10/6/25: Soybean Farmer Rips Trump, Shutdown Polling, Van Jones Blames Foreign Misinfo On Israel Criticism

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2:11All right. After that long discussion, we're going to turn now to the economy, shall we? Let's go ahead and start with this viral segment here of a soybean farmer furious with the Trump administration for bailing out Argentina after he has himself suffered tremendously from tariffs. Let's take a listen. Well, like we talked earlier, we went from 12 billion to zero. And then, you know, as a farmer, we get up one morning and you give Argentina, which is our second biggest competition in the world. They're the largest exporters of soybean meal in the world. So I get up one morning, I turn the news on, and you get$20 billion of taxpayer money to my competition.

2:48And then the Chinese buy, I think the figure is 30 or 40 containers, ships, which is about 65 ,000 metric tons per ship, which is like 2.2 million bushels. So they buy$12 or$14 billion worth of soybeans from the Argentinians after the tax holiday. And here's the caveat to it. They give$2.30 over the November board while I'm getting 50 cents under the November board. So that makes the Argentinian soybeans about$12.42 a bushel. I think that's the real figure they gave. So all my premium, they all went to Argentina. So all my premium went to Argentina. Man, I haven't gotten into weighing on Argentina.

3:29That is so patently insane that we are bailing these people out. Literally just because they're Trump friendly. I mean, what? And because a bunch of hedge funds. Yeah, of course. Stand to benefit. Hedge funds and VCs, et cetera, who placed bets on the Malay dream. And now our own people are like, hey, what the fuck, dude? And then we had the leaked text messages that came out from, what was it, to Scott Besson about the Chinese. Just the way that these people have handled this, it offends me more than anything. Like the lack of coherence, the incompetence. It is unbelievable. And it would be funny if it weren't for guys like that, the soybean farmer, bailing out Argentina, becoming the laughingstock, having no real trade deal here with China.

4:16By the way, I've been tracking closely. The new prime minister of Japan previously had said, I'm going to renegotiate that trade deal. So let's see how that goes. We turned Japan against us. Great. Awesome. There are so many instances on the world stage and here publicly where things just make genuinely no sense. Like no sense whatsoever. And so putting it all together with the economy, that's what worries me because at the same time, the one industry which is actually getting quite a bit of help from the federal government is AI. And there's some worrying stuff out there. Let's put this up here on the screen.

4:48The AI bubble is, quote, 17 times now the size of the dot-com frenzy and four times the subprime bubble. One analyst is saying, of course, look, we can always find an analyst to say everything. But, of course, I like the headline. And I do think it kind of underscores some of the issues that we are having where we talked extensively about this. AI capital expenditure and data center spending specifically is the only thing propping up our economy. We would almost certainly be in a recession if it were not for AI data center spend. That is a highly inefficient way to make sure that you have GDP growth because it is not in any way distributed across the economy.

5:24It is the literal opposite of what a thriving small business labor market and all of that is supposed to look like. If we look in the opposite direction, what do you see? You see everything else trending in the wrong direction. C3, for example, please, let's put this up here on the screen. Quote, are we in a recession? Yes, if you live in one of these 22 states. And so they specifically point, if you look at those recession numbers, part of it is the flyover country where a lot of it is farming. That's where a lot of that is coming from. You have the Pacific Northwest. You have Maine and a lot of the Northeastern Corridor, actually here in our own home state.

5:59And then including down – right, federal government. And then actually, this is very concerning if you look down south because down south and specifically around Florida, the panhandle, these states were supposed to be booming under the new economy with work from home and with new investment. Georgia and all these other places were supposed to be getting a lot of money. And so anyway, when you look at some of these, it's very worrying. And you consider that if you have 22 states, a lot of them in places are not going to be data center reliant and or anything that has to do with the technology company or oil and gas like you can see in Texas.

6:32It's expanding. You're already having issues. And they already say treading water in a lot of big economies, including California. So it's not a rosy picture when we put it all together. No, absolutely not. And worth reminding you guys, we were supposed to get a jobs report Friday. We did not get a jobs report Friday. That was partly government shutdown, partly that we don't have a BLS commissioner. The one that gave the numbers Trump didn't like got fired. The new guy, even conservatives were like, this guy can't do the job. And so his nomination had to be pulled. They previously had delayed an inflation report.

7:03But there was an ADP private jobs report that came out that showed a very damaging jobs number and a lower revision for prior months as well. So things looking incredibly shaky. And to go back to the piece about, you know, the tariffs and the way this is impacting everybody, put C4 up on the screen. I mean, this is just this just kind of tells you everything. So while the soybean farmers are getting screwed every way and five ways on Sunday, you have basically no tariffs on computer imports. So for these giant companies that are building out these data centers, they're not having to bear any extra costs from the tariffs.

7:41And you have this massive computer import surge due to the AI boom. So this speaks to the tariff policy. It also speaks to the increasing consolidation of our economy in this very speculative AI data center boom. And it's possible, by the way, just like with the dot-com bubble, that AI genuinely does turn out to be transformative and that a bunch of people lose their asses and we have a massive crash and contraction. and a bubble bursting because most of these investments that are being made, and we're talking insane amounts of money being thrown at AI and at data center build out right now, most of this is not profitable.

8:24They're still in this land of like, well, we'll figure out how to make money down the road, but we have to be the ones to win the AI race. And so, of course, that could set up a massive bubble situation. Huge news just this morning. AMD stock is up like 40%. OpenAI and AMD have announced a massive new computing deal, quote, marking the new phase of the AI boom. Five-year agreement will challenge NVIDIA's market dominance as OpenAI plans deployment of the AMD new chip. Their stock is literally booming overnight. I think it's actually carrying a decent portion of some of the gains this morning. But what does that mean?

8:58I mean, do you remember? Oh, yeah, I was on with Ryan, where OpenAI invested$150 billion, I forget into who, into some company, and then their stock went up by like$150 billion. And you're like, wait, what? You're like, you're spending money, but then your stock goes up. I think it was NVIDIA. That's what it was. It was like, we're going to spend X, Y, and Z and then our market cap is going to go up by X, Y, and Z. It's like, but no, the money's going out of the company. Right, so how does this make sense? So how does this work? You're like, what? Look, I'm not a smart person, I guess, when it comes to stocks because I would have predicted a crash a long time ago but something about this, it just doesn't seem right.

9:31And then the Sora AI, you know, I originally was kind of excited for Sora. Once Sora 2 came out, I'm like, this is literally just TikTok slop, Like AI TikTok slop. I saw Mr. Beast and other people being like, oh, it might replace creators. I don't think so. At least for right now. Not yet. To my eye, it looks like shit. And I have yet to see a piece of creative AI art that actually passes the smell test. But I don't know. They're getting close, though. Have you seen anything compelling? Yeah. Like actually good. Yes. So Kyle and I were talking about this last night. And he was showing me these videos that people made of like, I don't know, WWF, like 1990s WWF remakes.

10:11But it'll be like Tupac Shakur and Bikki. Right. And because you're telling it to do it in that style, the camera quality is low. So it's a little fuzzy the way that if you watch some 1990s media, the way it would look. And they pull that off really pretty well. I've seen some of these 90 eras cuts. Yes. It's like, take me back. I feel like those are the ones where it comes closest. If you're trying to create a video that has the quality of like, you know, 4K cameras in 2025 or whatever, and that level of Christmas, people have a little bit of that uncanny valley. Like there's a weird sheen to them.

10:48It's just not quite right. But they're getting pretty close. I mean, the level of the rapidity of the development is, for me, it's very unsettling. I personally think we should just shut it all down because we are not as a society, you know, the economic piece is one really important piece. Just like as a society, are we ready for this? Think of the think of people falling for some of the crap that's being put out now that is obviously AI and people are falling for it. You're going to have a total like failure and inability of society to understand what is real and what is false. things that are real.

11:28Remember Trump with the thing they were throwing out the White House window and he was like, oh, that's probably AI. Like things that are actually real or you can look at the images in Gaza that the propagandists say, oh, that's not real, that's fake, that's AI, whatever. There will be that dynamic where things that are really happening, people say are fake. Things that are fake are gonna be deemed as real. It's gonna be topsy-turvy and we are as a society in no way prepared to deal with that reality, let alone the other implications in terms of jobs displacement and what the social contract is going to look like, all of that.

12:01So to me, I find it all, I'm very troubled by all of it. I'm worried as hell. You know, we were talking, the first Sora video that went viral was a surveillance video of Sam Altman. Of Sam, yeah. And I said, can you imagine if this shit had been around just a few weeks ago when Charlie was shot and Tyler Robinson deep fakes that were going around? You can see it happening like this. Also, to the discussion we just had about potential division and all that. Yeah. These boomers barely know what's real on Facebook. Have you seen some of the stuff they're already sharing? Yes. Which is so fake. Those weird bridge videos where people are on a glass bridge and it falls apart and then a dog rescues a girl and whatever.

12:35And people are believing this stuff. Yeah, it's really scary. I mean, I'm not sure that some of the Tyler Robinson stuff that I have seen isn't AI. I don't know for sure. I'm not sure. Right? These surveillance, they're grainy, whatever. You could fake that easily already. So, I don't know. Welcome 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. 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.

13:13It 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. 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.

14:18shapes us and what gives us hope. We get honest about the big stuff. Identity when you don't recognize yourself anymore. Loss that changes you. Purpose when success isn't enough. Peace when your mind won't slow down. Faith when it's complicated. Some guests have answers. Most are still figuring it out. If you've ever felt like there has to be more to the story, this show is for you. Listen to If You Can Hear Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

14:53China'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.

15:43Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why don't we get to shutdown? Yeah, a lot going on here in terms of, obviously, still government shutdown. Appears to be an impasse as well. Trump is trying to, you know, pin the blame on Democrats. will show you some polling to indicate whether people are buying that or not. But let's go ahead and take a listen to Trump. Well, I call them Democrat layoffs. They're Democrat layoffs. They're causing it. We're ready to go back. You know, we have a record-setting economy. We have a record-setting country.

16:21Prices are way down. We're doing better than the country's ever done. And the Democrats hate seeing that. It's up to them. Anybody laid off, that's because of the Democrat, despite the current Democrat induced shutdown, we will get our service members every last penny. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. You're welcome. And Sagar, I'm sure you saw how they were like forcing people's like out of office replies to blame the Democrats and putting up messages on the government websites. I mean, Hatch Act, what's that? Apparently doesn't matter anymore. But that's his framing. Yes. Well, you know, I said this this morning.

17:00Is this the weirdest shutdown you've ever been through? 2013 and 2018, it was the biggest story in the world. Yeah. Front page of the New York Times, there's not a single story about the shutdown. Not one. Really? I went to the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Open AI is the leading story. Nobody cares. It's crazy. I mean, look, this may be a D.C. bias, but 2013 and 2018, especially, I cover the White House in 2018? Every single day. Shutdown, shutdown, shutdown. When I was in the White House briefing room, shutdown. When Trump was doing a press conference, all we're asking about is a shutdown.

17:32If you were in the White House today, what's the number one question you would ask? Probably Portland or Gaza. I wouldn't ask Trump about the shutdown. It's weird. I mean, look where it is in our show. We put it in. Yeah, you're right. It's number four. It doesn't feel like the stakes are high. And I don't know. I mean, it's a weird situation, right? Because if you can shut the whole government down and Nobody cares. Did the government really shut down? I mean, I'm not saying there won't really be effects or any of that, but it is kind of an interesting question as to the maybe maybe a lot of us are just a nerd.

18:00We went through 2018. Not much change. Let's be honest. It was the longest shutdown in American history. It was 35 days. I lived through it. Half of it was through Christmas. So I guess people just kind of ignored it. TSA still functioned. Troops got paid. Whatever. Right. Maybe that's just where we are now. Like this is just baked into the process, even though it's a sign of like genuine small d like democratic failure. Yeah. In terms of the republic. But it's odd. I've been trying to think through it because I have on my old brain, D.C. brain for a shutdown where I'm like, oh, what about a deal or a gang of nine?

18:32There's nothing. Nothing is happening. Yeah. Everyone's out of town. Yeah. They're not even here. I think it's shutdown fatigue from all these years of shutdown politics. I think it's also just, you know, so many extraordinary things are being done in this in Trump 2.0 in particular that the bar for like freak out is really high. And so and I also think Doge plays in there, too, where you had all of these insane cuts in the hatchets and 100 ,000 federal employees just resigned as part of that, like, fork in the road thing. Their time was up. That just happened. And so, you know, these massive cuts to the federal government that have happened under the Trump administration also just feel sort of like, oh, you know, this is this is what we're doing, apparently.

19:14So I think that's part of part of why. I don't know. That's that's how best I can figure it out is just even in my own sense of like, you know, what I'm most concerned about. The shutdown to me is important for Democrats to take a stand because the only place they have power and to try to fight back. but I would say also the issue suite that they picked is really important, very critical healthcare for people. It's a place where Democrats are winning the rhetorical battle. People broadly support the expansion of the ACA subsidies, etc., but it also doesn't get to the beating heart of what the base cares about, and so I think that's part of it as well.

19:51Definitely. Let's put the polling up there, shall we? Let's just go ahead and skip forward. D3, guys, please. And you can see how the government is handling the shutdown. for Trump, a 32 % approval. Representatives, 28. Congressional Democrats, it's 27. People just, people don't like a shutdown. People just don't care. They just feel like, okay, this is chaos. They disprove all the reactors. This is dysfunction. You know, that's generally how people feel about everybody involved. Let's go to the next one, shall we? And continue. Concern about the government shutdown on the economy. Very concerned, 49%.

20:19But everybody else, either somewhat or not concerned. Let's continue. And we can look at this. Are the positions worth a government shutdown? Democratic position, only 28 % say worth it. to Republican position, only 23 % say worth it. If you look at not worth it, it's 40 and 45. And then not sure is basically equally tied to some 30 % continue, please. Basically showing you, by the way, that people are not fully on board. In terms of who's to blame for the government shutdown, you have the plurality, 39 % say Trump and the Republicans, 30 % say the Democrats, 31 % say equally. So there's a lot of like, eh, either Trump, Democrats, both equally going around kind of hatred of the political system.

20:56And then finally, let's go to the last one. Among Democrats, a congressional shutdown, quote, is it worth it? Only 48 % say yes, which to me, that's a huge messaging failure from the Democratic Party. Agreed, yeah. Because, you know - With your own people, it should be higher. You need to be in the 90. If you had polled Republicans at the height of the 2013 shutdown, was it worth it? I can guarantee you it would have been like 80 or 90%. Oh, you think so? During that Tea Party wave, the Obama, the hatred, where everybody was, they were ready. They were like, we are done. And this is where I do feel like the, you know, what the base wants them to make a stand on is like National Guard needs to be out of our cities, like those sorts of the authoritarian crackdown pieces.

21:40That's where the energy is with the base of basically like you can't fund this authoritarian government. And so the health care piece is smart for a like general audience messaging. And it does put Trump in a bit of a bind and the Republicans in a bit of a bind because the fact that health care is about to get wildly more expensive is genuinely a bad thing for them. That's like a really it's like a red flashing light that is blinking that is about to be a major political problem for them. So they do have some incentive to deal with that and be able to extend those subsidies and not have those issues for the midterms.

22:17You've got some frontline Republicans who are in swing districts who feel like let's just go ahead and, you know, and go ahead and extend these subsidies as well. But if you're trying to energize your own people and like have them committed to this and really be on board and we're like going to the mat and we're not going to cave, etc. It's not really quite it's not quite the right message. It's very focused as it's very like what polls the best? What's our best strategic tactical advantage? I understand it. And by the way, I'm not saying it's not important. I'm just saying in terms of where the energy and the base is, this is not really it.

22:49Do we have that tweet about being weak? Do we have that which you mentioned? Yeah. Maybe I can just talk about it. OK, so they asked people like what words best describe the two parties. And I think they gave them some some choices. So it wasn't just like free form. They gave them some choices. So the number one word describing the Democratic Party at 64 percent is weak. And the number one word describing the Republican Party at 59 percent is extreme. And so that's kind of I mean, I think that's how people view these parties. It's like the Democrats are weak and lifeless. Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, not exactly inspiring any confidence in literally anyone at this point.

23:32And then the Republicans are like off their rockers doing all this crazy stuff. But they're strong. You know, there's a the next one down for Republicans is strong. Wow. So that's, you know, that's kind of. the way that people are viewing this. And yeah, I mean, I do think that's the biggest problem. And that's what people don't understand, not to go too far afield, but that's what people don't understand about the appeal of Zoran is that, or even like, you know, you brought up Graham Plattner earlier, but putting aside like the content of the policy, there's a sense that these guys like know what they believe in.

24:03They're willing to take heat over it. They're willing to take a stand, et cetera. And that is so sorely lacking within the Democratic Party. I do think that just like a content free sense of this is a person who has a strong view of the world and is willing to stand on a principle is a big part of their appeal. I need to see it in a more. That's why I'm I'm watching Graham much closer than New York is a blue city. Like, look, no offense to the guy. I think he ran a good campaign. Good for him. I want to see it work in like an actual polarizing state or, you know, a place where Republicans have won in the past.