E134: Ukraine counteroffensive, China tensions, COVID Patient Zero, RFK Jr reaction & more

27:07Okay, so those data points tell me at a very minimum, we need more of this discussion, more of this debate, not less. The idea that we could be tiptoeing closer and closer to some land war in Europe unnecessarily and, I think the bigger issue is, and you can't trust what you're being told. And I think that that's what's very probable. And it's a bigger picture. And just so we're clear here, I'm not saying I'm on either side of this, I'm just pointing out that this is all still very thinly sourced. It's not until the West confirms any of this. I expect the West to do you expect the State Department to issue a press release saying, yep, we fucked up.

27:46It's on me. My theory. What are you going to do? My my theory of the beginning has been and I've been very clear on this podcast. My theory has been since the beginning, they want to deplete Russia and they want to deplete their army and not keep baby bodies and have regime change and Putin. I'm not saying I'm for that just for the people I'm not a man. They're an ankle Putin. That was the crude language used. That is what they plan on doing. Yes, I think that's what they're doing. They lost in our Secretary of Defense said that our purpose was to weaken Russia, so to knock it out. I agree. That's what power purposes.

28:19I think they want regime changes. That's what Boris Johnson once again said. We want to pressure Putin not make a deal with him. So they reported this war. They prefer to fight a proxcloth choice that was easy. I'm not endorsing that. I'm not endorsing that. I'm saying that's my view of table. This is not about you, Jason. I'm asking this to me too. No, not about you, Jason. But sacks just said it was to me. So I'm just clearing the right. He just said that was your position. And I'm correct. Okay, fair enough, Jason. I have the right to correct you. That was not my position. I said that's my view.

28:49I actually agree with you. If you're saying that that was our government's objective, which was to weaken Putin, I agree with you. They've posed to fight an optional proxy word of choice that was easily avoidable if they'd just taken NATO, expansion off the table because they thought it would weaken Putin but here's the rub on this. It is not weaken Putin and is weaken the United States and our allies. Any way you want to look at this thing. Look at just the weapons and munitions. So we are out of 155 millimeter artillery shells. We cannot produce enough. This is the crazy thing. We spent 800 billion a year plus on the Pentagon and our national defense.

29:27We're out of ammo. I mean, we must be getting so royally ripped off by the military industrial complex. Okay, we cannot produce ammo fast enough. That's why Ukraine is losing this war. The balance of artillery favors Russia. Russia is basically using about 20 ,000 shells a day. The Ukrainians are using so between three and 6 ,000. We are out of ammo. We cannot produce enough. And this actually dovetails nicely with another story this week. there is a journalist named Matt Euglesius, is that his name? No, Euglesius, yeah. Euglesius. And he said, I mean, he literally said the quia part out loud, and I'll just quote, because he was criticizing you and Chimoff for hosting RFK.

30:12We'll get to that in a second. But he basically said, this is actually a really good idea for us. Basically, NATO equipment plus Ukrainian lives are being traded for Russian equipment and Russian lives, which leaves NATO coming out ahead. That's doubly true because NATO is much richer than Russia. So we win a long -term game of everyone who explode their weapons as fast as they can, make them. Again, though, what makes that really true is NATO material is killing Russian soldiers while Russian material is killing Ukrainian soldiers. That's a deal in our favor. I mean, that is a cynical of a summary of that.

30:45Yeah, he wrote that last year in defense of the war. basically like all the Neocons, he's sort of an establishment approved intellectual. They think he's smart. I think he's really foolish. He basically wants to fight the last Ukrainian here for the sole purpose of blowing up Russia's stockpiles. The reason this is so dumb is Russia can always make more. Those lives aren't coming back, but they can always produce more artillery and more weapons. And in fact, the Russian war machine is now ramping up to full production. They are ramping up the number of people in their army. I think it's estimated that by the end of the year, they're gonna have 750 ,000 men under arms.

31:19They've ramped up artillery shells production. They were at something like 1 .5 million at the beginning of the war. We were only producing 14 ,000 artillery shells a month, mostly for training purposes in the United States. We've since ramped that up to 20 ,000, but that's still massively trails what the Russians can do. And they're trying to ramp it up to 90 ,000 a month, but that's gonna take till 20, 28, because it takes time to build, You got to build up new factories, new production lines. You got to issue contracts to suppliers or vendors. It takes time to do this. But the Russia's mercy has wrapped up their war machine.

31:53And then the other thing that's happened is that Russia and China have entered a day facto alliance and including Iran. So you now have the cementing of this giant alliance in Asia between China, Russia, and Iran. They're sharing equipment now together. Iran is producing drones for Russia. Russia is now going to be giving advanced fighter jets to Iran. So this idea that this war has made the West stronger is depleting the West over an objective we didn't need to fight. The war was easily avoidable. And we have now created I think the most fearsome opponent that America has ever faced. We have never faced a adversary with a combined manufacturing capacity and raw materials of China, Russia, and Iran.

32:42If we were to get in a war, a new world war against this sort of new axis, we could lose. They actually have more manufacturing capacity to produce weapons of war and munitions and ammo than the United States does. China has been clear that they're not going to provide weapons to Russia. And so I'm not sure that that alliance is exactly accurate. They've given us no such assurance. All they've said is they haven't done it yet. It's a theoretical thing that you're talking about here that could be very serious. I think your point, and this is to Brad's point, we should be having a very thoughtful discussion here because if China did pick Russia, which they haven't, and they went to war, it would be more of a way to go to America now.

33:20One of the many, one of the many, let's go to college. Well, we should talk about the China relationship actually. Yeah. Okay. Blinken just went to China and this was the first trip for an American Secretary of State. Since 2018, obviously things have been strained with the Zbibolune and the visits to Taiwan. Blinken gave some basic goals for this engagement with China, the fentanyl problem, some detained Americans and protecting US citizens working in China. One of those were kind of the easy check boxes, but they wanted to create also an open line of communication between our militaries, which China wasn't super stoked on or wouldn't agree to.

34:06Tony did a great job. Yeah. Okay. I think what's really disappointing is that while Tony's over there doing this hard work, which is must be tough to do because it must have been a little bit like dancing on eggshells a little bit, right? He had to be... Yeah, he had to be very thoughtful, very measured. But as far as I could tell, he did a fabulous job. Now, the disclosure, he's a friend of mine. So maybe I'm biased. But then over here, Biden at some mid -level fundraiser in California is calling G a dictator. How hard must it be for you to try to do your job when your boss is just like completely undisciplined?

34:43And here's the problem with that is that if the United States actually thought that G was a dictator, Do you think that a mid -level fundraiser that we were all invited to in North and California that none of us said yes to is the place to announce a foreign policy shift like that? Absolutely not. So it just means that again there's just more evidence about Biden being very undisciplined. Now again that could be an age issue, it could be a mental acuity issue. We don't know because we're not given a chance to really prosecute that problem. Meanwhile Tony's there trying to do the best job he can and the sand shift underneath him.

35:19Thank God he was able to get the trip done before this thing happened is what I think. But that gap was a very big gap and a very big problem I think because whatever good will he built up was practically flushed down the toilet if you saw the reaction from the Chinese, which was to be deeply offended. It makes no sense to poke. When he went to CNPS and they had to negotiate a fist bump versus a handshake like what is all of this either unplanned or undisciplined theater. Why are we engaging in any of this stuff? It doesn't make any sense. Joe Biden's always been known for being a liability in terms of these statements when he worked for Obama.

35:59He was the VP. He also said things, you know, he shot from the hip a lot. You should not be calling him a dictator when you're trying to do this critical work. It's a stupid move. I think everybody can agree. You were going to say something, Brad? Yeah, I was just going to say, you know, kind of market reaction going in. So the K web, the Chinese index was up about 20 % heading into these series of meetings. Now, notably, Blinken was not scheduled to have a meeting with she. And so what happened is on day one, there's a meeting with the foreign minister, right? And it seems that there was some positive trend lines coming out of these first two meetings with the top diplomat with foreign minister which led to the meeting.

36:40And notably in the meeting he did say the United States has not changed his policy on Taiwan. We don't support Taiwanese independence. Now the market reaction post visit was down 10 percent. And I think this is owing to what Chema said that people felt like maybe we took a step forward here that we at least had a meeting. But then it was another step back. And so I think where we sit at the moment is there probably going to be some follow on meetings coming out of this This was not you know a a Path back to where we were but I think it was a stabilizing moment and You know again, we were just at the East meets West Conference where there are a lot of Chinese CEOs and founders who were there And I think the idea there was like things are stable like not getting worse and by the way six months ago there was a real concern that things were deteriorating quickly.

37:33So I think it's, you know, you can see something constructive coming out of this. Not getting worse was how I felt coming out of it and then Biden then makes it worse. Is it really, it is a, I agree, it's just a stupid gap. Let me tell you about some of the reporting from the Chinese side. So after these diplomatic events and you're right, Blinken met with Wang Yi for seven hours, then he got an audience with Xi Jinping, they do these readouts where each side basically produces a public summary of the meeting. In the Chinese readout, they said that US Chinese relationships are at the lowest point they've ever been.

38:08I mean, since I guess diplomatic relations were kind of reestablished under Nixon, so that from the Chinese standpoint, they believe that relationships are at the worst they've ever been. Moreover, the US sought to put Ukraine on the agenda. The Chinese response to that was, we are not interested in discussing our relationship with Russia that is none of your business. So this idea, there's been this Neocon fantasy that somehow China would help us in this war between Russia and Ukraine. And I've said all along that the last thing China wants is for Neocon so to achieve their objectives with respect to Russia because then China alone will be in the gun sites of US hawks.

38:52So China will do what it has to do to support and even prop up Russia if they have to. Remember China and Russia and specifically she and Putin, they are the two leaders who've met with each other more often than any other leader and they've called each other their best friends or most I think the language they use was, was, was, was, was, what they called it. Okay. It's a little weird. Yeah. But yeah, but yeah, somebody great TV show could pull. Yeah, exactly. Just to give people exactly what happened, bite him when he was at this campaign fundraiser in North Cal that again, yeah, we were probably invited to people on the show.

39:31He was talking about the military Chinese spy balloon and he said she got very upset that quote that this was a great embarrassment for dictators when they don't know what happened. And it continued to say that she didn't know the balloon had been over the country until US and was off course in Alaska. And this is the kind of thing where he's basically saying she is stupid or whatever, or there's some level of incompetence over there. It's exactly the wrong message you want to send. Calling him a dictator and calling him stupid and saying he was embarrassed. Why would you provoke that to raise money or to be a tough guy?

40:05It makes no sense. I mean, it sounds like Trump's version of foreign. From the Chinese standpoint, they thought the whole balloon thing was a travesty. I mean, I don't know what the truth of it is, but they feel like it was just this continuous drumming up of outrage on the American side against China. And they wanted to put that behind us in terms of the relationship. I heard Blinken interviewed about this. Tremoth, I agree with you. I have no complaint with Blinken in terms of how he handled this meeting. Tony, do you have a complaint about how? I have a complaint about how I handled Moscow, but but not Beijing But they wanted to put this balloon business behind them My guess I've always said that it never made sense to me that the Chinese would use such a ham fisted way I've conducted an S -Rinoz to fly a Deliberately fly a balloon over the US It never delivered it never made sense to me.

40:56Yeah And it became this cost 11 the US and I think the Chinese at a minimum wanted to put it behind us and then Biden reopened the issue. Like this submarine tragedy, the balloon is like made for network television because it's a live event where you can put live cameras up and you can carve a rich 20 for seven. It's just like Trump. We've got to be really careful. It's just for the media. It's for the media. It's catnip for them. We have to be very careful now, I think, in our relationship with China. Because again, you now have this asiatic alliance between China, Russia, and Iran. It is the most capable, let's say, the average state of the United States ever faced.

41:33Remember that when we face the Soviet Union, their economy was never bigger than one -third of the US economy. The Soviet block versus the Western block. The Chinese economy on a purchasing power parity basis is roughly the same size as the US. And they've got more manufacturing capacities. If you think about the type of manufacturing capacity the United States had during World War II, that now belongs to China, not the US. We have hollowed out our main factory. Why are foreign policy Brad, I'll bring you into discussion. Why are foreign policy isn't being driven by some of the things that we could do together to collaborate on?

42:07Like we have global warming. We have issues on this planet that we could collaborate on and it seems like we're spending no time on those issues and saber -annotling Cuba. Another example. Why can't we set a goal for the United States to normalize relations with Cuba and get them on our side since they are the equivalent of, let's say, Ukraine, David, to America. you you brought back comparison why don't we make peace with Cuba why can't we have a peace -based foreign policy where we're trying to build bridges god Cuban United States could do amazing things together and we should be trying to win that relationship instead of living 50 years in the past over it I'm not sure there was legitimate outrage over the past week because we discovered that China was planning on they already have an intelligence outpost listening Cuba listening out most, but also they're thinking about doing training of troops in Cuba.

43:02And that would be a violation of Monroe doctrine and we should basically get our backs up over that. The Monroe doctrine states that no disintegrate power can bring troops, weapons, or bases into the western hemisphere. The United States spent over 100 years basically enforcing Monroe doctrine. It would greatly diminish US security if we allowed any foreign great power to have troops in the Western hemisphere. So we deserve to have our horns out over that. The problem is that we have our horns out over everything. And so we're not really taking seriously. We've probably lost so many times. I don't think we're really taking seriously by the Chinese on this.

43:39And this should be a teaching moment to the foreign policy establishment because this is Russia's objection. Russian objection is to having American troops weapons and bases directly on their border. This is our objection to what China is seeking to do in Cuba. Okay, Brad, do you want to add something to that, or can we move to COVID? Let's just real quickly, I would say. There's a real appetite in the business community to be engaged. This idea that we're going to decouple the world, never have to deal with these folks, is just a farce. Bite dance bought a billion dollars worth of Nvidia chips announced this week.

44:12right? Like the world is entangled and I think we would be better off having our political and business leaders in more sync over how to achieve this long -term safety and prosperity as opposed to what feels like a disjointed foreign policy relative to the global reality around AI and what's happening on the business firm. I agree. Well said yeah. I mean it's just so obvious. Yes, why can't we be collaborating on stuff? And we see when you and I made our trip to the UAE, and then we see the Saudis bringing movies back, we have certain regions we're doing a pretty good job of engaging with. Engagement, reasonable engagement is a good idea.

44:55It's because, and I think our FK has said this, we have created a very dangerous revolving door between our most critical institutions and the largest industrial companies in the United States. And that revolving door creates all kinds of conflicts of interest and those things get sorted out via revenue and dollars and profits and Sentives and so those incentives will drive us if it's the military industrial complex to go to war and You're seeing that it'll complicate our foreign policy. So this is what I've always said the most important thing that we're doing is It's something that the military industrial complex cannot stop, which is our energy independence.

45:39And when you have energy independence and abundant cost of energy, I do think that the biggest thing you get is this piece of it and you stop fighting these wars, you become much more rational abroad, and you're like, okay, I don't need to fight with all of these people because, you know, things are so great within our borders. You're so right, Bob, because we actually have stopped those wars, and now we've created two other ones. Russia, Ukraine, we can't have war on China. What's that? We can't help ourselves and we'll use the scarcity of commodities as a boogie man to basically incentivize us to go in these foreign misadventures and it really has to stop.

46:13By the way, just two quick points on that on Taiwan. There's an election next year and it looks like right now that the pro -China party might actually take power. Right now the party that some power is more of a pro -Western party. And the reason I think is that the Taiwanese are looking at what's going on in Ukraine and they're looking at the corpses of the Ukrainian youth pile up and they're thinking maybe it's not such a great idea to be an American proxy state or the words of Henry Kissinger, he once quiped that it's dangerous to be an American enemy but it's absolutely fatal to be an American friend.

46:48I think that this war may be backfiring in terms of the incentives is creating around Taiwan. Remember Biden said that this war would basically help protect Taiwan by deterring China. It might actually deter Taiwan from opposing China. So we'll have to see how that plays out. All an able -bodied person in Taiwan, a voting age needs to do, is read the newspaper and understand it in the last two and a half years. We've essentially started a multi -trillion -dollar program to deliver ourselves from all the critical resources that China and Taiwan gives us. And so if you're a Taiwanese citizen, the writing is unfortunately on the wall, which is that we are giving ourselves the optionality to not have to do anything.

47:27So to your point, David, if you're a rational thinking Taiwanese person, unfortunately, you're forced to be in a position where you may have to head your bets. And if the United States can basically have chip supply that comes from Europe and Mexico, now the sudden the criticality of TSMC goes away. To it, I publish this tweet yesterday about but Buffett and his trades in Japan, right? He bought these five trading companies. So just a really novel carry trade that I've really fallen in love with, just understanding it. But the code up to that is that when he did this and going long Japan, what he actually also did was he delivered himself from China.

48:06He had a long position in TSMC and he said, I'm out. And when they asked him why he sold TSMC, he said, this is a very complicated thing. And he basically said that it's not a bet that's worth making. And I think underneath that, if I had to guess what he's trying to say about Taiwan and directly through his sale of TSMC is the odds are that we are not going to get into a land war over there, which means that that asset and its equity value is in danger and I don't want to own it. And I think that that's a very clinical summation of his rational action. So to point. Well, here's what Blinken said.

48:45People speak with their dollars. I think it's very important. You know, the one China policy says Taiwan is part of China. It's not an independent country, but we've had a very ambiguous intolerance for this ambiguity of Taiwan acting as its own nation while saying we support the one China policy. And that ambiguity has served us very well in the China relationship. Here's a Blinken said at the press conference quote, we do not support Taiwan independence. We remain opposed to any, you know, lateral changes to the status quo by either side. The status quo he's referring to here, Brad, is that they get to be independent in Taiwan, but we don't say they're independent.

49:21They are obviously acting in an independent manner, but it is not our business to tell the Taiwanese people that they're independent or not. It's their decision to determine if they're independent or not. Any thoughts on the trade by Buffett and I think we're basically saying, Fuchina, don't change the status quo at least for now, right? While we rebuild these chipfabs in Arizona and other parts of the world, I think most of the wealthy families I've talked to from Taiwan believe that five or six years from now, the US will no longer be in the position where they will need to be able to do the same thing.

50:07Taiwan and Taipei as much as they do today and there are more years you think it will take to be independent state one more time and explain it Well, it's not about being independent It's how much longer will Taiwan have what they believe to be de facto protection from the United States and I was told by one very influential Taiwanese family that they believe what the fifth Chippfab comes online in Arizona, which I think is scheduled for 25 or 26. They intended to have most of their family members out of Taiwan at that period in time. Now I think most Taiwanese don't envision this being a violent invasion of Taiwan.

50:48It's more of a take under in the same way that Hong Kong was. And so I don't see an American president frankly going to war, nor would I want them to go to war over Taiwan. But I think it's in all of our interest to maintain that status quo, which is why taunting the Chinese over the course of the past few years over Taiwan has seemed like a policy that's not fit with our goals. Right. Well, if you look at skin in the game, the fact that the chips act went through so quickly, the fact that Warren Buffett, as you pointed out, you made his bet and this family that has obviously, you know, skin in the game quite literally are making these decisions, I think we know where this is headed.

51:30You can just follow the bets. If you look at the bets in five years, and also where people put themselves geographically, everybody left Hong Kong when the turnover happened or before it, they went to Singapore, they went to UAE, they voted with their feet and their dollars. And that's obviously what's going to happen here. This is a good pivot because this criticism of the Ukraine policy by Matt that SACS pointed out came because there is a belief on his part and others that the pod here all in is putting its unilateral support behind RFK. That is not true. There are two people on the pod who hosted a fundraiser last week and here is what Matt incorrectly said because I have not put my support behind RFK.

52:22I think he's very interesting and I'm glad he's in the race and neither has Friedberg, but Schmock and Sachs did host one and all handed over to them. But here is what Matt said in his sub -stack. And even though it's not the subject of this post, I do want to say that I think it's really sleazy and gross for the hosts of the All in Podcast to be engaging in this Kennedy boosterism as a bangshot way of harming Joe Biden's reelection prospects, not with saying the recent conversions around Russia policy, Kennedy represents precisely the strand of progressive thought that right of center business people have highly have rightly spent the better part of the century of the moaning.

53:01His is an anti -progress, anti -technology, ultimately anti -human, to all of you that stands against bio -mogal progress against energy progress and against human civilization. The guy who wants to blow up as many Ukrainians as possible in order to complete, yeah, exactly things as anti -human. Listen, I don't even think we should be giving him this much time. Well, no, but I think it is important that because people now have connected this pod with the rise of RFK This was the first major What a glaces is accusing us somehow of do of supporting RFK not because of issues But somehow because it's a bank shot for Donald Trump, which is ridiculous None of us support Donald Trump.

53:38He's not even my preferred candidate in the Republican lane Well, what he said was a bank shot against Biden just to be clear a I prefer RFK to Biden. It's that simple. What's wrong with that? He's not even making any arguments here. Look, we've explained in a lot of detail, and I explained in my response all the issues where I support RFK. He supports free speech over censorship. He supports civil liberties over the surveillance state. He supports peace instead of war. He supports sealing the southern border virtually alone among Democrats and talking sense on that issue. And I believe that he's completely correctly diagnosed what we're doing in Ukraine.

54:17So on the issue is I support. You disagree with some of some issues, right? You disagree with them on nuclear and you may disagree with them in his anti -vax stance if he is in fact anti -vax. I just hope that that's actually finished those two. I think he was right about COVID lockdowns and I think he was right about COVID, the so -called COVID shot that wasn't even a vaccine that that should not have been required. But what about those two issues? You obviously disagree with them on some things. Do you disagree with him on his anti -vax stuff and his nuclear stuff? I don't know enough about those issues to have like a firm stance.

54:48What I would say is that every candidate represents a bundle of issues. And you support the ones who are aligned with you on the issues that are most important to you. On the issues that are most important to me, which are these questions, the great questions of warrant peace and the questions of free speech and censorship. And even I would say the question of the economy and who do we prioritize because he wants to prioritize the middle class. On those big questions, I feel like I'm aligned with RFK. Perfect. So that's why I support him. Let me go to Chimoff. If I wait, do you think Jack Dorsey is supporting RFK as a bank shot, something or other?

55:28No, he's supporting it because he agrees to RFK on these questions of Warren Peas. Okay. and free speech. Great. I'm just letting everybody be very clear about their position since this is becoming the support of RFK by this podcast or two of the four people in the podcast is now becoming kind of national news. Glacier is even making any arguments here. He's just applying drogatory labels to us. Yeah, I didn't know. And really what this is, this is a disciplinary tactic or a shaming tactic by the sort of enforcers for the establishment, right? Want to prevent independent thinkers from stepping out of law.

56:03I agree. That's what this is about. It looks like this outsider went to the Dalton School in Harvard, University, so there you have it. Yeah, you got a $2 million education doesn't know what a basis point is. Oh, he's the guy with the basis points, right? Oh boy. It's a failed man. He graduated with a Dalton in Harvard. Good luck with your substatus. Oh my god. Chimath, you are pro -nuclear. You've been very clear about that. although your pro renewables mostly, you've been clear about that on this podcast and many conversations I've had with you. You were also pro vaccine, but your anti what happened with the lockdown.

56:34So maybe you could expand upon your support of RFK, why you held a fundraiser firm and what things you agree with them on and maybe what things you don't necessarily agree with them on. Well, first I actually did what I think a lot of people haven't done, which is just listen Listen to him, just stop talking. Zip the old yapper. And there is an enormous amount of long -form content where you can really understand where he stands on some of these topics. He's right about the war on Ukraine. We shouldn't be in it. He's right about free speech, which is we should have it. He's right that the COVID vaccine was not a vaccine.

57:26And really what it's done is actually discredit the word vaccine, unfortunately, in a lot of people's minds. He actually is a person that is pro -vaccine for all these other vaccines. He himself is vaccinated, his children are vaccinated. You would all know this stuff if you just took two minutes to just listen to it. He is against the COVID vaccine. And what I would say is, I'm very sympathetic to that. I'm very sympathetic to the job the FDA had to do. And I think they generally did do a great job. But we ran something through and we allowed it to be labeled a word that misappropriates what it is.

58:07It's not a vaccine. And the problem with that is that it now makes people mistrust the measly mumps and rubel of vaccine. that's crazy. You shouldn't mistrust the MMR vaccine or D -TAP, but because those things are lumped in with the same thing as a COVID vaccine that is at best 30 or 40 % efficacious, we have these problems. He calls that out pretty honestly. So I like the fact that he actually speaks in nuance. I like the fact that when I I listen to him. I find that the talking head think police are generally lying. It confirms what I believe about them because he just says things in a very plain spoken, intelligent way.

58:53And I think that there are a lot of folks who don't wanna think, who wanna be given the simple answer, who want to just reject what he stands for and just take the establishment view in the hopes that they'll get, I don't know, maybe accepted by the establishment. The establishment just wants to curate power. And I just think that people should be thinking for themselves. If you listen to the Rogan podcast, if you listen to the Jordan Petersen podcast, there are millions and millions and millions of links and page views and discussions and thoughts. And there's probably thousands of minutes of RFK explaining what he thinks on basically any topic you can imagine.

59:32You can get to your own conclusion. And now I think what I think you'll find, and this is true for me, is there's 10 % of stuff you are just vehemently supportive of, 70 % of stuff that's like quite reasonable and fair. And then there's the rest, which is a spectrum of things I disagree with, but then you're left with a blended expected value where you're like, man, this guy is really better than all the other alternatives. Brad, I'll let you go and then I'll give my pacificent. What I find most insidious about the opposition to this discussion is people are upset that you're not swearing an allegiance to a dogmatism.

1:00:16The truth of the matter is this group has hosted dinners for Rokana, for Senator Manchin. We've hosted dinners for DeSantis. Right? Had I been here, I would have put my name on the dinner for Kennedy because I want to gather information. I'm an analyst. I want to think for myself, how can we spend trillions and put ourselves into potentially harm's way without having a real conversation in Congress and on these pods about the risk of war? Why can't we have an authentic post -mortem about the efficacy of the COVID vaccine without being shamed. The revolution going on in this country, which is fantastic from my perspective, is that there is no longer a monopolistic control over the discussion.

1:01:09And that's why this podcast and this friendship and the conversation we all had here is resonating with people because they also want to hear all the different sides because most people are capable, are way smarter than the elites on the coast thing. You know, I'm from Indiana, lots of smart folks who think for themselves in Indiana, but they're told by coastal elites what to think. And they reject this, and that's what you're seeing in this discussion and so many of these others. It's not about vaccines, it's not about a war. It's about their control over how you think and then wanting to force you to swear to an orthodoxy.

1:01:48I think that's really well said. Yeah, that is well said. But the way they try to control what you think is by labeling candidates. So as to exclude them or make them sound crazy. So, Jake Al, I mean, you kind of introduced RFK as an anti -vaxxer. I don't think that is the correct way to describe his position or the singular way that he should be labeled. No, I don't believe that. I said, here are the things he believes that we agree with. and then I gave the things that the media is saying, so I was trying to present the totality of it. And I said, he is obviously in favor of the middle class and all this stuff.

1:02:24So I want to be clear on my position here. So I am in support of vibrant, long form debate like we have here. And I'm in support of anybody who takes on the establishment because there are crazy incentives. As we talk about here, incentives matter. And we are long overdue for discussion on vaccines. but it's very important that everybody understand here that everybody on this podcast took the COVID vaccine. And everybody here, our kids have been vaccinated. It's not a vaccine, it's not a vaccine. Exactly, so they took the COVID. We were injected with an experimental mRNA treatment because we got hoodwinked by the media into thinking it would prevent us from ever getting COVID, which it did not do.

1:03:04Two months later, I got the variants. Vaccines are good and the COVID thing was not very good. And it reduced death in older people and probably was the only group of people and we'll know when we do a post mortem. But do not do now we got this mRNA like flowing through our bodies who knows it might be a time bomb. Well, and then for people who are wondering like if we should even be having these discussions the hypocrisy of the media I Think is very important to look at here because the media is gonna be attacking this podcast over and over again not that it matters, but when we moved into the top 100, top 50, top 10, that's when the knives came out.

1:03:45I would like to remind the media of the long history of investigative journalism and debates. What was once a conspiracy theory often goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize. The hypocrisy here is crazy because if you look at some of the greatest stories and investigative journalists pieces they started with these debates rumors etc. Abu Grabb. That was the New Yorker. Ralph Nadell, I'm saying that he's supporting that was I heard she's reporting and he can't get the time of day right they can't get the time of day for his report on who really destroyed Nord Stream the Catholic church sex scandal the Boston Globe the mainstream media does not perform the function that you're describing anymore they act as the bodyguard for the elite for the establishment.

1:04:30They actually have even a They are a stenographer for the people in power not exactly true They have actually done incredible reporting, but there is a group of them Which is towing the party wine because you have the New York Times and their expose and the taxi commission that one of Pulitzer in 2020 And then you look at I know you don't follow Pulitzer's investigative journalism in 2020 Brian Rosenfall at the New York Times did a massive expo's a on the predatory New York City taxi industry. And that at the same time that might be important in your own business. There's a few other issues that might be more important to the nation.

1:05:06It was an example of protectionism and rent seeking. The N Ron scandal, big tobacco, 60 minutes. What about the pretzels monopoly in the south part of the Bronx? What about that hotdog vendor on the new? You guys are uninformed. Didn't have all of his licenses up to date. I thought There was a long way to get to the people, watch the list of them. You guys are shooting on the back. The fact is, at the same time that the New York Times, CNN, were attacking what Uber was doing, the New York Times won a fucking Pulitzer for their coverage of predatory loans by rich powerful people in New York City.

1:05:43I bet they also did a great story on the guy selling trinkets outside Penn Station without a license, right? For somebody who's a man of the people like yourself, that she should actually be more informed. Okay, what they should be reporting on, for example, what if they really, if the pullerchers worked the way they should is where patient zero came from on COVID. Because Michael Schoenberg just reported this over the last week and it got picked up by the Wall Street Journal, that patient zero, it turns out, was a researcher at the Wheel of Lab who was performing gain -of -function research. Yeah, shocker.

1:06:17Another conspiracy theory proven true. And we'll wind up being a Pulitzer. He deserves a Pulitzer. He does. And the crazy thing about this quote -unquote conspiracy theory to turn it out would be true. It was like it brought together the most odd bedfellows, Rand Paul and John Stewart. When Rand Paul and John Stewart can be in a room and agree on basically the totality of the topic, we should all just pay attention because it's not a normal world in which these guys will not always get along. Right. right. And go to them nailed it from day one. Right. They have the same name. But now connect the dots further.

1:06:54Okay. Why was the truth suppress? Why did it not come out? Because Fauci had funded gain a function research at the Wuhan lab via eco health alliance. So he knew that if at the beginning of this pandemic, it turned out that he had been partially responsible for the creation of this virus that had and now turn into a pandemic around the world, his career would have been over. And it's worse, it's even worse than that. 46 % of the advertising on TV news comes from Farma. And we did not always allow Farma spending. And this is, may not be one to one, it may not be that a specific person doing a report at CNN or Fox or any of the networks is saying, oh, I'm gonna lose my job if I write something critical of pharma, but they're not doing the investigative pieces on, I can tell you this, on the people who have 46 % of their advertising revenue.

1:07:50Unless it really gets to the final inning on something. That is something that we need to question. The media is funded. 46 % by pharma companies. And pharma companies were given a pass, and if you criticize any of the pharma companies, the media is going to come for you. And so listen, I'm not a tinfoil, but you do look at the sentence. No, that is not tinfoil. Listen, the media is funded by Big Pharma, and its primary sources are these high level government employees who've been there forever who leaked them information. That is why the New York Times was carrying water for Fauci and Big Pharma.

1:08:30This is the marriage of state power and corporate greed that RFK junior denounces. Yeah. Well, there you have it, folks. So and he believes he could be assassinated by the CIA. No, he didn't say it like that. He didn't say it like that he was asked what what is his strategy on campaigning and all of that stuff and he said look I'm gonna do as much as possible, but one thing that I'm going to avoid are like these open air Parades just because there's just a lot of folks that we can't control crowd control Yeah, okay reasonable. Yeah, I mean the conversation on Rogan went something like this. Rogan was asking questions about the Kennedy assassinations and RFK believes like something like 60 % of the American public believes that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.

1:09:20Then Rogan asks and will do you ever feel afraid running for office? And his answer was basically no, not really. It's not something that I'm preoccupied with. But yeah, I'll take precautions. Does Does that mean he thinks the CIA is going to assassinate him? No, that's not what he said. But that is how the media reported it, including Fox News, that became the sound bite. Well, the sound bite from this podcast was that he believes his uncle was and his father were, that the CIA was involved with some of the nations chasing a lot of people. I am not giving my opinion. I'm giving his opinion on it.

1:09:51He said it on this podcast. And the CIA won't release all the information to this day, even though they've been commanded to do so. So he'd make your own decision, folks. According to Bloomberg, there is a ton of action for startup shares in secondary markets. If you don't know what a secondary market is, that's when one investor buys shares in a company that's not yet public directly from another investors on the cap table. So if Stripe, which is not yet public or Reddit, there are shares floating around in those companies, either previous employees or previous investors. One firm might see an opportunity there and buy them.

1:10:22As this process of bottoming me out has occurred, pitch book reported, Tiger Global told secondary and that's a class of people who like to buy these, that they could bid on any individual private company in its portfolio. They tried to sell a bundle of these shares, about 30 startups at a time, but they couldn't find buyers according to the reports. So now they're allowing people to bid on per company, on a per company basis. Some of these are being marked down a third, 50%, et cetera. Here's the quote from Bloomberg. As of May 31st, shares of startups were trading at a median discount of 61 % compared to valuations at their latest funding rounds according to report by forage global holdings.

1:11:04A16 according to the report is actively buying shares in secondary, Excel, Bane, Bessamer, and Cliner are also using secondary to grow stakes in their existing investments, doubling down. As it were, cross over firms like CO2, Tiger Groat, Global, and even Brad's altimeter are actively searching for deals. So Brad, your thoughts on this is this sign of a bottom. And why are you doing this? It's way too true. You're doing it. Yeah, it is true. I mean, our job is to look at all these companies, understand their value. You know, I'm sitting here looking at a list that I was given this morning, 125 companies, secondary.

1:11:38You know, the Goldman Sachs unprofitable tech index in the public markets is down 64 % as of this one. Unprofitable public companies. They put together a basket. They track unprofitable public companies down 64 % off of its peak as of this morning. So you just quoted the Bloomberg article saying, yeah, these unprofitable tech companies in the private markets are down about 60, 61%. That smells right to me. The reprisings have to occur. These have to occur. Right? There are 1400 unicorns at the end of 2022, and a hundred percent of them will likely do a down run. And if you said what is the average that they're going to be down, it's over 50%.

1:12:22You saw the reprisings out of some of the best ones, like a Canva or a Stripe, where it was down, let's call it 30, 40, 50%. But they're going to be companies like in the public markets that are down 80 or 90 % and disappear altogether. So we didn't see the reprisings, okay? And by the way, when we say, you know, that article quotes, forage, that is what the sellers are offering to sell shares for. That is not where transactions are clearing, right? So why hasn't altimeter purchased any of this? Because the prices aren't low enough to induce me to get off the sidelines to purchase the shares. But we're within kind of, you know, we're starting to get in the zone where we can underwrite to a margin of safety competitive or better than the public markets for companies that we think are great companies.

1:13:15Now out of those 1400 unicorns at the end of 22, they're probably less than 5 % of those companies I would even want to own at the right price. Right? So it's a small subset of companies. The price has to get to this clearing point. But, you know, I think over the course of the next 18 months, we're going to see an acceleration of market clearing events as these companies need to raise capital as their employees want to get liquid on shares. And it's probably some great opportunities, but most of these things that get put on sale should not be purchased, right? Most of them, even, you know, the first sale price is never the last sale price.

1:13:57the mark down on the black t -shirts will continue. Tom Arthur, sex, any thoughts? Are you buying in secondary? Are you looking at this? We'll look at secondary deals. It's not primarily what we do, but we're open to it. But Brad, if you were to categorize the 1400 unicorns into one of three categories, what do you think the percentages would be? Those three categories being zombie corns, like unicorn companies that just don't deserve to exist in a product market fit, and they're going to go away. Category two would be viable companies that are just overpriced and are headed for a down -round.

1:14:30And the number three would be the ones that are actually headed for an up -round. Yeah, I'd say 30 to 40 percent are these companies that were valued over a billion dollars that don't have product market fit. They'll disappear. Zombie companies that will disappear. Right, and listen, just to be fair, let's explain. Most of these companies have less than 30 percent. 200 million of preference preferred shares that venture capitalists invest into the company. And many of those companies in that 30, 40%, there's a team, there's some asset of value. They may be able to sell the talent of the team and recoup, David, let's call it 30, 40 % of the pref stack in that transaction.

1:15:16We're starting to see some of those occur. Then I think the lion's share of the companies that are left. Let's call it another 40%. These are companies that should never have been marked at these prices, but they do have a business and they're gonna be marked down 50 to 80%. But none of those have been able to grow through it. Then there's less than 10 % of the companies, right? Whose growth has been so robust through this period that they've actually grown into or within 10, 15 % of those prior prices. And if you do all of that work, it puts us back on trendline. The only thing unusual here is how far off trendline, we had 1 ,400 unicorns.

1:16:03In 2020, we had I think 145 IPOs. In the last two years, we've had four. Okay, so there's a huge backlog. These companies aren't getting public. Why? Because public market buyers like ourselves, we're not willing to pay the prices that were in the private market. So the first step is to just have these clearing events. And as David, you and I heard, sober talk over the course of the last couple of days, I think they said to the founders very clearly, you need to sell your businesses or you need to get profitable. There is no middle ground. In other news, Ford has been issued a conditional $9 .2 billion loan from the US Department energy to build out three, one two three EV battery factories, specifically alone is coming through the Department of Energy's LPL.

1:16:49That's the loan programs office. It's got about 400 billion to lend out. You might remember this from 2010 when they gave Selindra a one two three batteries, which eventually went bankrupt and got bought by a Chinese company, I believe, and Tesla, a four and a 65 million dollar loan. Tesla paid it back. The other two didn't. Tussle paid back with interest. Jig or Shah, the director of the loan program office described the lending moves as a way to onshore and reshore manufacturing. The goal of the program is not innovation, but to get more of the supply chain to be manufactured in the US. Guess some people are criticizing this just out of the gate with why should we be giving these loans to companies.

1:17:36Shouldn't this be the private sector doing it? Which math, what are your thoughts here? Is this a good idea, a great idea, a neutral idea? It's a great idea. Explain. It's us using our balance sheet to make sure that we get to energy independence. So this is actually a perfect role for government. It's shaping incentives so that capitalism can do its job. What this does for Ford is a partnership with SK. And so SK has a lot of capability in Korea, but they can bring that know -how now domestically on short to the United States. You'll be hiring thousands of people. You'll be building battery factories, Fort Needs batteries.

1:18:15Their forecast is they'll be selling two and a half million electric vehicles by 2026, 2027. So whatever Ford does, you can expect GM will also do. You can expect all of the other big companies to do. So this is all just great. And at the end of the day, for people to not over, this is 9 .8 billion. I guess it sounds like a lot, but we're probably spending spending $9 .8 billion a day fighting wars. So this is a day of just taking a pause on all these dumb wars and actually becoming energy reliant, carbon neutral, fixing the climate. It's great. Jobs, energy independence and less dependency on autocratic nations.

1:18:57It seems like good idea. Everything should be, how about instead of thinking about it in terms of wars? Let's think about it in terms of, So if the the DOD budget is $800 billion Okay per year what is that 2 .6 billion a day? 2 .7 billion a day? Okay, so we're talking about three days, four days. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You want to say that you want to take the one side Thursday? Yeah, I'll take the one side of it. I agree with your mouth about the wars, but this is all money we don't have. I mean, we shouldn't be spending the money on wars and we shouldn't be spending it, I think, on industrial policy.

1:19:38So, first of all, one of our friends who's an energy investor, I wish people his name was telling me, that the energy subsidies that were in the, you know, misnamed inflation reduction act, it is like the biggest bananza of all time. He said that the energy sector is going crazy now trying to figure out how to exploit these incentives. And his view is that although I think it was supposed to cost about $350 billion, he thought that it would ultimately cost the government somewhere around a trillion. Because the way these subsidies work is that you just qualify for them and then you get the subsidy, it's not like the credits run out.

1:20:15So if you qualify, you get it. So this could end up costing the government way more than what was originally projected. And so the question is, what are you going to get for all of this money? And in this article on Ford they were talking about these 7 ,000 jobs are being created at a cost of $440 ,000 per job so It's great that the jobs are being created, but if you look at the efficiency of that that Spend per job doesn't really make sense. I don't understand how you get that number you take that's where the article The article said it the article said for for four four hundred forty thousand dollars job Do you do take nine point eight billion and divided by seven thousand what do you do?

1:20:53I'm just quoting that paragraph of the article. So the job creation is good, but you got to look at the efficiency of the job creation. The other thing is, the question I would ask you guys actually is, who wants one of these Ford EVs? Do you want an EV by Ford? I think there are a lot of people that drive a Ford pickup truck. We talked about this before, so that's one 50s coming, yeah. Very popular. There was an article in in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago, which talked about the brand consideration cycle that has been going on. And there was a large, we're friends with Elon, but we should acknowledge.

1:21:28There's a large number of people that are frankly a little bit turned off by him. And they've been very clear that they want an alternative to Tesla because they don't want to buy Tesla because they don't necessarily prefer him as a brand ambassador for their car. And the reality of life is that even if you're like maximally incredible, unless you find and clever way of creating a monopoly, in which case you can be a douche or evil, you're only ever going to capture 30 plus 40 percent, maybe you have a mark. Coke Pepsi is a good example. And so there's always going to be long tail alternatives.

1:22:02And I had a chance for example in Vegas to drive a Rivian. I was surprised at the quality or drive inter - Rivian. I was surprised at the quality of Rivian, only because I've been so focused on tests on my whole life. So yeah, I think there are a lot of people that'll buy forwards. Doesn't well take anything away from what Elon's doing, but I do think there are a lot of people that will buy it my Probably the industrial policy is this you think about that EV summit that the White House did they didn't even invite Elon and that that was for political reasons Union reasons. Yeah partly because of his views on speech, but I think mostly because he's not a union shop Right, and so that's the real reason why Ford is being doled out this sort of 9 .0 something billion dollar loan is because they're politely connected with the right people in this current administration.

1:22:48And that's the problem with industrial policy is that the money gets handed out by government to the politically connected. But in this case, Tesla did. That's supposed to the companies that may be producing the best products. The fact is Tesla did get one of these loans in 2010 when it was a very nascent company. So you gotta give them some credit. They took a big risk there. But let's think about that for a second, okay? Cause I know that example comes up a lot. And a one, two, three, and so on. Yeah. So Elon was basically a fluke. I mean, you get like a once in a generation entrepreneur who helped me working on this EV problem and he got that loan.

1:23:19If you're to take Elon out of that government portfolio, it all looks like Selendra. Yep. So the question is, like, what is this portfolio going to look like? Is there really going to be another Elon in there? Because if not, there's going to be a lot of Selendra's. Well, even if they break even. There's going to be a lot of subsidies to companies like Ford, which are politically connected. And I think a point Freiburg would make if he were here is that at some point you're going to turn off the subsidies because we can't afford it. And then at that point, is that factory going to be self -sufficient?

1:23:49Brad? You've heard the two sides of the story here. Yeah, no. And listen, while generally against industrial policy, I come down on Jamassad. I think this is a once in a generation opportunity to reduce our national security risk profile and to achieve what is really a national security imperative which is energy independence. It's not going to happen just according to the invisible hand of the market. We see our great power competitors who are using this against us, frankly, and have robust industrial policies. So I'm willing to stipulate that there will be those inefficiencies in this system, but I was lucky enough last night I was having dinner with the deputy secretary of the treasury, Wally Adiyama, who was out here meeting with founders, including battery founders in Silicon Valley, on this very subject.

1:24:43And I know some of the companies who are getting checks from the US government to scale up right, innovative battery technologies, innovative chip manufacturing. And I have to say this is the best of America. I see some really great public -private partnerships that are ensuring vital national interests in chips and batteries. And so I'm happy to see it happening. But I also know there will be grift and there will be waste along the way. But compare that, David, to the 8 trillion we've spent over the last 20 years on war policy and what we've gotten from that. So, you know, if you'd rather see us take chances here on innovative battery technologies that waste.

1:25:26Still potential waste, but not as wasteful as a war gun. Of course. I mean, the first thing we got to do is turn off all these crazy wars, but that can't be the bar because that's a very low bar. I mean, anything's more productive than wasting the money blowing up other countries that we don't need to be involved in. I mean, remember, we do have a $32 trillion debt. I think a great thing to do here is what they should have done with Tesla, which is when they give that $500 million loan to Tesla, they should have gotten 10 % of that in warrants to buy Tesla shares at the IPO, 50 million at that IPO would have gone what 200x.

1:25:58And that would have been an incredible payday. So if they give this 9 .2 billion to Ford, why not get 900 million in one? So you want to become a VC? No, I want them to get a little participation in the upside of the company. I don't want them to own it. I want them to have potential participation. Well, I'm giving a modest number here. So right now, they're a VC without participation. But right now, they're alone that gets paid back with interest and I'm saying give them some upside in the equity even if it's a small piece would you Object to that sex you basically want to make them a venture debt provider like SVB basically yeah like venture debt Like give them a pot sweetener.

1:26:34Yes. Yes. Give them a pot sweetener. Why don't you work out so good for SVB? You may not remember that but it would have worked out incredibly well with their pressing and that doesn't solve my problem You might drive a better deal for the US government in that case, which is fine with me but it doesn't solve my objection, which is at the end of the day, these decisions are going to be made based on political criteria. But sure, yes. Got it. Okay. And we're going to end up with corny capitalism and state capitalism as opposed to entrepreneurial capitalism. But this isn't supported that because this is a deal where that 9 .8 billion does come over.

1:27:04But these are basically like loans and loan guarantees and you select to put up the equity yourself. That doesn't solve anybody's problem, meaning you need to still be entrepreneurial. And there needs to be risk capital. In this case, the risk capital is coming from Ford and SK. And I think that that's my understanding of this I'm just really suspicious because this is for 90 % of the cost or 95 % of the cost so there's not much risk capital here from Ford or SK I mean it might be opportunity cost but it's not the full cost of these three factories almost 13 billion dollars So there's still a non trivial amount of risk risk capital that has to get put to work here man I would love to only have to put up 20 % on the dollar But they're he sends on the dollar in my investments I think Brad does make a good point about the security of our supply chain.

1:27:47I'm more willing to use this sort of industrial policy we're talking about something that is vital to the security of the United States. I think you could make that out of chips. I don't think electric vehicles rise to quite that level. Batteries might? I don't know. I wouldn't say batteries do, but I think obtaining a secure supply of the rare earths that are needed to make batteries, there's maybe a role for government in the world. But even the reason batteries must is because the only way to wean ourselves off of the dependence we have on fossil fuels around the world, and even though we produce, and we're now an exporter of oil, the reality is we're still in entanglements around the world because the world is dependent upon those fossil fuels.

1:28:32And so I do think that that is a national security interest having energy and dependence, not only for ourselves, but for the world. Germany was energy independent and kept their nuclear running and didn't have Nord Stream. We'd have a different situation here right now. We'd have a much better situation. We got plenty of oil and gas over here. All right, everybody. There you have it from the architect. Drill beer. Trigger warning. I like to grab a thumb burn tweet from off. That was a really good tweet. Shout out to my God. Oh my God. The number of people. I mean, did the mids like it or the mids hated it?

1:29:04What happened? Can I just address what this means? So when I think of somebody as a mid it's somebody that is just a hapless impotent cuck that can't think of themselves. I'm out of glaciers. And so what I don't mean is that you know, you know, you're just from the beginning. You're right about us every week. You know what this is? It's the all -in podcast for clicks. If you ten people have started, kind of finished. Yes, got it. There's nothing to do with your financial status. It's just everything to do with your open -mindedness. And there are these people that are just so reactive on Twitter.

1:29:40I feel a little bit sad because like in a few years they'll still be very unaccomplished and yet still be wondering who they can blame now and it'll just be them. So I would just encourage these people that just fucking do some work. Put your head down. Do the work. My God. Build something. Make something. So anyways most of the comments were really great and interesting and then there's a couple of people who are like, oh my God, how dare you, you know, and it's like, how dare I what? How dare I what exactly? You can tell that the spot guest has truly become successful when the mainstream media fights up and punches up to try to get us to respond to them to get more people to subscribe to their substack while playing Matt.

1:30:21I'll play the funniest thing. The funniest thing was I did this tweet about Buffett and then people are like, oh, but I thought you compared yourself to Buffett. And I was like, no, no comparison just benchmarks. And then they get tweaked about the word comparison versus benchmark. And then Carson block jumps in and I texted Carson on the side. I was like, bro, I'm just trolling the mids. Just don't worry. This is all bullshit. It's all just for shits and get closer. I do it. I do it when I'm either pooing or I haven't jet lagged. It's one of the, it's on ambient or while taking a dump or both.

1:30:56No ambient for the dictator, the architect, and Bestie Brad, the fifth Bestie, and our new mascot, Matt the mascot, who will be writing three more sub stacks about us. I am the world's greatest moderator. Can we make that shit bread logo, our logo? Yes. To co -tos, austerity measure lunch. We salute you. The all -in lunch will not be austerity. Did you guys touch it? Do you know what it was? Was it bread? Did you touch it? I didn't touch it. No. What wasn't I abandoned it immediately is a vegan pretzel? I don't know. I was a vegan. Is that what they call poop? Don't poop now a vegan pretzel? I don't think Friedberg was going to be there a vegan Well, I mean the WTF wants us eating insects.

1:31:48So this is I think that's probably what it is It looks like a vegan donut slash a do -do. It looks like a French rolled -up sandwich in space. Face when he opened that box. He just dropped it on the ground. It's like a literally let -turgut of a Santa Fe. It's a matter of fog. I thought my seven -year -old had played it for con me because he's into those types of like -ass, you know, the fake dude who's the rubber one? I know the rubber one. I know the rubber one. He's the Amazon one. So I've done that, getting the rolled off. The fake dude who is great. I'm gonna buy some fake do -do actually you know what they should do they should put that co -toucher make fake do -do and put it in the gift bag for all in summit That would be a great little merch item.

1:32:28All right. We'll see you on next time. Bye -bye

1:32:49What? What are winners? What? Besties are gone. That's my dog taking a wish to drive away. Oh man, my hamlet is actually a meaty athlete. We should all just get a room and just have one big hug or two because they're all good. It's like this like sexual tension that we just need to release that out. What? Your beef. What? Your beer of beef. Beef. What? We need to get my cheese. I'm doing all it!

1:33:25I'm doing all it!