7/21/26: Trump Threatens Iran Payback, Trump Rages Over Bibi Arrest Push, China Overtakes US On AI, Biological War Plot

24:22military was built upon of which those trillions of dollars have been spent. You just simply have to recognize reality. But this doesn't happen. When you read a history book, every time we say, no, no, no, if we just do a little bit more and a little bit more, it's not until you absolutely get bitch slapped in the face. Like, you know, multiple times when the Japanese did it to the United States or, you know, there are multiple other battles. I think it happened to a British, I forget the exact, I think it might have been in Singapore, something like that, around December of 1941. 1941 where the same thing where the entire navy just wakes up and goes our entire theory of the last 25 years was wrong and you find out in a two-hour time span but we found out and yet just like with them all the writing was on the wall everybody knew basically everybody had a chance to know if they wanted but it's willful blindness for too much money spent sunk cost fallacy and that's why when i say we haven't bled enough we haven't that's just that i wish it were the case.

25:15To me, we have bled plenty. But for the policymakers, for the imperial, like for these people, for the Dubowitz's of the world, for the Wall Street Journal, for Trump, for Fox News, for these people to admit catastrophic defeat, it takes something like that, like Pearl Harbor or something like 3 ,500 people who are killed. I truly wish it weren't the case, but it usually is. Yeah. And there's just too much evidence to point in the other direction. Well, and with Putin and Russia, I mean, not only could they continue to just feed their people into meat grinder, which is what they've been doing, they're also considering insane things, considering bombing further into Europe, considering using a nuclear weapon.

25:56These are active debates that are happening inside of Russia to try to, again, secure something that they've been unable to fully secure on the battlefield. You know, I think you're right over time. enough time. You already have Ukrainians who are, you know, would like to see a resolution to the war and a war weary and have had an entire generation that has been destroyed. But, you know, this has not been the easy pickings that Putin thought it was going to be. And then with Iran, you know, Iran is a we underestimated them. They actually are a better industrial power than we are. They've got their shit much more together in terms of manufacturing, you know, the drones that they've developed and the things that they need in order to succeed.

26:35They understand their strengths in terms of their geography and what they need to do, what our weaknesses are, etc. They believe that they can withstand a lot more pain than we can. I think that's absolutely the case. And so, you know, here we are with Trump considering, hey, do we pursue this 10-day deal, which Iran probably, even if Trump was like, let's do it, Iran's probably like, no, I'm not doing that because you're just using that to calm the oil markets and then go right back to war. or is there going to be some sort of a catastrophic, disastrous escalation? So that's - Also, I have the stats.

27:0768 % of Soviet males born in 1923 were dead by the beginning of 1946. Jesus. Basically 7 out of 10. And the rest were probably horrifically scarred by either PTSD or wounds. So I don't want to live that way. All right, let's get to BB. Summer is here. At Orderly Meds, we know this time is a reminder that life is full of new beginnings. Whether you're celebrating the nice weather, starting a new chapter, planning a vacation, or simply looking ahead to what's next, this season can be the perfect time to invest in yourself and your health. If you've struggled with weight loss and are curious about GLP-1 medications, orderly meds can help you learn about your options.

27:46Through a simple virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether treatment may be appropriate for you. Getting started is fast, convenient, and happens online from the comfort of home. This summer, consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast to learn more. That's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Because every new season is an opportunity to take the next step forward. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary.

28:18See website for details. If your best finance people are doing expense reports, chasing receipts, or spending time on month-end clothes? It's time to get Brex AF, a gentic finance that eliminates that work before it starts. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. 16 years ago, I started working as a CNA in the hospital. I loved it. On the day I decided to enroll in the nursing program at Rasmussen University, it was afternoon, my 35th birthday. I was hanging out with a friend, and they had just questioned me what I was going to do with this next chapter of my life. I immediately had said, I want to go to nursing school.

28:54So I actually had contact information from an advisor at Rasmussen, contacted her, and actually ended up starting like three weeks later. My name is Cherish Adams, and I'm a Rasmussen University graduate. Learn more at rasmussen.edu. So you may recall that Mayor Zoran Mamdani, when he was on the campaign trail, indicated that he would have Netanyahu arrested for his war crimes. You'll recall he's a wanted criminal by the ICC. If he were to come to New York, he was asked about that in a recent New York Times interview, and he said, yeah, we're still looking into that. Let's take a listen. I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague.

29:32He's a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court. And what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years. I've also said that I will follow the laws that we have here in New York City because I believe that there is an importance in following the law as a leader who presides over our city and that's something that I plan to do. Meaning? I'm sorry I don't understand what that means. Meaning that whatever the law allows me to do in New York City that's what we will do but we won't be writing our own laws to that end.

30:07What does the law allow you to do? That's an active conversation with our legal department in seeing what the prospects are we have here in our municipality. However, what we've seen at the national level is a desire sometimes to write your own laws, to go outside of the bounds of legality. That's not something we have an interest in. So I'm very much read those comments as a way to sort of walk back from the promise to arrest Netanyahu, basically saying like, yeah, I'd love to do it, but we got to be constrained by laws and we're looking into it. And the reality is, I mean, we're not even a signatory to the ICC.

30:40It's hard to imagine what legitimate power he could use even though I would love for him to figure out one. Nevertheless, Zagar Trump made sure to come to Netanyahu's rescue and defense here. I can put element one up on the screen. Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested in any way, shape, or form while in the United States of America. He's fighting against the Islamic Republic of Iran, which recently killed 52 ,000 innocent protesters. I swear that number goes up every time we see it. And has spent the last 47 years killing American soldiers and others. The only ones that should be arrested are the people that led Iran into this unprecedented spiral of death and destruction, something that should have been dealt with years ago by previous presidents.

31:18So there you go. Trump making sure that Netanyahu will be safe and sound when he comes here in September, I think, for the U.N. General Assembly is the reason that he's planning to be in town. Zoran was asked again about the possibility of this arrest. And, you know, they tried to play like, well, why do you care? What about the treatment of Iran in New York City? Is there some sort of a double standard at work here? This is B3. Let's go ahead and listen to that. Our administration did not reach out to the prime minister of Iran. Our administration received a request from the Iranian consulate.

31:53And as soon as I heard of that, I made it clear that we are not meeting and we will not meet with the Israeli consulate here in New York City. And when it comes to Benjamin Netanyahu, we're speaking about someone who's the subject of an international criminal court arrest warrant. and he's the subject of this arrest warrant for alleged crimes against humanity, for war crimes, and he's the architect of the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza as Israel's prime minister. These are not facts of my personal assessment. They are facts of public record. And I believe that when someone is charged with an international criminal court warrant, it's something that should be taken seriously, whether it's Benjamin Netanyahu or it's Vladimir Putin or whomever else.

32:33What I've also made clear is that my administration will follow all applicable local laws. That is our commitment. That is something that we will follow through on when it comes to an adherence to local law. And that's all I have to add on that. Thank you. And now we're going to go to Heather from News 12. Are you looking at arresting anybody else on that list of people who've committed international war crimes? My point is that if someone is charged with a warrant by the International Criminal Court for these kinds of crimes, That's something I believe that should be honored. And I've also said that we will follow our local laws.

33:08So there you go. Unlikely that Netanyahu is going to be arrested anytime soon, sadly. Although, I mean, possibly if he loses this election, maybe in Israel, but over corruption, not over war crimes. Over Qatari corruption, which is the best part of it for all the accusations. Yes, absolutely. But in any case, he's probably safe when he comes to New York City. Sadly, it is wild, though, just to reflect, Zagreb, that this is the mayor of New York who's under pressure to say that he would arrest Netanyahu. Just a couple years ago, the idea that you would have an avowed anti-Zionist who wants to arrest Netanyahu, who is a supporter of the BDS movement, to be the mayor of New York City, of course, the largest concentration of Jewish Americans in the entire country, one of the largest concentrations of Jews on the planet, period.

33:57It just shows you how radically things have shifted. And it's not, you know, in spite of opposition from Jewish New Yorkers. It's in part because of support from Jewish New Yorkers who are also disgusted with the war crimes of Netanyahu and the genocide that their tax dollars have funded, along with, of course, Soran's core campaign pitch, which was very appealing to the city. I do think what's interesting about, first of all, you're totally, so like I went to GW, which is like the birthplace of Hillary Clinton liberalism. And when I was in college, the median position was Hillary is great, but BDS is support for terrorism.

34:34Like that was like the democratic, and most of the people I went to school with, if they're involved in politics, they probably all work in the centrist industrial complex. But for them, I think a lot of them shifted also on Israel. It is inconceivable for something like that to happen. I also think it is so obvious that if you watch that first comment, he's backing himself out of what his most ardent supporters wanted, which is like we I won't name the person who we are arguing with this about where he's like, why does Zoran not arrest Ben Gavir whenever Ben Gavir came to the Israel Day Parade?

35:12I'm like, dude, he's the NYPD or is the New York City commissioner or is our mayor. Mike, he doesn't have any statutory authority to arrest a foreign dignitary. And don't use that word in what it conveys. The technical definition of it, yes. What it means. He has zero authority to arrest a foreign dignitary on U.S. soil. Like the fact is the U.S. State Department and the United States government at the federal level has total authority whenever it comes to that. So a local mayor has zero capability whatsoever to do that and himself would be in violation of like multiple U.S. laws. He knows that, which is why I keep saying we're going to focus all our local laws, even at a higher level.

35:52As you said, we're not statutory to the ICC. We don't even recognize this authority. The current administration currently and actually long in the past, even Bill Clinton and all of them, whenever they were under serious pressure to become signatories, they didn't want to do it. because explicitly, not just for this reason, but because it would undermine the empire status of the U.S. So there is no way that this would ever happen. I know. It'd be popular if it did. ICC, I don't know about that. No, it'd be popular if they found a way to arrest Netanyahu. It would be popular. It would be very popular.

36:25I mean, you know, he did live here. Friends of mine in the government tell me basically everyone's guilty of wire fraud in some way or the other. So I'm sure he'd find something. But, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he was from Pennsylvania, right? I think he's born there, right? Yeah, I think so. Maybe not born there, but he lived around there. I just know that he stayed in Jared Kushner's bedroom whenever he was in town. And he would brag about it. He'd be like, Jared, I used to sleep in your childhood bedroom. And I think I attended a speech where he said that publicly. I'm looking around in the press corps and I'm like, everyone else hear this?

36:58I'm like, is this normal? Nobody else thinks this is super weird? or whenever he would come to America on his frequent visits and visit, oh, I don't know, Jonathan Pollard, the convicted US or convicted spy in prison. But that's what he's all about. If we were to zoom out a little bit about Bibi and Trump, I mean, it's so hard to try and read the tea leaves. Can we put this before up here on the screen? This is from Barack Ravid inside Bibi's mystery Trump meeting, where Bibi kept saying all day, I'm going to meet with Trump, I'm going to meet with Trump, I'm going to meet with Trump via these anonymous accounts in the Israeli press.

37:32No meeting has been scheduled. Netanyahu obviously has visited the Oval Office six times since Trump has entered office more than any world leader under the Trump administration. All of those meetings were scheduled, quote, within an hour or days. This time, he's been trying to get an appointment for more than two weeks. From what we can see, a lot of this has to do with Lindsey Graham's funeral. Now, the funeral actually has been delayed to the July 28th. Now, will be BB is scheduled to attend the funeral, which, okay, I mean, tells you a little bit about who's memorializing Senator Graham. But what is fascinating to me is Trump doesn't seem to want to meet him, or at least publicly as of yet.

38:12But obviously, they're on the phone and they talk all the time. I just can't figure out who exactly and what the optics behind this are. Like, do they recognize it's toxic? They don't want to send an explicit message to Iran. At the same time, we're bombing the hell out of them. It looks like a war could resume literally at any moment. And why? And this morning, there's a report out of the Hebrew language press where the Israelis are blaming the Vance team, saying Vance's team is preventing Bibi from meeting with Donald Trump. I don't think that that's true. I don't think if Trump wanted to meet with me, he would.

38:48I don't think J.D. has that kind of juice, frankly. I don't think anybody has that kind of juice to stop Trump from meeting with B.B. But the question is, why? Like, ultimately, why did he decide Trump not to meet with B.B.? The White House came out multiple times and said, it's not happening as of right now. So I have no idea. You know, you got to read tea leaves and all of that. But at the same time, he comes out with some tweet being like, oh, he's not going to get arrested. Actually, it's the Iranians who should be are the ones who are arrested. It's like he can't make up his mind about how to deal with this man.

39:17Yeah. I mean, who knows what's going on in his head? I really don't have a take on it either. It could just be that, like, on a personal level, he finds Bibi kind of annoying, you know? Because they add that, you know, he was irritated with him because he congratulated Joe Biden on his victory. And he probably still holds that grudge. And he probably, you know, maybe Bibi is too. Whatever. He may just find him sort of personally irritating. But it doesn't really change the logic of the direction that he's pushing in in terms of the war with Iran. So I don't know. It's also interesting that Israel is not participating in this current bombing campaign.

39:50They had a big security meeting, cabinet meeting yesterday and said basically like, OK, we're just going to hold our position for now. We're not going to join the U.S. in this bombing campaign. I don't know if they were invited to join or not, but it seems that they're waiting for a bigger escalation and that they would want to participate in. Yeah, the finance Smotrich gave an interview yesterday in Israel, and he says the state of Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between Iran and the United States. The current situation is the best one for us. And, you know, I think he might be right in the sense where Israel, as we all know, was getting the shit pounded out of it whenever the war was happening for 40 days.

40:29They were genuinely rationing interceptors. So it was a big problem for them. And they were not accomplishing their regime change goals. when he says the current situation is the best one possible for us. In some ways, he's not wrong because Israel's economy is basically fake and a protectorate of the United States. So it's not their economy, which is in huge trouble. It's ours. So he's like, yeah, we didn't get our regime change in the Battle of Hormuz. Nothing to do with us. That's Europe, United States, and Asia's problem. No regime change on the horizon. So let them fight it out and we'll continue to kill, you know, random Palestinians in the West Bank every other day just because we can.

41:05Yeah, well, plus their missile interceptors were down to like single digits, double digits. It was scraping the bottom of the barrel there. So, yeah, for them to just say, we'll sit back and watch. Plus, they don't care if Iran destroys Kuwait and makes the UAE unlivable or whatever. Yeah, they don't care at all. Yeah. You know, and that's the funny part is if Iran really hated Israel, now would be— not hate, but like if they really wanted to destroy Israel, wipe it off the face of the earth, now's the time, right? You're at war. They got nothing. Yeah, it's like America's firing at you no matter what.

41:34You could blow them off, but you could wipe them off the face of the earth if you wanted to. Like, you know, if you wanted like a full-on military, if you focused all your concentration, or maybe they're actually a rational nation which just wants to survive out of this and make a lot of money for itself and its people and then keep its regime in exactly the way that they decide. Just a thought. All right. Let's get to AI. Summer is here. At Orderly Meds, we know this time is a reminder that life is full of new beginnings. Whether you're celebrating the nice weather, starting a new chapter, planning a vacation, or simply looking ahead to what's next, this season can be the perfect time to invest in yourself and your health.

42:14If you've struggled with weight loss and are curious about GLP-1 medications, orderly meds can help you learn about your options. Through a simple virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether treatment may be appropriate for you. Getting started is fast, convenient, and happens online from the comfort of home. This summer, consider a new approach to feeling your best. Visit orderlymeds.com slash podcast to learn more. That's orderlymeds.com slash podcast. orderlymeds.com slash podcast. Because every new season is an opportunity to take the next step forward.

42:48Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. If your best finance people are doing expense reports, chasing receipts, or spending time on month-end clothes? It's time to get Brex AF, a gentic finance that eliminates that work before it starts. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. My name is Tuba Nguyen, and enrolling at Rasmussen University was essentially a handshake to a lifeline, a career, stability, and a future for myself. I found it important to be able to speak with instructors and staff outside of office hours and to have that support system was essential because they believed in me.

43:33Rasmussen University, are you ready to rewrite your story online and on campus? Learn more at rasmussen.edu.

43:45Turning now to AI, massive development that happened over the weekend. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. From Axios, which is a general summary of the situation. Quote, China just erased America's AI lead. This is the number one non-Iran-related story that we wanted to make sure that we covered in extensive detail. So what happened is that over the weekend, Kimi K3, which is a new model by Beijing's-based Moonshot AI, has now, quote, threatened the foundations of America's AI boom. On Thursday, it dazzled developers, jolted Silicon Valley, and reset the AI race overnight. night. The AI evaluator arena actually put it in the number one spot for the first time ever.

44:27Let's put C2 up there on the screen just to show everybody. Since this time, by the way, they have re-evaluated and they've dropped it. But at that time, they said, big news, Kimi K3 is now the number one in front-end code arena with 1 ,679 points, surpassing Claude's Fable 5, a 17-place jump from the Kimmy K2 model. In the front end, Kimmy K3 ranked number one in six of seven domains. Brand and marketing, reference-based design, data and analytics, consumer product, simulations, and content creation tools landing number two only in gaming behind Fable 5. The full model weights will be released by July 27th.

45:06This has basically enabled a gold rush for Kimmy, which has found itself deluged by new customers and other users. So much so, let's put C3 up here on the screen, that they have now released this statement. Kimi K3 has received far more love than we expected. Our GPUs are feeling it. Over the past 48 hours, demand has pushed close to the limits of our current capacity to protect the experience of existing subscribers. We are temporarily pausing new subscriptions and prioritizing compute for current members. Existing subscribed users are not affected. We're adding capacity as fast as you can and we'll reopen a new subscription spot in batches.

45:45Going forward, we will also split membership into two more focus plans. Membership for KimiWeb, App, and Work, and then KimiCode for coding workflows. This will help us match compute more precisely and keep the experience stable. Thank you for your patience and understanding. A lot of people reacted to this in awe because all of the other American companies, they take your money. One person responded, wait, so you're refusing to take money to give people a better user experience? You're not taking your best model out of the plans and you're not bullshitting your users into thinking so? Very strange.

46:15American customers are so used. They'll take your money, then they take the top model away, and then there's some fuckery or something that's behind the scenes, and then they rate limit you anyway. So a little bit of a better Chinese customer experience. But this has caused like a full scale. Well, can I just say on that note, by the way, the very next time I logged into Claude, got a message from Anthropic that's like, hey. Oh, I know. Here's$100 credit to use Fable 5. Hope you enjoy it. Our company account, they keep bombarding me. Buy Fable 5 credit. I'm like, we're fucking good, man. We're not doing any coding stuff over here.

46:49But, yeah, that's a little bit different. And, by the way, of course, we have a company account here for Claude. And yet, somehow, they're still shaking me down for money. So a little interesting. in terms of the difference in what's going on. But geopolitically, it's an earthquake moment. And that's really what has set off this new discussion in the White House, where let's put C5 up here on the screen. In the last three days, there has now been an internal civil war over whether they should just ban these cutting-edge Chinese models, which would lock in the dominance of open AI and anthropic in the U.S.

47:25market. Basically, it's a divide between the AI companies themselves, OpenAI and Anthropic, which are saying that these open source and or Chinese subsidized AI companies, which are able to charge dramatically less than what the U.S. companies are, would destroy their businesses and make it completely unable for them to go IPO, to remain dominant. On the other side are the pro-competition voices who say, actually, the Chinese AI model is a kick in the ass exactly what the American companies need. And if anything, it shows that the government has put too much regulation on the AI companies. This voice, I would say, is more like the David Sachs front, which is enabled by a particular tweet.

48:09I pulled it, actually, for our segment. I have a report full of security issues of software I'm working on. Codex won't fix them because of cyber guardrails. Fable won't fix them because of cyber guardrails. Kimmy K3 fixed all of them. No restriction. It just gets the job done. This will end badly for OpenAI and Anthropic. The criticism there elevated by Saks is that cyber guardrails and the so-called security movement within the AI companies is actually holding back the competition. So you can see how all of this is being used by OpenAI and Anthropic, which are like, hey, they're coming after us.

48:44They're stealing our technology and they're undercutting us from one side. Some of the pro-AI voices for the competition, open source voices are like, no, this is good. And if anything, we just need to let it all rip here in the U.S. and the way that China is. There's a medium ground kind of analyst position, which I kind of find myself in, where you're like, wow. This is crazy. This is crazy. Yeah, you're like, well, you're like, OK, so, well, it destroys the economics of it. Did you pull the Chama thing? Yeah. Why don't you summarize it? It's really good. Go ahead and put this up on the screen, guys.

49:16The last element in the block. So this is Chamath, who obviously very close with David Sachs. He says the leading AI has already forked into two options. A, a closed-source American that costs 26 to 56 per 1 million tokens, or an open-weight Chinese that costs 50 cents to$1 per 1 million tokens. If you force American companies to spend 50 to 100 times more than their competitors abroad, here's what will happen. One, American companies spending 50 to 100 times will at some point become financially impaired. The stock market will crater. This is the equivalent of the U.S. government saying we can only buy oil at$800 a barrel even when the free market sells the same oil for$80 a barrel.

49:55Two, in the short term, the revenues of the closed American labs may remain high, but when their revenue will also crater because their customers in the U.S. will be impaired and their customers abroad will have already flipped to cheaper solutions, this would be a terribly self-defeating form of intervention if it were to happen. There is so much to say. I mean, he's right on the economics, right? The Chinese models are vastly, vastly cheaper. And now they are affected. You know, the thing that the American models had in the past is they were a little bit better. They were like six months ahead of the Chinese models.

50:26They're not anymore. And it's not just Kimmy K3. There's a few other models that have already been released in the wake of Kimmy K3 that are basically at the same level. A lot of competition within China, within China between these different models and labs that are operating in that space as well. So sort of, I don't know, ironically, hilariously, whatever, however you want to describe it. Part of the reason why their models are so much cheaper and so much more efficient is because we banned them from having the top of the line chips. So they were unable to pursue the same like let's just throw as much compute as at it as possible as our closed labs.

51:02So they decided to go in this open model direction and try to push the efficiency as much as possible. And now it's paying off for them. So in some ways, the policy that we thought would help secure our company's AI lead is exactly what is undercutting them at this point. So that's one aspect of this. You know, from a business perspective, Anthropic and OpenAI, these companies are not profitable. They have massive amounts of debt and they're able to float it because investors look at the possibility of getting rid of the labor force and all of these productivity gains and think that it's worth the investment and think that large companies in particular will pay a lot of money to Anthropic and OpenAI once they get to the point where that labor saving technology is truly, truly comes of age and can be fully implemented.

51:53That is what the whole bet is based upon. Kimmy K3, open source model and other similar positioned competitors, that just kills the economics. I mean, just there's no doubt about it. It kills the economics. Why are you going to think that an American company is going to choose Anthropic when they could choose something that's just as good? That's way, way cheaper. Of course, they're going to do that. Microsoft already has announced they're evaluating Kimmy K3 to use with their co-pilot and to host on their platform. Here's the other thing. They own a stake in open AI, too. That's right. That's exactly right.

52:25And here's the other thing, too, is, OK, open model versus closed model. What does that mean? Open source model means that anyone can get access to the model weights, which is the whole secret sauce behind this thing. They can host it themselves. and you actually can't really, it would be very difficult for the government even to be able to block all American companies from using these models. Now, what they could do is say, basically, you're not gonna contract with the US government, you're not gonna contract with the Pentagon if you're using any of these models. And that would work for all the large players, but a lot of small players would still use the Chinese models because they're not doing business with the US federal government.

53:04So there's that. If they do decide to ban the Chinese models or make it functionally impossible for large U.S. corporations to use the Chinese models. There is no way to look at that other than a bailout for anthropic and open AI. However, because so much of our economy is bet on the AI space, it could be the case that if you don't prop up these now sort of like behind the eight ball, overly expensive models, that the whole ecosystem could come crashing down. Now, what Chamath and others say is that's bogus. Just because these frontier models turn out to not be a good business and not profitable, that doesn't change the demand for data centers and all the other ecosystem that goes into this.

53:50So it won't be this catastrophic thing for the economy. Anthropic and open AI aren't even public yet. So they're not the things that are propping up the stock market. I don't know. Maybe that's right. But it's hard for me to imagine that that is the case. Sorry, this is long-winded. But the you know, the TLDR is that I think whether it happens now or in the future, we are very likely to move into a situation where the AI models are sort of like the Internet. It's not the place where people are making gobs and gobs of money. It's all in the layers, the application, what you do with the Internet.

54:23There is a lot of, you know, it's going to be profoundly transformational. I think that is true. But the big, you know, the business models are going to be what do you do with this. And the models themselves are like a utility or like the pipes or like the internet, a sort of common good thing that everyone has access to more or less. It is not the place where you're making these astronomical world changing returns. Yeah. I mean, we're running a bit short on time just because we want to get to Annie Jacobson. There's so much to say. I do think ultimately what this demonstrates is the real problem for the overall U.S.

54:59economy. The U.S. economy, and this reminds me a lot of the chips in general. Chip design is an industry which the America dominates. We design the best chips. But we never made the actual chips themselves. We allowed all that to be outsourced. So from what I can understand, the deliberate frontier model business model is they spend oodles of money, trillions of dollars literally in the development of these. but they haven't figured out the actual way to price it so that they can make up for what's ultimately a money-losing product. The Chinese basically are waiting for frontier model development using the open-weight strategy.

55:35They also have a forced constraint because of AI chip bans, export bans. They had to train themselves to be more efficient, which America never trained itself to do so. And then on top of that, there's a deliberate pricing strategy of the Chinese government where they subsidize, incentivize, and create an ecosystem such that they don't have to charge exactly at market price and they can have competition be the ultimate and the sole goal. Very much how they did EVs. Like to say China just blessed BYD and said, go forth and create is not true. China's EV sector was propped up at a basic level from the Chinese government.

56:12It ceded an entire ecosystem. And then from there, they were like, you guys fight it out. I mean, one day, some guy who can speak both languages will write a great book about that competition because that is one of the most interesting stories of the last two decades. Like that business, the genuine war. Like if you think our business price strategies and all that are interesting, it all just played out there. One of the most capitalist wars in history, but it was controlled, shaped, and laid the groundwork for by the government. That's basically what they're doing here. That's basically what they're doing in China with AI.

56:44And Xi Jinping just gave a speech about AI, Why should all be open source and more beneficial to the world? Open AI's chief policy officer put out a long essay yesterday. He's a former Trump administration official. This guy's out here being like, what are we going to do? Like, how can we how are we supposed to survive in this type of system? What are what you know, how can we be expected to compete in the future? And these are I mean, there's trillions in both cases. They both expect to be valued. They're currently valued in terms of the private market around a trillion dollars. each. So that's$2 trillion in overall value.

57:20And if that gets, I mean, even cut by half, I mean, that's a catastrophe, right, for the overall economy. Not for maybe for us, but it's like for them, for the data center build out. I mean, the capital crunch that would follow would be dot-com-esque and the blowout from our overall, not to even mention. I have to think that's the case too. But then I look at the stock market and it's like, no, that's fine. Yeah, it's up today. Yeah, OK. It's actually up right now. What do I know? Yeah, I mean, I've been thinking about some parallels with the American auto industry, which I think is really in trouble.

57:50There is a big piece in the Wall Street Journal about how the fact that you had a Biden policy that was pushing EVs. There was some significant research and development. There were some improvements, new models coming out. Then Trump comes in, cuts all the subsidies. And, you know, now they're shelving all the and ends the build out of a charging network, which is one of the big barriers in a vast country such as ours. And so now they're paring back. They're not investing in new research. So meanwhile, BYD and other Chinese car companies, too, are just lapping us in terms of technology. I mean, they're vastly ahead of even Tesla.

58:25They are wildly cheaper than certainly than Tesla or any of the other EVs on the American market. And so by protecting the American auto industry from that Chinese EV competition, you're allowing them to persist longer. But it really is a pretty dim trajectory for them because the rest of the world is going EV. I mean, this is happening, right? And at a really quite rapid clip, once you have the charging infrastructure in place, it is a superior technology. There's just no doubt about it. That is where the future lies. And our car companies are being left behind. So if you have a similar situation where the American models are basically protected, yeah, that will allow them to persist.

59:11It will function effectively as a bailout for them. Corporate large corporations based here in the U.S. will use their models, etc. etc. But you're sort of setting yourself up for a broader failure in the world as these Chinese models continue to progress and are adopted by the entire rest of the world and by small companies, by the way, here in the U.S., which will just sort of flout the U.S. regulation or go abroad so that they can use the much cheaper Chinese models. So I don't know. It's quite a conundrum And with major, major consequences for the economy, for these frontier labs, and, you know, for the way that we're all going to interact with this stuff going forward.

59:52Very true. All right. We've got Annie Jacobson standing by. Let's get to her. Summer is here. At Orderly Meds, we know this time is a reminder that life is full of new beginnings. Whether you're celebrating the nice weather, starting a new chapter, planning a vacation, or simply looking ahead to what's next, This season can be the perfect time to invest in yourself and your health. If you've struggled with weight loss and are curious about GLP-1 medications, Orderly Meds can help you learn about your options. Through a simple virtual process, you can connect with licensed medical professionals who can determine whether treatment may be appropriate for you.

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1:01:51Rasmussen University. Find your seat and start now at rasmussen.edu. Very excited now to be joined by Annie Jacobson, one of my favorite authors and the author of this new book, Biological War. It comes on the heels of Nuclear War, a scenario. Here we have Biological War, a scenario. She is also the author of multiple New York Times bestselling books. One of my personal favorites, Operation Paperclip. Very excited now to be joined by her. Truly one of my favorite contemporary authors of all time. Annie, thank you so much for joining us.

1:02:24Annie Jacobsen:Well, thank you for having me. Thank you for that intro. Of course. And so you have now come out with this new book, Biological War. It is a warning of what you say could be even more of a terrifying apocalypse for mankind and for the United States. You divulge not only some of the reporting, but where you've uncovered a lot of the ways the United States is set up to deal with a potential biological war, but also detail how exactly such a thing would happen. What inspired you to write this book after the nuclear war book? It was many of my sources who also work in counterproliferation. It's a fancy word for keeping weapons of mass destruction out of bad guys' hands.

1:03:05Annie Jacobsen:And many of them said, Annie, after you do nuclear, you have to look at bio. I did not realize what an extraordinary threat it was until I really drilled down on the scenario. And so, Annie, talk to us about why it's such a threat and what the vulnerabilities really are that people should be concerned about. One of the most stunning facts I learned was in a Defense Department doctrine, sort of a threat spectrum. And it defines nuclear weapons as the most destructive. And it defines biological weapons as the greatest overall threat. And that has to do with this incredibly low barrier for entry.

1:03:48Unlike nuclear weapons, which are controlled, you know, first of all, they're very hard to access because you have to have fissile material.

1:03:55Annie Jacobsen:You have to have weapon systems for delivery. And they're controlled by a nation state's nuclear command and controlled. Biological weapons, I learned, particularly now with AI systems in play, can be made in a basement by sort of a high school student, if you will, with a very low knowledge of biology. That is terrifying. Yeah, we actually just, before you came in, we're talking about these open source models and potential guardrails and more. I know that you've highlighted the AI risk, but you've also talked about many of these labs. We have a map that we can put up here on the screen, which was provided to us by your team, these BSL-4 labs that are all around the world.

1:04:39Many of us learned about some of these types of labs with COVID and the leak of the COVID virus. But tell us about the danger that is posed for a biological war scenario, potentially even a lab leak of a biological apocalypse.

1:04:53Annie Jacobsen:Well, first of all, thanks for showing that map. And let's give credit to the academics and scientists who keep track of those labs because there is no government organization monitoring this. There are 3 ,500 BSL-3 labs around the world in places of, you know, where wars are going on. You can work on plague and anthrax, hantavirus in a BSL-3 lab. 90 % of those labs do not have safety standards, an astonishing fact. BSL-4 labs, that's like the CDC's lab in Atlanta, the Defense Department's lab at Fort Detrick. These are the highest level of biosafety. There are now 17 in the United States and 110 around the world.

1:05:43Help people understand, because I think everybody knows that, or most people know, biological weapons are technically illegal. So how is this sort of bioengineering allowed? What enables this sort of research, which we all learned, you know, with devastating consequences, can be extremely dangerous to humanity?

1:06:03Annie Jacobsen:Well, there's lots of different euphemisms for genetic engineering in this world. There's dual-use research of concern. Everyone knows about dual-use. You can use a kitchen knife to make your dinner or to kill someone. So then there's this idea of gain of function, which is exactly like it sounds. You modify, genetically modify a pathogen to give it more function, be it virulence, be it transmissibility, to defeat a countermeasure. This is often done in the name of science, in the name of medical countermeasures, looking for vaccines, looking for antibiotics to defeat a biological weapon in the event of an attack or incident.

1:06:48Annie Jacobsen:But, you know, interviewing presidential advisors as I did, there's another side of the equation. People like Andy Weber, who was Obama's top biological weapons advisor, will tell you gain of function is a euphemism for biological weapons engineering. And he is not alone. Right. And of course, we learned quite a bit about that term after the leak of COVID from the Wuhan lab. But what from the COVID experience did you see in terms of the breakdown of the U.S. health infrastructure, a lot of the lack of trust between the mainstream population and the authorities that is also woven into this narrative that you've written in Biological War?

1:07:32Annie Jacobsen:I think you pointed out like a really important point. I found two. One, in terms of lessons learned from COVID or rather maybe lessons not learned. Number one was the United States is woefully unprepared despite spending billions of dollars. And I quickly take the reader through some of those numbers. But, you know, it's remarkable to think that the case fatality rate of COVID was 1%. So that's the number of people per 100 who die of the disease, who catch the disease. There are pathogens out there with a 100 % case fatality rate. And so that fact that we are unprepared should really make people wake up and pay attention to what can be done.

1:08:20Annie Jacobsen:The second important point is what you mentioned, which is the absolute fracturing of public opinion about science, about medicine, about the trustworthiness of public health officials. This was a disaster in COVID. And to my eye, not only has it not been sort of resolved, there hasn't been a sort of, you know, denouement about what really happened. And, OK, this happened. Let's move on because this is a real threat. Instead, you just have this two sides digging deeper into their positions. And this is at the peril of the American people. Well, and let's talk about some of the moves the Trump administration has made.

1:09:00RFK Jr. installed as HHS secretary. There have been something like 25 percent of the CDC workforce, which has been cut. We've withdrawn from the World Health Organization. You know, are you concerned when you see those cuts that that further degrades our readiness?

1:09:16Annie Jacobsen:I'm concerned because of the narrative. I'm concerned because what, you know, the actions, of course, and those really need to be looked at. But the narrative on both sides, I am doing this because we are doing this because it's very rarely in the name of the general public. It's instead, you know, sort of a dig at the political opponent. And again, I do not write about politics. I try to stay above the fray so that I can just deliver the facts. But I think people that read biological war scenario, and it's just one scenario, it's not only scenario, were astonished when they learned of the government's own plans in the event of an outbreak or an incident of a genetically modified pathogen.

1:10:02Annie Jacobsen:When the people learn that the government has plans to save itself, it's a very classified program that I learned about from one of the authors of the program who took me and therefore you up to the edge of what can legally be known about this program called devolution, you learn that there are plans in place for certain components of the government, while in essence, hate to be a dramatist here, but the rest of us die miserable deaths of some kind of horrible pathogen. Yeah, you write that it's a classified last resort program that will transfer power to a hidden leadership group. So can you maybe go into that a little bit more?

1:10:44So we're not talking about elected officials necessarily? We're talking about civilian or military officials who would effectively govern or govern whatever's rest, the left of us?

1:10:53Annie Jacobsen:Absolutely. The program is even spookier than you would think. It's called devolution or devolution, depends on how you pronounce it. I was taken through some of the details by Craig Fugate, who was Obama's former FEMA director and who signed off on the sort of last monograph about this program, which is classified, the name devolution is not classified. And that's why we can learn a little bit about it from him. But it's a pre-selected, pre-designated subset of individuals who will move off to these secret sites, bunkers, if you will, called cold sites, warm sites, and hot sites. And they take over plans to restore the Constitution in the event of anarchy and insurrection.

1:11:43Annie Jacobsen:And this, you know, it's pretty astonishing to learn that the idea is that most of the powers that be that are in power will likely die. And so there has to be this secondary group of individuals. Those are the people you know who have a go bag stashed in the trunk of their car. So tell us a little bit more about this, because it sounds wild. It sounds like the sort of thing like Alex Jones would be ranting and raving about. And yet you have hard reporting on the reality of this last resort plan. In what type of event would this process be triggered? Who has selected these people? Who decides that, OK, it's devolution time?

1:12:25How does this all work?

1:12:27Annie Jacobsen:Yes. And anyone who doubts the reality of this can certainly Google FCD1, Federal Continuity Directive 1. And that's the unclassified version of what I'm talking about. And, you know, the list itself is classified. Who has been chosen who is on that list is classified. What we can know is that the program actually exists. And the event that would trigger it is what is called a near extinction level event. it's kind of exactly like it sounds, which in itself is terribly unsettling. And the protocol that triggers it, I learned, is something called COGCON. And that stands for Continuity of Government Readiness Condition.

1:13:18Annie Jacobsen:And in this case, it would be one, number one. COGCON one triggers devolution. The way that Fugate explained it to me, many people are familiar with DEFCON, The system of defense readiness that the Defense Department runs by. And of course, DEFCON 1 is nuclear war. And so you have this idea that COGCON 1 in a biological attack or incident doesn't have to be an attack. It can be a lab leak. And if it begins to take over and anarchy and insurrection occurs, which is what many of these Defense Department war games I looked at anticipate. We're at devolution. Well, what concerns me about that, Annie, is that DEFCON 1 is a definable condition.

1:14:02That means the United States is under immediate nuclear attack. COGCON 1, I mean, who defines what an extinction-level event is? Like, is there a percent? I mean, obviously, you don't know exactly, but like a percent lethality, a lab leak, could it be used potentially as a pretext for a seizure of power? I mean, can you maybe go into a little bit of that? And then some more on the war games as well, which I know that you write about. of the worry within the war games that the civilians may technically be in control, but they lack the ability to actually enforce many of the laws that they necessarily would want to, which would enable effectively like a military takeover.

1:14:40Annie Jacobsen:One of the most stunning things about really looking at a biological attack or incident was that the real fear of the Defense Department and its partners, HHS, you know, FEMA, DHS, the fear is the secondary effects. The fear of infection, that is a quote I came across often, fear of infection is what will likely lead to anarchy and insurrection. And we all know what that's like. There's this visceral sense of, you know, getting a disease. And of course, everyone's thinking, I have to make sure I don't catch this. And that's where you have insurrection come in. And so what precisely triggers the level of COGCON?

1:15:24Annie Jacobsen:I certainly want to know more. And I would hope that now that I've put some of this information into the public discourse, that others would begin to really drill down on this through FOIAs and other means and get awareness to the public about what we're up against, not just to sort of be furious with the government, that there's a group that will save itself. But, you know, the point of me writing a book like this and nuclear war is not panic as much as I believe it is pressure, pressure to begin looking at what systems need to be put in place to protect all of us. Because in the event of a near extinction level event, it's exactly like it sounds.

1:16:07Annie Jacobsen:We all die. Sagar mentioned earlier, we just did a block on Kimmy K3 and the development of these very powerful AI tools, which are now widely available with really no safety guardrails to speak of. How much does this concern you when you're looking at these developments? You know, what thoughts are going through your head about the potential consequences? It's interesting you should ask that question because I've often thought about that. And I'll give you a really sort of disquieting answer, which is that last week I was asked to do a Q &A for DARPA, for their biology, science and technology study group.

1:16:45Annie Jacobsen:And that was raised by others. There was a part of that Q &A where I was just listening. And one of the charts that was put up was precisely how dangerous AI and biology are together. And there was even talk about whether or not a situation needed to come about where the plug would be pulled. It's just a fascinating concept that you could actually pull the plug on bio and AI. And from what I understand, the real hurdle in that is getting all six CEOs of these AI companies to agree to all pull the plug, which is a very, very bizarre concept when you're a national security reporter who's been looking at this for 20 years and is suddenly realizing this is actually true, that now there is more power in the hands of six private individuals, full stop, than the government organization that I myself have written about, DARPA, which I used to say when I wrote the book The Pentagon's Brain, which published, you know, 10 years ago, I used to say, no one is more scientifically advanced than DARPA.

1:18:03Annie Jacobsen:And I must shift that statement now based on new information. That's fascinating. Yeah. You really wrote the book on DARPA and blew a lot of, you know, nobody really knew anything about it until I think your book came out. And so when you've written now multiple of these successes from DARPA to nuclear war scenario to biological war scenario, kind of zooming out, when you say you want to provide information so that things could be done. What recommendations then would you make? Is it just awareness, conversations like these, so people like us know, for elected leaders, what should they be thinking about as they deal with the hullabaloo of whatever's in the news today while this kind of lurks in the shadows behind them?

1:18:46Annie Jacobsen:I am an old school journalist trained that way. So I stay out of tribal politics. I think it's really important for people to sort of lay down their swords and begin to realize that uncertainty is a pathway towards success. If you can admit, you know, I don't really know, then I believe we can begin to make progress. You know, an interesting point that I raise in the book, and I stay away from sort of, you know, spending too much time on COVID, but a pathogen that is airborne is the biggest fear within the biological community. Airborne means the weapon system is our lungs, individual human lungs.

1:19:36Annie Jacobsen:For the first three months of the COVID pandemic, the WHO and the CDC tweeted repeatedly. I have a copy of the tweet in my book. COVID not airborne. Not was in capital letters. Millions of people were dying and they were tweeting this. And of course, we now know COVID was airborne. COVID is airborne. COVID is a respiratory disease. That is how it was being transmitted. And yet, when I tried to get an answer from WHO, from CDC, why haven't you gone on the record and corrected this, apologized, explained to people that uncertainty is inherent in biology. We all have different physiology. The answer was no comment.

1:20:26Annie Jacobsen:Wow. Annie, lastly, since we have you and we've been covering the Iran war with great interest, we've been covering Russia and Ukraine with a lot of interest. Obviously, nuclear weapons are at the heart of both of these conflicts. As you survey the current geopolitical landscape, what conflagrations concern you the most with regard to a potential break of the nuclear taboo? Well, nuclear threats, to my eye are profoundly dangerous. I've looked at this since the book Nuclear War Scenario first published, and Putin was threatening the use of nuclear weapons, which is extremely dangerous. But we must be factual here.

1:21:06Annie Jacobsen:The current president in his first administration sort of set the bar by essentially, you know, rhetorically threatening nuclear war with North Korea. And we all remember that exchange from the first Trump administration. So I believe that threats are extremely dangerous. And this is because I know from looking at Pentagon war games involving nuclear war, that everybody in the Defense Department knows that nuclear war, no matter how it begins, only ends in one way. And that is total apocalyptic annihilation. Well, Annie, as always, thank you so much for joining us. I'm going to be reading the book.

1:21:49I hope everybody reads the book. And then I hope they pick up the rest of your catalog, everything you've ever written. Again, as I said, one of my favorite contemporary authors. Thank you so much for joining us. Another thing for me to be terrified about. Thank you, Annie.

1:22:02Annie Jacobsen:Pressure, not panic. There you go. There you go. Thank you. Thank you.

1:22:38We'll see you next time.

1:22:45feels great. Comp-out of medications are not FDA-approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.

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