The Ben and Emil Show - BAES 86: Can Trump's Economic Warfare Actually Work?

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Is this what "winning" looks like? All within the world's longest week, we've got tariffs against two of our biggest trade partners, and Elon Musk giving himself unchecked access to the United States Government's vast treasury funds. It's getting hard to keep up, but we'll do our best to keep you informed. This week's bonus episode is a GOOD ONE baby. Sign up 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 Leave a comment! Like this video! Tell a friend about our show! __ CHUBBIES: Chubbies is here to help you take on 2025 in style! Get 20% off @chubbies with the code BENANDEMIL at: https://www.chubbiesshorts.com/BENANDEMIL #chubbiespod ROCKET MONEY: Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and save money today! Go to https://rocketmoney.com/BAES today! __ Latest MEATBALL SPECIAL HERE: https://youtu.be/uIOdsIn1Tdo Last week's episode HERE: https://youtu.be/qLhnYvL0eu8 We bought suits HERE: https://youtu.be/_cM1XqA9n2U This episode was edited by Chris Dalo / https://vimeo.com/chrisdalo Follow us on instagram! @ benandemilshow @ bencahn @ emilderosa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And we're back. Is it over or are we so back? You know, I was thinking about titling this episode, it's so over. But we could be so back. We could be so back. But at this point... It doesn't feel like we're so back. It feels like it's so over right now.

We're like the Bugs Bunny meme. Oh, where? Where they're ripping a rabbit season and duck season? Where they're ripping off the side? No, he's kind of like a needle. Oh, sure. Pinging between. Wait.

Does that Bugs Bunny meme even exist? It has to. There are Bugs Bunny memes for everything, like those hyper-specific. reality bending images that somehow sum up the entire emotional state of a generation. If anyone would embody this paradox, it's him, ears up, knowing smirk, either declaring victory or accepting utter defeat. I should check. No, I must check. Because if the meme exists, then we're so back. And if it doesn't, well, maybe, we never were. Tell me what's going on

Before we get too bad in me Tell me what's going on Tell me what's gone on Before we get too far in the weeds on Pugs Bunny And whether or not it's so over Or if we're so back Boston, I think if you're watching this on the day this came out We are in your city right now

You better hurry up doing a live show. So buy a ticket for that tonight. If there's still, there was like four tickets left. Yeah, people are saying the demand is high. Nobody wants to go see those three sold out Chris Fleming shows. Yeah, if you couldn't get a ticket to Chris Fleming,

come check out our show. Yeah, come check out our show. Portland. Portland. Yeah, so that's February 6th. I don't know. Whatever today. Yeah, Thursday.

Yeah, yeah. Portland. We are coming to you, April 13th. Yeah. Portland, Oregon. Oregon. Not Portland, Maine. The real Portland.

Well, the weird one. Yeah, the weird one. The weird one with the strip clubs. Keep it weird. Portlandia. Yeah. Kyle McLaughlin's the mayor. Kyle McLaughlin.

Brett Armisen is the president. Brett Armisen is the president. Kerry Brownstein's... Also the president. We're coming to April 13th. The ticket link will be for that in the description for that. And it's going to be a good time. So, folks, we're recording this in advance.

So hopefully... In J.D. We're recording this in J.D. Vance. Whoa, it's so tight in here inside J.D. Vance. It smells like poop. We're coming to you live from J.D. Vance's colon. And hopefully, you know, so there's some... I'm a little superstitious sometimes.

And whenever I travel, the market tends to do things. I think the market does things all the time, but... It does. But truly, sometimes when I travel, especially going to the East Coast... it's setting up with these tariffs and all these headlines. It's going to be a crazy week. Yeah. So hopefully by the time this comes out, nothing too hectic will have happened. But we are working hard for you.

There was a small moment where I was like, we should just release a bonus episode as this week's episode. But then I was like, no. I'm not even going to suggest it. It's funny. It's funny you bring that up. There was a. Oh, yeah. They said these guys work ethic.

Yeah. They scared me. I was like, we're fine, but they were like, I'm worried about these guys. Oh, yeah, because we're working too hard. There was a, wait, we got to, maybe. We do have a long, we do have a very big week ahead of us. Yeah, so on, which, this is very nice. I'm not, but someone said, thanks, Ben and Emil, just want to say,

thank you to our boys for all the content they're pumping up. I appreciate how much effort they're putting into the work, blah, blah, blah. And the top thing is, I hope they don't burn out from all this effort. It seems like a lot. Nah, stuff's going on all the time. and I got to always be on the ready for it. So we're going to be talking today about the tariffs, what it means, how it translates to your life.

What the heck Trump is thinking? Elon Musk is now... Doge could be a bigger threat than we actually thought. Maybe it's not just a little weird non-governmental position. We'll see. Yum, yum, yum. But let's start it off with some lighter news, shall we? Pugs and Toddy Phil.

the little gopher that decides the fate of winter here in the United States made his annual weather prediction but is first as a father that's right puts a totty field nutted inside of another thing what do you call it is he a badger he's a groundhog

groundhog yeah famously groundhog's Groundhog day yeah thank you thank you oops so he's a father I guess now good for him which is a big thing remember when de Blasio killed one It's Groundhog Day And maybe life is on a loop But I miss my burrow

Great audio coming from this broadcast Headed back down There's a shadow up here Get ready for six four weeks of winter this year He's reading this clearly Ponce de Toney Field did not write that You don't think so? No I don't think he's capable of writing

He's a father Yeah but so what's he doing down there Just chilling all the time, and they come and go, all right, get up here, you little. And he's going, everyone, shut up, to his kids. Do you remember when de Blasio killed one? I guess. I don't know, with a gun? Can you do de Blasio Groundhog?

Yeah. Yeah, can you do De Blasio Groundhog? I'm pretty sure he was, he went. Dude, did you see that headline right there? Shamar Morris says he and Jeserite Dizone will remain loving friends after split. Fuck. Ted Mel de Blasio on dropping groundhog that later died. Oh, former New York mayor spoke candidly about day.

Oh, he spoke candidly about it. He dropped Charlotte the Groundhog, and it fucking died. But like the next day. My dad dropped a baby on its head once. Did it die the next day? No, but it was a twin, and I'm curious to see if it's dumber. Asked if he had any regrets de Blasio said, yeah, 100%. I'm like, don't make me hold a fucking ground dog.

Let me tell you exactly what happened. I go there and it's seven in the morning, which means my motor skills are not at their best. I put on these gloves and they're like, here's a groundhog. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm like,

don't you have a little more coaching to go with this or whatever? It was idiocy. Why would you want an elected official to hold the groundhog? I don't know anything about holding ground dogs. Wow. Only trained groundhog holders and you squeeze it really tight. I mean, what do you do? So I'm like, talk about a lack of advanced work.

it was a complete bungle. Anyway, Charlotte was found dead a week later. Wow. And the crops they determined the animal died of internal injuries. Sounds like it got hit by a car to me. Yeah, we don't know how the animal suffered the injuries, but we don't think of it. Listen, we're keeping it light also because we're going to talk a little bit.

He was wearing gloves because five years before a ground hug bit Michael Bloomberg. Jesus, great. We need to get Mayor Adams down there and see if Phil can get his stuff. hands on his... There might be drugs inside the Groundhog. He ripped it open. We got to tear open the Groundhog and make sure there's not any paraphernalia or weapons inside of the Groundhog.

I am also announcing Groundhog coin, which should help us... I don't know. I should have got in on Groundhog coin. Yeah. Folks, we're going to try to keep this one light, too, because, you know, there's a lot of chaos going around. There's also a lot of panic, and it's... Yeah, we're all kind of...

constantly in a bit of a panic. So why don't we get right into it, shall we? So is Elon Musk controlling the Treasury, and is it a terrible, terrible thing? Here's what's going on. The Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant, is it Besant? I'm the worst guy with names. Don't ask me. But yeah, that sounds about right to me. He gave representatives of Doge access to the federal payment system on Friday, this last Friday. According to... to five people familiar with the change. This is all from the New York Times, handing Elon Musk and

the Doge team to a tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending, right? Yeah. I also feel like saying they handed it over is like a bit of a... It's a bit misleading. It was like after a standoff.

Right. So just as a little background, and I didn't know this, I mean, I knew that the Treasury Department does all kinds of shit, but I was very surprised to learn that the Treasury Department executes payments on behalf of agencies, government agencies, across the government, dispersing $5.4 trillion or 88% of all federal payments in the last fiscal year.

I think that was 23. So which is a huge deal. You know, Elon's been talking big game about how, you know, he wants to cut trillions from the budget. He wants to, you know, get his freaky little hands on any kind of thing he deems unworthy of. being sent out by the American government, any kind of funding. And the drama that unfolded was this guy, David Lebrick, he's been working for the government for 35 years. He was the temporary Treasury Secretary during this transitional period.

He oversaw more than the more than one billion payments. So I guess the Treasury does more than a billion, not dollar amounts, but a billion actual payments through the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which is little known, but it's responsible for everything from getting money to Social Security recipients, government employees, contractors, everything. So he got placed, this guy, David Lebrick, got placed on administrative leave when Tom Krause,

who's one of the Doge people, who also happens to be the CEO of Cloud Software Group, this guy, Tom Krause comes in and asks for access to the payment system. David denied him. And then they put him on leave. And then David said, you know what? Fuck it.

I'm just going to retire. You guys are... Yeah, I mean, I think he's like, why bother staying in this mess? I'm clearly going to lose out to these private sector freaks. And so Elon Musk's whole thing, he's told senior administrative officials that he believes the federal... He believes the federal government is sending out hundreds of billions of dollars to people who either do not exist or are fraud. And, I mean, it apparently is somewhat, I mean, I'd believe that. When you got $5.4 trillion going out every year, there's bound to be some fraud, sure.

The Government Accountability Office estimated in a report that the government made $236 billion in improper payments, three quarters of which were overpayments across 71 federal programs during 2023. So at first that seems alarming as I was reading it. But then, apparently, there was former officials who told the New York Times that the onus is on individual agencies to ensure their payments are proper, not that small staff at the Treasury Department sending out these payments. So basically it's like- Right, they're just processing the payments they're getting from executive branch groups. They're not making calls on these things.

Yeah, it's pretty They now have access to a lot of sensitive information This is from Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon Top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee To put it bluntly, these payment systems simply cannot fail In any possibly

Any politically motivated meddling in them risks severe damage to our country and the economy I can think of no good reason why political operators who have demonstrated a blatant disregard for the law would need to access these sensitive, mission-critical systems. Social Security and Medicare benefits, grants, payments to government contractors, including those that compete directly with Musk's own companies, all of it. Yeah, that's the troublesome part to me is like, okay, can Musk and his cohorts be trusted

to continue to make this thing function the way that it should? And I mean, even as I was peeing right before we recorded, I was looking on Twitter. And apparently Elon Musk highlighted the fact that however much hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, is some of it's getting sent to the Lutheran church? And he's like, well, why is this going to the Lutheran church? So I'm like, okay, yeah, why is it? But then you go through some of the replies and they're saying, well, they're running charities, they're doing um yeah that's the thing he's like he sees something that on its face he doesn't understand and he goes what and then he tweets it out and goes curious like why is this happening and everyone

goes why is that happening it's like he was doing it with um not that we understand it or no or that it's good it's just like he clearly doesn't you know he's posting all these things he was doing studies that different departments were doing and being like why are we sending money to this and then some guys like well actually that was related to studying some disease or whatever It's, yeah, he wants to dismantle everything. I guess, so the good, I guess somewhat good news, or not good news, but at first blush, it was like, oh, they're coming in and it's almost like a coup. They're coming in and just like taking over. That sure was kind of true at first because they weren't all vetted and whatnot, but now they have been granted access to the payment system.

They've passed their government background checks. They've gotten the security clearances, and they still don't have operational capabilities, and none of the payments have been blocked yet, yet. Yeah, but they're ready to get going. So this weird Elon Stan guy, Elon retweeted it, he quote tweeted it, but this guy, Mario Nafal, said, Doge is speed running government reform. four billion per day cuts could start this weekend bureaucracy never saw it coming and Elon said very few in the bureaucracy actually worked the weekend so it's so it's like the opposing team just leaves the field for two days working the weekend is a superpower so they're just trying to go overtime get all this stuff uh yeah i don't this this was a silver lining that i appreciated apparently again from the new york times some career treasury department attorneys signed off on granting

the access that I just mentioned, and they added that any changes to the system, i.e., who gets to... Him cutting off payments, whatever. Has to go through a review process and testing. So it's not like, it's that kind of thing that gives me a little bit of relief that there are still... I mean, we'll see. They don't...

I don't think they really care for, like, norms and procedure. Exactly. They honestly seem to be really implementing the tech ethos of move fast, break, things we'll figure it out later you're seeing it with the the trump federal funding freeze of like fuck it just jot it all down even if that means medicaid all these you know starting chaos and all these different programs um yeah i don't know i'm obviously not uh hopeful for what this means what's been somewhat refreshing for me is seeing uh sentiment on wall street bets specifically toward Elon Musk? Because it used to be just like

a Elon Musk glaze best. They just, he can do no wrong. He's, you know, they all fucking hate him now. What are they saying? They're just like, this is, this guy's a clown. What the fuck are they doing? Weird. I would think Wall Street Betts would be pretty pro, like,

yeah, slash all these. Surprisingly not. Dude, Reddit in general is just kind of, everywhere is kind of bleak. I'm sure everyone feels it. There's not, there's not a lot of, like, positivity and good vibes going around but like even just apolitical

nothing to do with finance nothing to do with anything Reddits are just like posting just dark I saw one on you know R slash travel or travel hacks or something and it's just like is anyone

is anyone else putting travel on hold for now a bit worried about the economic chaos coming and I'm like Jesus don't do that folks like if Take your family on the trip. Do, do, this is, so I got a friend. But also, it might be very real. I mean, there's just, I don't fucking know.

I think that this is a good time and a good reminder to try your best to live and focus your attention locally for your own sanity. And as a. I always go back to this one guy. Don't remember his name. Don't remember anything other than when we were at like peak recession in 2009. the housing crisis he's got this anecdote about how he was at Disneyland with his family

and he's like looking on social media and looking at headlines you would think that the world was on fire and everything is we're spiraling out of control but Disneyland was packed people were still out there spending money I know it's just a small sliver the people who can afford it sure

but it's a weird anecdote especially when like you're talking about just like wealth for huge swath of power just like, eviscerated, people losing homes. Right. I mean, you could see it. You would drive through neighborhoods and you'd be like, holy shit. Yeah.

It's fucking gone. My point, though, being that, like, there's only so much you can do. And there's only... Sure, you don't have to panic and... Yeah. And I don't think that guy's panic. I think he's turning to Reddit to be like, is anyone else feeling this? Like, he's not like, you know, stop doing whatever you're doing.

He was generally, like, am I being crazy? Like, I'm just trying to figure out what everyone else's vibe is with this. Which I think is fair. Hey, gang, we want to take a quick break to talk about a sponsor that we know and love and use regularly. Talking about chubbies. No, not the cheeks on your niece or nephew. No, we're talking about clothes. Emil looks so good in these shorts.

I had to compliment him one time, and I got upset because I was like, Wait, I didn't get my chubby shorts. Because, you know, they give them to us to try out. And man, oh, man. They are so comfortable. Dang. They look incredible. They look so good.

They feel so good. All summer long, I refuse to take them off. That's true. People try to hold me down and just rip these shorts up. And I say, sorry, I sewed them onto my body. You'll never get them off me. When I finally got my pair in the mail, they were very quick to send me mine. I loved these guys.

I love these little guys. They fit like a dream. They look really, really good. And the shirt that I got also, the shirts, plural, so cool, so good, so comfortable, so nice in the spring and summer. And guess what? Spring is almost here. Yeah, I don't care what Punksetani Phil says. Yeah.

It's February, March right around the corner. Things start getting a little warm. Yeah, man. You deserve a wardrobe upgrade for springtime, you know? You're handsome. You got good taste. So, sweeten the deal. To sweeten the deal for limited time, Chubbies is giving our preference.

Precious, precious listeners and viewers, 20% off your order with our exclusive code. All you got to do is use the code, Ben and Emile at chubbyshorts.com. Yeah, folks, you got to get in on this stuff. They also got the swim collection. They send us a couple of those as well, and they're so good, man. It's not hyperbole to say that they are the absolute pinnacle of the men's swimwear game. Whether you're squeezing out as many beach days as possible before winter or swim and laps at the gym, They're ultra-vibrant trunks built with a quick, drying,

fun colors, cool patterns, all kinds of fun stuff. You're going to look great and feel great. Yeah, you're going to look great, feel great. Everybody's going to be complimenting you. So whether you're getting dressed for your workday, a workout, or a weekend getaway, Chubbies has you covered. For a limited time, Chubbies is giving our viewers 20% off your order with our code Ben and Emile at Chubbieshorts.com.

That's code Ben and Emile at chubbyshorts.com. Support our show and tell them. you don't blend in with the crowd stand out with chubbies both Elon Musk himself and um and Trump have you know which I don't want to jump around we're going to get to the tariffs and stuff they've both noted that um pain is coming yeah and it was it was Elon first uh this was like back in October before yeah what did he say specifically he's um this was like late October before the election even happened because obviously people were trying

to spread word that these tariffs and stuff that Donald Trump is proposing is not going to be good for the average American, the average consumer. And there was articles like Elon Musk admits Trump's plan will collapse the U.S. economy, says that it's necessary for everyday Americans to experience temporary hardship.

Which is not a great thing to hear. And I think a lot of people were probably in denial about that at the time being coming to fruition. We're probably like, yeah, but maybe it won't because maybe he's just going to, you know, threaten the tariffs. Yeah, but and so we're going to get to it.

But now that we're talking about it, I also want to talk about Trump's truth because it's the first time I've heard him cop to it. But yeah, this is the first I've heard Trump talk about how there's going to be some pain for ordinary folks. It's a long truth. The tariff lobby headed by the globalist

and always wrong. Wall Street Journal is working hard to justify countries like Canada, Mexico, and China, and too many others to name. But he says, this will be the golden age of America. Will there be some pain? Yes, maybe. And maybe not. But we will make America great again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid. We are a country that is now being run with common sense, and the results will be spectacular. This goes back to me how people, Trump, big Trump fans are like he's a successful businessman. He knows how to get the job done. And it's like, are we living in the same reality? Because he famously doesn't have the capability to get the job done. He famously has gone bankrupt multiple times, declared bankruptcy, rather. Doesn't pay contractors. Yeah, mostly a crook rips people off. Jesus. God, man. But. But before we jump into the tariffs, let's say. Yeah, I wanted to share this. We talked. about it on the on the on the weekend rip show um because tesla had its earnings last week and it's just it's beyond frustrating that he continues to get it's like the fucking um what's his

name uh jesse in breaking bad meme of he can't keep getting away with it because uh yeah Tesla basically missed on on all their uh on revenue on profit margins you name it but on the conference call after the report came out on the conference call, Elon Musk is just fucking doing what he does best, just making the most outrageous claims that they're going to be worth trillions of dollars more than they already are. But this JP Morgan analyst published this report that's fucking beautifully written. And it says it's not clear to us as to why Tesla shares traded as much as 5% higher

in the aftermarket Wednesday, although we have some leading theories. Perhaps it was management's statement that it had identified an achievable path to becoming worth more than the world's five most valuable companies taken together. Or maybe it was management's belief that just one of the products has by itself the potential to generate north of $10 trillion in revenue. I think he's speaking to either the full self-driving robotaxies or the robots. It may have even related to management guidance for 2026. No financial targets were provided, but it was said to be epic.

And for 2027 and 28, ridiculously good. Fucking unbelievable, man. So, yeah, bullshit artists now in charge of... It's just... Now in charge of the Treasury. Got his little freaks in there.

I also, before we move on, the... People might have heard about people talking about... the impoundment control. And I think this does have a lot to do with all of this, and it's connected to Trump's federal funding freeze, which is now on hold, but there's going to be court cases about it.

It basically, you know, Nixon kind of went through this in the early 70s where he was like, you know, I don't want these funds being spent. I don't agree with it. I don't care if Congress appropriated the funds for it or not. we're not going to disperse them. They basically ruled that the president's not allowed to do that. If laws are passed and funding is approved and ready to go, it needs to be spent.

I think Trump wants to change all that. I think he wants to change who controls federal funding. I think he wants it to be in his hands. And I think these are all going to be, you know, there's just going to be a tax on all fronts of gaining access to how the American government spends their money. Awesome. Awesome stuff. It's becoming just more and more mask-off shit for me, with Trump, with Elon.

And someone I saw made a great point that in his little Nazi salute moment, where he's allegedly being like, my heart goes out to you, if you look at his face. And I know we've already touched on this and everybody said what they've said, what they've said, but it was just a really good point that when you look at his face, it says it all. Dude, he's like... His face is very much like, I'll fuck you.

He's reached... He's already got enough power and influence as the world's wealthiest man, but now that he's got massive power and influence in the world's most powerful country, he just knows that he's beyond untouchable. And his face says it all. He's like, what are you

going to do? How are you going to stop me? I'm going to do the offensive um one of the most offensive gestures in our culture and uh you know ain't shit you can do and i think that that's kind of what he was telegraphing whether intentionally or not yeah i think it was intentional i don't think china will be kind to that kind to him when they invade oh my god i hope string him up man uh what uh all right let's do the tariffs let's um should we let's read the the uh you already got it over yeah There you go. Let's cover this in the most hopeful way possible.

Yeah, so this is a fact sheet from whitehouse.gov. We're excited about this. Imposes tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico, and China. Let's just read, yeah, addressing an emergency situation. The extraordinary, because the big question, and it's kind of perplexing as to why some people are going, why is he doing this? I mean, they're telling us. The extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly,

Fentanyl constitutes a national emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Until the crisis is alleviated, President Trump is implementing a 25% additional tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% additional tariff on imports from China. Energy resources from Canada will have a lower 10% tariff. I believe we get about 30% of our oil, what goes into the mix of oil refining. We get about 30% from Canada. So he's... Oh, wow. I thought it was more than that. Maybe it is. Roughly 60% of the oil that the United States imports comes from Canada.

Tariffs on Canadian energy, though lower than other imports, could prompt an uptick in prices at the pump. It goes on to say President Trump is taking bold action to hold Mexico, Canada, and China accountable to their promise of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country. The orders make clear that the flow of contraband. drugs like fentanyl to the United States through illicit distribution networks has created a national emergency, including a public health crisis. Certainly true. We do have a crisis. We all know this. Fentinil is a major, major problem. Chinese officials have failed to take the actions necessary to stem the flow of precursor chemicals to known criminal cartels and shut down money laundering by transnational criminal organizations. In addition, the Mexican drug trafficking organizations

have an intolerable alliance with the government of Mexico. The government of Mexico has afforded safe havens for the cartels to engage in the manufacturing and transportation of dangerous narcotics, which collectively have led to the overdose deaths of hundreds of thousands of American victims. This alliance endangers the national security of the United States, and we must eradicate the influence of these dangerous cartels.

There's also a growing present. Right, right, right. Yes. It's important. Yeah, he's saying that the cartels are synthesizing this stuff in Canada, and what's the rest? Is there anything else? I mean, there's a ton more, but just the main thing. Yeah, we can't read this whole.

Yeah, they're saying that access to the American market is a privilege. The United States, it's a powerful, these tariffs are a powerful, proven source of leverage for protecting the national interest. He's using the tools at hand and taking decisive action. So basically, there's your answer, folks. I think J.D. Vance said on Twitter, we're done asking nicely. We've tried that route. Shape up or ship out.

Yeah. That's what we say. I think it's going to solve it. We're going to be hopeful on this episode, all right? Here's another little piece of hope. How about this? The Trump administration has downplayed the risk of inflation and said that higher tariffs will bring more revenue to federal coffers.

Tariffs don't cause inflation. They cause success, Trump said. Yeah, I love that part. So that's pretty cool. They don't cause inflation. They cause success. By all accounts, it does seem like prices will inflate. Yeah.

But that might just be part of the success. Yeah. So I find it interesting and funny that, because on its face, I'm like, yeah, stopping fentanyl, the fentanyl crisis is a massive, massive, massive problem. um look no further than the streets of los angeles or or new york major cities philadelphia famously there's that there's you know people are suffering in the throes of addiction this highly highly addictive and super deadly drug is a problem um but it's like the war on drugs like was that a success fucking no no it wasn't we all rooted for the drugs i don't think that uh while it is part of the

problem that the cartels are, you know, shipping drugs into the United States and Americans are dying from it. The problem is that Americans are taking these drugs. I mean, I don't think anyone really takes this seriously, this thing about, like, him actually using this reason to justify these tariffs. I think all across the board. I mean, that's kind of the surprising thing to see. Even his supporters are a bit shocked by all of this. You know, So the Wall Street Journal, who's usually pretty right-leaning, is like, that's why that truth I read, that post on truth I read, he was pretty pissed at the Wall Street Journal because it's unanimously like Trump's a fucking moron headlines like Trump just started the stupidest trade war ever. Yeah. So Trump is very pissed at them. Do you see what he, what Trump tweeted like this morning?

Trump said on truth, I believe this morning. Yeah. We pay hundreds of. billions of dollars to subsidize Canada. Why? There's no reason. We don't need anything they have. Fully not true. We have unlimited energy should make our own cars and have more lumber than we can ever use. Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases

to exist as a viable country. Harsh but true. Therefore, Canada should become our cherished 51st state, much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada. And no tariffs. So it's drugs, but it's also

trying to get them to bend the knee and also shouldn't you chop it up into multiple states? Canada is one giant state. They probably have less people than California. They do. There you have it. Hey guys, we got to take a quick break to talk to you about rocket money. Sure, it's February, but it's still the new year.

You still have time to make good on your resolutions. Yeah. And if your resolution was to be more financially responsible, have we got the thing for you? Oh, baby, yeah, man. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions. It monitors your spending

and helps lower your bills so that you can grow your savings. You know, if you're like me or if you're like a meal, sometimes you forget that you've got one of those subscriptions still going and it's still a drain on your checking. I mean, do me a favor and just pull out your banking app right now and go to your credit card and just starts going through. you'll be like, what, what is that?

What the heck is that? $1.19. I didn't sign up for that. 2499? What the heck? They're charged me monthly? Yeah. Well, Rocket Money is your simple solution for that because, you know, sometimes, frankly,

you forget what you got, where, and where it's pulling from, but you just go into Rocket Money, you punch in your information and shows you everything. And even if you're a little apprehensive about canceling, guess what? Rocket Money's going to do it on your behalf. They might also even renegotiate some of your bills, lower, for you. They automatically that I like bills. Yeah, they find opportunities for you to save

and then you can ask them to renegotiate for you. Rocket Money has over 5 million users and has saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions. Saving members up to $740 a year when using

all of their apps premium features. That's a lot of extra money. So cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to rocketmoney.com slash bays today. That's rocketmoney.com slash bays. Rocketmoney.com slash bays.

People are screenshoting this Geiger Capital tweet from November 9th, 2024, who said, no one other than fairly stupid partisans on the left think Trump is truly going to implement 20% tariffs on everything across the board. What date was that? That was November 9th, 2024. And then he followed up. And he said, I mean, it's long. I'm not going to read the whole thing.

Almost every investor I know thought Trump was largely bluffing on tariffs and that Doge would be nothing more than a PR stunt. They assume that Trump would simply do whatever is good for the stock market. To be fair, that is what history suggests, as politicians, including Trump 1.0, never cut spending when they're in power. No one wants to risk slowing growth, so whatever, you get it. But the shock of all, I don't get the people who looked at his campaign and were like, he says he's going to do this, but we know he's not going. And it's like, dude, he's telling you, he's telling you what he wants to do. Oh, but he's just playing 4D chess

Business leaders being like No, you got to read between what he says He's not actually going to do any of that And then when they're like Okay, turns out Everyone who said he might do the things he said he would Aren't actually rubs Maybe I'm the rube

Huge shout out to Kyla Scanlan Friend of the show She made a great video About tariffs and their effects And they're what they are And she phrased it pretty well. So basically tariffs are a tax that, and it's very frustrating to hear Trump say that these countries are paying the tariffs because they're not. The people who pay the tariffs are the American companies that are importing the goods.

So if we are importing something from Canada and there's a tariff on it, we pay that tariff to the United States government. And she phrased it, it's like a cover charge to get into the club. that the United, that these American company, and usually, in most cases, the company is going to pass off that tax onto consumers. Why? Because they want to preserve their margins. They want to keep, maintain the status quo. And it's really frustrating because, yeah, he's saying so many different things. Let's go back to Jim, the thing you just pulled up was great, because he's talking about it's about drugs and but then it's also about hey trying to convince American companies make your products in the USA and there's going to be no tariffs so it's it's all these things

all happening at once he's trying to encourage if tariffs are too high then perhaps American based companies instead of importing goods and in components and whatever from outside companies, maybe they'll start to look domestically from domestic providers if they even fucking exist. Spoiler alert, they don't. Yeah, many of them don't. And what a lot of companies...

We also happened in emergencies like COVID-19 when we were like, shit, we need to produce all these things we need. And everyone's like, we don't do that anymore. Right. And so many American companies are like, okay, do we scramble to create new supply chains within the United States,

or will that be a moot point in a few months? when these tariffs are lifted. So, like, why would a company... I can understand in principle what he's trying to do here, but if everything is constantly subject to change, why would you trust anything that he's saying? You'd be... Everybody's got to lie in wait

and just see what happens. Yeah. So it's... The effects of this are so unknown and the second, third, fourth order... It seems like... It seems like the very quickest things... to see issues might be food.

Oh, yeah. You know, I think we get, you know, like about half of our fresh produce from Mexican imports. Some from Canada. 80% of our avocados come from Mexico. Yeah, millennials, if you thought you weren't going to afford a home because you were buying too many avocado tests, wait until you fucking try.

You're going to have to, I don't know, do something way worse. They're going to come for you. You're going to have to be a professional squatter or something. But yeah, then I guess if they last longer, it's going to really hit things. Like, they talk about auto manufacturing and how, just how reliant it is on these trade agreements. That's the other thing. These fucking trade agreements were negotiated five years ago by Donald Trump. They're up for renegotiation in 2026, but he's already, it goes back to like, how can anybody trust him?

It's your fucking deal, my guy. Aren't you fucking art of the deal? Donnie boy, didn't you fucking, do you didn't get us a good deal? more like the fart of the deal at this point this thing's this guy's full of hot air he's full of gas also with food getting more expensive it's so funny that the

story of the election was the fucking cost of eggs yeah I don't know you but I genuinely cannot find eggs now you got to look but I just got a I can't get eggs they were like eight bucks all of a sudden at Trader Joe's it was I went they had plenty of eggs but there was a sign that said please limit it to two cartons per customer. And I was like, wow, that's funny.

Next time I went, no eggs. And every time I've been back since, I cannot get eggs, which is a funny joke saying, you guys are all worried about the price of them? How about no eggs anymore? Yeah, how about no eggs? Then we take away the problem. Oh, geez. Can't worry about the price of eggs if you can't get eggs.

Yeah, this is fun. So I was learning that Canada is a big supplier of everything from kidney beans to cherry tomatoes. Now, see, this is when I'm pissed. When you come from the beans? Yeah. Boy. Now I'm pissed. He's going to go Manji. He's going to go Mario's brother all over this shit.

I'm going to go Wal Luigi. Yeah. That's what we were. Here we go. Wow, I can do that pretty well. So yeah, you got these American companies that are preparing. They're loading up on supplies. They're changing production lines. They're trying to figure out, reroute,

do whatever the fuck. Because who knows, the only people I believe who are happy I was reading might be happy, potentially, are American steel and aluminum companies because they're getting undercut by cheaper foreign steel and aluminum companies. But then you've got builders who are not stoked because then they're going to have to pay a higher premium for American-made steel and aluminum. Also, don't forget... For every winter, there's like five losers. When you're talking about people who are happy, don't forget about partisan freaks like Charlie Kirk. Really beautiful moment with him and Jesse Waters.

Oh, yeah, I love it. And he's like, you've heard about the internal revenue service. I'm excited about the external revenue service. Let's get these countries to pay. Christ, man. My guy, we're going to waterboard you. Wait until I get my hands on you. And so when I was saying like second and third and fourth order things,

it's so hard to measure just how far reaching this is going to be and how much finagling is going to be going on. Apparently on recent conference calls for their quarterly reports, Lowe's and Walmart, Walmart being one of the biggest American companies, said that they're preparing for tariffs, but they're not sure of the scope of it yet. And what does the market dislike the most?

Uncertainty, baby. And this is about as uncertain as it gets. Because then Trump's also saying, hey, the EU might be next. Pharmaceuticals. Steel, chips. Important to note that not only are these taxes are the tariffs that we are levy and going to hurt consumers, American consumers, Canada and Mexico have announced that they are doing

retaliatory tariffs that are going to, and look, they are clearly not, their economies are taken together a fraction of what the American economy is, but they plan to do it as effective as possible to cause pain to bring this to an end. I think they want to say, fine, you want to play that game. I think it was Trudeau, who said he wanted to specifically target red states. That's right.

I think it's alcohol is a big one. Like the alcohol imports that they get from Kentucky and other, and Texas is one of them. Also, just to, real fast, back on the oil thing, just because there's only a 10% tariff on the oil doesn't necessarily mean that Canada has to keep exporting at the same price. They could choose to just jack up the prices even more

to inflict more pain. Also, also, the Charlie Kirks and all the talking heads who are just lockstep behind Trump assert that, oh, it's going to cause them more pain than it's going to cause us. Therefore, they're probably going to bend the knee

right quick and do what we want. What if they fucking don't? And well, then they go, oh, enjoy the recession. It's like, my guy, we are in a global economy. If one domino falls and another one falls, that's how you get a global recession. Just because we're the most strong one doesn't mean that we are immune to that. Like, if we're, it's just... Or like, if you and your buddies can write it out, I think it was Jamie Diamond at Davo said, like, yes, similar to what Elon Musk and Donald Trump said. Like, yes, the tariffs are going to hurt people, but you just got to get over it.

And, yeah, I'm sure you can fucking get over it, Jamie Diamond. Yeah. I bet you can weather this storm pretty well. Yeah. I think, I don't. I mean, I got to go buy some more rice, man. I got to buy more rice than beans. But, yeah, it's just back on the markets real fast.

I mean, you had the market not really reacting at first, but that was due to the fact that the market wasn't anticipating these to actually take place. It was like, okay, yeah, he says that he's going to do it. And also in that first week, it kind of seemed like he was kicking it down the can. He was doing all the executive orders. And he was kind of like, we're going to look into the tariffs. We're going to see how it can make sense.

And then just real quick, he was like, fuck it, we're letting it rid of. Yeah. And then everything dropped quite precipitously on Friday, which was nerve-wracking for your boy, me. Because, you know, I'm like, what were we doing? Were we recording early? We were prepping for our... Oh, we did our live stream at noon. And I was like, I should be fucking buying put options next week.

But maybe this is an overreaction. I can't really tell. It's so hard to filter out the noise as it's coming live, you know? I do feel somewhat prepared. I'm at like 30% cash in my trading account, and I've got a good amount of puts, aka I'm betting on everything going down. But it's really frustrating. And yeah, the chaos in the markets is going to continue.

No one really knows what he's capable of doing. When futures open up in two hours, I'm curious to see if we're going to be down half a percent or like two and a half percent. If it's like two and a half percent, folks, this week's going to be brutal. Hopefully by the time that this comes out because, yeah, I go back to. That's what I was worried about because we're filming on Sunday, as we said. I'm just like, what does it look like on Thursday? Yeah, maybe by Wednesday he's like, Canada and Mexico go, okay, okay. But that's the other thing.

His demands are so, I mean, how do you just, how does Canada say, okay, yeah, we'll stop. Right, give us the weekend. Give us the weekend to stop the fentanyl trade and we'll get it all under control. Give us the weekend to get the cartels under control. We'll have it all. You know, we were, yeah, we were in cahoots and with the cartels, but now that you've made it, okay, we were taking you seriously. Also, furthermore, I've seen some pretty terrifying opinions out there about nobody's thinking about what the cartels might do. When push comes to shove and their backs are against the wall, those dudes are, I mean, they've got people here in the United States, in Texas, Arizona, and California.

What happens when they start doing what? Doing cartel shit. Well, I'm serious. You know. I don't know. You've seen fucking, what's that movie? Sicario, man. They start blowing, blowing shit up.

We just got to get Benicio del Toro on it. Killing people, stabbing people. That's truly, I mean, I know we're laughing, but that's a very real possibility that when, because you're, you're turning off, attempting to turn off the spigot of a multi-billion dollar international drug cartel. We've all seen Breaking Bad.

You've seen the guy with the little bell. Ding, ding, ding, man. Ding, ding, ding. I can't worry about the cartels right now. They're the least of my concerns, honestly. I'm just more worried about people who are already in a precarious situation being pushed even further. I mean, it just all feels so silly, right? The idea that prices were such a huge point in our election, right?

You've got to get inflation under control. Biden inflation. People vote with their wallets. And not that that wasn't very real, it was. I mean, and to now just be like, look, we don't care. And you have two, between Musk and Trump, the most powerful people in the country being like, look, pain? We can't avoid it. You guys are going to have to feel it.

Yeah. Just fuck you. There was a great Wall Street Journal opinion piece, and I really liked these two quotes here. It's, they said, Trump's unpredictability might cut two ways. What's the benefit of making concessions in a deal with him if he might later blow it up for any reason? Yeah. Just like the North American, the thing, the treaty, the, the, the treaty. the trade deal that we've got with Canada and Mexico, again, up for renegotiation in

26, but he's already just kind of strong-hanging his, strong-arming his will, imposing his will on them. Like, what's the point of a deal if you never know what he's going to do? And second, how confident can other countries be about the long-term prospects of investing in the U.S. or adapting to a structured tariff framework if all Trump policies have to be determined expiration date? I mean, it's just piggybacking off that previous point. And then, yeah, like I said earlier, if companies are going to reshore like he wants and start doing stuff domestically,

dude, that takes so long. Exactly. And they're going to wait and see why invest massively here if, oh, also famously the last time, a bunch of them just went to fucking Vietnam where there are no tariffs. So it didn't work. Also, at least at the same time,

but you know, you simultaneously be announcing things like, at least the Chips Act was a effort to get American manufacturer back. It's just like, he just expects it to happen by levying these tariffs and being like, well, American companies will learn, they'll come back, they'll make their own products here. Yeah. Some, I've been. Who knows? Maybe he's right. You know, maybe he's right. We just need a little pain. Maybe we're just alarmist cucks. And I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I hope. That's the thing is, that's what's twisted about this. It's like, I hope he succeed.

We should just be, we should just be grateful that Daddy Trump is looking out for us. And, yeah. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe he's going to do it all. Maybe we're going to get Trump trains because cars are woke. Wait, what? They're going to decide that cars are woke? Hopefully. Also, dude, looking at some of these charts about tariffs and shit, it is much. mind-boggling. I think, what is it? Like 11% of our GDP comes from the auto industry. Something like that. Denmark is pushing back and they might do tariffs on Ozympic. Yeah. That's a big deal. To your point, like, I don't, people shouldn't panic or whatever. I think people should just understand what's going on. It's just like, it's just kind of, who knows, things might get much more expensive in the short term.

Yeah. Hopefully they don't. Hopefully this all just goes away. I don't think we want to be in this ridiculous trade war. I would really, usually I get very frustrated when it happens, but I would welcome for this episode to be very outdated by the time Thursday rolls around. Big time. I really hope that this is woefully outdated and we're both going, shit, fuck. Yeah, I'm just, I'm worried about a recession being caused by,

not necessarily these things, but by the market crashing. A down stock market can very much just the next step be, a recession because you know companies you know the panic be gets more panic exactly it's just uh if that's the sentiment right like it's small right now but you see people on red it saying like hey should I be pulling back on spending in these areas of my life like I don't know what's going to go on if that just starts reverberating through the economy yeah um it's that third fourth order stuff of like we we only think about the companies but what about yeah the everyday consumer who's going do I need to tighten my belt in advance in anticipation of maybe a recession coming down the pike

because of all this stuff? And because it's so convoluted and so confusing and he's so unpredictable, it's like these 4D chess dick riders don't seem to understand the actual real-world implications of all this shit. Yeah, I'm getting like anxious. Well, let's talk about that playing. crash a little bit because um didn't you want to talk about the uh mental health and yeah i thought i just going into that but i i was reading a little bit about uh air traffic control um yeah should we put that that yeah we don't need to pull that the more perfect union did a great um piece about air traffic control and why how and why we've got in this position and i kind

knew about it but it so it was nice to get a refresher what the reagan strikes and him just yeah firing everyone so folks um here's a quick little history like And in 1981, the, I want to say, either 11 or 13,000 air traffic controllers had a union. Patco. Patco. Patco. Patco. Yeah.

Wasn't it? Yeah, I believe it was Patco. They went on strike to oppose long hours and harsh working conditions. They wanted, I believe, 32 hours a week. They wanted a bump and pay. And the Reagan administration basically said, what you're, doing is illegal. Your federal workers, you can't go on strike. And it was a game of chicken. Reagan called their bluff and fired all of them at once. Just fucking laid them all off.

And ever since then, we've been dealing with shortages, lack of ample training, you name it. And so today's issue of air traffic controllers working like 60 hours a week, six days a week, 10 hours a day. And in the case of D.C., you know, one person doing two people's jobs or maybe even three people's jobs can be traced back to fucking Reagan. That's pretty much everything we're dealing with. You can kind of always draw a line to Reagan. And the fact that it kind of set a precedent and sent a message to, all the labor all the unions out there that this is

a this is just a really anti-labor anti-union message that you guys don't fuck around don't fuck around we'll fire all you we don't care fucking fire all of you're the nation's air traffic controllers and we'll fucking fire you instead of giving you these concessions

no you can't do that we do not negotiate with terrorists suck my dick Ronald Reagan will I yeah no no shut your mouth and suck it Yeah. Well, would you like me to get the balls? Yo, you bet your ass get the ball. I think you'd prefer to have Nancy. Well, why don't get both of them in there?

The throat goat. They're both, uh, they're both dead, right? If I find myself in hell and I'm, uh, you know, surrounded by scorching flames, I'm looking for Nancy. Yeah. And Ronald. No. Go ahead, Nancy. You've been on a weird wanting to get sucked off by random guys kick.

Me? Yeah. Really? Who else? Uh, the jelly jelly guy. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I have to agree with that.

I should do it like Tucker Carlson. Which is fine if you want to get such a. I haven't been saying that. What? Why would I say that I want to get sucked off by guys? These guys in power, I don't remember saying that. There's no shame. I just, uh...

God. It's a trend. I'd prefer Nancy. Yeah. I just want, um... You know that show with Kiefer Sutherland? 24. No.

Where's the president's daughter? Yeah. No, the other one where he's the designated survivor. No, I don't know that show. It was a show where he's the designated survivor. Oh, interesting. And like the Capitol building blows up with every single government representative. And he's like the fucking secretary of the interior or something.

And then he becomes the president. I want that to happen. But also with like Tucker Carlson and Jesse Waters and all those guys. I want them to be included in that. I think that that would be really nice. Yeah. As a lower level cabinet member, Tom Kirkman, never imagined something would happened that would catapult him into the oval office but then someone blew up the thing uh anyway um

yeah let's talk a little bit about mental health shall we mental health in the workplace i need everybody to just calm down wait what was the other thing right below that league oh yeah yeah yeah how's how's your mental health in the workplace we hear it um be and e and associates incorporated let me put it to you this way on friday after we we finished everything, I was walking around with such a... You told me you've been on the verge of a panic attack. Yeah, I was on the verge of a panic attack. I'm not feeling good either.

So I had to rail some... Ketamine? Did that help? A little bit, yeah. I just... Well, because I'm also anxious about... I was anxious about the Boston show because I was like, I can't figure out these bits that I want to do.

And I don't know if we have enough, and I'm nervous because we haven't done it in a while. But then after talking to you yesterday, I feel great. feel really good. So that's, who can check that off. Yeah. And then just, you know, aging and being like, do I want to have kids and I got to meet a woman to have a kid and and, you know, and it's everything going on and worried

about money and worried of just just the worry and and, you know, beneath the surface is like, how many people out there are mad at me right now too? Like, who's mad at me and for what? What did I do? Do I have to apologize to anybody? What am I forgetting? It's just like spirals. You're like, I'm a bad friend.

no one likes me. Oh, yeah. And then coming into my place, and I'm like, I still don't have fucking furniture. And I've been here for like six months, and there's dog hair everywhere, and I need to get dug a bath before I leave.

And I got a pack, and I got to make a list, and I'm just like snorting the ketamine. And that helped. And then I was just laying there. We're going to need a bigger line. It felt good. But, yeah, so I just had to remind myself,

you know, take a deep breath. And with the Trump stuff, I have to always remind myself to consider the source when I see these headlines not that I doubt the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or anything but I do have to remember

and remind myself that at the end of the day these are also businesses and their imperative is getting more clicks Oh definitely And I'm like are they just trying to rile people up and get them upset like they were for But some of this is very real I mean it's like this is going to have real impacts on

filtering it out I think yeah I think a lot of the stuff they focus on can be detrimental to our mental health for not

for not any good reason but this stuff is you know it's scary it's coming down the pike and we don't know exactly what's going to mean for our lives

dude the chaos is just it's you just don't know what you're going to wake up today like obviously me with I mean I don't even want to talk about it because I'm just like I want them to just stay away from like just anything that you feel

like Trump could have a hand in. You're like, please don't fuck my life up. Yeah. You're talking about like the restaurant? No. Like student loans. Oh, yeah, yeah. Own your citizenship status.

I mean. Because you were born in Germany. I can't get my birth certificate. I email the Department of State and they were like, look, I probably have the email. You can hide here, dude. It's just like, um.

What they say? We're rejecting you because we're You heard you're gay. What did they say? That should have gotten a laugh. Sorry, I guess. While he's looking that up, yeah. Thank you for your inquiry.

Your case is in progress. Oh, wait, no, no. Oh, yeah. Your case is in process with our agency, but it has not been completed yet. We are unable to estimate the time frame for completion as we are currently managing an unprecedented backlog of requests.

Respectfully, U.S. Department of State. Cool. no information on my birth certificate and you're I'm seeing more and more people they did take my payment they they so that's good um I do I do sometimes marvel at the

government apparatus like when I get a passport things like that I'm like someone's out there just in a factory smoking a cigarette like all right time to make this guy's fucking passport pulling levers and stuff and it comes out and you know I'm like

it functions some somehow it functions sometimes. But, dude, yeah, the, or like the IRS. Like, Jesus, man. Well, we might not even need that anymore. They're not going to maybe do income tax anymore. I mean, I'm all for, like, I get the whole sentiment of wanting to change everything and fix stuff. But, like, dude, sometimes if you got to remodel a house, it's not the most economically feasible thing to just raise the foundation you know yeah people are living in the house you can't you got to kind like go one room at a time you know and it's a delicate eco it's not even a one house it's you're

talking about like an entire neighborhood that you're trying to remodel all at once while people it's just it's like that cartoon where the kids in his in his room and everything's perfectly fine but he's having a temper tantrum and he says i wish everything was different and the next slide is you know him with his little baseball bat and he's smashed everything up. And he goes, oops. And he's like, not like that. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, uh, it's, yeah, it's frustrating and, in, especially troublesome and saddening and annoying and everything to me is seeing the stories about Trump voters who are basically going, well, I didn't know who's going to do this. A guy, some guy in Texas whose wife is getting deported and he's either, yeah, like those guys or whose businesses are getting affected by the tariffs and they're...

I mean, all those people here who were here illegally under... I mean, not illegally, sorry, legally under refugee status, all that kind of stuff. And had... I don't... I've never been through the process, obviously,

but apparently you can come and then you're in process waiting for your application to go through and everything and you can kind of see your status on the website apparently that website is just like gone now it's like when you go

and so people who were here under that asylum status are just like well what the fuck does this mean now my question goes back to these guys who who are gung ho for Trump and like Stephen

what's his name of the bald Jew Miller Miller these guys who are like America's the best and we got to make America you know what I want to know like what do you think America is anyway. What is it about America that you're trying to preserve and protect? Are you just trying to make everything? I mean, that one's pretty clear. I think he wants like white interests to be. But like where do you envision? I don't, I just don't know. I don't understand. I thought part of it was like the Statue of Liberty kind of the principles that the Statue of Liberty represents of like give me your tired, poor, hungry, huddled masses. No, but that's not what they're talking about. They're like,

Like, whenever you ask them, like, when was America great? And they're like, mm, the 1950s. And there was a huge post-war boom. Yeah. And minorities had a lot less rights. And, like... Yeah. And there were fewer of them.

White guys commanded respect. And they were like, I want that. Yeah. It's... It's extremely unfortunate. If you want to make America great, you know, there's a whole bunch of places you could invest resources, you know? Yeah.

And you don't need to tear it all. down to build it back up you can you can do a little at a time and uh yeah i don't know so i guess just my my i'm still optimistic i still would encourage you guys to try to find the silver lining where you can and the silver lining is don't panic try not to panic tariffs don't cause inflation they cost success yeah yeah i i i hope we just got to get trump held we just got to be like this is Great. And like, anytime something bad happens, you go, well, you know, he wouldn't have to do that if Biden didn't fuck it up. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, just, just, I try to get outside. That's cool. Walk, Doug. Hey, that's cool. Awesome. No, that's good. Yeah.

Get outside. What else? What else? That's about it. I try to get outside, get some sunshine. Which is kind of scary in L.A. at the moment, unfortunately. Dude, the layers. I'm, again, I'm not trying to be alarmedist with this.

No one knows anything here. It's like. It's easy for us because we live in a successful somewhat economy being in California and then being in Los Angeles. And it's like, all right, we're pretty self-sustaining here. We've got good weather and a lot of what we need. And then they just closed the beaches indefinitely from Malibu to fucking Playa Bista. Oh, because of the toxic waste? Yeah, that's cool.

We love to get outside. Yeah, we love to get outside. I didn't even play tennis. I drove down to Laguna Beach to play tennis at the beginning. I thought that the air is cleaner now because of the rain. According to who? I don't know. I saw a TikTok of a woman going outside measuring it.

She's like, yeah, it's pretty good. Oh, I didn't know the lady on TikTok, so it's fine. Some woman who, one of those people who's like the AQI doesn't tell you everything. It's like, we know by now. We know. I know. Tell me about the other stuff. And she went outside after the rain and was like,

actually, there's very few particulates out there that you need to worry about. With what? Did she have a little instrument? She was a little instrument. She licked her finger and then she hung her finger and went. Because I do know a friend of a friend of a friend. Basically, they did private testing.

Oh, yeah, yeah. But it cost them around $5,000. Wait, is it Cole? No. Because my friend, Cole. Oh, he did it too? He did it at his place in Altadena. He moved anyway, but he had them come inside and test the inside, and they said, yeah, your stuff's good to go.

He cleaned it anyway. Because this was in Highland Park, and they said things were okay. And I was like, why don't they just do it, why isn't L.A. just doing this mass testing everywhere? Why don't they make the whole plan out of the black box? But because if they do, when they start finding out certain neighborhoods are unlivable, they can't just be like, vacate. Yeah, you guys got cancer air. You guys should get out of it. This isn't good.

You've been breathing this? I think this one is a false rumor. But I was at a dinner. And it was someone's, it was a boyfriend of someone I know. So I don't even really know the guy, but he said that he heard somewhere that the Dodgers are planning on playing at least the first part of their season in San Diego. Weird.

Because they're afraid of the air. But I've Googled it. I cannot find a single thing. Yeah. But I'm very curious about, because we have the, we have the soccer teams that play outside here. Mm-hmm.

And we have the Dodgers who play outside. The football. And if they, if they do not feel comfortable, yeah. Playing here. I just played softball the other day in Santa Monica. And I was like,

well, it's probably fine now. Because it rain. I got two hits. Tomahawk. I just don't know. I wish someone would fucking tell us. Yeah.

Well, folks, I got to pee real bad. So we're going to go ahead and call it a wrap on this episode. And please join us in the bonus where I'm going to share a fun little story about Doug. We've got a little bit of a pop culture roundup. What else do we have? Let's see. We've got, oh, boy, Kaisenat with the robot. Great Sands.

Dude, I really didn't like that. Yeah, me neither. Gray Sands sent us a whole bunch of links to react to. So also Giatcoin I got some stuff to say about that Because fuck It's all happening in the bonus

It's all happening in the bonus Our favorite platform Beninamielshow.com All right folks We'll see you next week Thank you so much