Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Trump's "Forgettable" State of the Union

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov break down Trump’s marathon State of the Union — the longest in history — and the alternate reality he painted of a “golden age” America, even as most voters say the country is on the wrong track. They dig into the speech’s biggest moments: the attacks on Democrats, the swipe at the Supreme Court over tariffs, and Trump’s mixed message on Iran — diplomacy, but with the door wide open to military action. Did the speech help him? And are we actually edging toward war? Then, the Democratic split screen. From Abigail Spanberger’s affordability-focused rebuttal to protests inside and outside the chamber — the party showed unity in opposition to Trump, but real divisions on strategy heading into the midterms. Finally, the Pentagon’s escalating clash with AI firm Anthropic. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is threatening to invoke the Defense Production Act unless the company lifts restrictions on how its models can be used by the military. Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At Medcan, we know that life's greatest moments are built on a foundation of good health, from the big milestones to the quiet winds. That's why our annual health assessment offers a physician-led, full-body checkup that provides a clear picture of your health today, and may uncover early signs of conditions like heart disease and cancer. The healthier you means more moments to cherish. Take control of your well-being and book an assessment today. Medcan. Live well for life.

Visit medcan.com slash moments to get started. When things get hard, how do you talk to yourself? I'm Robinetteau, VP of fitness programming and head instructor at Peloton. And this week on my new podcast, Project Swagger, I'm sharing my strategies for how to build better self-talk. It's time to work on befriending yourself. Follow Project Swagger wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Scott Galloway.

And I'm Jessica Tarlov. In today's episode of Raging Moderates, we're discussing Trump's many lies during the State of the Union address, the Democrats' fractured response, and Secretary HECTS' ultimatum to Anthropic over military use restrictions. If you aren't already, please make sure you've subscribed to our YouTube page to get up-to-date coverage on everything that's happening.

All right, let's get into it. Trump delivered the longest state of the union in history during the speech he portrayed an America that is booming and secure, despite slipping poll numbers on the economy and immigration. He defended his agenda, blasted Democrats, criticized the Supreme Court's tariff ruling, and announced a new war on fraud led by J.D. Vance.

Oh, God. Insert, snarky comment. The speech offered few new policies and plenty of political attacks, with fact checkers unsurprisingly flagging multiple false claims. There weren't many viral moments, but this one is making the rounds. Our country is winning again. In fact, we're winning so much that we really don't know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President.

that we're winning too much. We can't take it anymore. We're not used to winning in our country until you came along. We're just always losing, but now we're winning too much. And I say, no, no, no, you're going to win again. You're going to win big.

You're going to win bigger than ever. And to prove that point, to prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud. The men's gold medal, Olympic hockey team. Come on in. Jess, you're sick of winning?

I... Not when it comes to hockey. I'm really happy about the men's hockey teams win and the women's hockey teams win. You know, have weighed in on the controversy over, you know, Cash Patel and the

chugging beers and Trump's horribly sexist joke. And he said that the women are coming, but that does that has not been confirmed by the women's side. So I am not sick of American athletic excellence, especially on the global stage. I love that. I am sick of not winning when it comes to the economy, immigration enforcement, et cetera.

And I was watching research groups do dials during these things. And they have Republicans and Democrats and independents hooked up to these dials to see how their sentiment tracks. And when Donald Trump talks about winning golden age, age, tariffs, economy, it plummets, especially with independence. So he's not winning that way. But hockey was good. What did you think of that moment? It was bipartisan. It was nice to see everybody on their feet at once. We did not have a lot of that throughout the evening. So I felt, I grew up going to hockey games with my father. It was one of the few places we bonded. I went to the King's Games at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles. My

father after, let's talk about me, Jess. I wanted to. It honestly, it took you too long to get here. Yeah. It's good to be here, isn't it? When my parents split up, my dad had no idea what to do with me. So we used to go to hockey games, or I would go with him and watch him play golf. And so I grew up, witty-widing, Marcel Dion, Rogi Vichon, people who have probably, like, died 30 years ago.

But I loved hockey. And I have some appreciation for it. And I think they missed such, I was just really triggered by a couple things. One, the president's comments diminishing women and the U.S. women's hockey team in the midst of a celebration. I just think it so cheapens America and the Olympics. I mean, it's just wrong on so many levels. One, just on a pragmatic level for pure optics, if I was running comms for the White House, which I will never be asked to,

the opportunity for them would have been to have a cabinet member or Cash Patel go celebrate with the women. The women won eight of the 12 goals at this Olympics were won by women. And this guy just sends such a wrong message to young men. And all that, he made them look bad because they said, oh, these, now all the courageous keyboard people with their purity tests were saying these young men are jerk. You're in a locker room celebrating

and the president tries to be funny. You laugh. And there was even one of the hockey players said two for two highlighting immediately that the women had won. But this notion that somehow masculinity or that leadership involves diminishing women or putting them on a lower rung, that is just such an unhealthy way to portray America and for young men to perceive that. And also just on a pure athletic level, the final goal or the winning goal in overtime by Megan Keller for the women's U.S. team to win the gold, that was, in my view, arguably one of the two or three most outstanding moments of the Olympics. If you know anything about hockey to see the move that Ms. Keller put on the Canadian to put herself in a position to score that goal, that was just, that was one of

the great moments in hockey. In addition, the women's team, these are women that are probably going to go back to being lawyers and doctors. I don't know much about the professional women's hockey league, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't pay a lot. Whereas all the dudes, all these 23 and 25-year-olds from Wisconsin, they're making millions of dollars. So it was just tactically a stupid thing to do. They could have really burnished their image by celebrating with the women and the men. It sets exactly the wrong message about what is this notion that somehow masculinity is diminishing women and establishing dominance. And if you're really serious about partying and celebrating, you party and celebrate with the men, but not the women. So anyways, in an effort, my never-ending effort to Virtue Signal, we're doing an event in Minneapolis.

And we invited, we're trying to get as many women from the women's hockey team there. but I just thought this was just so fucking stupid and it reminds me or comes back to something that really haunts me when I think about it and that is if you're a 21 year old male since the age of 10, the dominant figure in your life as a role model has been President Trump.

And what kind of role model is that setting as a young man goes through puberty and gets his brainwired? And, you know, the music, like I love R.M., English Beat, and Tom Petty, and Lloyd Cole in the commotions because of the greatest artist ever and also George Michael, but also because I was 19 when I listened to them. So there's certain things, cultural references, role models that get cemented into your brain when you're a teenager. And the idea that this type of image, this type of behavior that's

supposed to coming from who is the leader of the free world around this dominance, I don't want to call misogyny because that's hatred of women and I don't think that's fair here. The general sexism and weirdness and smallness, I just think it's so destructive. It cements in the eyes of the world everything that's bad about this current president. Anyways, I was triggered as someone who thinks they understand hockey. And it's like, it's just such a, it was just so fucking stupid of them. They could have said, okay, they should have celebrated with both teams. I just don't.

Yeah. Anyways, I'm focused on hockey. No, you're not. I mean, it's a, no, it's a larger issue as it relates to Trump. And there were parts of the speech where the same kind of use of people as props came up again. He turned it into an award ceremony. And I'm all for people who deserve Purple Hearts getting them, medals of honor, et cetera. But they were the kickoff to the theme for the night, which is Donald Trump is the one who loves America most. Donald Trump is the one who loves our troops and Democrats are demonic. And, you know, I think that I totally get why it's exciting. This is the last thing I

want to say about the hockey team situation. It's exciting to win gold, to go to Miami, party, to get to go on and Air Force One, get to go to the White House, come to the State of the Union. everyone is obsessed with you, et cetera. But there are pictures now of several of the members of the team wearing Trump merch. And if they thought that they were going to make this apolitical, right, that this is about being American and celebrating your country. And then you're wearing Make America Great Again hat or even the USA hats that are his ones. You know, like it's a distinctive font and look. I think that that damages your reputation.

And it's been interesting to read some of the analyses of, you know, the players who didn't go, several of whom are from Minnesota or the folks who are going to have to go home to Canada, who play for teams north of the border, who are not only, you know, licking their wounds because they were rooting for Canada, obviously, but are in a position where Mark Carney has had to steer the country away from a partnership with America as a result of these kind of, kind of useless threats of aggression, not only through economic policy, but through force sometimes. So it's much more complicated than just, oh, we're really excited about the gold medal. But I did think it was a good moment of the speech. Well, I would argue on the whole versus expectations that he actually did neutral to better than expected. I thought, yeah, because I think

everyone was waiting for him to really fuck up. And there was a couple moments where, quite frankly, he created the contrast visually he wanted to create. And that is when, you know, stand, he tried to trap the Democrats by saying stand up now. If you believe. He didn't try to. He did. Right. And I was thinking if I was a Democratic Congress person, I'm not sure how I would have responded there. And then he forced them to stand up and applaud for the, you know, the medal ceremony. I don't, I think a lot of us on the left were expecting him to just be a rambling idiot. And granted, he was rambling, but I don't, I think it came across like, okay, this is a $30 trillion startup and this was the earnings call. And you have, you know, effectively, it felt like

sort of patriotic B-roll, standing ovations as if we're at the Duma or in North Korea. That's the thing that rattled me the most was this, this over-the-top syphicry from the Republican Congresspeople who, I mean, do they really like what he's saying or they worried they're going to be shot politically? You know, half the chamber clapping as if the GOP kind of just texted them back and the other half sitting on their hands like they're shorting democracy, so to speak. It just, or shorting this administration. I was waiting for sort of him to throw up on himself. I thought he came across as more robust than most near 80-year-olds. I mean, I'm trying to be a critical thinker here and screen through my biases.

The stuff I just can't stand is the lack of fact checking and, you know, $18 trillion a new investment. Okay, what are you talking about? It does some of it, lowest inflation, he used inflation numbers that were incorrect. So the amount. Jobs numbers that were incorrect, gas numbers that were incorrect. Yeah, that was crazy. But I think he came out of this no worse. relative to his poll numbers, no worse.

The first third, it was like an act, it was like a thing in three acts. It was the first act was trying to be somewhat presidential. Then the second act was now I'm going to start insulting the Democrats. And then he tried to, I think, kind of wind it down a little bit in the third act. But quite frankly, I think it's a bit of a non-event. I think we'll be talking about something 48 hours later. I was hoping to hear something more definitive about Iran other than saying,

we saved people from being hanged, well, okay, you inspired people, you gave them sort of this promise that you were there for them. And I do believe that we're actually going in in some fashion or bombing, but I was hoping to get more definitive, I don't know, a more definitive plan from him around, you know, if why and how we plan to go in, you know, what our approaches to Iran. But then again, maybe he's planning to do it sooner rather than later and didn't want reveal anything. What are your thoughts, Jess? Well, that's what happened when he, uh, bombed Fordo, right? He said it could happen the next couple of weeks and then it happened what within 24 hours. Um, but he didn't make the case to the American people about it. And

the American people, no matter how they vote, do not want to go into war in the Middle East. That is a, that is the common denominator now, um, across the Republican Democrats and independence. Um, the foreign policy section was a bit blot to me. disappointing that on the four-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he did not say we stand with you, which I was reading some reporting. That's what Zelensky wanted to see. He didn't expect we're going to be sending the tomahawks that you desperately want. But he wanted to at least hear, we got you and did not get that.

He just said, I want to end this. You know, I'm the peace president and those eight bullshit wars. I want to end it on Russia's terms is what that means. Right. President Putin has an idea. idea of how he'd like this to go. And I don't really mind if we go that way. I agree with you. Like, this is a blip. And state of the unions have become a blip, generally speaking. President Biden's last one mattered because it was the proof of life video. So that took on a higher level of importance or salience than it would typically. But also with how quickly the

news cycle is moving and how Trump does things, I would expect if we were recording this pod to tomorrow, it would be the third topic, right, that we would just touch on it versus the lead. I do want to note, CNN always does a snap poll of State of the Union watchers. It skews towards the party and power. So next trade 13 percentage points to the Republicans. Trump only got a 38 percent very positive reaction, lower than Biden in 2022, who got 41 percent. Trump in 2018 at 48 percent. Obama, 2010, at 48 percent.

Bush, I mean, to make sense. just after 9-11 and the invasion had become 74% very positive in 2002. I cannot even think of an event that would unify us like that. What I think is most important about this, and there were focus groups of swing voters that were largely reflective of what I'm about to say, is that Donald Trump had one assignment, which was to make us believe that he knows the reality,

on the ground. And there was a big meeting with GOP strategists, Tony Fabrizio, Chrysla Sivita, James Blair, where they were briefing the Republicans on the midterm strategy. And they laid out a pretty normal approach, which is don't tell people that their lived reality is fake. Don't do what the Democrats did. Big mistakes, right, bragging about your GDP numbers and wages, et cetera, when people are struggling. And then they admitted it in that meeting. that Donald Trump was going to go out there and do whatever he wanted it. And it would essentially be a bifurcated strategy. There would be what Trump is doing and what you should be doing on the ground.

And so they were correct. They know their guy, but it's really bad that he came out there swinging with the greatest hits. And there was not one moment of, I feel your pain. We have more work to do, et cetera. And for swing voters, independents, left-leaning, moderates, moderate Republicans, et cetera, all the people that are bringing his approval rating down into the high 30s, they didn't get anything out of this. There was very few new policies that he announced. I mean, he went over the Trump's savings account, which we already knew about, talking about,

you know, Michael Dell's investment, et cetera. He talked about Trump RX, which is not nearly what he says it is. He had this new thing that I hadn't heard about with the retirement savings accounts, But that actually is a program that was implemented in 2022 that they're planning on just tweaking. So there was no, sorry, I should say, no tax on tips was in there, no tax on Social Security. But really, that's just like a $6,000 credit for seniors that expires in 2020. You know, the fine print obviously tells the details of all this. Democrats, the DNC, had the best fundraising day of the cycle, third best of all time, with all digital ads created around the state of the union.

I don't think the state of play changes as a result of this, but it is very clear that Donald Trump is not capable of listening to his strategists, which I think is a very good thing for Democrats. Yeah, it felt I see everything through the lens of the markets. It felt like a quarterly earnings call for a company that's trying to convince us that fundamentals are strong while quietly guiding expectations lower sort of this, this rhetoric of the economy is resilient, manufacturing is booming, inflation is easing. And by the way, I felt like the subtext was take your glasses off when you're looking at your

grocery bill, just, you know, ignore that. I want to ask you about the market because he talked about, you know, the Dow hitting 50,000, Pam Bondi's favorite line. But the rest of the world, their market is doing better than ours. But we never talk about that. That's a great point. Of the 21 Western markets, whatever it is, I think we're 20th. The Kaspi, the South Korean market was up 72% last year.

Almost every market in Europe, including the UK, was up substantially more than the S&P. And also, if you're taking into account that the dollar is down on average about 10% against foreign currencies, the S&P has dramatically underperformed the rest of the Western world over the last 13 months. So that headline of 17% last number feels good. But in the context of the weakening dollar and how other markets have performed, it's not. We're the, you know. It's just New Zealand and Denmark below us. Is that right?

Yeah. And everybody else is substantially above us. Let's go to Austria. Now I'm talking. Spain, Finland, Ireland market on fire there. There you go. And then you've had, you know, this isn't kind of our Ballywick, but the markets have been very strange recently with

private capital, business development companies, shitting the bed, a trade out of AI into what's called Halo companies, which are defensive stocks versus AI. But the economy right now, I think you'd have to say it's grinding on and is better than people thought, and the catastrophizing hasn't been manifested yet. But it does feel kind of, it does feel weak, and it's definitely not. definitely not what he's talking about. And the thing that no one wants to have an adult conversation about, you know, I wish there was just some sort of Chiron that could run like, okay, we're spending $7 trillion on $5 trillion receipts. It's just not, that's just not sustainable unless you're planning to inflate our way out of this deficit. And I didn't see that his state of the union,

I would say it was an attempt in all caps to provide reassurances, but there was really no, new ideas. I was in bed before this thing came on, but he teased it with an off-the-record preview with some journalists. And they said that he was going to propose new tax cuts. And I was really interested to see, what is he thinking? The corporate tax cuts. Yeah, it wasn't in there. And I didn't hear anything. So I don't know if at the last minute they said, you realize, like, we're still spending 40% more than we're taking in. This is not the time to talk about tax cuts and that the bond market might go fucking abe shit if they see that we're not going to be able to pay our debts back if we keep this level of kind of irresponsible spending. So I would love to see

more than an exaggeration of the State of the Union, you know, and I'm a technocrat. I would like to see a state of the spreadsheet. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing O-Doo. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-Doo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-F-Frey at O-D-O-D-O-O-com.

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Kate McKinnon, and David Diggs. Stream in the blink of an eye, February 27, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. Sign up at Disneyplus.com. Welcome back. What did you think of the post of the Democratic response afterwards? I thought Abigail Spanberger knocked it out of the park. It was interesting back-to-back years of CIA veterans giving the response. Alyssa Slotkin did it last year.

I thought Spanberger did a really good job. It was succinct. It was to the point. She said, let me ask the American people three questions. Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family? Is the president working to keep Americans safe, both at home? and abroad, is the president working for you? So that number two question about is the president working to keep Americans safe both at home and abroad, she might get a response where people say,

yeah, I think that he is, right? For people who are immigration hawks, that border is shut. It is sealed, right? And, you know, I believe that he wants to protect Americans who are abroad. He talked about, you know, bringing hostages home, which I did think was a big foreign policy win. And I loved hearing about both the alive and dead hostages who are being held in Gaza being returned. But I thought that she really just kind of got to the regular discussions that we're all having in life, whether you're grabbing coffee with someone or it's your family dinner table. She emphasized Trump's corruption a ton and the personal enrichment saying Republicans are making your life harder. They're making your life more expensive.

and they're even making it more difficult to see a doctor, which is the opening for Democrats to talk about health care, which is always a good issue for us. But you're seeing this corruption theme popping up absolutely everywhere. You know, every Democrat worth their salt is talking about this. And it's resonant with the American people, whether, you know, you're thinking he's protecting himself from the Epstein files or he's making $4 billion off of various deals.

I mean, there's an expectation. now that Donald Trump is not taking a meeting with anybody who can't line his pockets. And I love to see that out front in Democratic messaging. So those were my Spanberger thoughts. Did you catch any bit of her rebuttal or how did you feel also generally about how Democrats behaved, I guess, during the State of the Union? I'm really torn here because I don't know if when my blood sugar gets a certain level, I'm like they should be more disruptive. but at the same time, I don't want to become that nation where it becomes standard. One of the real mistakes or declines of the American experiment has been that we,

over the last 50 years, have transferred more and more power to the president believing that norms would hold. And they have, for the most part, until this president who has said, I don't need Congress, I can raise tariffs. And because the Supreme Court is slow and, you know, is packed with my people, I can basically ignore co-equal branches of government. And most of what he's done is not illegal. It's just a violation of norms that presidents, Republican, and Democrat have held to.

So it's, you know, I was trying to summarize to a friend what the State of the Union was, and it felt to me like a kind of a 90-minute or 100-minute LinkedIn post, you know. Economy strong, inflation cooling, jobs booming. With like rocket ships and star emojis next to very lines. Yeah, it was, I had a, and I'm named, I'm anonymous name dropping. I had a Democratic senator who's listed as a presidential candidate call me and say, what ideas do you have around the state of the

union? And I didn't know, I'm struggling with if the Democrats should be more disruptive or just maintain a certain decorum that befits the prestige of America has around the world. But my idea was the following, and I want to get your response. I would hire Jay-Z. his rock nation, the people who do the halftime show, to be in charge, and I would spend some money on the Democratic response. Because it's always, it's always like a big fucking thud. It's always sort of like, oh, we're drinking,

and then we move to water. It's just, it is very hard to match the majesty of the rotunda and the intensity. And ladies and gentlemen, I would pack, I would find a venue. I would pack it with 5,000 rabid Democrats. I'd have star power. punchlines, moments.

I would make it, what the halftime show is to the Super Bowl, I would make the Democratic response. Because they have the content and the substance. She was outstanding. What they lacked

was the production values and the majesty of the rotunda. And you can buy that with money. So this senator laughed at that. I'm like, I'm serious. Take 10 million bucks. You'll raise money and put on on halftime.

The halftime show used to be an afterthought or just nothing. you know, people went and got a beer during the Super Bowl. Now it's oftentimes more viewed. What was that great stat? There was a water shortage in Brooklyn during the half-time, right after the halftime show ended, which meant no one was peeing or going to the bathroom

during the halftime show. People were fixated by it. I think that the Democrats would be well-served to try and turn the Democratic response into a more awesome, cool, entertaining spectacle because it always feels like

she did it's the worst job in the world look at what you know remember when Rubio did it it's just so difficult the little water bottle yeah the whole thing but I thought in terms of substance these

these female former intelligence officials they just are a fantastic contrast so I thought she I thought she did a fantastic job I said the Democrats arguably did their job by elevating somebody to the national stage. She was probably going to be a player at some point. So I give it, you know, I give it an eight out of ten.

But the Democrats need to go more Hollywood on the response. All right. So if it was Spanberger plus Beyonce, we really would have nailed it. 100%. How about this? Because I think we can do both. I think that the imagery, you know, she's in front of the drapes, Colonial Williamsburg, et cetera. you know, Abigail Spanberger is a very serious person.

Yeah. She is a, you know, a person of great substance. And I think that we should have, since this year we did have a ton of counter programming. You know, a lot of Democrats didn't go. There were a lot of empty seats. You could feel that in the chamber, these big gaps. I'm not sure I'm mad about it because to your point about decorum or tradition, it's, all over. Like I, even people who love these institutions and, you know, yearn for a time where

everybody would show up for each other and be polite, have accepted the fact that we are irrevocably broken when it comes to our politics. And we have to be devious and as Mitch McConnell about it as possible to just win as many seats so that we can get through policies that will benefit the largest amount of Americans. That's it. Like none of this playing games, like just I'm kind of stabbed me in the front, right, and not in the back anymore. So I'm cool with it.

If you don't want to go to the State of the Union, you want to do the counter programming, Midas Touch had a huge thing. There were speeches that were being given outdoors from people in the pro-democracy movement, elected officials who weren't there, et cetera. I think that we could have had Spanberger, plus the Rock Nation event. And that would have also indicated to people,

maybe not even making it that heavy on politics, but just saying like, we're going to have a party that has democratic norms in mind. I'm workshopping this. I don't know how that invitation goes. But where especially with young people who don't want to sit around listening to long speeches,

they don't really want to sit around listening to fuck Trump, which is what, from what I saw. a lot of what people were saying. And so I think that you could have both, right? Like you could have a good hang, and you could have the serious weight of an Abigail Spanberger just won this enormous victory. And you could have both.

I want everything. Yeah, and I would make it a response. I would spend the first 10 minutes talking about how corrupt he is in this criminal gang and how this is a failed, this is a failed talk show host who's enriching himself at your expense.

But then I would immediately move into really bold, big ideas. But just before we take our break here, just some actual fact-checked data, the unemployment rate now is at 4.3% a year ago, wrapping at Biden's last month, it was 4%. The job growth over the previous year in January of 25 was 1.1.1 in a quarter million. Job growth over the last year has been 360,000. Core inflation is now 3%. And core inflation last year at this time under Biden was 2.8%.

So on nearly every metric that he quoted, he was incorrect, and if you actually fact-checked it, it doesn't paint a good picture. Okay, let's take a quick break. Stay with us. You might be tempted to let Taco Bell's new Lux Value menu go to your head. Because 10 indulgences for $5 or less makes you feel fancy. Like you might think you need cloth napkins. Well, you don't. Just use the ones that come in the bag. Don't let the Lux go to your head.

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What are the main takeaways of the foreign policy section from Donald Trump's State of the Union address? I do think they've made a decision to elevate domestic issues as we head towards the midterms. We'll see if that sticks because he keeps getting drawn back to the foreign policy issues. I'm John Feiner. And I'm Jake Sullivan. And we're the hosts of The Long Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week will react to President Trump's State of the Union address, the situation with Iran, and the eruption of violence involving cartels in Mexico. The episode's out now.

Search for and follow The Long Game, wherever you're. get your podcasts. Welcome back. Before we go, the Pentagon is escalating its clash with AI firm Anthropic, issuing an ultimatum that could force the company to lift restrictions on how the military uses its technology or risk being labeled a supply chain threat. Secretary Hexeth has warned that he may invoke the Defense Production Act if Anthropic refuses to allow its model to be used for any lawful military purpose, effectively forcing the software company to comply where the Pentagon threatens that it will cancel Anthropics government contracts. Anthropics says it once safeguards against

mass surveillance and autonomous weapons without human oversight. The Pentagon argues contractors can't dictate battlefield use. Jess, I have a lot of thoughts on this, but first I want to get to your thoughts. No, I want your thoughts first. I mean, because I'm in a very dark, scary place about this, and you certainly know more about it than I do. So you go first, and then I shall respond. I think you're being generous. The reason we've recognized such unbelievable prosperity, or one of the reasons in America that we've recognized. The best reforming organization in the world is U.S. military. A close second is the U.S. corporation.

We've added more shareholder value in the last 17 years, and all of Europe has added since World War II. One company, Navidia, is worth more than every publicly traded company in Germany and in Spain. Anthropic, the company at hand here, was founded six years ago. And if it was founded in Europe, it would be one of the 10 most valuable companies in Europe. So obviously that's about access to capital, a risk culture, great universities.

But it's also about a limited amount of regulations. So let me talk, let me sound like a Republican. But when I say a limited amount of regulation, you don't have failed talk show hosts deciding which industries and which companies should be acquired by which companies, who they should or should not put on their boards, if we should take a, interest in U.S. steel or have input into chip manufacturers such as Intel. The idea is neither President Obama and especially President Trump have any fucking idea how to build a company better than the full-body contact violence of capitalism and a regulated competitive market where the president and to the extent possible regulators and bureaucrats stay the fuck out of the private sector. When the UK decided that Delorean was the car of the future, you ended up with tens of thousands of unsold cars in a storage facility in Ireland.

When companies decide, there's certain strategic reasons why you might want to ensure you protect your steel industry so we can always build battleships. But weighing in on what a company can or cannot do in terms of its own policies, which they're doing here with Anthropic, is like saying you should remove certain board members and call them racist. Oh, they did that with Susan Rice at Netflix. By the way, famous racist, Susan Rice, calling her a racist. She posts ape videos all the time. That makes sense, right? So whether it's a Democrat, let me sound like a Republican. One of the reasons we've had such extraordinary growth and prosperity is we err on the site of lighter regulation, which includes less government interference and not some fucking narcissist who's a rich kid who, if he'd invested his father's daddy's money in the S&M.

be much wealthier now and is grifting off the American public to try and increase his wealth. That is not the person, nor do you want any regulator or any bureaucrat or any cabinet member telling companies how to run their business. And just as Josh Hawley has his head up his ass and basically the Ellison's using him as a coin-operated senator to accuse Netflix of having half their children's content infused with LGBTQ content, which is total fucking nonsense, a private company,

whether it's Netflix or Anthropic, are allowed to do pretty much whatever the fuck they want. And if Anthropic in LLM says, you know, we have decided we don't want to work with companies who may be engaged in massive surveillance of its own citizens,

they get to make that decision. And if Netflix were to ever decide, we want to have a bunch of LGBTQ kids or content in our, kids programming, which they don't, that is their right. And if Fox wants to have a show called the Five where they have four people spewing trafe and to have one person pushing back on them, they're allowed to do that too. So this socialist, communist, doom-alike, autocratic notion that the government and the Pentagon get to start telling companies how to

behave and what their policies are is the exact opposite. of the reason and the theme and Republican ideals, which I respect, that the private markets are much smarter and much better at creating shareholder value, which we then tax such that we can protect our nations and offer kids food stamps. So this is directly an opposition to everything we know about what works in the private markets. Anyway, speech over. Your thoughts. It's another notch on the state-run capitalism belt. That's generous, I mean, versus this just being a straight-up communist. proposal, essentially, or threat. I think that Anthropic has until Friday to decide what they're going to do about it before the government unleashes on them. And we know how terrible that can be if you are on the other side of the desires of the U.S. government, no matter who's in charge.

But it feels like an enormous overstep. And when you read about Anthropics' response and you see also, I'm sure you've been noticing the spate of interviews that people who have worked at these enormously powerful and influential AI companies have been doing, saying how scared they are about where the technology is going and that we are so close to the point where we're going to have no control over the code, the robots, however you want to say it, that you can understand why the head of Anthropic is like, well, let's have a conversation about what you're going to be doing with our tech. We don't want mass surveillance of Americans. The Fourth Amendment still does matter to some people. And then these autonomous weapons. And I'm not saying that the Department of Defense has to

turn over all of their plans to a private company. But if you want to use their tech, you have some responsibility to be above board about what you're going to do with it and probably to have some sort of relationship in managing it. I mean, over the years, there has been an enormous amount of brain drain out of the government for a whole host of reasons. But I always think about, remember the San Bernardino terrorist attack when they couldn't get into the iPhone, right, of the shooter? Oh, yeah. They couldn't unlock it. Right. And the government was like, well, what are we going to do? And they had to beg Apple to work with them in order to do this, and it was a national security reason, et cetera. And there was a big conversation, obviously, about protecting people's rights and that they don't want

their reputation out there that they are going to go into your phone. Right. Now, this guy was a murderer. It's a little bit different than if you left your phone on the subway and someone picked it up. But there's a balance that these companies have to strike. And a lot of them were founded on core American principles to some degree, including, I don't know, core American principle of capitalism. I'm not sure about that. But, you know, the DOD doesn't understand what they are asking of Anthropic or what they are threatening Anthropic with is beyond me. And I saw a lot of people posting this journalist who are writing about this standoff between the Pentagon and Anthropics, saying, in a normal news cycle, this would be the lead story everywhere. I mean, the implications for this are so massive.

And because we're being inundated with so much news constantly, like, this is a blip. I bet if I walked outside right now, I'm going to leave here to walk out and I'm going to go up to work. I bet if I asked 10 people on the street, maybe one, maybe would know about this story and what's going on. And that's really scary to me. So when back in the Biden administration, when people decided to be. like what I call cheap hipster wokesters and that is I'm working at Google,

I'm making $400,000 a year and I decided that the Defense Department is bad and so I'm going to walk out during lunch. I'm like, okay, that's really, that'll show them. Palantir to their credit, Zigged when everyone was agging

and saying we're proud to work with the U.S. government and we want to help them track and kill bad guys. And it was kind of a brilliant move. They wrapped themselves in the flag and said, we're going to work with our Defense Department. Underworld did the same thing. We're going to produce weapons.

We're going to bring some of the Silicon Valley innovation and speed and agility to help the good guys, and we are the good guys. And they have the right to do that. If you don't want to work there, you don't want to buy their stock, you don't like Chick-fil-A, don't eat a Chick-fil-A. But at the same time, if the people at your organization and your shareholders and your board said, you know, this administration in our view has taken a lot of license with the Constitution and is potentially involved. and violating people's privacy. And we don't want to participate. That, just as Anderal and Palantir have the right to work with the Defense Department, Anthropic has the right not to work with the Defense Department.

So this, again, is government overreach, intervention. It's a cross between socialism and autocracy, and it is always bad for the economy. Firms get to decide if and who they work with. Before we go, if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you hit subscribe. That's all for this episode. Thanks for listening to Raging Moderates.