida, which I think everybody had sort of written the state off. I still think that's a very long shot. But when you look at that level of a swing, you have to say, okay, that actually wouldn't be totally crazy. And I've seen some interesting things in terms of polling coming out of the state and dissatisfaction with Trump on economics and also on immigration in particular in the state. So in any case, that's kind of where the national landscape is. And some individual state by state differences are going to be the key,

whether it's candidate quality or specific economic conditions. But you know, you're looking at some pretty dire situations here for Republicans when you're talking about a state like Iowa being not only in play, but potentially tilt Democratic. That's a pretty wild situation. Right. And even if they do win it, they're going to have to spend an ocean of money to do so. And they're also dumping money in places where you talks about Ohio. I was just looking, there's not a single poll in the last month that has Sherrod Brown not winning by a significant margin. Like not one. That shows it. Did you see the Amy Acton, Vivek Romo-Swamy? What's the latest? Oh. No, I haven't seen it. Oh. It's devastating. It's a drug he funded. And it's a man who lost his wife to Alzheimer's,

and he's like, you scam me. And yeah, I just want my wife back. It's, it's, it's I don't know the specifics or any of that. I did see Vivek out today with one of his long essays on Twitter is like, how we can attack the gas prices. The word Iran, I believe, did not appear a single time. So, I mean, that's a good example. And actually, you know, even better. I mean, in fairness, as governor, it's not like you're going to be voting on the Iran war. For sure.

But then why'd you run for president and say Trump is your best friend, right? This is one where it's like, well, you have a bunch of opinions about foreign policy. It's like, but now you want to run for governor. and don't forget, a governor is exactly the type of race where blowouts in both sides are actually more likely because when the stakes are not national, people don't care nearly as much. Republican states are much more willing to elect Democratic governors and they are Democratic representatives because they're not taking up or down votes whenever it comes to the big national issues or supporting Trump. I actually think that they could be in bigger trouble than the Republican

candidate on the Senate ballot, specifically just because of the way things have worked there. And it's like Ohio, again, from what I understand, the economics, very similar, I think, to some of these other Midwestern states. It's not great. And the general approval of Trump and everything on the ballot there has not been good. The governor and, you know, the previous governor has bucked Trump pretty significantly. And that's the way that he was able to maintain his popularity. But they cannot do that because he literally ran for presidents. Yeah. He's a bad candidate. He just has a lot of issues. Something about him that people do not, do not like. Well, that's actually good transition. Sherrod Brown is facing a wave of cash coming in

against him from the crypto industry. So it's a good transition to talk about crypto and AI spending in the election with Alex Boris. The long loading times. The glitchy video calls. That's your house asking for better internet. Switch to Bell Pure Fiber, Canada's most reliable internet awarded by OpenSignal from $75 a month.

Price guaranteed for two years on a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for more details and to check availability. Bell, connection is everything. Hey everyone, it's the Jonas Brothers with the Hey Jonas Podcast. We've been catching up with some great friends, Paul Rudd, Michael Boubley, Seth Myers, and making some new friends while getting into what's really like to have sisters, like Alex and Asgen Errol. She likes to control everyone and tell everyone that to do.

Okay, well control is a harsh word. Plus, we've been taking your calls, listening to your voicemails and giving advice. Listen to Hey Jonas on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow Hey Jonas and start listening on the free IHeartRadio app today. Hey Jonas is sponsored by Edible Arrangements. Order yours today at edible.com. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana.

Jeremy Colhain. Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast where each week a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal. I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling?

Yeah. It's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore. Okay. A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys done? very grosses peloton class.

No! I've been dying too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sadako in the Thousand Paper Cranes by Audra McDonald's at the Wonderland Bookstore on 14th. That's crazy. I went to the Wonderland Bookstore yesterday

and I heard Nora Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30. No way. You have to come to the last bookstore, though. Kim Cottrell is reading the guitar tabs of yesterday. A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometime. Does the Pope dress up?

He winks on Halloween. It's right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on artists on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So we've talked a lot about Israel lobby spending on this show. We wanted to dig now into a large source of midterm spending, which is coming from the tech world. There are a lot of very interesting dynamics at play here. And we have literally

the perfect guest to talk about what is going on in some of these races. Alex Bores is a New York State Assembly member. He also ran for Congress and had $8 million in AI super PAC money spent against him in that race. And unfortunately, narrowly lost, I'm sure, in part because of that money. But Alex, great to have you. Good to you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course. So let's start by talking about why you earned the ire of these super PACs. Let's put B4 up on the screen. You have been a major advocate for state-level AI regulation in your role as a New York State Assembly member. This Politico article is saying that New York is moving forward with some of the landmark AI legislation that you have helped to draft and push forward. So just talk a little bit about

what's going on at the state level in New York. The states are the only level that's actually regulated AI. So when I came into office, I was the first Democrat elected in New York State at any level with a degree in computer science. And so I did a lot of things around tech, many of which were big consensus items and not seen as strongly aggressive. And initially, that's what the Rays Act was, too. But that is the bill that really drew the ire of the tech industry. The Rays Act was setting very basic safety standards on frontier AI development, the most advanced companies. So, you know, not by name, we did it by complexity and spending, but anthropic, open AI, Google, meta, that's really who we were talking about in that bill.

And it required them to have a safety plan that they made public to report critical safety incidents, which when we were arguing this bill in 2025, they said this was all theoretical. I think the summer shows it very much was not theoretical. Yep. And put some other requirements on them, originally requiring third-party audits as well, although that got stripped out as we worked through the legislative process. And the fact that I had dared to put any regulation on this sort of development

made me oligarchy enemy number one. And so they declared me their top target in the country, pledged to spend at least $10 million against me at the start of it to send a message to anyone else thinking of regulating AI that, you know, at least the industry thinks that's a mistake. Let's put, what does it, B3 please, on the screen, which details some of this big tech spent millions on this single U.S. congressional race, and it won't be the last time some $8 million of pro-AI political action money was funded towards you. Can you speak, Alex, a little bit about who these groups are? Because as I understand it, this is a bipartisan,

phenomenon. Some of this is also extremely concentrated amongst Democrats and specifically to try and prevent any sort of legislation or even comment in the vein that you just made. So why don't you break that down for us? The where they are spending is bipartisan. They're spending in Democratic races and Republican races. Their funding is is not that bipartisan. I think the only prominent named Democrat was Ron Conway who contributed something like 500,000 out of their 100 million plus that they are raising. It's really coming from three people primarily, which are Ben Horowitz, Mark Andresen, who in the last time was the RNC's single largest mega donor, and Greg Brockman, the president of Open AI, who in a previous filing was Donald Trump's single largest

mega donor. And so this is why, you know, feelings about AI are actually quite bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans universally want there to be more regulation on AI. I think you're seeing the Democratic Party start to wake up to that. And Republicans are mixed. You've had some really good comments coming from some, but there's just so much more Republican mega donor money pushing against any regulation that I think it's been tougher for them to listen to the American people. So, Alice, break this down for me because it's been a little bit confusing to me.

You have, leading the future is the pack that you're referring to that drop millions and millions of dollars into your race to try to make an example of you. There's another, and that's sort of open, Greg Brockman, OpenAI, it's sort of seen as like Open AI aligned. Then you have public first action, which is seen as more entropic line. In fact, Anthropic has given millions of dollars to that super PAC. You also have a new group called Guard Rails Alliance, which is made up actually, it's more grassroots made up of a lot of tech employees, including some Open AI employees who have come out

and said, we want to do something very different from what a lot of the executives at our company want to do. So can you break down for us? Like, what is Anthropic doing? How is their thing? Different than the Open AI aligned thing? Help us understand what these various dynamics are. The biggest divide is between the employees and the executives across every company. I think the vast majority of people who are working in the AI space actually want there to be regulations. They're the people who are closest to the technology. They see how powerful it is. And so both in terms of contributions to me, but contributions to groups like Guardrails Alliance that exist to counteract leading the future,

you're seeing a lot of people at all of the labs say, yeah, we want regulation. This is a intellectually challenging problem that we're building something really powerful, but the question of who decides how it should be used and what the limits are shouldn't be made just in Silicon Valley or just by. their CEOs. Now you have some of the executives who don't want there to be any regulation whatsoever. And so they're willing to spend big in order to get that. You also have Chris Lehane, who's the head of global affairs for Open AI, who helped set up leading the future, although is now stepping back or claiming to step back from it. And so you have like a small executive group that is willing to spend big to have their way with regulation. And

And then you have the vast majority of Americans, but even just the vast majority of employees that are saying, no, no, no, that is not how we should have democracy here. We should actually let the people decide where this is going. So how do open AIs, like the way they're actually spending money, the way they're lobbying, the packs they're funding, how does that square with Sam Altman now coming out and being concerned and we need to do something and embracing the call to slow down the pace, which, you know, in my opinion, if you're racing towards a cliff, you should just stop, not just slow down the pace, and I don't think we should leave it in the hands of these guys to decide

whether or not they feel that the product is safe or not. But in any case, how do his words and theoretical concerns about safety square with what the money is actually doing? They don't. And I want to be very clear about that. They absolutely do not square. And so when the words are different, the time comes for actual action. And so if Open AI is changing their tune. If the executives at Open AI are changing their tune and want regulation, Greg Brockman should defund leading the future. They should declare that they're not going to give any money to build American AI, which is the separate C4 that leading the future established that can spend tens of millions of dollars and is doing that as well to make sure there's no regulation. That is the biggest obstacle

to getting real safety passed. And as long as executives at OpenAI are going to continue to fund both of those organizations, they're talking out of both sides of their mouths. You mentioned there Ron Conway, and so that immediately peaked my interest because former presidential candidate Kamala Harris actually just celebrated Jay Carney, who, you know, trip back in time, was the press secretary for President Obama. He left. He went to go work for Amazon. Karnie has now actually joined Mr. Conway's new firm to run an initiative called Project blueprint. The purpose was to, quote, rebuild bonds between leaders and AI and Democrats who were demanding new rules to regulate the technology. This was hailed by Kamala as a step in the right direction. However,

you just mentioned Conway is one of those people who actually help fund the organization lobbying against you. So what do you make of this Carney-led initiative, which appears to be kind of an Obama and a Kamala Harris way of adopting AI safety type legislation? I was pretty confused by the announcement of the initiative. I'm not of Kamala or Obama saying good things about someone they used to work with. I think that's a pretty normal human thing. But the announcement from Jay Carney was that he's going over there to repair relationships between the Democratic Party and tech. No, thanks.

And the confusing thing to me is like if you look at donations from the tech industry, a number of donations or volunteers, or any sort of engagement, tech workers are pretty democratic. There doesn't need much repairing there. So maybe what he's referring to is repairing relationships with the few executives that are spending tens of millions of dollars to stop any regulation from happening. I don't think we need to repair relationships with those people. I think we need to beat them. Yeah, I think I would like to see more antagonistic relationships with those particular individuals

personally. You know, Alex, they really tried to make an example of you by dumping all this money into your race. And because you were such a prominent advocate and because you yourself have the computer science background, that's what made you a target. Put B1 up on the screen. You now have this Politico report saying that Democratic consultants are telling candidates like maybe just don't talk about AI. Like maybe let's just downplay that because we don't want, and this is now reading between the lines, we don't want what happened Alex to happen to you. So do you think that their attempt to effectively make an example of you, was it effective? Did it work?

No. And this is, you know, politics 101 from the super PAC side. If you just want to bury one candidate, you just don't announce it. You spend a whole bunch of money three weeks before the election and then you wait until later and see what happens. They announced eight months before my primary that I was going to be their number one target and they were going to spend upwards of 10 million against me, that wasn't to beat me.

That was to send a message to everyone else in the country, don't talk about this issue. And when you hear Democratic advisors echo the advice that is coming from the people who are threatening candidates, it's pretty disappointing. I think what my race showed was that actually standing with the American people, again, regardless of party, we are remarkably unified on this issue.

But standing with the American people is actually an electoral boost. And so you're seeing more and more candidates who are being asked about it in their town halls, being asked about it by voters on the street and realizing, wait, this is a core concern and I need a real answer to this. You know, I wonder if your primary was now, if the result wouldn't be different. Like, you were just a little bit ahead of the concerns because you can see the way that now people are really paying attention to what's going on. Do you have the same sense? It may be. You know, there's always these if-ans or buts. As I said on primary night, the message that we were trying to send in our campaign was far more important than the actual person that is in this seat. And the message that we sent came through loud and clear that it is time for the American people to have a say in the direction of AI, that doing so is both the right policy and the right political boost. And I've been very pleased to see that more and more candidates, are taking up this mantle.

And I am still the only person in America that leading the future has spent money against. They've realized that strategy isn't working and their money isn't there. And hopefully I'll be the last candidate that leading the future ever beats. All right. Let's put B2 up on the screen

because it's not just AI coming from the tech world. You also have the crypto industry dumping tons of money in particular into this race against Sherrod Brown. You know, they're angry at him for some of the work that he did previously in the Senate. They had already spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat him successfully last time around, and now they want to make sure that he remains in retirement.

But what do you see in terms of how Democrats feel and approach the crypto industry? Because not only do they make an example of him, also Katie Porter had a ton of crypto money spent against her and they were successfully able to defeat her. Did these sorts of things also put a chill into Democratic candidates who may have previously been open to more regulation or scrutiny of the crypto industry? Anytime there is a, you know, eight figure or a nine figure effort in politics, I assure you everyone in D.C. is taking notice of that. I think what's interesting in this spending is they did not announce, they announced they were going after Sherrod Brown, who is not in the Senate. And so didn't just have a vote on clarity, but not going after Susan. and Collins in Maine who voted against the Clarity Act, which is their stated reason. So it feels like

maybe there's some partisan undertones here. I would also point out that Ron Conway famously gave to Fairshake and broke with them because they went after Sherrod Brown. And he thought that that Sherrod Brown was a good candidate. And so maybe this is a time again where we are seeing a break and what was an ideological vehicle is just becoming a partisan one. We'll have to pay attention. But the big difference between crypto and AI is crypto doesn't affect everyone. There's a small subset of America who works in crypto, and so they are the voters who are most tuned into it. AI is affecting everyone's kids, everyone's job, everyone's environment. It really is an entire country discussion.

And so my guess is that the money that is being spent there to convince Americans not to believe their lying eyes will be even less effective. Yeah. I know you're at the event with that Bernie and famously Steve Bannon were both at as well. You know, how are you feeling about the prospects of getting some sort of meaningful legislation passed on, you know, what would likely need to be a bipartisan basis at some point? I'm optimistic, though cautiously optimistic. I mean, at that event, you had not just Bernie and Steve Bannon, but you had Greg Khazar, chair of this EPC and Republican Congressman Chip Roy, both. speaking at the same time. You've had comments from Republican senators like John Kennedy saying that AI threats are real and need to be taken seriously from Kevin Kramer in North Dakota, who said that Trump's position on AI is the least popular political position in America. So you're seeing bipartisan voices call for real action here. That gives me a lot of optimism.

The one bit of caution is that I think leading the future and build American AI have realized how much momentum there is. And even if they could stop the federal government from taking action, they know that the states are going to continue. Where we started this conversation is the states are the only level that has regulated AI. And the Rays Act was minor compared to what is going to come in 2027 and 28. I'm very optimistic about that. But Build American AI has realized that. And so they've changed their tune. And they've started tweeting and putting out messages of we need to do something this year. The undertone being, that something has to include preempting the states

from taking any action in the future. And that has to be just an absolute red line for those in Congress. Do not take away the one level of government that has been successful in regulating AI that is akin to taking away Americans' voices. Well said. Alex Boers, thank you so much.

This is very helpful. I appreciate it. Thanks, man. Thank you. The long loading times, the glitchy video calls. That's your house asking for better internet. Switch to Bell Pure Fiber, Canada's most reliable internet awarded by Open Signal from $75 a month. Price guaranteed for two years on a two-year term and auto pay credit. Visit bell.ca for more details and to check availability.

Bell, connection is everything. Hey, everyone, it's the Jonas Brothers with the Hey Jonas Podcast. We've been catching up with some great friends, Paul Rudd, Michael Bublay, Seth Myers. And making some new friends while getting into what's really like to have sisters, like Alex and Ashton Earl. She likes to control everyone and tell everyone what to do. Okay, well control is a harsh word. Plus, we've been taking your calls, listening to your voicemails and giving advice. Listen to Hey Jonas on America's number one podcast network, IHeart.

Follow Hey Jonas and start listening on the free IHeartRadio app today. Hey, Jonas is sponsored by Edible Arrangements. Order yours today at edible.com. Hi, this is Kylie Breakman. Angel Geratana. Jeremy Colhane, Patrick McDonald. And we're the hosts of the Artists on Artists on Artists Podcast. The Improvised Character Comedy Podcast, where each one.

week, a new panel of artists discuss their craft. Join us for a panel of wellness influencers. What I try to do is faux journal. I don't know. Have you guys heard of faux journaling? Yeah, it's reading. It's called reading. So we don't like to use that word anymore.

Okay. A panel of New Yorker cartoonists. Have you guys done Terry Gross's Peloton class? No! I've been dying too. I'm so sorry. I'm seeing a reading of Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Audra McDonald's at the Wonderland.

bookstore on 14th. That's crazy. I went to the Wonderland Bookstore yesterday and I heard Norah Jones do a reading of Zero Dark 30. No way. You have to come to the last bookstore though. Kim Cottrell is reading the guitar tabs of yesterday. A panel of Eurovision participants. And we do a little Halloween sometimes. Does the Pope dress up? He, he winks on Halloween. He gets right up next to the microphone. I hear you can almost hear the eyelashes hit each other. You never seen Italy so quiet as when the Pope. gets up to wink on Halloween. Listen to artists on artists on artists on artists on artists on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Turning now to China, previewing a big summit. President Xi Jinping of China will land here in the United States. He'll attend the United Nations, but also attend a state reception in Washington with President Trump, where they're literally rolling out the red carpet and bending over backwards to try and to please Xi in this high-stakes. clash between the two leaders. Let's put C1 up here on the screen. Clearly, the number one topic of discussion, at least in the interim, will be AI. And so Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, previewed some of this saying that the U.S.-China AI dialogue will start ahead of the Trump-Zi meeting.

The Treasury Secretary said sides are working towards a, quote, shared vision after talks with his Chinese counterpart. In fact, some of the details of this are kind of fascinating. Let's put C-3 up there on the screen. This was from Fox Business. Presumably it was leaked by the Treasury Secretary's team. They say sources familiar with the talks tell me, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson and the U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer have worked out an agreement to have a direct hotline with China over artificial intelligence. This hotline would be similar to the direct line of communication that the current military has, which would allow either side to have a direct line if any issues arise with AI over hacking, national security concerns, rogous.

AIs or other AI concerns, President Trump will give a thumbs up or thumbs down on the deal this week before meeting with President Xi. The reason why that's interesting is that that literally only exists for deconfliction in the military, and obviously the historical precedent for it, is the Cuban missile crisis and the hotline between the two countries. So despite all of Trump's talk and all of that, the proposal itself is now already arising to the way that we have governance of nuclear weapons. And it is interesting because if you've gone back six months, I don't think AI would have been the number one thing on their agenda. It would have been trade. And let's not forget, I mean, that if you want to talk about what's going to affect you

today, like, that is actually what it is. China's not buckling at all. In fact, from what I've understood, I've been reading some of the analysts about how they're coming in, they truly believe that they have won the negotiation. Because if you'll remember after the immediate, like, we're going to 100%. And they're like, okay, we're going to 150. They're like, we don't care. Is that they They believe that their ultimate Trump card, if you will, was rare earth minerals, is that they think that the threats over the export control on rare earth minerals, effectively stopping a number of critical industries in the U.S. and Trump's AI bet mean that they have a stranglehold on the U.S. economy. I don't think they're wrong. So they're coming in with this kind of theory where they have the upper hand in the trade negotiation and on the AI negotiation, which is basically you don't tell us what to do. if you want to keep this export control thing up, we can play the exact same game.

There have, from what I, again, what I understand, they have two goals that they want more than anything. They want at least some sort of day-tont on the trade war, and the number one for them, biggest agenda item, which is the biggest question mark, is Chinese cars. They want to be able to have the kind of deal that we have with Toyota and all the other Japanese companies where, as long as they build here in the United States, they're allowed to sell here. So that is number one, at least one of the number one items for President Xi to get a Chinese car factory in the United States. Yeah. I think the AI thing is actually very encouraging. I mean, I don't want to like oversell it. Like it's not, it's not every, obviously it's not everything that we need. But there are two parts of it that I find encouraging. First, just you have to build on some small wins. Right. Right now it feels so impossible. Oh my God, how could we do coordinate an international slowdown? How could we regulate the pace of the front? or recursive self-improvement or any of these things, because we've got China to deal with,

when you have these little moments of collaboration, you're able to build some goodwill, and then those things can build on each other. So it's just an encouraging reminder that it is possible as human beings existing in the world to be able to collaborate and institute some sort of global regulatory regime, as we did with nuclear weapons. And I'm not going to say that anti-nuclear proliferation has been perfect. but the world still exists. We haven't blown each other up yet, so that seems like a win to me. And the other piece of this that encourages me

is the fact that they do seem to be using that as a sort of model. And I think it is the right model based on what we have in history. You know, it's not going to be exactly the same. But at least it's the sort of framework that mentally our lawmakers can work with and start to build out some of this apparatus so that because this is a global development for all of humanity and it has to be dealt with in that manner. There's some funny details side by side here of how much Trump is bending over backwards to meet

Xi. So I have it here in front of me. Trump will actually be waiting for Xi Jinping on the tarmac, which she did not do for him whenever he visited China earlier this year. Then there will be a flyover by B2 and F-22s and a meeting then between she's wife and Melania Trump. None of that happened whenever Trump visited Beijing. she was not waiting for him. There were no flyover and there was no meeting of the first ladies.

And I mean, I know this all sounds like stupid, but in Chinese culture in particular and their diplomatic protocol, everything is reciprocity. And so they famously did this, I think, with Obama, where they made him use the back staircase instead of the main staircase on Air Force One. They're all subtle status games that have been happening in diplomacy for quite some time. But then why is Trump bending over back. He needs them. Like, he really does. He needs to strike some sort of a deal. What did we open our show up with Iowa and how much they're getting punished? What Chinese are not stupid. They know all of this. And so what they're doing is they're setting the tone to try and to actually get as much as they can out of Trump when he's in a vulnerable

position. The other thing, which nobody genuinely would have predicted, both in the, remember, the original meeting between Trump and she was supposed to happen, I think, in April. it gets moved by a month because of the disastrous Iran War. Well, what do they need right now? They need China who's providing all these satellite imagery and all of this technology and all this assistance to the Iranians. They're going to press them to stop. China says, okay, maybe, but if we do,

we're going to need something out of it. And also, let's point to what the Trump administration actually gives us a view into what they also see very important in this dinner. And that comes back to AI. put C4 up here on the screen, they have invited now, Elon, Sam Altman, and other, quote, AI giants actually to the state dinner. And, you know, this is actually pretty important because the state dinner, where they do these state dinners, I've been in this room. It is not a big room. They're really, you can't fit that many people.

This is part why Trump wants to build his ballroom because he thinks they should be bigger. I like the fact that they're small. I think that it makes it better. But one of the people that they're inviting are all of these, you know, Jensen Wong, Elon, Sam Altman, people who have tremendous business interests already existing in China or who have, you know, people, who have like various thoughts or roles in the AI race, for example, like Dario Amade, Sam Altman, all of these other figures who appear to have at least gotten an invitation in the interim for this state dinner. Not Dario, but Sam Altman and some of the other A. Dario's and bike got lost in the mail, I guess. Well, it's not like she would want to see him. He's like Dario is the biggest China hawk that there is.

I just think that when you put it all together, what fascinates me is about the role in which she is coming to Washington. Like it is in a role from his position, and I would agree with it, is a position of strength, is that they have, you know, they have control over the eye industry. We'll get to that here in a second. They are willing to meet the United States on equal and only equal terms. In fact, you have the U.S. President rolling out the red carpet, kind of, if you will. And the U.S. President is a much more vulnerable position with more immediate asks, whereas their asks from the Trump administration are much more high level.

Trade, AI, and cars. The cars one is the biggest one. That'll actually be, in my opinion, I mean, it's the one I'd be the most excited about to be able to have their cars here in the United States. But it actually would have tremendous impact in Michigan because the Detroit is freaking out. Yeah. This is their number one ask of Trump. It's understandable.

Yeah, they're dead. I mean, when I was in Spain, I was able to ride in BYD because a lot of the Ubers are BYD is very nice car, way cheaper than Tesla. Like it's a no-brainer. I did not see a single Tesla while it was there. It was all B-YD. And they were very, very common. that was a lot of the cars on the street were BYD. So no, it would be devastating to the American auto industry

if we just fully let them in. I was also remembering just recently Trump was asked about China, in particular reports that China was assisting Iran with their satellite information to help targeting, including some of the targeting in Jordan that led to the deaths of American service members. And Trump just, he kind of brushed it off. He was like, well, I think they behaved reasonably well.

That's what he said. And I think he may have even done one of those things. Yeah, we do some similar things as well. I mean, yeah, what? The Ukrainians are pummeling Moscow by themselves. Like, be real. Yeah. It's like, what they got, space satellites?

But it's just an indication of the dynamics of that relationship, where he's clearly in a mood to try to placate them, recognizes that, yeah, we threw the gauntlet down with the trade war with Liberation Day. China said, okay, fine, then you don't get our rare earth minerals. And we blinked pretty darn fast. So I don't think it's even a question. that China has the most important Trump guard, which is there is rare with minerals. And so everything has to be handled in a much more different and less aggressive way than maybe

it would have been in, you know, if the situation were slightly different. So in any case, I think, you know, I'm encouraged by the AI talks. I think you're right that this would maybe have not been a central focus up till just a few months ago. I think the fact that they are, you know, we'll see if anything more comes out of this. Trump's trip to Beijing basically resulted in like literally nothing came out of that whatsoever. So I wouldn't get my hope super high for a lot of developments here. But obviously this is the most important relationship in the world right now.

So we have to watch it carefully. Yeah. And from what I'm looking at, you know, right now, there is, there's not going to be any real declaration on anything. I mean, look, it's general. It's good for, you know, for these leaders to meet and we get these small steps. But anybody expecting a large breakthrough, it's just not really going to happen. I did want to note this one thing, because it's just fascinating. Let's put C6 up here on the screen, is one of the most important people in the Chinese military establishment has now been expelled from the party and alleged of serious corruption.

This is from Reuters. It's all been confirmed and put out by the CCP. But from what I understand, he was one of the last remaining members that was on this kind of committee, which would oversee the Chinese military commission. and by expelling two of these top military leaders, it is genuinely pretty extraordinary. He was the vice chair of the Central Military Commission and second only to Xi Jinping in the military hierarchy, along with the chief of staff for the commission's joint staff department. So the equivalent of our, I guess, semi-equivalent of our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The two men accused of being disloyal and dishonest to the party, as well as abusing their power

to help others with promotions and improperly accepting. gifts, enormous amounts of money. They seriously violated political discipline and political rules, and their cases are now referred to military prosecutors, probably never to be seen again. And so what does that mean? You know, I think in terms of the message that they're trying to send, they don't do anything for, you know, they don't do anything without wanting to send a message. This is a message internally. I obviously will understand that a lot less, but I also think it's a message to Trump of, I have control. I have control of our military, not just Trump to the world, where his ability now to either purge or remove so many members

that had pre-existed either his relationship or kind of a previous era of Chinese politics, the full-blown like cult of personality, almost Maoist kind of takeover of the Chinese military establishment is fascinating from a lot of the analysts that I have seen. Actually, what's interesting too is one of the chief complaints around the CCP prior to him coming to power was corruption. and so using corruption there as the reason for taking out a lot of these people. Again, I think it's a message to the world. And in the way that we look at this, it's kind of the same way whenever we remove top generals. You're like, wow, it's a big deal, right?

It's like whenever you prosecute these people. And yeah, I mean, there's not a ton to say because we don't know it a lot and we never really will know a lot of these things. But this is the second time, actually, that we've covered something like this. And I saw an image where one of the last people that remained. there is actually somebody I did a monologue about one of the most fascinating people in in modern Chinese politics who really believes in this clash of civilizations between the U.S. and China and this kind of fascinating like technological communism and why it's the best system for what it is.

And so the fact that she remains at the top and in total control along with some of the people there, we can see the ideology that they seem to believe and what the clash and all of that looks like. Yeah, it is very fascinating. Let's get to media. Hey everyone, it's the Jonas Brothers with the Hey Jonas podcast. We've been catching up with some great friends, Paul Rudd, Michael Boubley, Seth Myers, and making some new friends while getting into what's really like to have sisters, like Alex and Asgen Earl.

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We have a new podcast. It's called Don't Lie to Me. I'm Lexi Youanu. We're two best friends, 22 years apart, but so close at heart. And I'm Lisa DiGulio, the old one, which means we have wildly different references, occasionally different opinions. And at this point in my 50s, I've lived it all. Now in my 30s, being the founder of new shoes, good taste is my business. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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