1/13/26: Trump Says Help On The Way To Iran, Credit Card Interest Caps, Influencers Take Foreign Money, Midterm Red Alert

23:59NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And this is the thing about the U.S. civilian plan. I mean, the current plan that Lindsey Graham and all of them are selling is what they sold in Iraq, is that we will easily be able to depose. We will be graded as liberators. I mean, that's basically the pitch. We have Lindsey here basically laying out this case. A4, let's take a listen. I pray and hope that 2026 will be the year that we make Iran great again. I want a military invasion of Iran. I don't want any boots on the ground.

24:40But President Trump has chosen wisely to be with the protesters. He's the first president since 1979 to pick the people over the Ayatollah. President Trump says, if you continue to kill your people, all hell will break out, all hell to pay. That's as strong as when Reagan said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. So you could see there Ronald Reagan, first from 1979, make Iran great again. All of this is an effort to pump up his ego. And this is really what it's about. And that's why that Wall Street Journal story, by the way, immediately the Vance team has to come out and be like, this is not true, all of that.

25:19I think that's what it was designed for. Like the more that I thought about it, I'm like, oh, this has been designed to actually box out opponents and to make it so that you can more difficult internally. And, you know, oh, then you have to suck up maybe to the boss to prove that you're truly loyal to him. Look at what happened to Tulsi Gabbard. Do you want to be Tulsi? Who DNI stood for do not invite to the Venezuela. I mean, it's humiliating. I mean, by the way, she should resign. Like if that's actually true. You have been openly defenstrated on the national stage. You were on the beach doing a yoga pose when the U.S.

25:51military was taking out Maduro. They don't respect you. They don't care about your views. You have to do something. I mean, she has to resign also if she had a shred of integrity. I mean, just imagine selling your entire soul just to have DNI, Stanford, do not advise. It's just the most humiliating thing. But to your point about the shaping of the information space and all of the manipulating of Trump, Mark Levin has been posting very hard. Here's something that he said last night. He said, I am convinced the president will act decisively and strongly and militarily as he has threatened for days because he knows what we all know.

26:28That is, if that regime survives, it will be the greatest missed opportunity against terrorism and an avowed terror state ever. Diplomacy and negotiations are ridiculous words in the context of what's happening in Iran and what's happening to those brave people. And to me, the most important line in all of that is where Levin says Trump will act as he has threatened for days because he wants to underscore that if you walk away from this, then you look like you're weak, right? You've committed to this. You're committed to the intersection. There's no backing out now. You know, you've got to go or else you're going to look weak.

27:06And that is the thing that Trump hates the most. Any appearance of fragility, any appearance of weakness. And so since he has laid down this red line about the treatment of the protesters, and clearly there are some protesters who are getting killed here, this is forcing him into corners that you got to act now. You said you were going to act. You have to act now in order to put action with your words and not be one of these weak presidents like Barack Obama, who says things and then allows people to walk all over you. Yeah, that's what they've said over and over again. And this is exactly what happened with Venezuela.

27:38One of the reasons why we, I mean, let's all take a step back here and not forget the deal that we have right now with Venezuela was offered on the table by Maduro. The reason why we had to go and kidnap Maduro is because the administration set a red line in the sand and said, we can never have Maduro. And it was completely arbitrary. It was set by the administration. Same thing here is you get manipulated. I'm not manipulated. Look, Trump is the president, right? Like he came in and he said, I don't want, you know, the regime needs to fall or shouldn't shoot any protesters or whatever. They'll show them some number.

28:10Who knows the accuracy of said number? I'm not going to deny people have been killed. I'm saying look at the CIA. Like do they really have a good idea of the number of people who are getting killed in Iran? Like be serious. Look at their entire past history and their ability to judge events truly on the ground. Like it's not good. And you could present, you know, with medium confidence something. Secretary of State Rubio, who's advocated multiple times for regime change in Iran, Lindsey Graham and others say, you said that you were going to do this. That's the easiest way to play into it. And the next thing you know, look at our amazing United States military, Mr.

28:43President. They can easily accomplish this, this, this, and this, and then you never know. And this is the exact problem of events like Midnight Hammer and of the Venezuela operation. It convinces you that you are capable of doing something which was highly targeted and very small and in a narrow defined mission set and then open up some massive can of worms. And then you own it, you know, completely. It may even look fine. remember Libya? Libya looked fine for like six months. Everyone's like, oh, you know, it's not so bad. Chris, what was his name? I'm totally blanking. Our ambassador who was killed.

29:18And then all of a sudden, 9-11, Benghazi and all that. You're like, whoa, like Al-Qaeda and all. And then three years later, ISIS is in charge of the entire city of Benghazi, literally. Yeah. Can we guys pull E6, if it's possible? Because I do think this is relevant to what you were talking about, about the info that is being shared about, I mean, Trump believes the things that he wants to believe. And so you had Polymarket tweet this out. Yes. Where they said, breaking, Iranian regime security forces have lost nearly all control of Iran's capital city, second largest city, and fifth largest city.

29:53Okay, that is not true. Like there is no indication. Yes, there's an internet flag and it's hard to know. There is no indication that that is accurate whatsoever. whatsoever. But I mean, Don Jr. is on the board of Polymarket. Like they're closely tied to the Trump administration. It would not surprise me at all if this is the sort of stuff that he's being shown, that he is being fed and that he is believing or at least, you know, thinking that there's some truth to and giving, you know, giving comfort to this idea that the regime is already crumbling. All you have to do is like push with your pinky and the whole thing is going to come falling down and then it's going to be, you know, you're going to be hero again and mission accomplished.

30:34The other thing is I was listening to Glenn yesterday on with Aaron Bassani over at Navarro Media, and he was making a point about Trump's psychology where it really seems like he takes like personal pride in these operations. Of course. Like it was him. Yes. You know, he pointed to the fact that when he was doing his like congratulations speech to Netanyahu, He called Netanyahu a war hero. Now, of course, I mean, he's a war criminal, but usually that's reserved for people who actually like bravely fought and did a thing in the battle space. But he sees himself in that same way that if, you know, you have a special forces operation that's successful or a bombing campaign that's successful, that that success redounds to him and contributes to his own like sense of vitality and strength and projection of strength.

31:26And so I do think that that is part of the calculus here is it just feels good to him when he can say go and without any checks from Congress, with having to consult anyone, not having to deliberate with literally anyone, including his own vice president. He can just say go and this major world shaking event will occur. That plays right into his psychology, which is why he's always very, you know, it's very easy to manipulate him in the direction of these bombing campaigns. That's why he's bombed, what, seven countries at this point, because it's very enticing to him and he can be persuaded. He wants to be persuaded.

32:04I don't think that that's yeah. I mean, I don't think that that's deniable in terms of his own impact. He also looks pretty. I mean, remember, he would always mention post Venezuela, the Jimmy Carter operation. Like he sees the decline of Carter's presidency as – I'm forgetting the exact – Eagle something where all of the special operators were killed and the mission to try and go to save the American hostages at the Iranian embassy. So like this is somebody who – this is a media creature. He knows what plays well, right? And like of course Midnight Hammer and the Venezuela operation are – I mean look, it will probably be a movie, right?

32:35Like Zero Dark Thirty obviously lived on for years and the whole Bin Laden raid. There are people who are still making millions of dollars off of the Bin Laden raid. for there's a reason for that because of the mythos and the special operations of what you're talking about. And he wants to play into that. But that, of course, ignores the infamy of Iraq. And the only lesson they seem to have taken away is that explicit regime change or nation building itself is bad, not the military operation by itself. But that is why Libya is such an important example of you can still try to thread the needle and fail.

33:09You know, I was very gratified recently. Tommy Veeder and the Podsafe, people who actually were literally behind Libya, came out and they're like, it was a disaster. We were totally wrong. I was like, thank you. Finally, somebody needs to say it and acknowledge how bad of a situation that was. And that requires also the difficulty. And I'm watching Dave Smith recently was criticizing. He was like, come on, after backing Israel, we're really all gonna just be up in arms over Iran's supposed killing civilians. He's like, it's a ridiculous pretext of intervention. And people immediately are like, you're defending the Iranian regime.

33:41It's like, why are we so reductive when it comes to that? And just say, it's not about the regime. It's about us. And by the way, if you do care about them, it probably won't work out for them. There's no history to say, yeah, it's going to work out to their benefit. There's nothing that you can point to and say that this will be explicitly better for the people who are there on the ground if you do care about them. And then if you care about us and our own proven track record, I mean, what would your hitting rate be if you just simply bet against U.S. intervention over the course of a five-year period.

34:13And they're trying to judge everything based on three or four months. Just because Venezuela hasn't exploded doesn't mean it won't. It probably will. I would bet on it will. There's no chance that this is going to work. Certainly the idea that we're just going to use our military leverage in order to control an entire country, very complicated country, with a lot of ideological factions and a lot of armed guerrillas is, I think, seems pretty fantastical. You know, the idea we're just going to, the Venezuelans are just going to accept us coming in and plundering their resources and they're going to have nothing to say about it.

34:50I mean, for a nationalist, he certainly doesn't seem to understand nationalism at all, that it can be a very strong animating force. It is, I mean, nationalism is really the core reason why these various imperial projects and colonial projects from the past were shelved in favor of a different model of exerting control and influence around the globe. So, you know, already you've got reports that some of these, you know, Maduro aligned or regime aligned guerrilla forces are going out with guns and demanding to see people's phones and, you know, doing God knows what to them if they find that they were celebrating at all the kidnapping operation of Maduro and the attacks on Venezuela.

35:34So you already see this possibility for destabilization. So, you know, to declare mission accomplished. I mean, I don't know how people didn't learn that lesson from history, that it's incredibly premature. And so in any case, you know, I do think that the Venezuela operation really gave Trump this unearned confidence that he could just play God in any country that he wants, which is why you see these, you know, increasing threats against Iran. You've got the Greenland situation, Colombia, Mexico, like just one country after another that is coming under threat because he really feels like he can just, you know, with the snap of his fingers, totally remake the global map and make everybody pay attention to him and fear him and do his bidding.

36:22Yeah, I think that is unfortunately accurate. Okay, let's get to econ. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated, and Black America is out of breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying.

37:011968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

37:48Open your free iHeartRadio app. Did we mention it's free? Search Two Guys Five Rings and listen now. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology.

38:29Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Turning now to the economy. Some major moves by the Trump administration. Maybe a little too late, but potentially trying to swing things before the midterms.

39:11Let's put this up here on the screen. Hopefully, one of the more significant things. Senator Elizabeth Warren saying yesterday that this quote, this morning I gave a speech noting how Donald Trump is driving up costs for families, et cetera, et cetera. After my speech, the president called me and I delivered the same message on affordability to him directly. I told him Congress can pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he will actually fight for it. I also urged him to get House Republicans to pass a bipartisan act on housing, which passed the Senate with unanimous support, which would build more housing and lower costs.

39:41No more delays. It is time to deliver relief relief for American families. And so this has been kind of a dizzying thing, which has been happening behind the scenes, is a spate of executive orders and truths from the Trump administration, which are supporting a lot of these affordability measures, which we've long been supportive of here on the show. So for example, capping credit card interest rates. Actually today, he endorsed the Credit Card Competition Act, which by the way, would personally decimate me because it nukes the entire points industry. That's fine. I still support it, you know, because I understand it's usurious and it's bad.

40:18But this, from my friends in the Senate, they tell me the banks have never lobbied harder against any single piece of legislation since Dodd-Frank. It's that the Credit Card Competition Act, which effectively not only caps interest rates, but removes a lot of the points infrastructure and swipe fees, which obviously just print billions and billions and billions of dollars for them, is the one piece of legislation that they have targeted, specifically because they, I mean, look, at 29%, 30%, 40 % interest now, in some cases, you don't have to be a genius at math to see how much money you can print off of all of these people who are desperate and who are in debt.

40:54This is exactly the type of stuff originally, which, you know, there were some promises and some vision, you know, let's say in terms of economic governance, let's say of the country, as things have gotten away from them over a year, you had the housing BlackRock order, Then you have the defense contractor order. Now you have the credit card. Look, who knows? Because you actually have to do something in the Senate to get something like this passed for it to really go through. But calling Warren, hey, good. There was another one about data centers, actually, that just came out. He says, I have never want Americans to pay higher electricity bills because of data centers.

41:28Therefore, my administration is working with technology companies to secure their commitment to the American people. We will have much to announce. Microsoft, who my team has been working with, will make major changes beginning this week to ensure Americans don't pick up the tab for their power consumption in the form of paying higher utility bills. This is as Major Wall Street Journal piece out just this morning about the spike in costs of utility. All of this is devils in the details, right? Like, so don't give flowers or props or anything before any of it happens. But I think this is a recognition of the growing problem that they had on affordability, especially post-Soron.

42:00and they're like, okay, we actually have to try and to do something about this. The bigger question will be, as we all know, MAGA and Congress are slaves to the White House. They are the Duma. Well, treat them like it and force them to pass something which is actually counter to their interests. So that is why, you know, look, I think it's good. In general, it's good. And in some cases, the executive, I mean, as we saw under Biden and previously and with this administration, you can use executive power for a lot of shit as FDR proved to all of us. Recently, they had this thing with mortgages. Can we put that one up there?

42:32This is B2, where the Trump administration is going to buy some$200 billion in bonds to try to lower the mortgage rates, which actually worked, fell below 6 % for the first time in years. This is exactly the type of stuff where if you want higher numbers on economics, if you follow through and it actually shows up in people's personal finances in November, could make an impact. I personally think it might be a little bit too late. just because of the entire first year of the administration, Doge, Medicaid, all this other stuff, and you try to do this at the end. But if you've done anything like this in day one, I mean, man, you could be 70 % approval rating if you wanted to be.

43:10If you had let out of the gate, I mean, you signed a whole slew of executive orders to begin with, but a lot of those were more fulfilling the culture war desires of the right and then giving the store away to tech billionaires. I mean, that was the thrust of a lot of the early executive orders. You started with this instead when there's a lot of attention being paid to the media about like, OK, what is this administration going to be and where are they going to put their weight? I think you would have a very different perception for the American people about what their priorities are. And even if look, I'm you know, I'm skeptical that any of these just if they do executive orders and aren't able to like really pass legislation through Congress, which the last Congress like last year was like the least productive year ever for Congress in history or something like that.

43:55They don't have a lot of attention to detail in terms of actually making legislative pushes. So, you know, I'm not convinced that any of these are going to have significant impacts, but it matters a lot. It would have mattered in the beginning a lot to send that message of like, this is what we're focusing on. This is what we're prioritizing. You and I both noted also many of these issues are like directly out of go back and look at the many segments and focuses on the show, which is also. This White House is very online. Super online. As we all know. Yes. And let's say I often, you know, I don't use Twitter all that much anymore.

44:25But when I do, I try to for a purpose. And all of these issues, I have been beating the drum. Yeah. Because I'm like, do something about it. I know you're all following. Yeah. You are looking at the discourse. So, look, I'm skeptical. Will it actually happen? You know, there's been all this criticism I have of the AI moratorium and giving the dough. But can you imagine a world where this was February of 2025? That's a different reality. Right. No doge in this. Doge coming in with the chainsaw, destroying Social Security, like running around like maniacs, you know, all of that. Instead, you do this.

44:58And the other piece is that they, you know, so there's two things. I mean, number one, it does smell of desperation. There's just no doubt about it. Where they're looking at the numbers, they're looking at the results of the 2025 elections. They're like, holy shit, we've got a problem. Like we have to do a lot of stuff and we have to do it now. And so, you know, at the end of last year, there had been promises from Trump and other administration officials like you wait and see. We're going to do all kinds of stuff on affordability, even as Trump is calling it a Democrat con job. But in any case, like it appears that they got that political message of like we are in big trouble if we don't do something.

45:30But they're also really sort of stepping on and bearing their own message here because this stuff is not getting talked about. I mean, even this is the sort of stuff that in another week or in another era, you and I would have done like a whole show on each of these individual issues. But we've got to cover Iran. We've got to cover Venezuela. We've got to cover Renee Good getting killed in Minneapolis. You know, I mean, there's just so many. And then, you know, are we going into Greenland? What are we doing with Colombia? All of these other things that are understandably going to dominate news coverage and really block out even the messaging value of these things, which is primarily what I think, you know, the value of them ultimately will be.

46:10I will say, you know, in terms of, like, the impact that they will have, probably the most positive impact that they will have is shifting the Overton window because it'll be very hard for, you know, if there's a future democratic administration, it would be very hard for Republicans, not that they won't do it, they certainly will, but to cry socialism when they're like, no, we're actually codifying the sort of things that Trump floated. So do you oppose MAGA now? Do you oppose Trump? Because this is like, you know, some extension of his playbook. So I do think it shifts the public debate in a way that over time could be productive and beneficial.

46:43Absolutely. Again, most of this probably won't happen, okay? There are deeply, as I just said, if you were to bet on the banks or on Trump, who would you usually bet on to prevail in the United States Senate? Where are we really going to get 60-odd votes to cap credit card interest rates? Probably not. But as you just said, there is an Overton window where you can shift, where literally the leader of the Republican Party is saying we need to cap users' credit card interest rates. You can use that sometime in the future. And you can use it in the way that a lot of people currently do in these intra-maga fights where they say stuff like, so are you saying you oppose President Trump, right?

47:22And same thing on private equity, buying single-family homes. Now we have the credit card stuff. We have the defense contractor. I mean, it's effectively nationalizing the defense contractor industry to come in and say you can only pay a certain amount of – listen, I'm all for it. Good. I agree. Yes. State is literally the only force that can regulate all of this chaos and insanity currently happening in our private capital markets. I would just say I wish we would do it to a lot more other sectors including the technology sector or the financial sector, right? But, I mean, the messaging problem that you're highlighting is also the fundamental issue with the administration is I do think waiting a year, they let everything – I mean, first of all, no Democrat, even if this is going to give you credit now at this point.

48:08You're in Biden territory, period. Like in the way that – in the way the Republicans truly hated Biden, that's how the Dems feel. No matter what – you could give them all$5 ,000 checks. I still think they wouldn't do anything for you at this point. Seriously. And the news value, as you just said, I mean, every story you just listed is actually more important because you want to like, well, that has a lot more reality of actually happening. These are potential Overton window. It's like, you know, you kind of robbed yourself of that ability. And then finally, as we learned under Biden, because they did similar desperate measures when they were underwater.

48:39It didn't work. You know, by November, even when inflation was like kind of ticking down a little bit, nope, the first year was really what stuck in everybody's mind. This is a cancer always on presidents. You really only have like three or four months to really do something. And Doge defined everything. I would say truly, you know, like the honeymoon to the extent that it even existed. Liberation Day, people were like, I'm done. I really believe that. Well, and I think you're right about that. I think the tariffs are the most economically disastrous just from a political perspective move that, I mean, it's hard to think of something that immediately turned.

49:16because Trump's whole brand was being good on the economy. That flipped on a dime after Liberation Day. And I don't think he will recover from that. I don't think that the brand will recover from that ultimately. And so, you know, it's also like what we said with Biden. You've got a reality problem. Like some messaging, executive orders or whatever that people feel like, OK, sure, are not going to help you pay the bills at the end of the month if you don't see real and concrete action and a sustained focus. We can put just a few indications of that reality problem up on the screen here. Let's put B3 up on the screen.

49:50I thought this was pretty significant just to understand the trend and the dynamic. I think a lot of this has to do with AI. So U.S. workers just received 53.8 % of GDP in the third quarter. This is from an account called Hedgy Markets, by the way, that I'm reading from. The lowest share since the government started tracking this in 1947. That's down from 54.6 the quarter before and well below the 55.6 percent average from the 2020s. At the same time, corporate profit margins are hitting some of their strongest levels in decades. So, again, continuation of a trend in which, you know, any sort of productivity gains that are coming into play from AI, like American workers are not benefiting from that.

50:28It's just corporate profit margins which are expanding. And so, you know, people can see the way the economy has become so incredibly slanted. Let's put the next piece up on the screen, which again goes to this same exact issue. You have a massive youth underemployment issue. Let me go ahead and get the specific numbers here. So you've got youth unemployment on pace to reach a 10-year high. Over 15 % of 16 to 24-year-olds are unemployed. And I saw another stat that some, I think it's 43 % of college grads are underemployed, meaning you graduate and you're not working in the field that you studied.

51:06You're not working full-time. You are underemployed based on your education and based on full-time working hours. That is an absolute crisis. And again, AI plays into a good piece of this. And then I can put this last piece up on the screen. It's never a good sign when gold is smashing new records. You know, the markets did not crash yesterday after the whole fight with Jerome Powell and the criminal accusations against him in the way that, frankly, I would have anticipated. I think in part because they saw the statements from Tom Tillerson later in the day, Lisa Murkowski saying, like, we're not going to be down for what the president wants to do here.

51:48But in any case, we've had gold prices, which is the ultimate, you know, flight to safety, even above and beyond at this point, U.S. Treasuries, which people are increasingly nervous about, gold smashing new record at$4 ,600. So we did get inflation numbers this morning that were fairly good. They came in a little bit lower than expected. So, you know, I do want to do want to put that out there. But in terms of how people are feeling about their job prospects, their future, where things are going, it is very, very bad. And so, you know, I think the administration sees that. They're trying to do something.

52:24But to your point, I mean, you said too little too late, and I think that probably – Yeah, you need a whole of government approach from the beginning that's concerted and it's serious. I mean that's the major problem. And they're also schizophrenic. They're like, oh, well, you know, right now the S &P is up on the year, right? It's up by 1.4 percent or whatever. since January. It's like, okay, well, as I've said a million times, the S &P was up like 60 % if you look overall. So what? Who cares? It means nothing. Just like with foreign policy, he wants those mission accomplished moments on economics as well.

52:54And that's just not the way that this works. It's not how it works. Remember, he had previously said in his best set and everybody was running around talking about, oh, everybody's going to get this$2 ,000 dividend from the tariffs, blah, blah, blah. Trump got asked about it recently and was like, I don't know what you're talking about. He's like, I don't remember saying that. It's like, I mean, you know, like the attention span of a goldfish. So will he have the stick-to-it-ness to, like, work with Elizabeth Warren and do some bipartisan thing to actually cap credit card interest rates? Like, maybe.

53:24I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe they just take it and run with it. And it's something that he doesn't really have to put his hands on and it makes its way through. But, yeah, long-term thinking and sticking to, you know, really paying attention to the details is not really the thing that he's been about in the past. Not yet. And that's why, you know, it'd be fair to criticize. I hope to see it. I do. You know, at the very least, you know, who knows? Get some rider in a bill. Get a couple votes. Who knows which way 2026 will go in the Senate, right? We're going to talk about that just here in a second.

53:54It could happen. It definitely could happen. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated. And Black America was at a breaking point. rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr.

54:34King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Seems like just yesterday that the Two Guys Five Rings podcast was in Paris for the Olympics. And now we're heading to Milan for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games. I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. And we'll join athletes from 93 countries as Two Guys Five Rings hits the Italian Alps for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games.

55:19Open your free iHeartRadio app. Did we mention it's free? Search Two Guys Five Rings and listen now. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have? Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology.

55:59Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP. It's crazy cast of disciples and the fake doctor who invented it at a new age commune and sold it to guys in suits. He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get to influencers. Yeah, so this is a wild story. A lot of this has been reported out before. But first of all, it's the Wall Street Journal.

56:40So, you know, just a premature of such a prestige brand matters. And also it puts together a lot of pieces. Let's go ahead and put this tear sheet up on the screen. And I do want to give them their flowers for reporting this out. Because I think this is incredibly important. And as people who care a lot about the media, clicker a lot about the integrity of the media and that whole landscape, this is an absolute cancer. Wall Street Journal says, Washington's new lobbyist paid online influencers with few rules. They go on to detail a variety of right-wing influencers who are taking money from a variety of interests, some of them just directly from foreign governments, in order to push either the corporate or that government's line.

57:22So let me read you the opening the opening sort of graphs here to give you the anecdote they start with. Last summer, Donald Trump's 28 year old former campaign aide, Alex Brusiewicz, had some new advice for the president. Reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, Sagar. Nearly 70 percent of Republican voters support Trump on this. No brainer, he said to more than six hundred forty thousand followers on X. What Brucewitz left out of that post, a political action committee funded by legal marijuana's biggest players had just paid him$300 ,000. Goes on to say Trump's return to the White House has transformed the federal government and upended the business of lobbying, creating a new class of Washington operatives that blur the lines between consulting, advocacy and journalism.

58:08so you know on the first Trump administration the understanding was basically if you wanted to get the message to the president you go on Fox News right that's if you can't get like directly in face-to-face and sometimes even if you can get directly face-to-face that he would listen more attentively to things he saw in televised format than in a direct meeting there's still some truth and there's still truth to that yeah with um I think more so and you can you can tell me if this is your impression as well, with the people who are in the Trump administration who are so incredibly online that they are very susceptible to messaging from a variety of influencers and seeing like what goes viral on X.

58:49And then when they see that, they take that and run with it and put it to the president. Hey, look, this is really super popular. Let's do it. So there is a whole industry that has sprung up around paying these influencers and they do not disclose where the money comes from. I mean, I have an issue with the money to start with, but then it's not in, like there is no indication that this is a paid advertisement, that this content is anything other than this creator's own brilliant, independent ideas. And it's incredibly, incredibly corrosive. It's dystopian. And it, there has to be at some point, I know it's not going to happen under this administration.

59:25There has to be a crackdown on this. There already is a law like Farah. It exists. You have to register. It's just that nobody complies with the law. And we have a screenshot of some of these. We can go through them. Let's put them up here on the screen just to show you. Here they highlighted one. Rob Smith, a veteran gay pro-Trump commentator, Instagram a photo beaming next to Serena Williams, quote, TBH, I had zero clue Doha was such a cultural hub. He wrote in the caption. As somebody used to live in Doha, it's not a cultural hub. After they paid him to go on this very, you know, glamorous trip and be wined and dined.

1:00:02Oh my God, Doha's so amazing. Yeah, I'm sure it's amazing. Yeah, ask some of the laborers there how much of a cultural hub it is for them. Let's go to the next one, shall we? Here they say, Sinclair, who is 29, received$67 ,500 from the Maha Pack to host videos about issues of interest to the RFK Jr. organization's financial disclosures. Quote, creators have the attention right now. In 2026, I believe attention is going to be the currency of power. Let's go to the next one, shall we? Influencer Deborah Lee launched to internet fame after a video. Here's the other thing. I know I'm old. I literally don't even know who any of these people are.

1:00:37She has at various times acted as advisor to government officials, including to Mike Johnson, questioning administration officials at the White House briefing and been paid to promote everything from the solar industry to the prediction market, CalShe. She's a frequent Fox News commentator and has appeared there as a brand voice for Parler social media site. I believe this is the lady who said she has so many different of these deals that it's just hard for her to even keep up with them. Hard for her to even keep track of all of the special interests that are paying her for her opinion. I'm in the wrong business, man.

1:01:12All right, let's go to the next one, shall we? After billionaire Jared Isaacson saw the administration blew up, he hosted independent MAGA commentators like Benny Johnson and Nick Sorter at his private Montana hangar where he keeps a fleet of fighter jets. And while his allies pushed for him to be nominated, He gave them rides in the jet and a tour of his private Star Wars-themed cantina bar that overlooks the planes. Quote, it was one of the best days of my life, the influencer said in a video he posted online. And then others then advocated for his re-nomination. This one is a little bit more of just classic wining and dining, although who knows if money did change hands.

1:01:48But this is exactly what you're saying. Like if you have normal social media influencers, which are out there right now, you generally, because the FTC after the crackdown under the Biden administration, they have to put the hashtag ad whenever they're promoting a product. I do think that there should be the same standard, even just ethics. I mean, as people know, sometimes it's embarrassing. But if I know somebody who we're covering, I just say it. Because it would be 10 times worse if later on, you know, the appearance of like trying to neutrally analyze somebody. And then there's a photo or something that came out.

1:02:24You have to just be upfront about it. Be like, yeah, listen, full disclosure. Know this person, right? Know them for X amount of years. Again, it's embarrassing sometimes. Sometimes it's not a great look or whatever. But sometimes, you know, I go to a dinner or whatever, like you meet this person and you're just like, look, you know, again, I know who this person is. And it's not usually to your benefit necessarily. But in the long run, you have to be able to let people make up their minds for yourselves and couch your analysis if you do know someone personally. And that's just like knowing someone.

1:02:54This is being paid. And I don't know. But I mean, the danger of what I have come to this general conclusion as of recently is the public actually doesn't care. And that is deeply disconcerting because I actually believed for a long time, not only just disclosure, but in general, trying to be nuanced or independent or like free thinking or any of that would be rewarded both by the marketplace and in the long run. But look at the most popular people today and the people making generational wealth off of what we do here. Literally getting paid, people openly just like propaganda, lying. Many of them are genuinely retarded.

1:03:37And it's like nobody cares. They're getting rewarded for it. I talked about this, what was it? I forget which scandal, which it was. And I was like, you know, why bother checking the facts? It's actually to your benefit when you don't. Like, it's like these people are 10 times more popular, 10 times more rewarded, literally ascending to the heights of power. Some of them don't know the word benevolent, okay? I'm like, okay. You know, I don't know, why read a fucking book? And the whole country is like dancing to his tune right now. Why read a book? I'm serious, like at this point. What is even the point in this endeavor when it is very clear, and we're going to cover an NFL story, hopefully on Thursday, to this regard, where everyone's praising this lady for going to a press conference and just being like, oh, coach, you're so amazing.

1:04:30And the public is on this lady's side. And the journalists who are like, hey, you're supposed to ask a question, are apparently the villains. I never thought I'd be defending a bunch of establishment journalists or something, but I'm like, this is where the country's headed. Well, people don't care. What I would say is that, you know, we do just fine here. Yeah, sure. We are in a good living. Right. And we get to sleep at night. Yeah. So I, you know, I appreciate that. And you do see some of these like, you know, the people who just go all in on like the partisan propaganda, which in order to get these deals and make sure you're still on the good side of the Trump administration, you cannot deviate from them.

1:05:04You've got to be, you know, on message 100 percent of the time. And it does have a shelf life. Right. We've seen people flame out before. I also point to, Kyle was telling me about this yesterday. You know, Bill Burr had really built this brand around his credibility and his willingness to call out powerful forces and whatever. When he took that Saudi money, he has had a massive fallout. Really? So for months, apparently, his comment section is filled with people who are just still disgusted with him. Really? His views have completely tanked. And it's, you know, I mean, when's the last time we saw Bill Burr?

1:05:43Yeah, it's been a while. Clip in the wild that we were like, oh, that's interesting. Let's play it on the show. Yeah, he really, that really sort of nuked him. And I think the thing for him is that he really did hold himself out as having the sort of values that you and I tried to, you know, uphold here. That's good. And then when he did something that was so at odds against that in the perception of his audience, they were like, okay, we don't trust you anymore. I mean, I guess the difference is that these people really never sell themselves out as the beacon of integrity. So they can just cash in and no one cares.

1:06:14When people don't even pretend and just openly are like, yep, this is what I do, they are dramatically rewarded for it. And the thing is, it's one thing to be worshipped by elements of power. People in power always love people who are willing to be propagandistic. But what happened to the people who supposedly, I mean, look, I've read a lot. Maybe, you know, the yellow journalism era is starting to make a lot more sense whenever I think back to it. But, you know, there was some general expectation, I thought, at least, you know, now currently. Because what was the, why did the mainstream media's credibility fall apart?

1:06:53Like, you know, Iraq lying. Yeah, and because they were seen as like partisan. partisan outlets, you know, openly ignoring certain sets of facts, which are inconvenient to a narrative, uh, picking and choosing, obviously ideological. And yet you see the worst, in my opinion, the worst of them be recreated and then actually become more popular and supposedly trusted. It's crazy. Yeah. Well, the question is how long is that job? Because I, my personal opinion is that, you know, you're in sort of a transitional phase where people are, My theory, too. You know, people are excited about the genuine promise and possibility of independent media in the way that we are.

1:07:34They should be. As well and should be and haven't really caught up with that it can actually go even worse than mainstream media. Because at least with the legacy media, there are some still like journalistic norms and standards and processes in place. And there's some arm's length distance between the host and the people who are selling the ads or whatever. That does not exist in independent media. It certainly doesn't exist in like, you know, random TikTok influencers or whatever. And so it will take a while for people to catch up to that reality. But they're going to catch up to that reality.

1:08:05That is my belief. We would be remiss. I think there was one more slide in that C2 slideshow. Well, I just I know this is one that people will be definitely interested in. In September, a newly formed firm called Bridges Partners registered as a foreign agent for the government of Israel and disclosed plans for a$900 ,000 influencer program dubbed Esther Project. Now, Quincy Institute, Responsible Statecraft, what's their blog called? Responsible Statecraft. Yeah, Responsible Statecraft. They were the ones that initially broke this story. So again, this isn't brand new news. But I think there's something hopeful here, Sagar, because Israel's paying big bucks to a whole suite of influencers.

1:08:42We don't know exactly who they are, which ones are getting their 7 ,000 bucks per post or whatever. But we know they're out there for sure. And is it working? No, it's not working. You know, Israel's look in terms of the death and destruction they've been able to, you know, to continue to commit in Gaza and in the West Bank. And they're backing from the Trump administration. That has been very successful. But in terms of public opinion, it's been a disaster. I mean, they've completely lost Democrats. They've lost independents. They've lost young Republicans. And that bleeding just continues. So in that way, it is sort of hopeful because you do have this very concerted, very sophisticated propaganda effort, paid propaganda effort coming from the Israeli government.

1:09:27And people are are seeing right through it. So, you know, in that way, I find that that I find that to be sort of encouraging that there are some antibodies against the system. You can't buy your way out of all of it, but you apparently can buy your way a decent amount. Yeah. And I think that's if you're committing a live genocide. on our feeds, you're probably not going to be able to$7 ,000 paid influencers. I have never believed, that's why the weed thing is a perfect example, right? It's one of those, nobody's really paying attention to it. It was like kind of a side issue. This is why, you know, you've had, I mean, I covered the whole weed story here.

1:10:03Even if you support it, like the way that it all went down is that a literal weed CEO went to the office, the Oval Office, and convinced Trump on the spot to do this. Like that's literally how it happened. somebody who had a direct financial interest, and then they called Mike Johnson, and he put her on speakerphone. Trump literally put her on speakerphone and was like, why don't you explain to Mike Johnson why this is a good idea? That's insane, okay? Like, that's completely insane. And this is a person who stood to make billions of dollars as a result of this decision. Oh, and lo and behold, there was a massive pump in the stock price.

1:10:31Oh, shocker, right? And so this is why they pay Alex Brusiewicz. In these side areas, like Maha, or remember the whole Laura Loomer thing with Vinay Prasad? Yeah. Where, you know, attack, it was over a drug. Like it was over a drug which he held up because it was killing children. You know, that was the reason why it didn't get, that was the reason why. Was that Alzheimer's drug? No, it was some rare disease drug. Oh, that's okay. And that's why it was so crazy that that's what it was about. It was one specific company who got held up and then Rick Santorum and Laura Loomer and all these other people started getting involved because they're literally getting paid.

1:11:04At least in Santorum's case, don't know about Loomer. There was some suspicion of that. But in Santorum's case, like literally getting paid by the drug companies. Yeah. But that's actually where it's more pernicious because that's like actual pay-to-play political influence slash lobbying. And in a lot of these more side areas, yes, you can't buy your way out of Israel. But all these little things, which are tens of millions of dollars to a single company,$300 ,000,$400 ,000 is nothing if a single regulatory decision. Polymarket, why do you think they're sponsoring all of these people? All of it came down to the CFTC and the SEC, who is going to regulate?

1:11:40a single regulatory decision worth billions. Wouldn't you spend 10 million? You know, you could spend 100 million if you're gonna make billions of dollars off of a single thing. That's why they do it. Well, speaking of things that, you know, are very dark and depressing to me, you have Dan Bongino, fresh out of the FBI, back to his podcast career. And I am actually shocked because I thought that even the MAGA base was like, this guy really screwed up and we don't trust him anymore. I don't know. looks like they're right back, you know, right back to trusting him, wanting to watch his content, whatever.

1:12:14He now, now that he's not no longer in any sort of position of power and now that he's not at the FBI, now he's just back in his podcast here. Now he's going to reveal all the secrets and expose all the people and do all the things. Let's go and take a listen to C3. When I come back, if it's going to be, you know, endless complaining, then just don't watch the shows. It's okay. Like this is a constitutional republic. You're not obligated to listen to my show. The thing about black pillars where everything sucks all the time. It's like, well, we're demanding accountability. Great. So am I. You're endlessly complaining about things you don't even know anything about.

1:12:46That's all you do. Like he'll shut down the border, 10 people across some other. Why wasn't it zero? Okay. Well, can you just acknowledge going from a million to 10 is a big deal? There's a cost to that. You can't let this negative vibe constantly set in. That doesn't mean healthy debates about policy are not welcome. Debating policies are fine, but the black pill complaining and whining all the time at the administration. It's just like, man, what team are you on? You don't have to watch. It's okay. There's a door. You know, go find the freaking exits. I don't really give a shit. I'm not here for anybody's money or anything like that.

1:13:18I'm too old for that shit. Not here for anybody's money. But the next one up on the screen, he says, it's been a busy year. So much to talk about when I return to the podcast live on Rumble on February 2nd at 10 a.m. Eastern time. So in any case, he is, you know, now that he's back in the podcast chair, he can do all the things that he had promised he would do when it was at FBI, apparently. And, you know, everyone can just stop complaining and taking the black pill and reminding him that he was part of the Epstein files. But that's kind of a good example of what I'm talking about. I mean, you have somebody here who literally was in a position of power, did literally nothing and is apparently going to be well received.

1:13:53Worse than not, he's part of a cover up. No, part of the Epstein, which he purported. Like, imagine if I went into government after everything I've said about weed and gambling, and then I was complicit in like legalizing weed and giving a license to, and then I came back here and I was like, by the way, it was in my phone. I mean, come on, like, you know, it's like, it would be crazy. You're like responsible for making it like, the US Treasury brought to you by Calci or whatever. Exactly, brought to you by Calci, and I was like, actually, FanDuel, we're gonna, you know, literally directly working behind the scenes or was part of a meeting to like legalize sports gambling and the entire nation and then came back and I was like, oh, and fuck you for black.

1:14:31Yes, thank you for complaining. But that's my point. It's like, there's no price. It's so crazy just to watch in real time. You know, hopefully, you know, karma and all that. But like, I don't know. I don't know. I just watch, I watch the popularity and all. And no, there's no, I mean, you have that whole story about, you know, people getting paid a hundred grand a video or whatever. Nothing happens. Everybody just moves on. It's like the team sport thing. There's no standards. You know, the stuff we would rip the legacy media for? Yeah. Literally rip them whenever they would do it. Correctly, right?

1:15:05Whenever we would see somebody do a shoddy job, and then you do somebody just to do one of the dumbest jobs in modern political journalism, and it's like, oh, give them the Pulitzer Prize. It's crazy, right? I think this is a therapy session for me. It is. I feel like I'm going nuts. You just see it all go, you know, 50, 25 million views. It's whatever. All right, let's go to 2020. Yeah. So this is a significant potentially development. Let's put D1 up on the screen. The reason that this is worth flagging is because party identification was a major indicator in the Biden era that Republicans were really on the upswing.

1:15:42And so you can see for, you know, there in 2024, as Trump's campaigning, you had Republican party identification beating Democratic party identification. That was really a new development. Now that trend has reversed and you've got Democratic Party identification at 48 percent. Republican Party identification has fallen to 40 percent. Significant swing year over year. You know, last year. So Q4 of 2024, it was that measure was R plus four. Q4 of 2025, it was D plus eight. So that's a net 12 point swing towards Democrats. And kind of a remarkable thing to happen at a time when, you know, the Democratic Party is extremely unpopular, like reaching lows of popularity.

1:16:27And a lot of that is, of course, Republicans hate the Democratic Party, but there's a lot of sense of fecklessness coming from Democratic Party leadership. But even as that brand is obviously incredibly tarnished and people are disgusted with the way that leadership is conducted themselves, you still have people who are feeling like, OK, but I'd rather identify with them than what I see happening in Trump's America. And at the same time, you've got the House is almost lost already. I mean, it's such a narrow margin at this point that Mike Johnson barely, barely by the skin of his teeth holds on to a majority.

1:17:04It looks very much like Democrats are poised to take back the House in the midterm elections. But the Senate always seemed like a much bigger stretch. Now you have the Senate also coming into play. And so that's why this development is really significant. Put D2 up on the screen. So former Representative Mary Peltola of Alaska is jumping into the Alaska Senate race. I do not pretend to understand the politics of Alaska. I don't understand them at all. But I do know Mary Peltola is popular in Alaska. And I believe this is a congressional seat where you actually represent the whole state because it's a relatively small population.

1:17:44So you are, as a congress member, representing the entire state. We can put D4 up on the screen to show you some of the initial polling about this matchup between Mary Peltola and Dan Sullivan, who's the incumbent. has it, Peltola, up a point, obviously within the margin of error here. This was from back in October, so we haven't had a new poll to update us on exactly where things stand. But this means that this Senate seat is actually in play. Let's go ahead and take a listen to D3 to get a sense of how Mary Peltola is positioning herself. I'm Mary Peltola, and I'd like to share why I've made the decision to run for U.S.

1:18:23Senate. I grew up on the Kuskokwim River salmon fishing with my father. Buzzy and I raised our seven kids in Alaska and spent long summer days at fish camp. Life is difficult here and we know that we have to take care of each other. D.C. people were shocked that I prioritized going back to Alaska in July to help put up fish for our family. But Alaskans understand. It's not just that politicians in DC don't care that we're paying$17 a gallon for milk in rural Alaska. They don't even believe us. They're more focused on their stock portfolios than our bank accounts. When they actually work together on something, it's usually to help themselves.

1:19:05Our delegation used to stand up to their party and put Alaska first. DC people will be pissed that I'm focusing on their self-dealing and sharing what I've seen firsthand. They're going to complain that I'm proposing term limits, but it's time. Systemic change is the only way to bring down grocery costs, save our fisheries, lower energy prices, and build new housing Alaskans can afford. No one from the lower 48 is coming to save us. It's about time Alaskans teach the rest of the country what Alaska first, and really America first, looks like. Alaska first. There you go. OK, I actually didn't believe that they're paying$17 for a gallon of milk.

1:19:47That's insane. I'm like, is that true? When she's like, they won't believe us. I was like, I don't believe there's no I mean, it's possible, I guess. That's crazy. Crazy. That's actually insane. Yeah. So so anyway, the Senate math is as such. Democrats have to hold on to Georgia and Michigan are the two that are, you know, most sort of dicey for them to hold on to. If they're able to do that, then they have to win three more seats. The two most obvious places are North Carolina and Maine, where they have also a strong candidate in North Carolina, the former governor Cooper. I can't remember his first name right now.

1:20:18Roy Cooper. Yeah, Roy Cooper, who seems like, you know, I mean, people like him statewide. It's a difficult year for Republicans, whatever. That one seems very much in reach. Then you have Maine, which is Susan Collins, who may she's making an announcement. It's not entirely clear she's even running for reelection. My personal opinion, Maine is lost for the Republicans. But I thought that in the past as well. I just think the partisanship at this point is going to be very difficult to overcome. But in any case, North Carolina and Maine are definitely both in reach for Democrats. Then you need one more.

1:20:47And that's where it was always like, where else? You got Texas. I don't know about that. You got Nebraska, where you've got Dan Osborne, who's running as an independent, but will probably caucus with Democrats. Although I don't want to put words in his mouth. I don't know that he said that. But, you know, he would take out a Republican. So could be that, but that's very difficult to accomplish. You've got Iowa, which Iowa has been hit very hard by the Trump tariff policy. Their economy is, you know, they're very upset with a lot of economic aspects. There's actually the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.

1:21:20Looks like he's got a really good shot. Is it possible? I don't know. Iowa is really pretty red at this point. So Alaska now appears to be their best hope for a third seat. in Ohio, I should throw in the mix as well, where Sherrod Brown is running. Yes, of course. And Sherrod Brown is, you know, the strongest candidate Democrats could possibly put forward. Again, Ohio, though, tough, tough state at this point. And he's already lost once. So in any case, you know, Alaska really sort of puts things more in play for Democrats to be able to take the Senate than previously if Mary Peltolla is able to pull that one off.

1:21:54Look, it's possible. Again, I don't know. She was able to, remember, don't they still use rank choice voting? They do. So that could throw things in the mix if you have a couple. Who knows the narrowing of the field and all of that. So it's theoretically possible this is the same way that she was able to win. I would probably bet Ohio, Maine are much better pickups potentially for them. But you've got to remember, if this is 2010 and you were there too, Crystal, like you were literally running for office, there were people who were winning for Republicans who had no business winning all over the country.

1:22:29And then two years prior to that, in 2008, in a Democratic wave, Obama won North Carolina. He won Indiana. Yeah, right. Exactly. If I recall, there was a Democrat who won some place in Louisiana or something. There were these crazy districts where you had people that had no business being in the House and even in the Senate at that time. So it could happen. Anything could happen in a crazy wave type of election. We've seen it time and time again. So this is why I wouldn't count out necessarily. I mean, it would be a huge coup for the Democrats to be able to have control of both houses. Oh, yeah.

1:23:05I mean, it would basically shut down Washington as we know it as it is right now. I will just say those sort of like really unexpected things usually happen at the Congress, like the House level versus the Senate, just because there's more attention paid to the statewide Senate candidates. But if you do have a large Democratic wave election, you know, I think now you can credibly say that the Senate is in play between. So if you assume they hold on to what they got and they pick up Maine and North Carolina, they need one more. And Ohio and Alaska both are not preposterous to imagine. One more thing we wanted to update D5 here.

1:23:40Graham Plattner has a new internal poll that he gave to Zateo, has him up 15 points on Janet Mills, which is pretty wild. I mean, it's a sign of the times, right? This guy, Kyle and I talked to him last week, and he was saying again, like, guys, remember, last summer is when I launched it. Like, no one had ever heard of me before last summer. And now I'm thrust into this spotlight and, like, the level of momentum and the things that are happening. He can scarcely wrap his head around. and he's up according to his poll and according to other polls we've seen too by double digits on the sitting governor of maine who has the backing of the dscc and chuck schumer and all of these sorts of people which we talked to chris van holland about him being upset about that yesterday too in the interview that ryan and i did with him so um it is going to be a very very interesting year in terms of politics and we're going to get a lot of indications of where things are headed Intern a poll, you never know.

1:24:36Sometimes they're COPE, you know. Usually it has some methodology. Maine is a hard place to poll, but, you know, tracks public with the actual, like, private ones that really matter. And in general, you know, I haven't seen any stuff to back up her campaign's legitimacy, like crowds or enthusiasm. There's none of the other accoutrement that would, you know, show that you're actually running a winning campaign. Yeah. From her, at least. Except, I guess, Chuck Schumer. Who I wouldn't even want their endorsement. No. if I were running the Democratic primary today.

1:25:23Black history lives in our stories, our culture, and the conversations we still have in today. This Black History Month, the podcast I didn't know, Maybe You Didn't Either digs into the moments, perspectives, and experiences that don't always make the textbook. Let me tell you about Garrett Morgan. Bruh had to pretend he didn't even exist just to sell his own invention. Listen to I Didn't Know. Maybe You Didn't Either from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or simply wherever you get your podcasts. I Didn't Know.

1:26:001969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:26:56Two Guys Five Rings and listen now. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.