7/10/25: Twitter CEO Resigns, Tucker Roasts Elon America Party, Trump Hits Brazil With 50% Tariff, Trump Threatens To Bomb Moscow

23:40This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR, fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. Hey, this is Kevin. This is Joe. And this is Nick from Hey Jonas. You know, I recently learned that every 36 minutes, another child in the U.S.

24:24is diagnosed with cancer. Think about that for a second. Some of the bravest warriors you'll ever meet aren't professional athletes or superheroes. They're kids in this fight. And every day, these young warriors face challenges most adults couldn't imagine. Yet they continue to show up with incredible courage, determination, and hope. That's why we're proud to support Hyundai Hope on Wheels. For the past 28 years, with support from Hyundai, their dealers, and every new Hyundai sold, Hope on Wheels has contributed over$300 million to childhood cancer research, helping save more than 40 ,000 kids.

24:55But we're not done yet. We need your help. Together, let's bring every warrior home. Learn more at HyundaiUSA.com slash Hope on Wheels or ask about Hope on Wheels at your local Hyundai dealer. I have been with Rasmussen University since 2013, all virtual. All of my professors throughout the entire journey have been nothing but supportive of making me reach my dreams. Rasmussen professors, they want to see you grow so that you can be what you went to school to be. I'm so thankful for Rasmussen University for being able to make it so easy and seamless. Rasmussen University. Find your seat and start now at rasmussen.edu.

25:37Now, on to the America Party, which is, again, one of the most cringeworthy efforts I've literally ever seen. It is hashtag no labels incarnate. And Tucker asked me about it whenever I was on his show, so we thought we'd play a clip. Let's take a listen. We need an America Party, and I'm running it. Mm hmm. Where does this is he serious? Where does this go? Filed it with the FEC. I would give some caution to Elon. Tucker, you and I have seen a lot of rich people come and go in Washington. Yes. Consultants see you coming from a mile away. Mr. Fiscally conservative, socially liberal. I'm just going to put that out there.

26:12The bipartisan policy center and all these other people, they've rolled up that entire market. They have plenty to sell you. I mean, the irony is if Elon's politics were more reversed in this sense, I actually think it would be on to something. So if you were to marry those three issues about immigration restriction, about focus on quality of life, cost of living, health care, and also just broadly about restructuring our economy for productive purposes that distributes not through socialism but through a well-ordered and a well-regulated capitalism that distributes the benefit across all sectors of our society.

26:46Now that's an America party I could get on board with. I totally agree. But there's no funding for that, right? No, if someone got up and said, I'd like an economy where you don't have to hire an illegal alien to raise your kids, your wife can stay home and raise your kids if she wants to. And most women do want to for the period when they're little. I mean, most women want that. And every survey shows that. So if you were to say that, in other words, if you were to respond to the desire of the majority, you'd probably be shot to death. I can't say that. So anyway, Crystal, you're welcome to weigh in since you weren't there to participate.

27:18But that was my take on the America Party. Yeah. I mean, I think this is so important to understand the polling on this. Lots of Americans, you ask them, are you satisfied with the two-party system? They're like, absolutely. Do you want a party led by the richest man on the planet that is based around fiscal conservative? I don't know. People keep saying socially liberal. Is Elon socially liberal at this point? It doesn't seem like that to me. It depends on the definition. And here's the thing. is like he just wants it to be another cult of personality for him. So I don't even think there's real ideological content here because even on the fiscal conservatism thing, he doesn't have any fiscal conservatism when it comes to his own subsidies.

28:01He wants the government to serve him and his interests and those of his oligarch buddies and to revolve around him. I mean, that's really what it is, is let's have a different cult of personality than the one of Trump. Let's have one that revolves around me and whatever my particular interests are that serve my business, You know, my business. I want to bring in all the South African boar migrants. I want H-1B visas. You know, I want low taxes for me. And I want all these subsidies. And I want to crush my competitors. I mean, that's what this party is. So even to give him the credit of some sort of, like, consistent ideological project here, I don't even think that that is, like, too kind to what he's actually launching.

28:42The only thing he seems really committed to is this, like, debt dumourism, which is common. It's, like, a very common, like, billionaire thing. And I understand where it comes from, which is that they have to run businesses, and so they actually just can't conceive of, like, a government that doesn't have a balance sheet. And that's, in my opinion, one of the most destructive ways to think about a government, because governments are not businesses, nor should they be. We're a global empire. You know, the idea that the global reserve currency and all of that has to abide by the balance sheet rules of a publicly traded corporation is preposterous, has been preposterous for 200 years now at this point.

29:17Literally nobody runs any major country that way. But I even put that aside. It's like this idea from Elon basically comes down to, you know, subsidies whenever I want them, this whole idea of like this radical centrism, which we saw from people like Joe Manchin, you know, and others. And I've just seen this no labels, bipartisan policy center type project just exists for probably my entire life and especially all my time here in Washington. And if we all think about it, like what are the things that the party, when the parties agree, it's usually like the worst thing ever, right? It's like support for Israel or I don't know, like a coup in Venezuela or more funding for Ukraine.

29:58On economics, I'm trying to think, they'd be like, oh yeah, let's, I mean the SNAP program or something. I know there's some, you know, or reforming social security. They'd be like, well, we don't want to kick people off. We just want to raise retirement age. Or if we go back to 2015 and the original talks between Barack, the Obama administration and the Republicans, like that's where real bipartisanship was. Whereas, again, if you look at an actual breakdown of like so-called, you know, what an America party or all of that would be, at least for where it is right now. I think we have some polling we're going to talk about on Friday or at least Emily I saw sent this.

30:29It's like people, I mean, 57 percent or something of Americans describe themselves as, quote, economically liberal. Something like 60 % describe themselves as like some sort of immigration restriction or agreeing with that. And then, I mean, the health care polling doesn't take a genius to go in to look at that. That's kind of where the real American middle is. But each one of those is kind of radical in its own way. And so if you were to call yourself like a, quote, radical centrist, that's where things would be. With Elon, you know, you not only have a cult of personality aspect. In terms of the actual things that he believes, he's like a Javier Millet libertarian.

31:02It's like this is not popular. Right. You know, in America. By the way, there was a lot of talk initially about Argentina. Argentina right now is a disaster if people want to go and check it out. By the way, their birth rate is plummeting thanks to – there's a variety of reasons for that. But you can go and look just broadly at how people there societally are reacting. This whatever disaster capitalism or whatever you want to call it does not seem to be working nearly as well as even whatever disaster was coming before it. But that's kind of Elon's solution to whatever the – whatever is wrong, what he thinks with the Republican Party is.

31:36Like he's so concerned about the debt limit or whatever. But as you point out, I mean this is a person who has gotten billions of dollars in government subsidies. Somebody do the math. I forget exactly what percentage or how the company would have even existed previously without being able to do so. It almost certainly would have died without significant government assistance. Tesla specifically, Obama really helped to rescue at a time that was very perilous for that company. Yeah, I mean, look, he's like he's pissed off that he didn't get his NASA guy so he could get his goodies from the government.

32:05I mean, that was part of the breakup with Trump. Right. So in terms of, you know, these hardcore fiscal conservative principles, even that is a bit lacking when it comes to his own companies. But, you know, on economics, they polled Zoran Mamdani's platform. Every single thing that he campaigned on, like his core promises, wildly popular, not just in New York City where it's even more popular, but with the entire public. You know, I think the least popular one was like the free buses, and that was still polling at 59 % or something like that. So those sorts of policies, when you're talking about economics, are the actual center of the American people.

32:44I just saw polling on Medicare for All. It's at like 59 % support and something like 30 %— I'm still skeptical on that. Something like 30 % opposed. So, I mean, that's, you know, that's very different from what Elon is proposing. And again, what Elon is proposing is just a cult of personality of whatever it is that he's into that particular day. Harry Enten did a breakdown of some of the polling and why it can be misleading just to, you know, take for granted. Oh, there's so many Americans that are dissatisfied with the two party system. But if you dig a level deeper, it gets much more complicated very quickly.

33:18Let's listen to that. What is the size of Elon Musk's base? Well, I calculate it to be about 4%, just 4%, 1, 2, 3, 4 % of all voters. What is that base made up of? Well, it's those who view Elon Musk favorably and the GOP unfavorably. We're talking just about 4 % of all voters out there because it turns out most of the people who like Elon Musk already like the GOP already. That is, they already have a party for him. And we will note Americans with an unfavorable view, i.e., essentially that Musk starts off with far more against him than Ross Perot ever did. Americans with an unfavorable view of Ross Perot was only 14 % back in 1992.

33:56Now, the vast majority of Americans are already against Elon Musk, 58%. So what we're essentially saying here is that Elon Musk is going to go into an electorate that already dislikes him, is already against him, while there were far more people who were open to the idea of a Ross Perot third party or independent candidacy as compared to an Elon Musk third party in which the vast majority of Americans have already sided against the man. Since 1970, just 0.2 % of all winners, of all winners, were either third party, independent, or right. And we're only talking about 24 out of over 13 ,000 winners.

34:36The bottom line is third party independents, they just don't succeed. Yeah. And I mean, there's a there's a like, obviously, we've talked about third parties and how impossible it is. I mean, American the American political system is rigged against third parties. That is the way that it is set up. And so it is very difficult to succeed outside of these, you know, edge cases. You're a Bernie Sanders in Vermont. You are, you know, you still caucuses with the Democrats. With the Democrats. Like Angus King. I just ran in the Democratic primary. Yeah. And I mean, the the other thing that's actually interesting right now is if you were to go in the political landscape of where there is the most opportunity, Republicans are very happy with the Republican Party.

35:19Yes, that's right. Trump is they love Trump. They're with him. They're happy with Trump as the leader of the Republican Party. They feel great. And now so Elon obviously has aligned himself with the more conservative part of the political spectrum. Democrats, on the other hand, are disgusted with Democratic Party leadership, which is kind of a house of cards at this point. So even in terms of where you would locate yourself on the political spectrum, the whole thing is effed. And, you know, just to take it back to his business interest, I think in a sense he's in real trouble. Because if you think about SpaceX, now you've got Sean Duffy in there.

35:48You'll remember that cabinet meeting where Elon was in there and got into it a little bit. Oh, yeah, that's right. It was Sean Duffy. That's right. He did get into Sean. That he publicly was, like, feuding with. And they clearly, so putting Sean Duffy in at NASA is like a direct kind of eff you to Elon. So SpaceX is very dependent on federal government contracts. So that's an issue for SpaceX. Twitter has never been an economically sound investment. It was more about power and projection and propaganda. I think it's been effective with regards to that. But now you've got Linda Yaccarino out. The analysis from Kara Swisher that, like, hey, you're not going to have the threat of lawsuits through your alliance with Trump against advertisers.

36:30I think that's an accurate point. So Twitter as a business prospect is just totally hosed. And Tesla is screwed. Like, Elon was such an important part of the Tesla brand. And now you have alternatives. In most of the world, there are many other and most, you know, Chinese electric vehicles that are superior to Tesla that you have access to. Now, here we don't have those. But the major car companies are turning out EVs. And there are alternatives that are, you know, at least close to, approximate to what Tesla is. You're losing the EV subsidies from the one big, beautiful bill, which I think those should stay in place, but those are gone now.

37:07And your brand is now completely toxic with the affluent liberals who were buying your car. And then the potential new market of right-wing conservatives who love Trump and love you, you've now tanked yourself with them with your war with Trump. Where is this going to go? And your product line is stale. and you haven't been focused on actually delivering for consumers and creating a product that's like irresistible to people. The Cybertruck is one of the biggest vehicular busts in history. Mostly because of Elon, by the way. I genuinely think it's his fault because it had a lot of hype whenever it initially came out.

37:39Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Apparently a bunch of like rental car agencies are buying them because they're so cheap. Hey, it's got decent range. Honestly, it wouldn't be a bad thing to rent if you're on vacation. My daughter is telling me, she must have heard this on like YouTube Shirt or something. And she was like, don't be mad at everyone who's driving a Cybertruck mommy because they may have just rented it, like been stuck with it from the rental car company. Very smart. And, hey, it's got some luggage storage. I might be checking that out the next time I have to rent the car, especially if they'll give me a discount.

38:07But I'll just put it like this, which is with Elon, the America Party, et cetera. And I've broadly found people can get upset when we talk about the third parties in a denigrating way. Yeah. But look at Zoran. The guy won the Democratic primary. Look at Trump. You know, the model is there, is you have to come in and kind of blow up an existing political party for your own purposes. The Democrats are in their 2014 moment. They are ready to be destroyed. All right? Hakeem Jeffries is John Boehner. Schumer is – yeah, sorry. Schumer is like the perfect example of a leader who can easily be knocked off.

38:48Yeah, Eric Cantor. There's not like a direct comparison, but, you know, these guys are running scared and they're a joke. And the Democratic base is upset. You could never been more rife for a Trump moment than right now in the party. And if you look at the history of new political parties, it really takes like a singular issue to blow everything up. And a lot of people really forget that. I mean, you need like a slavery type issue to actually destroy a party. We don't have that right now. There's not like one single defining axis of American crisis at this moment. There are, inter-party-wise, as in like in the Democratic Party, it's about exuding some fight and wanting to win.

39:26On the Republican side, Israel's a big one. I'm not sure if it's there quite yet, but immigration was how the right turned on the axis of immigration. That's where everything really turned around, and there was a lot of other stuff that came with it. But, you know, on the Democratic side, Israel is a big one. There's a lot of like vibe elements to it as well, but that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. My point is just that we don't have something that crosses those two in which they're both irreconcilable on those two issues like breaking apart, which would allow people to converge on a single party like the original Republican Party under Lincoln, which, remember, was a new party at their own time.

40:00That's really what broke up Wiggery. And, you know, you just have to look at that history and say we don't have that right now. Perot came close and he did try and he's the GOAT for that reason is that he kind of centered it around global trade and the reordering of our economic system with NAFTA. But unfortunately, people were basking too much in the glow of the 1990s and they weren't willing to listen. If he ran today, I actually think he'd be a wildly popular Republican. But it's unfortunate. Nate Cohn did an analysis that was basically like, you know, if the two, if the Republicans and the Democrats really fully realign, where the Republicans are truly like the national populace, which they're not really.

40:36And the Democrats are truly like a sort of democratic socialist, which they're definitely not. Then you might have space for this like return to neoliberalism kind of a party. But he, yeah, I mean, I share your skepticism. And certainly given where we are right now, where the neoliberals still have plenty of purchase within both political parties, it's, you know, the time is not, we don't need a neoliberal resurgent party because they still have plenty of power within both of the two major parties. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other.

41:14One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload. Odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, HR. Fully integrated, easy to use, and built to grow with your business. Thousands have already made the switch. Why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's odoo.com. Hey, this is Kevin. This is Joe. And this is Nick from Hey Jonas. You know, I recently learned that every 36 minutes, another child in the U.S. is diagnosed with cancer. Think about that for a second. Some of the bravest warriors you'll ever meet aren't professional athletes or superheroes.

41:56They're kids in this fight. And every day, these young warriors face challenges most adults couldn't imagine. Yet they continue to show up with incredible courage, determination, and hope. That's why we're proud to support Hyundai Hope on Wheels. For the past 28 years, with support from Hyundai, their dealers, and every new Hyundai sold, Hope on Wheels has contributed over$300 million to childhood cancer research, helping save more than 40 ,000 kids. But we're not done yet. We need your help. Together, let's bring every warrior home. Learn more at HyundaiUSA.com slash Hope on Wheels or ask about Hope on Wheels at your local Hyundai dealer.

42:31I have been with Rasmussen University since 2013, all virtual. All of my professors throughout the entire journey have been nothing but supportive of making me reach my dreams. Rasmussen professors, they want to see you grow so that you can be what you went to school to be. I'm so thankful for Rasmussen University for being able to make it so easy and seamless. Rasmussen University. Find your seat and start now at rasmussen.edu. Let's get to Trump. Let's do it. Shall we? All right. Lots of news here with Donald Trump. some major moves in particular on tariffs and on Ukraine, a few other things.

43:12So Trump has given us some great insight into his thinking on his tariff formula. You'll recall previously, there was basically a chat GPT type formula, which by the way, not even a good chat GPT formula. It was the easiest chat GPT formula that you were able to. I got a much more sophisticated one, and it took me only five minutes. But here is Trump revealing for the first time how the formula is being used. Let's take a listen. The formula was a formula based on common sense, based on deficits, based on how we've been treated over the years, and based on raw numbers. But they're based on very substantial facts and also past history.

43:57The formula is based on the formula. It just is common sense. There you go. Based on very substantial facts. I'm not going to tell you what those facts are. Based on very substantial facts. Now, in particular, what the formula really is, is whatever Trump kind of wants it to be. So let's go and put this one up there on the screen. This is probably the most significant one that dropped just yesterday. Trump has now hit Brazil with a 50 percent tariff. It says in part due to the trial of Jair Bolsonaro. So for those who don't know, Trump has been tweeting more recently about Bolsonaro, who obviously is on trial inside of Brazil.

44:30He also kind of cited digital censorship and free elections here. So, for example, he says Trump in the letter, due in part to Brazil's insidious attacks on free elections and the fundamental free speech rights of Americans, as illustrated by the Brazilian Supreme Court and its secret and unlawful censorship orders with U.S. platforms, we will charge Brazil a tariff of 50 percent. Please understand the 50 percent number is far less than what is needed to have a level playing field, and we must have with your country. It is necessary to have this to rectify the grave injustices of the current regime.

45:01And he additionally cites the prosecution there of Bolsonaro. Now, this is obviously a beef kind of long coming, but the question is about whether it's actually going to be effective and what this will mean inside of Brazil. Keep in mind, Bolsonaro, I mean, yes, he lost, but it wasn't like a terrible loss. And I remember we had Glennon at the time where even though Lula did win the Bolsonaro—I forget the exact name for it, but the Bolsonaro party itself actually did quite well throughout Brazil. So it's not like they actually don't have their own vibrant political system. The real question is about how this will be met by Brazilians.

45:37And I think that is obvious from a lot of the tariff blowback that we saw in the early days of the administration. Canada, for example, becoming overwhelmingly like nationally popular. Trump basically nuking the conservative party inside of Canada. Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum, very popular when standing up to the United States. Japan, by the way. I just saw a statement from a senior Japanese official inside of the government from the LDP party who was like Trump is a bad person or something like that is crazy. Like they don't talk that way in internal Japanese politics, a very high ranking person allied with the government.

46:12This is after we just hit them with their 25 percent tariff. Korea is also having similar kind of nationalist upright. They're upset, obviously, about the way that they're being treated. So I think that the potential – the irony is that, well, yeah, I mean I remember that social media case. It was outrageous. I don't know all the specifics around the bolsa. I'm not an expert on the Brazilian legal system and whatever they want to do, like go for it. It's not particularly my business. But I think that the question about if we actually wanted to achieve these goals and what they would look like are open right now at a time where it wasn't that long ago we were very concerned that Brazil – And Lula, because he is not, you know, is much more of an internationalist figure, willing to speak out against, you know, the consensus on Gaza and also willing to do a lot of trade with China.

46:57This would seem like the perfect example of something that might actually put them in a different direction because China doesn't care at all about what they do with Bolsonaro. It's big on the consensus on Ukraine as well. Of course. Yeah, that's right. I remember that. This is insane. It's insane. It's actually outrageous. Okay, first of all, this is a president who tells you he's America first. And the impact of putting 50 % tariffs on Brazil is going to be higher prices on you. So effectively, he's putting a tax on you in order to help out his buddy in Brazil, okay? Number two, you don't have to know all the ins and outs to know, as Sagar just said, like they can do in their country what they want to do.

47:34Recall this is also the man who went and gave a speech about how we weren't going to lecture other countries. We weren't going to enforce our own views on other countries and manipulate them. I mean, and immediately he turns around and, you know, does the complete opposite of that. 50 percent tariffs because he's mad that, I mean, Bolsonaro tried to do a coup and overthrow the election. And that is one of the things that he is being prosecuted for right now. And that is the reason that he has been banned from running in the next presidential election. Now, again, I am not an expert on exactly what went down and the status of these court cases, whatever.

48:10But it seems like within the realm of reasonable that if you have someone who engineers a coup and tries to overthrow an election, that maybe they should be barred from running for that office again in the future. From the political perspective, it's also completely insane in terms of the goals you want to effectuate. So first of all, you're very likely to have a rallying around Lula, who actually has been sliding in the polls and was in a bit of political trouble. So this could easily, very possible, I was talking to Juan David Rojas about this, very possible that this rescues Lula and bolsters his polls as he heads into his next election.

48:48It's not clear if he's running it, whatever, put that aside, but could very much bolster Lula politically. In addition, you have Trump picking this fight with the BRICS nation, of which Brazil is the B in BRICS there, over their movement towards potential, you know, an alternative currency system, potential de-dollarization. What do you think the impact of this is going to be? It is going to be to further push these countries into the arms of China. You can't rely on these people. These people are insane. You're just going to levy a 50 percent tariff on us because you don't like what our court system is doing?

49:20Like, get out of town. What do you mean? So it's so counterproductive, idiotic, illogical, outrageous on every single level that you can hardly wrap your head around the type of mind that would come up with this. Well, I mean, in particular for me, it's just, look, I don't know. I mean, I remember there were a lot of concern about censorship and all that via Brazil. I don't disagree with any of that. I think that's fine. You know, if we want, and I believe, I believe we at least got some resolution or something on that. But for me, the Bolsonaro thing, again, I don't know about the case. I know that there was some brouhaha or whatever, and they're banning him from all of that.

49:58But I don't really care what they do in their own country. You do what you want to do. If you guys are upset about it, then you can overthrow your own government. Go for it. But as Rojas actually points out, with Brazil's export partners, the 50 % tariff, it'll hurt, but it won't be devastating, in particular because Brazil already was at least pursuing somewhat the so-called BRIC strategy. And in fact, actually just yesterday, the Chinese government announced trade agreements with 10 different countries in the Asia Pacific, many of whom were actually hit by a tariff by the United States almost in the same week.

50:35Now, those are the things that actually concern me the most. I'll also show you another example. Let's put B4 up on the screen, please, on copper. Trump says, quote, I am announcing a 50 % tariff on copper effective August 1st, 2025, citing the national security reasons for semiconductors and all of these other industries that are reliant on copper. Now, OK, listen, I think I said this yesterday. That's fine as long as we have a vibrant copper industry here in the U.S. and we're able to, I don't know, spin up production and we've given a bunch of tax credits to the copper industry. We didn't do any of that with the latest bill.

51:11That's the problem. And so, you know, copper, Ryan said yesterday that this is a boon to all of the people who rip copper out of abandoned houses, aka drug addicts, by the way. So congratulations to all the fentanyl addicts out there who are stealing copper off of job sites and other things. But if you pair that with where we are right now, it's probably just going to lead to a higher price. You know, by the way, for home construction and all that, good luck. for renovators and other things is going to massively increase their overall supply. Let's also, can we put the next one up here? Because this fits with what I was talking about.

51:45The haphazard nature in which this is all going into effect, you can see here all of the different tariffs that were just announced by the president in the last two days. The Philippines, Brunei, Moldova, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia. I mean, a number of those countries I just listed just signed a trade agreement there with China. You've got Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Algeria, Iraq, Libya. Who even rules Libya, by the way? You know, what business do we do? Bosnia, South Africa, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Thailand, Cambodia. Iraq. We should be paying Iraq reparations, not charging the tariffs. Yeah, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos.

52:20I mean, the thing is, again, let's just return, if we thought, to the original strategy, because I've been around for the pivot to Asia for my entire time here in Washington. The idea was to take many of the countries I just listed, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and turn them into places where the United States can continue to do business in the Asia-Pacific and move production out of China. This is specifically why Vietnam is such an important trading partner. And at the very least, we did sign some sort of trade agreement with them. There's a lot of problems with pass-through shipping, et cetera, and circumventing tariffs, which I totally understand.

52:56But that was the basic proposal. That's why it's just ridiculous to be hitting a 20 % tariff on the Philippines or on Malaysia or South Korea, Japan, highly developed nations which are traditionally very good friends here with the United States, important production houses in their own right. and it's just contrary to any sort of like moving away and outsourcing from China. It's just haphazard and it's one that basically just fits with the whims of Trump himself. And the more that it's like that, the more likely, of course, America's likely to turn against tariffs because they can see that it has no real purpose.

53:32And the likelihood is to actually just vindicate all these neoliberals because the prices are just going to go up. We're going to talk about Amazon here in a little bit, but we're already seeing some precarious signs. It's funny too, I've seen people be like, Like, see, you should have trusted Trump's plan on tariffs all along. I'm like, guys, he backed down on the tariffs. That's the only reason why the economy is fine. If they go back into effect, then all of the original doom scenarios will come true. Yeah. Like, what are we doing here? I know. It's insane. And just to go back to Brazil for one more moment.

53:59Like, who are we to be lecturing anyone about censorship at this point as well? I don't disagree with that. Like, who are we? We're kidnapping students off the street for a freaking op-ed. And you think you have any moral high ground to stand on when it comes to censorship? Like, get out of here. So and also, again, by the way, if they want to have different laws regarding that than we do, that is their right. And they get to work it out in their own democratic system, which seems to be actually functioning more effectively than ours does at this point. I don't know about that. It's total and complete insanity, the whole thing.

54:30It is so devastating to any sort of, you know, any ideology, which you and I both share, of desiring like industrial policy and thoughtful protectionism. Like, you know, like the copper thing on its own. If you had some strategic, OK, here's what we're going to do. And here's the policy by and here's the, you know, the subsidies that are going to help build this American industry. OK, I'm open to that. But this is just this is just insanity and chaos. And while to Trump's face, a bunch of these countries will kowtow and, oh, Mr. President, and can we get a Nobel Peace Prize for you or whatever.

55:02Behind the scenes, they are all talking and collaborating and figuring out how they can move on from being like in this abusive relationship, which is exactly what this is at this point. It's a big problem. And it also just shows, you know, Trump can flip around on a dime all the time. I mean, more recently, we're going to move on to the Ukraine part. Ryan and I talked about this yesterday, but you can actually watch in real time how the Ukraine policy of Donald Trump has gone from I want to stop the dying. We need to stop sending all this money to Ukraine because depleting U.S. stockpiles to I'm just going to have it solved all in one day before I even take office to talks with Putin and the Russian government to basically just recreating the Biden policy.

55:47where Trump is thinking about signing the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill. More sanctions ought to do it. It's definitely not the most sanctioned country by the United States ever, right? And more weapons to Ukraine. Oh, I'm sure that'll be a solution for the Ukrainians. That definitely is gonna be able to beat back the Russians as the Ukrainians continue to lose territory. Oh, that's right. Actually, remember that nice minerals deal that we signed? Well, the Russians just took a massive lithium field yesterday. So, oh, okay, oops. Might've been better to sign some peace deal or something earlier, even if you're just looking out for American interests.

56:20But that's where Trump is now. And perhaps the reason is that Putin sees Trump as a massive bluffer. He believes he can, doesn't really have to play ball with the U.S. really if he needs to, because he knows that even to the extent of maximum realistic Ukrainian support, he can just continue this war on forever. The last two days in Ukraine have actually been some of the biggest bombardments ever, over a thousand drones that have come down on the city, he clearly doesn't care. And also, he believes here with Trump that he's not necessarily a useful negotiator. So we had some actually interesting audio that just leaked from Trump where he told people behind the scenes, I believe this was during the campaign trail, that he was, quote, going to bomb the shit out of Moscow if they continued the war in Ukraine.

57:06Let's take a listen.

57:29So that's what I told people behind the scenes. But, you know, and this is the irony of this whole like, oh, stooge and all of this. The reality of the situation is that Putin has a view, which has really just not changed. He's like, I want all of Ukraine. To the extent that I'm willing to talk, it's that we freeze things where they are right now. And the West is like, oh, well, we need a defense treaty and we need to say. And he's like, no, we're not doing any of that. My entire economy is around the war. You can either take it or I'm just going to continue the war, period, end of story. and we just seem to cycle back to the same ridiculous position that we have started in.

58:06It's just so ridiculous in particular after we just blew all this money on Israel and all of these weapons stockpiles. I don't know if you saw yesterday we talked about with Ryan, 25 % right now of the Patriot batteries, munitions that we need for US plans are currently in stock. Trump is currently talking about sending them over to Ukraine. That would deplete us even more. Like what are we doing? Especially after we blew a ton of them on the more recent Israel attack. So it just countered like any sort of coherent project around this thing. And here's Trump being asked yesterday because of the chaos around the pause, which has now been restarted.

58:44Don't worry, everybody. The weapons are on their way to Ukraine. Here's what he had to say. Well, I haven't thought about it because we're looking at Ukraine right now and munitions, but I have no, I have not gotten into it. If a decision was made, I will know. I'll be the first to know. In fact, most likely I'd give the order, but I haven't done that yet. So what he's talking about there is that originally there was a pause put into place to pause the weapons. Then Trump, apparently, according to him, didn't know about it and came out and was like, oh no, actually we're going to restart it. But this just goes to show that, and part of the reason, I would even defend any idea of a pause because, Crystal, doesn't that seem consistent with the policy set by the administration?

59:24Why would the president need to approve this thing that he said he was going to do. This was a basic framework of the Trump campaign and promises from the very first day. So of course that would be the policy. And because Trump is who he is, he's just switching things around all the time. And then this morning I see Rubio and Lavrov are meeting in Malaysia. So I'm like, who the hell knows? Yeah, well, did you see, I mean, this kind of fits with this idea of like different factions of the administration are just sort of freelancing and not coordinating and not running things up the chain. chain there was um there were two tracks to get a deal with venezuela oh yeah we talked about yesterday oh did you talk about that a little bit i missed it yeah to try to secure the release of some american prisoners that are being held by the venezuelans and you had marco rubio offering one deal and then rick grunel offering a different deal yeah that was a better deal right to the same guy and so you're like what what is going on here right and so even though i think you're right that because trump was so clear about like we're gonna do this and you know So, I mean, maybe it's now it's obviously much less clear.

1:00:26But I think there was a justified legitimacy to, you know, the State Department, the Defense Department being like, OK, yeah, this is the policy. And so we're going to pause these weapons. At the same time, you do like people do need to know what's going on. There needs to be some sort of coordination. And under Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon is it is a shit show. Like it is a backbiting, messy, chaotic shit show. And I just don't think that there is any denying that at this point. And this is one instance where it sort of comes to the surface. On the substance here with regard to Ukraine, and I think you and Ryan said something similar yesterday, like having an ideology and a goal is going to be no ideology and no goal every day.

1:01:04And you see the same thing with regard to the policy vis-a-vis Iran. Like Trump is kind of all over there and doesn't really know what he wants. And one day he wants this and one day he wants that. Bibi Netanyahu frickin' knows what he wants. And so because he's going to be relentless in pushing for his objective, consistent with his ideology and his goal, eventually he's going to get it. And so, you know, it's the same thing you see with Ukraine, like the Lindsey Graham's of the world, the Vladimir Zelensky's of the world. They know what they want and they are going to continue to push it relentlessly until they get it.

1:01:36And I think Trump came in with just like a foolishly naive view of what it would take to resolve a conflict that is now very difficult to resolve. Even if you came in and you were focused on it and you were intelligent about it and you had a specific goal in mind of here's how we're going to resolve it, even under those circumstances, it would be very, very difficult. But he came in thinking he's just like, oh, I'm the great deal maker and we'll figure it out and I have a great relationship with Putin and so I trust him we're going to be able to work it out. No, you're not. No, you're not. And so congratulations, America.

1:02:06Basically, you've got another forever war here. The most likely track is we're just going to continue shipping weapons bit by bit and, you know, continue to be this sort of like grinding intractable conflict over years and years and years. And presidents are going to the next president's going to inherit it. And they're just going to like we did in Afghanistan, just sort of stop talking about it and have it be on the back burner and just persist in this policy that's, you know, ongoing and horrific and has this terrible human toll because that is the path of least resistance. That is the path of least resistance.

1:02:36That's why we stayed in Afghanistan for so long, because the moment that you actually pull the plug on that conflict, look what happened to Joe Biden. His approval rating was destroyed and he never, ever recovered. Because when you end in conflict, you have to reckon with the failures of that policy and what it meant to get us to that point. I totally agree. This is Jacob Goldstein from What's Your Problem? Running a business is hard enough. Don't make it harder with a dozen apps that don't talk to each other. One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. That's software overload.

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