10/27/25: Billionaire Says He Feels Soybean Pain, Rancher Unloads On Trump, Food Stamps To End, Candace Says Musk Is Not Human

26:14But the thing you need to look at as far as the price of beef to the consumer, it takes about the same amount of minutes within an hour to buy a pound of ground beef as it did 20 years ago. And so are beef prices really too high? Probably not. Probably not. But is the income to the normal family that's trying to buy beef too low? Absolutely. When you're working two and three jobs to pay your mortgage, to pay for your technology, to pay for food, of course, it's going to hit you hard. But right now at Ranch Foods Direct, we've got$6 a pound ground beef. That is 30-some cents below the national average.

27:01Plus, it's local, and it's really good. But the industry has sold America on the fact that you've got to get big to be efficient and have economies of scale. All of that was proven false during COVID when we had empty shelves all across America. While our company, the local regional company in Colorado Springs that has a supply chain that goes to St. Francis, Kansas on the Colorado border, we never ran out. But we have a local regional model that I think has got to get replicated if we're going to actually feed ourselves going forward. We have to address the abusive market power, the monopoly power of big food.

27:42And I know this maybe doesn't matter much when you're talking about AI and you're talking about Venezuelan regime changes and you're talking about all of this crazy stuff in the news. But this is food. This is what we put on our plates every day to nourish our families. And it's not just beef. It's everything that we eat is under the power of a handful of global corporations. Yeah, it's such a great point. I would love for you to dig into you mentioned that you've the industry has liquidated 10 million cows and that that lack of supply is part of why we're seeing these skyrocketing prices now.

28:23What led to that liquidation? What was the math of the business logic that led to that outcome? Decades of being paid below the cost of production is what led to that liquidation. I've been at this about 50 years, and I just remember my in-laws at the dinner table with my sons reminding them, don't do what we've done. Do not be ranchers. Do not raise cattle. It is not a great lifestyle. You can't get paid enough to pay the mortgage and live a reasonable quality of life. Farmers and ranchers, their basic net income is coming from off-farm income. And so the big food companies have reduced the prices paid to producers because they have the power to do so.

29:10And so we have then, in the last few decades, ranching has not been an attractive business. And so we've not replaced the cows as they've gotten older with heifers. And the bankers are clamoring for note payments and mortgage reductions. and we just simply haven't maintained our cow herd because there has not been a fair, open, and competitive marketplace. And so Trump is saying it's not, we don't totally understand what he's going to do with Argentina yet, but he said, you know, not a lot of beef, you know, it's not going to be a ton, but based on all of that, based on what we know so far, what influence would a modest amount of imports from Argentina, a modest amount of beef imports from Argentina have on the industry as you see it?

30:01Well, right now, I don't know that it would have a lot if you really had a supply and demand market, which we have not had for probably since the 80s. We haven't had that. But the thing is, the announcement of it lets those cattle futures, you know, the Chicago Merc just totally crater the price on the futures market, which then reduces those prices for calves and feeder cattle and live cattle to the rancher right now. But I don't think Trump understands just how much disconnect there is between retail prices and ranch gate prices. A rancher is in the business of turning grass into cattle, and they hope for a competitive market that will give them a fair share of that consumer dollar.

30:49Back in 1970, when I first started, the rancher got about 70 percent. The producer of livestock got about 70 percent of the consumer dollar. That dropped to as low as 27 percent during COVID to now it's around 54 to 55 percent. So we still are not getting our fair share of what consumers spend. And that is, again, a result of the market power of the middlemen. Mike, I wonder if you could talk a little bit of politics here with us. You had in the Biden administration with Lena Kahn, you had a real renewed interest in antitrust. I remember there was some at least rhetorical emphasis on, hey, we got to break up some of these meat packers and the cartels that you're talking about.

31:34But none of that seems to have really been rewarded, certainly by rural America and your business competitors in the industry overwhelmingly went for Trump. So, you know, how do you think about the way that Democrats have over years completely lost this constituency? You used to have a John Tester or someone like that. It was, you know, very sort of like populist antitrust. It was able to win in these states. And I just don't think that it's possible anymore. How do you think about that? Well, I am I'm really disappointed that that no one politically Democrat or Republican has delivered on antitrust law enforcement.

32:11And I think the last election would have had a far different outcome if they would not have kept Lena Kahn with the Federal Trade Commission in the closet. I mean, she was working to improve competitive markets and fairness all the way around consumer welfare and corporate power and all of that. And we just didn't even know about it. Kamala Harris never even mentioned it. So we've never had support. In fact, going back to the Obama years when they had the concentration hearings across the country, we thought full well with all of that proof and all of that information about the abusive market power of big meat packers that there would be some relief.

32:55And Lena Kahn wrote the article, Obama's Game of Chicken. It was in the Atlantic. It was an amazing piece of writing. And then eventually she made her way into the chair of the Federal Trade Commission and was doing absolutely the best work we've seen in 100 years. Trump comes in and fires her. So that is just how unbelievably ignorant the current administration is about the real needs of consumers and producers around our food system in particular. Although Lena Kahn looked at a lot of other things, but she's the one that blocked the Kroger Safeway merger, Safeway Albertsons merger. That was absolutely required.

33:39And prior to that, we blocked the Cisco U.S. Foods merger. But the problem we're seeing now is these companies that try to merge get to know each other and whether it's approved or not, they still cooperate and work together to maximize their profits. I mean, how is it that Cisco earns or makes a 100 % return on equity? ROE, right now, if you look it up on Google, Cisco's right at 100 % return on equity. That's not a competitive market. And that comes at the expense of producers and consumers and all the workers that are in between. And your case actually is that that goes straight to those beef prices.

34:21That if you have, it's essentially like the greedflation argument that the Biden administration made a half-hearted attempt to sell to the public. That when you have consolidation, you're able to just ratchet up, the retailers themselves are able to just ratchet up the prices. Am I getting that right based on what you were explaining? 100 percent. That is exactly, exactly right. You give them the ability to extract wealth and they will do it to the maximum amount allowable that they're able to. And, you know, that all goes back to the corporate responsibility of providing maximum returns to shareholders.

34:58But it's honestly maximum returns to executive level pay. Yeah. Mike, last question to you. You know, what would your pitch be to Americans who are listening to this or like, well, that's all well and good, but like prices are too high. And if it's going to help to import beef from Argentina or wherever, why don't we just go for that? Because my pocketbook is hurting right now. What would you tell Americans about why they should care? Well, I tell Americans they should care because importing Argentine beef is not going to lower your prices. It might lower the prices to ranchers, which guarantees that the herd won't be rebuilt and won't be feeding us in the future.

35:35But it will not lower prices, not with the cartel, the monopoly power of the middlemen. And think about it a minute from the Argentine perspective. I mean, their economy is not doing great. Their consumers are not doing great. So we go down there and we're going to take meat off the plates of Argentine consumers, raise their prices, only to use it as a lever to lower prices to ranchers and not lower prices to American consumers. And the other point that no one is making is when Argentina gets favorable trade conditions with the United States, the highest and best consuming market in the world, how many animals transship, cross those borders into Argentina that then are able to go into the United States at the best prices on the globe?

36:26Mike Hallcrae. And only the middleman making the money. Yeah. So the Argentine producers under the same pressure, same big companies, JBS, Marfrig, you know, the biggest companies in the world are transacting the deal. And they'll be subject to the same nightmare you've been living here. Mike, thank you so much for helping us understand. Tell people, you know, where they can find you, where they can buy your products, all of that good stuff. Well, if you go to MikeCalcrate.com, you'll see what we're up to. And I've got a blog there. But as far as the Ranch Foods Direct model, which I would hope others might replicate around the country to connect producers more closely to consumers, go to ranchfoodsdirect.com and you'll be able to see what we do there.

37:07Just put in my order yesterday. So thank you so much. I love it. Mike, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Great to have you. Okay. All right. Bye. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated, and Black America was at a breaking point. Writing 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.

37:44To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, 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 I'm Bowen Yang and I'm Matt Rogers during this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games we've been joined by some of our friends Hi Bowen, hi Matt Hey Elmo Hey Matt, hey Bowen Hi Cookie Now the Winter Olympic Games are underway and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

38:50China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.

39:40Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We learned not long ago that a mysterious private donor was jumping in to bail out the government during the shutdown so that some U.S. troops could continue to get paid as Congress continues to take no action, tries to take action, but hasn't taken any action to at least make sure that the troops are paid during the shutdown. Here is a little bit of a back and forth between Donald Trump and a reporter about who might have stepped in with this$130 million donation straight to the government. We can roll the clip.

40:21To find somebody to pay for our troops during the shutdown. He's a great gentleman. He's a great patriot. He's obviously a very substantial man. And he contributed$130 million toward the military in order to make up any difference. So he wanted to see the military get paid. So did I. And he's a wonderful man. And he doesn't want publicity. He doesn't, you know, he'd prefer, I think, that his name not be mentioned, which is pretty unusual in the world I come from. And he's a big supporter of mine. Is he an American citizen? It is, yeah. Great American citizen. We now know who that donor is. We can put B2 up on the screen.

41:03Timothy Mellon of the Mellon family. You actually may remember his name from the 2024 election cycle when he just was giving all kinds, pumping money into the Trump campaign. Yeah, essentially. He made a 50 million dollar donation to Trump's super PAC. 50 million dollars. Yeah, so he's one of Trump's largest donors. Incredible. He's somewhat of a recluse. He lives in Wyoming. He's a big supporter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his group, the Children's Health Defense Fund, I think is the name of it. And so according to two people familiar with the matter, according to the New York Times, these are the New York Times sources, two people familiar with the matter, it was Timothy Mellon, who came in and ended up giving$130 million.

41:45Let's roll this clip of Treasury Secretary Scott Besant on whether or not the troops were getting paid. We were able to pay the military employees from excess funds at the Pentagon middle of this month. I think we'll be able to pay them beginning of November. But by November 15th, our troops and service members who are willing to risk their lives aren't going to be able to get paid. What an embarrassment. Yes, what an embarrassment. That's right. It is. And so now you have Timothy Mellon jumping in, which, Crystal, is actually kind of interesting because Republicans have used, I mean, it's interesting in a lot of ways, but Republicans have used, particularly the troops, just as Democrats did during previous government shutdowns, to say, quote, what an embarrassment.

42:28Like, get to the table, give us the votes. Republicans are typically the ones in the position of withholding votes on a CR to fund the government. Now it's Democrats, and Republicans thought this was their leverage. So it's actually kind of interesting that you have someone, in a way, taking away the leverage that a Republican donor is undercutting their argument that Democrats need to get to the table to negotiate so that troops can get paid. Obviously, there's questions over whether the$130 million is enough to really make a difference. Apparently, that would be like $100 to each service member.

43:01That's what the time is calculated. It's one of the weird, this is, it's weird and troubling, and it's worth thinking about the principle of it, even though it's not nearly sufficient to even come close to actually paying the entire military. What, now we've got like random private oligarchs funding the military? Is this really the direction we want to go in at a time when Trump is increasingly using the military as like his own personal force against whatever people and cities and causes that he doesn't particularly like? So the principle of it is disturbing, potentially illegal, by the way, you know, unclear, completely legally, but potentially illegal.

43:40So it's like, what is this guy doing when you're not even coming close to solving the problem? I don't know. It's to me, the whole thing is very strange and troubling in, you know, a way that often Trump regime actions are. Well, let's put this before on the screen. You can see already for federal workers, there are some lines outside of food pantries. So this is a load federal workers. This is Landover, Maryland, which is, you know, just outside the Beltway here in the Beltway area here. And so I saw some restaurants around town. I was walking around D.C. last night who had, you know, 50 percent off for federal workers.

44:20You know, this thing is really starting to to bite. It's people are really starting to feel the pain. You know, paychecks are starting to be missed. Obviously, workers are furloughed. You're going to have even more workers furloughed after the end of the month. As Besant said there, you know, come November 15th, troops are no longer going to be paid doesn't look like they've been sort of like moving different pots of money around again in a way that it's not really entirely clear as legal but they're moving different pots of money around to try to make sure the troops are paid a lot of times what happens in these shutdowns is that congress will pass a separate bill saying just like okay well we are going to pay the troops no matter how long this thing goes but they have not done that so they're really in the same camp is basically everyone else as this thing stretches out.

45:06Median average saving for an American is $600. And so, you know, it's true that a lot of these workers end up getting back pay, but that's not helpful if you're paycheck to paycheck or even a little bit more comfortable than paycheck to paycheck, because we are now going into what could end up being one of the longest government. Actually, it might end up being the longest government shutdown in history because there is no end in sight whatsoever. And Jake Sherman, loath as I am to bring, invoke any of his wisdom here of Punchbowl, he says the flaw in this is Democrats have sold their base of membership that they aren't trying to make a point.

45:42They're trying to enact change. That's actually kind of an interesting way to put it because the leverage that Democrats have, not the leverage, but the sort of the reason that Democrats did the shutdown was to show the base that they're fighting. And so what have they gotten at this point? What can they get at this point out of it? They may get Republicans to negotiate on premiums. It's possible on something for that. But nobody's even talking right now. Yeah, no, it's I mean, there's really at this point is no one in sight. We did get that report last week that we talked about that maybe Republicans were open to something on the ACA subsidies.

46:19You know, I do think Democrats would take if they could get any kind of a win. I think they would probably take it. You know, Schumer and co. were really forced into this by the base. It was not the politics they wanted to pursue. And their persistence in it, too, is really forced on them by the base, which is really interesting. I mean, I think there's kind of a tie in here with some of the Zoran clip that will show of Kathy Hochul and the crowd chanting at her like tax the rich. You have now leadership and establishment Democrats really feeling the pressure from just a normie liberal base that is increasingly disgusted with them and wants a more hard line and more radical direction for the party.

46:54And so the fact that Democrats, you know, I mean, Sagar and I both early on were like, yeah, they're probably going to fold because that's just what they do. So the reason we were wrong is because they are feeling much more pressure from their own voters than we expected. And, you know, I think the Trump administration has taken a lot of the sting out of the, you know, the mass destruction of the federal government workforce. They've been doing that all along. So when you're like, oh, we're going to hurt them more, it's like, well, you were already doing that anyway. And when you I think they've also been buoyed by a lot of polls that show the public are predominantly blaming Republicans.

47:28And it makes sense because they are in control of everything. So people just look at this and they're like, you guys run the show. So get it together. You got to negotiate with them, figure something out. And so they they feel like Republicans are taking on water with this thing as well, which I think has strengthened some backbones. Another test, though, is going to come. I mean, this is really honestly really terrible and really dire. We could put B5 up on the screen. Food stamp benefits, SNAP benefits are going to run out at the end of this month. you've got tens of millions of Americans who rely on SNAP benefits.

48:02Originally, it had looked like the administration was going to use some emergency funds to keep those benefits flowing. Now the USDA is saying, nope, we're not going to do that. So heading into November, heading into the month of Thanksgiving, with the potential loss of those benefits, you've got Americans who are going to go hungry if something is not done to extend this funding or to get the government fully back open. I'm just thinking about this now. One of the sort of designs behind Doge is that you kind of can do things, right? Like Republicans are like, hey, you can do things. And so I'm wondering if the USDA snap funds run out, if that becomes a sort of predicate for some type of permanent reduction.

48:47I don't know. But there may be legal avenues that a Russ vote or someone else the administration tries to pursue to to make permanent cuts like they are with they're trying to do with federal workers. So I'm not sure about that. But I do wonder if that's part of this. We can put the next element on the screen. House Democrats are calling back their members to D.C., according to Punchbowl Laura Weiss. They're holding in-person caucus meetings tomorrow, so Tuesday, and events on Wednesday. It's possible we see an end to this by the, I mean, it's possible by the weekend. I don't know that anybody is particularly optimistic, though, if we put the next element up on the screen over the weekend, there was a ground stop at LAX.

49:31It disrupted flights from LAX to Oakland. Nation's busiest airport. Yeah. And so the longer this goes on with people blaming Republicans, that's I think that's probably stable. Those numbers of Americans blaming Republicans, I would probably put some of the blame on the media for that. I think it's a contrast in how the media has covered it when Republicans literally were the ones withholding their votes. That doesn't mean there's no blame to go around. There's definitely blame to go around in this government shutdown. But maybe that's weighing on Democrats' minds, that they're sort of technically, if the public is blaming Republicans, they have an upper hand of some sort when they go to negotiation, presumably this week.

50:14But the positions are hardened when you look at Republican leadership. They really are not projecting that they're willing to come to the table on premiums and the ACA subsidies. So we'll see. Yeah, we will. And, you know, I think there's also concern you were saying that vote might use the, you know, the funding shortage on food stamps to make some sort of permanent cuts, even though, again, it should be illegal. That should be something that has to go through Congress. But, you know, whatever laws don't exist anymore. Apparently, there's also concern that those federal workers actually who, you know, some of them are working for free right now, by the way, don't get back pay a lot.

50:52because he put out a memo saying, oh, we're probably not going to pay, actually. And again, there is a law that was passed that mandates during a shutdown, federal government workers will get their back pay, but this administration just does whatever the hell they want. So I don't think that federal government workers feel particularly secure that they're ever going to see the paychecks that they're missing right now. You know, this is the guy who said that he wants to cause them, what did he say? He wants to cause them trauma or something like that. Yeah, so, I mean, that is part of his goal.

51:20That's his MO. He's a true ideologue in this regard. And so I don't think anyone should be surprised that he, in particular, would, who is one of the more powerful members of the administration, certainly one of the more, you know, ideological architects of the direction of this administration, that he would use this as an excuse to create more pain and suffering among the federal government workforce and to shrink the federal government more than they've been able to successfully do with DOJ. and already they ran into, you know, with Doge, they ran into things where they'd fire a bunch of people from the CDC or whatever and be like, oh, you know what?

51:53Actually, we do want to track Ebola, it turns out. Or, you know, they'd fire a bunch of people from that thing and be like, oh, you know what? This whole like air planes crashing to each other situation is not really great. Let's bring some of those people back. They've already had to do some of that. You know, we had the situation in Texas with the floods and a lot of questions over whether or not some of the cuts that had been made to relevant agencies there impacted the ability to respond to those absolutely devastating floods. So they've already run into like hitting the bone in some of the cuts that they've made.

52:23But there's no sign that individuals like him in particular are interested in slowing down. Well, and also, listen, I'm someone who thinks SNAP needs significant reforms. I'm somebody who thinks Obamacare needs significant reforms. And Stoller has a good post on that over at Big this morning. Yeah, I was reading that too. Yeah, it's super good. But there's a lot of Trump voters who are on SNAP. So that's another, as Democrats return to Washington this week, that's another thing. That's another big piece of leverage. That's another arrow in their quiver as they try to bring Republicans to the table on something, in addition to the subsidies, which Marjorie Taylor Greene has been outspoken about, the Obamacare subsidies.

53:00SNAP is that, I mean, if you have most of the country blaming Republicans for the shutdown, and then you have troops going unpaid, lines at food pantries, SNAP benefits lapsing, and potential increases in premiums. That's starting to look pretty dire for Republicans if they don't come to the table. Again, I think it's a different situation than other shutdowns. Democrats are the ones technically withholding the votes, but Republicans, if they're taking the blame with the public, that's a recipe for a political disaster heading into a midterm year. I don't think people vote on shutdowns, you know, a year from now.

53:36And I'm not sure that'll be in the front of anybody's mind. But obviously, it's one of those moments that can make you feel whether this party cares about you or not. The MAGA movement, whether it really, truly has your best interests at hand. That's something that can kind of sink into people's psyche. They may not vote on the shutdown, but they may well vote on, hey, my premiums just went up 100 percent. And that's, to your point, about this really disproportionate hitting the MAGA base, 73 % of those subsidies go to red states because it's overwhelmingly the states that didn't expand Medicaid.

54:10That's where these subsidies are really filling the gap, and those are all red states. The poorest states in the country are all red states, so you'll have a disproportionate number of the SNAP benefits going to those states as well. So, yeah, you're talking about a lot of pain specifically for oftentimes Republican voters and oftentimes some of the most, you know, diehard supporters of Trump himself. I mean, yeah, it's one of those. It could potentially be one of those moments, actually sort of like the Epstein, particularly when when Pam Bondi said we're closing the case. Basically, let's wipe our hands.

54:40We're done. It's one of those moments that can make people who who thought, you know, as Donald Trump was campaigning, saying everybody's going to have health care. I think at the Madison Square Garden rally, he said he was going to cut energy prices in half and inflation was going to significantly decrease. And that's why he's so concerned about the beef, as we talked about earlier in the show, because beef prices are the things that are going high. And he knows he's shrewd enough politically to know that that really matters to voters because he talked about it on the campaign trail. So it could potentially be one of those moments where the working class section of the MAGA base starts to question whether or not MAGA really does care about them.

55:18You could see that happening. And Epstein was a big moment where they said, is this really about what we thought it was about? Does he really care like he said he did? And, you know, not everybody who voted for Trump loves Trump, but there's a level of he told you everybody else he was right to tell you everybody else was wrong. Does that mean that he's right? That he's right. Right. And that's actually making things better. Exactly. Well, I will say I think Epstein landed much more clearly squarely at his feet because it's like cash. It's his people. Right. Right. With this, I could see a lot of people blaming Congress.

55:54I mean, the thing in the Trump era that we've seen is similar to how Obama had this particular hold on, you know, on a certain population. Trump has this certain hold and it doesn't translate to the rest of the Republican Party. You know, the midterms, he hasn't done well in midterms in particular. And so the other thing is maybe people still are, oh, it's not Trump's fault. This Congress can't get their act together or whatever. but that doesn't exactly make them excited to come out and vote for Republicans in midterm elections upcoming. Well, it doesn't also necessarily give you the faith in a MAGA candidate that you might have otherwise.

56:30Right. They're saying, you know, because there was the working class of this idea that Republicans worked for them for a long time. And, you know, we've all talked about why that might be, but that's a, that's always been a problem for Republicans. And it's especially a problem if you've already traded a lot of suburban voters for more working class voters, especially in the Rust Belt, places like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio. So does the MAGA candidate lose some credibility if they're still, you know, your typical Republican in their like Brooks Brothers suit, but they claim to be MAGA? The trust gap is significant when voters who vote for Donald Trump, A, have to go vote for you.

57:08Do they even vote, let alone if they do vote, do they vote for you when they see their SNAP benefits lapsing and their premiums about to explode. Yeah. Feels like a lot of like 2010 level kind of like disillusionment is what I've potentially will say. Interesting. Yeah. You should interview somebody who maybe ran for Congress in 2010. I think I have an in. See what we could do. I actually always love when you talk about it because it was such an important year and there's so many different trends that came to like blossom six years later. Yeah. I had a front party meetings because my policy was like anyone in the district invites me to come talk I will come talk to you so I got berated by a lot of angry people who thought that I was ushering in Sodom and Gomorrah to be fair to be fair you were here we are here we are have you heard WAP I blame I blame you for that I blame you for Cardi B you should do your Ben Shapiro-esque rendition, your own rendition of WAPOR Assembly.

58:11Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lamumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated, and Black America was at a breaking point. Writing 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. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

58:57This 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. I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys Five Rings podcast, in the lead-up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends. Hi, Bowen. Hi, Matt. Hey, Elmo. Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen. Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, We are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

59:47China's Ministry of State Security is one of the most mysterious and powerful spy agencies in the world. But in 2017, the FBI got inside. This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. This MSS officer has no idea the U.S. government is on to him. But the FBI has his chats, texts, emails, even his personal diary. Hear how they got it on the Sixth Bureau podcast. I now have several terabytes of an MSS officer, no doubt, no question, of his life. And that's a unicorn. No one had ever seen anything like that. It was unbelievable. This is a story of the inner workings of the MSS and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets.

1:00:37Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, moving along. Speaking of Ben Shapiro, let's move on to Candace Owens. There we go. So Candace has some very interesting thoughts about some of the tech oligarchs who are like, you know, completely taking all of our fates into their hands with no input from us whatsoever. So glad to see that she's focusing her mental energy on them. Her take is very interesting, though. Let's take a listen. I don't even think people are human. Like I look at Elon Musk and Sam Altman and Peter Thiel, and I'm pretty sure they're hybrid.

1:01:16You know what I mean? like they just look like an Apple software that I should be able to download at night. You know, like my phone's getting an update or something. It's something in the eyes. Like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know if I stabbed you if you bleed, you know, I'm not going to stab them, but I don't know if they bleed all the way. I think a battery would fall out. You know what I mean? And I just get that sense. I've always known it was demonic and people just get on board because as we talked about in this book, they are using science and this idea of technology and this idea of transforming society for the better to indoctrinate us into accepting this.

1:01:53And it's wrong and it's backwards. And the main component of all of this is psychology, right? They're able to do it because of psychology, making you think that society has gotten better. Our kids have objectively gotten dumber. We've become fatter. We've become less healthy. We become less emotionally sound. And yet they are convincing us that this is like humanity's great leap forward. We put a man on the moon and he just like called them up and was like, hey, Prez, what's up? I'm up here. Yeah, it's so cool. It's really great. It's nice. Starry night up here. Okay, I'm going to text you. I go by in 69.

1:02:30And they get these people. They tell you like he's a genius. They're all writing like he's a genius. So we should just accept that Elon Musk is a genius because like all the writers who are obviously indoctrinated into the occult are telling us that this is the next person that we should worship. The establishment of Hollywood. It was all occults. They were all Aleister Crowley protégés who were just raping kids and summoning demons and demons are real. So at the same time, if they're summoning demons, they are making us all believe that faith is not real. And that has been, I think, the greatest trick that the devil ever played, right, is making people think that he didn't exist.

1:03:08Emily, agree or disagree? I mean, she's certainly cooking, Crystal. She's certainly cooking. She is cooking. Everyone can agree on that. She was also potentially blaming Trump for her friend Charlie Kirk's assassination. Yeah, it's pretty wild. There's a lot of speculation, which we do not mean to get into because we're not professional medical professionals. But she may be having some type of episode because she is sort of starting to sound like the person who has like a literal tinfoil on their head on the street corner. OK, but I mean, she has been doing the whole Brigitte McCrone thing for a while now.

1:03:47Yeah, that's true. It's not like she's starting. The logic has been entirely linear here. Although I will say that I think that particular, I imagine people will sense that in that particular clip, there's a certain, usually you can follow her logic when it's crazy. You know what I mean? You're like, this is wild and wacky, but I can sort of follow along. There's a sense of like just listening to her there. I don't know. It seems different to me. It seems like a little bit more, a little bit less rational. Like we're just. I don't know. I follow her logic on this perfectly. Crystal is bullish.

1:04:19I follow this logic personally perfectly. But I mean, like, let's say it lets humanity off the hook too much to say that these characters are not actually human. Agreed. That would be a very thing to mean. Ryan always makes that point. Yeah, I would love to think that these are not fully humans, that these are some sort of weird hybrid alien beings who are, you know, and that's why they are doing all of these terrible things. But in reality, they are human and humans are capable of, you know, terrible destruction. and you know and the the weird thing is that all three of them i think see themselves as like heroes actually and um this is uh it's it's also sort of has a somewhat directional truth to it though because they also are transhuman they they want to turn all of us into hybrid the hybrids that she's talking about um they actually do want to go in that direction the merging of the human and the machine and are deeply interested, of course, in consolidating all of his power wealth in their own hands at the expense of actual humanity, which is why when Peter Thiel gets asked, you think by Ross Doubt That, do you think the human race should survive?

1:05:26He has to sputter and stumble and mumble and think before he can answer what should be the easiest question of all time. You know what actually they're doing is turning all of us into Candace Owens. Like, That's actually what's happening is they're turning all of us into people who are driven by the algorithm into madness. And I think she's a glimpse and producers Mack and Griffin are just saying only crime is being right too early about madness. And Mack is like, Candace is on to something here. Yeah, because like that's what happens is there's truth to the fact that they want to make us less human.

1:06:07and there's something very human about wanting to make us less human because it's driven by greed and lust for power and utopianism which has been with us since the human race has existed and so this this drive for transhumanism is deeply human and actually Candace was getting to that when she was talking about the devil's best trick um is is making people think that the devil doesn't exist like that's that's what she was getting at with that point uh there's something deeply, deeply human about the pursuit of power and money that tricks people into buying utopian fantasies. And even like the rich and powerful people themselves will be seduced by this idea that it's not actually about the money.

1:06:50It's not actually about the power. It's about the idea that we're creating a better life, a better world, which I think everybody can see over the last, like what, 20 year experiment since Peter Thiel's technologies and just in the last couple of years of Sam Altman's technologies and what Elon Musk has done to X, which, I mean, just look at it. What that does is it makes us, it turns us all into crazy people because the algorithm has bad incentives and we communicate, we export all of our communication. This is just a preview of what's to come. We've exported so much of our communication onto platforms that can be the flip of a switch by one person like Elon Musk can change the direction of the entire political discourse.

1:07:37Yeah. We've seen it. We know that that's what can be done. Yeah. And that controls not just what we say, but it controls the incentive system of what we decide we're going to say. They're colonizing our minds. A hundred percent. I mean, that's what they're doing. A hundred percent. And successfully, by the way. And so, I mean, that's why, listen, as, you know, wild as what she said there is, I, I am glad to see her taking an interest in this subject because, as we've discussed before, like this is this is a dire situation we're facing. Yes. It's dire from a job loss perspective. It's dire from a resources and energy perspective.

1:08:18It's dire from a cost perspective in terms of our electricity bills. It's dire from a controlling our thoughts and minds and being able to tell truth from fiction. Exactly. Live in reality together. Yeah. Perspective. It's potentially dire from like an actual true existential threat, which I think is a real and genuine risk that I do not put off the table. It's dire from a mass consolidation of wealth and power perspective. Like you want to talk about a democracy crisis. There's no way a democracy survives if you have someone, one of these characters able to achieve AGI and all of the incredible economic power, power and benefits that come along with that.

1:08:56So, you know, which is why someone like Elon Musk, who was very concerned about the things we're talking about. Oh, yeah. And that's why he started OpenAI with Sam Altman. Okay, we can develop this, but we'll do it in this nonprofit way. Now, I'm not saying that the conception was like was like great from the start. But he had some mind of we have to do this in a safe way. It can't be for profit. It needs to be in the public interest. And then when he once he sees everyone else, by the way. Yep. And once he sees everyone else is off to the races, then he's off to the races, too. So it's it isn't actually existential conversation, in my opinion.

1:09:32And if you listen to them, it's an existential conversation because they'll tell you we're trying to eliminate human labor. We're trying to rewrite the social contract. We want to completely upend society as it exists today. So I am glad to see figures on the right like Candace, occasionally Steve Bannon, you know, certainly like figures like you, Sager, who are looking at this with clear eyes and going, this is horrific. And we have to come together and take control in some way because otherwise, you know, we are barreling towards an incredibly risky and dire future. Well, and again, like it gives rocket fuel to those conspiracy theories that people aren't like actually human.

1:10:09And it makes those things much more believable as you break down the wall between fact and fiction with your technologies and your algorithms. And so, again, they're turning us all into Candace Owens and for a bit more cogent, I would say, argument along the lines of what she is making about, like, if you want a faith-based argument, I recommend Living in Wonder by Rod Dreher, which came out recently. It does a really good job with this, but it's all happening so quickly. In fact, we should get to this clip of Theo Vaughn, who asked Sam Altman if he feels fully human along the lines of the Ross Douthat interview of Peter Thiel that Crystal referenced.

1:10:48These guys are having conversations in public because they think they're untouchable. And to some extent, they are. I mean, think about the Amazon Web Service outage last week, the consolidation of power combined with AI. So when you have consolidated power that's running on AI, they have lost control of their AI already. Yeah. And they admit it. So think of how consequential the AWS outage was last week. And then think of what happens when you have massive consolidation and AI together all at the same time. And people like Sam Altman running the show, here's C2. Yeah, I'm just always, I'm like, God, yeah, these people are able to see things differently and quantify things differently.

1:11:28do you always feel because some tech guys they just have a different understanding of possibility right a different understanding of feeling and thing do you feel human all the time i do feel human all the time but i feel like i i have noticed that i think extremely differently about the future about exponential change about compounding technology than almost anybody else that i kind of come across in regular life so that's cool i feel extremely human i feel like you know driven by crazy emotions as much as anybody but i am like very aware that i have a different lens than a lot of people have you met some people in tech space you're like whoa that guy's only like six or seven percent he's low he's not a lot of human in him yes yeah okay i love how sam's like yes i've met people who are not human but i'm me myself i'm totally human his interview with tucker carlson came out like a i think it was a couple of days before charlie Kirk was assassinating so it kind of got buried yeah I never got actually got around to watching you have to watch it so Tucker asked him how he sleeps at night and Altman's just like not well it's so wild that he goes out and says these things in public um not not doing a great job in uh installing confidence in the population meanwhile Crystal who is working on behalf of these oligarchs, but Kyrsten Sinema.

1:12:56Of course. I had to let the pause hang because I know it's surprising to people. Yeah, that she's doing the most evil thing imaginable in the wake of her senatorial career. Yeah, I might be open to the hybrid hypothesis when it comes to Kyrsten Sinema. So here she is testifying at a local town hall, basically saying to them, listen, I work, I'm working to push these data centers into communities. And you can either cooperate with us or the federal government is just going to come in and force you to accept this. And then you're not going to have any say over how it goes for you or, you know, or like it's coming.

1:13:34So you can either work with us. We can do this the easy way or the hard way is the subtext of what she says here. Let's go ahead and take a listen. I'm here tonight on behalf of Active Infrastructure. I also am the founder and co-chair of a national coalition called the AI Infrastructure Coalition. We are a national coalition formed earlier this year and work hand in glove with the Trump administration as we prepare for AI American dominance to prepare against a competing threat from China, but also to ensure that domestically that we are prepared for the AI revolution that is coming. The AI action plan set out by the Trump administration says very clearly that we must continue to proliferate AI and AI data centers throughout the country.

1:14:21So there she goes, hand in glove with the Trump administration to make sure that AI data centers proliferate throughout the country. And I'll tell you, you know, I live in a town where one of these data centers may be coming. There are it's and it's a very conservative rural area is very conservative, you know, voted like 65 percent for Trump or something. And you see tons of signs like stop the data center. I mean, this is it really is something that there are a wide variety of cross partisan concerns here, including about local autonomy. You know, as cinema is basically threatening them, like it's coming whether you want it or not.

1:14:57Local autonomy is one of them. You know, there's the water usage. You've had wells that have gone dry near these places, you know, especially in rural areas. I'm personally on well water. A lot of people in my county and in the area are. You have the noise concern, the light pollution concern. You have the skyrocketing electricity, energy costs. So you have, you know, a lot of just like immediate concerns about these massive construction projects that are just like proliferating across the country and that, you know, people like her are pushing onto communities that really don't want them. Well, and there was that great semaphore report.

1:15:30I think it was a Dave Weigel report from a couple of weeks ago about how this is like the sneaky issue in the midterm cycle, that because so many communities are experiencing problems related to the data centers, that anybody who's actually able to do the anti-cinema here is probably, whichever party is able to do in some of these like congressional races, the anti-cinema approach, that'll behoove them. because in many, many communities, this is becoming a significant problem. And on that note, guess who is on this? Bernie Sanders. Let's roll C4. Do you think OpenAI and ChatGPT should be broken up?

1:16:07I do, but it's a deeper issue than that. We need to take a deep breath and understand that it's like, you know, media are coming. We got to be prepared to deal with it in all of its complexity. Economically, I worry about massive loss of jobs. in terms of what it does to us as human beings. There are products not being sold as, you don't need to relate to a human being anymore. You'll have somebody hanging around your neck as your AI buddy. And in a country where there's a lot of emotional distress, I really worry about that. How we continue community, how we relate to each other as human beings.

1:16:47And then, of course, in terms of AI, We worry about this super intelligent AI, which supersedes human intelligence. And one day the AI says to the human being, sorry, but actually, no. You worry about a Terminator-like scenario. Something like that. So that was Senator Sanders in an interview with Alex Thompson of Axios Crystal, showing a path forward, not just for Democrats, but for Republicans, if anyone is smart enough to take it? And that's where the question is right now. Yeah, well, at the federal level, certainly the Trump administration has decided that they're all in, you know, and obviously J.D.

1:17:26Vance is very much backed by Peter Thiel, has been throughout his career. They're thinking he's their guy. They've decided we're gonna take any brakes that were on the car, we're gonna take them off, right? We are going to make sure in terms of regulatory brakes, we're gonna make sure the funding is there. We're gonna make sure there's no sort of like you know, any sort of SEC enforcement actions coming your way, we're going to go all in in the most reckless manner possible because we've got to win this, you know, war against China. We've got to win the race to AGI before China gets there. And so that is the full thrust from the national level of the, you know, the Trump administration, certainly right now.

1:18:07And if J.D. Vance is the predecessor to Trump, then I fully expect him to continue in that direction. And of course, Trump is out there. Steve Bannon is saying, oh, Trump is going to be the guy again in 2028. I don't think we can put that off the table either. And he's clearly decided that, you know, being fully in bed with these tech oligarchs was the best thing for him politically in the direction that he wanted to to go in. So it does leave a massive opening for someone to articulate all of these fears. And as I said, the fears are both immediate and medium term in terms of job loss and long term, as Bernie articulates there as well, in terms of these more existential concerns about what it would mean to have a superior intelligence on the planet.

1:18:51Like, has anyone thought about that? There are people who have thought about it. Most of them have concluded that it's going to be really bad for human beings. Yet we continue apace anyway. So if, you know, 80-something-year-old Bernie Sanders can figure all of that out, I think a lot of Americans are thinking in the same direction. And it seems to me like we're at an inflection point as these data centers increasingly crop up, especially in rural areas where there's more and more awareness of what is happening and the speed and pace at which it is occurring and the massive impact that it could have on all of our lives in the future.

1:19:28And most conservative Catholic intellectuals are deeply suspicious of AI, which puts J.D. Vance in a fascinating position. And we did a long segment on why Peter Thiel is talking so much about AI, the apocalypse, the catacomb recently. And I think the conclusion that we landed on is he's trying to seduce especially religious conservatives in the midst of this nationwide religious revival that everyone saw on display at the Kirk Memorial. He's trying to convince those people, which are such an important part of the Republican coalition, to put their faith in AI and to put their faith in big tech.

1:20:11And if he's able to do that, you bring the J.D. Vances on board and start making this argument, a faith-based argument, literally a faith-based argument for accelerationism. That's a huge win because you can see the argument that Bernie just made there being appealing to people around the country who are honestly like conservative Trump types or just normal, you know, suburban parents who are freaked out about what's happening to their children. So that's a huge reason why we're starting to see Teal. I think Teal is smarter, honestly, and he's more politically savvy, much more politically experienced than Elon or Sam Altman.

1:20:53I mean, his political involvement goes back a long time. Yeah. And so I think that's where you're trying to see where he you're seeing him try to get out ahead of some of these arguments to bring. So like Candace Owens, conservative Catholic, actually, interesting point, big audience among conservative Catholics trying to make the point that, hey, we don't know where any of this is going, but we have to put our faith in this accelerationist because otherwise the de-growthers sure look a lot like some biblical prophecies about the dark forces. So that's, I think, all of this, I think, lends credence to the conversation that we had the other day.

1:21:29And on top of that, where does, I mean, the Trump administration, we heard a lot in the lead up. You probably remember this last year, this time last year about little tech, right? Like accelerationism, little tech, we have to open up everything, make a much more liberal, lowercase l, regulatory environment for all of these little tech companies to thrive and to innovate. Crystal, I feel like the regulatory environment right now, since Donald Trump retook office, is pretty much designed to favor big tech, right? Like, are we seeing this flourishing of - The tech itself is designed to favor big tech.

1:22:06Because at least the theory of all the American companies, you know, DeepSeek proved potentially a different direction as possible. But the theory of all the American companies is basically you just throw as much money at this thing as possible. You build out as many data centers, as much compute as possible to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. And that's the way to win the race. And so, of course, like you're not going to have some plucky startup that's able to pull that off. Especially not with all the lobbying here that's going on. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be the giant players, which is why I always thought the little tech thing was complete and utter bullshit.

1:22:46And I think it was complete and utter bullshit. I don't think that Marc Andreessen and these other people that are pushing it are so, like, out of touch with the nature of the tech to not understand that it was going to be the big players that dominate the space. Now, are there going to be, you know, startups that are using the tech and, you know, ancillary? Sure. But in terms of who is developing the core technology, it's going to be one of the giants. and that's why all of these guys have thrown in so hard for it because they want to be the guy. They want to be the master of the universe. That's the way that they see it.

1:23:23And Emily, your points on what Thiel is doing and your insights into that I think are really important for people to understand. Whether or not he believes what he's saying or not, who the hell knows? It doesn't really matter. But he's trying to square the circle of convincing religious people that this technology, which on its face looks anti-creation and anti-human, is actually, actually it's fine. And actually we have to do this. Like the proper religious course to take, you know, if you're in the Christian faith, is to pursue this at all costs and take all the brakes off the car and just trust that it's going to work out.

1:24:02That is the proper thing to do. Just turn your mind off all your concern. Don't worry about it. Right. We've just got to we just got to go drive this car at 100 miles an hour. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it's it's it's interesting because I think a lot of people are engaging with the Teal argument as it's entirely sincere. And I think it's probably both sincere. He does seem entirely sincere about it. But it's not just sincere. It's sincere in a very particular direction. And there's an audience that he would have a motivation to try and persuade right now. And so I think that's an important lens to look at what he's doing through.

1:24:40Man, what a time to be alive, Crystal. What a time to be alive. Indeed.

1:25:13We'll be right back. that shake the status quo. The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 1969, 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.

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