Tangle - Suspension of the rules. - Isaac, Ari and Kmele answer some big questions regarding the first year of Trump's presidency.

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

On todays mega episode of Suspension of the Rules, Isaac, Ari and Kmele answer some of the biggest questions regarding the first year of Trump's presidency. What happened how you expected in year one of Trump? What surprised you? The biggest pros and the biggest cons? All these questions and more get answered by Isaac, Ari and Kmele in this episode. Last but not least, The Airing of Grievances section.Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was hosted by: Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Jon Lall.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coming up, what happened how you expected in year one of Trump? What surprised you? The biggest pros and the biggest cons. Camille Ari and I are all going to answer these questions. It's a mega episode on the first year of Trump. It's a good one. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Suspension of the Rules podcast.

We have three real patriots who host this show, so we're very disappointed to hear that we're not going to be taking Greenlee. and by force, Donald Trump today. At Davos said, do you say in Davos or at Davos? I spoke like somebody who's never been there pleading. I am a normie, all right? That's what the show's all about. That's why we need Camille's two cents on that.

Yeah, Camille, what's Davos like? Have you even been to Davos? Donald Trump, just before we got on the show, this morning, really, actually, I guess we've had a couple hours to sit with it, has finally said, made explicitly clear in very Trumpian fashion that he will not be using force. He said that to the audience and then he did the thing.

He was like, that's the statement everybody's looking for is I won't be using force. He knows exactly what he's doing. I guess a brief exhale. Interesting times we're living in. I am in a fantastic mood today, gentlemen. I have personal news. I'm not ready yet to break on the show.

You guys sort of know what's going on. the world matters are all secondary to how good things are going for me. Three out of four. Divisional round picks hit. You're just clouding. Yeah. And we have a great show today. We're going to be doing the one-year Trump retrospective,

which we have not done yet in any Tangle forum. We have a Friday edition in the newsletter coming out this week. That's a little bit, actually is a lot around a kind of one-year objective check-in. But we're going to do some of the subjective stuff. Before we jump into that, though, which I will sit at the table for, curious for your guys' reactions. Last week, we were here talking about Greenland or Iceland, depending on what kind of mood you're in.

Who really cares? They're basically the same. We had a little bit of a worry about what Trump was going to do. We covered it in the podcast and the newsletter. Does this move the needle for you at all? Today's speech, which had a lot of element. I mean, we could do a whole show on just the speech that Trump just delivered. But I think the promise to not go into Greenland with the military is the highlight.

And then Trump announced on truth social the vague notion of some deal in the works that he seems happy about. So I take all of that as good news. Are you guys in that same space right now? I mean, he definitely made it clear that that's his position today. And that's the way that I'm reacting to it. I will wait to see what his position tomorrow will be. Maybe he's going to gamble Puerto Rico if we lose the ski luge to Denmark and we'll get Greenland if we beat them at cross-country.

I don't know. But Winter Olympics I'm hyped for. That's where my head's at. I'm not in Davos. I'm in Turin thinking about that. Yeah, I think it's more weird news than good news. It's bizarre that this happens to be the highlight coming out of. of the World Economic Forum in Davos last year this time

when the president was zooming in to the meeting there, although I don't know which technology they used. This isn't what he was talking about. In fact, it is like national defense policy document that was released just in December, which is where you lay out all of the most urgent priorities for the country. That Greenland was not mentioned.

So it's kind of weird that we've been wondering, is he serious about this? How serious is he? Is military, is the military option? Is the military option on the table? Apparently not, which is good. Apparently, he's climbed down from the whole thing, although we're waiting to see details on this. So, yeah, this was a weird episode. Yeah, no more terrorist now.

For lots and lots of people. Yeah, not today. Yeah, not today. Not for now. Yeah, February, the February 1st tariffs, he says, are now on pause. Yeah, I mean, you know, to Ari's very co-exam. one-sentence points. This is all just asterisks, Wednesday afternoon, what we know, think, believe to be true. I suppose things could change. I personally will take a dub and this as good,

not weird news. The dub is that I never thought we were actually going to do anything with the military in Greenland, which I've said repeatedly entangle, despite the fact that I've loathe the rhetoric coming out of the administration. And the good news is that we're not going to do anything with the military, hopefully, in relation to Greenland, because that would be insane since they are owned by a NATO ally. Okay. I don't want to spend too much time on Davos, which in my personal opinion, honestly, matters less and less every year. At Domos. Yeah, at Davos. This year, this was some interesting news to follow. We have a big show today that I think we're going to do best to do in some concise and efficient fashion, but it's not going to be easy. Because we have not

really done a one-year retrospective of the Trump administration. It is January 21st as we record this show. Donald Trump was inaugurated on January 20th. Also, the day my son was born. Pretty interesting day in my household, as you can imagine. And we should step back. I think any opportunity like this, the one-year milestones, the new year election season, things like that, prompt a little space for us to leave the kind of day-to-day week-to-week plunge that we're always doing and look at how things are going in this sort of broad 30,000-foot top-level sense. So I sent over to the two of you four prompts,

and what's going to happen on the show today is we are going to go around and each answer these four prompts individually and talk a little bit about each other's answers and poke at them and gab, I hope. and try and see what we can suss out about how this first year is gone in about as subjective of fashion as you can do it. As I mentioned, this Friday, we also have a podcast and a newsletter coming out where we created a bunch of metrics in January of 2025 that we released

that we were going to track throughout the Trump presidency, and we're going to check those metrics, things like gas prices, interest rates, economy, number of jobs created, that sort of stuff. We're going to do the very objective, you know, down the middle numbers data side. And today we're going to do the really subjective analysis. How are we feeling personally in our hearts, in our guts, and just get a check on where things are going? So the four prompts are what happened, how you expected, what surprised you, what you think the biggest pros have been so far, and what you think the biggest cons have been so far of the Trump administration. I think this gives us some pretty wide latitude to get in a lot of different stuff.

So we'll try our best to keep the convo moving. But I come into this having little idea about where the two of you are going to land. So I'm very curious to hear your guys' thoughts after a year of chatting it up about this administration together. And I think we should start in the order that I kind of give you guys these prompts, which is first, what happened how you expected? So the things that you saw coming that happened basically how you expected them to happen. Ari, I think maybe we'll start with you and go to Camille and then we can finish with me on this first one. What has happened so far in the Trump administration that sort of went how you expected in your estimation?

Now, I'm going to say this in a way that I think could make some people react strongly one way or the other, which is all the Project 2025 stuff. I think if you're a critic of Trump coming into this administration... Sorry, really quick. I thought you were going to say, I'm going to rephrase your question and do the thing where you like change the question. I was asking, I was about to shut the whole show down.

So I appreciate it. I mean, I'm annoying in some ways, but I think I'm really literal about question asking. So I'm going to respond to your prompt specifically with my feelings and my brain, which is where my feelings are. And when I'm talking about the Project 2025, stuff. I mean the chapters about the control the executive has on the executive branch and the way in

which he can exhibit that control. I think a lot of liberals looked at Project 2025 through a lens primarily about abortion at the time, which we'll get to, I'm sure, later. But the things that stood out to me in that document that we covered in Tangle when we were talking about it were the unitary executive theory and that Trump has the ability to reclassive. federal workers to fire them to do so without the authorization of Congress and to generally run the entirety of the executive branch and do so purposefully, aggressively, and in ways that are unchecked. That happened day one. It came out of the gate running. We saw mass layoffs. We saw reclassification of employees to be able to be fired. We saw

government efficiency initiatives with Musk and Doge, which if you're paying attention to the run-up to the election as well as the run-up to the inauguration, we're no surprise. We knew that Musk and Trump were going to work closely together. So there's the first couple weeks, those first couple months, exactly the stuff he said he'd focus on,

he'd focused on. Also not surprised that he just undid all of Biden's executive orders, not surprised that he initiated a string of them. We're moving ourselves from Paris. the Paris Accords, climate accords, not a surprise. There's no focus on climate whatsoever in any of the documents leaning up to the administration, the fact that that's something that here we've moved us from on day one. Along with abortion, again, which we'll get to later, is one of those things where the most unsurprising things are the omissions that today you have to actually force yourself to remember. We're not talking about climate change with this administration. We're not talking about abortion at all. And when you really look at the way Trump was messaging coming out of the election, that really shouldn't be a surprise. And the last thing that I'd say for what went about as I expected to is that if you're paying attention not just the things Trump said in the election, but the ways that he went about

his business before wasn't terribly surprising the way that he went about it again, which is want to do things with big, splashy news events, big splashy statements. actions like bombing in Nigeria, the bombing in Iran, the executive fiat about sending the National Garden to places, all of those individual things definitely didn't see coming, but the way in which he's trying to pursue his policy initiatives, through these big actions that grab headlines, also somewhat in line with the person Trump is, as well as his pushback on people that he saw as enemies. All of this stuff we're going to talk about in other categories, but the tenor coming out of the White House

when he took in the office, generally a lot of things flow from that, and all of that was not a surprise given the way that he ended his campaign coming into the inauguration. I appreciate that list. I want to go back to Project 2025 really quick. I mean, I've personally gotten a lot of heat

about this from the Tangle audience, so it's hard for me not to take the bait when you bring it up. I mean, my position going into, of the election was Trump is obviously going to pursue some of the things that are in Project 2025, but this document is effectively a wing of the conservative movement trying to wrestle its way into the Trump administration and influence what he was doing. And there was clear overlap and clear association, but I didn't think it was quite fair to sort of say, this is Trump's

blueprint coming into office. We're going to do a really big addition on this. We're going to do a really big addition on this and basically go back and revisit that coverage. I would say my thesis is still there's enough gaps between what Trump is done and what Project 2025 set out to do that I don't think it's fair to describe it as the blueprint. And we're going to talk about actually some of the other elements of the conservative movement and the blueprints of the conservative movement that maybe have been more aligned with Trump. But that's a fair call out that it's been kind of unsurprisingly. the sort of, if there is a thing that he's done that's been super in line with Project

2025, it is the theory and view of executive power, which is basically that it's unlimited. And then you said the Office of Management and Budget as a policy arm of the president. That's something that a lot of presidents wouldn't have thought in the past. And I clarify, because you're right, a lot of people said this is a blueprint, a blueprint towards fascism specifically. And it was a relatively simple. I wouldn't say it was easy or straightforward, but kind of ideologically, like to imagine a simple exercise

to take up one part, one set of factors, which was what's in Project 2025, one set of things that this is what's in Agenda 47, this is what Trump's talking about, look at the way those things overlap and see the middle of the Venn diagram and go, that's what he's going to do.

And in the middle was executive power trying to fire a lot of people in the government and trying to do efficiency initiatives. What was outside on Trump's end was focused on abortion. He's like, state starts the issue

in the past, not doing it. And the things that were in the other side for Project 2025 were all mostly about abortion. And climate change policies, he didn't pursue, like, a lot of rollbacks as aggressively, I think.

And that's a secondary thing. thing we don't have to get into the way that the EPA acted post-Trump or in the Trump era. But I will just underscore the biggest difference was the thing that I think a lot of people from the left were focusing on going in, which was all the abortion talk. Talk about the executive, that's the thing that we should be remembering as this is what came true from Project 2025. Camille, any thoughts, questions, or probes on Ari's thesis there? I mean, I'm inclined to agree with a lot of that. I share your skepticism coming into the administration about Project 2025 and the amount of attention it was getting. I certainly think that to the extent there's anything that can be said about how much of a role it's played, I think Ari has hit the nail on the head. It is this expansion of executive power. But this is also something that we've seen happen across many, many administrations. Every single new president seems to want to expand the office further. Even Barack Obama, who came in. into office talking explicitly about the need to constrain the presidency, went ahead and expanded

executive power in important ways that are still having repercussions today. We've talked specifically about his drone program, which almost certainly set the stage for some of the unilateral action that President Trump has taken, which I'll probably talk a little bit about later on, because this is not in my things that I predicted or expected anyways to happen to refer specifically back to the prompt. But thinking about these year ones, It brought to mind for me just the contrast between Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0 and Trump 1.0, year one, by the end, we're looking at this administration that was in perpetual disarray. Certainly he was up against Russiagate and a bunch of scrutiny and criticism, much of it legitimate, some of it a little less so. But what's stood out to me is just how dysfunctional the leadership team was.

The cabinet was in open rebellion, at least fighting with one another openly. There were these abrupt, terminations taking place, people getting fired on Twitter, people who's tenured less, who could have been measured in days. It was a complete clown show. And coming into the second Trump administration, I expected them to be a bit more professional, that they knew a little bit what it was that they wanted to try to achieve. He'd had four years in the wilderness. He did have people who were working on things like Project 2025, at least thinking about policy in some way, shape or form. And he clearly came in with a particular governing philosophy, if you can call it that. As Ari said, kind of these pronouncements by Fiat. But I think more importantly, this is an administration

that is largely stuck together. You watched yesterday in the lower press office, they had this massive gathering, a lot of influencer slash journalists in the room there who were applauding enthusiastically. The various members of Trump's cabinet are always going around the room talking about the greatness of the president, the dear leader, because it has kind of almost North Korean vibe to it. So that's something that I expected them to be a lot more organized. I'm perhaps surprised to some degree by the degree to which the president has kind of demonstrated his ability to kind of control the party there. And beyond that, I think the persistent improvisation from the president is another thing that we've come to expect, him just kind of floating ideas,

talking about these payments to service members, the payments related to the tariffs. And none of this stuff is actually getting done legislatively at the moment. It isn't clear that any of it will come to fruition. In some instances, he mentions it and you never really hear from it again. Where there's some question afterwards, like, did I say that? Yeah, you did. Not surprising, very much in keeping with the president. And I also mentioned Doge, which we talked a little bit,

about the World Economic Forum. And last year, when the president zoomed into the World Economic Forum, he talked about Doge. That was one of the few items that he talked about. He highlighted how it was going to be important and revolutionary and game-changing. And that project, I think it is fair to call it a failure. When Elon Musk is openly admitting that it didn't really move the needle, that it isn't something that he would do again,

I think it's pretty fair to talk about it in terms of, the promise of a program like Doge, or someone who personally is generally in favor of limited government and wouldn't mind seeing some curtailments happen. The kind of chaotic execution was astounding, but the most important, and I think perhaps salient point, is that the actual stated objective of curbing government spending,

braining it in, doesn't really seem to have been achieved at all. Like these really expensive packages that were given out to people, forcing, attempting to force people out and get them to take these early resignations when, in fact, it seems like to the extent people did accept those packages, it was people who were leaving anyways. So they made them more expensive. And again, it's just the general dysfunction that was caused by the way that it was executed almost certainly means that the imagined gains will never, ever materialize for much of these cuts. So those are the things that stand out to me as not at all

surprising. But I'm very, very curious to hear your thoughts on all this, I mean, first of all, I'll just say on the, on the Doge cuts, the, I mean, just this week, literally just this week, the House is passing appropriation bills that are, I mean, they're just funding the government at the exact same levels Biden did. And in some cases, adding funding. Like, it is, yeah, I mean, there's no framework for Doge. in my view that you can call it a success. I mean, there's a rhetorical framework where I think they made people more aware of some of these issues and everybody became like a spending and appropriations expert for two weeks, you know. And some of that's good. Like, you know, I'm being good,

but it's good. It's a good thing for people to care about and pay attention to and talk about. But now we're a year later, Doge is basically dead. Musk is gone. There's, we're getting reports that they were, you know, taking data from the Social Security Administration and trying to give it to these groups looking into election fraud, which now there might be charges about that. Trump's DOJ actually might prosecute that. And just this week, Congress is passing all these appropriations bills that are just re-uping funding at Biden levels, which is like that is where the spending, those meaningful spending cuts happen. No, I really, first of all, Camille, I like the, you, you didn't say it quite explicitly, but the answer for you about what didn't surprise you was that this Trump

administration has been more orderly and less sort of chaotic than Trump 1.0. Is that right? Because there was a segue there that you used, but that in relation to what Ari said. But that is, I think, a pretty good answer. I mean, I think I hadn't thought of that until you said it, but I definitely expected them to be less chaotic and a little bit more organized than they were Trump 1.0. And it's crazy to go back and think about how much backstabbing and leaking and firings. And, you know, it was so nutty. And there's stuff that's happening now that feels pretty crazy to me. But for the most part, this administration's been fairly buttoned up.

I mean, they're very accessible to the media. but there hasn't been a ton of turnover. There hasn't been a ton of backstabbing. There hasn't been all the palace intrigue stories. You know, Susan Wiles, who gave that wild interview, she does seem to be running a really tight ship. And so that's a really good answer that I hadn't considered. My, what has happened, how you expected response,

is the deportation stuff, which, you know, is also on the list of my, biggest cons to foreshadow a little bit. But I mean, this was one of the drums that I was beating in November before the election happened, in December after it happened, and all throughout the first few months of the Trump administration, which is just, if you're going to do a mass deportation effort, there's going to be violence. It is going to require a huge amount of federal law enforcement. There will be civil disobedience and pushback. And, there will be people whose rights are getting violated at scale in a way that we've never really

seen before. And those were all things that I thought were going to happen. And those are things that are now very clearly happening. And I mean, I'm not really sure, you know, I read a Will Leach who used to be a Deadspin editor. He wrote this really powerful newsletter that it feels today like getting someone to change their mind about a political view is like trying to convince a Yankees fan to be a Red Sox fan. Like your odds are that good. And it is that, like the fandom for what side you're on is that ingrained.

And it really struck me like, you know, I'm a diehard Washington commanders, formerly Redskins football fan. And you couldn't, you could put a gun in my head. And I'll never say a nice thing about the Dallas Cowboys. Like, you just, you couldn't do it. And I was like, you know, I mean, I hate them. the Eagles too. I live in Philadelphia and I hate the Eagles. I live with that every day.

And when you said it, I thought, like, what, you know, is it to that extent? And maybe it's not quite that, but it's close. And so I know talking about this ice stuff for people who maybe are on the other side of it, it's going to be really hard to compel them to my view, which is that this is a huge federal overreach. But I mean, we just saw one of the things that stopped me in my tracks this week was this Minneapolis police chief, or maybe he was the St. Cloud Police Chiefs, oh, police chief in Minnesota held a press conference

and said that he's now had multiple reports of off-duty police officers in his force being stopped by ICE, all people with not white skin, and having their civil rights violated, that they've come to him with stories that they were pulled over in Minnesota by ICE and told to show their papers

and refuse and say, I'm a police officer, and then they back off when they hear that or they show some proof that they're an officer and they back off. But one of them had a story about ICE officers, like approaching her car with their guns drawn, demanding that she show them her papers when she's just like a Hispanic police officer

who's a U.S. citizen who is off duty and out of uniform. So there is insane stuff happening, and that part was exactly what I thought was going to happen with the deportation efforts. I don't know if you guys, I mean, I'd be curious if you guys feel like that was something that was predictable or if when I made those points before the election, that felt compelling. But it is unfortunately kind of lived up to what my nightmare scenario was so far. I mean, there's a meta-analysis here of a little tension between Camille's point, a little bit of mine and your point of like chaos versus order where the team around Trump has been. playing from the same playbook, but the plays have been mostly disordered.

So everyone's sort of calling the same play and executing it, but then the execution's been haphazard at best. It's starting even Isaac with the Camille, the Abrago Garcia helped me out. I forgot his first name. Some of this. Between those names. Just a little. No, his first name, though, is similar.

Kilmar, Abrago Garcia. Oh, Ambrero Garcia. From the beginning, there was some disorder. I don't think I was as forward with my expectation that there would be confrontation with ICE and federal enforcement officers and between them and protesters or just citizens and due process rights extending to citizens.

It seems like the easiest call in the world to make. I think I was probably a little bit chastened by when I was, like in 2015, 2016, when I was not, as clued into politics and I was just sort of a software engineer following stuff. I was like, oh, man, he's going to start mobilizing police forces and stuff's going to get really, really aggressive. And then that didn't happen, especially not the first year or two up until like the summer of the George Floyd protests and riots. But that reaction, I remember feeling internally at the time of like, man, I was wrong about that. And I can't make that same expectation this time

because, I don't know, looking at the pattern, it probably won't happen again. And I think that was a really good call out. Well, let me ask you, what do you think felt different coming into 2024 compared to 2016? What do you mean what felt different coming into? Do you think you would have made that same call in 2016

of, oh, there's going to be violent? Oh, the deportation stuff. Right. Yeah. No, I mean, first of all, the scale of what Trump was promising was different. I mean, maybe he was saying back then that he was going to deport everybody in 2016, 2015. It's mostly like a wall, I think.

It was mostly the wall. It was a lot about keeping people out. These were explicit promises that this was going to happen. And he was, I mean, he said plainly what he was going to do. It was, I'm going to dump money into ice. We're going to send in the National Guard to cities that disobey and where there are protesters. And we're going to round up all the criminals and people here illegally and ship them out. I mean, to his credit, there was no concealment about what he was going to do and a bunch of people voted for it.

So I think there's a lot of people, I'm sure, who didn't imagine it was going to look or feel like this. I definitely think there's not a lot, but enough buyers remorse about what we're seeing on that side of stuff that, you know, we've seen Trump's approval on immigration plummet, which is his signature issue. And I think that's notable that there are a lot of them. Americans who want fewer immigrants or want immigration to be illegal immigration to be reduced, but they don't want what we're seeing in Minneapolis. And that distinction matters. Like if you're the Trump administration politically, you have to find a way to keep support from the people who want those things without

doing this sort of extreme stuff that they don't like. So yeah, no, I mean, it felt different. The rhetoric felt different. And to Camille's point, I expected them to be more organized and prepared and efficient as a governing body. And they have been. I mean, they're, again, they're doing the thing that they said they were going to do. However ugly, I think it is, it's happening basically as they scripted it. We'll be right back after this quick break.

All right. We should move to our next one. So, again, we're doing what happened, how you expected, what surprised you, biggest pros, biggest cons. So the next prompt here is what surprised you. And I went last on the last one. So I'll start on this one. My biggest surprise from this administration is actually Trump's focus on foreign policy. And it took me a while to get there.

I mean, I sat on this for a little bit to think about, you know, what has really, what's like a consistent thread that has just kind of been like, oh, whoa. And, you know, there's the stuff like they actually. bomb the Iran nuclear facilities. They actually captured Maduro. But I think the biggest, the overarching one is just how much political bandwidth and currency the administration is using on foreign policy issues. And the reason I say that is just the Trump brand and the whole, I mean, this like unifying principle that brought together, you know, Trump, J.D. Vance to, you know, Peter Thiel to Marco Rubio.

It's like it is this America first focus. Everything is about U.S. national interests. Trump has just hammered over and over again the inflation stuff, the economy, immigration. I mean, he won on a message about bringing prices down and fixing the insane immigration crisis that happened under President Biden. And I follow the news religiously. I wake up and, you know, main line at 12 hours a day. And so, so much of the stuff Trump talks about in press conferences, the talking points, his team is circulating, the policy focus, you know, literally legislative, executive action,

what he's doing. I mean, it's tariffs. It's the war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine. It's confronting China. Six other wars, but, yeah. Yeah, Israel, Iran, India, Pakistan. Now the Greenland stuff, the Venezuela stuff, the West. hemisphere. I mean, like, I can't, I literally, aside from the ICE deportation stuff,

I struggle to think of like, you know, a couple two, three, four big domestic issues that he's been really consistent on and hammering. The health care plan he just rolled out felt like a total afterthought, but it's like, it's all foreign policy stuff. And that is really surprised me. It was not what I was expecting from the administration. So I think that would be the big one. And then the sort of secondary to that is just how fast the border crossings plummeted. Because we heard from Biden literally for months. And this was the talking point I parroted was they need Congress. Like you can't fix the border without Congress and there aren't enough executive actions to make it happen. And then Trump came in and he just did it. I mean, literally,

like the first month. And now we are at record low crossings month after month after month, which is remarkable. And as somebody who wants less illegal immigration because it's a strain on the system and it hurts the people trying to come here legally. It hurts the legit asylum seekers. I mean, it's a good thing when we have lower illegal immigration at the border. I think this is a good thing. It's a win for Trump.

But I was, yeah, pretty astonished at how fast that. happened. I didn't expect that. All right, I'm going to popcorn you, Camille, next, but I'm happy to, you know, take any pokes or pushes at those stances. Well, I'll agree vociferously with your forward policy take. I suspect that that really has been the biggest surprise of the administration, to be totally frank, and for precisely the reason you flagged. I mean, he ran a very different, as a very different sort of candidate, promising a very different sort of national security vision. we're not going to get involved in all these foreign entanglements. We're going to focus on affordability.

And you're right, it's been largely absent. And in fact, one of the biggest surprises for me related to that is just the kind of conspicuous underutilization of this unified control of D.C. that President Trump has enjoyed. They're not getting anything done in Congress. They're not even trying. The great big, beautiful bill was kind of the last thing. And like the health care policy that's recently been announced,

it was kind of an afterthought. The details are strange. It was contradictory in certain ways. And even now, I don't think most people really know what it is or why it matters to them in much the same way that they have a very difficult time imagining why Greenland ought to matter to them. So I suspect that's one of the things. There was a kind of laundry list of other things that were a bit of a surprise to me, the fact that Musk and Trump made up so quickly after Musk called him a pedophile publicly.

is very surprising to me. In fact, I suspect at the moment that that happened, Isaac, you suggested that they would get back together, and I was very skeptical of that assertion, but maybe I'm misremembering that. And I think the unusual volume of Republican resignations from Congress has been a bit of a surprise as well. And it feels like it's sort of at an almost historic level.

In fact, I remember reading an analysis in PBS that suggested something like 10% of them were either not running again, we're looking to move to another elected office, someplace else. And perhaps this is an indication of their concern that there is something to worry about with respect to Republicans' ability to actually hold on to control of the House, the long-term prospects for Republican political leadership. the president has been able to maintain a surprising amount of control over the party and to really, really dictate the narrative around so many different issues, specifically with respect to tariffs, a place where, of course, he ran and talked openly about his love and affection for tariffs,

the fact that he wanted this to be a really big piece of his agenda. But Republicans have historically had a lot of concerns about this. and I fully expected there to be more dramatic confrontations over this that it would be somewhat moderating force. But when Freedom Day came or Liberation Day, Freedom Day feels better to me. But Liberation Day came, they were largely silent. And even now with the Greenland, I don't know what to even call it at this point,

but perhaps just a memory, you know, We're getting 100, 200% tariffs promised that might take effect in a matter of weeks. And largely Republicans were silent. It's like really surprising stuff. And then the last thing I throw in there is just Democrats. They're conspicuously absent and quiet. There's just not a really well-organized kind of resistance to the administration at this point. There's no clear leadership.

There's no clear coherent agenda. I suspected that they would be in a bit of a disarray, and perhaps they just need a little bit more time. But I didn't suspect it would be like this, especially not against the backdrop of things that are happening at the moment. That's my answer to bang on, is the voraciousness with which Trump is controlled media. I don't know if there's something you want to add to that, Isaac, before I spit on on mine, but I think that's a huge point.

No, that's interesting. I mean, I was just going to say related to the Republicans retiring, It is remarkable. They control the House and the Senate and the White House, and many of them are fleeing. I mean, that part of it is surprising to me, too. I think I wouldn't put it on the list for me because we've seen that dynamic in the past, and I think it's just indicative of how much trouble Trump causes for some of these people. There doesn't, they've, it's not just Trump, I should say.

A, I think Trump puts a lot of pressure on Republicans you step out of line and they don't, you know, Marjorie Taylor Green is a great example. Why would she stay in it? Like she said, I'm not going to ruin my life and drag my district through a terrible primary because I'm beefing with the president. So whatever, I'm out.

I think that's like a pretty rational. It's just like, this is going to suck. I'm going to run for nine months with the president endorsing my opponent. Like, no thanks. I'm out. But we've heard also, there have been a ton of stories about how Congress, working Congress has just become a terrible.

job and a lot of people just don't want it anymore. And that story has been on repeat for eight years now. And they just say it's gridlock. Nobody talks to each other. Lobbyists. It's such a deranged combative environment to live in. Yeah. So they're just like, whatever. I'm out. And I, yeah, I guess that part of it makes it a little more predictable. But you're right, given the context, it is pretty odd. But okay, go ahead. Are you were saying that the Trump domination of the media is another one Right, and sort of related to what Camille's saying about the lack of a hashtag resistance or democratic pushback. When you think back to 2016, Trump takes office amid already scandal. Not only was there the Access Hollywood tape and Stormy Daniels rumors going into the election,

but then we had the Russia collusion theory dominate the media for honestly two years. At the same time, there was pushback to the Hillary Clinton email. saga, the first major story that I remember covering as a piece of policy, well, not covering, but reading about getting covered as a piece of policy was Trump's nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, which again was another step of mired in scandal. At the same time, that kicked up a story of all of these departures from the cabinet and other political appointments. And it seemed like from year after year, it was Trump stumbling into one big thing he had to answer for one giant scandal or pushback or media narrative that he could not control to another

up until COVID and George Floyd. And then it was just completely out of his hands. And it was all about the pushback to Trump and Trump's agenda. Now, I mean, compare that to inauguration. There's a big reason why people were making such a fuss about the front row of that inauguration being CEOs of tech companies, especially social media companies. It was a big reason why people were making was such a stark contrast between where the media landscape, especially the online social media landscape was in 2016 compared to 2024, where it is a lot different out there. Companies are lining up to try to get a favor of the White House. Trump is not at all afraid to use political and economic power to try to push forward his agenda, not just with media companies, not just with

law firms, as we've seen, or political enemies, but with universities, with foreign countries that are supposed allies of ours with allegiances. It's been full court press the whole time, and it has sent the message, and that message was received and acting on early, that if you just play a little bit of ball, you're going to be able to get what you want. So what we've had so far is no democratic control of the narrative whatsoever, to the point where even Republicans in Congress, to Camille's point, aren't even able to get their story de jour in. So the only thing that Democrats had had to talk about, this is the most

unexpected part to me is they're banging the Epstein drum. Democrats are the ones that are just banging the Epstein Trump after what we heard about the dismissal of it as a big thing during the Biden administration and how Republicans were driving it

and people on the right were mostly the ones bringing that populist concern up. The reason they're doing it is just because it's the only where they can get in edgewise, it feels like. And instead, Trump is just bringing us from one headline that he's crafting

and controlling to another. It's Zelensky, it's Putin, it's Israel, it's Gaza, it's tariffs, it's Canada not playing a ball, it's the Supreme Court ruling about trans cases. Even that, like, that's not even something that's necessarily in his control, but it's something that's working out to his favor,

and the administration is just racking up these media narrative setting points at one after the other. And I can't think of even one instance. Okay, I can think of one instance. Okay, I can think of one. instance, where Democrats have been able to get the narrative that they want in the headlines and push control, which was the elections in 2025, when Mandani won mayor, when affordability became

a buzzword, and then we're on to talking about strikes in Iran or strikes in Nigeria, Venezuela boats, and it's an afterthought. The whole landscape entirely has been completely flipped compared to what it was in 2016, and I would not have expected that. Yeah, that's good. That's a good one. The Epstein stuff, I remember specifically when it started happening. I think I tweeted something like, did not have on my bingo card Democratic members of Congress, like banging about, bang on about the Epstein file. Yeah, with Marjorie Taylor Green, shoulder to shoulder. Yeah, that is a really good one. No, I mean, it's interesting to think about the media lessons learned, I guess, from the first Trump era. For me, it was like, there's a lot of like my lessons that I took away from it was, A, a lot of the stories that come out from mainstream publications were used to, if there's errors or mistakes in them, they're typically going one. way, and you need to guard yourself against that by not jumping to conclusions.

There was a lot of really unfair stuff published about Trump. B, Trump is going to say a ton of totally insane, unhinged stuff that is unlike anything you've ever heard from any president. And you sort of need to be able to, like, delineate between what's him blowing off steam and just having some weird episode that's very Trumpian versus. what's like a real signal about what direction he's going and is a serious kind of. And that's still really hard. Like sometimes he posts stuff that's just like, I'm going to put Hillary in jail and here

she is in an orange suit. And it's like, dude, it's 2025. And you're just like, oh, Trump's just like blowing off steam on truth social or whatever, you know. And then other times... I don't want to get sleep. Yeah. And then other times he's posting stuff about tariffs or, you know, slapping a 100% tariff on Canada.

and it sounds crazy, but you're like, oh, this is real. Like, this is something that could go from truth, social, the policy pretty quickly. So you have to kind of delineate between those things. And then the third is just like, when are they flooding the zone because there's bad news out there that they don't want enough attention on? Which, like, Steve Bannon has the famous quote about flooding the zone with shit, which is true. But you just observed the administration long enough.

and you can see it. I mean, they're really good at trying to distract when their backs are against the wall a little bit. I think, honestly, I think we're seeing it a little bit right now with the ice stuff, and it's getting really ugly and bad, and it's like, we've got the health care plan, all the Greenland threats. Trump is out in front of the press.

He's doing tons and tons and tons of interviews right now. And I think it's because they know they're losing like a really important PR battle. And those are some lessons that I'd say, from it. And to your point, Ari, I mean, I don't know the 2024 version of him and the coverage of him has not really changed in a meaningful way from what happened the first time around. And I think that has

surprised me a little bit. It doesn't feel like we've learned much as a, like the media as a, the quote-unquote media as an incalemeterate. I personally don't feel that way. I mean, I see maybe a little more caution on stories that break and how legit they are and how well-sourced they are. But on the whole,

I haven't really seen any sort of approach or coverage of Trump where I was like, oh, this is different or innovative or, you know, they're putting a different lens. It's just, it's a lot, it's like the right-wing media outlets are doing the sycophantic dear leader stuff

and the left-wing outlets are like every single story is hair on fire, you know, like he changes the name of the Kennedy Center, he's going to build a ballroom. And it's like, this does not have to be the end of the world story. Like nobody cares actually outside of this very elite media savvy circle. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that feels right to you guys. That's kind of my idea. I don't know that I agree. Yeah, I don't know if I agree either. In fact, the next section is supposed to be biggest pros.

And one of my twists on the question was to suggest that I think the media coverage is actually improved in material ways. Beautiful. Let's go there. Let's go there. We're at Biggest Pros. And Camille, you haven't read yet. So let's hear it, maybe. I just don't think I see nearly as much sensationalism.

I do think a lot of the reporting seems to be really by the numbers. yesterday. There's been both reporting about this in multiple publications and a very large kind of feature editorial in the New York Times about the corruption of the Trump administration, the self-enrichment that's been going on. I thought there was perhaps one detail of the story with the plane that I might not give him kind of full credit for, but the fact that they've been pocketing all of this money from crypto, that his kids are kind of making all this cash, just a lot of really good reporting about that. And perhaps it's kind of almost too technical and too by the numbers

and maybe needs to be a little more incendiary to generate some attention. But I appreciate that that is the way the reporting has happened. I think even with the situation with respect to ICE and the overreach is there, I think there's been a lot of really good reporting, people actually figuring out who got deported, what the numbers are. The administration isn't always being exceptionally forthcoming. and there's just been a much better, I think a meaningful correction with respect to just kind of the tenor of the coverage. So I think in that regard, things have changed for the better.

I think the sycivancy of the right-wing coverage is correctly flagged. But I do think in general, the mainstream coverage has improved in marked ways. I think even the success of people like Abby Phillips on CNN and various other places where people are having discussions again in ways that didn't really seem to happen before, I think has actually been really, really healthy, is generally beneficial, and probably isn't always all that great for the Trump administration. It's one of those things.

It's one thing when the entirety of the media apparatus is focused on you in a critical way. It's another thing when your guy is at the table. They're actually mixing it up, and they're not doing a great job selling your policies. When someone who's sitting across from you, giving you an interrogation on 60 minutes is just kind of asking you the questions about your immigration policy in a straightforward way. And the answer you give just reveals that apparently

everyone is a suspect at all times, at all places, because wherever you go is essentially a part of an investigation. That's important, but that only happens when you're doing really good good journalism in my estimation. Yeah, and I think my answer's or my pushback to Isaac's claim is kind of a compliment to that, which isn't that I'm noticing all of these ways

where the media is doing a better job, but I'm noticing the ways where they aren't as uniformly hysterical, I think. Rather than, there's this thing I talked about with Will, our senior editor, Will Kayback, about how it was almost a trope towards, like, around the midterms or at the beginning of Trump's presidential campaign in

2023, that every article about Trump had to start out with three paragraphs listing all of the scandals that he'd been in in his life. And it's like, Trump, comma, 79, comma, who is currently facing four like federal fraud investigations and has been indicted. Also, he blah, blah, and it was every story. And we're like, we know, we know who Trump is. And we know what your thoughts are. And we know what's going on. Thank you. Get to the story. I don't think that's happening as much anymore. It feels like, to your point, it has been a little bit more patrician. And I do think that's generally good.

I think it's not the media's job to try to expound their own feelings about the story through the margins of it. As much as possible, we want to try to take that away, to be aware of it and then scale it back. And then when it's our space to try to give our opinions, we can do it. But we want to try to be aware of where those thoughts are and remove them from the margins. so that the reader can make up their mind for themselves. And I think by and large, that's been happening more. But that's just my compliment to that one point that you have. Since we're on pros, you probably have mortalists.

Yeah, I mean, no, that's good. I appreciate the gut check there. And maybe I'm being too cynical. I'm open of being wrong about that. I guess my perspective is, that I don't feel, I don't feel like I am reading stuff about the Trump administration from mainstream news outlets, left or right leaning with a high degree of trust yet. Like, I feel very skeptical when I go in. And I think that's a good disposition to have for

everybody. But I haven't gotten to a point where I read a New York Times article about something that he purportedly did, and I'm taking every word of it and leaving confident. You know, so I guess I'm just not. I probably shouldn't, but like in the world that I'm imagining where things aren't like they have been, I should. I would be able to, right? I mean, that's like, that's the whole point. Yeah, but if we're trying to measure against where we want to be, then we're not there.

But if we measure, like, where the press was in 2018, it's probably a little bit higher. Yeah, that's fair. All right, well, yeah, Camille, any other pros you would throw out there? A pro of the Trump administration that the media is doing a good job is a very odd pro. But look, I can give him some credit for a couple of things. I mean, I think as we mentioned early on, like rolling back some of the Biden executive orders, specifically some of the kind of cultural excesses of the prior administration. Those are things that I would applaud.

some of the deregulatory efforts, some of the stuff that's in the great, big, big, beautiful bill. Again, I would applaud those things generally. I just think the challenge is that all of those things are nearly always accompanied with ham-fisted execution, with a bunch of kind of self-defeating scandal, even the other place, the foreign policy place where he's managed to have some real successes to the extent the execution has been great any place. It's there in some of those targeted strikes where the operation is carried off really, really well. You may just find out all the details we're on signal being shared with the reporter. That part not so good.

But the execution, apparently pretty good. I think that is stuff that one can say, yeah, these things are generally working pretty well. But all of those are somewhat qualified. Yeah, I think all those are really solid. I mean, I would throw border security being airtight, like I talked about. He said he'd do it. He did it. I mean, amid the horrifying deportation stuff, which I guess is a qualifier, like, there are a lot of very dangerous people that the Trump administration has IDed and arrested.

I mean, legitimately, if you go read the stories about some of the people that they brought in, you know, you kind of have to go to the Newark Post for this sort of thing. some of it is like astounding that there are people here who are here illegally and have committed heinous crimes, been convicted of them and are just on the streets for various reasons. And the administration has gotten a lot of those people out, but more than anything, the border is mostly secure more so than it was. And again, even in a humanitarian left-leaning lens, if you want to look at it this way, that is a good thing because it brings more order to the system. for people who want to come here legally

and for legit asylum seekers. The fentanyl legislation and approach has been pretty good. There's been some fentanyl stuff that's come up through Congress. Trump has really been targeting China. They're thinking about different ways to stop the import.

There was a slight... I almost had to cross this one off the list because the administration just defunded out of nowhere. HHS defunded this really big addiction program. that was given federal dollars across the country, but the blowback was so big to that that they reinstated the money.

And then, I hate doing this because it's a tough one. Because Trump has exaggerated the whole I've ended eight wars thing, and he's so obsessed with this Nobel piece by stuff. And it's like,

I'm like, there's something about that in particular that I find so just unlikable and annoying that he's just like, he's so petty, he didn't get this award that he's bringing it up all the time. The text to the PM of Norway is insane, making Machado, she gives him that, whatever.

It's insane. It's totally nuts. But Donald Trump has had some really big foreign policy wins. And by any measure, I mean, look, if you want to compare to Joe Biden, the last president we had, the, you know, what happened in Israel, happened on Joe Biden's watch. Happen on Benjamin's, yeah, he's watch.

But happened on Joe Biden's watch. And Israel's response happened on Joe Biden's watch. He had no control, no containment. There was no way to slow it down. He did almost every, he sort of did the worst of everything. He, like, constrained Israel just enough that it wasn't a two-week war, but gave them just enough latitude that three years later were still sitting in it. And the same is true in Ukraine.

He constrained them just enough that they couldn't mount a massive defense early on, but he gave them just enough that we're still in the war years later. And we had the Afghanistan withdrawal. I think it is pretty much indisputable that the results, hard paper results of Joe Biden's foreign policy, were disastrous compared to what we've seen in the first year of Trump, which is he brought Israel and the Palestinian side, the Arab side to the table, and they have a deal in writing

that they are about to go in the second phase of. And I know huge asteris, there's been tons of violations of the ceasefire, many of them by Israel. There are Palestinians dying in Gaza every day. The West Bank stuff, the landing seas is crazy. Hamas is violating the ceasefire.

Israeli soldiers are dying. Rockets are being fired. All that aside, like there is a deal that the protocols of which have most of been followed, and they're going through it. it so far. The Ukraine stuff is very touch and go. Sort of depends on who the last person Trump spoke to was. But like Biden didn't make any more progress than Trump has made. So I have a hard time really knocking him for that. And then it's true. There were there were these other

conflicts, India, Pakistan, whatever, that he stamped out pretty quickly. He has not ended eight wars. That's a lie. It's an exaggeration. But he has generally speaking, generally speaking, he has stamped out some burgeoning conflicts, and he's moved the ball in the right direction on some of the conflicts that he inherited. And I think you have to give him credit for that. Tactics be damned. You got to give him credit for that.

And the two most daring, crazy, nutty things he did, which was kidnapped Nicholas Maduro. I can't call it anything else. He arrested Nicholas Maduro, I guess, brought him back to the United States, and bombing Iran's nuclear facilities went off basically without a hitch. So, yeah, I think those for me are the things that come to mind when I think of the biggest pros is the Board of Security, legit legislation on fentanyl that's addressing a huge opioid overdose epidemic and the progress that he's made on a lot of real conflicts across the world.

Those are my big three. All right, you're up. Okay. I want to kind of give a little bit of caveating to the foreign policy stuff. I think just with the eight wars thing, I know you said he hasn't ended with eight wars, like obviously, and that's true. But India, Pakistan was never, never a war and was barely kind of a skirmish at the time. And India says that the U.S. was not even involved.

The Thailand-Kambodia conflict started up again. Thailand also doesn't really credit Trump for much of a role in that. Egypt, Ethiopia is one of the ones who likes the list. Not really a war either, not really something the U.S. got involved in Serbia, Kosovo. Like, this is stuff we already talked about in the newsletter, but I just wanted to give that caveat for completeness and also to say... That's all right. No, yeah, fuck you, man, that's fine.

I'm just... Yeah. And, you know, there's other ways that the foreign policy wins, in these conflicts. There's a darker side of that too, which we can get in the cons so I can save my pushback for that when we get there.

I'll talk about my positives, which I'll just like underline three times the border security one. What was it that he said in the State of the Union that we were told that we needed new laws. It turns out we just needed a new president. Bangor line. I guess so, right?

The numbers kind of speak for themselves. Legislation's hard. It takes a while for us to know what works, but man, those results are pretty immediate. And I don't have a whole lot to add to on top of that. I'm sure Camille will touch on it a little bit too because it's like the most easy thing to point out and say, yeah, that worked.

So I'll just move on to one that I think is maybe a little controversial. The flip side of your foreign policy one, which is the economy's been pretty strong with tariffs. I think we've all been pessimistic about the side effects of them, that we'd see more inflation, that we'd see more job loss, for sure, inflation has not plummeted, for sure unemployment's been above 4%, but neither has spiked. And at the same time, Trump has brought in a lot more revenue through tariff implementation than any precedent has through tariffs in our combined lifetimes. So there's been

some upside without as much downside as we thought. And at the same time, that has had a foreign policy effect that's pushed some allies away. I'm not going to say that it's been a perfect thing. But I'll say that a thing that I'm seeing is that the real president of the United States for us to stand up and salute is the almighty dollar and that presidency is still very strong. Trump is not fucking with the money. When he gets close to touching that third rail, like he's opposing tariffs and then people are saying, you know, stock market's dipping. He's like, yeah, well, you know, I'm just saying I could do this and then backs off. And the whole Jerome Powell saga too of like, I'm going to investigate.

I'm in the Justice Department was like, yeah. And Scott Besson's saying, we probably shouldn't. And then that was a headline for a day. And anything that's going to actually seriously break an ankle in the U.S. economy,

as soon as Trump realizes that there's pressure on that joint, he's taking his foot off. And that's not the big, like, okay, this is an underlying positive about Trump's effects. It's just to say that his ability to restrain himself is obvious in this regard and the things that he's doing that we think are going to be huge risks

so far haven't really materialized in that way. The economy's been pretty strong. Maybe it could be stronger, but at the same time, there's a reason why countries, when Trump is threatening tariff deals, are coming to the table because we still have that strong consumer base

and we still have that strong economy and that doesn't look like it's going anywhere. It's probably going up under Trump right now. Too early to say, but I think it's a big positive sign to see you after year one. I think the caveat there is just like how many of these tariffs have actually gone into effect in a meaningful way and lasted long enough to see. Well, I mean, if they went to effect in an unmeaningful way, we wouldn't have been getting revenue from it, right? Yes, yes. But there has been a lot of start and stop tariff against, you know, Europe, Canada.

allies, whatever. And I think it's not totally clear to me the apocalypse that was predicted, which I agree, was definitely predicted by economists, how much of that hasn't come to fruition because we have sort of not really levied the tariffs they were expecting or the administration was saying versus like Trump has somehow defied the laws of economic gravity. But I agree. I'm only caveating. I would say... Because I did.

Yeah. Yeah, but also, like, I do think that has been something we've said. That's been something we've said. It's like, we don't really know... It's hard to track how much of this stuff is actually settled in and taken...

Yeah. The upper limit of what to be concerned about, we aren't really playing into that space, but the effective tariff rates still remains higher than it's been Yeah. Since, like, what, since Nixon, maybe, I think is the thing. And we're getting a lot of money.

And we're getting a lot of money, and it's true. He's raising a lot of revenue from that. We'll see how much he gets to hold on to. We're still waiting on that Scoti's decision, which could force them to run something. Just do you wait. Yeah, I am not yet at the point where I'm willing to relent on the tariff stuff. It is certainly true that a lot of people had some very apocalyptic predictions. I think a lot more of what was said, however, was consistent with what you get from an Adam Smith,

what you get from a Frederique Basiat. One, there is much ruin in a nation, which means that you can impose destructive tariffs that are actually attacks on your population and not other people. And it may not completely undermine the economy. It's just the scene and the unseen, which is why I mentioned Frederick Basiatt. We don't really see all of the ways that the tariffs end up distorting. the economy. We don't see the jobs that, the hiring that doesn't take place. And the way economic growth is actually being powered in the economy at the moment is highly concentrated in the tech

industry, is specifically concentrated around the construction of all of these data centers. It is... Three AI companies in a trench coat is the way that I've heard it. Yeah, it's, it is a, it is a dangerous malformation to have all of our eggs in one basket. To the extent there's any sort of kind of dust up there, that's a problem. It's also a problem because all of that doesn't necessarily make it into people's everyday lives, which is why there's still a great deal of the consumer confidence indexes are not all wonderful. People are having, especially younger people, a really difficult time finding work. So there are some signs on the horizon that suggest that

perhaps the economy isn't as robust as it could otherwise be. And I do think your right to flag the specific thing that does go understated is that the long-term consequences of this economic brinksmanship with respect to all of the threats of tariffs directed at all of our allies and our adversaries, those are going to be meaningful. Those are going to stick around. And we're seeing it already with respect to just the sentiment coming out of Davos just today. and yesterday, the enmity is going to linger.

And I think that's the case. Even if we change horses later, there is a kind of distrust that is going to really stick and be pretty rigid and difficult for us to actually get around as a country when it comes to just kind of the bilateral nature of so many of the things that we need to do economically and otherwise in the world. And I'll say the caveats that this point are strong. and we can't always, we can never compare something to the negative case of what would have happened without these policies.

It's possible that Trump is preventing the strongest economy anybody's ever seen. But I'm just saying that the doom and gloom has been far lesser. And Trump's restraint around things that are actually going to cause immediate damage has been apparent. And I think I can kick it to you with one less ambiguous win, which is, dude, cancel culture is fucking gone. Do you remember that? Living in 2021, just like people are getting canceled for like saying that comparing two movies together and people would say that's racist that you compare those two movies and get canceled. And that's like maybe it was just a product of the COVID era.

But I feel like I don't feel that at all. It's interesting. When you said that, my immediate reaction was, yeah, definitely. And then I thought for half a second, I was like, yeah, but like free speech has been obliterated. So cancer culture is gone. But you get deported for writing an op-ed about this right. Yeah. Yeah, like, I don't know.

I mean, I'm, yeah. Like, right at first, I was like, yeah, fucking cancel culture is gone. We crush the woke lives. And then I'm like, oh, wait. Also, what did you say about Charlie Kirk? Would you say about Charlie Kirk? Yeah, yeah, exactly. We still have, we have a different, we have a different variation on it.

It is certainly true that the particular incarnation that we'd become, we'd grown accustomed to was less robust and is less robust than it was, although we've also seen some indications of it kind of coming back. But, yeah, it's just changed. Yeah, we're dealing with a different kind of cancel culture.

I think even... It woke right. Yeah, even specifically, though, I'd say, and I guess we're pivoting the cons here with this, perhaps. Am I stealing the mic? Is this okay? No, let's do it.

Let's hit the cons. We're in. You know, the first of the first. threats and intimidation are among the things that I think shed the darkest light on the Trump administration, the second go-round. The lawfare has been a huge, huge problem. Going after Jerome Powell was mentioned earlier, but lots of his political adversaries have found themselves in the crosshair. And while you're right, Isaac, sometimes it is just him blowing off steam on truth social. a lot of the reporting seems to suggest that there is a genuine appetite for people to really

face consequences for the various grievances that the president believes he has. I mean, just today at Davos, he was talking openly about there actually being prosecutions related to the undermining of the last election that he thought was stolen from him. That isn't good. And again, it's another thing that I think has real meaning. consequences. And we can go back to Missouri and talk about the ICE situation, which you were right on the numbers with. It's worse than I suspected. And I think the kind of specific thing that makes me concerned is the fact that we're just not seeing meaningful investigations into a lot of

the places where there seems to be actual, tangible wrongdoing. And all of that kind of hollows out the credibility of our justice system. It kind of inculcates this kind of notion of kind of an actual, tangible lawlessness that's encouraged by officials in the administration. You're told that you have immunity and you can do whatever you want to do if someone gets in your way. That isn't how things are supposed to work. And I think that a lot of that is somewhat related to cancel culture as well.

The President of the United States may personally sue you if you run a media organization that's doing reporting that he doesn't like. If you run a university and you're unwilling to capitulate to the particular things that they suggest that you need to do, there's going to be all sorts of penalties targeted that come in your direction. And if you run a law firm and you're just representing people who the President of the United States doesn't like, you may find yourself facing consequences for that as well. So I think that's probably one of the more damaging things that the administration has done. And I think the worst part is it's metastasizing. Every indication that I've seen is you see Steve Bannon saying, we need to do more of this.

We need to go harder because if the other team wins, they're going to try to put us in jail. And in recent weeks, you definitely get tougher and tougher rhetoric from people on the left who have talked about the need to prosecute the Trump administration and various Trump officials for different things. some of that may be legitimate, but there's also talk about all sorts of other creative approaches, like court packing is back in vogue again. The various competitions with respect to gerrymandering, this is all pretty dire stuff that doesn't make me optimistic that we're going to be returning to a kind of the normalcy

that so many people have been hungering for for well over a decade now, I think. We'll be right back after this quick break. Yeah, I listen to Jonathan Swan today on the New York Times Daily, who in my opinion, sees the field clearly, one of the most even-handed reporters out there. And, you know, he said, I think accurately is just there is no, you can't put this genie back in the bottle. And there's no appetite on the left now for regaining power and like bringing the country. country back to the center. It's the appetite is how the hell is Trump allowed to do all this when we're like such cowards when we have power and we want a Democrat. He's going to stand up and fight the same way Trump does for his for his power and for his people. And I think we have one

of two likely scenarios. One is a Republican gets elected that has Trump's blessing in 2028 and continues to act in the way we've watched Trump act with regards to the lawfare stuff and the things you're talking about, the executive power, or we get a Democrat who feels that they need to respond forcefully to what we just saw for four years under Trump, and they're going to do that by deploying some of the tactics that he has that have been kind of successful in some ways at advancing his agenda. So, yeah, I think that is the right take on how it's going to impact the country long-term.

I think I would... Go ahead. Yeah, I was... I'll cue you up to close us out here with your cons, but I have a little bit of disagreement with that and with Jonathan Swan's phrasing about what he called it a quote, one-way ratchet it. It's like you can ratchet the executive power up,

but it's really hard to ratchet it back and that there isn't an appetite for a Democrat that's going to come in with a moderation policy. And I don't know that I fully believe that or agree with it because there's an appetite for somebody that's going to fight and push back against Trump. But I think everyone has that feeling that you're talking about, Isaac of like, can we just have a government that we don't hear about? That's just like when I

hear about the government, it's because they're like, oh, guess what? We fix that thing where your planes are delayed all the time. We've figured it out. We're like, great, thanks. I'll hear from you in April when I file on my taxes and I'll be pissed at you for a month and then we'll go back to ignore each other. I think that's a world that a lot of people want. But the struggle to get there is another disagreement that I have. And this is going to be my biggest con, which is where with your frame of there's one of two options. And it's either going to be somebody with Trump's blessing or it would be a Democrat.

That's the president after Trump's term. And I'm increasingly seeing a third option. And it's so easy to just imagine Trump saying the stakes are too high. It can't be anybody else. Only I can fix. I'm staying. We're going to have to, we'll figure it out. The lawyers will talk about it.

But I'm going to come back and I'm not letting go. I so, I mean, I don't think he's going to run. It's going to be so hard to like. This is just like, it's just like the Greenland, we're going to send the mill as Harry to Greenland stuff. It's not, it's not real. First of all, it's one of the things that there aren't enough Republican senators to get on board with.

So they'll impeach him or they'll make it explicit in a law or, you know. I mean, what do you make of the... There's just no way. There's no way that there's going to be anything that passes where he can run for president be elected. But what do you make of the theory if he can run for VP? and then the president could just resign and he could be appointed.

Yeah, sure. Trump, I mean, the idea that Trump is going to run... First of all, if Trump tried to run to be vice president with everybody understanding that the president was just going to get elected and resign, I think he would lose in a landslide. It would be one of the most unpopular things

any sitting politician has ever done. He would get obliterated. Second, I'm... I've read a little bit about the legal theories there, and I would say at best they seem pretty contested. I don't think technically he can be sworn in for a third turn. So even if you were elected vice president and someone resigned, I think he would get passed over in order for there to be like a line of succession.

So I don't think the theory actually works, based on my understanding. But regardless, look, I think I saw Trump's speech. beach in Davos today. I think he's tired, dude. I think he's tired of a lot. Then we knew that his plane had to turn around before they went out there. It's always a one-day-at-time thing here.

I'm listening to your pushback. And I get it. The statement coming out of Davos is really clear about no force in Greenland. And that was my posture for a while. I was like, this is just not going to happen. And then I just, like with strikes in Venezuela and the way the administration seemed emboldened

to make small surgical strikes, and Greenland doesn't really have strong defenses. It just becomes really easy to see how it could look. And I still, like, if I turn off a lot of the concerns that I have, like, if I try to dial those voices down more, I think you're totally right. Like, it's not a thing that's ever going to happen. The popular vote's going to be absurdly against such a maneuver.

But then I'm like, yeah, but who's going to be counted? the votes. And it gets me to a point where like, I just, there's, I know this is something that Camillo talked about just now. It's like the tenor of the polity coming out of the administration. And for me, it's, it's the executive power that was, that I led as being a thing that didn't surprise me. That's my biggest concern. It taints everything that we've been talking. It's the undercurrent behind every single statement that we made in this episode. Yeah. Yeah. About businesses like try and go after business. threatening courts, threatening Fed governors, threatening universities, tariffs, military strikes,

scuttling deals in Congress because they don't have your blessing. It's just hard to imagine. And I said, like, I don't think that it ratchets one way forever. Things always turn. But, like, how far does the ratchet go? I don't know if we've reached the limit yet. And that really frightens me, especially when I see, and I know, like, I'm using the F word there and say it frightens me. But, like, I think, If I'm thinking about the things that are most concerning, I'm getting a lot of fodder to feed that. Like, there's the Department of Labor is tweeting racist tweets,

like memes about 14 words where all the characters add up to 88. Like, that stuff is, who's that for? And what are we supposed to make of it? Other than, like, I know that I'm being the person who's getting provoked, and that's probably one of the goals is to provoke people into being conspiratorial. And now I'm like, you know, no, it's you. not me, you're gaslighting me, but

it just feels like it's just, it's piling. If the stakes coming out, I'll give you a second Camille, it just that. It feels like if the stakes remain existential and the tenor of the, like,

the messaging from the administration that's all behind one person is we have to stop them. If it's the leftist, if it's the illegal immigrants, whoever it is, and we can always find a reason to say we need to, then that excuse can be sent to any direction to any extreme. And the ratchet, I don't know how far it goes.

And that's just like my biggest con of the administration so far is that the way that they're pushing the envelope on the presidential authority so far. Yeah, I mean, look, I share a lot of the concern. I've said so. I also think that to the extent we're looking for something, it is voters to insist on something else. And hopefully we'll see some candidates emerge who have a different approach, who are a bit more ecumenical, who are looking to build bridges, who are perhaps imagining that they can differentiate themselves by talking in a different sort of way and delivering a different sort of politics. And maybe the word there, populism is the right one.

That's, to the extent, there's any sort of overlap in our politics. And it's anathema to me in many respects. It is there. And if someone can talk about affordability in terms that are palatable to lots of Americans, maybe that is the thing that finally breaks through and helps to break the spell. I'd also say, Ari, that going off of just the whole of the Greenland stuff, it's sort of a ridiculous circus. It also seems to be consistent with a man who is really focused on legacy

and is thinking about how he'll be remembered. He wants his name on absolutely everything. He wants every award. He wants to pile it up. Maybe he's thinking more about the trophy case than he is the future of the MAGA movement. I don't doubt that there have been conversations about who his heir apparent will be, but it doesn't really seem like something that's actually top of mind for him. And I think his popularity challenges are very real and material.

And to the extent that continues to be the case and he continues to be in some ways a kind of a drag on his party, I think that could help to kind of calm things down in a material way as well. And I'll leave alone the social media post. I think we're going to get into that another time. Yeah. I appreciate the caution and the concern. I'm not worried about Trump 20208 yet. But interestingly, I will say, I mean, this seems like we're fleshing out the cons here. I mean, I had on my list, Camille, the DOJ separation and just like the, that we're not even pretending anymore. Like there is no even pretense of independence, which to your point, Ari, I think, is maybe a prerequisite for something like trying to run for a third term and undermining the rule of law.

I would put my number one or two as the personal enrichment of the family and himself. I mean, there's something about the sort of blatant, you know, we talked about on the podcast last week. I tried to separate the business the first term and nobody cared and so screw it. Nobody can stop me.

And he's just saying it, openly. And it's, I don't know. I don't know what it is about that particular thing that kind of offends my sensibilities. It's just like every minute that the president's attention is spent thinking about how much money a hotel deal in Saudi Arabia can make the Trump organization is a minute that he's not spending thinking about how to reduce my health care costs or how to solve the opioid crisis or how to fix the agriculture crisis. Like there are so, so, so many issues. And I just know that Trump has like a slate of a section of his attention and time,

whether it's 5% or 10% or 25% that is just going to all this personal stuff, these like family deals that he's going to come out on the other side of the presidency, him and his family making so much money, it's disgusting to me. And it's worse because it was such a big deal under Biden with Hunter Biden and the Burisma stuff. And I was in on that. I mean, I beat that drum.

Like, I think what Hunter Biden did was actually gross too. And I think what Joe Biden did, pretending like he knew nothing about these deals and had never heard of them and whatever. And then all these photos come out of him having dinner with the people Hunter Biden was doing business with and the Hunter Biden laptop stuff, which was legit, actually revealed that Biden actually didn't know about this stuff.

And at the very least, there were references to him as the big guy and money that maybe he was going to get in some deal if the presidency didn't work out. I mean, there was gross behind closed doors stuff happening there. I can't, if we got a hold of Eric Trump's eye messages, I cannot imagine what we would have thought. I mean, it is bonkers what they're doing. And the crypto stuff, especially, as somebody who's been in the crypto space, I've operated

in that space. I've made money in the crypto space. Like, there are so many scummy people out there doing rug pulls and creating meme coins and like just BS. And they're in it, man. They're in it. And they're doing that stuff. And there's a lot we don't know about where the money's coming from and how it's

coming in and who's dumping money into the various Trump meme coins and whatever. And yeah, I get stuck on that. And that's the one that kind of makes my blood boil as a con from the first year. The only other one I would throw out there, which I don't lay at Trump's feet entirely, of course, you can't, is just the political violence. It's like the scariest time I've experienced to be somebody who talks about politics publicly and Charlie Kirk's murder had a big part of that. I think anybody who's been listening to the show for six months or more knows that freaked me out and shook me up,

especially just like in the wake of all the other violence that we had been seeing in Gaza and Ukraine and just like digesting that stuff and then seeing him get shot. It really did shake me up. But it's, and obviously Trump's not responsible for Charlie Kirk getting killed. but Trump's response to that assassination was abhorring. I mean, he went on stage after Erica Kirk forgave Charlie Kirk's killer and said that he doesn't forgive him and he hates the other side and that he's not like, like, and that's what he does. He turns the temperature up. And in the political environment that he's responsible for as president of the United States, the temperature is always going up.

and it's not just Charlie Kirk, you know, it's Melissa Horton. It's Trump himself suffering from attempted political violence. It is just like an environment that I view him as the steward of. He is the president. He is the person who sets the tone. And there are people who turn the volume down or attempt to, and there are people who turn the volume up. And he's an up guy.

And he's making it worse, I think, actively by demonizing the other side and by making himself a demon and reveling in that. So those are like the two big ones that I had on my list that I just, yeah, I have a hard time shaking. I think I want to speak to two aspects of that that I think are notable in context of what we've been talking about. The first is I mentioned Trump's self-control with regard to the economy.

It stands in stark contrast to the self-control regarding his own self-enrichment. I think that's a hugely important flag to make. And the answers that he gave to the New York Times in that interview you're referencing are extremely revealing. That and the use of the military, I mean, there's other examples you can come up with for sure to support that his lack of control, his self-control and his willingness to try to reach for anything he can.

And for sure, Exhibit A is the self-enrichment stuff. And then I think the way that you were talking about him as the guy, with his hand on the thermostat, always turning the temperature up. I appreciate the way that you said, like, hey, get a grip, like 2028 so far away. Like, this is not going to happen. Like you don't worry about Trump running back for re-elections. Like a thing that I've thought for sure or two. And now I'm like, yeah, it's in the back of my head because of that.

Because, like, the temperature is only going up and he's got his hand on the thermostat and makes you ask how hot is it going to get. And it's tough to my answer to a lot of this stuff, and it's what I'll say to you now, keeping in mind the thing that you told to me like five minutes ago is that it's always easy for us to imagine trends continuing and it's harder for us to imagine the thing that's going to make it them stop in reverse. And I think like every day or every month that seems like the political rhetoric is just pitching gets more and more likely that it's the month when it maxes out.

And there's going to be come a time where we hit that ceiling. we don't know where it is and Trump's definitely driving us towards it and it's one of the biggest critiques that I share with you in his administration but kind of feel still a need to moderate that position even as it's something that I feel in myself too

is like this is not a good thing that's happening in our ability to discuss anything with people who disagree with us in our discourse in general but I don't know I think there's the appetite for it is gone I think people don't really want to feel that way anymore.

And I think there's going to come a time sooner than later. And maybe I'll say this to myself, sooner than 2028, when that trend's going to start reversing. All right. Well, gentlemen, only three more years to go. One year ago, we did it. There's been a lot to cover. I'll sleep when I'm dead, I guess, as they say.

I appreciate you guys going on this journey with me. We're at about an hour and a half into the show. And for anybody who's still with us, you're at the best part of the podcast. We get to listen to three really privileged, safe, incredibly blessed people, complain about all the things that are happening in their lives. So, John, you can play the music, and we're going to do some grievances to round things out. The airing of grievances. Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance.

on shoe removal. All right. Anybody, any takers on First App ad? I got you. I got one. Wow. All right.

We have a mouse in the house. And I don't like that. We've got a mouse. My suck, man. The way that we found out about this, it was actually last week after we recorded the podcast because I remember thinking, man, I got to come up with something better next week.

And immediately I was blessed with this mouse. who we had just run the dishes, dishwasher, and we found that there's this puddle underneath the sink. And we're wondering, did something in the trash bag leak doesn't smell that bad? We cleaned things out. We tried to find the source of where it came from. It was the line leading from the dishwasher to the drain

that had a hole in it that appeared to be nibbled. And then we saw some things that appeared to be mouse feces. and two and two added up. And we found out that not only are we unable to use our dishwasher to we can install a replacement hose, but those rattling silverware that we thought we heard in the sink, yeah, that came from something. The little nibbles on the pieces of paper that were around the trash can

came from our guest, our friend, Mr. Mouse. And now we're in the situation where we have to talk about trapping this probably very adorable little mammal and getting it the fuck out because it's not painful, right? It is not a legal tenant in this residence and it's turning me into a hunter of small mammals and a murderer.

So thanks for that now. You did this to yourself. I'm not hitting you. You're making me hit you. And I wish that you would have just stayed into cold. No, you think it's one. I'm glad. You're very definitive about that.

I think it's one. Yeah. Yeah. It's never, first of all, it's never, second of all. There's no entry points, so I think it just came in somehow. They always bring friends, man.

They bring friends. That's how it works. No judgment question. Are you going to kill it or trap it and release it? We are putting peppermint balls down some copper wire to try to protect the things that it's munching on. And then we'll put, like, blue pads down. And we'll see. we'll see what those glue pads produce.

The glue pads are tough because then you have to get them off the glue pad, which is a... Wait, can you do that? Can you get them off the glue pad? You got to... Just shake it off. You kind of shake them off. You try to like get their... You put gloves on.

You try and get their legs off without, like, amputating them. It's a horrible thing. I've done it before. I don't know. I think it's probably going to end up being one of those things where we just kill this mouse. I think... It's the easiest reaction. In my experience, you just have to, it sucks.

But yeah, you got to. I mean, I had to, one of the worst, like, experiences that I'd had with, like, animals being near the house. Definitely the worst experience I've had with animals being near the house was when we found a cute little bunny den was just outside the house. They were just snug going in the exhaust from the dryer from the basement in our previous house. And our wonderful dog found them and tried to squeak them and play with these little. these baby bunnies as toys and had to find like a punctured baby rabbit

and just like smother it so we could give it a burial and take it away was just like awful awful thing to do so that's probably in my future again not looking forward to it. All right well on that note

we'll move on from Ari snuffing out baby bunnies I will go next with a more uplifting, I hope, grievance for this week, which is, or I guess, lighthearted grievance. I, my friends, had been sucked into meteorology Twitter or meteorologist Twitter. The algorithm got me. There's this big snowstorm everybody's talking about, or if you're not in on, you know, meteorology Twitter, maybe you haven't heard about. But I was, I was aware of it as as early as last Friday,

because some meteorologist I follow was talking about this historic snowstorm coming. And then I started paying attention because they're saying it's going to be like insane, unbelievable, three inches of ice and everybody's going to not have power for two weeks and you should get water and a generator and whatever. And then my grievance is like,

I stepped into meteorologist's Twitter, and it's just like politics. They all hate each other. They're like, I was like, oh, this would be like a fun thing. Like I'm going to like get with the weather guys. And I'll like, they're the experts and it's better than the weather channel and it's faster. And I'll get this like cool analysis. They all fucking ate each other.

They're like, they're all beefing. They disagree. You like, you know, I had a friend. I texted one of the stories. Like I texted a tweet to a friend of mine who's like a very new savvy guy. I was like, dude, this storm's coming. Wow. And then he texted me.

back a screenshot of him sending that tweet to a friend of his who was a meteorologist and asking if the guy I was sharing was legit. And his friend responded like, no, that guy's an asshole. And he's always like, hypervent. And I was like, wait, what? Like, they're all, this can't be. I thought I was in this safe, nice space. But you can't.

They're on the internet. So they hate each other. And apparently it's a thing. There's a lot of rival meteorologist people. There's the charlatans, the guys who always hype up stuff. storms and oversell it and then they don't happen. And then there's like the measured cool guys and they all have different models. And yeah, I couldn't believe it.

So I thought I was having fun. And then by the time I realized what had happened, I had trained my algorithms. So now on top of like all the partisan rancor I get on X, it's just meteorologists fighting with each other, offering different takes on what's going to happen with the snow. And yeah, we're broken. And our brains, the internet has broken us. Are there meteorologists that are wrong? Do you think?

I don't, I can't honestly say that I figured out who's right and who's wrong, but I've booked more tweets to check back in on next week to see, like, whose predictions were the closest to accurate. So I'll make some judgments based on that. Take screenshots. Just bookmark them. They'll try to delete the evidence. That's good point, actually.

I should go back and do that. But there is, I will say, there does seem to be a consensus that this is pretty, that this will be a storm we are going to remember. hitting the Pennsylvania down to North Carolina. We'll be talking about this. A lot of talk about 2003 President's Day, Blizzard, for those of you old enough to remember that. I was 12 and remember it quite vividly.

But, you know, I, yeah, I don't know how legit any of this is. So my grievance this week is that even the meteorologists aren't getting along, and that makes me really sad in a funny way. All right, Camille, you're up. Take us home, baby. Now I'm just wondering whether I should try to get stuck in New York or outside of New York. Yeah. My grievance this week pertains to my vehicles again, which I think I talked about the rat infestation that cost me lots of money,

cost the insurance company a hell of a lot more, like to the tens of thousands of dollars. This is smaller, more trivial, but it's a hell of a lot more annoying. I was without my car for almost a month because my trunk started to fill with water because of Tesla build quality issues. And I have absolutely no problem just denigrating this particular brand. I think that they should do more for their customers. I bought a 22, like Model S at some point. And the warranty is gone on it. So I'm on the extended warranty.

And it sucks to have to have so many. like small, nagging issues that then turn into huge issues when you get torrential downpours and discover that not only is the water getting into the trunk, it is filling up the wheel well in your car, like underneath the fabric and material and that weird smell that you've been smelling for a little while. Yeah, it's actually a thing. It's worth being concerned about, and the car was gone for more than a month, and I got it back. And did they kind of clean it up? Sure. Have they addressed the leak completely. I'm not entirely sure. Fortunately, we don't get a lot of rain out where I am. But, God, it has just been a nightmare with respect to just, again, like, build quality.

Keeping water out of the car is kind of job one. And there's where you want the water. There should not be an issue here. So, thank you, Elon. That is crazy. I haven't heard that one before on the Tesla. So just to be clear, torrential downpour, you open your trunk and they're sitting water. in your trunk? I open my trunk. I open my trunk and it smells a bit funny. I just open up the kind of a wheel well. There's not actually a wheel down there. It's just additional storage. And there is a pool of water inside of my trunk. And it took a couple of days to actually get it into the service center. I actually had to go there and kind of plead with someone to address it right away. And fortunately,

they did and put me in a loner for a couple of weeks, which they didn't have to do. And they did give me a small discount, but it's insufficiently modest. I shouldn't have to pay anything. But again, it's just some of us who bought a little earlier have suffered on account of them not being nearly as good at building cars back then as they presumably are now all the same. I don't know if I'll buy another one of these. So very frustrated. Wow. Camille leading the Tesla world. That's a good grievance, fans. I'm breaking news there. I'm going to tweet that out. Camille Foster, I don't know. know if I will buy another Tesla.

That's good stuff. Quote, keep a lot of the outside of the car. But the self-driving is really amazing. It's remarkable. It's just I don't want to have to do it in like my swim trunks. It seems unfair. Yeah. Camille's done this podcast while driving his car before.

It's actually remarkable. It's that good. Is that true? Is that true? No. Probably true. He's joined calls with us. I like that you weren't sure if that was real or not. I was trying to like exaggerate to the point of making a joke. You really could.

You really could. You just need scuba deer, scuba gear while your car is driving around. So I don't know. All right, gentlemen. Well, we did it. One year of Trump under our bout, a little round of applause.

We made it. Another year. Another year. Another year. Year five, technically. Thank you guys for sharing your insights, your thoughts. If you have feedback, stuff we missed,

this is a big episode, but I'd love to hear some retrospect from our audience. If you have, you know, positive thoughts, feelings, you can email me, Isaac, I-S-A-A-A-A-C at reetangle.com. Complaints about anything we said or did can go to Will K-back, our senior editor, Will W-I-L-L-L-A-Reedtangle. And we'll see you guys next week. So have a good one.

Bye. See you. Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Wohl. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Tom. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editors, Audrey Moorhead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at readtangle.com.