5/6/26: Shark Tank Host Faces Data Center Backlash, Nick Shirley Visists Cuba, Trump Attacks Disloyal MAGA, 2026 Dire Job Market

25:26Emily Jashinsky:Somebody, please! But there's so much more to me than that. I'm an actor, I'm a comedian, and recently I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives. Helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Psych! I'm a comedian! I'm not qualified to give good advice! Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Cream of chicken soup. Hey, cream. Cream of chicken soup.

26:06Emily Jashinsky:This is Help From a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help From a Hypocrite as part of the Mike Cultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for joining us. former director of the CFPB, former chairman or former commissioner on the FTC. Much appreciated. Thanks for having me. The conservative movements Woodward and Bernstein turned up in Havana. Both in one person? Both of them. Two in one, all right. It takes two to match the wits. One, Nick Shirley. Nick Shirley, however, running into a few problems in Havana.

26:49Here he is from a sanctioned Havana hotel. I think through sheer ignorance, Nick Shirley is confronting the absurdity of American sanctions by staying in a hotel he is definitely not allowed to be staying in. So critical support to Comrade Shirley here, who is facing difficult circumstances. Let's roll this video that Nick Shirley actually produced. This is not AI or made up or anything. Let's roll some Nick Shirley.

27:20Emily Jashinsky:Alright, depending when this comes out or if it does, we are currently being telled by Cuban intelligence here in Havana, Cuba. I came here, I've been wanting to make a video for so long about life and communism and showing people what communism is like in a place like Cuba, for instance. I go out at the airport, they seize all of my cameras, they seize both my GoPros, my Metaglasses, these are not my Metaglasses, all my microphones, however the only thing they don't take is my iPhone camera. That's what I'm filming this on right now. They don't take my iPhone camera and somehow they didn't get this microphone that was in the very, very bottom of my backpack.

28:10Emily Jashinsky:We're filming this video and when we're next to the hospital, we see an undercover cop roll up on us and my security guards that are with me, they detected him and then all of a sudden there's another one. So we hop back in another taxi, we left the scene and we thought we were good. They didn't tell us and we left. But since we left the airport, we had been getting telled or the word had gotten out that there was a journalist inside of Cuba. There's only two flights that come in here every single day. So it wasn't hard to spot out who the journalist was. And we have Cuban intelligence down in the lobby of the hotel right now working to essentially try to round us up and potentially imprison us or make it so we cannot leave Cuba.

28:56So the interesting thing about that video, one of them at least, you know, when I went over there recently, there was this massive hullabaloo about the fact that we stayed in a quote unquote five star hotel. Well, when you have a giant group of Americans who are traveling to Cuba, there are only a couple of hotels that you're allowed to stay in. You can stay in their version of kind of Airbnbs, but spreading 700 people out around those would be rather logistically difficult. So among the hotels that you're allowed to stay in, there's only a couple because they can't have connections to the Cuban government.

29:32He's staying in one that is fully 100 percent sanctioned. I don't think he's deliberately violating American sanctions and supporting the communist. The argument is by staying there, he's supporting the tyrannical communist government. And so therefore, he shouldn't be staying there. And it's a crime. What's the statute of limitations?

29:56Emily Jashinsky:Would it be funny if like President Plattner rolls in and like lifts sanctions on Cuba, but also prosecutes Shirley for violating them while they were still in place. So good for Shirley for showing the absurdity of these American sanctions. Now, so he's there doing some reporting. I think his mom is sort of like his handler, right? She's kind of guided him. I thought they traveled together, yeah. I'm much angrier at his mom than him. He doesn't have any idea what he's doing. You can't be upset with him. He's like 20 or something, right? Yeah. he is he's challenged we weren't going to make the joke about literacy being Cuba's one strength he's bringing down the literacy rate in Cuba single handedly I wasn't going to make the joke but I was going to tee you up to make the joke I'm upset with his mom his mom should have been like you can't just bring in a whole bunch of equipment and start filming in Cuba there's a process you have to go through with the government to get a visa connected to doing journalism.

31:03If the Chinese tried to send their leading propagandist to make videos here in the United States...

31:14Emily Jashinsky:We'd roll out the red carpet. Well, we would also... We would follow them. We would follow them. Yes. Yeah. And there are ways... You can't just come in on a... You're not supposed to just come in on a tourist visa and do it. There are processes, forms you're supposed to fill out. Now, obviously, Cuba has stacks and stacks of forms. That's what they are. Well, and nobody except for like maybe, I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe people who are sort of still avowed Marxists. Nobody really tries to claim that the Cuban government isn't repressive and is not going to follow foreign journalists.

31:50Emily Jashinsky:Everyone would agree they're repressive. The question is like some would argue maybe it's good. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's a good point. But it's obviously a repressive country. Again, even some of the people who are arguing against sanctions and the like. They have tight rules around speech and media. They have artists in political prison, I guess. If you want to interview somebody at the University of Havana who is a high profile person, like that's a government university. And you have to then get permission from like the government to interview. Right. Not the kind of system that I, as a journalist, prefer.

32:23Emily Jashinsky:Which, when you came back from Cuba, we talked about all of this. Like, we talked about the process. We talked about how you were able to do those tours of the hospitals. But it's also not a mystery, like, what Cuba is. Apparently, to anybody other than Nick Shirley. So I hope the Cuban government takes mercy on poor Nick Shirley. Truly. He knows not what he does. So Marco Rubio gave a briefing yesterday. And I think it's worth rolling this side. This is going to be D4. Marco Rubio did the White House briefing yesterday. And both Rubio and Trump continue to talk about what could be coming imminently for Cuba.

33:01Emily Jashinsky:Trump, obviously, infamously said that he may have the privilege of taking Cuba very soon. Here is Secretary of State Rubio at the White House yesterday. There's no oil blockade on Cuba, per se. Here's what's happening with Cuba, OK? Cuba used to get free oil from Venezuela. I used to give them a bunch of free oil. They would take like 60 percent of that oil and resell it for cash. It wouldn't even go to benefit the people. So the only blockade that's happened is the Cubans have decided, I mean, the Venezuelans have decided we're not giving you free oil anymore. And you can only imagine nowadays the way oil prices are.

33:30Emily Jashinsky:No one's giving away free oil, much less to a failed regime. So the problem of Cuba is worse. Their economic model doesn't work. Doesn't work. And the people who are in charge can't fix it. And the reason that I can't fix it is not just because they're communists. That's bad enough. But they're incompetent communists. OK, so he also Southcom's Twitter. I can't believe that's a thing I'm even saying, but Southcom's, I guess, X account posted a very calculated image of Secretary Rubio yesterday, D2, posing in front of a map of Cuba with General Francis Donovan. Quote, their discussions, according to Southcom, focused on U.S.

34:06Emily Jashinsky:efforts to counter threats that undermine security, stability and democracy in our hemisphere. Absolutely no mistake that they are shaking hands in front of a giant map of Cuba, Ryan. Yeah, and he was asked about that in his press conference and he said, yeah, that was to send a signal. Also, what he said in that clip is just a flat out lie. Forget Venezuela. Mexico and every other country that wants to sell oil to Cuba, not give it away, sell it, is told that they're not allowed to do that by the United States. I don't know why he keeps telling this lie so confidently, but he does. Russia brought a tanker there and Trump allowed it to go through.

34:48The fact that Trump had to say that he was allowing a Russian tanker to go to Cuba tells you that there is a blockade. If there was no blockade, Trump would have nothing to do with a transaction between Russia and Cuba. Meanwhile, a little bit of news that came out yesterday. Cuba finalized a massive reform of its immigration system, a huge loosening of it. But previously, they didn't allow dual citizenship for the most part. And if you were gone for a certain amount of time, that was kind of a de facto renunciation of your citizenship. Immigration law is always complex, so we might have the details slightly off here.

35:33But the loosening allow, it's going to allow dual citizenship and it's going to allow Cubans who have gone to not just the U.S., but Brazil, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, you name it, to go back and forth. It will also allow them to spend money that they have earned in Central or South America or the North America back in Cuba and then to go again. So it's a huge liberalization of their immigration policy, which is interesting. And it comes at a time as hundreds of thousands of people, as Trump and then Biden really ratcheted it up, the boot on the neck of the Cuban economy, hundreds of thousands of Cubans have, and millions at this point over maybe five, six years, have fled Cuba.

36:36and so what this is saying is that if they want to come back the way I read it if they want to come back they can do so and they don't have to stay either they can come back and visit and go back so anyway that's

36:49Emily Jashinsky:and bring I guess potentially bring stuff for people suffering. Bring stuff and bring money yeah it's a flight from Miami to Havana it's easy or from Costa Rica or wherever else they are because Cubans are doing pretty well in other countries. Yes. Because they all got this. Yeah, Haitians too. But Cubans in particular because they got this really good education in Cuba. And so they're able to then outperform other people in like Brazil or Colombia or Costa Rica or whatever. When I was in Cuba, I was talking to some people there who were saying it was ironic that a lot of their friends who have left and done really well have turned right wing and they're like, the ones who stay in Cuba are like, it's a little annoying because they got this socialist education and then used that to do well in these countries where education is not a priority and have kind of forgotten how they got there.

37:49But that's because there's real genuine animosity towards the sclerotic Cuban government.

37:57Emily Jashinsky:Yes, right. Well, we'll see. We'll of course be paying close attention to the plight of Nick Shirley, the education of Nick Shirley, and the like. In all seriousness, though, we hope that he's okay and safe because that can get hairy very quickly, as you know, Ryan. Imagine interrogating Nick Shirley about anything. About anything. I'm sorry. This is going to be. I'm sorry. Ryan, I would like to see you do that, for the record. Nick, come on. Ryan, we'll talk to you. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Let's do it. You can have opinions, you can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program.

38:45I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation. There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

39:50need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Psych! I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Cream of chicken soup. Hey, cream. Cream of chicken soup.

40:16Emily Jashinsky:This is Help From a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help From a Hypocrite as part of the Mike Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and your 20s, they can feel like a lot. On the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, we unpack the anxiety, the overthinking, the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s. Because if you've ever thought, is anybody else feeling this way? They definitely are. I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at.

40:59Emily Jashinsky:Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin with. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I was just so wanting to be out of that phase, out of my skin. And I just really regret not living in the present more. Each week, we break down the science behind what you're going through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

41:38Emily Jashinsky:All right, we got big election updates to get to. So let's start now in Indiana. We can talk about this. We'll just put this New York Times tear sheet up on the screen because it kind of gives a broad overview of everything that happened last night. Big election results around the country. Quote, President Trump's efforts to oust Republicans deemed insufficiently loyal faced a key test on Tuesday as Indiana voters decided whether to back state senators who opposed redistricting and whom the president wanted out. All right. Now, the Times also said his political payback campaign, Trump's, is going to extend later this month to clashes in Georgia, Kentucky and Louisiana.

42:15Emily Jashinsky:But in Indiana, these are primaries. We're not actually even talking about the general elections yet. The Times says several Republican-led states quickly fell in line last year when Mr. Trump demanded redrawn maps. You may remember that Indiana Republicans tried to push back against that. So, quote, when lawmakers returned to Indianapolis in December, the House approved a new map which would have positioned Republicans to flip the state's two Democratic-held congressional seats, but the Senate said no, and a slim majority of Republicans joined all Democratic senators to vote the bill down. Those senators who were on the ballot for re-election, not all of them were, but the ones who were, faced, I've seen estimates between$8 million and$12 million from Trump Trump groups, like national Trump groups, basically, and not even secretly, but very openly, who then said, OK, that's it.

43:09Emily Jashinsky:You're gone. And basically, all of them ended up losing, with the exception of one as of right now, losing their primary battles last night. So brutal day for Indiana Republicans who wanted to push back against Trump, basically. Again, as of now, Now, just one who is clinging to and a high profile race who's clinging to the seat. But, you know, the way that I would describe this, we're in an arms race now on gerrymandering. There's no question about it. This was after Texas, which then you saw California and the redistricting has been going on. And propelled by the Voting Rights Act decision because that opens up.

43:56Emily Jashinsky:Yes. Redistricting. possibilities everywhere from Alabama to Mississippi to Tennessee. Right. It's that, you know, because they, what they can do is they can just eliminate, um, the, the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act required basically majority black district. And I'll just carve up the black voters and dilute them into a bunch of, um, white districts. Right. And so six of the who refused to do the gerrymandering were gone last night. They have time to do it before November? Well, they're still in office. Right, yeah, some of them are, yeah. But they'll do it for 2028? Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying.

44:39Emily Jashinsky:Yes, and just to, again, the argument from Jim Banks and Trump Republicans is that you can't do unilateral disarmament, or you can't, yeah, that's not happening, right? So it's not possible, And the only if you're going to make like a moral pension type stand on the principle against redistricting. At this point, there is no you're not the bulwark against national redistricting just because you say Indiana won't do it. And so Trump people and obviously Indiana voters, for the most part, looked at that and said, yeah, this is B.S. You guys aren't stopping redistricting. It's happening whether you like it or not.

45:16Emily Jashinsky:And what you are doing is just saying we're disarming ourselves and giving Dems more seats in Indiana. So it's I think that's a pretty compelling argument to most voters. Everybody hates redistricting. Maybe. Everybody hates it. Everybody hates it. They lived. They started it in Texas like they didn't have to do this mid district. A mid cycle redistricting in Texas and they chose to do it. And then, yeah, once they chose to do that, then you're. Yeah. Then the cycle was on. Yeah. It was immediately Gavin Newsom was like, OK, we're doing it. And Gavin Newsom's people love that because everybody knows that we have we don't have the stigma around these boundaries has been blown up during the Trump era.

46:00Emily Jashinsky:And so it's unfortunate. It's reality. Nobody is unless somebody if these Indian Republicans had a real like substantive plan to stop redistricting around the country, they would probably have a better case with Republican voters. But nobody, everybody hates gerrymandering, but also everybody hates not doing it now. Like Republicans and Democrats hate not doing it now. It's a horrible status quo, but it is unfortunately our reality. Ryan, Ohio. Interesting results in Ohio last night as well. We can put this up on the screen. Politico, quote, Ohio, Republicans fear former ICE official could cost them a battleground House seat.

46:38Emily Jashinsky:Now, this is about Madison Sheehan, who was a very young and inexperienced deputy to Christy Noem. Her title was, I'm trying to remember exactly what her title was. She was deputy director at ICE. That's right. And then resigned to run for Congress back home in Ohio. Was the subject of a salacious Daily Mail hit piece about her. That was incredible. Sex life. Yes. About her sex life. Just a couple weeks ago. Rather aggressive, was it sexual assault even? Like, there was some pretty serious, like, yikes. It was definitely a yikes story. I don't remember if there was sexual assault allegations. Anyway, a lot of yikes going on.

47:22Emily Jashinsky:Ruled into it, but yes, Madison Sheehan, people may be. But she might lose, right? Madison Sheehan, as the results are in, lost and lost big. big as we can look at the results right now. So this is former state representative Derek Maron won and now goes up against Marcy Kaptur in Ohio's ninth congressional district. Yeah, she lost. She lost. And the Daily Mail story, the headline was that she was engaged in a two-year secret relationship with a junior staffer inside of the Ohio Republican Party. And there were just some private communications and stuff that leaked. Obviously, anytime you have same-sex relationships within a Republican administration, that is also equally to the media a sort of hypocritical.

48:15Emily Jashinsky:I mean, it's different within the Trump administration, but that was also the subject of fascination, I think, in the media reports, or gave them a little extra fuel because, of course, from a Republican administration. Oh, and before we go to Colorado, one real quick one on Ohio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is buried down here. This is Greg Landsman, who held onto a seat, but he is one of the only Democrats to publicly support the war in Iran and has been one of the most ridiculously outspoken, unapologetic supporters of Israel within the caucus. Uh, Damon Lynch, the fourth, a progressive who spent like$5, got 32 % of the vote against this, against the incumbent Lansman.

49:04So to have Lansman under 70 is, uh, suggests that like he's, his type of politics is vulnerable.

49:13Emily Jashinsky:and that actually I just said another point on Ohio on the Sheehan race this was seen in I think some way as a test of whether Trump's ICE immigration policies would be toxic in a place like Ohio and a Republican primary in Ohio is it like she was literally deputy director of ICE not some random bureaucrat but like actually the deputy director behind Christine Ohm and all these photos those are in the ads so another thing just before we move away from Ohio I wanted to note that yeah did not work for Madison Sheehan. Yes, indeed. So in Colorado, speaking of this redistricting cycle, Democrats are trying to get onto the ballot a measure to redraw these boundaries in November, which would then apply to 2028, which shows that this is a long-term thing.

50:04That would only give them the advantage in 2028 and 2030 because it was coming anyway from the census. But Colorado, being one of these Democratic-run states, had leaned more towards fair process and doing the kind of commission type of approach where you're fair. Democrats plan to throw that out for 2028 and 2030. And if voters approve it, according to a new report, I put up E3, the primary donor to the cause of getting this measure onto the ballot is Hakeem Jeffries like super PAC basically and so yes so then moving over to Michigan real quickly there was a state senate race massive blowout over performance again in a what was a

51:02Emily Jashinsky:plus one this is Kamala plus one district What do we have here? E7. State Senate 35. Harris plus one district. And he blew it out by like 20 plus or whatever. Just across the board, I don't think, I think Democrats have now flipped five seats in special legislative elections. Yeah, let's throw E9 on the screen. This is your guy, Tane Ullrine, who said, this is a remarkable analysis that he did over at Boltz, his website. The GOP has not flipped a legislative seat in any state since 2024. Just read that again. Not flipped a legislative seat in any state since 2024. Democrats, meanwhile, have flipped five seats so far in 2026.

51:45Emily Jashinsky:Just 2026. And that's after flipping 25 in 2025. And I would like to remind everybody that at the end of the Obama administration, Republicans took a victory lap. You may remember this. It was a huge Politico story that came out. Thousands of seats or whatever. Yeah, that was retrospective. retrospective, this was towards the end of 2016, on all of the seats Democrats had lost during the Obama administration and how he had essentially not, I mean, maybe it's the Obama brand, maybe it was a lazy Democratic Party under Obama that tried to kind of coast on vibes and not really take care of some of these underlying problems in the economy that was giving rise to Trump and Bernie populism, whatever it was, Democrats hemorrhaged seats around the country over the course of the Obama administration.

52:31Emily Jashinsky:It looks like, not to anybody's particular surprise, but after Republicans took that victory lap about 10 years ago, very smugly over Obama, it looks like that is the experience that will probably be part of the Trump era for Republicans. Yeah, they're going to flip a bunch of chambers, I would suspect, in November as well. Seems like it. Yeah. So meanwhile, While the DCCC has ticked off an enormous number of Democrats, you can put up E5 here. This was really not the moment for Washington Democrats to creep into congressional elections around the country and put their thumb on the scale and endorse a particular Democratic candidate while there are serious contests still underway.

53:21So they added, I think, eight new people, yeah, eight new Democrats to what they call their red to blue list, which means they're getting the Democratic parties basically their endorsement, getting access to their donors, to their vendors, to their consultants, which, you know, who knows what all of that is worth to them in the end. but also gives them both the sheen of being party endorsed, but also the stench of being party endorsed. And so it'll be interesting to see how some of these play out. California's 22nd district, Jasmeet Baines, is one of the more controversial red to blue candidates.

54:04Jasmeet is running against Randy Villegas. Jasmeet had been asked if Israel was committing a genocide, said yes. then said, oh, I think I heard that wrong after starting to get support from pro-Israel super PACs. And so, yes, Israel's committing a genocide. No, it's not. Pro-Israel money flows in, and then Democratic Party money flows in. This is a Latino-heavy district, so for them to go and endorse against Randy Vegas, who has the support of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the bold PAC, which is the Hispanic caucus, is an aggressive use of, you know, Democratic dues money. Like the way that, you know, DCCC is funded partly is through other House Democrats paying dues in.

54:48So the Progressive Caucus, which represents 90 plus Democrats endorsed Villegas, is spending its money. And then DCCC is using their dues money to then support the opponent in the race. That's crazy. so a lot of house democrats you know very upset about this um they did bob brooks who's in the news lately um because he accidentally outed josh shapiro as having did you see this yeah having endorsed this republican because he was mad at the democrat was ag or something um for comptroller treasurer some some one of those positions bernie backed guy so d triple c and Bernie on the same page, which is quite fascinating.

55:34But anyway, we'll track these red to blue ones as they get closer to the races and see how well that DCCC did at putting its thumb on the scale. Because the only thing more embarrassing than putting your thumb on the scale is putting a thumb on the scale and still losing.

55:46Emily Jashinsky:Well, let's put E4 on the screen. This is another dub for Graham Plattner. Big dub for Graham Plattner. K-File found an old video of Susan Collins behind George Bush and Graham Plattner is yelling in the audience, don't attack Iraq. Yeah, 2002. So before the invasion. Let's roll the clip. I want to thank the grassroots activists who are here. I want to thank the people who take time, who work hard to make sure that the democracy is strong. I want to thank you very much for your efforts on behalf of all candidates. I want to thank you for what you have done. I want to thank you for what you're going to do and that is to turn out to vote for these candidates on November the 5th.

56:37Thank you.

56:59When I say that I understand Susan Collins, I do. I've worked closely with her.

57:05Emily Jashinsky:So there's George W. Bush pumping up Susan Collins back in 2002. And you hear Graham Plattner audibly, his voice in the background saying, don't attack Iraq. So the point Ryan was making about going back and checking how the D-trip putting its thumb on the scales works out. Just a reminder of establishment Democrats here in Washington's record of that recently. There was no way they wanted Plattner to be the candidate in Maine to take on Susan Collins. But here you have unearthed video, I think, showing exactly why they should have been excited about Grant Plattner being the guy to take on Susan Collins rather than Janet Mills, one of the most uninspiring candidates conceivable in that race in Maine.

57:45And we knew about this protest because it was reported publicly and he was interviewed by someone, you know, after he'd gotten taken out of this event. And then one of the first things I asked him when we had him on the air was, okay, you did that, but then you enlisted to go fight in those wars. Like, why? And what he said then and what he said, he's actually addressed this like in Reddit posts. Basically says he can't explain it really. But he had wanted to be a soldier as long as he could remember. but that doesn't mean that he agreed with the policy decisions that were that were being made he also made a point in one of his reddit posts that that i think people don't quite understand is that in basically in every unit there's like not every unit but a lot of them there's there's the lefty and as somebody from rural america can tell you yeah there's like um we exist out in rural America too.

58:45There's lefties out there. Not as many, but they're out there. And then there's always like a nationalist right winger in the unit. And then everybody else is like, it's just a normal person doing, going about their life. He was the, he was the lefty in the unit. It happens. Why? I can't quite explain it, but it happens.

59:02Emily Jashinsky:I mean, there's a lot of benefits to enlisting if you're. Well, there's that too. Yeah. All right. Let's go ahead, Ryan, and bring in our next guest, who's going to tell us exactly how miserable it is to be graduating college right now. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and host of the podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. We share stories and scientific insights to help us all better navigate these periods of turbulence and transformation.

59:47There is one finding that is consistent, and that is that our resilience rests on our relationships. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:00:35in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Psych! I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too scary. Cream of chicken soup. Hey, cream. Cream of chicken soup.

1:01:01Emily Jashinsky:This is Help From a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help From a Hypocrite as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and your 20s, they can feel like a lot. On the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, we unpack the anxiety, the overthinking, the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s. Because if you've ever thought, is anybody else feeling this way? They definitely are. I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at.

1:01:44Emily Jashinsky:Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin with. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I was just so wanting to be out of that phase, out of my skin. And I just really regret not living in the present more. Each week, we break down the science behind what you're going through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:02:22graduation season is upon us which means it's time for students to start hitting the job market but if you're like me and emily you're hearing from people around the country that that graduates are entering a workforce that is as brutal and facing headwinds is stronger than any time perhaps since 2008, 2009, yet without the, I hesitate to call it optimism, but the optimism at the time that at least that would be a, you know, one to two to three, maybe four year hiccup, but that things might recover now. They're graduating into a world that is, seems like different in kind than the world that they kind of entered college in.

1:03:08And by the way, they entered in a difficult time because you're, you know, finishing up with, you know, finishing high school amid COVID and then entering college mid-to. And so what we wanted to do today is talk to one of those graduating seniors. We're going to be joined by Timmy McAllister, who is a computer science, soon to be graduate at the University of Central Florida. Timmy, he got on our, Timmy, you got on our radar a couple of years ago because you did kind of a funny video. He did some computer

1:03:37Emily Jashinsky:science. Some computer science video kind of taking the conversation that Sagar and I had had on this program about the Barbie movie and turning it into a video. A lo-fi. But now you're headed into the job market. A recent video that you did has gotten, I think, enormous numbers for a small YouTube channel, like 100 ,000 views. Over 100 ,000, yes, viral video. About what it's like trying to get into this job market in this environment. So, Timmy, first of all, thank you so much for being here and taking time out of your kind of graduation schedule. Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a huge fan of the show, so I really appreciate the opportunity.

1:04:23Yeah, so when do you graduate, by the way? Are you still finals kicking around? I finished my last final yesterday. So I'm through pretty much all of my schoolwork. My actual graduation is going to be Saturday evening. So just working on that. Well, bittersweet. Congratulations. Maybe at the end of the we'll play some of the Barbie thing at the end of the end of the.

1:04:48Emily Jashinsky:He loves it so much. He loves it so much. I do. It's great. So let's start with a little bit of the video of yours that kind of went viral, that was getting attention about the difficulties of finding work at this moment. Let's roll F1. I'm applying to PhD programs because I've pretty much given up on the idea of getting a job. Because even if I did get a job, I'd probably just end up doing like annoying work wrangling with AIs for like one or two years. And then you have AIs that can wrangle themselves and I'm not even useful anymore. So I'm going into a PhD. Hopefully I can do a little bit of research about AIs, even though I don't have access to the best AIs.

1:05:37And so what was your job application process like before you made the decision to just pull the plug on it? Yeah, so pretty much all of last summer, I just spent like applying to internship positions. I was looking for some web development positions because I've done a lot of like full stack web development work. I was also looking for like, you know, like AI internships, stuff like that, because I've experienced like fine tuning large language models to do specific tasks. But, you know, I applied to probably definitely over 100 job applications. I did at least like one to three every day. Like I forced myself over last summer, mostly on like LinkedIn, but, you know, I'm not counting any of those like stupid, like easy apply things because those don't, those don't really do anything.

1:06:36No one ever responds to those. So just counting the ones where, you know, I found the job application on LinkedIn, went to the employer's website, definitely over a hundred. Um, and I mean, I didn't get, I feel like I'm almost lucky in the sense that I got probably like 30 to 40 rejections. A lot of people don't hear anything back at all from these jobs that they applied to. Um, and then I did get one interview at the, uh, unpaid, um, front end web development position that I've been doing, uh, the past couple of semesters. Um, and yeah, that's what, that's what I've been doing these, these past couple of semesters.

1:07:14And, yeah, I talked to the supervisor there also. And, I mean, this was the thing that honestly really, like, shocked me is at that unpaid internship position, he told me that there were 250 other applicants. Wow. And I was the one who got the lucky unpaid job. Oh, wow.

1:07:41Emily Jashinsky:So, Jimmy, you went into school studying computer science as an undergrad in 2022. And so I'm really curious if you could tell us just a little bit more. You get into this in your video, which folks can go watch. But tell us a little bit more just about yourself, about how well you did in school. You had pretty good grades and why going in, what your expectations were of how studying computer science would set you up, I'm sure you believed, for success. you're jumping in right before the AI boom is starting to change absolutely everything. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, I remember, you know, before I had, you know, decided on UCF, I was pretty sure I was going to go into psychology.

1:08:28But, you know, I was always interested in computer science. I've always been like a coder, always worked on websites, stuff like that. And I thought that, you know, there's a lot of great opportunities there. They they told us there were a lot of great opportunities there. The job market was great in 2022. But yeah, I mean, now I have a 4.0 GPA. I literally, literally straight A's like my entire time here at college. I've done, you know, I was a teaching assistant. I've done research in various labs. And, you know, another big thing too, that like they say employers like to look for is that, you know, you have sort of a decent number of like personal projects, like not just that you've had good grades, but you know, that you were able to actually like work with something like a much larger scale project.

1:09:16And, you know, I did that like over my soft sophomore and junior year, I worked on like this very large scale full stack web development project where I like fine-tuned large language models to perform like this, this specific task of sort of identifying sort of like spin in like language. And yeah, I mean, nothing, nothing back from anyone. Yeah, and what about, well, one of the things I saw people be critical of your video for is that, well, this guy's not at Stanford, it's University of Central Florida. But well, two things to that. UCF is actually, when it comes to computer science, you know, a pretty strong school.

1:10:00Well, secondly, we're not an economy just for Stanford. Like, there are millions of people in this country. They all need work. And so if we say, well, sure, everything's fine. As long as you go to Stanford, you're going to be fine. However, from what I'm hearing, even the people who went to Stanford are deeply struggling to find the kind of jobs that one year ago even would have been easy for somebody coming out of Stanford. Just anecdotally, among the circles that you run in, the computer science circles that you run in, what are you hearing from other seniors? Yeah, so I don't know anyone at Stanford.

1:10:44Most of the people I know are just here at UCF. You know, I have, you know, one of my close friends, you know, he got his first internship freshman year. And so, you know, he was able to sort of use those connections at the time and sort of like continue working through various positions. He has a job offer right now. So I'm very happy for him. I know a lot of other people who are going to grad school. um it it really just kind of seems like a safe option especially if you've done well in school uh you can work towards like a specific project like research something like that um continue getting paid like if you have an assistantship with a tuition waiver um and it's like that's that's an option i've actually seen a very large number of people doing um but yeah there's i'd say it's mostly that.

1:11:45And then, yeah, I do have a couple of people who sort of got those connections early. And like, you know, they always tell us like networking is really, really important for like getting a job. But nowadays it feels like that really is kind of the only way anyone gets any job, because if you're trying to wade into that pool of college or not college applications, job applications, where it really is just thousands and thousands of AI-generated resumes that are going to these AI filters that who knows what they're even doing, how many of these jobs are even real. You're not going to be in for a fun time.

1:12:26Emily Jashinsky:Can you talk to us about the response you've gotten to your video? Again, we mentioned It's over 100 ,000 views, and that's, I think, interesting in and of itself. I think it probably speaks to you capturing something that other people are then sending around and saying, this is what my experience is. It's resonant. So talk to us a bit about what you've heard from other people as you've shared your own experience publicly. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. There's sort of a couple of different sets of responses. I mean, the there's a lot of people who are, you know, even like earlier along the path than me, who are either like just graduating high school right now or they're like a freshman or a sophomore.

1:13:09And, you know, they're just trying to like figure out what should they even be doing right now in this economy. And, you know, I try to give advice as best I can, but, you know, I honestly don't really know like what the best option would be for someone going through that. I mean, honestly, the best piece of advice I could give to someone like that is just to keep working on like personal projects. You can use Claude code to like spin up an interesting idea pretty quickly. And maybe you can put that on a resume or get some sort of connection or something from that. Um, and then there's sort of like this other set of, of people.

1:13:49Um, I don't know. I got this email from someone who's like, uh, just, just like moved to the Bay Area, bro. There's a bunch of like AI, AI engineer positions. XAI is paying like$400 ,000 a year if you're willing to sell out your soul. Um, but you know, not everyone can, can live in San Francisco. So, uh, I don't really know about that.

1:14:12Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. That might not be the best advice. I mean, that is, you know, when you combine it with the idea that networking is the only way to get a job at this point, like I get the idea, like just move to the Bay Area. Like when you wanted to be an actor, you used to be, you moved to L.A. You want to be a country musician in the 60s, you moved to, you know, the village. You want to be a country singer, you moved to Nashville. Like, so I get it. But as you think about that, what like, is that possible? Like, are there affordable group houses for people moving out there? Or like, because if it's$5 ,000 for an apartment, you better network immediately.

1:14:58And you're also not going to get the apartment. um yeah i mean that is sort of the issue it's like i don't know anyone in in california like i can't just get a job like i need to have a job lined up there already and then you know the ability then to move knowing that i have like some sort of stable income like i could never just move to san francisco like that's not financially feasible that's bleak unless you're living in the street right and and to me you go through this in the video but tell us a little bit more about

1:15:28Emily Jashinsky:why you've landed on the path that you've landed for your future. Like, why are you taking the bet that you are? What is it? I mean, actually, it's a story that reminds me a lot of what people were making the decision to do during the Great Recession, kind of to stay in school. So talk to us a little bit about why you're thinking what you're thinking right now, why you're taking that kind of gamble. It's a sort of safer bet. Why do you think it's a safer bet? Yeah, I mean, there's sort of like two reasons. I mean, the first one is kind of just purely financial. Like, I'm very lucky that I don't have any debt.

1:16:05Like, I had a very good scholarship. So I'm debt-free, and I don't have to really worry about immediately making income to try to pay that off. So I have a little bit more time. I managed to land a graduate assistantship position. So, you know, they'll pay me for doing research, and I get tuition waived. So, you know, it's not like I'm going into more dire financial straits by doing this. And then the other reason is I really am just sort of interested and worried about sort of the consequences of AI on society. I've always been worried about this. I think social media is an example of a sort of very, very simple AI system that just runs from the one rule of maximizing engagement.

1:16:58And I think it has had catastrophic consequences on the mental health of my generation. And I can't imagine what the consequences could be for something way, way smarter if we don't take this really, really seriously and get this right. So, you know, I'm hoping to be able to do some sort of research with AI safety alignment, figuring out how we can actually make these things do what we need to. But I understand that it's not going to be easy, but hopefully I can make at least some sort of contribution there. Well, hopefully. Yeah. Because nobody else is taking it very seriously, that's for sure.

1:17:35Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. All right, let's finish up with some Barbie. We can roll Timmy's production from a couple years ago. Put a F3. One reason I'm okay with her getting snubbed, though, is because she really flopped the landing with this, like, reification of neoliberalism at the very end with this, you are canuff. Oh, yeah. Like, nobody's canuff. You need community. You need socialization. You need friends. You need family. Like, you need loved ones around you. Nobody is enough. And the idea that you would try to tell a whole bunch of kids that they don't need anything other than themselves, I thought was just a, like, horrific message at the end.

1:18:13And the idea that you would try to tell a whole bunch of kids that they don't need anything other than themselves. Nobody's enough. Nobody's enough. You need community. You need socialization. You need friends. You need family. Like you need loved ones around you. Nobody is enough. Nobody is enough. You need community. You need socialization. You need friends. You need family. You need loved ones around you. Nobody is enough.

1:18:40Emily Jashinsky:It's pretty good stuff, Timmy. That's pretty funny. Thank you. Thank you. I worked pretty hard on it. Timmy, you're Knuff. Yeah, and it must be probably a lot easier now with Claude. This was like pre-Claude coding, right? Yeah. Yeah, that is another big problem. That's artisanal. Yeah. Yeah. Timmy McAllister, where can people follow you? Where can they find your work, whether it's lo-fi or graduation videos? Yeah, so I'm on YouTube, Timmy McAllister. I've been trying to upload about a video every week talking about AI, society, stuff like that. If anyone wants to try to support me financially, I just started a Patreon.

1:19:28I don't have anything really on there yet. I have a couple videos, but if anyone is able to, that would be awesome. But yeah, that's about what I'm doing right now. That's about all we got left to offer as an economy.

1:19:44We'll stay in touch. Curious how your journey goes over the next months and years. So thanks for being here. Good luck. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. All right. Enjoy graduation day. Well, Emily, I am sure glad I'm not graduating right now. God, I'm sorry for all these people that are graduating into this disaster.

1:20:07Emily Jashinsky:No, it's brutal. I pulled up a New York Times article while we were talking to Timmy, and the New York Times is describing this as, quote, the most dismal and unpredictable job market in years. Employers overall are hiring fewer workers, dimming the prospects in particular for first-time entrance into the labor market. and then also obviously mentioning the rise of AI, which we just heard from Timmy, who thought computer science would be a safe major going into school in 2022. How quickly things change. Learn to code. And yeah, and the harder that first, the higher that first obstacle is, then the more it helps to be rich to be in with.

1:20:44And the further we get from a remotely meritocratic level playing field.

1:20:50Emily Jashinsky:Yes, that's a good point. Because like if your parents can send you to the Bay Area for six months. pay your rent. Unpaid internships. That type of thing. Which apparently are possible to get too. Bleak. Truly, truly bleak. I mean, that was the theme of today's show. With the exception of maybe Iran, we may have an end of kinetic fighting. There may be an end in sight. I don't know. We'll see. But bleak all around indeed. So, thanks for watching. FrankiePoints.com. Get a subscription if you like being tortured by bad news uh like we do yeah indeed talk to you later

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