TRIGGERnometry - 33 Reasons to Vote for Trump - Bill Ackman

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Bill Ackman is an American billionaire hedge fund manager who has been very outspoken on US politics and DEI. He joins us to give his reasons to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming US Presidential election. Sponsor: Manscaped. Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code TRIGGER at https://manscaped.com Sponsor: Express VPN. Go to https://www.expressvpn.com/trigger/ and get an extra 3 months free on a one-year package! Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Substack! https://triggernometry.substack.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/#mailinglist Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I truly believed that Trump had said that the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists were among the very fine people who were protesting. And it takes about two minutes to actually watch what he said to realize that he said precisely the opposite. That's the moment when you realize, oh my God, I really have been misled by the media. We have two candidates. It's Trump or Kamala. I think it's a very different world if it's Trump versus Kamala. And I prefer the world under Trump. I saw a tweet from our friend and a former guest on the show called Bridget Fettersy.

We fear deep down he's not going to let go of the range four years from now. And after January the 6th, whatever you think happened on that day, that is a doubt in people's minds. How can you assuage people who are concerned? Bill, you're one of the most successful investors in the history of capitalism. You've got a beautiful family. You have everything a man could want. And over the course of the last year, for some reason, you've decided to get heavily involved in American politics, cultural, debates, which has drawn you quite a lot of flack. What is the thinking behind that?

Thinking behind it is really beginning with the first part. I feel like I'm one of the most fortunate people in the world. And with good fortune comes responsibility. And I care about the country, care about society, care about the world. And to the extent, you know, I have, I've also always been a very big believer in speaking freely about things that are important. And this Twitter post, you know, X thing, platform kind of grew. And, and, and I've also always been a very big believer in speaking post, you know, X thing. Platform kind of grew and enables me to reach a large number of people. And I actually started to realize I can influence, to some extent, the discussion and ultimately, perhaps, policy and outcome. Actually, I had some experience with that before October 7th.

And it just sort of got me more motivated after. But was it October 7th that made you go, okay, I need to get really heavily involved here? It wasn't like a conscious thing. It was a natural thing. Actually, I was pretty active posting about the Ukraine War and about child sex trafficking and you porn. And if you go back in time, there have been a series of issues that I felt passionate about. So this was obviously something I felt passionately about. And Bill, if you looked at America as a company, do you think it's actually in a healthy state? Is it something that you would want to invest in? Yeah, so we invest in great businesses at a time when they've lost their way, so they're cheap. So we're getting in an attractive valuation, and we think we can play a role in helping fix it. I think the United States is, you can think of it as a big business in some sense, of course. It's a big economy.

It's a big country, but it's at a vulnerable place. And to the extent, you know, what we try to do is bring in the right leader to turn around a challenging situation. You know, Chipotle series of food safety issues. We took a stake in the company, we joined the board, we helped recruit a new CEO, we did a fabulous job. So yes, it kind of fits the Persian Square activist playbook, yes. So using that metaphor, why has it lost its way? What is this country not doing correctly? Sure.

It's not dissimilar to enormously profitable businesses. And you think back in time of these sort of iconic companies like Kodak or IBM. which were so dominant. But when businesses get so dominant and profitable, they also can get lazy, they can get inefficient, bureaucracy can grow, people as, you know, the board gets complacent, the shareholders aren't paying attention,

the CEO spends too much time on the golf course, they end up, you know, not hiring the right people, and they lose their way. And the same thing, of course, can happen to a country, and I think we suffer from our success to some extent. Since you've got involved of it last year, what has been your diagnosis when you've driven, down into the things that are going wrong.

Because, look, objectively, October 7th is something happened in another country. Sure. So why that would spring you into action is perhaps not clear for everyone to see. Yeah, so the October 7th, obviously it was not a terrorist attack in Israel that got me interested in being involved in the discussion here.

It was the response to the terrorist attack in Israel that began on really in a very apparent way, on the campus of a university I used to attend. Right? It was the morning of October 8th when 34 Harvard student organizations wrote a letter saying Israel was solely responsible for Hamas's barbaric acts. And that was while the terrorist activities were underway. Sort of like while the buildings were collapsing, they were out supporting Osama bin Laden.

And that to me was a massive wake-up call. I remember the same thing happening with me as a not-an-American being actually abroad, seeing people celebrating as the towers were coming down. there is a lot of hatred in the world. How do you think that has come to America, though? Because that is quite unusual. What I came to learn is it really came through, whether it was the importation of an ideology

or the expression of an ideology that began, perhaps in university classrooms, sort of a modern-day version of Marxist ideology, this oppressor-oppressed narrative. And it wasn't, it was to some extent the capitalist versus the proletariat, but really was about successful people, successful countries against people who were deemed to be oppressed. And that narrative, you know, Israel became kind of center stage in that sort of narrative or ideology. And Bill, if we use sort of the company metaphor, America really reminds me of Disney, which has embraced all this DEI stuff. and is rapidly driving its company into the ground.

I mean, that's basically what seems to be happening here, isn't it? I think that's one of the proximate causes. You know, America has always been about excellence and competition and land of opportunity, and if you work hard, you can succeed. And once it becomes about allocating resources based on what's deemed to be equity, as determined by some subset of people, It loses a lot of the American spirit and entrepreneurship.

You know, this is supposed to be a huge believer in a quality of opportunity. Spent a lot of time, resources, et cetera, trying to improve. Quality of opportunity is not perfect in the United States by any means. But this was a movement toward a quality of outcome where the conclusion was if, you know, a business or a university or some kind of outcome of a test or mathematics generally led to, an outcome that was not representative of society at large from racial, gender, sexual identity perspective, and it was deemed to be structurally racist in some form. And that kind of ideology I think is dangerous. And I really knew nothing about it, to be honest, before October 7th. It wasn't

until I started learning. And Bill, what do you think will happen if this ideology remains unchecked? What do you think is the end goal? Well, you know, one of the points I've made is if you want to undermine another country, you know, convince people that the country's evil, convince them that there's structural racism, that the majority class has, if you will, taken advantage of and hurt the sort of minority class. And that leads to infighting and, you know, deterioration of progress, you know, at Civil War, perhaps. So the end point is grim.

I mean, it's a bit like the end point of Marxism, socialism, is not, you know, people die. Millions and millions of people die. Societies are destroyed. So that's the grim sort of outcome. I do think we've rebounded from the bottom, but we were heading in that direction, and it's still unresolved.

I think the election, of course, plays an important role on this issue. What are your data points for saying we've rebounded? Because I actually do agree with you, but I'm curious to see what you think is the evidence for that. I would say in my world, This was something that was not, I would say, center stage, and it was not something that people felt comfortable talking openly about. I think one of the things I did is I wrote this 5600 word piece on DEI that was spread around 40 million views or so.

And I think my followership, if you will, includes a lot of CEOs of companies and media organizations. And I think I elevated, I made a conversation that needed to happen that started to happen in much more. open format and people started examining some of these principles and then you've seen of course reversals of a number of these policies in the business community and various universities. The New York Times wrote a piece in the last week about DEI, you know, the failure of DEI at University of Michigan, which is invested $250 million in a program that's led to actually it sounds like more racism, more uncomfortable feelings on campus and a decline in free speech. So if the New York Times is writing that story, I would say that's a moment for sure.

Do you feel that corporate America is sort of on your side of the argument? Like most people were kind of in the position where you were, it's not something you were aware of necessarily. And then things started happening that made people notice. And now they've kind of gone, well, there's two positions here. One is sanity, the other isn't, I'm going to go with science. Do you feel that's what's happening? Well, I would say I thought DEI was, you know, kind of pro diversity, pro equity, fairness, pro-inclusion, which all sounded like pretty good stuff to me.

And building a diverse organization, a big believer in that. I certainly want to be fair in the way we treat people. And then obviously who can argue with inclusion, creating an organization. And by the way, this is, you know, I'm talking from the business community's perspective. But what, you know, those words were kind of the Trojan kind of the Trojan, you know, the the Trojan, these are Trojan horse words, as I would describe them. I think that's much more well understood today. There's still some debate of people who think that, you know,

there's some people who think I'm opposed to diversity and I'm opposed to equity and I'm opposed to inclusion. No, I mean, what is inclusion? It's, you know, a business that has a culture where people feel comfortable being who they are and where they can succeed. Equity, in my view, is about quality of opportunity, hugely in favor of it, but not in favor of equality of outcome, not in favor of allocating resources. based on race or gender or whatever.

I think, yes, if one were to find, you know, equally talented, successful people of one race versus another, getting very, very disparate outcomes, you have to figure out why that's happening. But I do think that there's a lot more understanding of what the problems are, of what I call the capital letter, DEI ideology. And I think that that is what's getting revisited and adjusted. Do you think it's fair to say that in the corporate world, particularly around these types of conversations, there's been a culture of fear? For sure. For sure. If you even questioned the DEI orthodoxy, you were deemed to be racist.

I mean, it reminds me of the kind of, you know, the McCarthy era, which my parents told me about and you can see some clips on YouTube, but where you were basically accused of being a communist if you, you know, questioned Mr. McCarthy's accusations. And there was sort of a moment at which people sort of woke up from that. I think that moment has kind of happened with the EI. People still, you know, I have been accused of being racist. And I do think there are people who, you know, challenge the orthodoxy, one of the powerful ways to shut people down is by shutting down speech. When we do that is by canceling people or are making the out, you know, making it very

expensive for them to challenge the orthodoxy, you lose your job. So I think people have been, and I do think Elon's takeover of Twitter provides a platform, for kind of anonymous speech and also, you know, public forum where people can, you know, talk, are now talking about these issues in a very open way. So, Bill, this is a bit of a provocative question, but I look at not yourself, but some of your colleagues, shall we say, and we talk about this culture of fear, but isn't that just a polite way of saying a culture of cowardice? There needs to be more people to stand up and go, no, particularly people in positions of power, particularly people who've got the authority to be able to challenge this.

And too many people have just capitulated for one of a better word. Or is that an unfair framing? I don't think it's unfair. I don't think it's really a provocative question either. You know, look, I think the, you know, it's a bit like running for office, right? You know, the problem we have in our country is some of the most talented people won't run for office because they're in a place where life is good. You know, I live in a nice home.

I've had a beautiful family. life is good, why threaten any of that beauty with a headache of being accused of being a racist or saying something that could cause some people to hate you, not like you, or worse? And I think that discourages people for running for office and it discourages people from seeking out, but I think it's really important. And in fact, the number of people that come up to me every day, you know, walking down the street in a restaurant or whatever, who come up and say, look, Bill, thank you so much for saying what I've wanted to say, but have not been able to say, you know, you're speaking on behalf of all of us.

Now, I do think it's important to have that group be a larger group. But I do feel like I'm speaking on behalf of a very large number of people because I hear it literally every day, as long as I'm in a public place. And 99.8% of that feedback has been positive. 99.8. Well, the question I wanted to ask you is, you mentioned that the most talented people, the highest integrity people, perhaps, the best people that this country produced. do not run for office.

And very understanding. I would say in general, right? You know, like, I was a big advocate for Jamie Diamond running for president, and I think he would be an outstanding president for a whole bunch of reasons. Yeah. But he's, you know, he's at the top of his game. He's, you know, the best bank CEO ever, basically. And to go into the mud of politics to have to kind of make your way through the primaries,

you know, get to a place where you could be president, you know, they'll, It's very challenging on someone's family and if you're used to being something pretty close to God, it's a very ungodly practice to get there for sure. So it's actually quite a selfless act, I think, to run for office. Or a very narcissistic one. Those are the two options, it seems. Yes, I think the narcissism overcomes the selflessness. That's how it works.

Yeah. So that being the case. But I'll take it either way. I don't care what someone's motives are as long as they're the right. person. Yes. I see what you're saying. I guess my question is you thought very carefully, I think, about who to support in this election. And you yourself have spoken a number of times about some of the things that you believed about Donald Trump, for example, that you were misled about by the mainstream media. Sure. So that's the kind of environment you're really talking about,

right? Where somebody runs and they immediately become the sort of demon monkey and they're completely misrepresented. It doesn't mean they don't have flaws, but they're really talking about. they're misrepresented about the things that they say. Sure. Is there a way to change that, first and foremost? Well, you need neutral spaces in media. Bill's an optimist, by the way. Neutral spaces in media where you can counteract the,

I don't even want to use the word misinformation, because that itself has problems. Look, I don't want to sit here and just be an advertisement for X, but what's interesting, you know, someone writes a profile of me on, in some media form, I can, you know, within an hour of that article coming out, I can, you know, very specifically fact check, rebutt, address the issue, as could obviously any candidate for office. You know, prior to X being sort of this neutral platform, you know, you send the times a beg them for a correction, right? And in a few weeks on, quote, unquote, page 43 in a place no one would read,

the correction would appear. And I think the more the public has lost confidence, in kind of conventional media, the more they're going to look to, empirical voices in podcasting and kind of citizen journalism on X. And I do think that's a powerful counterpoint. You know, the most powerful moment for many people, actually one of them for me, is I truly believed that Trump had said that the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists were very fine people, were among the very fine people who were protesting. And it takes about two minutes to actually watch what he said to realize that he said precisely the opposite, that he condemned. He said, I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalist when he's talking about very fine people. And that's the

moment when you realize, oh my God, I really have been misled by the media. You look at the 60 minutes excerpting that was done of, you know, Kamla, and you realize how much you can be manipulated, particularly by taped and excerpted media. So I really, if I'm trying to get to the truth, I want to hear the voice of the candidate, untaped, unscripted, without the teleprompter. Because we've got to a point now where, and I still can't believe this is true, where everybody in the Democrat Party was going, there's no problem with Joe Biden, there's no problem, there is no problem with Joe Biden. And then he brings Vladimir Zelensky to the status of Vladimir Putin. And you go, how can, how can this happen? How has this been allowed to happen? And then,

you clearly look at him and you go, that looks like someone's granddad who isn't doing particularly well. Sure. That is perhaps the greatest scandal in the history of, I would say, administration and the media, you know, trying to fool the public. And I was very loud on this issue pretty early calling for his, you know, to step aside because I did not believe he had the cognitive wherewithal potentially to make it through this term, let alone be a president for the next four years and I was scolded pretty aggressively by close friends and family plus people online bill years you know when I would send out actual videos you know bill these are corrupted right wing propaganda sort of videos but I think people are believing their own eyes more now in in the

AI era you have to be careful when you say that of course because it's become even easier to manipulate content but I do think people are going to go increasingly rely on you know this kind of format to get a better understanding of a person than, you know, what gets played on MSNBC or CNN or otherwise. Because, by the way, that's going to force mainstream media you would think to improve. I actually think CNN since Biden stepped down has been one of the better kind of, you know, cable news networks. You know, they have a, they have a Scott Jennings, you know, they've got a Republican

protagonists debating with a, you know, a democratic influencer, you know, when they're discussing issues. And I think it's much more powerful. I think it's what the public wants. I think the public wants the truth. And they understand the truth is not only served by, you know, a media organization that has one political posture. But let's be fair, it's a pretty low bar. I think it was on the Stephen Colbert show where he was talking to one of their journalists. I can't remember who he was talking to and he was saying, oh, you know, they're a fact-based organization or something along those signs. And he got a huge laugh from his audience. From his audience. Yeah, no, I saw that. I know you guys are objective over there that you just report the news as it is. Oh, I know,

CNN makes it. Is that supposed to be a laugh line? I wasn't supposed to be, but I guess it is. And you go, that's surely the end. Look, the unfortunate thing is that when people buy a media property, they think, you know, The idea is, okay, now I can control the conversation on an issue I feel strongly about. And, you know, I have sort of this naive kind of view that the media should be about getting to the truth and that people who go into journalism should not just be political advocates. They should be people interested in investigative journalism. Let's get to the truth.

The media has an incredibly important role to play in, you know, serving the people the truth. I mean, you think about going back to the Marxism-socialism discussion, right? How did the Soviet Union keep control over its people? One, they shut down free speech, and two, they control the media. They control the propaganda organization. Yeah. So one of the questions that we wanted to ask you, Bill, is that all being the case, you've come out as a supporter of Donald Trump, or at least you support him in this election, let's say.

Is that because of all the things that have been debunked and the disappointment, or is it because you actually think he's a good candidate for this country? Because those are two very different things. And I think so many Americans that we speak to are very much stuck in between those two positions. On the one hand, they're really unhappy with many of the things they've seen from the Democrats and the media. On the other hand, not all of them are convinced that Donald Trump is, you know, the perfect president, to put him mildly. Yeah, I don't know. We've had a perfect president.

When I think back to when Reagan was running for office and he was widely derided as being a stupid actor, right? Clinton had his women issues when he was running for office. I mean, that's putting it loud. Think about her. You know, a lot of people, you know, George Bush, George W was not viewed as the sharpest tool in the, you know, whatever. Sure. And yeah, other than JFK who didn't make it through because he was assassinated, and I'm sure perhaps if he made it through, you know, he survived, he would have been, he would have done something that people, he's idealized, I think, because he was assassinated. was a good president but also yeah unfortunately because he was assassinated um so you know we're

my first approach to this election was trying to create alternative choices right so i actually supported nicky haley uh chris christi uh spent some time with r fk um actually you know financially supported him uh dean phillips i got to meet thought he was an interesting guy uh a big believer in competition and hope that that whole system would lead to the i hadn't picked i didn't to have my horse. So I was betting on a lot of different horses and I thought for the benefit of the American people at large at the extent that we had better competition. So my issues are multifaceted. Among them, I think the Democratic Party has massively, massively lost its way in a very profound way. You can start with misleading the American people about the cognitive health

of the president, but you could also go to their practices and how they got rid of alternatives. You know, RFK, you know, some combination of litigation, not paying for his, not providing him with security, you know, the various efforts to keep him off the ballot, off the debate stage. You know, it used to be that the, you know, there was seriousness with how the presidential debate, you know, there was certain criteria by which you could become a candidate and you could get on the debate stage. They kept him off the debate stage. Disrupting really the primary process in a way that the scales were tipped. And then last minute effectively withdrawing Biden. And then there was really no process to select the next candidate. That was an opportunity.

I went on X and said, look, great opportunity for an open primary. I actually thought, what a great opportunity for Jamie Diamond to run. It doesn't have to go through the two years of running for office. And let's have a series of debates of relevant people. That didn't happen. And then we had a candidate selected in some kind of backroom process by the Democratic Party elite. you know someone who was not ranked particularly highly as or actually maybe the lowest ranked vice president in many many years someone who didn't make it through

you know kind of dropped out very early when she ran you know earlier for the presidential office so I that I found disturbing and then you know if you look at the performance you know one of the best you look at the empirical data you look at at a state level look at where the crime is look at the mismanaged cities And unfortunately, they're basically blue cities. You know, it's San Francisco, it's L.A., it's Chicago, to maybe a lesser extent, New York. But, you know, these are where the problems are. And you have the whole country moving to Texas and Las Vegas.

And, you know, that's not... So I think the country is realizing that the Democratic Party has kind of lost its way. So that makes me less excited about supporting a Democratic candidate kind of generally. But what we have here is we have an election. We have two candidates. It's Trump or Kamala. I think it's a very different world if it's Trump versus Kamala. And I prefer the world under Trump than I do to Kamala.

Why is that? I can walk you through the issues. Yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about geopolitics because it's something you've talked about. Yeah, that's where it starts for me. I think the single biggest threat to the United States today is, you know, some combination of World War III. And, you know, we're, we had a relatively, we had a very peaceful period.

You know, the, I think, was it Jake Sullivan who said several days before October 7th that We're in the quietest period in history in the Middle East. But we've had the perception and reality of weakness in the White House. And the autocrats and the dictators, you know, the Putans of the world and the Kim Jong-gun and the Iranians or the IRGC, you know, they step into that kind of a breach. And I think we've had a bad series of foreign policy decisions, beginning with the you know, awful withdrawal from Afghanistan, basically the abandonment of our partners in Afghanistan. And by the way, the Democratic Party presents as the party, you know, supporting

women and Trump has attacked often in women issues, probably the most damaging event for women around the world in the last many, many years is the way we withdrew from Afghanistan and what the implications were for Afghani girls and Afghani women. Actually, philanthropically, we supported airlifting out robotics teams and other young women, young girls from Afghanistan, but we took very few. And the ones that are left, their lives have been horribly harmed. And I think that's an incredible stain on the reputation of the United States. It sort of begins there, maybe even begins even before then when Obama allowed Putin to take Crimea

with really no implications. So we've kind of had a weak history until Trump. And then we had a period of peace and then we have the lifting of sanctions on the Iranians. You know, they have $200 billion now, which they've been using to fund their terrorist proxies. And I think all of this has led to a world on fire. And I think I don't see how that changes with Kamala as our president. Yeah, that's hard to see, exactly. So I don't think she's going to be perceived as a strong president.

And I think Putin would actually like to end the war. I think Trump will give him the opportunity. and or excuse to do so. And I think there's some great examples of how Putin managed everything from the Taliban to otherwise. And when people take threats from him pretty seriously, he's kind of unpredictable. And that seems to work for foreign policy. Bill, I think you meant Trump, not Putin. I think you misspoke.

Oh, what do they say? You did a Biden there. Switch out Trump there. Okay. So that's the one issue that's interesting to me. discusses privately as well. I also feel, as someone who's like you, a big supporter of Ukraine's stand for its independence, that Donald Trump is more likely to bring the war to a close. Do you think it's likely, though, that he will do so without making Ukraine pay too heavy a price

for peace? He's, I think publicly said his strategy is to go to Putin and say, look, war needs to end. And if you don't end the war, I'm going to give, you know, a trillion dollars of weaponry. I'm going to, you know, give Zelensky everything he needs to win. And that's how he's going to get Putin to move. And then he's going to go to Zelensky and say, look, if you're unreasonable and what your demands are, I'm going to withdraw support. And so he's in a very, you know, powerful position to negotiate that kind of deal. Look, Trump looks at the world as a series of negotiations.

Everything's a deal. And I think that's kind of why he likes, among other reasons why he likes being president. And his whole life was about making deals. I think he's pretty good at making deals. And I think that's how this gets really. And it will get resolved in a place where, you know, I think Zelensky and Ukraine won't be, you know, obviously entirely happy with every element of the outcome, nor will Putin. Ukraine needs real security guarantees as opposed to what they've been given in the past. You know, maybe there's some kind of demilitarized zone a la, you know, Korea.

But it's not helpful. This war is not helping Putin. And I think he'd like to be able to end it in a way that's not damaging to him politically. And in Russia and on a global stage. And are you concerned, if we're looking at geopolitics, are you concerned about China and Taiwan? Yes. I mean, just in the last 24 hours, you know, China's taking more and more steps kind of showing they can very easily blockade Taiwan. So my point is it's a very dangerous world.

I think this is the single biggest issue threatening the United States and the country and really the globe. And that's, I just think Trump's going to do a better job. He's going to be perceived as a much stronger leader. He's got a degree of unpredictableness, which I think is unsettling to the Chinese. I think it's unsettling to Russia. I think our Trump's Middle Eastern policy was vastly superior. He basically shut the shutdown around funding by virtue of the sanctions.

Abraham Accords were the most significant progress we've had in the Middle East in many, many decades. And there are meaningfully more steps to take, and those steps basically were stopped. So I start on foreign policy. I think we'll have peace in the Middle East. I think the war in Ukraine will get resolved. And I think that's the most important thing for the world right now. You think we'll have peace in the Middle East.

The reason I'm somewhat skeptical, Bill, is it feels to me, and it's interesting because the weakness that you talk about actually works in both directions. I'm pretty confident that, for example, Benjamin Netanyahu is acting with such panache in this moment, let's say, precisely because he knows that President Biden isn't going to do anything to restrain him. So it almost feels like the conflict has been inflated by that weakness on both sides. The Iranians attacked. You don't agree?

I don't agree. I think Netanyahu's doing what he needs to to protect his country. I think he's made enormous progress in debilitating Hamas and Hezbollah. We're going to see what happens to Iran, maybe in the next 24, 48 hours, but I think in a matter of days. And then I think that has sent a pretty strong message to terrorists. And I think that's a predicate for peace in the Middle East. Yeah, I don't think we actually disagree. I'm not saying that Benjamin Netanyahu shouldn't be protecting his country or eliminating terrorists. I just think he wouldn't have if there was a strong Democratic president who has every political incentive not to allow him to go to the lengths that he's going.

Yeah, well, let's put it. Again, I feel a lot better. Trump was a much better president for Israel than Biden's been. I mean, just again, in the last 24 hours, there's a story that Sinwar basically told his negotiators to hold back on a deal because of his perception that Israel was losing to support. of the United States and that came from basically, you know, Biden withholding weapons and that becoming a public fact. And I think Trump will be a much more decisive, stronger supporter of our ally. And that will be, peace comes from deterrence. And when you show weakness, that's when you have war. There's a lot of people who are listening to this who are American. They go great points,

Bill, but I'll be honest you, I don't really care about geopolitics. I'm not saying I advocate for it. I'm just saying that we've got serious problems in the US. Sure, by the way, I said this is a really important issue. And I think, again, if the world blows up in a nuclear holocaust, the domestic problems are relevant, right? That's one of my issues, right? Number two is probably the way the border has been managed, right? The reversal of 94 executive orders within days of Biden becoming president and the very poorest border of unvetted people coming into the country. A couple hundred thousand migrants coming to New York, you know, 20,000 to a city of 40,000,

you know, in Springfield. And, you know, growing crime in cities. And I think that's very unsettling and damaging to the country. And it sets up for, you know, how many terrorists came into the country, how many murders, how many criminals from Venezuela. We don't know who they are and what the numbers are. And so, again, I think, you know, my family came here as immigrants in the 1890s. Big believer that immigration is part of the strength of the United States, right?

We get the most motivated best and brightest entrepreneurs and people, aspiring families from all over the world who come here and want to take their family, want to come to a place where there's free speech, supposedly, and where they can live their lives in the land of opportunity. But that, I'm a big believer in legal immigration. And I think we've allowed illegal immigration to get completely out of control. And I think that gets resolved on day one of a whole. for Trump administration.

There's all these conspiracy theories about illegal immigration. And I understand why we have illegal immigration in the UK. It's a legal issue and it's to do with the European Court of Human Rights, blah, blah, blah. But why is it in America? Because I don't understand why there is effectively an open border. You've even got guns, though. Yeah. Yeah.

Look, I think it's, you know, the argument, which is, you know, I would say it comes to sound compelling, is that you have one political party who views, you know, these immigrants as potential supporters of a party. You know, Elon Musk makes the point that, you know, California was not a definitively democratic voting state until the, you know, a lot of immigrants came into California and the politics of the state changed. You can envision, you know, Elon Musk makes the argument this is the last election because of the number of migrants that have come in that, if legal, and become voting members of society. If they vote left, then we become,

the United States becomes California politically. So I don't have a better argument than that. You can be very supportive of immigration and change immigration policies in such way to allow more people into the country, but to do it on an unvetted basis where Texas is putting in barbed wire and the federal government is removing it with

backhose, it's a very, very strange thing. To me, it's absolutely bizarre because everyone who watches this podcast will now drink. My mother's Venezuelan. So the Trenna Aragua, which is the name of the gang, they're notorious in Venezuela. People are terrified of them for good reason. And all of a sudden, you see them popping up here and you're going, what's going on? It's crazy. And I add this to my list of grievances against the democratic establishment. And to me, it's, I don't know how viable a Democratic Party is because when you look at the way they've handled the immigration, if a country doesn't have borders, if it can't police its borders, then it's not a country. Sure. I agree with that. So you think how can they possibly attract voters?

And the only reason I think they've got a chance is through abortion. Yeah, so I do think the border will be one of, it's going to be in the top one or two issues for people because it's being felt around the country, it's being felt in cities. And by the way, in New York, which is a, obviously a Democratic Party stronghold, I know many, many people that are voting Trump on just this issue alone. Because you had a taste of it. Yeah. Yeah.

And by the way, it's, you know, we've taken in 200,000 migrants in a city of 11 million, You know, that's a 2% move in the population. Well, think about the small towns around the country, small cities, where now a third of the population are, you know, immigrants that maybe don't have the economic wherewithal to take care of themselves or using up, you know, available local resources. I think it creates resentment. You know, it's not good for the country. And to be clear, you're not making this up. I mean, when I was in L.A., I have a Russian name. and all the Uber drivers and the lift drivers in LA are Armenian,

so they speak Russian. They don't know who I am. They start talking to me. The ones that came in the 80s and 90s, they all came legally. The ones that have come more recently, I mean, one of the guy was telling me how he smuggled his 83-year-old father in a wheelchair through the southern border.

And you're going, that doesn't seem to me like a secure border. You know what I mean? But moving on a bit, Bill, I think one of the interesting things to discuss, given your financial expertise and background, is the economic situation. One of the things that I don't think people are either they're not concerned or they don't understand or for some reason maybe I'm the idiot and I don't understand why it's not important.

But the fact that almost every Western country is at 100% debt to GDP or more, that seems to me like kind of a problem. Am I wrong about this? So it's lesser a problem for the United States and other countries because we pay our debts and our own, we can print money to pay our obligations. But it's part of the mismanagement. Going back to your early question, what do you look for? Great businesses can access the bond market on very attractive terms.

And the bond market's usually a, when you lose the confidence in the bond market, that's when companies are ultimately threatened. The United States has this sort of privilege of being able to issue unlimited amounts of debt. Is that true, Bill? Can you print money forever with no repercussions? No. That's what I'm getting that. We're not approaching that point where it's like two months.

The scary part is we don't know what that threshold is before the globe decides to not trust the United States. Now, Federal Reserve is cutting interest rates and they can control, you know, the kind of short end of the curve, if you will, with monetary policy. But longer-term bond interest rates are creeping up, which is kind of an interesting sort of phenomenon. But, you know, typically when there's, you know, enormous amounts of securities being issued, you know, the yield on those securities has to go up in order to accommodate, you know, to meet the demand from the parties. And it's a threat to the country. Look, it's a threat already because we're spending on interest expense what it costs to defend the country and the kind of long-term history of companies. Our country is spending more on interest expense than on defense has not ended well. you fix this problem if you are concerned about the direction of travel it seems to me that politically

it's almost unfixable because the public will not tolerate significant cuts and expenditure because it will make their lives worse and it doesn't seem to be the sense of like we're all one people we need to come together and deal with this issue because it's really pressing so how do you solve this? Sure so what you think about with uh there are two ways to resolve debt one way is to cut expenses Yeah. Another way is to grow revenues. But ultimately, you need to grow the value of the asset that the debt secured by to make the leverage comfortable. That's one way to think about it. And so the Trump approach is, I'm going to accelerate the growth of the country. And the way I'm going to do that is, one, I'm going to eliminate a lot of regulations that are holding back, that make no sense,

and are actually holding back economic progress. And if you think about how long it takes to build a bridge in the United States or build a building or even build a home, and the nature of the approvals you have to get and the number of government agencies, you look at the Biden administration, right? The $42 billion for rural internet access and no one's been connected and it's been years, right? Seven or $8 billion for a dozen charging stations. So the government is, you know, touristly inefficient and then you have all of it, again, all of the regulatory. So I think, one, a master review of all the regulatory kind of quagmire and set up the country efficiently.

Two, I think having Elon Musk as your partner in this enterprise, I think, is a huge hum run. Right. So when was the last time we heard about a presidential candidate talking about cutting waste in government? So having a department of government efficiency, I think, makes tremendous sense. So eliminate waste. No one likes waste. accelerate growth. Among that, reduce the cost of energy, which is embedded in the cost of everything.

And we grow our way, we grow our way and we improve our efficiency way out of the problem. And that's how we do it. And the United States kind of unleashed. This is still the most entrepreneurial nation in the world. AI is this incredibly powerful technology that is going to be transformative. And I think that's how we're going to solve the problem. We solve it with growth and efficiency. And imagine how much more gets done, how many more people can employ, how much wages ultimately go up in a world in which it's easier to get things done.

Because there are a lot of people who want to build things, want to build houses, want to start companies, want to grow their businesses that are being held back by the way that our very inefficient government oversees the country. You say no one likes waste, and I think I know what you mean. I would argue that the people who benefit from all of this bureaucracy and corruption and, you know, we started talking about DEI. I mean, D.I. in government is a huge industry. And none of those people want to cut waste because that's their salary. I hear you. But I don't think there's a lot of sympathy for people who are benefiting by waste. And, you know, the result will be a much more efficient, effective economy. There's a book, I think it's called Bullshit Jobs. I think we have a lot of bullshit jobs, unfortunately, in government, and I think we need to eliminate them.

You know, you look at the education system, it hasn't changed in, you know, 100 years. The typical schoolhouse, one teacher gets up in front of a group of students. It's, you know, we're spending, you know, enormous amounts of money, particularly in, you know, our cities. I heard a number today. We spent, you know, a third of, was two-thirds of the budget for the, for, for, for, for, uh, for, New York State on education, some number like this, some crazy number. You must be getting great educational results, Bill. Of course, the results aren't working.

So that, by the way, AI is going to be a very powerful technology and custom-tailoring education for each kid, each kid's progress. So I just think we have to, we're introducing technology into the corporate landscape in a way that's making businesses more efficient. We haven't looked at introducing technology in government to make government more efficient. I couldn't imagine a better person than Elon Musk to help. with that. But isn't that going to be an almighty battle because you're not just dealing, which is the Constantine's question alluded to, let's be fair, it's not just the people who benefit from it.

You're fighting against an ideology. Which is why you need a Trump-type president to do it. One, he can't get re-elected. This is his second term. He's got four years to make it happen, and he doesn't care. And I think you need someone who's independent enough to be able to execute on this. You know, if you compare to Vice President Harris, well, this is her first term. She's going to want to get reelected. She's going to be beholden to the system. That's another reason to support Trump. Let's talk about Trump's divisiveness because I don't think, you know, when people talk about

his divisiveness, it is a fair point, especially when you look at his behavior towards the end of his term. People will go, this is not what a presidential candidate should be. He's inflammatory. He's divisive. His language is, in some place. Let's be honest about it. And he inflames situations where that doesn't need to happen.

You know, Trump walked into a stadium over the weekend and the entire stadium was chanting USA, USA, USA. I haven't seen that happen for president. You know, presidents normally, or politicians normally get booed in stadiums or they get ignored. So I think, I do think there is, you know, I think he has enormous support. And I think it's become, it's even more challenging today to say publicly that you support Trump, which means that the polls, I think, really understate his performance.

And I think the best thing for the country is a landslide of victory where he takes, you know, the vast majority of electoral, you know, Reagan-style electoral college victory. Who knows? I don't know, who knows whether that can happen or not. And that will empower him. You know, if you think about the first time he was under siege from the day he walked into the Oval Office by the media, by the Russian collusion allegation. And he also didn't expect to be president.

The poll said 92% Clinton was going to win. And he was unprepared. He didn't know who he could trust. And now he's had four years of experience. I also think he's a track. I think you look at the, who is the vice president Harris team? On Trump's side, we have Trump, we have Musk, we have RFK, we have Tulsa Gabbard, we have Vivek, Ramoswani. These are actually very, very capable people that have kind of joined the team.

And once he actually wins, I think that a lot more very capable people are going to sign up. And I think if you look at the issues that they're focused on, Musk is focused on everything from regulation to government efficiency to waste and cutting costs. And he's obviously pretty good at that. He'd let go 80% of X. It's a much more highly functioning better product today. You know, Kennedy is going to focus on, you know, corruption, pharma, you know, making America's healthy. These are, I think, critical issues for the country. By the way, part of the reason why our budget's out of balance is we have such an unhealthy populace.

We spend an absolute fortune, as you know, on health care, and we have the worst health outcomes of any, you know, major country in the world. if we can change that, that alone. You know, we're going to save an enormous amounts of money. Francis, may I jump in very briefly just to press this point with you? I saw a tweet from our friend and a former guest on the show called Bridget Fettersy. She's a comedian and commentator. And she wrote a piece about how she's hesitant to vote for either presidential candidate and took a lot of flag for it.

And she said, let me say it in terms. The reason suburban moms like me are concerned about voting for. Trump is we fear deep down he's not going to let go of the range four years from now. And after January the 6th, whatever you think happened on that day, that is a doubt in people's minds. How can you assuage people who are concerned? So one, he's going to be 82 years old. Two, I actually think he's not a bad guy. Okay. I've actually spent some time with Trump. He doesn't want to, I don't think he wants to be a, first of all, the system is stronger than any one president, right? They're not going to allow someone all of a sudden to take over.

America, we're going to give up our 250 year history and we're going to go to a dictatorship. It's just not going to happen. And look, he's got a very capable vice president that I'm sure has aspirations ultimately to be president. I think the next generation of leadership is going to be a very strong one. And he can go off into the sunset, still be relevant. I think an 82 year old who was formerly president is going to want to be relevant. He'll be relevant as long as he's healthy at that point in time.

But that's not, I don't think that's a real risk. You know, the system, if he wanted to be a dictator, he would have had a second term. But he did. You know, there was a peaceful transfer power on January 20th. And I'm glad actually Concerning brought up the kind of the point of view from a woman, because how big an issue is abortion going to be when it comes for particularly female voters voting Republican? Sure. So look, the Supreme Court has decided on the issue.

It's a state level issue. Technology, I think, is helpful in that we now have an abortion pill that's illegal everywhere. You know, yes, I guess in a Harris administration, you'll have the opportunity for later term abortions in the seventh, eighth, or ninth month. I don't know that that's an issue that, you know, there's some people that this is their entire issue.

And that, but I don't think that's the bulk of the country. I think the bulk of the country actually believes that a woman should have the right to have an abortion earlier in her term. And that is, you know, certainly possible going forward. And a new president is going to have a hard time reversing the Supreme Court's decision in any case. So. So, Trump is actually, on this point, made very clear that, one, he's in favor of abortion, the event of incest, health of the mother, you know, for example, rape. and that he said and posted that he would not sign a federal abortion ban. Bill, before we ask you our final question and move over to Substack

where our fans get to ask you their questions. Sure. You talked about Jamie Dynamo. What about Bill Ackman? Is Bill Ackman ever going to run for president? Not for now. Oh, that is a scoop right there. Look, I think the good news is, like, I'm excited about the next kind of generational leadership that's showing up.

I think, for example, Glenn Yonkin has done, I think, an excellent job as governor Virginia. Obviously, has aspirations to be president. I've gotten to know him briefly. I think he'd be outstanding. I'd only do it if there was no one better. And I'm very confident this would be someone better. That's a politician's answer, so you know he's ready. All right, Bill, the question we always end our interviews with the main section before we go over to substack is what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that you think we should be?

What's interesting that we're not talking about is that progress compounding is one of the most powerful forces in the world. And that if we can actually change the growth trajectory of the United States instead of growing at, you know, these very low single-digit growth, you know, 2% or 2.5%, which is, you know, kind of what we've achieved in the last, you know, number of decades. and we can take that to three and a half or four percent. The implications for the poor, for meeting our obligations, for scientific advancement, for national defense, for a safer world, are very, very powerful. And it sounds like such a small difference. But, you know, with the passage of time, you know,

that's one of the powerful forces that you learn about when you're in my industry. I'd love to see it apply. and the government. So I'm excited about a Trump-Musk administration. And I credit to Trump, you know, I think the other point I would make here, and I do think this is a really important election, is that, you know, strong leaders are not afraid to bring on talented people and work alongside them. You know, J.D. Vance is an extremely intelligent, articulate debater. You know, compare Tim Wals in terms of, I would say, mental acuity, talent, life achievement, versus J.D. Vans. So I think that speaks to what the leadership team will look like in the Trump administration.

And I'm excited about it. Bill Ackman, thanks for coming on Trichonometry. Head on over to our substack now to hear Bill answer your questions. Does he think we're watching the two parties switch roles as Democrats increasingly? represent these sculptural elites while Republicans at least pretend to care about blue-collar workers who've been left behind.