11/10/25: Dems Surrender On Shutdown, Trump Ballroom Scandal, Dems Call On Schumer To Shutdown, Trump Calls Affordability A Con Job

23:58Let's consider the man who is like, you know, who they're caving to here, which is Donald Trump. So yesterday he went to the Commanders game here in D.C. What was he doing? He was like doing some of the announcing and stuff. He also, the announcers let him call some of the plays and he literally was like, well, we'll see what happens. Or he would do things where he'd be like, they scored a touchdown. He's like, well, we need some more of those. You know, it was like the worst color commentary that I've ever seen. But yeah, I'm a newer NFL fan. So maybe there, I think there's some guy out there, another awful announcer.

24:31I think it's Collingsworth. I think that's who he is, who might be worse than Trump, but that's pretty much it. Trey Collingsworth, is that his name? I think it's Chris Collingsworth. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so anyway, he was there and the crowd was not super excited to see him. This was some of the most aggressive anti-president booing that I think I've ever seen. This is A8. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. I am saying your name.

24:59You solemnly swear.

25:04And I will support any fan.

25:10the Constitution of the United States. It's called enemies. I mean, that was pretty wild. Okay, to be fair, and I'm just saying, this is the cope for them. You are in the DMV at a hometown game in Commanders where probably three-fourths of the audience either knows somebody who has been fired or has been fired themselves, has been furloughed. If I was Trump, I would not show up to that game. It might be like, this is the worst. It's like, bro, you need to go to a Green Bay game. That's actually I mean, that's that's just a fair point. Yeah, that's true. But that's the that's the point with like people are blaming him for the shutdown.

25:50Right. I mean, the politics Democrats, if they were squishy on the politics and who was coming out on top in terms of like the politics of this thing, the election results last week should have made abundantly clear that people were more blaming Trump. They were blaming the Republicans more for the pain, for the chaos. And the public never likes a shutdown, right? I'm sure actually if you poll today and you ask the public, are you happy that there's a deal? Most of the public is going to say yes, right? But in terms of who was being hurt more, there's no doubt that it was the Republicans and Donald Trump in particular.

26:24There was another thing that's very interesting that I wanted to get your thoughts on, Sagar, which is one of the pollsters did these word clouds of negative things that you'd heard about Trump. And the number one thing actually was the shutdown. Shutdown, government, you still have tariffs in there. Immigration is actually on there as well. But then very recently, oh, Epstein is there too. Very recently, things switched. And take a look at this. This is fascinating to me. Ballroom, White House, East Wing, destroying buildings. Shutdown is still there. But demolish, food stamps and snap there as well.

27:01But, you know, I don't want to read too much into it, but I do have to say the contrast of them denying people food stamp benefits, giving tax cuts to the rich, hanging out with all these wealthy people, you know, shutting down the government. And then meanwhile, you're building this gilded ballroom for yourself and throwing yourself these fancy parties in Mar-a-Lago. I do think that is creating a certain sense among the American people. I mean, it is very like Gilded Age coded and it's very detrimental to his brand, which was supposed to be like, you know, about the working class and really delivering for the people, et cetera, et cetera.

27:39I think I think it just shows that America is a Lindy nation. Lindy is a concept that, you know, things that it's kind of hard to explain, but basically like things that rang true in the past continue to ring true throughout time, throughout all American history, especially, let's say, during the Great Depression. I mean, think about it. During 9-11, if you recall, one of the most famous moments was not just what happened, obviously, with the attacks. It was George W. Bush's bumbling, right? Whenever he was being told about the attacks and he refuses to leave. Like, symbology in these small moments ends up massively mattering.

28:12And things that, you know, in the aggregate, did it really matter that Bush waited? I forget exactly how long he waited, but that was like a huge thing. During the Depression, if you've read a decent amount about it, Herbert Hoover's, like, multi-course dinners that were candlelit at the White House, they became legend in the world of Hoovervilles. And people who were very critical, let's say of the Hoover administration, would be like, he dines in the White House while we sit here in a Hooverville and we wait for our early pension. There was these veteran pension marchers that were happening and they were violently kind of thrown out.

28:47I think it was here in DC. They were camping out on the National Mall. I'd have to go back and check. But the point is like these symbols become things that people really latch onto. And I think for a lot of people, it's about priority. At the end of the day, it's all about priority. He obviously is more laser focused on adding as much gold Home Depot decor as possible at the White House and remaking it in the image of like a low three-star hotel of what he, I guess, perceives as good taste than he is in terms of what's happening to you. That's the point. That's why this stuff matters. It's not about the gold, right?

29:22I mean, I would hope so. Personally, as somebody who loves aesthetics and hates the current reformation of the White House. But I do think if things were going great, nobody would care. But the point is that when you are doing that, you're laser focused on that. You see all this stuff in the news. And you see the bulldozers, the erasure, and the construction. That's happening at the very same time that things are just not getting better for you. Let's put the snap and the air travel stuff aside. Because people forget. It's not just about that. It's a culmination of it's November 10th now. You got elected about a year ago.

29:57What have you done for me lately? And that's the point. You know, inflation remains punishingly high. Health care premiums and all that are going sky high. That's not just because of the Obamacare subsidies. Even the private market, they're up like 10, 15 percent. So if or not, I mean, the employer subsidy market. So if you look at that, if you look at grocery store prices, if you look at the, you know, The AI stuff, data centers, your power bills, housing prices are either flat or have gone, continue to go high. The basics of life are not getting better. And I do think what they underestimated is that many people, we've always said this about Trump, Trump is a bomb thrown into the system.

30:32And the theory behind a bomb thrown into the system is the system is so broken that nothing can be done except for choosing somebody who's choosing something truly radical. If you rewind to a year ago, part of the case I made about the Cash Patels and the RFK Jr., I go, look, for most people, roll the dice. No more institutions. Nothing. No more guard. Nothing. We need some radical shit to happen. And if anything, what's happened instead is, yeah, radical stuff has happened in the wrong direction, right? It's like you're using extraordinary power, right? You're using radical and extraordinary views or theories of executive power to either advance your own individual family's interests, to advance, let's say, like a corporate interest or a tax bill or something.

31:15Let's say some crazy shit on immigration. But like at the end of the day, what's actually happening for me? That's what people want to see. People love radical stuff as long as it's done in the right direction. Exactly. And so that is what I would say the ballroom kind of, you know, comes together. It's the Hoover having the candlelight dinners. It's, I mean, throughout all history, it's like the symbology of it is about cares about that, not about me. Yeah. And it's also about you acting like a king. Yeah, that's true. You know, I've seen people make the point like, well, you think he's building out this$300 million ballroom because he thinks he's going to leave?

31:48Like, who builds that for their successor? And that's the other problem for him is like this is not some little quick, you know, weekend renovation project. This construction is going to be ongoing. And he does have at least enough of a sense to realize it's a bit of a problem for him because he banned everybody from taking pictures of it. Like, this is a man who understands branding, image, optics. Like, if nothing else, that's something that he really gets. But he also, you know, loves a good construction project with, like, laden and gilded with gold and just can't resist it. He's sending out all these pictures about his frickin' marble bathroom.

32:25And then now, you know, if you scroll on Twitter, you'll just see endless reels of what's going on at Mar-a-Lago. You know, this weekend they had some opulent seafood buffet with the stone crab claws that cost a ridiculous amount per pound while Americans are literally going hungry. because you won't send out the food stamp money that you're actually obligated to send out. So, you know, I want to give credit to Neera Dan. And she said, like, they're going to lose. Yes, she did. She was like, they're going to lose the midterm elections because of this East Wing double election. I was like, come on.

32:55Okay, that's a little. I was like, I was happy about it. I said, people, join me. Maybe she has a point. Yeah, look, let's always remember politics is bread and circus, it's theater. And so any Democrat who is worth anything, who's running for office, should be like, I will tear down the ballroom on day one. We don't care about the costs. We don't care about it. We will rip this ballroom to shreds. We will publish daily updates on demolition. The gold will be smelted and whatever actual amount of carrot gold is in the fixings of considering that most of it. We will smelt the gold and we will distribute it to the Americans.

33:37We will burn it quite literally, like in Game of Thrones when they melt it, and then they pour it on the face of the opponent. That is what we promise to do. We will restore the Oval to its glory of John F. Kennedy whenever it was understated, it was a place of work, and it was one in which we could all see ourselves in the Oval Office and not instead the throne room at Versailles. See, these are all good things that I like. But, I mean, look, at this point, obviously it's caught on. People are mad. They're mad about it. And I like it, I think, because, as you said, there's the kingly element to it.

34:11There's also something, I mean, I always said this about his demolition. I was like, dude, it's not about you. The whole point is that the White House is literally not about you. The White House transcends. And I don't even like the White House. The White House sucks. Have you ever been there? It's dingy. It hasn't been renovated since the 1980s. It's actually not nice. I'm not saying Trump doesn't have a point. I think the point for all of us is like, yeah, but we didn't ask you to turn it into Mar-a-Lago. Like, that photo of the Lincoln bedroom, that almost gave me a heart attack, okay? That almost gave me a heart attack.

34:38I mean, see, I can't deal with this. I mean, we're not living in Las Vegas. It's like, it's actually going to make me have a meltdown. And it's one of those where I think there are a lot of people who feel the same. Apparently, that was the normie. I love it. I love it. The normie sense was like, now you've gone too far. Yes. It's true. Now you've gone too far. Yes. Not everything needs to look like the Palazzo in Las Vegas or the Trump International Hotel or any of these. But again, the point is, it's not yours to do. That's the whole point. It's not for you to, I mean, the walk of fame thing in the colonnade, that's the colonnade.

35:16It's disgusting. It's like, that's where we take photos with world leaders. And now we have fucking gold everywhere. It literally looks like. With a sign. It literally looks like the Venetian in Vegas. Who needs to, why do we need to label the Oval Office? You don't need a label on the Oval. It's the most recognizable room in the nation. You don't need a sign in the Oval Office. It's like going to some shitty golf course, like a public golf course, that you pay like$50 for entry, and there's a sign that says the clubhouse. That's what it looks like. It's funny you say that. The script legit reminds me of like Country Club, like where you post the best golfers at the club or whatever.

35:53That's what it looks like. And just one last piece on this to the point. Put A12 up on the screen. Like, meanwhile, this is what I believe this is Newark looks like yesterday. All those planes waiting for takeoff. And by the way, you know, even look, it's the government's not reopened yet. It's going to take some time. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's got to go through the House, back to the Senate, et cetera, et cetera. But you had a bunch of air traffic controllers. And Sean Duffy came out and said this, who are gone. Like, they resigned. I can't go without a paycheck. Like, screw this. I'm done with this job.

36:25This job is difficult. It's stressful. and now I'm supposed to work endlessly without getting paid? See ya, I'm out of here. So these problems are not just going to like fix themselves. Once the government is reopened, it'll be better, but you've now lost critical capacity at our nation's airports. And, you know, rather than caring about that or the people are going hungry and there's literal bread lines and, you know, cities across the country and 70 some percent of the country says the economy's poor and you're giving the store away to a bunch of oligarchs and sucking up, you know, as much cash as you can in your own pocket.

37:00Instead of caring about any of the things that American people actually care about, you're building a friggin' ballroom for yourself. Okay, got it. Got it. 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 at a breaking point. Writings 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.

37:36Jackson. 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. 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.

38:19Hi, 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.

38:45What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul, a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes 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.

39:23Some 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.

39:43Fortunate to be joined this morning by Representative Ro Khanna of California. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, sir. Good morning. So you tweeted yesterday in response to a number of centrist Democrats caving to the Republicans and voting for the shutdown deal. You tweeted this. Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can't lead the fight to stop health care premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for? What led you to that conclusion, Congressman? Just a moral disgust. I mean, I know personally, as I'm sure you do, people whose premiums are going to go up$1 ,000,$2 ,000 a month.

40:23Millions of Americans are literally going to get kicked off health care. And we can't fight to make sure that their premiums don't go up after the Tuesday wins. It's just political malpractice. Here you have Donald Trump on the ropes, scrambling, trying to make some deal. And we basically say, well, we don't care if the premiums go up. Like, what do we stand for? So he needs to be replaced and stepped down. More Democrats need to be calling for that. The only reason they aren't calling for it, let me be blunt, is because you offend a lot of donors. There are a lot of billionaires. There are a lot of donors that contribute to the DSCC, that contribute to Chuck Schumer.

41:00But, you know, we've got to make a choice of this party. Are we going to be beholden to the donors that have gotten us two terms of Donald Trump, or are we going to listen to people? Sir, the cope from the Schumer crowd is, well, he voted no. What is he supposed to do? He can't keep his caucus in line. What's your response to that? Come on. Schumer's been in politics for 50 years. I mean, even he couldn't say that with a straight face. He controls the caucus. He determines when a deal can be cut. He obviously gave them the green light. I don't think he would even deny that. He didn't call up Dick Durbin, his number two, and say, hey, Dick, maybe you shouldn't be voting this way.

41:43So this is the typical game. It actually adds to the cynicism. I mean, if he had just voted for it, at least he could have made, maybe he has a principled argument. But this is the worst of both worlds. It's like, look, I'm going to try to play a political game. But at the end of the day, the premiums are still going to go up. So Congressman, let me let me play devil's advocate here. So what the centrist say is basically like, look, the Republicans drew a hard line. They were not bending. Trump isn't even negotiating with us. They say they will not give us anything other than this. And meanwhile, you've got 40 plus million people who are going hungry without food stamps.

42:19You've got all these federal government workers who are out of work, not getting paychecks. You've got increasing chaos at the airlines. I know you yourself have suffered from some of the air travel nightmares. We're heading into Thanksgiving here. We're trying to be the adults in the room. What do you say to that? Well, look, obviously, people are suffering. In my district, they're suffering in terms of the SNAP benefits being cut. There's no doubt that on the airlines, I mean, I was just talking yesterday, I was in the airport six hours. There are a lot of lines, cuts, air traffic controllers aren't being paid.

42:52Congressional staff aren't being paid. Federal workers aren't being paid. I get all of that. And what we should be talking about is reopening the House of Representatives so we can vote to extend staff benefits, pay troops. I think we had a lot of leverage to continue to put the pressure on to do that. But you had Donald Trump literally saying we lost the election because of this. We need to get some deal. And I think we could have gotten an extension. Could we have gotten it permanent on the tax credits? Maybe not. But a year? I mean, there were Republican House members like Lawler who were willing to give a year.

43:24And the fact is that we've got nothing. I mean, that's what is so frustrating about the situation. And then, I mean, how do you think Leader Jeffries is going to handle this in the House of Representatives, Congressman? So far, he is saying that we're going to fight it with any procedural vote we can. I mean, we need a few Republicans to break. They may break, depending on what the bill is. So the Democrats in the House are going to stay united and fight for stopping the premium increases. You know, back on the point with Schumer, one of your colleagues, Mark Pocan, also tweeted this out. He said, don't endorse or say who you voted for in NYC despite there being a Dem candidate.

44:08Get Dem senators to negotiate a terrible deal that does nothing real about health care. Screw over a national political party. Profile of courage. of profile. I think he most meant to say profile of courage, question mark next. So clearly your sentiment is shared by at least some of your colleagues, you know, and I think the point he makes there too about Chuck Schumer refusing to even say who he voted for in New York City, I think it's an important one as well, because if you're going to be a leader of the Democratic Party and the Democratic base is saying, hey, this is Zora Mamdani. This is our guy.

44:43Like we like this guy. We like the direction he's going. If we're going to vote for him in the primary. We're going to show up in record-breaking numbers to vote for him in the general election, make sure that he wins. And you can't even say that you voted for the Democratic candidate? I mean, how out of step are you with your own voters in the party, let alone your own caucus, let alone colleagues such as you? But he's also, and most importantly, wildly out of step with where his own voters are within the Democratic Party. So you're absolutely right. I mean, look, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.

45:19You had Chuck Schumer cheerleading into the war in Iraq. You've had Chuck Schumer cheerleading for a blank check to Netanyahu. You've had Chuck Schumer betraying us on the first shutdown. You then had Chuck Schumer given multiple opportunities after Zoran won the primary to at least endorse him, even if it was a pro forma endorsement. He doesn't do that. And now he's not even willing to fight to make sure that the ACA subsidies don't increase. So to your earlier question about are there difficult questions on SNAP benefits and proof pay, of course there are. And maybe if this was the only context, Chung Shriver would have some grace and goodwill and say, OK, we disagree.

45:57We disagree with this deal, but it's not enough to call for you to step down. But this is the culmination of someone who just doesn't get it, who doesn't get how much people are hurting, who doesn't get where the base of this party is, who doesn't get how upset this party has been that we're giving all this money to overseas wars and not doing health care here, who certainly is never going to support Medicare for all. He's just not the future of the party. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us, Congressman. We appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles.

46:31I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated. And Black America is 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. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago.

47:14This 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, 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.

48:06What do you do when the headlines don't explain what's happening inside of you? I'm Ben Higgins, and if you can hear me, it's where culture meets the soul. a place for real conversation. Each episode, I sit down with people from all walks of life, celebrities, thinkers, and everyday folks, and we go deeper than the polished story. We talk about what drives us, what shapes 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.

48:43Some 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.

49:04Turning now to affordability. The White House denying the affordability campaign of Zoran Mamdani in New York City, saying that it's a bit of a Democratic hoax, but at the very same time acknowledging it's a huge problem actually for them in the elections that are coming forward in 2026. And they've come up with some truly boneheaded plans. But first, let's start with Donald Trump on affordability itself. Is it a problem? Let's take a listen. Walmart said that the Thanksgiving was 25 more expensive, 25 percent more expensive under Biden. That's a big, to me, that's a big number because Walmart's respected.

49:41I mean, Walmart is Walmart and, you know, they're giving you prices. So that would mean that the whole series of pricing and costs, you know, the groceries and everything else, it was a con job. It was a con job. Affordability, they call it, was a con job by the Democrats. The Democrats are good at a few things, cheating on elections and conning people with facts that aren't true. Affordability was a con job. Trump has become Biden, like literally in the exact, he's like, well, they're lying to you about the numbers and they're putting out charts. They're doing everything they possibly can. They're like, well, the stock market is near all-time highs, and everybody's like, yeah, but shit's actually still too expensive.

50:24Like, it's not that difficult to figure it out. It's actually shocking how quickly you could turn from the people who correctly, in my opinion, made fun of Bidenomics, only to then do your only version of that. They also, borrowing from Biden, are doing boneheaded, idiotic proposals, which will do absolutely nothing and reveal how corrupt the entire system is. Let's just go ahead and put this one up here on the screen, shall we? So this is from Bill Pulte, who is the U.S. Director of Federal Housing. And in response to the Zoran Mamdani election, which was centered around affordability and around rent, he says, thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on the 50-year mortgage, a complete game changer.

51:09Now, the theory behind the 50-year mortgage is, oh, hey, the 30-year mortgage, you know, that storied thing in the U.S. history, finance, the ability of the middle class and others to get in the housing market. The problem with affordability is that people's mortgage payments are too expensive. Definitely true. And so what we will do is we will extend it 20 years over its life cycle. And by doing that, you will save a couple hundred dollars per month, which, you know, not exactly a lot, but you will pay millions of dollars or more in interest to the bank, and you will basically be a renter. And by the way, we're not going to do anything about capital being able to come in to the housing market.

51:47We're not going to do anything to incentivize first-time homebuyers. We're not going to inject a massive amount of money to build more housing. We're not going to do anything on the supply side. We're actually just going to make it so that the demand side is slightly, let's say, maybe 5%, a little bit better for the potential buyer. And it's, I don't know, 200%, 300 % better for the banks and for the financial institutions. If you don't believe me, just check out the math. And you can do this for yourself and any mortgage calculator if you want. Put this up here on the screen. I love this. $500 ,000 house, 2021.

52:163 % interest rate,$2 ,100 payment. Mortgage, 30 years. Total interest payments, quarter of a million. 2025,$500 ,000 house. 7 % interest rate,$3 ,000 payment. Mortgage in a 50-year mortgage. So they're 20 years longer, but with double the interest rate. Total interest payments,$1 million. A million dollars in interest. Double the amount of the house. Just in interest. Just in interest. Double the amount of it. And by the way, that's the case in many of these 30-year mortgages too. Part of the reason I'm Ramsey-pilled. Second discussion. We'll put that to the side. You should all take a look. What is it called?

52:51The amortization schedule on your mortgage. Seriously, please go and look at the calculators for these things. The extending the life cycle of the mortgage barely saves you any money in terms of the overall period. It is a boon to the bank in a way I can't even describe. I mean, look at that. that's three quarters of a million dollars in interest that the bank gets for Chase Manhattan and all these other people to increase their stocks or whatever. I mean, it's a disastrous idea. It also, in my opinion, gives the game away as to how these people actually have genuinely no solutions whenever it comes to housing.

53:28Now, on the healthcare thing, we were originally gonna do a segment about healthcare premiums and we can debate all day long, you know, Medicare for all, coverage, price controls, et cetera. The point, though, unfortunately, is that neither party actually believes in either of those. And I'm seeing that whenever it comes to housing as well. At the local level, people in San Francisco are fed up and, you know, they're trying to embrace Yimbyism, but they've got their local politicians currently bragging about bringing down like a six-story building. Not a joke, by the way. That actually happened.

53:55And the only state that has really embraced like true Yimby policy has been Texas. They've had relatively mixed results, but I would say overall it's good, but it's still very local. Nobody has a national plan to really do anything about it. And I thought that the Wall Street Journal actually summed up this all very well. Let's put this up here on the screen. Why lower mortgage rates aren't enough to make homes more affordable. What they have in front of you is something called the Housing Affordability Index. Just take a look. I mean, you can see in terms of the affordability index that we have reached a near all-time low ever since 2021.

54:28And we've just hovered around that for the entire time. And actually, if you look at something that's even more important called the home price to income ratio. And if you look at the overall 50-year average, between the 1970s and 2000, we were below the 50-year average. Things spiked during the Great Recession and the housing bubble in 2006, 2005 period, whenever there was a ton of fake affordability happening because they were giving loans, like those no-doc loans, no-income loans, and those types of things out. Then it plunged right back to normal-ish type levels. And then, yeah, ever since 2021, it went sky high.

55:00Home prices went up some 50%, and the price-to-income ratio has remained near the all-time high for the last five years. This is something I also find as a generational thing. A lot of boomers, if you think about this from a boomer mind, five years is not that long time. If you're in your 60s, you're waiting for Medicare, whatever. It's just not that long. You've lived a decent amount of life. If you're in your 20s, five years is an eternity. Five years are those exponential years where you're trying to build a foundation. You might get married. you might have a kid. I mean, five years ago, we weren't even hosting the show.

55:31I got married, I had a child. You're liking radically change in five years. That's not the case for people who are much older. So people are like, oh, these millennials, they have no idea. It's like, no, I think they do have an idea. Number one, it's five years in a 20-something year lifespan is just a decent much more chunk of your life. But they're the most important years in a lot of ways to be able to see that you're on an upward trajectory in life. And there's no denying that you're on a downward trajectory right now. And in my opinion, we've been on a downward trajectory for 25 years ever since the year 2000.

56:01So I feel like when you put those together and you look at housing, you see this ridiculous policy of 50 year as the best somebody can muster with radical thinking. I don't really see a ton, frankly, on the Democratic side either. I'm not against Yimby. Let me be clear, in some cases, but also I think the point just comes down to massive, massive, massive amounts, like Manhattan-level project amounts of grants to all the states with the requirement they must build housing. The people and the politicians in those states can figure it out, how they want to do it. You can build more single families, whatever.

56:37It's up to you. Urban, mixed, residential, et cetera. But you need a shit ton more supply. And people just don't want to go there because the landed gentry is also opposed to it. So it's just a total misalignment of incentives. Right. Well, to stick with housing specifically, you know, you've got the new like abundance. It's not really new, but whatever. Abundance movement in the Democratic Party, which is very focused on Yimbyism. Fine. It's not enough. Right. Just rolling back the regulations. Texas, like you said, is a great example. It's not like it's solved all their problems either. You need that.

57:13But then you're going to have to not only tackle the entrenched interest homeowners, very powerful political constituency, and they are really devoted to a lot of nimbyism. So you have to deal with that. But then you also are going to have to deal with the developers. You're going to have to also deal with permanent capital, which has bought up a bunch of single family homes and, you know, is part of what is made. The housing market is so much more expensive. You have to deal with that. You have to deal with the like landlord cartels as well to deal with algorithmic pricing. That's the thing is you have to be willing to go up against entrenched interest, entrenched moneyed interest on a variety of fronts.

57:49Same with health care. And by the way, you know, what you're talking about is you this isn't something you can just leave to the market. That's why neoliberalism has utterly failed in this regard. You can't just leave it to the market. Developers, what they want to build is like high end, you know, condos for rich people, because that's those are the people who have all the money. You're going to need a lot more, frankly, state central planning, whether that's at the state level or at the federal level or some combination of both. And that has been anathema to both the political parties for years and years and years.

58:19So it really requires a sort of revolutionary rethink of the relationship between the government and the people and how involved they are and going back to some of, you know, like New Deal era policies and learning from the mistakes of that and improving upon the model from that era as well. Health care is the same thing. I mean, again, you'd have to take on these incredibly entrenched interests. And so instead of doing that, what did Obama do? He said, OK, well, let's come to a compromise with the insurers. Let's actually make it so that we're guaranteeing them a clientele. We're guaranteeing them that everybody's going to be in these markets so they can profit off of them more greatly.

58:52And at the same time, we'll put some restrictions into place so that people aren't getting screwed over quite as badly as they were in the previous system. No, there's no compromise to be had with these forces. You have to actually confront them. And that's the place that we're at. And so, you know, the common sort of thread between Trump has now thrown out a bunch, several of these like, oh, I got killed on affordability. What can I do kind of policies? You've got the 50 year mortgage total giveaway to the banks. I mean, just a preposterous idea. You've got this health care. OK, rather than doing the extending the premium subsidies, we're going to just send you money direct into your account, which, you know, I'm not like I'm not like morally opposed to, but it doesn't fix the problem at all.

59:31And it's actually going to what it's going to end up doing is exacerbating the problem because then you're going to have fewer people in the insurance marketplace. Preembs for those remain are going to go up even further. You're just pushing us more into that death spiral mode. And you're not dealing with any of the underlying issues of a for profit health care system. And then the big problem, just people feeling like the economy is shitty and they don't have enough money. The end of the month, he came up with this other brilliant idea of, oh, we're going to use the tariff revenue to send everybody two thousand dollars, which I'm sure there isn't sufficient tariff revenue to do that.

59:59But then, by the way, the Supreme Court is very likely striking those tariffs down and you're going to have to send that money back to someone somehow. Not to mention Scott Bessett went on TV and was like, well, the two thousand dollars could come in a variety of forms. It might be the tax cuts that we've already passed. But again, even if you took him at his face value and he's sending out two thousand dollar checks. OK, we got stimmy checks before. Did that solve the problems of our economy? Did that lessen inequality? It made it easier for people in that moment is better than nothing. but you still have stagnant wages.

1:00:28You still have them going whole hog on AI, which is meant to push all of you all out of a job. You still have the wealthy basically rigging the rules and eating the economy and making sure that all the gains flow into their own bank accounts for Elon Musk about to be the world's first trillionaire. So none of these things, all of these are like weird little gimmicky band-aids to make it look like he cares and is doing something, has some kind of a solution. None of it deals with the underlying problems. Yeah, you need to subsidize both demand and supply at the lower end or for first-time homebuyers.

1:01:00And of course, this is something that could actually happen. You could literally, if you created it, if you wanted, you could have a homebuyer tax credit, first-time homebuyer. Make it so that if you're first-time or if you have an own-to-own within a couple of years, you get a huge tax credit whenever that comes. You could delay their capital gains tax only for the first-time home purchase. And then people who own one or two or more homes aren't allowed to use that capital gains roll tax that they're very expert at doing. You can also do demand side tax credits for loans. Make it so that suppliers, home builders aren't just subsidizing homes or building homes for boomers.

1:01:33Make it so that they can also extend significant write off. You can make it so that property taxes for people who are younger, first time home buyers are either deductible or you can create some state funding thing that makes it so that they give relief to the – You know, I've talked about property tax relief. There should be property tax relief at the bottom end of the spectrum when you're getting started, not at the top whenever you're a multimillionaire already. And when you're already sitting on hugely appreciated homes, which are way too big, and you have no business being in it in the first place.

1:02:00Like, the whole system, like you just said, top to bottom is screwed. I was just telling you today, there's a new study out from the University of Toronto. Let me read you a little bit of this. Um, rising housing costs have caused 51 % of the total fertility rate decline between 2000s and 2010s and a 7 % point fewer young families in the 2010s alone. Now, obviously, you know, the methodology, et cetera, we can debate. It's pretty hard to say exactly 51%, but it does make a little bit of sense, you know? If it's too expensive to have space where you can raise kids, then maybe you'll just have less kids.

1:02:41I see this all the time. In the DMV where we live, it is the single most expensive place to raise a family in the United States of America. Number one in healthcare. I'm not exaggerating. Look it up from the Wall Street Journal. Number one, child cost. number two in terms of affordability, in terms of housing, and the four counties, four out of the five richest counties in the United States are all here in the DMV. And you're like, I'm not joking. Like, you can be an hour away from D.C. and the median home price is like$1.2 million. Like, what are you supposed to do there? Exactly. Where are people who want more than two children even going to live if you're leveraged up to the hilt at a 6 % mortgage trying to buy a house like that?

1:03:19That's the fundamental problem. Nobody wants to do anything about it. I see very little actually being proposed broadly. Like you said, yeah, abundance is great for New York City or for San Francisco. What about in the suburbs? What about in the - Even there is not going to be enough, though. Right, exactly. And even in New York, we've talked about that. You know, Zoran, he's like, oh, you know, his dream is to build 200 ,000 more units. Yeah, yeah, great. But it's like we said, look at the population. This is 8 million people, right? I mean, that's not even, you're not even making a dent in terms of the overall percentage.

1:03:49So I don't know. I'm starting to believe in the grand unified theory of housing. Like I actually think housing may actually be the central part of it. It's from politics. It's so central to America, to property ownership. Like our literal common law is based around property ownership. We're a very different society than a lot of renter societies throughout the world, especially in the developed world. For a long time, that was kind of the vision that was pushed by like the true neoliberals and now they're embracing that, you know, you need assets to be an independent man, to be an independent citizen, to have stake in your society.

1:04:18And we're really losing that. And I think that that is causing the radicalism like everywhere. And unfortunately, we're just moving in the opposite direction. Yeah, it's a big part of it for sure. I really think so. I mean, it's so core to being an American citizen. It's what really does set us apart from our wealth and kind of who we are to a lot of different countries around the world where it's baked in. You just live in an apartment. You pay rent for the whole. I mean, economically, it's also just the way our society is structured so that like that's the primary wealth building opportunity that is available to Americans.

1:04:47And so if you're shut down of that, I mean, you know, the legacy of like historic discrimination against black Americans, you can see how much lower their wealth accumulation is. And housing is a huge part of that. But, yeah, if you're a young person and you're like mom and dad bought a house when they're freaking 25 years old and here I am 35 years old and still don't have a prayer. Yeah. I mean, that is one of all these people who point out, oh, things are better and you're definitely better off than your parents were. And here's all the ways, et cetera. You know, on some really core things like education and housing and health care and literal how long you live life expectancy.

1:05:24We're going backwards. And of course, that's going to create a radical politics, of course. And it should, by the way, because clearly the solutions of the moment are not not working. Right. They have failed. And so you have to try something that is radically different. People thought they were voting for that with Trump. Instead, they got a gilded ballroom and whatever this mortgage mess is. Yeah, it's bad. By the way, the best part is it's not even particularly going to happen. Like the 50-year mortgage, because it's like some FHA loan. And a lot of people, to their credit, actually did speak out against this.

1:05:56Yeah, I genuinely did not see anyone who was not a member of the administration being like, this is a good idea. I'm sure there were some, but I didn't see any. It was pretty across the board, like, this sucks. And here's the thing, too. You should have no faith that anything transformational will happen in the next three and a half years. One of the things, I think I was on leave during the big, beautiful bill, but what I always try to hammer home, America only opens up the tax code once every five years. That's it. Five years. That's every single time. That's the only time that we open up the tax code.

1:06:28That was the only shot that most people, if you're 25 years old, you're going to have to wait until you're 30 until you may have a chance. And having lived through two of these cycles now that you and I have covered, what has happened? Huge extension tax cut for the wealthy. Huge tax cut for the wealthy. Frankly, Obama, what, make permanent Bush tax cuts? Yep. Bush does the tax cuts back in 2000, what was it, 2003? I want to think back. It's been 25 years since I've seen some radical, actually interesting stuff happen in the U.S. tax code. And that's my entire adult life, including my teenage years, for that.

1:07:00So think about that for people who are younger. You're going to have to wait now for years before somebody is even potentially going to be able to help you out, and they probably still won't. It's been since the Bush administration that we raised the minimum wage. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I forgot about it. I mean, that's just insane. Absolutely insane.

1:07:301969. 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. You can scroll the headlines all day and still feel empty. I'm Ben Higgins, and If You Can Hear Me is where culture meets the soul.

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