E128: Google enters AI wars, Druck's warning, Trump crushes CNN & more

28:49We are a bunch of things. We are the world's center of innovation. We are the world's center of these great leaps forward in humanity. When we talk about all of these different things, these aren't coming from random countries. They're coming from the United States. We can debate which company, but we're never debating the country. So I think that there's a legacy of value creation and innovation that we've always been at the forefront of, at least since America was founded, so 1776 to now. I think the reality is that debt to GDP will continue to increase. I don't think a single politician can practically get elected by offering to cut entitlement spending to people that have spent their entire lives paying into a system.

29:38So as a practical matter, this thing will go up. And I don't think the economy will stop. I think that economics are a relative problem where you have to weigh countries against each other. And what that means is the economic vibrancy, the productivity, the intellect, all of those things, where we have to compete with El Salvador, we have to compete with Nigeria, we have to compete with India, we have to compete with Australia. And in that context, there is very little historical artifact that says that there's a breaking point. so i just think that if you observe the moment it's not that what freeberg is saying is bad i'm not exactly sure that it's particularly actionable and i think the disproportionate amount of action is actually the opposite which is to reinflate the money supply to reinflate assets to create artificial prosperity and smear it to many many many people and i think that the you have to think about how do you want to activate your view?

30:47I can believe whatever I want, but at the end of the day, I don't want to act in a way that's against my economic best interest, quite honestly. So I believe that winning is measured in dollars and cents on these things. And from that perspective, I don't particularly like it. I think I'm emotionally more aligned to Freeburg, but the practical reality is I'm on the opposite side, which says the governments will keep spending. Inflation will be here, assets will keep inflating the M2 money supply will keep going up. And on general, long the United States in short, every other country. Tomasz Kraliak doesn't that ultimately lead to just inflation, it initially starts at the inflation of assets and asset prices, but it ultimately leads to the inflation of goods and services, which can cripple the economy because then you know, the middle class can't afford things, and you have economic slowdown.

31:39I mean, that's the historical record of having these kind of inflationary moments. Yeah, I mean, inflation comes and goes, but the position of the American US dollar hasn't changed. Again, you have to remember, like a lot of these foreign governments, 187 or whatever the number is countries outside the United States, rely on the US dollar.

32:02They So yeah, you're right, dollars do get inflated. But that increased purchasing power also actually drives the balance of power back to the United States. Because all of these other folks all of a sudden find the ability to import a little bit cheaper, their economies get slightly better, but the US dollar actually still does well. So there's a complex set of interactions that are all relative. So I think it's very hard to point to the US middle class and say, Oh, this is why the US breaks. I just don't see very many good examples in a modern globalist era. And there are examples, and I think Ray Dalio has pointed these out, when you look all the way in the back, but to use the UK, right in the 15 and 1600s of the East India Trading Company, when we did not have a global economy or a global reserve currency, I don't think it's very useful.

32:54There's things you can learn, you know, taxation, I think we can learn about why taxation does kill innovation. You said that before, I agree with that. But I don't think there's much value in saying because it happened in these moments, it's going to happen exactly the same way here. And I think what people don't understand is we are in a unitary, singular, mono economy that is anchored by the US dollar. Saks, any thoughts? Saks, do you agree? I tend to be on the Freberg Druckenmiller side of this thing. Druckenmiller had a great quote in this interview he just gave. I don't know, Freberg, did you mention this last week that he said that he compared the debt ceiling and fiscal spending to worrying about whether a 30-foot wave will damage the pier when you know there's a 200-foot tsunami just 10 miles out.

33:38So what he's saying is like our short-term situation is bad. The long-term situation, which isn't even that long-term, like 10 years out, is even worse. And I think there's a growing feeling that our political system is just not up to the challenge of dealing with these problems. It just seems fundamentally unserious. We never discuss it. The media doesn't really present us with accurate information and it has an agenda. Do you guys want to make a bet? Saks, you want to make a friendly wager with me? Sure. What's that? Okay. I will bet you that debt to GDP gets to 200 before it gets to 50. and i'll bet you however amount of money you want and we can we can do it for our own personal gain or for charity that may well be true but but the question is how how bad is 200 that's gp i don't think that's a really bad scenario i mean i really don't think it matters i think the point is you have any money left if that happens yeah yeah we'll have a lot of money you'll just have to profit from it if you think it's happening your job is to profit from it i'll make the same bet with you, Freebrook.

34:42I think it gets to 200 before it gets to 50. Or 250 or 300, you can pick your number. I think it will too. I'm just like... Let's do the math on that real quick. So the size of GDP is what, about 25 trillion and we're at about 32 trillion of debt. If we're to have 200 % debt to GDP right now, it'd be at 50 trillion of debt. Now, let's assume, let's impute an interest rate at which you would need to finance that. 4%. So I think 4%. You have to calculate the duration. I understand, but just let's just baseline. So let's say 4%. So 4 % on 50 trillion is 2 trillion a year, which is, isn't that like half the budget?

35:22Yeah, more. And that's my point. That's why you have to see taxes go up to over 70 % because it's the only way you can, you got to tax everything in order to fund that. So the US government has collected 2 trillion in fiscal year 2023. Now, I guess we haven't done a complete year, but let's do 2022. It basically collected 3.7 trillion. Right. You're using more than half of the government's income based on the current tax rates to fund the interest payments on your debt. That's not even to pay for social services. That's not even to pay for the defense. It's not even to pay for government services.

35:56That's just more than half of the income. I guess maybe we're just speaking past each other. I guess you guys are expressing anxiety and concern. And I'm just expressing, here's how one would make money, because it's pretty obvious what's going to happen. We're going to 200. We're not going to 50. So I just kind of compare you make money. I think there's a lot of ways that you could make money. I'm not going to share those on the pot anymore. But what's the trade there? Stan Druckenmiller said it's the opposite of Stan's trades, actually. So Oh, okay. That's good. That would be an easy way to actually Would you go long the dollar and short gold?

36:33No, because those are like antiquated ways of making money where you have to have these convoluted derivatives agreements with these banks. And I've done these before where you're levered up to billions of dollars of risk. It proves nothing. And I don't sleep well at night. I think that there are simpler strategies that you can implement. but i think stan is basically betting that the u.s will break and that we will be forced in some way to bring debt to gdp closer to 50 than to 150 or 200 and i would just bet the opposite and it's not because i want it to happen or that he's not intellectually or morally right also inflation down again we've kind of gotten used to this but this i thought this was a particularly interesting chart if you look at food goods and energy all going in the right direction services still very expensive any thoughts on the fed and inflation as we uh wrap up on sort of where we're at here is another 25 basis points core inflation is very sticky yeah right yeah i mean with cpi is down to 4.9 percent but but core actually was up it was up It was up, what, 5.3%, something like that?

37:49Yeah, core was up. So, yeah, the Fed is – it raised another 25 basis points. What were we up to? Like 5.25%. I was ready to stop, you know, two hikes ago because I thought that the economy was breaking and the banking system was breaking. They're up to now to five and a quarter. You've got core CPI is still sticky. Yes, CPI is coming down. But it looks like, you know, inflation is still a problem. This is not a great setup for economic recovery. And if you believe, here's the problem with accepting the idea that inflation is going to be persistently high, is if inflation remains persistently high, then the Fed won't be able to lower interest rates.

38:30So they'll need to keep them elevated. They might even need to keep raising them. And if that happens, there'll continue to be incredible stress on the banking system. And more banks are going to break. and then eventually that will create the conditions for a financial crisis. I think the thing you guys have to be open to is the fact that we've never really tested the ability for the US to borrow durationally beyond 30 years. And again, we talked about what an error it was in judgment for the Treasury not to issue 100 year bonds. But I think if there's any country in the world that can issue 100 year bonds, it's the United States of America.

39:06And I do think that they'll be able to get durational assets that are that far out on the yield curve. So I, again, am less concerned about the debt wall here, because I think you'll be able to push maturities out, you'll be able to refi a bunch of short term obligations into the future. And if you look at where the yield curve is 10 years at three and a half, 340 something. So the thought is that inflation goes down. If you put it out to 100 years, I would be very surprised if 100 year rates, if they priced a bond, weren't somewhere sub 1%. So I do think it becomes effectively free money for the United States.

39:43And I think it's just a practical thing they need to explore. By the way, corporates have explored these 50 year bonds and greater. So I think it's just like it's a matter of mathematics, as you guys have just illustrated here, that the US has to push out past 30 years. So we'll have 50 year US bonds, we'll have 100-year US bonds. Again, I'm not here to claim whether it's right or wrong, but I think the simple way to acknowledge that is just that we are going to reinflate the money supply over the long term because it's the only sustainable way that politicians can get elected and reelected. And I think the best thing to do there is to own risk assets.

40:22Let's move on to the presidential election real quick. I'm curious, gentlemen, last week we had RFK on. Did you get any feedback? The show obviously did really well. A lot of people watched it. I got a tremendous amount of feedback. People thought he was a fascinating, interesting character. Some people thought he was a conspiracy theorist. They pointed out a bunch of different moments during the interview, but what was the general feedback you got? My biggest thing was, I think he surprised a lot of people to the upside. A lot of people emailed me saying they thought one specific thing with him and we tried to address it which is he's painted as this kind of like conspiracy theorist or anti-vax person by the mainstream media and overwhelmingly so much of the feedback was wow this guy is so totally different because you gave him a long long format in order for him to really talk i thought he was really engaging and very interesting and very smart sax did you get feedback on it yeah i mean i think he is very authentic.

41:24I think he's very principled. I think that he's a rebel in a way. I mean, to grow up in the Kennedy family and to be part of all of those elite circles, whether it's in Hollywood or Harvard or where do they go for the summer? Martha's Vineyard. Martha's Vineyard or... Kennebunkport. Kennebunkport or whatever. I mean, you think about like all of the elite circles that he grew up in, right? And for him to deviate from Democratic Party orthodoxy and elite thinking in all these really significant ways shows that he is, again, very principled, very authentic, and I think a rebel in a really good way.

42:03And he's telling people a lot of things that you just don't hear on the Democratic side and through the mainstream media. So I think it's all positive. Yeah, I got positive feedback on it, Freeberg. The one thing people said was we they some people said not a lot but they expected us to push back maybe on him harder or something or be harder i thought we did an interesting job of letting him talk and really taking these topics to 10 or 20 minutes each the one people were particularly i don't know if concerned is the right word or puzzled by was that we didn't push back as much on the vaccine stuff.

42:40We just let him talk about it. A week later, what do you think about his vaccine position? And would you have pushed back more? Or do you regret not pushing back more Friedberg as our science guy? He made a lot of generalized statements or statements that I think, take a concern about one thing and then make them evidence for a whole thing being off. For example, there is a vaccine that isn't efficacious. There was a vaccine that had mercury in it. Therefore, all vaccines are bad. Oh, we over vaccinate now. Many vaccines today that kids take going into schools have saved countless lives. And they've had a really critical role in reducing a lot of child born illness.

43:28It's been, you know, just an incredible advance for humanity, for medicine, etc. I think he had a number of points he made about the COVID vaccine. And I know he's made these points for many years, he kind of extrapolates that, you know, it's evidence that vaccines are generally over prescribed and overused and pharma companies are just out to make money. And the government is aligned with pharma companies to just try and make money. I don't think that that is necessarily true. I think that there are certainly incentives that can drive bad behavior. But I do not think that wouldn't looking at the evidence, both contra evidence and evidence of safety and benefit, that childhood vaccines should be kind of changed in terms of how we're doing things today, there may be some things to change.

44:12But generally, I think that they're very beneficial. So I don't love kind of how he frames these things. And I think that it instead of having kind of a more nuanced conversation about this particular thing in this particular example, he blankets things and people get scared. And they're like, Oh, my gosh, you're right, we should stop doing vaccines for kids. That's very dangerous. That would be very bad for society be very bad for our kids. And I think that we need to kind of address that in more detail over time. It's one of these hard things where you have to have kind of a nuanced conversation to give people all the necessary depth and context to feel better informed to make a better decision.

44:44Because you know, there's always this kind of gripping fear that if something's off, and I'm getting, you know, poison, or I'm getting bad medicine, or, you know, people are trying to make money off me, people immediately react negatively and angrily. And they want to kind of resolve to a blanket position. I don't think that that's healthy. So I'd love to have a deeper debate on that. But the reason we didn't go into it is because we didn't we had limited time with him. And we wanted to take our time kind of giving him a chance to talk about the overview of topics and getting his point of view across the the set of topics that we generally thought were going to be relevant in the selection cycle.

45:18So that's that was with two hours. We still didn't have enough time. You could talk for two hours about vaccine. Can I address the conspiracy theorist point? Yeah, sure. So first of all, that label conspiracy theorist doesn't pack the punch that it used to. As you recall, anyone who thought the virus might have come from the Wuhan lab was once called a conspiracy theorist. If you believed that Fauci and the NIH were funding gain-of-function research, that was dubbed a conspiracy theory. If you believe that cloth masks didn't do anything, That was a conspiracy theory. If you believe that Hunter Biden was getting paid off by foreign governments, that was a conspiracy theory.

45:53So this accusation just doesn't really pack the same punch anymore. Trump not having a relationship with the Russians and his family meeting with the Russians multiple times. Yeah. That's still a conspiracy theory, J. Cal. To you it is. But in any event, my point is it doesn't pack the same punch. In fact, in some cases, it's starting to become a badge of honor. So that's one thing. The second thing is when you listen to him make his arguments, he's not just alleging certain things. He's laying out his evidence, right? He's connecting dots. He's explaining the causation. And you can disagree with it, but he is thinking in terms of like causation.

46:30And it made me think about something that Peter Thiel once said about founders being Asperger's, where he flipped it on his head and said, what is it about our society that talks founders out of all of their contrarian ideas? unless they are a little bit Asperger's. Ah, interesting. What is it about our political system and our media that talks people out of seeing causation unless they are a little bit of a conspiracy theorist? And what I mean by that is look at San Francisco, okay? All you have to do is walk down the street and you can see that things have gone totally off the rails and whatever we've done politically is not working.

47:08And yet the voters in San Francisco just like completely block that out. They don't see any causation between the way they vote at the city level or at the state level and the policies that are manifest on our streets. They just don't see any causation there. And you can just play that movie over and over again. And our elites don't see any causation between the way they ran the country and the election of Donald Trump. The fact that we hauled out our manufacturing in the Rust Belt by throwing open our markets to China, exporting our jobs to China, the way that we squandered all this money in the forever wars of the Middle East.

47:44In regards to what your views are on those policies, it's pretty obvious to me that they helped cause the rise of Donald Trump. And yet, you just can't get the media to see any causation between the policies they endorse and the inevitable reaction to them. And so, the way I see this is that our political analysis, certainly our mainstream media, they're just completely bereft of seeing any causation between policies and the problems in our society. And so along comes RFK Jr., and he's willing to actually connect dots. Now, you may not agree with all the dots he's connecting, but maybe it takes it the same way.

48:22Maybe it takes a little bit of an Asperger's founder to stick with their contrarian idea so they don't get talked out of it. Maybe it takes a guy like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. not to get talked out of these things that he believes, some of which I think are just obviously true. I thought one of the salient points he made was just, hey, listen, Farmer spends an awful lot on advertising. The media is dependent on that advertising. They don't seem to criticize it all that much. Maybe that's something we should look into. Now, I don't think that Pfizer is writing the script for Anderson Cooper, but you can be sure that if Pfizer didn't like something Anderson Cooper said, there's somebody they can call at CNN and say something to and have a conversation about setting the record straight, whatever, however you would frame it.

49:05Speaking of CNN. Right. And don't leave that point before. I thought it was a really interesting part of the conversation when he mentioned that he had been friends way back with Roger Ailes. Yes. And Roger Ailes specifically told him. Yes. That they could not post certain or televise certain content if it was too critical of pharma companies because they were the number one advertiser. Yeah. And should pharma companies even be advertising? So then all of a sudden, let's say it was a conspiracy theory or he is like way out there in terms of his belief. But the fact is, it does bring up the point, should we actually be letting pharma companies advertise on television or on news programs?

49:43Maybe they shouldn't be allowed to be on news programs. What for? It's not like the consumer who watches the ads can go out and buy the drug as can be prescribed by a doctor. They can ask their doctor about it, yeah. All right, well, speaking of CNN, there was an absolute train wreck of a presidential town hall with a moderator named Caitlin Collins. I don't recognize her name. I don't know if she has a show on CNN, but I saw the clips from it. I couldn't find the full debate. But my Lord was this. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. It was unbelievable. He got a standing ovation. He absolutely owned her on every question.

50:20All of her questions were about, you know, January 6th. You know, all of them are valid, but none of them were about running the country, essentially. and uh he was hilarious at least to this audience and he cnn's staffers are really upset that they did this that they gave him the that they platformed him which shows you exactly where they stand they're upset i guess they thought they could own him and they didn't did you guys see the part where he was talking about the trial and he's like and she has a cat named vagina did you i mean it was surreal and i just thought to myself is this going to be the next year and a half we're going to have these town halls and then i thought oh he's going to get elected is it true that eugene carol has a cat named vagina i have no idea but i mean it was that was a pretty vicious section and then i got the sense that cnn's management wants this this is like a ratings bonanza for them and i think they secretly want him Freeberg said it.

51:24It's so true. He's so entertaining. I could not stop laughing. I watched him on CNN and I was like, man, it's like one of your old TV shows that you don't really remember watching a lot of and it comes back on and you're like, he's so ridiculous. The things he says. It's true. It's absurd. When he first got elected, I was so afraid. And then you realize this guy's just an entertainer, really. He's a terrible politician. Bill Barr said that. Yeah. Did you see the Barr interview? Yeah, the Barr clip that I shared is just bananas. about Trump. But so he's a showman, and he's a great showman, you know, he's entertaining.

51:57And you realize that he was that's all he's ever really wanted to be was like, famous and popular and on television. And, and he got all of those things. And he took it to the to the most infinite level. What Bill Barr said was most insightful, that it's chaos when he actually tries to get things done, he can't get things done. Right. And he'll tell you all the things that you want to hear that he wants to that you want to see get done. He did this to Peter Thiel and Peter Thiel spoken about this publicly. So I'm not saying anything out of line here. I don't know if this is something that's on the record or not.

52:31But it was publicly stated that Peter was disappointed that Trump did not get the things done that he said he was going to get done. And I think that's really what what he does is he incites, he entertains, he gets people engaged, He knows what you want to hear. He sells you on it. He cripples the establishment, which everyone feels treated poorly by, that everyone feels held back by, that everyone feels has taken something from them that isn't giving something to them. And then he says, you know what, I'm going to fix all that for you. And then you get excited by it. And then all of a sudden, he doesn't actually deliver it.

53:04And then four years have gone by, and we've forgotten about it. And he's come back in, and he's kind of, you know, titillating again. So I think the reality is he's got a real shot at getting reelected here. oh my god you're right here's what i want to ask i'll go around the horn i'll start with you a sec i mean he said january 6th was like a beautiful day he said that everybody in the republican party who said he lost the election is wrong and that the election was in fact stolen like he literally doubled down on every single thing right so at the end of this he gets a standing ovation in new hampshire so how did cnn pick that audience did they do that on purpose?

53:43Did they know that was going to be the outcome? But at the end of the day, after that, does that increase his chances of winning the Republican nomination in the presidency? In your mind, Sachs? Yes, of course it does. Why? Look, well, look, I mean, Donald Trump showed that he's a force of nature. He's a wrecking ball. He went into CNN's carefully laid trap where he's not just up against Caitlin Collins. Make no mistake. She's got an earpiece in her ear with all of CNN's researchers and hosts and producers. They're all feeding her every attack behind them. Exactly. And he basically demolished her.

54:20He controlled the interview. He had the crowd laughing when he wanted them to laugh, responding the way he wanted them to respond. And to the point now where the CNN staffers are like, oh, my God, what did we do? And AOC was basically, you know, wringing her hands about how could CNN platform him this way? So look, he gave no quarter whatsoever. Like you said, he doubled down on everything. He tripled down. And he showed his ability to kind of bend reality to his will. So all the strengths of Trump. That being said, I'm sure that Trump and his campaign were delighted with what happened last night because I do think it makes him more likely to be the nominee.

54:59I think first and foremost, I think Republicans want a candidate who will fight the media and their fake narratives and lies. No matter how many lies Trump tells, they think the media is the bigger liar. And they want someone who is willing to step into the lion's den and take them on. And he is incredibly adroit and quick on his feet. And DeSantis is imploding. Well, I wouldn't say that. He hasn't even announced yet. And Biden is in cognitive decline. So what would any of them do? Just to be fair, DeSantis clearly is the underdog. OK, but just give the guy a chance because we haven't even seen what he can do yet.

55:31But there's no question that Trump showed an adroitness and a willingness to counterpunch and fight back that the base, the Republican base definitely responds to. Now, so we know that Trump is happy with the debate. I think the other party that is super happy with this debate is Biden and all of his people. Because as much as that debate helped Trump in the Republican primary, it did nothing for him in the general, I don't think. Like you said, Jason, he doubled down on January 6th. The campaign ads write themselves, okay? They're going to show footage of January 6th with the tear gas and the riots.

56:06Pops being beaten, people being shot. People pushing down the barricades. And they're going to do a narrative, a voiceover, with Trump saying it was a beautiful day, the people there had love in their hearts. It writes itself. It writes itself. And then, you know, he doubled down really strongly on Roe v. Wade. That was crazy. Being overturned. He's like, yeah, that was, I mean, I don't have his quote here. So, again, I think it doesn't hurt him in the Republican primary, but it will lead to a campaign attack in the general. And there were other issues as well. OK. So the Biden campaign is super happy right now because I think the only Republican he could beat is Trump.

56:39I think the reverse is true for Trump. I think the only Democrat who Trump could beat is Biden. I mean they are both two of the most unpopular candidates in America in a general election. So they love the fact they're going to be facing each other. But who doesn't is the American people. two thirds of American people don't want this choice. They say they're already fatigued by it. And they're only going to get more fatigued by it because I think for the next, like you said, 18 months, we're going to have the Trump show with him taking on the media. And that plays into Biden's hands because Biden doesn't need to campaign.

57:11He'll just let Trump and the media beat each other up. He'll do a Rose Garden campaign where once a week he goes in front of the microphones and responds to whatever Trump's latest outrage is. He doesn't have the vigor to campaign and he won't. And then we'll just see where the chips land. I think that it's quite possible here that after 18 months of Trump and the media beating each other up, the American people just say, you know what, this Biden guy is totally senile, but I'm like so tired of the Trump show. I've got Trump fatigue again. I'm just going to have to go with Biden. And I think this is how Biden gets reelected.

57:42This is a disaster for American. The fact that we are putting Biden, who's clearly in cognitive decline, and Trump as the two candidates again, the two candidates nobody wants, makes me think this is just like a complete disaster for America. Can we not find two other candidates? Chamath, what did you think coming out of his stand-up special on CNN, the Trump town hall stand-up special? I think that I'm more surprised by the fact that the big Republican mega donors have taken a big step back away from desantis i thought that if the money train on the republican side pick desantis that it would be very difficult for trump to overcome it but he's managed to somehow fade that bullet too he's like neo in the matrix it's like you have these guys shooting bullets at this guy and he just keeps somehow finding a way to evade them but this week actually coming to point on that i was just going to say well schwartzman step back ken griffin basically has gone silent so there's a lot of guys that came close to him and this is what i've maintained which is i think desantis ages poorly you know he's best before you actually spend time with him and the more time people seem to spend and again this is just evidenced by these big republican mega donors they don't seem to be running towards this guy they seem to be at least saying we're going to hedge or hedging yeah they're waiting friedberg any thoughts and then i'll go back to you you went for like 10 minutes let freeberg go and then you go freeberg any thoughts on it in terms of is this make him more electable do you think he's going to win what's your gut tell you the cnn thing yeah yes post cnn you think do you think he's going to win you think he beats biden the crazy polling data is that biden had you know 20 of the votes going to RFK Jr.

59:37who's like a nobody, no one knows candidate, and he's beating a sitting president in his own party. So that says a lot about, you know, how much support Biden has. And I think that Trump is going to be pretty appealing as the anti-Biden candidate. I mean, Biden was the anti-Trump candidate, and now Trump's the anti-Biden candidate. And right now, he looks like he's dynamic, and he was a big shift, I think. RFK Jr. feels a lot like a Trump candidate to me, too. I mean, you know, some of the positioning and the statements and the way he talks and being anti-establishment, he could also have that appeal.

1:00:12I think there's a non-zero chance Biden actually doesn't run for re-election at this point. Play that out. I can play that out. That's a really scary scenario because I think that's how we get a president of Newsom. Listen, I mean, Newsom is warming up in the bullpen right now and he's not just, you know, hanging out back there and, you know, spitting chaw. He's pitching fastballs, very noisily. He's been running TV ads. He's been going to Florida. He's been picking fights, you know, well outside of his state. He is basically telling the Democratic Party, put me in the game, coach. And he's just waiting for the signal to go.

1:00:46He needs to know from Democratic Party insiders in the establishment that he can go. He doesn't want to risk throwing away his career challenging Biden. But if Biden becomes too weak to run and he gets the signal to go, he'll go and he can raise a lot of money. And I'm not saying sorry, can you can you guys just explain both of you? Like, how does that actually like, what do you guys think happens? Like, there's a press conference that where Biden says he's retiring, I think he said after careful thought and consideration, I've made the decision that at my age, I'd like to spend more time with my family, and not continue this hefty responsibility.

1:01:23And I'd love to see someone else take the mantle. And I think that that will result, you know, from a series of polls, that will indicate that he may not have a shot. If he continues this campaign, I think that I'm not saying that's a certainty, I think that's a non zero chance right now that that scenario plays out. When that does play out. To Sachs's point, it's probably not just Newsom, but there's probably half a dozen and likely a dozen folks that pop their head up and want to get not just kind of have a real run at the presidency on the Democratic side, but probably end up saying I want to heighten people's awareness of me and so on.

1:01:56And they all run on that on that ticket. But the DNC might be having a real tough conversation in the next couple of months about how Biden's polling and whether he really is the right candidate to have on the ticket. So let's see. Let me give you a historical example. So I mentioned this, I think, when RFK Jr. was on the pod, but LBJ was the sitting Democratic president in 1968. And he went into the New Hampshire primary. And he won the New Hampshire primary, but not by a big enough margin. And a few weeks later, he announced he was leaving the race because of health reasons. But the specific challenger who helped knock him out of New Hampshire was Gene McCarthy.

1:02:29And then after that happened, Bobby Kennedy got in the race. So we could have a situation here where it's Bobby Kennedy Jr. is initially playing the Gene McCarthy role of being kind of the anti-war protest candidate who helps knock Biden out of the race. And then who knows? I mean, he could become... Gavin Newsom. They're going to want to come into the race at that point. But remember, the thing that happened in early 1968 that caused LBJ to leave the race is you had the Tet Offensive. And Cronkite got back from Vietnam saying the war cannot be won. And then at that point, it was like game over.

1:03:08Well, look, this Ukrainian counteroffensive, Zelensky just announced today that they need more time. So we've been hearing for months, if not a year, that you're going to have a big Ukrainian counteroffensive in the spring or summer of this year. and Ukraine is going to win this war. And instead, it looks like it's being destroyed. Ukraine is. So this war is turning into a debacle. I think it could be an even worse debacle by the end of the year. The economy has a banking crisis going on. It's turning into a big fiasco. So I think it's very possible that Biden could announce that it's time for him to step aside and you could see the floodgates open for Newsom or J.B.

1:03:43Pritzker or something like that. However, let me just say this. I think the odds of Biden leaving the race went down significantly as a result of last night, because all of the political people around Biden are saying, we know how to win this thing. We just A-B tested the strategy in the midterms. Remember, we had three quarters of the American people in the midterms think that we were already in a recession and that the country was on the wrong track and the out-of-power party is supposed to gain seats and the red wave turned into a puddle. Why? Because Biden's strategy of saying democracy was on the ballot and running against January 6th.

1:04:18It actually worked. I'm not saying I bought that argument, but enough independents did. Independents ended up breaking for Biden and the Democrats. Republicans didn't, but independents did. So independents have bought that argument in the midterms. And Trump, again, if he's the nominee, they're going to run that same playbook. Now, it's not guaranteed to work. I think this thing's going to be a nail biter. I think it's going to be a toss-up if it's Biden versus Trump. But I think that Biden's people have to feel very good about this matchup because they feel like they already know how to run this campaign.

1:04:50This is what he said about Roe v. Wade. It was such a great victory. I mean, can you imagine how that's going to play with women voters? They're just going to be like, yeah, no, it was not a great victory. You took away our right to choose for ourselves. Well, definitely Democratic women voters will not like it, but there's a lot of Republican and women voters that will support that statement. Here, let me give you this. 30%. Let me give you this data. Of the country. So take a look at this. I don't think you're right, Jason. I just shared with you kind of the Reuters polling data, the most recent one.

1:05:23And the number one issue at 24 % of likely voters that they care about is the economy, 24%. Of course, yeah. Number two is crime at 14%. Number three is immigration at 9%. Number four is inequality at 6%, and on and on and on. Only when you get down to like number 10, you get to abortion, which comes in at 3%. 2 % of Democrats, 1 % or, you know, 3 % of 4 % of Democrats, 1 % of Republicans. Yeah, but what is the margin of the election? Well, I don't think that that's the issue that breaks it. I think there's other things that there's significant differences on, particularly around crime and immigration, inequality, that are polling much higher in terms of importance to likely voters.

1:06:00But do they drive turnout, like abortion does? I don't know. I'm just, I'm just thinking of these numbers. It's like, you know, one to three percent of people saying it matters to them is not that significant. I think these other topics are going to be very divisive and very different, very polar difference. What people say in a poll and what people turn out to vote for, like for some people, that is a major issue. But who knows? I think it's a toss up, basically. Look, like I said, I think the only candidate that Biden could beat is Trump. And Biden's probably the only sitting president that trump can beat so i mean again they're both it poll nationally in the mid-30s and this is the choice we have i gotta give saxe's red meat i saw these uh republicans are going on a revenge tour here to uh go after the biden family they said they would and they have so the oversight uh house oversight committee reveals i guess nine biden family members received wire transfers from foreign nationals via shell corporations, and they don't have any connections to Biden.

1:07:05We know that Hunter was securing the bag all over the planet. He's clearly a grifter. I don't think there's any doubt about that. What's the truth here? How much evidence do they have? Because this is obviously a partisan thing, just like there were partisan things on the other side when they were investigating Trump. So how do you look at this information, this revelation? they keep they're using this like biding cried crime family meme do you think this is actually evidence of something or is it just another rich family with a bunch of llc's another rich family wait how do they get rich good question the kennedys were a rich family yeah but the biden's were not a rich family so how do they get rich their only business is they don't have money right they don't know how much money is actually here and how it's being what evidence do they It's not red meat for me.

1:07:55I just think the media should have done its job investigating the story properly. And what this investigation has turned up is that there's a lot of members of the Biden family. I think they're up to like 10 or 12 or something who've received payments flowing from foreign governments. No one can tell you what any of those people did in exchange for the money. It does appear to be an influence peddling operation. I don't know whether that's to be an influence peddling operation. So people were giving money. Again, the point is that why would you give money to members of the Biden family? Presumably for some sort of access to the person who's been in Washington for 50 years, who's been a senator.

1:08:31Do they know who gave the money? Is it China? Is it Ukraine? Do they have that data? Well, I think we know about Burisma, which is basically a Ukrainian. I went to Hunter. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think China is another one. Now, I don't know what the quid pro quo is for that money. I wonder if this is like the Kraken or if this is actually reality because they seem to be short on actual facts. I think they got a lot there. But, I mean, they're putting out all these reports. But, listen, I think to me actually the bigger story or the bigger scandal is just more details on the way that the security state wrote that fake letter basically calling the Hunter Biden story Russian disinformation.

1:09:08There's an email now that just came out where Mike Morrell is corresponding with John Brennan, and Morrell specifically says, we're creating the letter to give Biden a talking point in the debate. They're the former CIA directors, right? Yeah, exactly. Both of them were CIA directors at different points. So there's no question now that that letter where 51 security state officials claimed that the Hunter Biden story was Russian disinformation, that was all basically a political dirty trick. And dirty tricks happen, but I don't think the CIA should be involved. That's the thing. I don't think the branches of our government should be involved in helping to get any candidate elected.

1:09:48But these guys weren't even in government though, right? That bothers me. They're former, but they're highly related. So just so we're clear, it wasn't like the CIA. They continue to have the security clearances. But it's not the CIA did this. These are former CIA folks. Actually, Morrell needed the approval of the CIA. So that was another thing that came out. That's what bothers me more than anything is I do not think our permanent government, especially security agencies, should be involved in partisan politics. They really need to stay out. That is election meddling. That bothers me. That's a form of corruption that I think is even worse than monetary payments.

1:10:24J. Cal, can you tell us about your trip to the Middle East? What have you been doing there? So our bestie, Brad Gerstner, was coming here. And we were at the poker game a couple of weeks ago, maybe a month ago. And he said he was going. And I've always wanted to come to UAE. And I've never seen Dubai or Abu Dhabi. And so I said, yeah, I'd love to go with you. And we did a couple of speaking gigs. Where are you staying? so four seasons in ritz four seasons in abu dhabi and the ritz here in dubai and i was just going to do these three speaking gigs a podcast and isn't ifc in dubai incredible have you been pretty amazing financial district here yeah i mean it's it's and it's all been built in the last 10 years i would say generally speaking what i'm super impressed about and i i'm not it's not a fundraising trip i was just going but then uh one of your former employees chamath set me up with a bunch of meetings because he's like hey there's a lot of people who want to meet you so i'm doing like a maybe a dozen meetings or so and there is um a real this is a very progressive place that the uae of all the uh and dubai obviously is very progressive and so it reminds me of like you know silicon valley in the early days where everybody's doing something and it's incredibly cosmopolitan there's only 500 000 nationals but there's 10 million people here more hindi is spoken than any other language in dubai yeah i mean the number of people here from all around the world is bonkers and then everybody's working on something everybody's got a project and the people are delightful did you go to the french restaurant i told you about in abu dhabi i did it's quite nice did you get the rib eye did you get the rib eye yeah we had like a family style thing so i didn't get the ribeye but it was it was exceptional the food's exceptional it's just like incredibly cost-apologetic it's like going to new york you know or london and they are there's a very unique moment in time right now sax when you go to abu dhabi and you stand you stay at the four seasons and the adgm go to this french restaurant and order the ribeye it is a top five steak i've ever had top five i've never been there i've never been the middle east so delicious so delicious so delicious and in dubai do not stay at the ritz in ifc ifc is incredible but the ritz sucks stay at the bulgare hotel beautiful just beautiful but there's a very unique moment in time i literally came down the elevator at the four seasons and i met four or five people from silicon valley in the lobby and then i came out of dinner uh and there was a table of silicon valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists it is I mean, it's basically like going to the Rosewood in Abu Dhabi.

1:12:57But what a statement that is. Like the US is tapped out. We are like broke. That's, I think basically the, they are, the way it's been explained to me is they believe they have 20 years, 30 years to convert the oil economy into a technology capital allocator economy. And so they want to make evergreen funds to invest. They haven't had a chance to invest in venture capital because most venture capital, there weren't that many. They were fully allocated and there was no opportunity. Now with what's happened in the United States and this pullback and sort of the cycle starting over again, I think there's an opportunity for them to invest in some funds and start relationships.

1:13:35And then, you know, we've had a long talk here about human rights in different countries, and it's not a monolith over here. I mean, I don't know who needs to hear that exactly, but these countries are very different, very different. I'm sure they appreciate your lectures on that subject, Jacob. Actually, you know what's interesting? We didn't have lectures on it, but I've had multiple conversations about these issues. I've enjoyed your lectures on this pod. I don't lecture about it. I think these are important issues that people discuss. And the serious thing is a number of these countries are majority young people, and they are reforming very quickly.

1:14:09and rights are changing and so the question is for you know all of us and uh for the world is do we collaborate and you know support as they you know become more liberal and become more tolerant and they you know become more western basically and young people it's very western here and the parties going on here are pretty much like the parties i attended in la or new york and so i think actually, we're probably not as at least UAE and a couple of the countries here are not as disparate as like we one might think. I'm glad you did the trip. Because I'm glad to hear you talking like that, that there isn't an us versus them point of view, you know, visiting and seeing the culture and the intention of the people within the culture.

1:14:59Super important. And I think it's, it's good that you did it. So good to hear. I wanted to share the video that these guys did. But let's do it next week. I No, the Lord of the Rings one that this guy did, which is amazing. Wait, what? There's a Lord of the Rings video? No, not with us. Not with us, J.C.O. Oh, I don't want to watch it. Okay. Why would I want to watch that? Yeah. Thank you, Elmuth. Yeah, exactly. I don't know what I care. I want to watch the Balenciaga video for the third time. Did you see that? Yeah. I took an outtake from the guy's video on Lord of the Rings. We'll put the link in the show notes, but this guy made this incredible AI-generated Wes Anderson does Lord of the Rings.

1:15:39Oh, I did see that. Did you see that? It's amazing. And the clip I'm using today as a background is an outtake from the trailer. Did you see it, Zach? I've also seen the Lord of the Rings one. Oh, my God. It's so funny. The guy is incredible. But, I mean, the creativity and the potential with AI, it's just so evident. This guy talks about it on his website and on his Twitter feed. He did it in a couple of days. He learned a bunch of new AI tools. a lot of generative tools were integrated to make this possible. It's an amazing two minute piece of art that I think really speaks to the creativity being unleashed with AI.

1:16:15Again, going back to this point about it not just being about job reduction and reductionism, but it's really about unleashing new potential that we didn't envision before. Separately, there'll be another, I think we should talk about this next week, but there's now this kind of generative video game platform that's being demoed where you can instruct the video game intentions and it generates a immersive video game experience for you on the fly with something we talked about a couple episodes probably a couple months ago at this point i had something on this week in startups who showed a video game where he made like you make 25 objects in the game it's really incredible in a certain style and then you say i want to make more characters like that i want to make more backgrounds like that like you take a wes anderson style whatever and it just generates them for you and it just keeps generating them for you so one artist can make a palette for a game and you can say, I want to have a penguin in my game.

1:17:00I want to have a zombie in my game. I want to have this kind of zombie. That's exactly right, yeah. And it just does it. And then people who are playing the game can say what they want with prompts and it creates it. And you can drive a storyline and then you can integrate with other people's storylines. I mean, it's really powerful. Anyway, I got to run. For David Friedberg, David Sack, and Chamath Pahalapatiya, Haim, your boy, J-Cal. Love you, boys. We'll see you all next time on the All In Podcast. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. We'll let your winners ride. playing out with the greatest hits here on z100 the balenciago video featuring the all in cast with cameos by brian armstrong keith roboi and elon musk coming at you balenciaga friday night eight o 'clock hardest ticket in new york

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