5/11/26: Bibi Demands More War, Dire Economic Warnings, VA Maps Struck Down

24:40We're going to be seeing the repercussions of this for years and decades to come. So the landscape is that dire on the American side, but the willingness to accept that reality from Trump, sublimate his ego, accept this humiliating defeat and the reality that would set in once you've actually inked a solidified deal here. I just it's hard for me to see him going in that direction, which is why it continues to be so dangerous. And when you see it out there retweeting Mark Levin, Sots calling for all sorts of insanity and you see the sorts of people he's surrounding himself with and who he's putting on the negotiating team.

25:12It's no surprise that the Iranians fully expect that they're going to face renewed attacks from the U.S. and Israel and the UAE and Saudi and the other allies in the region. Yeah. And by the way, none of this has to mean that things are going swimmingly for Iran. It's a question of whether the cost benefit analysis for Trump for the United States is such that it's worth either escalating or, to your point, Trump sublimating his ego and saving face and cutting bait at a certain point. So, So, yeah, he continues to say they have no cards. Well, they do have a card, which is obviously the Strait of Hormuz.

25:49And he doesn't want to make that one of his key concessions in a peace negotiation, because it was obviously open before the war began. And that sticking point is not budging one bit, despite the Iranians obviously taking some real hits. But in asymmetric warfare, they continue to have several cards, despite what the president says. So massive geographic advantage, very low cost, their weaponry. They have a much more effective, frankly, industrial base than we do. You know, we've we are still learning. Actually, there was a briefing, apparently classified briefing on Capitol Hill about how many of our munitions had been depleted.

26:27Senator Mark Kelly, of course, served in the military, came out and was horrified by the way that our stockpile has been diminished. And that can't be dealt with in a matter of days or weeks or even months. This is we're talking about years long effort to rebuild what we expended during what 40 days of warfare. I was pretty, pretty wild to see. So. So in any case, that's where things are this morning. Extremely volatile, very precarious. The Iranian proposal dismissed outright by Trump and a lot of signs that we could be headed in a very dangerous direction. And now another appliance triumph from your friends at Grand Appliance.

27:07Meet Jan. Her fridge died days before a dinner party, but she didn't panic. I just called my guy at Grand Appliance. He recommended a large capacity GE profile option with fingerprint resistant stainless steel and a convertible middle drawer. I can optimize for meat, beverages, snacks or wine. Best of all, it was in stock and they delivered next day. Another crisis averted by Grand Appliance. Shop GrandAppliance.com to learn more. Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI.

27:46It all starts with your prompt, from renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20 % year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S &P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1 % bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast.

28:18Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. When people turn to telehealth or weight loss, they're looking for real support. That's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com. Orderly Meds connects you with real doctors and access to proven GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and terzeptatide.

28:45No guessing, just a more supportive experience and all shipped directly to your door in discreet packaging. Do your research, ask questions, then visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast for an exclusive offer. That's borderlymeds.com slash podcast. Individual results may vary. Now medical advice eligibility required. See site for details.

29:05The economy certainly headed in a very dangerous direction as well. No question about it. Republicans right now saying bombing might have to begin once more, but the American people are obviously not on board with the war, have not been on board with the war from the beginning. And the question as to whether the American people are making up their mind on the war with accurate information is now front and center because of a new, well, some new reporting. There's been some significant new reporting actually on this front. Do we know how much the war is actually costing? Let's put this New York Times terror sheet up on the screen.

29:39There's a headline. Hegseth says this war has cost$25 billion. I tallied up the true amount. This is from Justin Wolfers, obviously professor of public policy at the University of Michigan. And Wolfers wrote in The Times, quote, the Defense Department says the conflict with Iran has cost$25 billion so far. He says this tally significantly understates the true cost. By my calculations, the bill for a typical American household likely runs to thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. He says, yes, that's a wide range. Blame the economic fog of war. But man, Crystal, these numbers right now, as they become more and more pronounced and obvious in the media and the American people are paying more at the pump and then looking at exactly how much more debt we're going into to fund the war per person.

30:32So it's not even just, I think, first and foremost for most people, it's about prices increasing and what you're seeing every day on the table. But then just the long-term ramifications for your own budget as an American family because of this, as that becomes more and more obvious. I mean, let's put B2 up on the screen. It becomes more obvious in people's everyday lives. This is the Kraft Heinz CEO who said in an interview this last week, quote, they're literally running out of money at the end of the month. We're seeing negative cash flows in the lower income brackets where they're dipping into savings.

31:10So just about what you're already seeing in consumer patterns, we're what, two months into this thing, two and a half months into this thing. And even if it were to hypothetically, someone waves a magic wand, end today, the economy is not just going to get better. It's turning the Titanic around at this point, Crystal. So heading into the midterms, Trump is poised to lose what little support for the war he has left. The more we see of this, we haven't really even seen the beginning here in the United States, or I should say we've probably just seen the beginning, just the tip of the iceberg. This is about to get much, much worse.

31:45Yeah, that's absolutely the case. And Americans famously already don't have a lot of savings, don't have a lot of margin for error. So when you have the specter of gas prices going up and up and up day after day, week after week after week with no end in sight. People in elites in D.C., policymakers, they may not be feeling the pinch yet, but I can promise you, I can promise you, ordinary Americans, for them, it's already a crisis. And that's what you see reflected there in the comments from the Krafthine CEO. I always pay very close attention to those things we've covered before. McDonald's CEO saying, hey, people are just skipping breakfast now.

32:25And not that we're celebrating people getting breakfast from McDonald's, although I am personally a big McGriddle fan, but we'll put that aside. But when people are just saying, I'm just not doing this at all, that's a very dire sign. I wanted to go back just briefly to that estimate from Justin Wolfers, because I think it's so significant. He says not only does the cost directly to each American family total in the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars, but when you look at the total cost of this war and you factor in, as you said, the increase in the cost of service, our debt, which has already gone up significantly when you factor in new disability benefits and mental health problems for veterans who are serving, God forbid, if we do go in some sort of a ground invasion, those sorts of costs are going to escalate.

33:10When you think about repairing all the damages of those bases that have been obliterated, destroyed, if we even decide we're going to go back in there and fix them and take up those positions in the region again, which I think is a big question. But those are huge, huge costs. Then you think about the economic cost day to day of the oil markets, the gas prices going up, the way that fuels inflation. And he says 25 billion is an insane low ball. This is his quote. The best any economist can do right now is get the order of magnitude right. And my math suggests the Iran war will cost hundreds of billions of dollars and very possibly trillions, trillions of dollars for this folly, for this, you know, so far 40 day and counting folly.

33:56He says war is hell and hell comes with a hefty price tag. So that is what this president has signed us up for. Yeah. And I also wanted to go back to Wolfers just on another point about what's happening in the market. So before we go back to Wolfers, let's put up this next tear sheet. This is before, this is a quote from a Financial Times article. Yeah, where you have a banker speaking anonymously to FT saying, quote, does anyone really care if the Strait of Hormuz is open? Now, in the Wolfer's article, he writes, quote, Wall Street is worried despite the market touching new highs. Every time the president takes a more belligerent stance, stocks tank, suggesting that investors think this conflict will undermine the value of leading U.S.

34:38companies. My estimate, based on the movement of oil prices, along with the S &P 500, is that stocks are about 5 percent lower than the otherwise would be, suggesting that the war has wiped out about$3 trillion off the value of these companies. And Crystal, the contrast between Wolfers, I think, reading what's happened in Wall Street pretty accurately and one banker just talking about how Wall Street is riding this AI boom for now, for now, is pretty interesting because it kind of depends on your vantage point. If you're worried about the market as a whole or what it means for average Americans or what it means for your returns, I guess you're probably thinking of this word differently depending on that vantage point.

35:21Because if you're cool to just coast off of the AI boom as opposed to being like an average American who really does have to worry about what's happening in the S &P 500, that is a pretty different vantage point. Just extraordinary. Yeah. And it wasn't just that one person. Apparently, there was a sort of rough poll, a show of hands about, hey, do you think the stock market is going to end up even further on the year? Or do you think it's going to end down from where we are right now? And the overwhelming consensus was that the line was going to continue to go up. The headline describes it as blissful ignorance.

35:56And look, I think this is proof positive that the stock market is not only divorced from the reality of what ordinary Americans' lives are, it is a negative indicator. The more the stock market goes up, oftentimes in recent years, it's been because, oh, we did a bunch of layoffs because we can use AI to replace a bunch of workers. Like that is what they're betting on. When we talk about this big bet on AI, it's not just, oh, the technology is going to help us cure cancer or whatever. No, what they are betting on is that AI is going to be able to replace a large number of human beings. That is the bet.

36:32Now, will that bet pay off or not? It's not entirely clear. I think that in some ways it will. You could also have a major bubble pop when one company succeeds and the rest of them fail, et cetera. There are a lot of dire outcomes that could come from this. But I think it's very important to understand that largely, largely at this point, when the stock market goes up, given the large bet on AI, that is a negative indicator for the well-being of Americans. And so, yeah, if you're in the top 0.01 % as these individuals, you know, hang down at the this milk and gathering as they would as they would likely be the little more gas prices at the pump.

37:14Yeah, you don't care about that. Who cares if this trade of Hormuzas? So this is not really affecting my life. I haven't changed my consumption habits. So they are blissfully oblivious to what the reality is. And they don't care. I mean, they genuinely don't care about the way that this will cause. ordinary people to struggle and suffer. Now, I think they're somewhat delusional that, look, at the end of the day, you do need some kind of consumer base. At the end of the day, you do need to avoid some sort of revolutionary fervor, which is very much increasingly on the table, especially the more they push things in this direction.

37:49But for today, apparently they're feeling pretty good. Yeah, but we have another indicator from Costco. Let's put this up on the screen. This is the Costco CFO, who is saying that members are basically switching from beef to chicken. Actually, I'm just going to read this whole quote because it's very interesting. By the way, not just in this current quote, recession or concern for recession, he said, historically, we've always seen some, like within fresh protein, we've always seen when there's a recession, whether it was 99, 2000, 09, 08, 09, 10, we would see some sales penetration shift from beef to poultry and pork.

38:22We have seen some of that now. I think anecdotally, I heard a few months ago from our head of food and sundries buyer that we saw some switch even to some canned products like canned chicken and canned tuna and things like that. So again, just to emphasize, this is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of price inflation that we're likely to see if the war were to end today, hypothetically, that a lot of these prices would still be spiking for the months ahead. And there's already what feels like, I mean, We had Rohit Chopra on last week, former head of the CFPB, Crystal, to talk about the circular funding in a lot of AI companies.

39:00Actually, just in AI in general, the entire structure, which is now like 30 percent of the S &P 500, is the Mag 7 companies, which is actually really horrifying because if you have investments from NVIDIA to Microsoft and then Microsoft to NVIDIA and that sort of thing, and they're not anticipating a particular shift in the market or they just haven't, they don't have it as a high likelihood. They haven't priced it in exactly as they probably should be doing. And everything starts dissolving in front of us. What could happen economically? What could happen culturally? We are not prepared for what we could be seeing in the next six months, year, two years, just right on the cusp of something potentially catastrophic, I think, at least.

39:41I mean, I hope that's not the case. But also, all of this is going to amount to more and more spending from the U.S. government, which I think a lot of people on the right were correct to point to. I mean, yes, you have greedflation that's absolutely already taking place. There's no question about it. You see it sometimes in the earnings calls showing up. But also the government spending is going to cause average people who now are losing jobs because of the AI boom to spend more. They think prices are going to go up like that's how this works. And so it's just a complete mess, a complete mess from the administration that was elected on a pledge to stop inflation, to bring inflation or to halt the growth, at least, of inflation and is now back up to about the inflation level month, about the monthly inflation level as when Trump took office.

40:33It's around 3 percent in January of 2025. So any improvement that was made has been reversed effectively. Tax cuts, too. Have you seen the calculations that what average people are getting from their tax cuts has been erased by gas price increases? Yeah. Well, and I learned from you that they were really betting hard on that everything's going to turn around for us once people see their tax bill and getting their tax breaks. Then that's going to save us. And guess what? Year it is May. People know what they're getting in terms of their refunds. And they're not feeling the love here. They're not feeling like this is going great for them whatsoever.

41:07Yeah, zooming out, it's just a very volatile mix. You've got this AI backlash, both at the ground level in terms of data centers. You've got deep concerns about the way they want to replace labor. If this technology is anything like what they say, even if in the long term, the most hopeful, optimistic projections, which I don't believe, but let's give it to them that over the long term, it's going to cause more job creation than it is job loss. in the immediate to medium term, like go look at the Industrial Revolution, how long it took for in the developed world, right? In the places that really ended up being beneficiaries of the Industrial Revolution, it took over 100 years for all of that to ripple through the economy.

41:53It's not like you just flip a switch. It's going to be extremely disruptive and extremely painful if anything approaching what they promised comes true. And if it doesn't come true, Then you've got the biggest bubble probably in human history that's been inflated here. I mean, the amount of money that's being spent on these data centers is utterly, utterly insane. So you've got that. You have, in addition to the labor displacement, obviously that is going to lead to a further spiraling of vast inequality, again, of the worst that we've probably ever seen in human history. You have an extraordinarily volatile political climate and an empire here that is coming unglued.

42:36And part of why it's coming unglued at this point is because of this disastrous war that the population did not want, does not want, that has now been decisively lost from a strategic perspective. And it's imposing massive daily costs on the American people. I mean, it's a pressure cooker, Emily. That's the only way you could put it. It is an absolute pressure cooker. And obviously we talk to Professor Pape every week here because we found his insights on the escalation trap very valuable. He's also writing a book on the likelihood of political violence. And we need to have a conversation with him about that as well, because he's deeply concerned about the confluence of some of these events and the way that they contribute to a rising trend of political violence.

43:20I think I mentioned this last week, but my final thought here is Rod Gerrera has been, he's an Orthodox Christian conservative, has been working on a book about Weimar America, sort of drawing out parallels between Weimar Germany and what we're seeing in America right now. just any like cultural indicators looking at some of that and economic indicators and looking at that stuff. And he finished it a couple of weeks ago and said in his newsletter on Substack basically that he believes the one thing that would really be the tipping point from America as we know it today to something much, much darker, including more political violence, would be an economic crisis.

43:58And Chris, I feel like people sense that. I don't think it's you have to write a manuscript on this. And I'm not saying, of course, not making the cliched apples to apples parallel between Walmart, Germany itself and what came after in America and what might come after. But obviously, when you have economies, as you just laid out, with this level of instability and precarity, you could go to some dark places really, really, really quickly. And now another appliance triumph from your friends at Grand Appliance. Meet Jen. Her fridge died days before a dinner party, but she didn't panic. I just called my guy at Grand Appliance.

44:36He recommended a large capacity GE profile option with fingerprint resistant stainless steel and a convertible middle drawer. I can optimize for meat, beverages, snacks, or wine. Best of all, it was in stock and they delivered next day. Another crisis averted by Grand Appliance. Shop grandappliance.com to learn more. Support for the show comes from Public, The investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi-asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto, and now generated assets, which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt.

45:09From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20 % year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one-of-a-kind index, and lets you backtest it against the S &P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com slash podcast and earn an uncapped 1 % bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com slash podcast. Paid for by Public Investing.

45:41Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. When people turn to telehealth for weight loss, they're looking for real support. That's why more people are choosing orderlymeds.com. Orderly Meds connects you with real doctors and access to proven GLP-1 medications like semaglutide and terzeptatide.

46:07No guessing, just a more supportive experience. And all shipped directly to your door in discreet packaging. Do your research, ask questions, then visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast for an exclusive offer. That's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Individual results may vary. Now medical advice, eligibility required. See site for details.

46:27So as you guys likely know, there was a ballot referendum here in Virginia to where voters went to the polls and voted on whether or not they wanted the maps here to be redrawn. This was a response to Trump's push to do these mid-decade redistricting so that Republicans could gain a partisan advantage. You had Texas really kick this off. They redrew their map. Their map has basically been validated at this point. You've had other Republican states that have followed suit. You also just had the Supreme Court striking out aspects of the Voting Rights Act that are going to enable Southern states in particular to eliminate those majority Black districts and wipe out many of the Democrats that represent the Deep South.

47:12So that's the landscape and the context in which Virginia voters go to the polls and they say, yes, we are going to, two can play this game. We are going to also redraw our maps so that Virginia would become, I think it was 11 to one, where you'd likely have one Republican representative and 11 Democratic representatives. So this was working its way through the court system. And you just had the Virginia Supreme Court, again, after all these millions of people voted and said, yes, we want to do this, the Virginia Supreme Court come in and say, no, we believe that this ballot referendum violated some procedures that were required in the original passage of a constitutional amendment that required this whole process.

47:53There's a reason why Virginians had to go to the ballot versus in other states where the legislature could just go in and redraw the maps. There was a procedure laid out in Virginia based on a constitutional amendment, and the Supreme Court here said that you violated the process. Not to get too much in the weeds here. But basically, the deal was you had to have voted on this before the next election starts. And they're saying that since early voting has started, that you were too late, that you couldn't do this, that this wasn't proper. So obviously, Emily, Democrats are furious, absolutely furious, and really quite beside themselves, because they're looking around the country at all these other states that are redrawing their maps to gain a partisan advantage for Republicans, California has been able to do a version of this, although actually not the most maximalist version.

48:44They may still go back to the drawing board, make it even more maximalist, but California has been able to, it appears like redraw their maps. But when Virginia Democrats come and say, okay, we're going to do this too, then the courts step in. Oh, no, no, no, you can't, you can't. And again, coming right on the heels of this Voting Rights Act decision as well, I think it was particularly enraging. So the question now is whether Democrats are going to just accept this and say, all right, well, I guess the Republicans get to redraw their maps, but we don't. Or if they're going to try to take some more extreme measures.

49:15And the New York Times has a report that indicates there is some brainstorming about what could be done here. The headline, and this is significant reporting, this is the headline from the New York Times, a private call reveals Democrats' desperation over tossing of map. And so what they are considering is a couple step process where effectively they would lower the retirement age for Supreme Court justices, I think down to the mid 50s, that would kick the entire seven justice court out, everybody would be tossed out because they're all older than that. And then you would put in justices that you believe will be supportive of your view of the world.

50:01And then they would go back in with a case challenging the original constitution amendment that required this whole process to begin with so that then the legislature, which is dominated by Democrats at this point, could just redraw the maps without having to go to the voters. So that is what they're contemplating. Obviously, this would be, especially for Democrats, a relatively radical move to change the retirement age and toss out all of Supreme Court justices so that you could put your people on the bench. But they point to something very similar that just happened in Utah, where their Supreme Court also tossed out a pro-Republican gerrymandering in that state.

50:42And they decided to move forward with packing the court in Utah so that they could get ultimately what they want. And there were some other examples of Republican states in the past who have done similar things. So these are the lines, Emily, that Democrats are thinking along. I'm curious for your thoughts. The Indiana results last week are really relevant here because what happened in that case is Republican voters. I mean, some people were very irked by the fact that you had around$10 million. I've seen$8 million estimate,$12 million estimate come into these state races in Indiana from national MAGA groups and try to oust as many people as possible who wouldn't go along with the Trump redistricting plan.

51:24And Indiana voters, Republican voters, look around and they say, we don't want to unilaterally disarm now that this has become like an arms race to see who can out-gerrymander the other side, which is exactly what Democrats in Virginia are saying now, too. which is don't just, what did you say at the beginning of this show, lay in a chalk outline. On yourself. Yes, lay in the chalk outline of yourself. Don't do that. And the pressure cooker is getting to a wild point. I don't know that anybody, I mean, you could have seen this coming as soon as Texas and California happened, but I don't know if anybody was fully prepared for what it was going to look like.

52:01What is the joke? What did you think gerrymandering was? Just vibes, essays? No. It's this. It's this. And Indiana Republicans said, listen, it's not that we need you to bow to Donald Trump, but we're pissed because we know what's going to happen in other states now that Democrats have said, we're going for it too. Obviously, gerrymandering goes back many, many years. And there are Dem states that have been gerrymandered, Republican states have been gerrymandered. This current wave obviously really started with Texas. And so as soon as Gavin Newsom took that bait, it was spreading nationwide. And Indiana Republicans said, well, you know, you can't just you can't just say in principle, we're not doing this anymore because the principle has already been tossed out the window.

52:48You have to live in the here and now. And Crystal, it's interesting because that sounds like it's exactly how Virginia Democrats are reacting to. And you said you didn't want to get too much in the weeds. But I am curious. I've heard some analyses that say Virginia Democrats were like, maybe probably should have been prepared for this potential outcome. And I have no idea whether or not that's true, but that it was rushed and sloppy. Is there anything to that? Is that part of this? I, to be honest with you, I mean, obviously they should have foreseen it since this did happen there. It was very, the attitude was very dismissive towards the idea that the Supreme Court would overturn this.

53:26And, you know, it was a 4-3 decision. It was closely decided. Obviously, the three dissenting justices felt very strongly in the opposite direction. But there was a sense of we've got to go for this. This is what the base wants. And but I think it also there was a bit of a half measure here because you didn't deal with the partisan makeup of the court before you went in and tried to redraw the maps. So in that sense, I think you could say perhaps there was a lack of planning. And look, I find it really outrageous, quite frankly, that we had tens of millions of dollars spent on this thing. And everybody going out, going to the polls, millions of people voting.

54:08And then after the fact, after everybody's voted, and by the way, after the court sees what the results of that vote are, that they come in. Well, no, you're not allowed to do that. And that is the sort of thing that will absolutely enrage and radicalize people. And I feel that. I mean, it is outrageous. You have all these other states, just thinking of it from a fairness perspective, all these other states, Texas can just go in and rewrite their maps. No problem. You've got Florida just came and they're going to rewrite their maps. But Virginia, and no input from the voters, but Virginia, you actually get input from voters in a pretty large turnout election for like this weird special election.

54:46and that gets thrown out as unacceptable, you could see how that is extremely, extremely frustrating for people. Let me put C5 up on the screen. There was a sense when the Virginia maps passed in this brief moment in time, when the Virginia maps had passed and you had not yet had the Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights Act, where people are feeling like, okay, Democrats, they may not come out on top in the redistricting battles, but they're going to maybe at least be able to get it to a draw. You can see in this map that that is just nowhere near the case at this point. All of the red states in red here are ones where Republicans are going to be able to add one to, you know, to like three or four seats to their, you know, based on their gerrymanders.

55:34Virginia's in yellow because it's been tossed out. So obviously no seats are going to change there outside of being able to win some seats, which I think is possible just with the maps as they exist, California and one seat in Utah are the only places where Democrats have made up ground. And I'm not sure if that Utah one is going to hold because of the court packing that they're engaged in there. I'm not sure what the timeline is in terms of whether they'll be able to reverse that map that was drawn there. But in any case, Republicans now are just romping in the mid district, mid-decade redistricting wars.

56:09It's not even close. And so, you know, when you look at Donald Trump, extremely unpopular, Republicans in every single special election taking on water, losing seats that you never thought that they would lose. And then you see the way that these rules are being changed in a mostly one-sided direction to block the will of the people. Yeah, I think it's a very radicalizing thing. And we can put Hassan's tweet up here. He's sort of channeling that energy, quoting JFK, I think, in a way that maybe especially because of who Hassan is, this is C2 guys, was perhaps intentionally provocative, especially because he didn't put the quote in quotes.

56:51So people who don't know any history thought maybe he said this himself. Anyway, Hassan says the Virginia Supreme Court denied the results of the redistricting referendum. SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act and Tennessee carved up the last district district in black voter power in the state. Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable, which, again, is a JFK quote. And as an analysis of where we are of reality, I don't think you can deny that. And, Emily, again, I think we already see the stirrings of that. I think when you see Luigi Mangione being treated like a hero or at least a lot of very normal people going, well, I don't like it, but I kind of get it.

57:30when you see the, you know, the level of fury and the backlash against Trump with very little outlet to be able to have the will of the people actually expressed, yeah, you're going to have people begin to do crazy things because they don't have a peaceful means to be able to change reality in their supposedly democratic country. Yeah, I mean, it's a totally anodyne, accurate, eloquent quote, actually. So it's perfectly applicable in this situation. It's probably you're probably right coming from Hassan and the capitalist blood in the streets. Quote, in the past, people connect the dots and like, oh, this guy must be calling for a violent revolution, which was obviously not always happening in that case whatsoever.

58:13And Crystal, it's the disconnect between—I think this is real. One of the things that you referenced how Professor Robert Pape, who we've had on many times to talk about Iran, one of the points he made was in The Daily last week, right? He had that interview in The Daily about his work. He's currently working on a book. He's been researching for a long time what he describes as, quote, populist violence. And we could get into that as a descriptor. But basically, he's saying that you have a situation right now where people feel like they are the political political class is not listening to them.

58:47And if you look at polling over time, people do feel like they lack agency. They feel more powerless in the political process. And that is really dangerous because if you have an unpopular war waged by a president who said he was elected not to get into, quote, new wars, put all of his hawkishness on Iran aside. That's what a lot of average normal Americans heard when he said he didn't want to start new wars, that he wouldn't start new wars. The war is very unpopular. That is, unlike George W. Bush, campaigning cynically, shamefully on not nation-building and then going to nation-build, because obviously 9-11 happened between point A and point B in that situation, which changed public support for the war, at least at first.

59:27So you have that happening. And people from the right, I would just say, think about what you felt like when President Biden's immigration policy was out of step with where public opinion was. Those things do matter. We don't have a direct election for a reason. I think it's for a good reason. I believe in the Republican system. We don't have rule by referendum for a reason. And you and I could debate how that's gone in California. But the point is, you know, yes, it's true that you have the cooling saucer of the Senate and you have the lowercase r Republican process playing out in the United States.

1:00:03But you have wild mismatches. I mean, we're not just talking about one tough decision that the president is making. We're talking about wild mismatches across the board between what people say they want and what's actually happening not only in Washington, but now in their state houses, too, which is a really, really bad sign, especially because of the proximity. So there's some of this debate been playing out on CNN, kind of a fun exchange here between Scott Jennings and a Democratic strategist. Let's go ahead and take a list of the C4. Let's listen to a little of this. The political map, like y 'all are cheating.

1:00:36Okay, just accept it. How's it cheating? Let me just finish. You're cheating because you politically are not favorable right now. And so this is the only way you would actually win the House is by drawing maps. Partisan redistricting is a fact of life. This isn't partisan. On the campaign. What is it? I'm sure it is. We shall read the story. On the campaign. You literally are taking Memphis, which is a city with black voters, and you split it in three, stretching 3 ,000 miles. Who's the current Democrat congressman there? Is it a black congressman? Just because black people are allowed to like people that don't look like them.

1:01:09Exactly. And that is the point I wanted you to make. Because just because you're not going to have a black congressman, why is it that a Republican can't do just as well representing black voters as a Democrat? Because they aren't electing. Why does your race determine your politics? It doesn't. It doesn't. It doesn't. No. Just be. You're making my point, actually. The assumption is black people. No, no, no. The assumption is black people will only elect black people. No, black people are smart enough to elect. No, the assumption is black people only elect. Black people. Let me finish. Black people will elect black people who will actually represent them, who have their best interest at heart.

1:01:41And what Republicans have done in Tennessee is dismantle the power for black people to have their voice. They did the same thing in Texas because they said they thought Latinos were going to swing for Republicans. There are black people that are represented. I'm black and I got a Republican president right now. Black people don't elect black people based on race. They elect people that are aligned with their moral, their beliefs in justice. And just took that away from them in Tennessee and in other states. I just disagree that the only person, the only kind of a politician who can elect black people in Congress must be a Democrat.

1:02:16This is just an artificial. That's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. Black voters are still fully franchised and go vote for who they want. That's not what I'm saying. So they're talking there, Emily, about Steve Cohen, who is the white representative for a majority black district in Tennessee. That map has already been redrawn going through the legislature in Tennessee over, you know, much protesting. And so actually, Ryan, I didn't realize this. Ryan has told the story on the show before that Steve Cohen actually tried to try to join the Congressional Black Caucus because he's like, yeah, I'm not black, but my constituents are.

1:02:51And isn't that what this should be about? Which I'm with him on. I agree with him. They should have let him in the Congressional Black Caucus. But in any case, I thought that was pretty funny for Scott Jennings to be taking that side. And in my opinion, it did prove the point of the Democratic strategist there of like, no, this is not about just like electing black people. This is about black people having a voice to vote who they want to vote for. And they do not want to vote for your Republican friends. Well, this is where Republicans can get. I mean, I've seen some speculation about dummy mandering happening, and I don't think that's entirely out of the question.

1:03:23Republicans are now really, really excited that their chances to hold on to the House have just gotten stronger. And I mean, I don't know. I went and looked at the generic congressional vote on RCP. So the RCP average where it was in 2018 versus where it is now. Dems have there. It's at plus 5.6 right now. It was at plus 5.8 for Democrats at the same point in the 2018 cycle. So it's very, very close to where it was then. And as we've been talking about, we're sort of at the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we're going to see with price increases in all likelihood between now and November. So they can do this all they want.

1:04:01I actually don't know that it's always going to be splendid for them, that it's going to salvage. I certainly don't think it's going to salvage the House of Representatives. They may staunch some of the bleeding. They may be able to prevent a total blue tsunami like what happened in 2018 and thrust Nancy Pelosi back into the speakership. But I don't know that it's actually going to be like a huge, huge wave. And the Cook political analysis of this is not doesn't suggest that it's going to be like a big wave for Republicans right now either, Crystal, because they still have to win support from voters.

1:04:35You still have to get people to vote for you. And when you are even struggling with your own party in higher numbers, voter motivation, excitement for turnout. Someone else made a really good point, too, that this could—I think it was in playbook this morning—that this could energize Black voters in particular, if you need, in a midterm cycle, low-propensity voters, people who might otherwise just not turn out because they're not super excited about candidates, so they have other stuff to do. That's a lot of Trump voters, so you already have that problem. And then you could potentially be invigorating Black voters to, like, get out and actually go vote, that's going to be a real problem for Republicans in November, too.

1:05:17I don't think any of this has necessarily been a guarantee of higher success for Republicans. Maybe a bit. I mean, maybe a few seats, but nothing that's going to be dramatic. I think overall, based on the landscape now, it's definitely going to help Republicans. I don't think it will save Republicans. But just to give everybody a sense of the magnitude here, and these are all rough estimates based on what we know of what the maps are and where the maps are going, blah, blah, blah. But one analyst I saw projected that this would mean that Democrats have to win the popular vote by four points, four points in order to take the majority in the House.

1:05:51And look, in past eras, maybe four points wouldn't be a lot. But now in a time when you have very strong partisan polarization and these things usually hang on a knife's edge, four points is a landslide. You know, Trump obviously won by less than four points, and he certainly considers that to be a landslide in terms of the popular vote. So that is the level of a tilted playing field that we're talking about. And then you also do think about specific instances, like I think in Mississippi, I think the state population is like, it's like 40 % black, something like that. They have one right now, majority, minority district, and very likely that's going to be erased.

1:06:31So then you have 40 % of your state that is, and I'm being a little bit broad because obviously there are black people who vote for Republicans, but it's also pretty over, it's like 90 % vote for Democrats. Right. And so that part of the population is just not going to be represented, you know, and this isn't about an identity thing. This is about their political views and having any sort of voice for them in DC, that's going to be erased. And when we talk about a crisis of democracy, I think that's a problem. You know, I think this whole thing is a disastrous race to the bottom. Like it would be great, in my opinion, if we pass national anti-gerrymandering laws.

1:07:07But certainly this outcome that we're having now where the redistricting battles are being won so out, you know, so lopsidedly for Republicans is going to create a significant, significant strain. But, you know, I think I think you're right. I think Democrats probably still favor to win the House. You know, when I look at the odds, the poly market and the cal sheet and whatever, they're still very much favored to win the House. But when you have this tilted of a system, it does make it very difficult. And, you know, it's another it's another blow to the idea that we have even a representative democracy.

1:07:43Well, some good news for Democrats. The 2018 popular vote margin in the House was 7 percent, 7.1 percent. And again, I think the conditions are only going to get more favorable for Democrats down the line. So it's possible they still get a decent sized blue wave. I actually think the Senate is very, very much in play. I'm sure you do too, Crystal, but Nebraska, Maine. Can't gerrymander states. No. Given the rural power in the Senate, there's already a Republican advantage there, but yeah. Well, but Democrats in rural states have fielded much better candidates this time around, which is very interesting, really learning from the mistakes, I would argue, of 2018.

1:08:23You have a Plattner instead of a Gideon-type candidate in Maine. You have Dan Osborne in Nebraska. Sherb Brown, I think, is very, very competitive in Ohio. I think Texas is probably out of the question. But North Carolina looking really good for Democrats. And that's the ballgame right there. And Peltola in Alaska, too, is a very good candidate there. And the polling has her up as well. So, yeah, I think that's very possible. So we will see how that all goes.

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