E149: Hamas terror attacks in Israel: fallout, reaction, next steps

27:40It's going to take decades. It's going to take decades. And they're basically supported by that population as far as we can tell. It's going to be. And again, if you take measures that are perceived as too drastic by the rest of the world, then you will inflame the opinion of other countries you'll turn it against Israel. So again, it's a really tough situation. but I think that the US should only affirm its support for Israel. It should only denounce the atrocity that happened on 10, 7. But I think it needs to reiterate the Biden administration does its support for a two -state solution. I think that the US has to be on record that what's in everybody's long -term interest, including Israel, is ultimately a two -state solution.

28:25And the Palestinians are eventually going to have to have their own state. There's simply no way around that. Right. Yeah. And the free world, I think, is in the process of getting engaged and making this happen, because it's in everybody's interest. This can't keep going on. And so hopefully this, again, I don't want to say silver lining, but I hope that this, the good that comes out of this is that the world focuses on resolving this conflict or continuing it. Were you surprised that all Jason, by the amount of people that seemed to be almost just justifying that was shocking to me. I mean, the fact that people could make any kind of equivalence between terrorist activity and the level of brutality, I can't even describe it because it'll trigger my PTSD, which I had after 9 -11 and it still affects me.

29:14I'm sitting here not far from ground zero. And you know, for people, you know, educated people on college campuses or just otherwise to blame the Israelis for the murder of children, for people being, and then justifying rape and torture, kidnapping. I mean, there is no justification and there is no equivalency. There's no equivalency here. And this is one of the big problems. And, you know, these dopey kids on Harvard's campus, whatever, they have never experienced evil, such suffering. We can literally just dismiss these because these are kids who have never faced. But Jason, I don't think you can.

29:58I think one of the things that was shocking to me was the level of basically either subtle or late anti -semitism. Unconscious, yeah subtle, whatever. That it unlocked. And I was also shocked. It just sucks as users word before, but it's true. But our leading educational institutions have really become woke madrasas. they are inculcating kids with just some virulent poison. I think the reaction is always to go after to support the underdog, I think, in this group of people. Whatever they perceive it, that is an idiotic simplification that the smartest schools in the world, educating the smartest kids in the world, should be capable of seeing them.

30:41That's how they think. It can't be that. It's not my feeling. I can't think that. It's half anti -Semitism.

30:51It's Is that simple? In the work mindset. Well, look, I think it was discussing and disturbing to see these organizations and these elite institutions being unable to denounce Hamas' terrorist attack in the atrocity that took place or turning out in the streets to celebrate what happened. We saw a lot of that too. Look, even if you support the Palestinian cause, even if you believe that they've mistreated, even if you think that their land has been occupied, they deserve their own state, even if you believe that war against the state of Israel is justified on that basis. These were still war crimes.

31:33These were beyond the pale of war. Again, Hamas did not just attack some military installations on the border and kill soldiers or capture soldiers. The vast majority of the people who were killed were civilians. And there was no conceivable military purpose. And for example, paragliding into a music festival, a festival for peace by the way. And then rounding up and slaughtering the concert goers, there was no conceivable military justification for going into these kibbutzes of farming communities in our master's place. Or in families, exactly. It's deranged, it's deranged. It's deranged, so.

32:10It's deranged. It's terrorism. And the fact that they can't frame it as terrorism is insane. But think about what happened. I just want to frame the order of events. Okay. 10 -7 happens. And I think within 36 hours or less, let's take Harvard as an example. Okay. The pinnacle of the woke madrasas. They had all these student organizations immediately come out trying to justify this thing without any information. Right? Because in the first 36 hours, obviously not nearly as much information was available as to exactly what happened. Then it's been available now as an example. I should read the statement just so people have clarity here.

32:47Please. Join statement by Harvard, Palestine, solidarity groups on the situation in Palestine. We, the undersigned student organizations, hold Israeli, the Israeli regime, entirely responsible for all unfolding violence. Today's events did not occur in a vacuum. The last two decades, millions of Palestinians and Gaza have been forced to live in an open in air prison, Israeli officials promised to quote, open the gates of hell and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced. Palestinians in Gaza have no shelters or for refuge and nowhere to escape in the coming days. Palestinian Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel's violence.

33:28This is deranged in social path. My point is you have like 15 or 20 of these student organizations of all ilks, okay? So it's not just pro -Palestinian groups. It was like the Harvard Sikhs association, okay? Like Sikhs in South Asia are the most peace loving people in the world They're not pro -war of any kind whatsoever or pro -terrorism So all these people Right this thing which blames Israel. Okay Then the school is totally silent The school doesn't say anything either they neither they neither Completely Disavow that statement nor do they come out with a more reasonable statement all these ex -faculty and ex -individuals, Larry Summers sort of leading, say, this is outrageous, have an opinion.

34:13They come out with something that's milked toast in the middle of the road. Then they get soundly rejected by everybody yet again. Then the administration comes out and gives a cleaned up version that tries to alay everybody's anger because that the first statement I think basically essentially pissed off everybody on both sides. Then a bunch of of alums who've already graduated or who've given money say, these student organizations are outrageous. We will not hire anybody who's part of this because their views are so immoral that we would never want these people part of our organization. And so here it is, Bill Ackman, just sorry, people have.

34:51Yes, Bill Ackman said, I have been asked by a number of CEOs. If Harvard would release a list of the members of each of the Harvard organizations that have issued the letter assigning so responsibly for Amasa's heinous acts to Israel. So as to ensure that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members. In other words, you must own your words, which is so important. So then what happens is individual students actually have to come out or part of these associations that were signatories to the first release had to disavow the statement and said, actually, I'm just an Indian student at Harvard Law School.

35:26There's a Nick maybe you can find this tweet of this like Indian woman from Colorado or Indian heritage and she's like you just get auto recruited into these organizations When you join Harvard so I'm like well, wait a minute This is a place that's supposed to be for like modern free speech progressive thinking and instead what happens is based on your skin color You get auto drafted into some association then you auto sign any press release written by some person that you don't even see or approve What is going on at these places? And these are the places that parents and kids are tripping over themselves trying to get into.

36:01Kids will kill themselves if they don't get into. And these are the worst institutions in America because back to Jason, what we talked about earlier, which is we need people who can think from first principles. Those kids are not it and those institutions are not making them. And so if we want to have a point in time where when things like this happen, we can really figure out what happened in the past that was right and what can we do in the future? It's not this and it's not this kind of thinking. And if you're going to a school, Harvard, Cornell, New Penn, Stanford that are spitting out these kids, I think it's a real shame.

36:39You're spot on. I mean, how sacks could there be any question about the difference between military, terrorists with machine guns, gunning down people dancing peacefully at a music festival at sunrise, and then make some equivalency there. And you cannot actually ascertain for yourself that is a terrorist act. If you can't from very basically opening your eyes and seeing what occurred, and thank God in some ways for X not being censored because you can actually see these things. And I know it's very difficult for people to watch. I don't have any judgment on people who don't want to watch it, but I think when the world sees these videos and you're gonna write this letter you should very quickly be able to discern military terrorist fighters from hippie kids dancing at a music festival.

37:34It's plain as day. There is there's nothing There's nothing to confuse you here. This is the most easy test You have to be brainwashed to see something other than that. These schools are woke medrasses. Yeah, so a couple of points on that. So if you look at their statement, I think it's appropriate and fine to express concern about the people, the civilians living in Gaza and what the Israeli response might entail. I think it is fine and good to do that both for humanitarian reasons and for self -interested reasons if you're a supporter of Israel because this could all spiral out of control. However, these people completely lit their credibility on fire from the first paragraph by saying that Israel was entirely responsible for what happened and not having one word of condemnation for the atrocities that had just been committed.

38:29They cannot even see the war crimes that have occurred. Yeah, so I think they mentioned Hamas. They don't even mention the actual people that perpetrated the Right. Right. So the question is so dear. What is it about their ideology that blinds them to this atrocious massacre? And I think it is this. I do think it has to do with this woke mindset. The woke ideology is a form of cultural Marxism in which people are divided up into oppressor and oppressed groups. So in Marx's original teaching, you had the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, basically the oppressor and the oppressor. This kind of went through this cultural identity filter with woke where, again, people are divided up into identity groups.

39:15And so you've got men versus women, white versus black and brown, you've got straight versus gay and so on down the line. And the idea is that there's a power structure. And if you are in one of these groups and you are by definition oppressed, and if you're in one of the oppressor groups, then by definition, you are guilty in a collective way. You're suffering from collective fault. The people who are oppressed are the righteous ones. Right. But I think that what you see is that when you divide up the world this way, first of all, it's not a very accurate way of looking at the world. I mean, there are lots of minority groups in the United States that have done great.

39:59So for example, there's a book written recently about Asian Americans, the United States, called the inconvenient minority. Why is it inconvenient? Because Asian Americans have done spectacularly well. They get into elite colleges and institutions at higher rates than the whites do, which is why the primary group that's discriminated against by affirmative action before it was overturned by this report. But the reason why the author called them the inconvenient minority is because their success and America refutes a lot of this sort of simplistic woke delineation between if you're a minority group, you're oppressed, and if you're in this white group, you're the oppressor.

40:38I think Jews have fallen into a similar type of categorization, which is they're an inconvenient minority. They've been historically very successful in America, despite their being existence of anti -Semitism. and I think that the woke ideology has reacted to this by saying, no, you know, Jews are not really an ethnic group. They're just whites. And so that's been the response, right? It's, well, let's put them in the oppressor group. So we don't need to explain away their success. One of the problems with that is that you have to ignore the existence of anti -Semitism. And so they do. They just pretend like it doesn't exist.

41:15So here you have a situation where all of these things are in play. They've already predefined the Palestinians as being an oppressed people and look and I think in many ways they are but they are not incorrect Yeah, but they've defined it in racial terms really right right and they've defined the Israelis and Jews really more generally as being part of an Impressor group and so everything fits into that larger narrative and so when members of one of these these woke oppressed groups commits an injustice, they just can't see it. I mean, their version of social justice is always defined in terms of collective guilt.

41:55And if you're a member of an oppressed group, by definition, you're not capable of committing an injustice because you don't have the power. Do you guys think that Bill Ackman was out of line by saying, I don't want to hire kids from these organizations and these schools? Because it's just like these kids and these schools will bring, basically, I think what he's implicitly saying is distraction, and it will lower the probability that I achieve by corporate goals. So these are not good workers. Based on your comment about thinking from first principles and being able to assess the situation, I think that's probably what happens at a hedge fund.

42:30You have to play spets and you have to be able to think from first principles and be intellectually rigorous. This is the most intellectually lazy approach. I'm just going to sign a piece of paper without even thinking. So no, I don't think is that a line. I think it's an important lesson for people. This is not freedom of speech. This is owning your words. You must own your words in position. And it's important that young people learn this now. You have to own your words, whether it's on social media or signing some stupid petition that you didn't read. And there's a lot of backtracking going on right now, by the way.

43:01I can't believe that if I got into Harvard, I would get auto drafted into the Brown Men's Association just because of the color of my skin. That's gonna be in the factory. have ever heard of. A degree group. I mean, let's put it out the double standard here that these elite Harvard students want to be exempt from their words, their statements. They don't want to be canceled for that. However, you know that when some hapless schmuck basically posts some tweet or posted a tweet 10 years ago that gets resurfaced, they're the first ones clamoring for their cancellation. Right. Yeah. They would like for their firing.

43:36They would like amnesty for their idiotic opinions. Yeah. Well, it's good for the goose here. It's good for the gander. Absolutely. If they're going to create a cancel culture where people get canceled for their decade old tweets and so forth, then they should be prepared to live by that standard. Now look, personally, I would have some degree of forgiveness for a college student being part of an organization that puts out a statement. They're claiming they didn't know, okay, but then why didn't you resign? Look, I don't think there's a good excuse for this. other than youthful stupidity. So I wouldn't cancel them forever.

44:09But look, I do think that it's fine for inappropriate for someone like Bill Akkens, say, I don't wanna hire you people. Absolutely. And I would just be careful for you to add the word youthful because I think it's as get out of jail free card. It's definitely stupidity. The question is, is the cake baked? And if the cake is baked, then there's a big argument to never hiring these people. I mean, look, I would just say, your frontal lobes are still developing into your 25 years old. So I would give college kids a bit of a pass if they do stupid stuff. You're there to learn. You're there to make mistakes.

44:39That's not what I'm saying. This is a huge mistake. You're saying the Bakes fully baked. You mean like their their opinions and who they are. What I'm saying is you learn a lot from actions. Drink too much. Don't drink. Don't exercise enough. You get a little sluggish, maybe a little overweight. I get all of that. I'm not convinced that when you have this fundamentally specific way of thinking that you can unwind that so easily, Jason. So I'm not convinced that this mind virus gets fixed because you All of a sudden need a job. I actually think like maybe it's the struggle of realizing that there are deep consequences to this vein of thinking That this oppressed versus oppressor or the other way that it was framed in our group chat is that Locust and the embracement of socialism is basically running away from excellence It's this idea that everybody has to be the same.

45:30What communism says, we all are the same. Nobody is special. We're all going to work together, do the same things. We're all going to dress in the same ways. It's the collective we. There aren't going to be exceptional outliers. But the problem is that's not how the world works. And so the other part of why these woke madrasas are so terrible is that it teaches, I think, to work away from excellence and instead of striving for excellence to strive to be part of a collective. And I think that that is fundamentally corrosive to America. It's corrosive to what God has you. It's corrosive to all the great countries in the world.

46:06And so then again, it's like, why would you hire kids who fundamentally don't want to be excellent, who are afraid that if they were excellent, they would be guilty of something? That's ultimately the question. Why would any of these kids go to such an elite school to basically be taught that it's wrong to excel? All right. Well, let's say I think perhaps a good set way. And then as a result, not think for yourself. And then as a result, sign something like this, which is just stupid. Well, continue to discuss this topic, I guess, in the weeks ahead. Again, hopefully this conversation was productive for the community, the all -in community.

46:44I understand that, you know, people might have very strong feelings about, you know, us discussing it, but we're here to discuss difficult topics. One other aspect to this, I think we should talk about, which is the United States is larger geopolitical situation right now. I mean, things seem very tenuous. I didn't event with Palmer Lucky actually from the pot. Oh, front of the pot. Yeah. Tell him I said, uh, am I in fight? Got lost. Yeah. We actually had a nice debate slash discussion on Ukraine, but the thing that I think we agree with is that the US better bring more innovation at the military industrial complex and and figure out like procurement because our coal cost plus system right now is so broken There's an article recently in the New York Times where it said that the cost of the United States of producing an artillery shell is $6 ,000 for Russia.

47:36It's $600 $200. So, in other words, it costs the US 10 times what it costs Russia to pre -starthulary shell, even though Russia is considered to be this super corrupt, kleptocracy where everyone steals everything. And yet our procurement system is 10 times more efficient than theirs. We don't have competition and all the politicians are captured, correct? We have this cost plus accounting system where every year the price goes up. I get opportunity to explain that, yeah. So in every other part of technology price goes down over time, right? you can produce more of something for less. We've seen this with Tesla, we've seen it with PCs, we've seen it with television sets, whatever it is, the price goes over time.

48:18The laptops, servers. Yeah, or if the price goes up, it's because you've developed some funnily new capability, some new version. You know, the more powerful chips. Yes, totally. Faster speed. But you know, we're still making the same artillery shells, the same stinger missiles, the same javelins, and so forth. I don't think the capabilities have changed that much, but the price goes up every year because it's cost plus and so Explain cost plus that people may be hearing that for the first time. Well, you know most companies sell something and then they have a profit margin But the way that government procurement works is the profit margin is Controlled they're only allowed to market up a certain amount above their cost But the thing that's happened in the defense industry is there's been huge consolidation over the past couple of decades where now you've got to handful a defense companies and it's an oligopoly and many of these key arguments are single source so there's only one producer and they just keep raising the price every year now one of the kind of crazy things about this is and a Palmer made this point is it's all like anyone's getting rich because a cost plus it's not like the money is basically making these companies There's no incentive to lower the price.

49:29If you lower the price and you're at 10 % and you got your $6 ,000 down to 4 ,000, 10 % of 4 ,000, a lot less than 10 % of 6 ,000. What's happening is not a person's incentive. Google like margins. What's happening is that these companies keep building their bureaucracies bigger and bigger. So they hire lots of staff. They make a lot of campaign contributions. They fund think tanks. And so their cost structure is keeps getting more and more bloated. Right. They're incentivized to do that. The more they charge, the more they make. Right. Now, why am I bringing this up? Well, we're in a situation now where Israel might be on the precipice of well, they declared war against Gaza and this thing could aspire a lot of control and become a regional war.

50:11They may be asking for weapons soon. They may be asking for weapons. We've already donated some, however, earlier this year, we used to have an ammunition stockpile in Israel. the United States did. It belonged to us, but it was there potentially in case of a problem in the region. And that artillery stockpile was basically taken and given to Ukraine. And remember, we ran out of the key type of ammunition in the Ukraine war, which is 155 millimeter. Artillery shells, that's why we gave them cluster bombs. So the US is already dangerously low on ammunition and that's before we get potentially another war or another front in this larger world competition that's happening.

50:57Another country's war. Right. And to be clear, we're not at war, but we have been asked to donate weapons to Ukraine and we've been asked to donate weapons. I think Israel has asked for weapons. I don't know if they formally asked, but we are obviously going to find it. I think there's a bill making its way through right now that's going to give some aid to military history assistance to israel by the way we have israel also a major brain builder of of weapons to i mean there their drone technology is incredibly refined and they sell weapons to russia and yes israel is nowhere near the ukraine situation ukraine is a hundred percent dependent on the united states for it's military and for its economy israel has a vibrant military and economy without the united states but united states does make long term security guarantees to Israel not to fight its wars.

51:45There's no mutual defense treaty. However, we do agree to provide them with weapons in the event of a war. So we do have obligations like longstanding obligations to them. This is an ally we have for 75 years. However, our stockpiles are dangerously depleted now because of the Ukraine war. And on top of that, our procurement system is hopelessly broken. So in a world of rising multi -pilarity where there are other great powers now in the system, where there are going to be more and more global threats, I don't think we have a chance of maintaining our global position and supporting our allies unless we fix this.

52:26I mean, making our artillery shells at 10 times more than what it costs Russian, that's ridiculous. It's Silicon Valley. We have now the funding of military startups and there's a whole new class of warfare, supersonic drones. Quantar is the only advantage we have. It's the only advantage we have. That's what happens. Right. I mean, this is one of the great things. I mean, I understand Palmer. It's not a huge fan of mine, but I'm a huge fan of the work he's doing and other entrepreneurs are doing to make new weapons to keep us competitive because you can be sure China's making them. And so I think it's absolutely fantastic.

52:59I thought it was always very weird that Google, speaking of work, madrasas, like Google, which for Google employees were refusing to provide services, like even basic cloud hosting services to the military. To benefit from democracy and living in America while then not supporting the military just seemed like the ultimate luxury belief to use Rob's term from the all -en -Sommage mafia of thoughts. What does it take guys to, for this fever to break, for all of these people to realize that that level of corruption is not sustainable, that these ways of thinking are not sustainable, that it's not a path to peace and prosperity, that we actually want excellence in society.

53:45We want people to be outliers. We want the whole of humanity to move forward, and that's not going to happen when we move necessarily is one blob, but a few people need to sort of clear the brush and lead the way and the rest of us will come in and fill it in behind them. I think Vivek is the manifestation of it. I'll be totally honest. I think the reason he is going up in the polls and the reason people are drawn to him is because he's smart and he's exceptional and he represents one of the great things about America is that there's people who want to win and they're smart and he represents excellence, right?

54:18And so I think that's why people are drawn to him. And I think people are tired of, and in a way, they're in a short complex, they're tired of corruption, they're tired of geriatric, you know, 80 -year -old politicians. We need young, successful people to take leadership positions. And by the way, I really agree with what you're saying. I think that there's like, excellence can show itself in different forms. I think why Obama was so profound. And Joe Rogan said this was, he was such a statesman. He was the best of us. But he demonstrated excellence in being composed and measured and thoughtful and strategic.

54:54He was just so excellent. The Vettin as well. Clinton as well. Clinton was incredibly steeped in policy. He was excellent. He was intellectually a massive outlier. Obama is an intellectual outlier. VVEC is an intellectual outlier. Let's get these people to change and run our system of government. Please, I think we're soaking in it. Yeah, we need smarter and more capable people. I mean, you look at Biden and he gave that speech in support of Israel. I mean, a lot of the words were right, but he was like slurring his way through it. It certainly did not inspire. It was hard. It was his best speech and it was concerning the fact that he's clearly incognitive decline.

55:38You can see it in his ability to or it and you know, it was his best speech And it was also troubling for me as somebody who voted for him to watch him slur his words or just not It was clear he wasn't all there and you're like geez What are we showing to the world if this is the guy who's running the country and if we reelect him Now we're saying hey, we want to have an 84 year old running the country who's not all there and is in cognitive decline Let the guy retire let him spend time with this grandkids. I think it's more people who are willing to vote for not for what they want, but to prevent something else.

56:09And I think that that's of course, that's what's so tragic about how we're thinking as a country right now. Yeah, and just to dish it out equally, I mean, I saw Trump give a recent speech where, look, he's nowhere near the cognitive decline of Biden. I think he's still compessmentous, but he's not as sharp as he used to be either. I mean, listen, I think America's basic situation, and this has really been reaffirmed over the past week is that we're no longer in unipolarity anymore. We're no longer the sole superpower. Yeah, not for some time. China has now a superpower. They're probably the low -cost manufacturer of the world.

56:43So when we talk about being able to make things like armaments and artillery shells and weapons, they have the ability to reproduce us. That is very scary. There are other great powers in the system now. Russia has proven over the last five months through its victory and discounted offensive that it is a power to be reckoned with. We cannot disregard are their concerns anymore. And not only does America need, I think, top flight leaders, like intellectually, who are at the top of their game, but we also need new thinking. We need to be able to sidestep challenges and conflicts as opposed to walking into every single trap the way that Lindsey Graham wants us to.

57:20Again, I'll go back on the Ukraine war. I think it's really clear that we could have avoided that war if we had taken NATO expansion off the table. And whether you believe that or not, It was criminal not to try if it was a 5 % chance it was worth trying so I And now look at our situation we're already mired in the Ukraine proxy war now Israel's on the brink We need smarter people at smarter thinking in Washington. We are no longer the only Superpower. We're gonna have a really tough time in a multi -polar world if we do not look for ways to de -escalate conflict when we can or Or putting a psych conflict, why are we not building deep ties with as many countries as possible, deep cultural ties, deep economic ties, deep diplomatic ties.

58:06Every time we are in dialogue with a country and we're building a relationship with that country, that means free people of the world are winning. And every time we isolate a country, that does not go well for us. You're right, we're saying, actually half the world, that's another big part of this problem. Yeah, and so you know, it's the normalization of relationships and the deepening of relationships that is the high order bit and you need somebody in office who can do that and you know if you look at How the you know the hawks in the GOP or the hawks in the Democratic Party think They think that we have to be at war with everybody.

58:40They think we have to isolate everybody You know the fact that Trump went and that famous moment where he walked over the in the DMZ in North Korea and was talking to uh, Kim Jong Un, that moment you see on Kim Jong Un's face, we can put it in here. He is so happy to be recognized. Now listen, I understand. He has a shock look on his face. Like, I can't believe this is happening. Right. The same way he did when Dennis Rodman came over. No, it's like a fan meeting Taylor Swift. If you look at those videos and you compare it to this, it's the same. And culture is our export. And I know that Jason is simplistic.

59:15I can't all be hard power because other countries have it too now. So we have to work on our soft power, but you're not going to enhance American soft power with all this belligerent rhetoric. Really, this omnidirectional belligerence that's coming out of Washington. And this is why I think the smart thing for Blinken to do or the Biden administration is yes, you reaffirm that you stand with Israel in the face of this and speakable atrocity at the same time. and you don't have to do this right now because it is a little bit tough to do it right now. But that's a hundred hostage. Did you have to reaffirm your support for the two -state solution?

59:52I think the United States is always supportive. And by the way, I think Tony's done a really good job. But again, at the end of the day, Tony works for President Biden. And it's like, Biden hasn't been nearly as definitive as he could have been. And Tony's had to clean it up. So one example of this is like in the Wall Street Journal, they immediately on Sunday. That was right. We went to blaming Iran, right? And then both the Israeli military intelligence and American intelligence, they had to do an entire press circuit to try to disarm this in a way that was not seen in a long time. And you have to ask yourself, why, why was that even happening?

1:00:29And it's like, well, whatever special interests wanted to get that on the front page of the Wall Street Journal was able to do it, but it has dangerous implications. And then what you need is a really strong leader that can step up and say, this is false, this is not happening. This is what we need. You needed an Obama in that situation. And I think that this is a Clinton or a Clinton Reagan. And I think that this is an opportunity for us to ask ourselves, okay, who is the most dynamic, excellent candidate that can give us this. And be open minded and not make this line about Republican versus Democrat right now because the world is getting super complicated.

1:01:10We need someone hyper, hyper, excellent and intellectually competent. Well, I will say this for Trump is that he's the only president in recent memory who didn't of us in the new wars best quality. Yeah. I think he has a lot of despite despite all of his issues. I think he has a unique ability to project strength to the American public while not being one of these super hawks. He's actually I say relatively dumbish. Well, he he actually walked through his secret plan. He's he said I can't remember word this clip, but he said whenever he met with these folks, he basically left a 10 % chance that he would nuke him.

1:01:48That's what he said. And it turned out that that 10 % was just enough for the where everybody's enough crazy for everybody to stay in life. It was just enough. I think the US already has enough deterrence. I think we've maxed out on deterrence. I think the thing that was smart about Trump was that he was willing to do business. Yes. Absolutely. He was willing to negotiate and he didn't feel the need to make these moral condemnations all the time. He was willing to meet with Kim Jong -un. He was willing to meet with Putin and C. Jean -Pain. And he avoided criticizing them personally. He didn't call them dictators.

1:02:24He talked about how smart they are. It's the art of the deal, right? I mean, at the end of the day, he's looking to do business. And we need a little bit more of that. And I think this is why Jared Kushner was successful. He went in there with the mindset of a businessman. How do we find something that's beneficial to both sides? Totally right. I think that when Trump was elected, that I was told that it was the end of the world. And that's what I thought. And I'd already underwritten him as an F, okay? And then four years into the presidency, he was probably like a C in my mind. And then as I get a little bit of distance away, I realize no hold on a second.

1:03:01This guy was like a BB plus, like he was pretty good. And unfortunately, the few things that if he could have just pushed through would have really saved America, I got the biggest one being these 100 year bonds. It would have kept America from getting to the press for the fiscal ruin. And we'd been a highly different situation. And I'm not sure we could have ever given him credit for it. But the further and further I get away from him and the less emotional I am, he did a pretty good job. He was a pretty good president. Don't forget that he tried to overturn the old one. I and still Leo. I voted for Hillary Clinton.

1:03:36I voted for Joe Biden. But this is the honest assessment. The guy did for the things that he was supposed to do a good job. And for where every other president found a way to frankly make our situation a little bit worse, specifically around wars, he did not do that. And that is a huge accomplishment that I think needs to be acknowledged. And he would have ripped up the constitution and taken the presidency and stolen it. So just give that a mind as well. Less we get him. That's why he's not an A. He's a B, B plus. Jason, you have to admit, if it weren't for the black swan of COVID, he would have been reelected in a landslide.

1:04:15Landslide. It's quite possible he would have been reelected. And also, yeah. By the way, I mean, this rate, the way things are going in this country right now, both economically and internationally. He's going to wallstint the White House. He's going to spend all of his time in the next year in the courthouses battling all of these lawsuits to the law fair against him. He's not going to be able to campaign and it won't even matter because people are going to be so done with this. Nobody wants him as president again, so I think that's... Nobody wants... Everybody wants new choices. Sorry, everybody.

1:04:48If you do not want to hear us talk about complex issues in the world. You can unsubscribe from the pod. We're going to be here every week having hard discussions, listening to each other and learning together. You don't have to agree with any one of us, but we are very happy to have the difficult conversations and learn every week here. And yeah, our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and the friends of those impacted by this heinous terrorist attack. And I don't know if anybody has any other closing remarks here, but obviously we're heartbroken. And we hope that peace prevails and that the hostages are released as quickly as possible.

1:05:33All right, everybody. This is episode 149 of the All in Podcast. Next week we'll talk about all the different topics, but for this week, we're gonna let it sit where it is right now. See you next time. Bye bye.