6/4/26: Shawn Ryan Says Trump Duped Him, Ivanka Kushner Private Island, Rubio Confronted On Trump Falling Asleep

24:54It sounds nice. Must be nice. Can I get in? Actually, I'm joking. I don't want to live on a private island in Albania. Sorry. I'm not leaving. I'm sure it's beautiful. This is my country. I'm not going in. I'll get to it in a moment. The Albanian people are furious about all of their mass protests going on. They're like firebombing politicians' houses. I mean, it's like really, really heated up because they're pissed off about what appears to be corrupt dealings with regard to her acquisition of this. They feel this island is a public asset that is now. They did some quick changes to make it possible for them to buy it.

25:28There's all kinds of shady figures that appear to be involved. There's questions about who even owns the land and how it was able to be acquired. Before I get to all of that, though, let's go ahead and take a listen to Jared Kushner talking about this same island deal. Because Ivanka, her story, oh, we were on a friend's boat. And then we went swimming and we found this island. This is like very European settler colonial coded, right? We found America and we discovered it, right? In any case, here is Kushner identifying whose boat they were actually on and how this all went down to enable them to fulfill their wishes and dreams with regard to this private island.

26:08Let's take a listen to that. I was on a vacation after we left government in the summer of 2021. We were on our friend Nat Rothschild's boat. We got picked up in Montenegro, and then we started sailing over to Corfu. And we spent a couple days in Albania. One of the nights there, Prime Minister Rama came to the boat. I had not met him when I was in government, but I was very, very impressed with his vision for what he wanted to do with Albania. I really didn't know anything about the country. I didn't understand the history. And the darkness of the history with the communism and the terrible leadership actually led to it being fully undeveloped as a nation.

26:44But Eddie came in. He has one of the cool things I was attracted to is the fact that he seemed like a very skilled politician, a very strong and smart leader. but also the fact that he was an artist. I thought it'd be very cool to see what a country really led and built by an artist could be. So slightly different story there from Jared. So first of all, it's apparently Nat Rothschild's boat, which we can run this slideshow of this mega, what do they call them, mega yachts? It's like$180 million. You can see it here. You've got the heliport, you've got the library, all the things that one would expect on their friend's boat, okay?

27:21So they're on Nat Rothschild's boat And then the prime minister joins them to talk about how amazing Albania is. And then lo and behold, they do this deal to acquire this island. And let's go ahead and put E6 up on the screen to show you some of the backstory here. So there had to be a change made to the status of the island in order for this acquisition to be made. And lo and behold, Zagre, the timing on this is really very special for Ivanka and Jared. Right after Ivanka's father was inaugurated president is when that change in status was made by the prime minister so that they could acquire this island.

28:03And I just think that is, I think, fate coming together for them to bless this acquisition is what that looks like to me. In any case, some people in Albania, for some reason, we could put E4 up on the screen, not super excited about this deal and the selling off of this island. This actually is pretty horrifying. You can see here, this is a protester who was assaulted and being dragged by private security guards. They're already, and this is on the island, there already were protests that were ongoing at this point. And then the revelation of this video just shocked the public. And so as you can imagine, the protests have only escalated since these private security guards dragged this protest to the cops who were apparently standing by just watching this as this occurred.

28:49Albanian prime minister responds, It is very important we remain welcoming. We remain fair. Under no circumstances do we receive the stigma of being a country where investors are met with hostility. There is absolutely no chance that the investment will stop as long as I am here. The Albanian government has also previously defended the development as in compliance with environmental rules. Developers have also said they intend to move forward with the project. Our focus remains on responsible stewardship, environmental enhancement, job creation, and creating long-term value for local communities.

29:18We respect the ongoing public institutional process, the chairman of the development person said to Reuters. So that's the status. I mean, who amongst us has not been on a Rothschild megayacht and then gotten in for a swim after talking to a prime minister to go to an island to buy said island and also be related the daughter and son-in-law of the president of the United States. It's a relatable story. Very normal, very relatable story. I will say, you know, on the Rothschild front, this is the one where it remains to me one of the most important Epstein stories with no additional reporting that has come out.

29:52That email, which I flagged consistently at the time, where the—remember, the Rothschild family is large. They're talking about Nathaniel Rothschild. I believe he's like a hereditary heir in the British parliament, but obviously they're all part of the same family. There's different branches of this. This one relates to the Swiss family. Although Nathaniel Rothschild's name, if I remember, was in the Epstein Black Book. So this, remember, where Ariane de Rothschild hired Epstein to negotiate that settlement with the Department of Justice regarding the Edmond de Rothschild Bank in Switzerland, where they actually paid Epstein almost as much as the fee that they ended up settling with the Department of Justice.

30:30And it was like$25 million for Epstein and an additional$10 million for that woman, Kathy Rumler, who was the general counsel at Goldman and also previously was a deputy White House counsel under Obama. And then it was settled either with Loretta Lynch or with Eric Holder at the Obama Justice Department. To this day, nobody has any idea why they paid Epstein that large amount of money to negotiate the deal or what discussions he ever had with any of those senior people over at DOJ. That's all we know. And then they actually clawed back some of that settlement later on, just so you're all clear.

31:05So Nat Rothschild, this is according to the AI on Google, okay? They say he has not been publicly linked to Epstein. However, his ex-wife, the late British socialite and Ladies of London star, Annabelle Nielsen, was deeply intertwined with him. The DOJ document release revealed numerous emails between them. She referred to Epstein as babe and honey and offered to, quote, put a little group of girls together for him when he's in Europe. So anyway, not necessarily him, but the ex-wife seems to have been tied in. In any case, I just want to show some of these video of the protests here in Albania, just so you can get a sense of the size and scope.

31:47I believe this is E5 that we have video of the protests, which, again, with multi-day long, thousands of people in the streets, you know, not that large of a country here. So people pretty upset about this change in status and selling off of their resources for this mega luxury resort that is being planned by Jared and Ivanka. I also think there was another deal in, I think it was in Bosnia nearby, that fell apart for similar reasons because there was such a big uproar against the Trump name. And so I don't know if they've really grappled with how much people have discussed for them, both here and around the world.

32:28Like, I think they're kind of cut off from reality of how much antipathy and horror there is at the idea of like this becoming and the Albanians are calling it, quote unquote, Trump Island. Let me put the last piece here up on the screen. I don't know. This is E8. I don't know if these two stories are related, but they might be related. And like you wanting to get the weaponization fund into the show, I've been wanting to get this into the show. Peter Thiel, who is major backer of J.D. Vance, seems like his political project has sort of come to fruition here. You know, some of the companies they invested in are very, and helped to found, are very influential in this administration.

33:05He's got a bunch of his politicians who are now in office, including J.D. Vance, who may well be the heir apparent to Donald Trump, although there's now some question about that, apparently. In any case, right at that moment, when it all seems to be coming together for him, he is leaving the United States. And he is decamping to Argentina, which is raising a lot of questions about why. One of the things people are pointing to is this potential billionaire tax in California, which would be pennies. I mean, it would be minuscule in terms of his net worth, the amount that he would have to pay into this.

33:37So I'm not buying that whatsoever. And in any case, he didn't have to flee the country. He could have just left for Texas or whatever. He's addressed that before. He said, there's a segment of him on Rogan talking about how he couldn't decide if he should leave California, if he could leave the U.S. Oh, really? What did he say? It's very Teal-esque, and there's about 90 ,000 ums that are in the, the general thesis was, if I'm going to leave California, there's no reason that I shouldn't just leave the United States because it's going to be the same problem. He's, look, the billionaire tax is an excuse.

34:09It's basically like he thinks there's like failed governance. I don't know why I would go to Argentina. If there's failed governance, like, you're the guy who helped to put this government in place. Yes and no. You know, look, he's an eccentric, hyper-techno-libertarian. These people effectively live lives of teleportation. Like, whenever it comes to their private jet. There's that book. I'm totally blanking on the name. Ryan Holiday wrote it. Conspiracy. This is off the top of my head. It's about the Gawker case. But I remember reading that and I was like, this is an insane way. where it's like every place that Teal is, that he has a car which is idling 24 hours a day in case that he wants to get in said car, and then a jet which is on standby.

34:52I mean, he lives on multiple continents between the U.S. He's got houses all over the globe, houses in Miami, Los Angeles. I think he has New Zealand citizenship. And he's got a bunker out there. I'm pretty sure he's got another citizenship too on top of that. I'm pretty sure, isn't he German? I think he's German. So he's got like three passports. I just, I wouldn't take it as like some denunciation necessarily. I'm not taking it as a denunciation. I'm taking it, well, I don't know what I'm taking it as. But some are saying that here's a guy who is at the forefront, the bleeding edge of AI, okay, development.

35:28So one possibility is he's looking at this and is like, this may not work out well. Now, to your point, him and a bunch of these other oligarch billionaires have already been in their doomsday mode for quite a while. Yeah, for like 20 years. Which I think is part of the nihilism that has allowed them to fling themselves wholeheartedly into AI development, even though many of them know that there is a significant possibility that it certainly destroys society, if not all of humankind. You know, a lot of these guys would talk openly about how they think that it's not 100%, but some significant possibility that continuing in this direction will literally lead to the end of humankind.

36:07which Thiel, when he was asked about whether he cares, whether humankind persists or not, when Ross Douthat asked him that, he was a little unsure. So that's discomforting. So you have that. Another possibility is that, you know, he sees the political trends, thinks there's going to be like broad sort of not necessarily civil war, but societal collapse here because of how divided the country is and how dysfunctional, et cetera. The other possibility is that he sees that there's massive political backlash to the Trump administration and is like, let me get out of here before the heat gets too hot because people are going to be furious at anyone who was associated with what's going on here.

36:44Another possibility is just that, you know, he is very tied in with Javier Malay in Argentina. They'll basically let him do whatever he wants with his like networked state or he can basically like be his own little emperor in his own little city state there. and so he can live out his tech god dreams. But all I'm saying is I think it's noteworthy that both the president's daughter and Peter Thiel are both like, you know what, private island type life. That seems like the direction that I want to go. I think it's all of the above of what you just said with Thiel. Look, he's always been a doomer whenever it came to American politics.

37:17I will say, I mean, it was incredibly insightful. There's a book, George Packer, Unwinding. That's what it's, I think it was written in 2013. He interviews Thiel. I think about this a lot because he was one of the only people in public life who would say it. He said, I think the next president of the United States will articulate American decline, where the entire story of American politics is that they're always trying to articulate a story of American progress. And if this was before Trump came on the scene, came down the escalator, it was one of the main reasons why back Trump in 2015, I want to say, was one of the first people, the major like industrialists or not, you know, oligarchs or whatever to support Trump, is because he was like, no, I think that the country is going downhill.

37:55And so this has kind of been his vision of the U.S. now for some time. It combines with the techno-libertarian dream for Argentina and for Malay. My take, though, if I were to ever talk with these people, is how would you bet on the political stability of Latin America, Argentino fascist dictatorship to socialists, to libertarian? I'm like, yeah, that's not a very stable political system. I'm saying hock to the World Bank. Yes, they're like it. They've got their hands out to the United States, to the World Bank, their own population. You know, I mean, look, they changed their minds all the time.

38:28Their modern government artifice, again, as I understand it, is only a few decades old. Like, they had a dictatorship in living memory. You know, like, people alive who were like 50 in Argentina spent most of their lives under a dictatorship as opposed to this. Hyperinflation. I don't think you wouldn't mind if they reverted back to the dictatorship. Like, he's not afraid of a dictatorship as long as he's in good with the leader of said dictatorship. Yeah, but what's the story of that? is that, oh, they get overthrown pretty quickly in violent revolution. Why would you ever bet your political future on that one?

39:00I also, again, with just some limited personal knowledge, he's a weird guy, okay? People were obsessed with antichrists and teleportation, literally were going all over the world and being spotted at chess clubs and reading books about obscure Christian theology. They're not normal people, all right? So that's where sometimes you shouldn't read, You know, sometimes there's like an easy political answer and there's also like, sometimes you have a 182 IQ and you're just a freak. The other thing is, if it was related to like the impending AI apocalypse, I don't know why you would think that Archie Cater.

39:34Yeah, why? And I have to think that he can put that together, but who knows? Who knows? If I had to flee anywhere, I mean, he's a New Zealand citizen. That's where I would go. It's the most beautiful place. Seems like a logical place. They got a lot of nice natural resources, small population. It's isolated from the rest of the world. Seems like a cool place. I would love to go, by the way, New Zealand. I hope you let me in. All right, let's get to Ken Klippenstein. He's standing by. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, Nick? Huge news. We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas.

40:07We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. Yeah, a pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up with the name Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember I think it was on a call about what we should call it and we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers this is how you guys remember it going down yes I have a very different memory of this we were talking about a thing a bit for the podcast where people could call in and say hey Jonas and then I wrote down on my little notepad hey Jonas and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast But thanks for remembering that, guys.

40:51Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great, take over another country. From iHeart Podcasts, Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Sherman. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? I should stop talking so much. I like hearing you talk. One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart. This is for Vietnam. I've taken a hit from Japanese ground fire.

41:30Do you read me? They're pouring petrol all over him. He's holding matches. I'm on a landmine. For freedom. Let's get out. Freedom for Vietnam. Run. Saigon, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Rob Benedict. Sting, here's madness. The world should hear about this. There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why is everyone obsessed with romance right now? Like everyone. Your coworker who quote unquote doesn't read is reading romance. Your mom. Book talk. The entire internet. I'm Sanjana Basker.

42:15I'm Tyler McCall. And this is Radio 831, a romance podcast. The books, the tropes, the adaptations, the drama, the discourse. And what all of it says about how we actually love, yearn, and obsess. We're going to Wuthering Heights. Which, for the record, is not a romance novel. And yet it has haunted the romance genre for 200 years. We're getting into dark romance, age gaps, certain Russian hockey players. and sentient objects in love, which is a thing. That's the kind of conversation we're having every episode. Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

43:00So there is a mystery that I've been tracking rather closely of this New Jersey congressman named Tom Keene, who has been missing for over three months at this point. Mike Johnson says he's working remotely. we have no information about what's going on other than it's some sort of a health issue. So to speak to this and many other instances of a lack of transparency with regard to health issues or our rapidly aging political class here in D.C., we have the nation's foremost expert on such matters, independent journalist Ken Klippenstein. And he joins us now. Great to see you, Ken. Hey, guys. Good to be back.

43:35Shout out to your sub stack. Everybody go and subscribe for Ken's reporting on this and many other important matters. I wanted to start with the president of the United States because we're going to investigate the gerontocracy here in America. So obviously, let's start at the top. Yesterday, there was quite a remarkable moment where Ted Lieu, for about six minutes, just grilled Marco Rubio on Trump falling asleep in meetings, which he now does all the time. Like, as a matter of course, it is rare that you have some lengthy White House meeting that doesn't end up with Trump, like, hitting REM sleep in front of everyone, everyone just pretending not to notice.

44:07So let's go ahead and take a listen to a little bit of this exchange. It starts off with Ted Lieu playing a clip for Marco Rubio, where Trump is obviously falling asleep next to him. Let's look. And what American farmers grow and produce has a fair shot to be sold around the world. On issue after issue, that's been the case. You talk about foreign aid reforms. This is not our money. This is taxpayer money. Secretary Rubio, have you been at more than one meeting where President Trump has fallen asleep. That's false. That's false. I've never seen him fall asleep. On the contrary, the guy doesn't sleep, which is a big problem because he calls me at two in the morning.

44:44He calls me at five in the morning. And, you know, I like to sleep a little bit, maybe not 12 hours, but at least six. So he works... The other day he was at the Oval Office at 1230 p.m. 1230 a.m. I don't know what you're talking about. Secretary Rubio, I'm going to show you in a moment a video that shows you just lied to Congress. Oh, okay. So this is a video of the cabinet meeting literally from last month where Donald Trump is sleeping while you're talking. Please show this video. Coalition of countries that line up behind the peace deal, behind the board of peace. And it's still every day is a challenge, but it's been driven personally by the president.

45:21It's the reason why we're involved in this whole Ukraine-Russia conflict. That's not our war. It's not the president's war. This war started. It never would have happened if you'd been president. But this war is going on and the president is trying to end it. You are literally talking about issues of war and peace and Donald Trump is sleeping right next to you. No, he's not. If Donald Trump cannot stay awake at these important meetings where the cameras are rolling, imagine what he's like when the cameras are not there. So I'm going to ask you, have you been at classified meetings where Donald Trump has fallen asleep or had trouble staying awake?

45:56I've never been at any meeting. And the things you're showing me now, he was not falling asleep. Unbelievable. My favorite part of the second clip is that Trump is like out. And then he wakes up and looks at Marco. And then he's just like, yeah, I'm going back to sleep. I mean, it's incredible. And this happens all the time. And Rubio has to be the, oh, no, I've never seen him fall asleep. That's what you just showed me. He's not asleep. I think the White House has said this is extended blinking or something like that. Yeah. So President Trump is actually the second oldest president at 79. And on this month, this very month, is the occasion of his birthday, and he will become the oldest president in U.S.

46:33history. And in addition to that, I assume you guys have seen all the photos of his discoloration on his skin, on his hands, things like that. The White House did announce that he has what's called chronic venous insufficiency, which is like the veins and ability to pump blood to extremities, which in itself is not a life-threatening condition. but it's often a consequence of another condition that someone has. That's usually something you see that's like related to something else. And that's something else we don't know. It could be something as serious as heart failure, or it could be something less serious.

47:08We just don't know because we get these kind of summarized, you know, brief releases from the, from the white house. But it really is an extraordinary moment in American history, not just with, you know, Trump being the oldest president later this month, but his predecessor, Biden, being the oldest president at that time. I mean, this is all really unusual. Yeah, and the thing is, Ken, what you've always been excellent at flagging is just how bipartisan of a phenomenon this is. And everybody just seems to cover up their own old and decrepit individuals. One of the more recent stunning cases, which this one even isn't necessarily age-related, but just shows how they cover up health of public officials, is Tom Keene.

47:46He's a GOP congressman. He's been missing for literally three months. Nobody knows why. Nobody even knows what is going on. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, just gave us an update yesterday saying he's under the care of health care providers. There's no scandal. Don't worry. Here's what he had to say. I talked to Tom a couple of days ago, maybe Friday or Saturday. He's in good spirits, but as his public statement that went out yesterday explained, he's dealing with a health issue. He's under the care of health care providers, and they've told him he needs a little bit longer to recover.

48:18Now, that's all I can say. That's all he said. It's not a scandalous thing at all. People deal with health issues that maybe that's a news flash for you. But even members of Congress get sick as well. Right. He's dealing with that right now. Tom Kane is an extraordinary member of Congress. He has delivered for the people of New Jersey. He ran without opposition in the primary yesterday. And he deserved to because he has been a phenomenal member of Congress and a great member of our team here. He comes from a long legacy of public service in his family. As you know, he's a famous family. He is going to be back.

48:50He'll be back. He's working remotely right now, as he explained in his statement yesterday. And he's anxious to come back in person and be here voting every single day. So it's not scandalous, Ken. He's coming back. He's actually working remotely, even though he literally cannot work remotely. Like, you can't vote remotely. What do we know about this guy, about Tom Kane? Surprisingly little. As you guys know, I cover national security as well. And looking at the story, I realized it is literally easier for me to find out what the Pentagon is doing and planning and like covert operations and things.

49:20And it is for me to find out what the congressman like this is, what's happening with him. There was a very mysterious and oblique reference in the New York Times where one of his staff, someone identified as a staffer of his, you know, was asked, okay, like, why can't we get a photo or like a proof of life? It was almost like they're talking about bin Laden. Where is he? and the guy says something very mysterious. He says, where he is, there are no cameras. Yeah, we have that actually. I don't know what that means. I agree on the screen. He literally said, where Tom is, there are no cameras. What does that even mean?

49:56I don't know. You know, he also, what's so crazy is he won his primary and recently put out a statement, went after the Democrats, he won his primary, he was endorsed by Donald Trump, even though nobody has seen him. We literally have no idea what is going on, Ken. Yeah, and I literally tried to run – I called, made calls, and I realized it's like this is harder than – I'll just go back to national security because I can't figure out what's going on here. And this is one of two people that disappeared at the same time. There was a Democratic congresswoman who disappeared for I think it was a month at that point, and she had undergone eye surgery.

50:29To her credit, there was this backlash against – I think she's 87 or something, and she announced that she won't be running for reelection after this backlash. But there really needs to be a norms update around Congress because there's at least an expectation that – you have the White House medical physician. There's some amount of like they're expected to say something about health stuff. Like, yes, they don't say enough. But there's some kind of expectation. In Congress, they don't have any reporting requirements around this stuff. And it's like shouldn't there be something that some guy can't just disappear for two months without even – like shouldn't the constituents have some way to know, okay, he's gone.

51:03Maybe I'm fine with that, but at least we have some idea of what's going on. I mean, another case sort of similar to that is John Fetterman. Like, you listen to him speak. He can barely put a sentence together. His political views have completely shifted. And yet voters are just stuck with this guy who's not remotely what they thought they were getting and who also is not upfront whatsoever about whatever is going on with him, you know, health-wise, etc. And so you're right. It's not just like it's not just the elderly. There's also these these various health conditions that get covered up. Wasn't there an issue?

51:38Didn't you? Was it you that uncovered we had a member of Congress who was literally living in hospice care, unbeknownst to anyone and undisclosed, certainly to her constituents? Yeah, she was she was in a memory care facility in Texas. This was Kay Granger. Oh, that's right. And she herself had disappeared for, I think, a year. and that hadn't even come out, which is a scandal in itself that these people can disappear for that long and nobody even notices. And I think to myself, okay, if there's no discernible difference in the work product when they're gone, what does that tell you about what it is they do?

52:10Do they do anything? Is this all just being run on autopilot out of their offices? So there's the gerontocracy issue and there's a health issue, which of course overlaps with the gerontocracy one, because as you get older, it's easier to have health issues. But what's striking about that is there's been much less attention on the latter case. There's at least some consciousness around. I mean, I've been talking about gerontocracy for years now, and it's getting much easier to talk about now than it was several years ago. That's not the case on the health side. Like the RAND Corporation, the Pentagon-backed think tank, they actually put out a report a couple of years ago warning, and they're obviously not an activist outfit by any means, or even really political, saying like, this is a national security threat.

52:53Like we have guys on the Gang of Eight on, you know, we have senior intelligence officials read into stuff. And like, what is the plan for if they start going a little batty? Like they were just worried about it from a counterintelligence perspective. And they flagged it as a national, it was a great report. And it's just funny that it's like, it can get to these organs, but it's like hard for Washington, like kind of media to process. It's very strange. Tim, what are some of the other cases that you found that are just totally insane that our audience may not know? So there are five cases of Congress, members of Congress that died in office this term alone.

53:29This term? We were just talking off camera. Yeah, there was – and prior to that, there were another four in the previous term, I believe. Wow. And so all of this is really unusual, the amount of – and if you look at the cases, it's like several people that had cancer and then ran for office beforehand, like Jerry Connolly. So it wasn't like it just came out of nowhere. It was clear that they had health issues. Another case was George Scott, a congressman, Democratic congressman from – or sorry, David Scott from Georgia. And he had a run-in with media where someone was pushing him in a wheelchair.

54:04He started cursing out a reporter for taking a picture of him like in public in front of the congress. and so it was like this open secret that this guy is senile and then he dies and it's this whole thing of like oh so sad how could anyone have seen this coming and it was like i'm not making this up i just clicked on some of his he was reading from a piece of paper kind of pausing looking down uh i just watched some of his random um videos on his youtube page and he one of them was him recalling being at the um premiere for the um what was the movie the uh charlton heston movie, the, what is it?

54:39The Ten Commandments? Oh, The Ten Commandments. Like in 1950. It came out like 1950. Yeah, yeah. It's like I'm not even digging that far to find this stuff. Yeah, and look, there are counterexamples. Like Bernie still seems very sharp, right? And he just introduced some legislation on AI, so he's like, I would say he's probably the best in Congress in terms of understanding the likely impact and thinking up legislative solutions, etc. But, yeah, I mean, And overall, as you age, it's going to be a problem for you, both health wise and in terms of your mental state. There's been a lot, I think, post Biden, there's been a real public awareness and concern about the aging nature of our politicians.

55:22Have you seen that have an impact? I know you mentioned one one congresswoman who said, look, I'm not going to file for for reelection. Have you seen more of these people willing to step aside and say, OK, this is getting ridiculous. Maybe I should go like spend some time with my grandkids or something and let someone else do this job. Oh, definitely. Gary Peters of Michigan released a statement. And they're openly saying like, you know, I've got to give a chance to the next generation to have a shot here because the incumbency advantage makes it so hard for new blood to come in completely aside from just like the raw number of the age.

55:54It's like when someone's had a seat for years and years, it's really hard to let the composition of the Congress change. So he put out a statement saying – attributing his not running for re-election to needing to give the next generation a chance. The Illinois senator Dick Durbin made a similar statement. So we're definitely seeing change, no question, in part because of I think the catastrophe of Biden made it impossible for people to ignore this problem. But it's a serious problem in Congress because Congress is not really Democratic in the sense of like every member has an equivalent amount of power.

56:31Like the chairs have enormous amounts of power in almost all the chairs, particularly on the Democratic side, which literally goes off of – they generally go off of seniority in a way that the Republicans don't necessarily. That means that you have a bunch of 70 - and 80-year-olds with like the lion's share of the power on the committee because if you're just a rank-and-file member of the committee, You have nothing like the power that the chair or ranking member does. So to me, that's like the big problem is like shouldn't we pick the leaders of these committees based on – I mean maybe it is the oldest person that's the best suited for it.

57:04But presumably sometimes that's not the case. I'll tell you what it is. Seniority system was a disaster and really was one of the worst things about Congress. In fact, it's one of the few good things the GOP did in – I think it was in the Tea Party era actually where they kicked the seniority system on their side. but you're absolutely right. Seniority, it just kills any legislative advancement. The generational turnover. Well, these guys are in charge of policy on internet, and it's like an 80-year-old? Exactly. Do you know what I mean? No, the seniority system locked up the United States Congress for almost a 50-year period.

57:39And it was, I mean, you can read the Master of the Senate book about this. There's several others in the Robert Kerry articulates it incredibly well about how much progress it actually held up at the time. It really, really needs to go. Anything else, Ken, before you go? I would just point out that, yeah, there's been a huge change on the age question. And I think the health one is another thing that I hope gets debated more. Because obviously there's a balance that you have to make between someone's privacy, even a member of Congress. But there's just nothing in terms of transparency for what the public gets to know.

58:10So I hope that's the next thing that people push on. I don't really have that much. If you want your privacy, like go live a private life. Yeah. You know, people are electing you. I just, you know, a level of disclosure would be nice. And kudos to you who sort of shamed Susan Collins into revealing what was going on with her tremors. Was it the... So, yeah, she says it's a, what is it called, Ken? It's like a benign, some sort of benign tremor. She claims that it's a, what is it? A essential tremor, that's the term for it. Mm-hmm. Which is something that, I mean, is a whole nother complicated issue, but...

58:45I'll let the hell go. And it was crazy because it was something that everyone could see. And I was like, I thought, oh, for sure this has been reported before. I literally couldn't find any mention of it anywhere. Yeah. Well, it started going viral because in her re-election ad, she was like taking shoes out of a box and visibly shaking so much. And if you just watch her. And so, look, people can evaluate for themselves, but you, you know, should put the information out. There's something visibly going on with you. What is it so that voters can decide whether this is what they, you know, what they're signing up for?

59:13She's 73. I thought she was like 65. Bring chicken. She's not even one of the oldest ones, Sagar. Oh, my God. Yeah, she's been in office for 30 years. You're from Maine. It's one of those beautiful states. The license plate for Maine literally says vacation land. Enjoy it. You know, it's like you got a few years. Just, you know, go by a lake or whatever. I have a feeling she may have that opportunity soon. We'll see how it goes in any case. Ken, shout out to your sub stack. Everybody go check it out and subscribe. Great to see you as always, my friend. See you, man. Good seeing you guys. Thank you guys so much for watching.

59:43We appreciate it. Friday show for everybody tomorrow. See you then.

1:00:05We'll see you next time.

1:00:17He was a great singer. Can he tell you not to audition at The Office or something? I told him. Whoa. We were filming Anchorman. Clearly, I was the idiot. Thank God he didn't listen to me, right? Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. June 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'd be seeing it, but I'm like, man, I still got so much more to do. Like Prince, he dropped like 30 albums. We dropped like five right now.

1:00:49That's the rate we got to be going. Yeah, that's a good attitude. No matter the era, Drink Chance brings you the biggest names and the most unfiltered conversations. Listen to Drink Chance from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, 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. 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.

1:01:26You can have opinions, you can have like a strong stance, and then there's your body having its own program. Listen to A Slight Change of Plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.