The Ben and Emil Show - BAES 112: Can China Destroy Starbucks?

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

Something is BREWING in the world of Starbucks. And that something is extremely Chinese. That's right -- LUCKIN COFFEE, the massively successful Chinese upstart, is on its way to de-throne the reigning American champ. Will Starbucks' attempts to stay relevant be their Blockbuster moment? Stay tuned and we'll lay it all out for you. With extra cold foam. Subscribe to Ben's new movies and tv podcast with Dillon! Please go smash that subscribe button: https://www.youtube.com/@UCtwCDeHuJTBWUkeQKlLeXhA **CHECK OUT EMIL'S LIVESTREAMS HERE: https://www.youtube.com/emilderosa Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it! And please leave us a comment! It helps us! That's Cringe of Cody Ko: https://youtu.be/dTbEk0pVh2w Our AUSTIN VIDEO IS OUT! https://youtu.be/yGSs56bFzRU Sign up to watch and support the show at https://benandemilshow.com ***LINK TO OUR DISCORD: https://discord.gg/CjujBt8g ***Subscribe to Emil's Substack: https://substack.com/@emilderosa ***Trade with Ben at https://tradertreehouse.com Our episode with *Kyla Scanlon*: https://youtu.be/cIHWkY35cuc Big Tech is out of ideas (ft. ED ZITRON): https://youtu.be/zBvVGHZBpMw Arguing with a millionaire (ft. Chris Camillo): https://youtu.be/1ZUWTkWV_MM We bought suits HERE: https://youtu.be/_cM1XqA9n2U __ GOODR: Go to https://goodr.com/BAES and use code BAES for free shipping! FACTOR: Eat smart at https://factormeals.com/baes50off and use code BAES50OFF to get 50% off plus FREE SHIPPING on your first box! HIMS: For simple, online access to personalized and affordable care for hair loss, ED, weight loss, and more, visit https://hims.com/baes MUD/WTR: Start your new morning ritual and get up to 43% off your  @MUDWTR  when you use code BAES at https://mudwtr.com/baes #mudwtrpod __ Follow us on instagram! @ benandemilshow @ bencahn @ emilderosa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We're talking about Starbucks's demise. Yeah, potential demise. Could this be... Put them in the freaking dirt. Could this be their blockbuster moment? I think it is. Make it a blockbuster night. Make it a luck and coffee day.

Starbucks seems to be going backwards on this. They're like, no, people want to chill. People want to hang out with other strangers. People want a stinky homeless guy coming in and using the bathroom and stink. When I think about Starbucks, I think public restroom. They were like, Starbucks is pushing back. They're fighting back. They put it in the ad on an empty storefront across.

street that just says Starbucks. And they put an ad on the subway stop right near the Luckin. And they were like, we intend to push back. We're going to push. Luckin doesn't come into our territory without a sternly worded advertisement. People are, uh, they really like the coffee.

No, no one likes that coffee. I like the coffee, but I also have bad taste. I think this plan could work in suburban places like me in suburban New Jersey being like, Starbucks, this is the place. Holy shit. This is your culture. This is where culture is happening in central New Jersey.

This is the place. Wow. Mom, can we go to Starbucks? I'm looking at a time with me. Tell me what's going on. Tell me what's going on. Woodoo lady, shaking that stick and driving my crazy. Drive me that's crazy.

Welcome back to another episode of the Ben and Emile show. How's everyone doing on this summer day? Time flies when you stink like shit. Time flies when you smell bad. Did you give the guy five bucks in the parking lot? I gave him five. Was he happy? Well, I didn't see him.

So I was like, you got to be kidding me. Because we got yelled at yesterday. And then I started coming in. And I mean, I start leaving. And he's like, hey. I'm like, okay, I didn't see you. I was pulling out my phone to pay the app. So I got you, pal.

Did you pay, Connor? A $10 promise? Wow, that's bold. I gave him $5 and he said, thank you, my friend. It's a parking lot guys where there's an attendant, but it says there's signs everywhere that say, do not give cash to a person.

But then there's an app that you got to use and the guy insists only when I'm here, do you give me cash? If I'm not here, then you use the app. Very confusing. Anyway, we got a great episode. for you. We're talking all about not this. I'm holding up

a Starbucks thing. I was going to follow. We're talking about Starbucks's demise. Yeah. Potential demise. Could this be... Put them in the freaking dirt. Could this be their blockbuster moment? I think it is. Make it a blockbuster night. Make it a luck and coffee day. I don't like that name Luckin. Luckin. Lucking. It makes me feel good.

Luckin. I should, I think I got someone I was in China. I can't remember. I just realized too before because we were going to talk about something else pretty briefly, because we were going to talk about, we were thinking about Fable's new thing called Showrunner, which is this AI thing where it, you're at presuming that people know what Fable is. It's Fable's new thing, Showrunner. I literally was about to explain how Amazon had purchased it, but you jumped right down my throat.

Sorry. Go on. Amazon basically purchased this company and they think it's going to be, you know, the Netflix of AI where you can, which was what we've been joking about, people creating their own content and being like, do this. in that. We're like, eh, because we played around with it. We were in the Discord. You can barely use it. It's pretty minimal at this point.

But I think I had a dream because of it. Whoa. Someone recently said, I just rewatch Mad Men. You should rewatch it because it's great. But then last night, what the money's for? I must have been

thinking about Fable's new AI program showrunner. I remember what you're really confused because I was just watching like madman episodes that I had made up and like the last one that I woke up to was like Don Draper and the boys playing pickup basketball

and I woke up just so pissed because I was like this is stupid I don't want access to this thing I don't want to be gone Don Draper has to play another ad agency in basketball that'd be kind of fun actually it'd be kind of fun you know

I don't want this and every time he dunks on him or like scores a point he says some witty copy Ridiculous. And Roger Sterling's smoking cigarettes on the... Great job, Draper. Yeah. Yeah. I never watched it. I started to watch it actually. AMC. I was so pissed at them. It was like a madman, what do they call that? Extravaganza or like a marathon. Marathon. And I'm watching it. I'm like, okay, great. I'm going to finally get acquainted with Mad Men here.

They were playing them out of order. They were just playing random episodes. So there's one episode where the one guy comes out of the closet and he's gay. And I'm like, oh, good for him. Harry? I don't remember, but then the next episode, he's back in the closet. I'm like, what the hell's going on here? I thought he was gay. And it took me like three more hours to realize that I was watching him out of order. So I went, okay, I'm done here.

I'm done with this. But this is what I think the AI is going to teach us that we're not as, we're not as creative as we all think. I want Matthew Weiner to do Mad Men, not me. Matthew Weiner? That's the guy who created it. Oh, I believe. Who's his co-creator, Tommy Penis? there you go

is it Matthew Weiner Matthew Weiner Just say whiner If you're already at that point Yeah Hey my name is Matthew Weiner Don't do that to yourself But

But if you leave it in my hands I'm gonna be going Make Don play basketball Yeah I want to see him Make basketball Make play basketball Anyway

Ben and Emielshow.com We got a great bonus episode For you today People are early reviews are in And honestly the bonus episodes Are really great They're calling them They're chaotic.

They're already calling them the Babu Frick trilogy. So. Hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. So you're going to want to tune into that because you can't. Anyway, this week we're talking all about Luckin' Coffee, which is Chinese. Something Chinese this way comes. Something Chinese finally happened.

Something Chinese is currently happening. Chinese has been happening. And I predict that Starbucks won't get blockbustered, but I predict. that they will be significantly knocked down a peg because they're currently valued at like $110 billion. Also, not to skip ahead. I also think they're making like all the wrong decisions right now. No, 100%.

We'll get to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're making wrong decisions, bad decisions. Silly, stupid, dumb, dumb decisions. We also got to talk about, I don't know what state he'll be in when this comes out, but I think at time of recording,

Trump is stuck on a roof of the White House saying he's just going for a walk. I'm just going for a walk. Well, isn't, aren't they getting renovating it or something? Yeah. But it's funny timing as we've got to go through Epstein's. Yeah, we're going to go through also. We're going to go through Epstein's apartment.

It's a virtual tour that the New York Times is allowed on. And it looks like a timeshare you would stay in somewhere in San Diego County. His office room looks kind of like a timeshare. I could see some of the rooms. Yeah. Weird, weird, weird design themes. But we'll talk about all that. and then maybe if we have time we'll talk about these

I don't know some airline shit but any hoomst luck and coffee you know folks I remember and this also I meant to bring it up with Edwin Edwin is a guy that we're it's in an episode coming up yeah it feels very similar

because we talked a lot about Chinese scams in this upcoming episode but so I remember when Luckin Coffee started trading here in the United States on the NASDAQ. It was a big deal, and I was pissed off because I didn't buy any. And the stock immediately did quite well. It's really a remarkable story of growth. I really don't know how they did it. And when you're researching it, it's just like,

oh, yeah, they started. And then a year later, they had thousands of stores. And they did a marketing campaign. And it's like, okay, cool, give me the nitty gritty, baby. But so, yeah, they started in October of 2017. Fast forward to now, almost, uh, just about eight years later, they've got 26,000, over 26,200 stores globally. They operate shops, kiosks, stores, and they sell coffee, tea, and food stuff. Yeah. I mean, in China, famously kind of a tea-drinking culture, but Starbucks actually came to China in 99, 1999. Did not know it was that long ago.

Yeah, and it didn't take long for lucken to overtake them in China. They opened in October 2017, and they overtook Starbucks within a year. No, in 2023. Oh, it was 2023? Well, because I have just a year after they started, they had 1,300 stores and were the second biggest in China. They must have been second biggest to Starbucks. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, so nine months after they started, so they started October 2017, imagine this.

Nine months later, they get an injection of $200 million in financing. That's a lot of coffee. That's freaking huge, man. What the heck? It's in that's Chinese water over there in China. What are they drinking over there in China in that water and that tea? Holy moly Monticeoli. So they attributed it to their aggressive marketing campaign, actually.

They were spending three times as much as they earned to promote their luckin coffee. And it's interesting because when I was looking online for the pronunciation, this isn't a joke. I believe Don't make it a joke I believe in in China it's pronounced Rue Rishing

which means happiness and luck So now they call it Luckin for the American version Yeah but it's yeah

Rue Rishing Rishing Cafe Rishing cafe So but we call it Luckin How about that folks That's interesting So then they listed

on the NASDAQ in 2019 I watched it. I believe the ticker symbol was LK at the time. I want to say it was LK. LK. LK.C. Something like that. But man, oh, man, was it just the talk of the... I mean, it's still... So, oh, we'll get to it. But, man, it's trading currently for just about $38 a share. Yeah, they've had a bit of a comeback after the whole... An unbelievable comeback. Look at the five-year chart. Press 5 Y. You might have to go out further.

You might even have to go out. Yeah, further. There it is. Well, so it peaked at about $51 in 2019, and then the scandal hit. Well, not quite. So just before the scandal hit, same month, early January 2020, we all remember what was going on. Chinese people were dropping dead in the streets. I'm watching it unfold and I'm going, what is going on over there in China? Holy canoli.

So early January 2020, Luckin Coffee raised 8,000. $21 million in share and bond sales, plus another $400 million in this five-year bond that they had. But then later that very same month, January 2020, Muddy Waters, which is an activist shortseller, posted an 89-page investigative report on Twitter saying that Luckin Coffee falsified financial figures. And this pertains to what we were talking about with Edwin, which is that I think it might be gone. It doesn't happen anymore. But there was, at the time, this culture among Chinese companies where they would fudge their numbers.

I don't know what the hell to attribute that to other than just like, I don't know, bullshitting to make it. Probably more attractive for investors. I still, but it's like so openly dishonest to just like lie. I'm sure it's not just the Chinese thing, but... No, but I mean, on U.S. exchanges, it's overwhelmingly Chinese-listed companies. But so Muddy Waters was alleging that they were... The number of items per store sold was inflated by about 69% and 88% in the third and fourth quarters of 2019. And they said that they had gone through 11,200 hours of video footage proving that.

no idea how they got that. Honestly. Like, how do you get, and how do you even combed through? I could believe it now if they were like, I built an AI model that scans, whatever. My man, in 2020. 11,000 hours. How many? 11,200 hours. That's at least a week. Let's see, how many, how many hours divided by 24? How many days is that?

I'm going to say, 458 days. Whoa, I was way off. I said a week. Golly. Oh, I didn't add the 200. I just did 11,000. I'm an idiot. It's 466 days. Man, I suck at math. I mean, how did they even go through all this?

I really don't know. Maybe they had multiple people working on it. I don't know. Hey, gang, we've got to take a quick break to talk to you about Gooder. I use these things all the dang time. These are my favorite sunglasses for playing sports. They are lightweight. They are polarized.

100% polarized. They're comfy on my face. I feel like I'm seeing the tennis ball better than I've ever seen it before. These things are incredible. I've got like four pairs at this point and I just switch them out depending on how I'm feeling.

These things are incredible. They're stylish. They're starting at only $25 a pair. You've got a one-year warranty, 30-day free returns. So folks, if you need a new pair of sunglasses, Gooder is giving Ben and Emile show listeners free shipping.

That's right, free shipping. You can go to gooder.com, and use code bays for free shipping. Goeter offers a 30-day money-back guarantee and 100% satisfaction. Again, that's Gooder, g-o-d-r.com slash bays, and use code bays for free shipping. So it affected the stock at first, but then luck and coffee obviously denied it. They were like, this is bullshit. And then in April of 2020, just a couple months later, they announced that they were doing an internal investigation.

And then they finally, they had no choice but to cop to it. They found that their chief operating officer, Gian Liu, had fabricated their 2019 sales by around $310 million. Okay, that's a rounding error. No, no, no, no. Let the boys have a little fun. They were, and it's so heartbreaking because you see the greed that was going on with this guy and the others involved his cohorts because it wasn't just Jean-Lue.

but they were on the upward trajectory already. They were doing well, and this clown had just felt for whatever reason to inflate their numbers by that much, I guess to keep up with the growth story so that the stock would continue to do well. Well, shortly thereafter, the China's regulatory commission announced that they're doing an investigation. And then shares started a fall and they fell. understatement. They fell 80%. And then trading was halted. Often. Absolute cliff. Oh yeah. It was insane. Trading was halted on April 8th. So for the audio listener, we're looking at the chart here. And it's like there's, it started to kind of drop out a little bit around, you know, in the lower 30s. And then boom, one day is just down 80%. And then three days later, it just stopped trading. They halted it for almost two months.

So if you had stock in Luckin, you were pooping your pants every single day. Did you ever get into it? No, I never touched it. But you heard people talking like, hey, there's this new Chinese coffee company. I think it's going to be big. It might be the next Starbucks. But when all this stuff came out, it was like, oh, there it goes. Another bloated, over-exaggerated Chinese scam that all of their growth numbers are faked.

So there's no telling what's real and what's not. And for people like me, I just swore it off forever. I was like, all right, I have no idea. This is just, this stinks to high heaven. It's a scam. It may be a real, I knew it was a real company, but I was like, there's no way you can trust these numbers ever again. But that was 2020, pal.

Exactly. We're in 2025. So we'll get to that. But in mid-April, a bunch of these people just got absolutely reamed. Mid-April after the stock had already been halted, Goldman Sachs had a deal with the chairman Lou Zhang Yao, he defaulted on a $518 million margin loan. He had used his stock as collateral.

And when he defaulted on the loan, they seized and sold his luckin stock. They must have done it off market because the stock was halted. But that $400 million bond also just got liquidated, sold for like pennies on the dollar. And then he fast forward to May 20th, starts trading again. but it didn't stop there because on May 28th, the Wall Street Journal reported that the chairman

and a major shareholder were in on the scandal and it fell another 20%. And then it was delisted from the NASDAQ on June 29th. It just kept... I remember following along and just being like,

Jesus Christ. It's a wrap on luck. What the fuck is going on with this thing? How do you come back from this one? And then in December of that year, the SEC settled a case for $180 million without the company admitting any wrongdoing or anything.

The allegations were defrauding investors, misstating revenues and stuff. And then in February of 2021, they finally filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy, which I had to look up. It's bankruptcy, it's restructuring involving international concerns, like luck in coffee, international companies. And then in September, they planned to restructure

and they settled another class action lawsuit for $187 million. December 2021, they restructured a ton of their debt. They settled lawsuits. March 2020, they're out of bankruptcy. They replaced the top management. They replaced the chairman, the CEO, and everybody else who did the fraud. And now look at them.

The stock went from like $2 in change to now they're back at $35 a share. And I'm so pissed because looking at this chart, I'm like, oh, my God, you zoom out. And it's just, holy shit. I would have assumed that they they like got rid of this stock and then re-filed re-IPOed or whatever. No. They're absolutely crushing it.

Forget Bitcoin. I wish I bought into Luckin at its bottom, huh? It would have been like a 20x return. 2,000% return. But yeah, it's not 2020 anymore. Okay, it's 2025. Now they're run by... First year of America's

long century of humiliation. Their time has come. Now they are, run by a Chinese private equity firm called Centurium Capital and they're now in Singapore, Malaysia and they just started

New York City. Yeah, they got 20,000 locations. If you'd never heard of them before, it's because all of those 20,000 locations are, I mean, most are in China, but, or the rest are in Asia. And now they are here to plant their flag in

America. I believe when they, this is just the beginning, because they have two in New York City right now in Manhattan. And when they opened, they said, this is just the beginning. Oh, yeah. So more luckins are coming. And it's so funny because,

according to this, there was one article I read, I think it was Wall Street Journal or something. They were like, Starbucks is pushing back. They're fighting back. And I was like, whoa,

what are they doing? Holy shit. What they're doing, all they did was this one location. They put an ad on an empty storefront. They put an ad on an empty storefront across the street that just says Starbucks. And they put an ad on an ad on.

on the subway stop right near the, uh, the Luckin. And they were like, oh, we intend to push back. We're going to push. Lookin, look it doesn't come into our territory without a sternly worded advertisement. Yeah, they put a, according to the article, they put a bunch of glossy photos of the logo, a model, and beverages with hello summer written across. Meanwhile, this is while, uh, Luckin is doing aggressive campaigns of, of, I don't know how long it's going to last, but all drinks are a buck 99 i think so i think it's when you download the app because that's the thing it is just you can only order luck and coffee via the app and they have ads all over new york if you download the app your first drink is a dollar 909 most stores have no seats some of them

will have very little seats it's not a very chinese this is not they're not coming here to a fancy coffee shop um they know what they are they know they're they're trying to are you trying to just grab a coffee on the go good great place it on your places on your app and coming in and get it. It's a buck 99. Yeah. But be careful of those Starbucks ads because while you're trying to get your buck 99 coffee, you might be like, how could I turn my back? Yeah.

On my one true love. The Seattle Roasters. So they are, they're not going to happen. You can only order via the app. They're collecting all this valuable data. Meanwhile, Starbucks, only 31% of their business is done via the app, which I love. I love that. I've also found it surprising.

I thought the Starbucks app? No, I, uh, that number. I found surprising. Too low or too high? I thought it would be way higher. Oh, yeah. But I guess Starbucks is different things depending on where you are.

Yeah. I guess my experience with it is New York and L.A. And I just imagine people walking up and grabbing their thing and going. I don't think that Starbucks is salvageable at this point. They are known as being, they're now a major, major, uh,

faceless conglomerate. Right. giant mega corporation. What they're trying to do seems so, so they are still the bigger one. I think as of right now they have over 40,000 locations worldwide. Luckin is at 20,000, but Starbucks seems to be so behind the ball on this. Well, Luckin is fully leaning into the fact that people just want a quick, cheap, on the go coffee that they can grab. And for it to be very easily done through an app, Starbucks seems to be going backwards on this.

They're like, no, people want to chill. People want to hang out with other strangers. Yeah. So they're closing a bunch of... People want a stinky homeless guy coming in and using the bathroom and stink. I do think people... I do think people want that kind of coffee shop, but I don't think they want it from Starbucks. Starbucks has completely ruined their brand and turned it into this...

Yeah, the conglomerate thing you're talking about. Honestly... Although the one near my house is pretty nice. There's always people in there chilling. They do be chilling at the Starbucks. That's a Starbucks reserve, though, isn't it? Isn't it? So it's reserved for good.

looking people. Isn't it like one of those really nice ones? I can't remember. I don't know. It might be. It might be, yeah. There's like leather chairs and stuff. They have no outlets, which is funny. They preach wanting this whole intimate experience where people can go hang out and yet they're like no outlets in our Starbucks because we want people to

not camp there all day. Isn't that the whole fucking point? Yeah, I mean, I don't understand this at all. When I think about Starbucks, I think public restroom. Yeah, same. I'm not even a, like I'm not really a coffee drinker. I've spent most of my adult life in New York or L.A. The only time I've been like, oh, fuck, is there a Starbucks around?

It's because I have to piss. By the way, speaking in public restrooms, why are in-and-out restrooms so disgusting? In-N-Out burger? I haven't been in an in-out. There's so, every time I go in when I'm like, how is this place so clean otherwise, but the bathrooms are just a disaster zone? Speaks to the food. What's it doing to your bowels?

Why is it making you do that? They keep the whole place clean, but they can't keep up with your dirty. ass I'm going to take another quick break to thank a sponsor of the show you know

it's factor meals factor meals I know them I love them yummy yummy god I'm so hungry right now oh if only I had a factor meal right here

because they're fast and easy but you know I'm always busy I'm always on the go you're on the go I'm on the go you got a lot on your plate

sometimes all I got is a couple minutes and that's where factor meals comes into place because they help me smarter and easier. They got tasty chef-prepped meals that are dietitian-approved and delivered right to my door. So convenient.

They got more than 65 weekly meals made for how I live and what I like to eat. More variety, more meals. You can support your wellness goals. They got more GLP-1 friendly meals and new Mediterranean diet options packed with protein and good for you fats. They've also got some global flavors coming your way, too. For the first time, you can try Asian. Inspired meals with bold flavors influenced by China, Thailand, and more. For more choices to better nutrition, that's why 97% of customers say that Factor

helped them live a healthier life. Feel the difference no matter your routine. So tasty. So why don't you eat smart at FactorMeals.com slash Bayes 50 off and use code Bayes 50 off to get, you guessed it, 50% off plus free shipping on your first box. That's code Bayes 50 off at Factor Meals.com for 50% off plus free shipping. Get delicious, ready to eat meals delivered with Factor. Amen. So they're closing a bunch of those mobile-only stores. And they have plans to refurbish existing location.

It's going back to... This is Starbucks. Writing your name on the cup and wants to rebuild the community coffee houses and more personal experience. Look at what they wrote on mine. Thanks, Ben. See, now this is the kind of shit. Who watched that from Starbucks?

It's so stupid of them. Because like you said, they're, so like you said, Starbucks is spending $150,000 per store to remodel and add more comfy seats. The strategy by CEO Brian Nicol is called Back to Starbucks. Back to Starbucks. And I didn't even know that they had these transactional mobile only stores. But to close them, you would think that they're just printing money. Yeah. It's so assing, it's so ass backward.

I think they don't know what they're doing. And I think, uh, I think the new CEO is like... I'm Brian Nichols. What if we went back to what... Because I do think there was a time when people liked Starbucks. I think they thought it was cool that...

I mean, I'm sure, especially in the burbs, people were like, wow, look at this. We have this cool Seattle roaster coming to our town. And honestly, if you're younger than us, you probably don't remember, but they would have... Do you remember they would have music and stuff? Cdys?

Well, you were checking out. You could check out the CDs. It was Dave Matthew and Cheryl Crowe and Coldplay. Yeah. Coldplay became... A Starbucks. They're the same thing to me. They really did try to make it this weird cultural.

Yeah. You could hang out and do work and pick up the latest Cheryl. It's where teens would go. Like, I, man, I remember my first taste of a Frappuccino. Holy shit. I was like, this is unbelievable. I will say I haven't had it in a year, so I can't speak to how it is now. It's just ice cream.

I used to love the hot chocolate. I think they did the hot chocolate in a really nice way. I don't know if they still... do it. I was also pissed when I had their, their breakfast foods, they've got these like sausage, you know, a McMuffin basically and in other shit. I'm like, when I discovered that, I was legitimately impressed because it's, it's good for what it is. And I was like, why don't they advertise this? They should be. The breakfast is bad. The breakfast is fine for what, for what it is. It ain't bad. Microwaved. That's how they got to do it at scale. That's how you do it. That's how

you accomplish it. But that's what I'm saying. If you really want to get people in, for example, that coffee shop that's that we like, that's not so far from us with the good baked goods you like, they have nice food in there and stuff. Yeah, it's good food. People hang out in there because it's not a fucking nightmare. Yeah.

Like you can go in and be like, you know what? I'll sit with my laptop. I'll get nice breakfast. You can't scale that anymore, not in this day and age. But why would I want to go in Star? Why would I want to hang out in Starbucks? When you got no other choice, Starbucks, when there's nothing else available. And you got a piss.

Right. That's kind of thing. People are like, well, I think Starbucks will be fine because people are, people are, they really like the coffee. No, no one likes that coffee. I like the coffee, but I also have bad taste. Right. Yeah.

If you really are worried. I truly have no taste. If you really are worried about the coffee, you're not going to Starbucks anyway. And so if you're like, hey, we have this easier experience where you don't have to come into this public restroom. Yeah. You just order on the app and leave. And you're done.

Yeah. Yeah. It is funny that they're, because they're also, Starbucks is also dealing with their fifth straight quarter of slowing sales. And it's just funny because their ticker symbol is SBUX. There you go. This is good to have up. S-Bucks. Let's see where they're at. Stockwise. Yeah, you can click and click and hold. There's still, I mean, they've just been going sideways for the last, for the last while. Zoom in a little bit. If you just kind of, there is funny, though, because how much growth

can they the some of these articles were so funny because it was like luckin luckin's one location downtown was on a block where two Starbucks locations used to be right right across from each other and shut down it's like guys what the hell yeah that's like there's this um on bever sorry guys this is going to be a hyper local uh one but there's uh first of all in my hometown long beach on this one street in a little neighborhood called belmont shore i'm talking it's a mile a long street, maybe. Three quarters of a mile. Two Starbucks on the same street. But, similarly, on Beverly Boulevard and, like, Libreya. Those are going to be a luck and soon. There's two Chevron stations, caddy corner.

There's one on one corner and one right across. I'm like, how the fuck? Did nobody call one another? Reminds me of the old Brian. You remember Brian Regan, the comedian? Yeah. He's got, he's like, you ever see two log, trucks pass each other on the highway? He's like, seems like a phone call could have saved a lot of time. And then he mimes that he's like, you had logs?

I thought, I thought you needed logs. Anyway, like two logging trucks passing each other. I just love that confused. You had logs. Oh, anyway,

Starbucks thinks that people want to hang out and they think that simple shit like writing messages, personal messages on the cups is what will save people do want to hang out in coffee shops they don't want to yeah but this means nothing when I see this I'm just like oh yeah that's just

what they do it's not like a special thing it's not like a that makes Starbucks special to me it's nothing it's yeah so evidence by the fact there are many there are so many places just in like my neighborhood

alone that are jammed with people just hanging out. But the coffee is all, I haven't, I don't drink coffee, but people love the coffee. They, like, uh, and the vibe is immaculate. The vibe is fun. It's not a fucking Starbucks. Yeah. Um, and they have, they have good food and, you know, things that make you actually want to stay there. Starbucks is good when I wake up and I got to get somewhere, but I need to

move my bowels. So I just go on the app. I buy coffee. I go over there. I drink the coffee. And I got to go. Yeah. Now just imagine it was a lot. Yeah. Now just imagine it was a a buck ninety-nine you do it right on the luckin app they know they they they got all your stuff right there for you they're sending you coupons yeah they so so that's what it boils down to here folks but they also have fun drinks don't forget the fun drinks okay they do they've got like because the coconut latte and if the velvet latte latte doesn't do anything are you saying latte latte latte how about an apple frizzy americano do you have just tape on your thumb by the way is that just tape it's medical tape yeah oh yeah okay yeah some of that there was explain it to you

No, no, it's okay. There's one called like kale, a kale drink, super kale or something like that. Yeah. I mean, I'm excited. There's a pineapple latte, which sounds gross. The one lady who was describing it said it was a bit chunky, but one guy said he'd like the chunkiness. I liked, they were interviewing some people who, some New Yorkers, and there was one

guy who's like, why are they shutting down the pickup only Starbucks? I like this. I don't want to go into a damn coffee shop. That was the cop in the financial times. Outside of mobile pickup only, Starbucks and Manhattan, policeman Giulio Guadalupe, what do you want? Greeted news of the sunset plans with dismay. That's referring to them sunsetting these mobile only stores. These sunset plans, I'm filling me with dismay.

The 46-year-old officer, Scorn sitting inside coffee house is calling it pretentious. It's pretentious as hell. If you just want to go and grab your coffee, this is awesome. He said of app-based coffee pickups, 100% It's where this country is headed. Honestly, if I was Starbucks, this is the... Dude, that's what I would lead into. I'd be like, you guys want to get cop coffee at Luckin?

Lucking, the coffee for cops love. That's pretty good. That's pretty good, man. The official coffee or the NYPD. Yeah. Those sick fucks think it's pretentious to sit in coffee shops. So, I mean, what do you guys think out there? Let us know.

Who is Starbucks overvalued at $110 billion? or is Luckin undervalued at $10 billion? Which will win out? Experiential coffee shit with Starbucks and, oh my God, they write a message on my cup and I get to sit around and twiddle my thumb and sit on my own thumb. I haven't been to the one by your transactional. It's transactional the way to go.

I haven't been to the one by your new place. But I have been to the one by your old place. Remember we would... On Hillhurst? No, no. we would stop like your old old place sorry we'd stop on whatever it was oh yeah on sunset um

and I would sometimes come in if I had to go to the bathroom or something Starbucks or just bathrooms to me yeah it's totally true and that place was depressing or I would not want to spend one second longer in there yeah yeah I mean some some for I mean

listen that place should be fully just a window handing you we talk a lot about like well actually we don't but we've referenced before the whole need for third spaces. Yeah, but it shouldn't be a fucking corporate-ass Starbucks. Also, but like, how do you even fix that? Like, that Starbucks, okay, let's say it's one of the,

it's let's say it's one of the restaurants or locations receiving the $150,000 for renovating. Yeah. It's not going to fix that. No. Well, that's because that whole strip right there is just haunted and it sucks. Sure. But you guys can't, I mean, it's the most depressing ass.

But I can, I can, I can, think of any number of Starbucks in Manhattan that are not on cursed strips that are just bleak vibes. Yeah. Yeah. Because yeah, I mean, that's, you know, right on 7th Avenue in the West Village. It's like, it's like the same thing with McDonald's. Everywhere, every fast food thing. Banging on the door or the bathroom because I'm like, I got to get out of here. Get out of there. What are you doing? It's all, yeah, it's always, there's always someone stinking up the place. It's like Dunkin' Donuts. Dunkin. Dunkin. Dunkin' Donuts have similar. terrible vibes.

Yeah, all of these places have bad vibes. But Dunkin' Donuts, they know their place. They know what people are coming in there for. I still remember trying, I was like excited to try a Dunkin' Donut. And I was like, this is the, this? It's bad. They're not good. I was expecting something better than that, but man, oh man.

But this is that, you need to let go of the past Starbucks. Those days are behind you. Luckin coffee is like, their whole thing is get the fuck out of here. Or take your shit and leave. Get, go. They can somehow merge with urban outfitters or something and have millennials flicking through vinyl or something. It's not going to happen. No one wants to hang out in there.

Who the fuck was buying a CD at Starbucks anyway? That is a good question. Who? I guess it was just like moms. Sorry, Mom. I think my mom probably bought like a... I do get it, though. They have that history.

I, you know, I thought it was cool when I was a kid. Why? What was cool about that? Because I grew up in the suburbs. There was nothing. Oh, yeah. It was like, can we go to Starbucks? What else was there?

Gang, listen. We got to take a quick break to tell you a little something very important, very near and dear to us. It's hair loss, you know? Nobody plans for hair loss. But through hymns, you can take the next step with confidence and access treatments made with clinically proven ingredients like finasteride and minoxidil to stop hair loss and regrow hair. In three to six months, no waiting rooms, no awkward doctor visits, no hoops, just ingredients with a track record of results.

And put that hat down, okay? Look, nothing against hats. We like hats, but we want it to be a choice for you, okay? So you can get a personalized plan to start regrowing your hair through him. So you can access treatments that combine clinically proven ingredients like, Oxidil and Phanastriot to stop hair loss and regrow it in just three to six months. Okay, they offer convenient access to a range of prescription hair loss treatments with ingredients at work, including choose, oral, medications, serums, and sprays.

Yeah, it's all doctor-trusted, clinically proven ingredients. You know, no hidden fees, no surprise costs, just real personalized care on your schedule. So for simple online access to personalized and affordable care for hair loss, ed, weight loss, and more, visit hymns.com slash bays. That's hymns.com slash bays for your free online visit. Hems.com slash bays, individual results may vary based on studies of topical and oral monocidal and finasteride prescription required. See website for full details, restrictions, and important safety information.

So remember my friend Caitlin was like, oh my God, she had a real raspy boy. She's like, let's go get frapicinos. And I was like, what the heck is that? She said, oh, my God, you've never had a frapuccino? And we hopped in her cool VW bus. And I tried one. And I was like, it's like that episode of The Simpsons where Bart and Millhouse try like a super slushy from the Quiky Mart. And it's just like all syrup.

And they turn into little like they're just fucking all over the place. You remember? No. No. Okay. Well, it was like that. I just was like, my world is rocked right now. Yeah, squishy, squishy.

Yeah. They turn into little, I don't think we'll be able to play this. Now, yeah, we'll get copyrights truck so fast. But it was like that. And then I remember working my minimum wage job at Dairy Queen. Whenever I had some extra cash and some extra time to kill, I would just go Starbucks and get a frat, man. I mean, Starbucks is kind of how I figured out that caffeine does not agree with me.

Really? Why? Because they were so sweet and tasty and people started drinking them like that. Oh, yeah. I mean, some of those drinks, they're so full of sugar, they taste so good. They're ridiculous. And so for me, I wasn't like, ooh, I need coffee. I was just like, damn, what is that? that chocolatey drink.

There's this... I want that. There's this... And then I got real anxious. Yeah. There's a Duncan Donuts barista who films the orders that come through. And it's just a POV.

He's just showing he or she are just, they're just showing what goes into the drinks. And it'll be like a... I don't know what the fuck ever, but they just press a button. And it just starts dumping sugar. Just sugar.

Just plain white sugar. and then some fucking coffee and then like three more pumps of syrup of some shit and it's just like geez I guarantee the person who's drinking that probably doesn't need it you know and it's just oh yeah yeah but

embrace modernity Starbucks sundown sundown every place that you want people to hang out truly I mean I close down all your public restrooms I think they are really looking backward and not, they're asking themselves the wrong questions and they're not going, I get why it's enticing for the CEO to go,

we got to go back to what made us big. It's like, buddy, you can't, you can't replicate that. Times they are changing. Right, is that 1997 anymore. People want a fucking, they want to just get their shit and go. If you've already got 31% of your business going through the app, that should be a sign that you need to be doubling or tripling that. lower overhead lower square footage costs and all that shit what a damn moron brian nickel let's see what he looks

like is this the guy is this the guy who also was saying that he didn't want to move to seattle and was going to be um commuting via private jet i think so look at this guy what a penis what a thumb wait i need to know if this is the images let's look at this guy people want to hang out in Starbucks like this yeah oh yeah he worked at Chipotle Starbucks is giving its new CEO Brian Nicol a private jet to commute between his California home

and Seattle office asshole I would you know what fire to this guy put me in charge man I'll turn that shit around he thinks he can look I want to stay in it I want to stay in California I don't want to come I know you guys are giving me this big job

but I don't care. He lives in Newport, so that means that he's flying... He's flying out of John Wayne and you know what John Wayne's whole thing is down there, that airport, right? It's one of the shortest landing... It's one of the shortest runways, first of all.

It is a terrifying place to take off from because when you take off, you fly over Newport Beach and all the Nimbies in Newport Beach have bitched to whoever at John Wayne. There's a noise. abatement procedure. So upon takeoff, the planes are required to immediately throttle back so that

there's less noise, which gives you such a terrifying sinking feeling. Because normally, you know, you throttle and you keep it gunned, but they take off, not only they take off really steep, but then, yeah, they kind of level out and pull it back. So it's, if you don't know any better, you're like, holy shit, we're dropping out of this guy. Have you done it? Oh, yeah. It's terrifying. And they have noise, they have like noise, uh, uh, what do you, monitor things and they're constantly constantly monitoring it and like adjusting and shit. It's, uh, oh yeah, that first

image right there on the city. This is how they their noise abatement procedures. It's fucking, it's ridiculous. Anyway, so you could be on the lookout. You could be there with a, you know, a, um, RPG or something and, uh, take them out. If you, if you, so, if you felt so inclined.

I'm not advocating for that, but. But if someone wants to do that. Starbucks guy, there goes his jet, a shoulder rocket launcher. I want to place a polymarket bet on how long Brian Nichol sticks around. This plane is going nowhere fast. See, now, I wonder how that works. Does someone else, who creates that bet?

I don't know. I was just making a joke. Yeah. I've been wanting to start betting on polymarket and shit. Yeah, you should get into that. Find some and then just like, I don't know. I feel like I got my finger on the pulse of the world. What's going to happen and what's not?

yeah anyway so i'm betting on the rise of so what do you what do you think how how bad will it go for starbucks uh what would it take for them i don't think they're gonna collapse or anything but i think this will be the first time they have a real um you know a real competitor in uh especially in cities i think this plan could work in suburban places like me in suburban in New Jersey being like Starbucks, this is the place. Holy shit. This is where culture.

This is where culture is happening in central New Jersey. This is the place. Wow. Mom, can we go to Starbucks? Yeah. But no. I don't think it's going to,

I think in places like Manhattan, I can totally see them getting their luncheat and especially if they try to go for that anywhere with like actual coffee shops who are talking about talking a good coffee game like proud of where they get their beans and all this stuff for coffee freaks

but then also have good vibes with nice food and not trying to do this at scale thing get the worst croissant you've ever had in your life. Yeah, yeah. There's just no way. I'm gonna open a coffee shop

and call it slave coffee. We source our beans. That's how we keep it so cheap. We source it from um, uh, slave. Slave coffee coffee forms.

Slave coffee. You like that one? Not really. Anyway. We'll see. So there's that. But I might try to get myself something when I'm in New York. You should.

You should. I know. Well, I kind of want to check it out. I tried. I could see it coming to L.A. soon. It also feels very funny. We didn't even touch on this. This, it's a, you know, we joke about this century of America's humiliation and stuff like this.

I do think this is the start of, you know, this multipolar world we're living in many ways. Where we want Chinese stuff now. Yes, very much. So, I mean, it used to be very, not just China. Countries all over the world would get excited about American things. And I think you're going to see more and more of that, these Chinese exesional. exports, not just kind of economic, purely economic things, but these cultural exports, too. Think about like a Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut used to be a sit-down restaurant. You would go into Pizza Hut

and they had a buffet. They had all that shit. And you know what they figured out? This is, this is dying. It's a, it's a, it's a prehistoric thing. It's no longer the way of the world. Pizza Hut was a special place when we were going to. Oh, dude, the smell in there was so fucking good. What a different thing. So, it's a cold. the red and white checkered yes man with those the lights on the tables those i don't know what you even call them those red plastic cups with the not a solo cup but the the almost the oh the plastic yeah but it's like kind of marbly yeah yeah the red like yeah oh man is a very very very special thing shakey did you have shakies pizza we didn't have shakies now or we might have but you know

it's michael j fox's uh favorite place to eat um You're pushing it. I'm pushing it. I don't know if I would do a Parkinson's joke right after making my slave labor coffee joke. It'd be one thing if they were good. Hey, gang, we've got to take one last break to thank a sponsor of the show. It's Mudwater. Look, we're here recording these in the afternoon.

We got a little sleepy right before, and we said, you know what? We might have to take out our mud water. You know, for me, it's the OG blend. That's the one that really stood out to me. It's got just enough of a kick to keep me up and not make me feel groggy. It really, you know, you feel a marked improvement with the brain fog. You know, I've tried other mushroom, functional mushroom blends. And mudwater really just, they knock it out of the park, man.

And for me, it's that every single ingredient in Mudwater's products are 100% USDA certified organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan, and kosher. There's also zero sugar and no sweeteners added, okay? To use mud water, you simply drop the powder into your favorite mug, pour some water on it, and give it a mix. Some go wild and add creamer, honey, or even CBD. I'm a honey guy, so sue me. The best part about mud water is it provides sustained energy without the spikes and crash of traditional coffee.

There's also caffeine-free blends available. Each ingredient in mud water serves a purpose. They got the OG blend with cacao and chai for a hint of caffeine and hot chocolate-like flavor. They get the Lions main for focus, cordyceps to promote natural energy, and Bolchaga and Rishi to support a healthy immune system. The quad, the perfect combination,

all those functional mushrooms. So ready to make the switch to cleaner energy, head to mudwater.com and grab your starter kit today. Right now, our listeners get an exclusive deal, up to 43% off your entire order, plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother that I use every single day. When you use code Baze, that's right,

up to 43% off with code Bayes at M-U-D-W-T-R.com. After your purchase, they'll ask how you found them, so please show your support and let them know we sent you. Keep your energy natural and refreshing all year long with mudwater because life's too short for anything less than clean, delicious energy. I remember having, it was like the best coffee drink I've ever had. It was like a jasmine infused latte. In China?

Yes. Wow. And it was so fucking good. Was it luck? I don't think so. It was another big upstart. It had just opened. I mean, I'm sure they have a bunch. It was so good. And I'd been looking for it here. Like, I want a Jasmine Latte. I had like two a day when I was there. I'm so fucking delicious. Maybe it'll be good for us. Maybe we'll get all kinds of cool drinks. And you know, I saw just speaking of China, we've all seen the images of the skyscrapers with all the synced light shows that they have like every night where the entire skyline. lights up. And I'm just like, it must be such a, it must be so good for their society. It,

it probably provides such an overwhelming sense of unity and, um, accomplishment and like cohesion among their society that they're like, oh, look at this isn't this great. You know what I mean? Yeah, civic pride. We used to have that and we don't have it. No, we don't have shit. Because we don't have any institutions to be. I mean, why don't you do that, Starbucks? Bring back civic pride. Give it, put, put, yeah, look at this shit. God damn, man. I really do have to go because I, every time I, it's like every other week, there's some guy posting just got back from China. You wouldn't believe what you've seen.

And then there's obviously people below him being like, this is Chinese propaganda. They showed you one special place or whatever. I mean, I'm sure that's true for every fucking country. Yeah, but you know what the difference is? If you tried to do, say you try, New York is probably our most impressive city with an actual functioning. public transport system, you could not find one sliver of a New York subway station or a New York subway car that is clean, that is not disgusting and disrepair. And I say this is someone who loves New York and uses the subway all the time and wants it to be funded and doesn't think

it's a bad thing. But so they can at least find these. It's wild, man. It's like, I just don't understand why we can't. But I do need to go. I got to see it for myself. I'm very I will say the food was underwhelming. That's my only bitch. That's my only gripe is that I found the food to be underwhelming. Because it wasn't Americanized Chinese food, which is what I thought it was going to be.

I was like, oh, it's going to be like Panda Express everywhere. Bandexpress is fucking good, man. Now give me a sit-down experience in a Panda Express. This is crazy. This is like going to Italy and being like the pizza fucking sucked. It's not like dominoes at all. I thought it was going to be like dominoes on every corner. Truly, truly, though, I thought I didn't know that Chinese food was like Americanized. I thought it would be like greasy. You didn't think it was different than what you get at Panda Express? I mean,

I'm being, I also just Chinese restaurants. Chinese restaurants have like the same food as Panda Express. They got orange chicken. They got generally. That's crazy. But like every restaurant I've been there is not, I can't, people ask me all the time like, oh, what's a good Greek restaurant? there is no Greek restaurant in America. Like even go to Astoria, Queens, where all the Greeks are. It is... Not the same. It is not the same at all.

It's like... Fair? It's just a different thing. Well, what I mean is the majority of the food there was hot pot. And even then, it was just like, oh, we're going to boil up some chicken. And I'm like, oh, geez, man. Give me the fucking orange chicken, dude. Oh, here's some turtle.

This is crazy. Ah, jeez. Do you hear about the turtles in the San Gabriel River? No, but just before you move on to the turtles, I do, I have people, I know people who have gone and, like, rave about the food. Really? Damn, maybe I just was smoking too many cigarettes, hitting too many darts. I mean, I just can't imagine, I don't know. Well, let's not get bogged down on the food. Let's talk about politics, shall we?

Did you want to tell me about the turtles? No, it's just crazy. There's these, like, Hawaiian turtle, like turtles that you would find in Hawaii are in the L.A. River up. in the San Gabriel It's like, here, Google Turtles, San Gabriel. Turtles San Gabriel. It's wild, man.

They're like full-on sea turtles in the disgusting, disgusting river. Green sea turtles. They're, they're, my friend Tony went and saw them. Well, there you have. Yeah, there's one little guy. Help me.

Help me. They're down in Long Beach. Holy shit. Yeah, well, doo-do water down in there. down there for the turtles eating all the muck and disgusting shit good for those turtles all right folks let's pivot a little bit let's uh switch gears here and rounding out the show of course we had donald trump last week firing the head of the bureau of labor statistics not good not fun not a wise

thing it reeks of uh we don't need to pull any of that up but it just reeks of like um what do you call that balkanization it reeks of balkanization or just uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh great there's a fly in my fucking coffee that's cool even the flies don't even like it the fly's dead he had one sip he said this stuff sucks give me luckin um it just uh yeah it wreaks of corruption it reeks of yes strong man just being like you don't tell me exactly what i want to hear you're gone i'll put someone in power who will do what i want and that's bad because we need to be able to trust the government we need to be able to trust the figures that they put out even if they're not good that's how you know that's how you can put your

full faith into things like bonds. And if you are outside entities, other countries, other institutions, banks and whatnot buying U.S. treasuries, you need to trust that the country is on the up and up in terms of the data that they are providing publicly. We're becoming a Chinese company about to list to the NASDAQ. Dude, well said. We are about, yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, he just doesn't want to hear any bad news anymore. And I can't blame him. I don't want to hear it either, Trump. But I think for Trump, it's going to keep coming. This Epstein thing is not going away for him. He's expressed his displeasure.

They wanted to go away. And this morning, there was reports. People were making a lot of jokes about Trump being on the roof of the White House as if he was about to jump. I don't think that was the case. He was... They said he was inspecting, helping being part of the inspection for some renovation. And very, in a very Trump moment, some journalists, I think, yelled and asked him what he was doing.

And he went, just going for a walk. But people were pointing out that it's funny timing because the New York Times on their front page this morning was posting a story called a look inside Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan layer. And we got to go through it because it's insane. Obviously, Trump shows up in a few pictures. that Jeffrey Epstein has framed and put on credenzas and that kind of thing. Obviously, he's been downplaying any of their friendship, but it's starting to look more and more like they are, in fact, quite close buds. I mean, you got everything from, I like this second paragraph. Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister of Israel and his wife, noted the great diversity of guests.

Quote, there is no limit to your curiosity. they wrote in their message in his uh in his what his 50th uh birthday book right so he did another uh i believe this was a 63rd we talked about the 50th birthday one where the trump letter had appeared where he you know drew a naked lady and did the insane enigma thing but this i guess this is a thing they're doing should we feel bad that have you ever gotten a leather bound book full of letters from your friends on your birthday no but i'm also not 50 i better get one when i'm 50 maybe we have to wait till we're 50 but Epstein seems to sure get a lot of these. He's got a lot of friends.

But 63rd does not seem like a birthday that you get a leatherbound book of letters from your friends. And I will say, I mean, obviously there's a lot of creeps associated with Epstein. As you can see, they've got a typed out letter from Woody Allen, the disgrace director. Which can you do a Woody Allen? Oh, gosh.

I don't know. Do you want to read this? Jeffrey Epstein, big neighbors, my wife, Sunyi, and I have invited for dinner many times. always accept always interesting wide variety it's too it's too long but i think obviously and it's it's um it's alluded to in this that he collected people yeah and he collected friends so by virtue of that i really don't think that a hundred percent of those people were guilty by association and that's not absolving him or any of the actual perverts people knew

what was going on. And it's funny. So you only talked about that first, that second paragraph right there. And it's, it's, it's the first paragraph in a string of three paragraphs where it just gets progressively, progressively worse. So the one he just read about, um, uh, Ehud Barak, you know, he said, there's no limit to curiosity or like a close book to many of them, but you know everything about everyone. And then next was the media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman suggested ingredients for a meal that would reflect the culture of the mansion, a simple salad, and whatever else would enhance Jeffrey's sexual performance. And then it finishes with, and the director, Woody Allen, described how the dinners reminded

him of Dracula's castle, where Lugosi has three young female vampires who service this place. This place was seven fucking stories, seven floors. 21,000 square feet. It does, so this is the Upper East Side. I was, for a time of my life, I would, I worked as a landscaper in New York City at a lot of these high-end places. We would do places on the Upper East Side just like this.

These places are nuts, so just like... Yeah, really high ceilings, too. Scary being in there. You're like, how the hell does anyone live like this in New York City? How does this even exist here? It seems like an illusion, an optical illusion. Oh, yeah, you get in there. I mean, when you look at it from the street, it kind of looks like a little brownstone or something.

But yes, it's much larger than you would imagine. ridiculous pieces of art that I mean a lot of like looted art you see in there looted like looted like uh oh like loot like stolen yeah wait wait wait scroll up let's let's look at some of these photos I mean the guy really did collect people I mean isn't it crazy the Trump thing is obviously what everyone's talking about but you see some of these pictures and it's just I mean because so many people now have been doing the thing where I'm like oh okay you got me in one picture I wasn't that yeah Elon's a big one where everyone posts that picture of him in the same frame as Galane,

Larry Summers, all these people. They've tried to distance themselves from it. And then you're like, buddy, why the hell are you in a frame picture on his credenza? Yeah. So scroll down and let this thing work because it'll circle him. There are Epstein smiling alongside Pope John Paul II. So like Pope John Paul II. Obviously not a diddler.

Are you joking? The Pope? of the Catholic church maybe the most famous pedophilic organization in the world. I don't think that the Pope was being like, yo, Epstein,

let me get a massage from one of you your girls, you know? I think he was just probably like, oh, you're a wealthy guy. I thought you were doing a Catholic joke. I was like,

no, no, not at all. I'm being serious. I don't think that the Pope, it clearly he met the Pope. I wouldn't absolve any of... Mick Jagger, Elon Musk,

Fidel Castro, he's got photos with... Here's what I will say in the Pope's, in the Pope's defense. Yeah, looks like he's blessed. The Pope is more someone... But you never get caught.

The Pope is more someone, like, even in the picture, it looks like, oh, this was a big moment for us. We met the Pope. They're not like, hey, look, it's us on vacation together. And I can imagine someone like Mick Jagger might fall into that as well, although I could see Mick being an absolute creep. He's just kind of... Yeah, I do think there's a...

But I don't know if I'd put anything past the Pope. And then here's a ton more photo. Can we talk about this Bill Clinton? Look at the way they're looking into each other's eyes. Also pictured where Larry Summers, former president Bill Clinton and Richard Branson. Who is Larry Summers?

He's the famous economist. Former United States Treasury Secretary. You got him with some shake over there on the right. I don't know who that is. Keep going. I mean, the guy had a ton of photos of him

with all sorts of people. of there he is with Trump looking lovingly into the other's eyes or just never looked cozier with someone

I mean I didn't even notice is that little St. James Island do you think? Probably on the right there there he's got a photo of Bill Gates

with Steve Bannon they're like talking to each other is that no that's Woody Allen is that Woody Allen yeah it's Woody Allen because Bill Gates is taller than that

but speaking of Bill Gates you know Woody Allen felt right at home in there oh yeah speaking of wow This place is great. But you got a framed dollar bill signed by Bill Gates, and it says possibly as payment of a bet, quote, I was wrong, is written on the...

Need to know what that bet is for. Need to know. And it's such a rich guy thing. I'll bet you $1. I honestly think... I was wrong. If we somehow got all these files and stuff and were able to piece together some real narrative of what actually went down, I think our heads would explain. but it's probably...

Oh, yeah. So this is... Sicko shit. This is what I was alluding to. Look at this gaudy-ass bedroom with, like, seashell sconces on the walls and, like, blue... It's like a weird quasi-notical...

Flowers. It does look like a hotel room in... The Bahamas or something. Yeah, it's gaudy as hell. It looks like a hotel room in the Atlantis, in Nassau Bahamas. Very well said. By the way, oh, we'll talk about it in the bonus.

Also, the... There were cameras, surveillance cameras. I think we scrolled past it, but they, did you see the ban and stuff about how he did a bunch of interviews? And he's sitting on about 15 hours of release that footage. Was that after, that must have been. Yes, that's another thing. So this is all, all this stuff from his 63rd birthday, that stuff that was coming out before was from his 50th birthday, that was before he was arrested and did the 13 months on, I don't know, sex abuse and, um, sex. Offender Island?

Yeah, well, before he served out his sentence. So there are people who distance themselves from him after that period of his life. But these are all people who were still hanging around after that. You know, they got your man's on sex assault charges. Yeah. Guy you be hanging with. Woody Allen's like, I'll go over dinner. Yeah.

Oh, dinner again? Oh, my gosh. And then more cameras. I mean, it's just, it's wild. It's bananas. And I mean, he's got a stuffed. tiger in there. Yeah, I mean, the whole fucking thing.

I wish they had pictures of this. A lot of the stuff they could just describe, dozens of framed prosthetic eyeballs lined the entryway. Dude, there were all sorts of weird shit. I mean, maybe he's an art collector. A sculpture of a woman wearing a bridal gown. That's actually the cover of the story. A sculpture of a woman wearing a bridal gown and clutching a rope was suspended in a central atrium.

Oh, yeah, it looks like she's, um, repelling. And she looks like a fucking mummy. It looks, oh, I guess it's because it's bros. Yeah, she's got the bridle show. Get me out out of here, mister. Help. Well, I guess we'll round it out with with, uh,

disgusting. I mean, I, I don't even know what to say anymore. Uh, we got, we got the worst part about this is that I do think um, he's going to, I don't know, I think all of our minds are going to be broken when he does something with Galane. It, it already seems like he's priming the whole thing to either

commute a sentence or kill her even go oh I was thinking well she's at a much minimum security resort so I assume that it's probably easier to kill yourself there I was assuming he was going to either commute her sentence or give her a pardon

in exchange for new testimony where she um he was only Democrats yes exactly she gives up all fucking so sick of All people that Trump hates, so she gives up Clinton, of course, and all of these people. She talks about, I don't know, some kind of conspiracy by the Bidens to make them look bad and how they created the report. I mean, all this shit that's happening now, just speaking in politics with the gerrymandering in Texas, is so infuriating because there's this image going around of one of the districts, one of the Democratic districts.

and it's just like a weird strip that connects San Antonio with Austin Yeah, gerrymandering is weird though There are sometimes like legitimate reasons Why they do it And they can look very wonky A lot of times it's done for Politically

Advantages reasons But yeah, it's not Not good folks But I do worry that's how all the Epstein stuff will end the whole nothing ever happens crowd it just ends up he just skates by another one

I'm gonna ask that guy by the way the Epstein and he somehow drives all of his base even crazier about how Democrats truly are pedophiles somehow he gets Galane to actually

sketch out remember the pizza he gets her to confirm that Pizza Gate was real oh sure God dude I hope not I'm sick of this shit

I hate these people I hope they all die and burn in hell All right folks Ben andamilshow.com We're gonna go into the bonus It's gonna be a real good one We're gonna be talking about

Dildos getting thrown In the WNBA What else were Oh king of the new king of the hill New King of the Hill Very very good Should we talk about Performative males

Yeah sure I'm seeing all the performative male stuff Performative males Yeah Why not? Couldn't be me. I'm not performative. I'm barely even a male. All right. Thanks so much, folks. Coming up on this week's episode of Ben and Emile Show.com.

I'm like, why not just make it like hot dog is one? Hamburger is two. Chili. And then, oh, but if it's a chili dog, you got to put the hot dog in first, do 615, take it out. And then you put the chili in and you do, you know, 112.9. Then you take it out. You put the hot dog in the bun. You put it in and do 9-2-2. And I remember the first time some guy ordered a chili dog.

I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. I'm just going to be fucking, but I did not remember. Ask him for trouble. Oh, my God. And I remember just like. Who gets a chili dog at a dairy queen? It's a diarrhea factory.

Yeah, but you're using a screen in your car. I've driven with you. This man uses his phone for guidance and just holds it. You're holding a screen. And you're like, da, thank God. The thing doesn't have any screens in it. I don't know No, me, babe, I don't think screens

Well, a car is no place to play That's what I say Yeah Should call it car serious Because driving is serious There was a little There was just a little guy Running around

Imagine a crazy little guy Running around He was this guy Everyone uncomfortable He went up to the window And like I think they probably just wanted Wanted him to go away

So he No, he stole a sprite Oh, he stole it A glass bottle spray Right. And it wasn't a twist off. It was the old school bottle, glass bottle. And first he wanted Ben to... Yeah, it's me. Can you open this? Can you open this? And I was like, oh, sure, buddy. And then I was like, you know, I don't have a bottle opener. It's not a twist off. And I handed it back to him and he looked like he was about to break it over my hand.

Yeah, he looked. And then he just kind of like, mm-hmm. He just was like trying to make you flinch, it seemed like.