6/18/26: Trump Haunted By Great Depression, Peter Thiel Secret Society Exposed

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Joy is essential and it's also elusive. But now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotb. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting and moving on air chats. Open your free iHeart Radio app. Search Joy 101 and listen now. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb is presented by CVS. Welcome to Sabora Football, the sweet and the spicy on and off the field. I'm Daniela Duran, and this is where we get to know the people behind the game like never before.

0:44The pressure, the fame, and everything that happens when the cameras turn off. Enjoy conversations with guests like Barbartra, Ener Valencia, Sharon Escobar, Pollo Griseño, Fede Pereira, and many more. Listen to Sabora Football on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:27Drive different. So if you're high, just don't drive. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.

2:01We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com.

2:09So we had some other very interesting comments from President Trump at this G7 summit, talking more about his thinking in ending the Iran war, saying he did not want to be thought of like Herbert Hoover. Let's take a listen. Herbert Hoover. I was always the one I didn't want to be. I wouldn't have preferred Nixon. I wouldn't have preferred, there was plenty I wouldn't prefer, but the one I always thought of, Herbert Hoover. And he caused it. He raised taxes too fast, and he raised interest rates too fast, all at the same time. And it caused the Great Depression. So I don't think I'll make mistakes like that.

2:50I lower taxes. I don't raise taxes. In fact, we just gave you the largest tax decrease, largest tax cut in the history of our country. Always interesting, Sagar, when you get these little windows into the way his mind works. Yeah. By the way, sir, you should be a lot more like Nixon. He was much smarter and a better president, actually, than you were. In terms of Hoover, I mean, it's one of those where you actually made the apt comparison yesterday with Biden. You know, getting out of this disaster, obviously it's good. I'll celebrate it. But you got us into this one. And I don't know how much a lot of people are going to be forgiving.

3:27I mean, even before the 100 days of this disaster, Trump's approval rating was already kind of in the toilet because of his obsessions with Venezuela. And then there was Epstein that was before that. And then before that were all the fights about immigration. Well, I guess actually some of that was even interlocked between all that. And then before that was Doge. I mean, I would say Liberation Day was probably the day that Trump really lost the country in terms of the overall feeling because people were so upset about the, it's just like with Iran and the memorandum, the deals on, the deals off, the tariffs on, the tariffs off.

4:01I mean, it was madness, I think, for quite a lot of people. And people really suffered, I think, after that. And the market, as he really points to, they did not like it. So in terms of hurting your own presidency, it might be sunk. Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't do the deal. We should, obviously. I'll still celebrate it and give them all of this. But it's going to be a very, very difficult hole to dig out of, especially with the economy. I mean, what can you realistically do? It's good. The gas price is going to go down. It probably won't go back down to where it was. And people are not going to forget 100 days.

4:33And remember, they already said the amount of money that people spent just on excess gas for the 100 days of the war was more than the entire tax refund of the big beautiful bill and outpaced all of the commiserable wage gains. So unless you own stocks in the S &P 500 and you're quite liquid or you have some investments, which most people don't, I think it's only like 40 something percent of people, even then with those that do, it's in their retirement account, they can't access it right now, there has been no financial upside to a lot of this. And then the same, you know, forces of inflation and housing disaster and all of that that have been happening now for five years continue to flow unabated.

5:15So it's a very difficult hole to crawl out of. Yeah. It's like with Biden. You would have had to start two years ago, man. And even then, I'm not so sure if you could have done it. Well, and here's the thing, too, is as we covered earlier in this week, it's not like you just like snap your fingers and oh, straight up for moves. It's all back to normal and everything's flowing and we're all good to go. So it's going to, and the administration is openly saying this, it's going to take months for things to get back to normal, even if you presume that the negotiations go forward and everything's smoothly and they come to a deal and shipping companies begin to feel comfortable transiting the Strait of Hormuz again, which continues to be a real question mark.

5:50And the damage that's been done throughout the Gulf region begins to be repaired and things that have been shut down are brought back online, which again is not a process like flipping a switch. So if there's one thing we have learned about the way the economy works over these years, it's that it takes a while for things to get back. Meanwhile, we have hot inflation rating is coming in, not just on the price of energy, but on the price of everything, because energy literally fuels everything and because it's not only energy that was impacted by this war. So Trump has been, of course, making lots of noises about how he wants the Fed rate to be cut and brought in his own guy here, Kevin Warsh, who the thought was that he would be the one who would be aligned to cut the rates.

6:36Well, we have his first decision here as Fed chair, and they're not liking the rates yet, although there is increased presumption that they will probably increase interest rates sometime over the coming year. But they are going to keep those rates steady. Let's go ahead and take a listen to how he announced this decision. The committee decided to maintain the target range for the Fed Fund's rate at 3.5 % to 3.75 % in support of the Fed's dual mandate. The committee also reaffirmed its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system. Economic activity is expanding at a solid pace, despite elevated uncertainty that owes in part to the conflict in the Middle East.

7:22Productivity growth and capital investment both strong. Job gains have kept pace with the workforce and the unemployment rate has changed little. We recognize that inflation has been running well ahead of the Fed's long stated inflation goal of 2%. That's been going on for more than five years. So very interesting the way he frames it there, right? First of all, it's like he really, really downplays like, well, in part, what's going on is the Iran war. Anyway, most things are great. Everything's going really well. And this whole inflation thing, we've been having inflation for a long time, five years, certainly has nothing to do with this guy who's in office right here.

8:02So very interesting to see, you know, the politics of the way that he's presenting all of this. But, you know, the bottom line is they are going to hold the rates steady for now. Trump was asked about this and seemed very nonplussed. He said literally like, yeah, whatever. With regard to the rates, something he was previously obsessed with. We'll see where it goes from there. Let's take a listen to that. The Fed decision, they held rates today. Did you see that? It's all right. Whatever. And it looks like they might even raise them later this year. It's not clear. Do you have any... It could happen.

8:30I mean, it's hard to believe. It just keeps the country down. You know, so... It's so... Unusual. But we have a very good guy over there now, so I'm guided by what he wants. It's all right. Whatever. Whatever. And then they ask, OK, well, you know, they might raise the rates later. And that could happen. You know, I don't he clearly doesn't want that to happen. And so he thinks it keeps the country down, which in general it does tend to do and, you know, has a lot of impacts in terms of affordability with regard to mortgage rates and things of that nature. Car loans. But because of the choices, the economic choices that he has made, he has put the Fed in an impossible position where it would actually be irresponsible for them to cut the rates at this point.

9:12Yeah, for market watchers, remember that they had to reverse their prediction before the Iran war that rates were going to drop as a result of Kevin Walsh and some of the other factors. But now the current expectation was not just holding rates flat, but the rates will have to increase. Remember, I think it was the European Central Bank actually just hiked their interest rate. I'm pretty sure the British bank did. Yeah, I'm fairly certain that the British bank did as well. Japan, that's another country, I think, that also hiked rates very recently. So you could see across the developed world. I'm also looking just as of this morning.

9:44You know, the average 30-year mortgage rate as of this morning is 6.51 percent. And some others, you know, a little bit of variation all the way down to 6.4. That's still very high at the current, you know, the current housing costs. I believe it's not a statistic where it was like in 100 U.S. cities, the average starter home is now roughly a million dollars. And I mean, especially if you look at, it's got to be like high cost of living areas where, again, for people like DC, like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, it shouldn't make sense, but it does. That's the crazy. So, OK, so do the math, 20 % down.

10:18You got 800K financed at 6.5%. It's a rough looking paycheck in terms of your after tax income and the amount that that's going to go to. You can do some general math here of affordability. And people really start to get stretched when you look at that. So I just see the interest rate combo. We kind of all just accept it, that the rate is high. But when the price is not going to drop, that just means a very amount of household difficulty. And then people staying locked into housing that they don't necessarily would have or even want to stay in. But they may want to move, but they can't because they can't afford to.

10:55So it's really very restrictive, I think, in terms of affordability. I just saw this news item yesterday, too, that housing starts. so meaning like new construction of housing, plunged 15 percent in May. It was the sharpest decline since the pandemic in May of 2020. They attributed to high interest rates or elevated mortgage rates, elevated price of materials, continually causing problems. And they also say that there's sharp regional differences between what's going on. Actually, there is a building boom in the northeast. There's a decline in the west and the south in particular. But, you know, when you think about affordability, like there needs to be more housing constructed or else you're going to have this tight market.

11:38And obviously, price is continuing to go up. And then the mortgage rates have made it so the whole market is kind of frozen in place. And these are some of the areas where, to your point, Sagar, you know, this is not it. This has not been something Trump has really focused on at all outside of, you know, berating the Fed chair to do something about it effectively. And we played that MAGA grandma earlier in the week who was like beside herself saying she literally is having panic attacks. And I thought this was what he was going to be focused on. And instead, we're doing tariffs. We're doing wars.

12:07We're doing Venezuela. We're doing the immigration stuff. Not that I think that that MAGA voter would be particularly upset about that. But the focus on and we've got the ballroom. We've got the reflecting pool, all the sort of monuments to Trump as well, which I think have really upset Americans just because it really does feel like this sort of Marie Antoinette approach. where he's worried about his legacy and his image and his beautiful ballroom and has not focused whatsoever on the American people. And as Alt-Ride said, I don't think about your financial situation and I love the inflation.

12:37So that is a difficult political landscape for you to recover from quickly. Come back to haunt him, definitely. Put D5 up there, just what I was talking about, with the banks. So currently, there was an interesting moment yesterday where Kevin Warsh declined to join the dot plot, which basically only 18 dots were submitted by the officials, one less than the 19 in March. He declined to provide a dot as to the quarterly rate projections for the future. So we don't yet know which way he'll decide in terms of whether they're going to increase the interest rates. This is basically meant to signal from each of the decision makers whether they're thinking that the rates need to go up or stay the same or go down.

13:18And so he's clearly playing the politics here very closely and decided not to record what he thinks is going to happen or what he thinks needs to happen in the future. So that's why it's just interesting from like a politics perspective. Yeah, exactly. And finally, just D6, I want to put this up here because I just thought it was fascinating, is after the deal has been signed, There has now been a huge push into dollar bets as the, quote, U.S. exceptionalism trade returns. I just thought this was very interesting. Traders now expect a buoyant American economy to keep the Fed from cutting rates despite oil price fall.

13:56So they said investors around the world are flocking back to the U.S. dollar, that the AI boom will help the world's biggest economy outshine its peers this year and force the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates high, which is going to create a stronger dollar. There are two things. I think one is the end of the war. But two, obviously, this still remains the big bet on AI. But three is actually here about the interest rates because they want better returns. So they say, you know, from the buoyancy of stock markets now to the recent Federal Reserve thing. But I also think it really does have to deal with the confidence as well.

14:29You know, with the president's comments there about, well, you can't, you know, nobody will take our dollar if they think that we're just going to seize it. So a little bit of an interesting signal there. But I think the bottom line remains that, look, nothing crazy is going to happen in terms of the economy and things that are on autopilot just generally mean we're still going to have high inflation. The fundamentals are bad for most people. Consumer sentiment is probably going to remain quite low as a result, and already was even before the Iran War happened. And so absent something serious, really serious in terms of government action, it's just going to be like this for some time, which I know is very, very difficult for most people who are out there.

15:09Okay, why don't we get to the Peter Thiel? Hey, I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer. And that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartum depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

15:42Keith Giamanca seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad. But secretly, he became someone else. A master of disguise who went on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy, but I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong and what that might look like? No, I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets, but what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue.

16:37Listen to Deep Cover, The Family Man on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

16:49June is Black Music Month, and on the Drink Champs podcast, we're speaking with the hottest names in the culture, like Sway Lee. Do you realize how legendary you are? I appreciate that. I be seeing it, but I'm like, man, I still got like so much more to do. Like Prince, he dropped like 30 albums. We dropped like five right now. That's the rate we gotta be going. Yeah, that's a good attitude. You also hear stories from industry legends and hip hop pioneers like Fab Five Freddy. I directed Winnaz's early videos. Which one? One Love. Wow. Yes. I literally filmed in his apartment in Queensbridge. His mom's was still up in that apartment.

17:27Nas was just beginning to take off. His pops used to live near me in Harlem. His dad introduced him to a whole lot of, you know, conscious stuff, and he made a young prodigy. No matter the era, Drink Champs brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to Drink Champs from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Wired published some interesting revelations about Mr. Antichrist himself, Peter Thiel. Let's put this up on the screen. They got their hands on a leak, which exposed members of Peter Thiel's secretive dialogue society.

18:06More than 200 of the world's elites registered for a retreat whose agenda runs from panels on cult building and sex to prepping for World War III. An associated app offers matchmaking. So for the global elites looking for, you know, other global elites interested in building cults, I guess that's the way to go about it. Let me read you a little bit of this article and the details of who was exposed here. They say some data lays out a program of off-the-record sessions, including money does buy happiness, question mark, bring back nuclear, navigating World War III, battlefield technologies, and how's your sex life?

18:45Other talks include Build a Cult, moderated by the founder of the Christian networking site, Pray.com, and Build a Party, run by a former White House national security official. Together, alongside the mundane fair of a typical thought leadership conference, the documents show an extraordinary convergence of power. The registration records list General Alexis Grinkiewicz, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and the head of U.S. European Command, who took the post in July 2025 and is recorded on the leaked list as having attended dialogue gatherings since 2021. Also names sitting Trump administration officials, two U.S.

19:19senators, six members of the so-called PayPal mafia, a former Middle East chief of intelligence. Are you ever really a former Middle East chief of intelligence and a sitting ambassador to the United States, along with the founders and directors of many of the country's largest surveillance, data broker and advertising data companies. So a lot of very elite names here. You know, this is compared to it's sort of like, I don't know, kind of like a private world economic forum. Very, very secretive. They do ask. They ask for some like information about the people's interests and special skills. Members list talents like funhouse construction, accent imitation, backcountry skiing, urban exploration and meditative and psychedelic inquiry into the nature of reality.

20:05They play matchmaker dialogue. Its participant form asks registrants whether they are looking for love and offers to include single man, single woman or other respondents in future matchmaking. A separate site, dating.dialogue.org, hosts an app pitched as meaningful connections for exceptional people. Isn't that beautiful, Sagar? Yeah, it's all a bit. It's actually a bit creepy. I'm trying to find the exact quote. I'm reading a book right now called Railroaded. I sent it to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is comparison to the A.I. It basically it's about the financialization specifically of railroads.

20:39And he has I'm going to butcher the quote, but I can't find the exact one right now where he talks about his real discovery was the sheer mediocrity of the Gilded Age class. Is that the more that he learned about them? He's like they weren't special. They weren't particularly intelligent. They actually were just exceptionally and exceptionally good. at like one very, very narrow thing and spectacularly lucky and that the world that they ended up making was not intentional, it was purely accidental and largely that they were quite mediocre in their own right. Like the more that he started to learn about them and I was like, wow, that is so profound because being in this position, I've met quite a few extraordinarily rich people, many of them who were billionaires and what you will see are often glimpses of like, wow, I couldn't do that in terms of like how they got their billion.

21:34But then they'll talk about something that you kind of know something about. You're like, dude, what the fuck are you talking about? It's like, you literally don't know what you're talking about at all. But the amount of confidence that they have from their success in this one domain that they bury over, the reason why I'm talking about this is that many of these Silicon Valley types who I have gotten to know quite well, not Teal or any of these people themselves, but the kind of people who are around them. And they have, it's like they fetishize being interesting is the way I would describe it.

22:06And that is why there's this whole like, and being edgy, like the whole build a cult or sex. They're like, oh, are you aghast by that? You know, like they like to be offensive and to like break norms and to gather. And, you know, I actually thought Nathan Tankus, can we put E3 up here on the screen? Tankus, who says, what I. So he went to one of these conferences. And he says, I would emphasize these kinds of people talk the same behind closed doors as they do in public. What was, in fact, the striking thing about how much of a rich or powerful person talk like they tweet. Any far right thing you think a rich person is posting but couldn't possibly believe, they believe it.

22:44So, EG, you should think about the ruling class, especially circulating around tech, as genuine believing that low birth rates is the top problem currently. On electoral politics, the insane explanations rich people post about the election in 2024 are genuinely what they believe in private. Your average rich moderate Democrat at the week of the election genuinely believe Harris lost because of biological men and women's sports and not being pro-Israel enough. You know, some I agree with some, but like he's right. And again, that totally comports with what I have seen. You know, one of the main funny things I've seen with a lot of these many rich people as well is, bro, you have a billion and we're doing the same shit.

23:22We're just tweeting and talking about the news. It was proof. It's easy proof is that you could have all the money in the world. You could have you could be in a this once happened to me, a billionaire. I did a monologue about years ago. Clifford Asness, who is this idiot hedge fund manager, was attacking me over, you know, pushing some economic populace. He was calling me like some socialist or whatever. And it was on Christmas or near Christmas, and he was literally in a Swiss chalet tweeting and angry about some monologue I had given. And I was like, there you go. I mean, you know, you have a guy here who's worth billions of dollars in a Swiss chalet who is just outraged at some, at that time, some 20-year-old idiot on YouTube talking about economic populism.

24:07But it just shows you money can buy, you know, it can buy a lot around you. But, you know, there's a deep hole inside these people. They want to be recognized. They want to be loved. They want to be edgy. They want to be interesting. They want to be, you know, they really want this validation from their peer group and from the rest. And, you know, look, it's all fun and games, but they're also extraordinarily rich and wealthy, and they control a lot of the technology that we use on a daily basis. That's why it's dangerous. Yeah, and they love these little cliquish things. Of course they do. It makes you feel important.