Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - Trump's “Little Excursion" in Iran Becomes a 100-Day Disaster

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov break down the latest on the Iran war, 100 days after the start of the conflict, and as Israel and Iran trade attacks. They also react to Trump’s tense appearance on Meet the Press, which saw the President abruptly end the interview and storm off when he was faced with questions about whether there was any evidence for “rigged elections” — after he attempted to downplay the growing instability in the Middle East. Meanwhile, economic anxiety is growing back home as Wall Street reacts to mounting uncertainty in the AI and semiconductor industries. Markets are down amidst growing fears that the AI bubble is getting ready to pop… just as companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX move closer toward potentially massive IPOs. Trump may meet with tech executives to discuss whether the U.S. government should take ownership stakes in strategically important AI companies. Trump says he’s partially aligned with Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has put forward a competing proposal for a public AI wealth fund. Plus: Scott and Jessica talk through the latest scandals and increased scrutiny over presumptive Democratic Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner, whose alleged mistreatment of women he’d dated in the past has raised a new raft of questions about his suitability for office. And finally, some updates in the races for California governor and mayor of Los Angeles — where the latest polls show that insurgent candidate Spencer Pratt has taken a dip. For ad-free episodes, exclusive livestreams, and to connect with Scott, Jessica, and the Raging Moderates community, join us at ProfG+ on Substack: https://ragingmoderates.profgmedia.com/ Get The Monday Rage newsletter: https://profgmedia.com/s/monday-rage/ Follow Raging Moderates on IG, Tiktok, and Facebook: https://www.instagram.com/ragingmoderatespod/ https://www.tiktok.com/@ragingmoderates https://www.facebook.com/ragingmoderates Follow Jessica Tarlov on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/jessicatarlov https://substack.com/@jessietarlov https://bsky.app/profile/jessicatarlov.bsky.social Follow Scott on Instagram, Substack, and Bluesky: https://instagram.com/profgalloway https://substack.com/@profgalloway https://bsky.app/profile/profgalloway.com Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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credentials, and reviews all right in the app. For your next home project, try Thumbtack. Hire the Right Pro today. 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 Odu, 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.

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If you want to support the show, subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's free. It helps us grow, and it helps us reach new audiences. Okay, let's bust into it. First up, we've now passed the 100-day mark in the Iran War, with little evidence that either side is any closer to a resolution. Over the weekend, Iran launched missiles towards Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Israel also launched missiles, and Trump says he intervened Monday morning to urge both sides to stand out. Trump also appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, where he down. played the situation before abruptly ending the interview.

Let's get a taste of that. You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged. You know that I won an election in a landslide, and I got 94% bad press. But, Mr. President, you've never presented... Because you have no credibility. But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged.

Let's keep talking about... I want to talk about Todd Prupp. You have more evidence. There's more evidence than ever presented. Let's talk about... Your elections in this country, we're like a third world country. Your elections are crooked and you're crooked and meet the press is crooked. And so is ABC and CBS and CNN.

But Mr. President. You're one-sided crooked networks. So let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time. Mr. President, let's please, I traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've traveled all the way to Wisconsin. I've traveled all the way to Wisconsin.

On and off in the rain and I've given you enough time. You ought to straighten out. You're pressed because you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonest. Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin for the front of year. You go first. Where to begin? I mean, the level of rage, which like the red was overtaking the orange, which rarely happens, right,

that he actually gets like a deeper color than the makeup that he's wearing, even with it, you know, sweating off. And it was climatically not perfect with the rain. and it was on and off. But I keep thinking about, you know, how everyone who loves him is like, oh, my God, he's such a tough guy. And he crumbles if you ask a follow-up, right? Or if you just point out objective reality, which is that there were 63 court cases for the 2020 election,

and they lost all of them. All of them. There was not one kernel of fraud that they could prove. I also just, I mean, maybe my estrogen is, you know, pretty strong this morning. but watching him talk to her like that, I guess she has to sit there and take it. I mean, she can't be the one to take off her mic and throw it down. But we didn't play this part of it where he goes,

you're either crooked or you're stupid. That's something that the President of the United States of America said to one of top journalists reporters in the country. And it's now 24 hours later. And, you know, we're talking about it because we didn't meet on Sunday. But it's going to be lost in the dustbin of history because we're moving on to a million other things. And people are just going to ignore it. Like, I can't take it the way that he speaks to people, especially to women, like Caitlin Collins, Christian Walker, Liz Landers from PBS.

It's just horrifying to me. Yeah, look, the part that triggered me was when he called her darling. I mean... 1950s again, what he wants. But the fear I have is that it'll tick the censors of Fox, because he does come across, is legitimately enraged, like there's substance behind his rage. And the big story will be that he walked out.

We know this guy does not acquit himself well, that he doesn't have the complexion or the demeanor of someone who should be in the Oval Office. We've known that for a while. You know, the problem isn't him walking out of a meet-the-press interview. It creates good for good video. The problem is that the war's 100 days old, costs are mounting.

And the answers seem shorter every week. And then the bigger overarching problem is that there is still a large percentage of the Republican Party. I think it's somewhere between a third and a half. You probably have better numbers than I do that believe the election was rigged. 60%. It's 60. Okay. So two-thirds of Republicans believe the elections have been rigged.

And there was a bunch of live reporting from the ballot counting in L.A. County, which always takes several days. And if you go around and talk to people, half the people counting, votes and overseeing this and being fiduciaries are Republicans. It's just so insane that this conspiracy theory continues to live on without a single piece of evidence that there's any concerted means of rigging elections. And this is, I mean, in some ways, if you can't support the peaceful transfer of power, you just don't have a democracy. And he continues to promote that that lie. So him walking out of an interview, yeah, fine. I don't, you know, I find the whole thing to be a bit of a bit of a distraction and just confirming what we already knew. He does not have the composure, the decorum,

much less grace to be in an interview. I'm just waiting at some point for, I think these interviewers show a lot of patience at some point to go, what, you can't answer my question. I mean, these are softballs, Mr. President. At some point, you should be able to answer these questions. You know, anyways, I don't know there's a lot else to say here. Any other thoughts? Well, there's the war aspect of it because I, we did have, I mean, we didn't have movement towards an actual deal or a restarting of heavy fire. But I think the last 24 hours actually have been important. I think Iran striking Israel for the first time since the ceasefire came into place in April. is a big deal. So Edward Luce from the F.T. got Trump on the phone because you can just call him. And he told Luce, I call the shots. I call all the shots. Netanyahu doesn't call the shots.

And then B.B. struck Iran. And I do think that I don't want to say it's seminal in any way. But I think that the kind of fissure in that relationship and the fact that Trump is basically saying that violations of the ceasefire don't count to him at this point and that Israel, you know, our strongest ally in the region, if they were getting pummeled, he doesn't really care because he's in such hot pursuit of this deal, does matter. It has reframed how we're looking at it. And I don't know if you caught Susan Rice on Bill Maher on Friday night. But listening, yeah, what excellence, right? Listening to her talk about what actually, you know, went into the JCPOA, how they negotiated it, what the restrictions are, the kind of limitations on enrichment where the inspections were happening, where they weren't

happening. I was like, oh, adults are back in the room. But you get the feeling from listening to her and at least what is rumored to potentially be in the deal that might be forthcoming that we are not even going to get the JCPOA. We're not going to even get it in terms of the restrictions, but we're also going to be giving up a hell of a lot more money than we did the $1.7 billion of unfrozen Iranian assets that were being held in a Qatari bank account when Obama and his team, I should say, John Kerry and his team negotiated that during the second Obama administration. Just the easing of sanctions on Iranian exports is probably provided, I would imagine, tens of millions of incremental revenues. You said something, I just want to double click on.

So you think Netanyahu, I know what they're claiming happened, but you think Netanyahu struck Iran unilaterally over Trump's objections? No, I think that Netanyahu responded to what Iran did. I think Iran was saying we're in a position now where we can create even more daylight between the U.S. and Israel and really show that they're fighting two separate wars. They knew as well that Trump was out there saying, you know, I wear the big boy pants now, right? Like, I'm in charge. Bibi's not in charge. He got him to stop firing into Lebanon. Remember, last week it had gotten really bad.

Trump had that very gruff call with Bibi where he was apparently shouting at him. And so I think Iran was like, I'm going to poke the two bears essentially and show that they're not a team anymore. Then Trump, it's public because it's widely reported on that Trump is saying I'm the one who's in charge. And then Netanyahu made a calculated decision to say, actually, you're in charge of your country, but I'm in charge of my country. And our goals align when I think that that's the right thing to do, like getting Trump in the initial stages to actually go into Iran in the first place. But I'm going to do what I feel like I need to do for Israel vis-a-vis Lebanon and responding to the Iranian attacks. So it's quiet right now, allegedly. I mean, we're taping this at 11 a.m. Eastern time.

It'll come out at about 5 o'clock. Who knows what will happen in the next few hours in terms of it being quiet. but I do think it was a big shot across Trump's bow from the Israeli side, saying, like, you can tell the FT or whoever you want that you're in charge of this, but I'm the one who says go, essentially, with the Israeli infrastructure. Yeah, it just feels like the IRGC is playing this so well right now. And the Trump administration, you know, whether it flips over the monopoly game, because it doesn't like the questions being asked on Meet the Press,

or trying to convince us it's like a kitchen renovation the war in Iran or that takes longer than you think it's going to, or a streaming service where you signed up for it, and you can't remember why, but you're still getting billed. I mean, it's almost as if he's totally disconnected from the reality of what's going on there, calling, you know, people firing caches of weapons at each other, not a breakdown in the ceasefire, claiming he's in charge. It is interesting to think the notion that Netanyahu feels like he has the political

wherewithal and the strength, quite frankly, to go it alone if he, in fact, is going it alone and just sticking up the middle finger sensing Trump's weakness domestically and deciding he's going to do what he thinks is best for Israel and for him. Any thoughts on what do you think happens in the next few weeks here? I don't know. I mean, usually like Rubio is the closest thing to a real answer. You know, I mean, Trump is still back on like it'll, you know, take us 24 to 48 hours to get this done. So I can't really trust any of that. I mean, Rubio had said, you know, it could be a few days. It could be a week. Maybe there is something, but I imagine that it amounts to basically an extension of the ceasefire with some gifts for the Iranians to keep them from going back into all-out conflict. I don't know if it's like the midterm gags that have been pushing on the Trump administration, but it feels like there's basically a zero percent chance that we're going back

to a real conflict, like a hot conflict at this point. So I think it's just going to be punting and punting, which is exactly how the Iranians would like it to be. Because as that continues, like you said, they get a little bit of sanctions relief here, a little bit of sanctions relief there, and they stay in business, right? They continue supporting their terror proxies. Their leadership it gets stronger, you know, the new Ayatoll. We still haven't seen him, but, you know, allegedly recovering from the hits that he took during the initial days of the war. And, you know, we don't see many articles about how Iran is sweating this that hard anymore. Yeah, the, I don't see any reason why the IRGC would negotiate. It just seems plain as day to me.

He has, he has, and we asked Secretary Clinton this when she was on our live podcast. podcast store in New York. It was so good, by the way. We haven't talked about it. It was so cool that you had her. I appreciate that. And yeah, it was a nice moment for us to have Secretary Clinton on. God, can you imagine how different the world would be if she got elected in 2016? Anyways. Yeah, I can. It's like what I dream about. But who knows, right? I mean, the world is so strange. The butterfly flapping its wings in the Brazilian rainforest anyways. But I asked her, well, in order to come to some sort of agreement, any agreement, we have to have leverage. What exactly is our leverage right now? I don't—what is it China benefits from us being in this war?

Iran seems likely to emerge from this even stronger. And the IRGC knows that the American public does not support this war. So it's like—it's as if Russia demanded that Ukraine surrender as his troops were withdrawing. We are leaving. I mean, there's just—the—it comes down to this. what leverage do we have when it's clear we are leaving? And that the president has absolutely no support for this war going into the midterms. We have alienated our strongest allies.

We've made life much harder for Japan, for South Korea, for Canada. European energy costs have exploded. And we have emboldened our enemies. This is a gift to China, who is now seen as the stable partner. This is a gift to Iran, where this. their revenues have spiked because of the increase in oil prices. It's, I mean, it would be hard to think of at this point a more elegant way. Maybe tariffs to diminish our credibility around the world.

It's, and they know it. So every day that this conflict goes on, there is a leak of strength and power from traditional democracies to autocracies and the RRGC. What, I don't see what their incentive is other than to. continue and not come to a resolution, or wait until they get something vastly better than the JCPOA, you know, hundreds of billions. I mean, I'll be really curious if this goes down as the biggest geopolitical mistake, because not that many American lives have been lost here, whereas we lost thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis were were killed. But this feels like, okay, I know you're leaving. Why would I negotiate with you?

Why would I give you anything? You're not, you're out. Your thoughts. I agree with you. I would add, since you brought up tariffs that I guess he's like, oh, well, I miss those bad boys, right, this threat now that he's going to put tariff new sets of them on like 56 countries or something like that coming soon to make up for what the Supreme Court struck down. And yes, it is in technical terms, not that many service members lost. But Ashley Hinson, who will be the Republican nominee for Senate in Iowa, a seat they need to defend, was speaking, you know, in a closed door room. But the contents got leaked. And she said, this war has to end.

We've buried four Iowans since December. So, you know, it has an effect. It's 13. but those are, you know, people who bravely risk their lives for us, and they matter a hell of a lot to their families and also to the folks that represent them that are thinking I'm going into a midterm with gas over $4 and American lives lost seemingly for nothing. In some cases, because we wouldn't even, you know, prepare them for the drones that were coming. I mean, the original six who died in that Kuwaiti base, we didn't give them a top to their

makeshift office essentially. And that's how we lost those lives. And so, you know, I do think that there is also a difference between lives lost for a cause that people believe in, where the families can say, we know why, you know, Jack or Jill was fighting for this, right? And we believe in it. And we believe in the mission versus, you know, why wasn't there a top to the office that you had them sitting in while there was a war going on? So. Yeah, I think that a decent talking point for the next batch of presidential candidates would be, look, fiscal responsibility and affordability comes down to responsibility such that interest rates across your mortgages, your auto payment, your credit card bills start to go down. And the only way that's going to happen is with some semblance of fiscal responsibility where we stop this madness of spending $7 trillion a year on $5 trillion receipts. And all roads lead to entitlements.

but a next road, if you will, is the fact that the president has endorsed increasing the military budget from one trillion to 1.4 trillion. And I think if we take anything from the war on Ukraine and Iran, it's one word, asymmetry. And that is your ability to be innovative around kind of small weapons, drones, communication systems that cost dramatically less. And also quite frankly, if America isn't, I understand the emotional plea, and I think it's a powerful one of the islands that have been buried. But if you don't have an army and you don't have a public that's willing to support, quite frankly, more sacrifice than that. And I'm not suggesting they should, but if they're not, you know, Russia is losing a thousand men a day. And that's their core confidence, is they're willing to do that. We lose 13 members and candidates for office are making emotional pleas about the loss.

I get it. I understand it. I feel sorry for those families. But if we're not going to, quite frankly, exercise that strength, demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice, demonstrate, or we seem to be demonstrating that these foreign misadventures are just on a risk-adjusted basis, it's generally a bad idea, that these expensive platforms are not yielding the type of fruit we see that the IRGC is getting from drones, that the Ukrainian army is getting from drones. I think a decent talking point would be there is a realistic argument for maintaining our strength and our priorities across our Defense Department at $500 billion, not $1.4 trillion. I mean, I always go to the numbers and the money. I think all of this adds up to we need to have a much better fighting capability on much less money.

Otherwise, what's the point of spending $1.4 trillion if we can't, fight wars effectively, if we're taken down by much less expensive machinery and platforms, and also, quite frankly, the American public doesn't seem to have the appetite for, and it might be justified, for overseas misadventures, then fine, I don't think Canada's going to invade us. I don't think Mexico poses a threat to us. We have two oceans. Let's invest in much cheaper, kind of simple platform, AI-driven weapons, and let's take the military budget down five or $600 billion. All for it.

I think if you throw in it as well that, you know, we'll have President Zelensky and his team over here making the same presentation that they offered us before we got into this war. And they'll show us how you can go from getting absolutely pummeled to being able to strike so close to Putin that he has to go into hiding that the American public could really get behind that. And you're going to take that money and appropriate it for things that they care about like health care. better schools, better roads and bridges, you know, great jobs. I think that would be an excellent renewal platform for a candidate. 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 Odu, 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-DU 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-F-Frey at O-D-O-O-O-O-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-S. Support for this show comes from O-Doo.

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-DU. 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-DU 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-Fri at O-D-O-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-O-com. Hi, I'm Maria Sharpova, host of the Pretty Tough podcast. Each episode, I sit down with high-achieving women to discuss the pursuit of excellence without apology.

This week, model sports illustrated cover girl and entrepreneur Ashley Graham talks about the time she almost quit. I called my mom and I said, mom, I just, I'm not going to do this anymore. And she told me, no, you are going to stick this out. Your body is going to change someone's life. Every decade, you're going to go through something different. So be really happy with who you are right now. because things change. Check out Pretty Tough, new episodes on Wednesdays.

You can watch it on YouTube or listen in your favorite podcast app. Speaking of things that aren't going according to plan, in economic news with major political implications, the stock market took a huge tip on Friday in large part due to uncertainty in the AI and chip sector. There are fears about the AI bubble bursting, and that conversation is only getting louder as companies including SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic move closer to IPOs.

Meanwhile, Trump is expected to meet with tech leaders this week, to discuss whether the government should take ownership stakes in strategically important AI firms. Jess, a lot of people have been critical about AI having free reign, but is this the answer? Well, I and I'm sure our listeners are much more interested in what your perspective on this is, but... I don't know about that. Read the comments. Basically, the comments are more, Jess, less Scott, but thank you for that. Anyways, go ahead.

Well, not from my household. Yeah. But I don't know how we moved from having the government have a regulatory role to an ownership stake. Because Trump shows and has shown over and over that he is interested in owning these companies. Like I'll take, you know, 10% of Intel, you know, that will run our kind of like state capitalism version. But it seems to me like the government shouldn't be owning these companies, but they should be regulating them. and I wonder what the Sam Altman's and the emoties feel about that shift. Like if they're actually open to it and interested in it or if they want to work out some other kind of deal where the government certainly takes a role and probably puts some cash in too.

But that was what stuck out to me. Yeah, look, when you start pretending, when governments start pretending that they're smarter at business than the private sector, you end up with warehouses in Ireland full of unsold Doloresans and Air France. It just doesn't work. And that's not to say that government shouldn't occasionally provide funding for strategic sectors, whether it's the chip sector. South Korea has done a great job of funding.

It's heavy manufacturing sector such that it gets some running room with kind of domestic how supporting or providing tax credits for rechargeable, you know, rechargeable electric EV stations, you can see some benefit to that to inspire the EV race, which ended up, quite frankly, just being a subsidy for Tesla, but nonetheless, it did inspire or kind of give it jump-started. There's reasons for the government to get involved in funding and then in regulating those industries, but when it starts picking individual companies and it takes a golden share in U.S. Steel or invests in Intel, you know, that's the government deciding we're favoring one company over another instead of the full body contact violence that makes capitalism great where companies fight it out and they all have to play by the same rules or they all have access to the same subsidies. But this again goes back to the toddler who's decided he understands which businesses are going to work and which aren't. And what I do think there's a larger, first it started with people hate data centers. I feel like this feels a little bit like late 99 when you get to this. level, the K Schiller, the price earnings index, is now above 40, which it hasn't been that way since

the end of 99. Now, will there be a collapse? I don't think so, because these companies, while the NASDAQ has compounded up 20% of the year for the last 10 years, what's different this time is that earnings across the sector have compounded up 15% per year. These are much more profitable, different, much more robust companies with large balance sheets versus, you know, Pets.com or even Amazon back in late 99. But you are seeing, I think, a fatigue and a much more questioning, just in the last seven or ten days around the valuations of these companies. And also, things like the research coming out of MIT showing the 95 percent of CFOs aren't seeing an ROI on their investments in AI. I mean, these things have just gotten way out in front of their skis. As it relates to regulation,

I think the government should be more involved in AI, but regulating it, right? The analogy I would is that if we're to believe the CEOs of these companies, that these technologies are more powerful than nuclear weapons, then would we have let Oppenheimer start a company, raise venture capital and sell these things into Brazil? So absolutely more government involvement, but in the form of regulation, not having a failed NEPO baby and a failed business person

to try and pick which companies the government should be investing in. The way the government gets a return on investment is by taxing these companies and letting them run, and we err on the side of deregulation, which is good most of the time. It's gotten way overboard here. And then we collect tax revenue on everything from the corporate profits to payroll taxes, to the sales tax, to property taxes on the homes that the 11,000 new millionaires that are going to all of a sudden be made in these three IPOs. But to think that somehow we're in the business of being a hedge fund, it's just, again, it's the same arrogance of societies that believe that the smartest people are the ones, the people who aggregate power and that they should decide how to how, you know, they know how to play

business better than business. And it never ends well. It never, it never works. As Margaret Thatcher said, the problem with socialism is eventually run out of other people's money. I was just going to ask you, if you like Bernie Sanders's approach, he has this proposal for a one-time 50% stock tax on AI firms and the proceeds would go to like a sovereign wealth fund. No, just as Trump's approach to socialism makes no sense, either does Bernie Sanders, and it shows a lack of understanding of markets by Senator Sanders. In sum, this would be a one-time 50% stock tax on AI firms like OpenAI Ananthropic, the proceeds, the proceeds of which would establish a sovereign wealth fund with the idea it would give American citizens a direct ownership

stake in these technologies. So a sovereign wealth fund is a place like, Piff in the kingdom or in Norway has a sovereign wealth fund, when they produce so much of a natural resource that they have a budget surplus and they typically can't even find enough projects internally so they create a sovereign wealth fund and it becomes a source of return or income for their citizens because they are producing more of an asset and they have a budget surplus. All a sovereign wealth fund would be in America is essentially layering on more debt because our government spends more money, such that, again, American government can pretend it's a fucking hedge fund manager, which is shown no ability to do that. So if you were going to have

an additional tax, it should go towards paying down our deficit, not pretending that the government and Senator Sanders has any idea how to invest that money any better than the private sector. Two, I don't like taxation that is industry specific. They talked about this bullshit nonsense to have a super tax on oil and gas firms during the energy crisis. What is an AI firm? We're using AI like crazy here. Should we be subject to this tax? Is Microsoft subject to an AI tax? I mean, where is the line?

What you need is a progressive tax structure to fund the government such that we don't continue to layer in massive amounts of debt that young people have to pay back for future generations. But this is just populist bullshit. You don't create different tax structures for different industries because then every industry tries to create just enough other businesses. They perform on natural acts such that they don't qualify for this tax. or people stop investing in AI because they don't will get lower returns because there's additional taxation on AI.

If you want to have taxation on environmental standards or whatever it is that might have impact AI or if an AI data center, there's a state tax because of additional consumption or electricity consumption, that's their right. But taxes on specific industries don't work. It basically neuters that industry's ability to draw capital. And then you end up just spending a ton of time trying to create all this bureaucratic red tape around what qualifies as an AI company and what doesn't. If Senator Sanders wants to increase tax revenues,

he should figure out a way to increase the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations, including Eli Lilly, which just became a trillion-dollar company on the back of GLP1. You know, there are a ton of companies doing really well here that aren't in AI. And also what happens when AI crashes and all of a sudden the stocks are down 80 percent and they're stuck with this legacy tax. This again, industry-specific taxation is again the same mistake is taking a golden share

in Intel or U.S. deal. And that is the government has decided who should be winners and losers because they're smarter than anybody else. I want higher taxes on corporations, but I not only want it anthropic, I want it on Apple and I want it on the gap. Your thoughts? I think the comments are going to speak loudly today on this topic that you did know more about what you were saying than I did. You're just being kind. No. I mean, yeah, I am inherently kind, but that was very interesting. Thank you. So Democrats are dealing with a very different kind of crisis. A New York Times investigation

in the main Congressman Graham Platner detailed three previous relationships described as toxic, triggering fresh scrutiny from both Democratic lawmakers and voters. CalShe currently has the odds of the Democratic Party taking the main Senate seat at 58%, rebounding a bit from last week, but still far below the odds of the pretexting scandal. Jess, what do you think – the question we have from our producers is, do you think Platner will stand this race? I absolutely think he's going to stay in the race. But more largely, what's your commentary here? So I struggle a lot with this.

I was disappointed to see how many Democrats just dismissed what is a very real allegation of abuse in the article. I assume by now that most people I have read it. Can you give us the cliff notes on that? Yes. Six women, six ex-girlfriends that they spoke to, four said Graham's a great guy. Like, yeah, you know, drank a lot. But no claims of abuse. Two said that it was unsettling or toxic behavior, one of whom this woman, Lindsay Fifeield,

who has a background in Republican politics. And they dated for a couple of years, but it has worked at places like the Heritage Foundation and was also the co-founder of a group called Ladies for Cavanaugh, about Brett Kavanaugh, accused Plattner of pulling her arm behind her back in the midst of a fight and shoving her into a room and locking the door. And she wasn't released until the morning after. And that's abuse to me. Like that, you know, if there have been like, you know, straight up dismissals of it without even saying we should look into this further, which I think is the safest place for people to be on this, you know, without saying like Grand Plattner categorically denied it. He went on with Chris Hayes.

He did like about a 25-minute interview with him. Hayes pushed him on a bunch of stuff, including whether he was talking to underage girls on that app, that kick app that we talked about last week to what actually happened with Lindsay Feifield. Platner says it didn't happen. The New York Times did nobody any favors, frankly, I think, in going to press with the piece as it was. because Lindsay Feifield and conservatives are, I wouldn't just say annoyed. They're livid about what happened because they say that Feifield had friends who were willing to corroborate on the record and that the Times didn't talk to them. And a bunch of them like Mary Catherine Ham, Bethany Mandel, have been posting on Twitter and other social media platforms that they knew about this and the Times didn't talk to them. There were also apparently two other women who had allegations of a social media.

by Platner and the Times didn't include them in the piece. And Fifeield alleges that they used, the Times used these other women to kind of lure her into doing this, you know, coming forward and then essentially like hung her out to dry. And this obviously, you know, harms the Platner camp without the Times being able to say that they could corroborate the story. And they made that very clear. They not only wrote it in the first iteration, then they updated it. essentially made that part of it even stronger, saying that they couldn't get independent corroboration of the story. So it's kind of just like sitting out there, right, without people being able to say like, this definitely happened or this definitely didn't happen. And then,

sorry, this is like the longest cliff notes you've ever read. But then the other element in this, or two of them that I'd say that are really important. One, it's up to the voters in Maine, who are not terminally online. A Platner was rallying all weekend. People were interviewed and said over and over again that they weren't considering ditching him, that they didn't see this as disqualifying, whether that's because they don't believe it, or they think that the threat of having Susan Collins again is just that big, that they're like, oh, we're going to take the imperfect guy who had PTSD, who put his life on the line for the country and has done a lot of things that I certainly, you know, would be not supportive of, you know, someone that I knew

or if I behaved that way. Like one older lady, she said, would I date him? No. But you're not asking me to date him, right? You're asking whether I want Susan Collins out of office and who's in best position. And then the other thing, Lindsay Feifield also told the times that Platner knew that the toten, what the toten cop the tattoo was when he got it, that actually him and his fellow service members chose it on purpose because they were quote unquote killers as well.

The idea that Platner got the tattoo, knowing full well that it was an SS symbol, really stands out as separate from what others have said about it. And I don't know, I found it curious, I guess, that none of the other girlfriends mentioned anything about it. If he felt so affectionately about it, you know, calling it my tot and cough and was like, I went out there and purposely chose this, would that have come up? And Platner sat on Chris Hayes' show, you know, would I have taken? taken my shirt off at my brother and sister-in-law's wedding when she's Jewish and her extended family are all Jewish if I knew what it was. Now, I personally don't think that he knew what it was when he got it. I think he found out and then he decided to just leave it there. But that's my rundown. Yeah, I kind of lay this a little bit at the feet of the Democratic Party that should be

doing the same opposition research before they get behind a candidate that the Republicans do once he becomes the candidate. I think a lot of these things are disqualifying at a point where we weren't risking a total loss of bodily autonomy for women. I mean, I'm really conflicted here because I feel as if running for Senate is you're saying I want to be in a policy position, this isn't a marriage proposal. And I read that article in the New York Times. We'll see where it goes and if other people come forward, but it felt that perhaps some people were being pushed to say things or framed them in a way that was beneficial to Republicans. And I don't mean it in any way to diminish these things, and I don't think we should see where this goes. But I'm sort of at a point where

the story isn't a scandal. I think the more interesting story is that Republicans have decided the margin for error for Republicans is much greater than Democrats, and that has not benefited Democrats. You know, Republicans survive scandals that would sink an aircraft carrier, and we're like Faberjé eggs falling down a flight of stairs. And not to say that these scandals aren't serious, but look at what Republicans have decided to overlook, and we'd like to think that at some point that will pay off for us. It hasn't. And so, again, I'm not as, I'm not as excellent. by the tattoo of military guys. And I don't think, I think it's, if your tattoo is one point in a pattern, I think heck Seth is a racist and a bigot. I think when you have a tattoo that might have really

uncomfortable associations, and you're also refusing to give women and people of color promotions in the military and removing the name of a gay rights activist, the first openly gay person elected to office, Harvey Milk from a frigate, I think that shows a pattern of bigotry. I think, Graham Platner's tattoo was a mistake, but I don't see a lot of data points that would support a pattern of bigotry. Is there a pattern of spousal abuse or domestic abuse? I would say there's some very concerning reports here. Is there a pattern yet? I don't know. I guess there'll be more reporting. And then that question becomes, even if there is a pattern, if we elect a guy who is what should be disqualifying, behavior that should be disqualifying, are we more concerned about the statement?

or the fact that tens of thousands of, you know, teenage girls of color who don't have a lot of options are going to have to carry a baby to term. So I'd like to think that we could apply greater standards. And I think that's another mark against Democratic leadership that didn't think to do this type of research before. But I'm sort of, at this point, I think that women's rights will be better served with this guy in the Senate, than a Senator Collins who continues to pretend

to give a good, God damn about women's rights or immigrants' rights or corruption in the White House and then vote the way Trump does. I mean, this is a tough one, but my pragmatist is like, I don't know.

I think our inability, our willingness, I don't even call it our purity test, but what should be a logical disqualifying actions, which these probably amount to at this point, our standards are not paying off for us and the American public will pay a price. It's just you want to shower after saying something like that,

but I think I'd still, I think the Democratic Party and the people they represent are still better off trying to do everything they can to get this guy elected. Your thoughts? I tend to come down on that side. And one other element that I would add to it is that this is a Democrat.

party conversation. I don't want to hear anything from the Republicans about it. And I said this on air, like, you know, the party of Trump, the party of Ken Paxton, who they're shoving down our throats in Texas, who's so bad that they all were campaigning against him. But then the people spoke. And they're, you know, having to tell us that James Tallerico is the bigger threat because he wore a mask for a little bit too long and you call him a soy boy. And, you know, there's this other guy, Max Miller, Republican congressman is accused of pouring boiling water on his wife during an argument. She's Bernie Moreno, the senator from Ohio's daughter. And like, you want us to be all exercised about Graham Platner right now. Doesn't mean we're not taking it seriously. And we'll see the

primary is tomorrow. And then there's still a mechanism in Maine that he could come off the ballot and could be replaced up until the middle of July. So it's going to be a very tense few weeks. for the party. But I think at this point, like, one thing I know for sure is that a Republican doesn't get to have an opinion as far as I'm concerned on what we do about this. I mean, it's just almost comical they would bring the shit up. But the problem is they know it works because they know we'll push the exit button, even if it means putting a Republican back such that we hold on to these standards. And I don't think it's, again, I don't think it's paying off for us. You just said something that I did not know that I think is really

interesting, and that as someone else could replace Plattenor. Yeah. Do you think that's a viable possibility? Is there a, is there, and it can't be Janet Mills, she brightens up a room by leaving it. She's, you know, she's literally going to leave for the governor's office feet first, probably soon. What about, is there a, is there a Mainer that the Democratic Party and Mainers could get

behind right now and swoop in and that, and potentially be kind of a white night here, so to speak? Well, what we really need to, if you're looking at this just as a strategic game, right? Like putting aside the morality question, like I said, I think that accusation is very serious, even if Lindsay Feifield is a Republican operative. The guy that people wanted was Jared Golden, who's the retiring congressman who had won main second district, always, you know, very good at holding a Trump district. And he came out a couple days ago and said that he would not be doing this. I don't know if that changes in a couple weeks if the party goes to him kind of hat in hand and says, these are the numbers, right?

Like, this is what we're going to get decimated because Susan Collins is an overperformer. I mean, she was tied or even behind Sarah Gideon and won by like eight and a half points in 2020. So I don't think that we can look at, you know, the close race right now, which is like she can't be underestimated. You know, she is weaker than she was six years ago. she's also physically weaker and we just don't talk about it when you listen to her talk. Her speech is more halting. She has a shaking thing going on. She has a palsy, yeah.

Yeah, and she's older, right? Like, this is part of the whole conversation we're having. Like, Janet Mills obviously told you shouldn't be starting at 78. So Jared Golden would be high in the list. Someone like a Jordan Wood maybe. You have to look also at the primary for governor and who comes out on top for that. and then maybe they could be slotted in. But I think in two weeks, we'll have a more solid picture of the electoral prospects of being

able to hold this because there is a path to a Senate majority for the Democratic side. If you take Maine off the board, then you need Iowa, which is feasible, but would be tougher. Like Maine is a blue state. Iowa is not a blue state. But, you know, this is actually the subject of the Monday Rage, our newsletter for Raging Moderate Sovereign should check that out. you know, what the path looks like. But in two weeks, we'll check in, and I think we'll have a better idea.

Big news this week for all my Gordon Geckos, my Robin Hooders, my Claude Squad Anthropic, which is newly the most valuable AI company in SeWorld, announced it would be going public. That news follows reporting that Open AI plans to go public as soon as September, and that that news follows reporting that Space X, which also considers itself an AI company, will be going public. in maybe just a few weeks from now. Welcome to the era of the Omega IPO. We are about to see millionaires, billionaires, and yes, probably even the world's first trillionaire

created overnight. And yes, it's that guy. This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. Change saw. But all the tech bros who are going to make all the money, they need our money way more than we need their products. And we're going to remind you why, on today, Explain from Vox.

Who is actually winning the war between Russia and Ukraine? Right now, it's clear that Ukraine is much more confident. Time now looks increasing on Ukraine's side, and there's no obvious reasons for them to negotiate a ceasefire in the near term just because the United States or somebody else wants it. 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, we discussed the war in Ukraine with Michael Kaufman, one of the leading analysts of the conflict who recently returned from the front lines. The episode's out now. Search for and follow The Long Game, wherever you get your podcasts. So just as we wrap up here, a quick update on the world of California politics, the Los Angeles mayoral race tightened again as more votes were counted, with Spencer Pratt narrowing the gap before Nitya Rahman ultimately emerged as the expected challenger to Karen Bass, or the number two. At the same time, federal prosecutors have announced multiple election fraud and investigations related to California elections.

Jess, what do you think the takeaways are from this race so far? As predicted, a blue town doesn't want a red mayor. And that doesn't mean that Spencer Pratt didn't tap into things that folks there are feeling about the rebuild, the homelessness problem, drug problems, misuse of funds. but like, I don't know, I had been saying this to my colleagues on the five. Like, the fact that you guys like him means that people who vote like me don't like him. And maybe if you had had a normie independent option, because he was running technically as independent, even though he's a registered Republican, you would have been able to get somewhere like a, you know, a Mike Bloomberg-esque type person. But none of this is surprising. And what's most not surprising is that they're calling it election.

fraud. And, you know, Megan Kelly's on her high horse saying, no one is going to trust this outcome of Steve Hilton and Spencer Pratt are eliminated from the general election. Well, guess what? You're likely to have Steve Hilton making it to the runoff. He's ahead of Tom Steyer and not Spencer Pratt, which seems like it makes complete sense, right? Like the guy that's running statewide and reads as a moderate Republican to people could get through and become the option against Bacera and that Spencer Pratt wouldn't make it. This is dangerous. This is their excuse to, you know, send election watchers, ICE, National Guard, all of it. And I go back to what I said, I guess on Thursday when we were chatting about it. In this environment, with a bunch of

lunatics who are in charge of our government at the top, it makes it very hard to take a risk on a Republican because he's going to let them have carte blanche to do whatever they want. And also, if we were cheating, you would have wanted Spencer Pratt on the ballot for November. It was is going to be easier for Karen Bass to win against Pratt versus Rahman, which I think could be quite a difficult race for Bass, frankly. Yeah, it would have been better for Bass if it had been Pratt versus, I'm really hardened by the fact that someone whose primary qualification to run from Maris at their house burned down came in third.

It gives me hope again. Also, I think the gubernatorial race is a silver lining here. Steyer was about money. Hilton is about celebrity and awareness. and it looks like confidence and experience is going to pull through with Bacera, at least so far. Pratt had no business running for office. I'm shocked he didn't do better. I thought he ran a credit where credit is due.

He ran a gray campaign. It was bold. It was on message. It was tapped into anger. It's interesting, though, it's pretty clear that Democratic machine in L.A. is still a machine. And more generally, I think Democrats, when they, you know, if there is going to be a governing organization, or not even a governing organization, but an organization that tries to make

the Democratic Party stronger, as the DNC is supposed to do, at some point they have to address candidate quality. And if our choices are between people with PTSD that have talking cops or women coming forward with allegations or socialists that are, you know, are they a socialist or are they an incompetent? The answer is yes. At some point, they have to figure out a way to start attracting better candidate, getting better candidate quality. I don't know. And having said that, I think our bench is so much deeper. But anyways, I'm...

2020, will be an affirmation of what is out there. And I think that we are actually seeing that in the, across the map in other ways, like the Sherrod Browns and the Roy Cooper's and the John Ossops of the world. But I think that you're right about the Pratt issue. And also, it seems like a lot of people didn't know they, you know, they live in L.A., but they don't vote for the L.A. because they have their own mayors. And there were a lot of disappointed folks.

So, yes, you can say Pratt ran a good campaign. Those ads went absolutely viral. But maybe this is also a check on a Twitter candidacy, right? And if your closing message is to, you know, get on air with Kaylee McEnany and say that, you know, you'd be open to jailing Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom and you're trying to win over L.A. liberals, that is perhaps not the smartest move you could make. and you should have stuck to local TV exclusively and hitting the streets, right? And going door to door and say, I'm Spencer Pratt and I'm asking for your vote. Like, that is still something that matters an enormous amount in politics. And, you know, L.A. is a big town.

But a lot of it wasn't even voting for the L.A. mayor. And that's where I think he really should have concentrated his time and effort, certainly with the closing message. Yeah. It appears that the line between politics and entertainment has disappeared. But the difference is Netflix occasionally cancels an underperforming show. And we don't seem to want to do that in politics. It really has become surreal. All right.

Let's leave it there, Jess. All right. Have a great rest of the weekend. Go Nix. Oh, he did it. Nix and four. Nixon for. Support for this show comes from Odu.

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