9/22/26: Trump Approval Craters, AI Oligarchs Fight Regulation, Trump Bends Knee To Xi

24:36So we'll see. I know they're going very hard in the paint against Tallarico with a lot of ads about cultural issues. So we're going to find out whether those have enough salience in a year when, you know, economic concerns are top of mind. But you mentioned money, and this is a real problem for Democrats. But A8 up on the screen, Republicans have way more money. I mean, way more money than Democrats do. They have a financial advantage in terms of overall spending. This is not just with the candidates, but the super PACs and all in. They have an overall advantage in the vast majority of the key states here.

25:16So that is going to be a real challenge. The party and its allies, the Republicans and their allies, are planning to spend about$221 million more on advertising than Democrats and their allies from Monday through Election Day. That's according to ad impact. So they're tracking how much how many TV ads Republicans have purchased versus Democrats. And so you have a massive, massive margin advantage for Republicans. And I think I mean, part of this is because you've got a lot of business leaders who want to keep Republicans in power because they're friendlier to their agenda. You also have on the Democratic side a lot of big donors who are still dispirited about the whole Biden-Kamala situation and feel really burned there.

26:00Remember, there's a lot of questions about how the money was spent under Kamala, and then obviously they ultimately lost. And of course, the whole Biden cover-up of his age and his frailty and his decline, mental decline, that left a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. So there's still a very, even as Democrats are poised for this massive wave year, among the donor base, there's still a lot of apathy and a lot of disgust with the way that the party has operated before. Then you look at the DNC, which is a mess and shambles. And I mean, let's not even get into that. But in any case, it all amounts to Republicans having this massive financial edge.

26:33And I would just say, I remember back to 2018. 2018 was a very good year for Democrats, no doubt about it. But some of the reach states, some of the districts that were like, oh my God, like the equivalent of Kansas this time, we were like, oh my God, there's no way Democrats could win there, but they're up in the polls. A lot of that shifted in just the last couple of weeks. Now, in 2018, it specifically had to do with Kavanaugh. I've seen the polling. I was involved in some of the races that cycle. I saw the way that partisans were energized and came home because of the Kavanaugh hearings and the way that all went down.

27:07you could see something similar happening this time around. That is, I think, very theoretically possible. I'm sure Trump is going to, you know, what migrant caravan or something is he's going to try to throw some kind of red meat into the mix to try to get exactly that effect. Because I don't think Republicans can hold on to the House. But can they can they stem some of the losses in the Senate and some of those reach days in the Nebraska and the Kansas and the Iowa? that could still be very much on the table if they're able to leverage both this financial advantage and some sort of political moment that galvanizes the Republican.

27:43Yeah. And that's one thing I would say about Texas is just don't underestimate it. It's one of those where, you know, it's one thing for people who are on summer vacation to theorize Tallarico. It is a whole other thing for the evangelicals and the church groups. And look, I grew up there like I know these people. They're not going to just sit back and let Democrats take over the state, especially Governor Abbott. That is one where I would say it's a lock unless it's a genuine, insane wave. Where with Tallarico, and this is beyond even the cultural stuff, this is a machine. It's not about Ken Paxton versus John Cornyn.

28:18Like I was talking about with Elon, the whole state runs on Republican rule. You can't just let that away. There's billions of dollars that are at stake whenever it comes to, I mean, is Tallarico going to get you the same tax credit? Is he going to fight for oil and gas? I mean, this is existential whenever it comes to a lot of these things, how the entire economy is structured. And so I find it hard to believe that they are not going to crawl over broken glass to prevent a Democrat from winning, especially if it's this close. Iowa is different because for them, I feel like they're disgusted genuinely with Trump.

28:50And I think there's a difference between disgusted and disappointed and directly impacted. Texans are just not as directly impacted by this right now. That's my assessment. But I should say, as I said, I think I spoke to somebody very knowledgeable with real view in my home state. And he had told me that, look, in a wave election, we will see Hignosa in the governor's mansion in Texas. Like that would happen. However, the bigger panic button right now is Paxton. And that is where Paxton, the problem for him is that his candidate quality is just on that side where it's not just a scandals. From what I hear, the guy doesn't like to campaign.

29:29Like he doesn't, he's not even working hard in terms of like the way that Tallarico is. And so that, I mean, it matters, right? Like if you don't come to the county, I'm not going to say this stuff matters a ton, but it's like when you're dealing with margins of a hundred thousand, 200 ,000 votes, whether you showed up in the town or not actually does seem to make a little bit of a difference. That's, it's just enough there where people in the state are not energized by Ken Paxton. And so I don't know, like I would say for, as you talked about with 2018, I would even, you know, it's not, it's not even just Kavanaugh reality has got to set in for a lot of these deeply conservative voters.

30:04They're like, Oh my God, like this really could be it. I mean, remember the Virginia thing where, which happened where they were changing the map. I mean, of course the Virginia Democrats won that election. However, Republicans came out to vote a lot more than people had expected because even though they were like, look, I don't like Trump and all the, but like, this is it. Like we have no representation period. We got to come out and vote. A lot of people came out to vote for that. So don't underestimate that, too, when it comes to the Senate. People know the stakes, or at least they start to wake up around October.

30:33Yeah. Last thing, just to reiterate this Nate Silver point, because I wanted to get the specific states just to give us all kind of a mental framework here. So again, if we're talking about an 11-point swing, theoretically, from 2024, he says, in 2024, Trump won Ohio by 11 points, Florida, Alaska and Iowa by 13 points and Texas by 14. So if you swing the entire political climate, 11 points to the left, Ohio becomes a pure toss up. The rest become almost toss ups. Even Kansas, which was Trump plus 16, is not that far behind. So that's the type of environment you would have to be in where it's an 11 point plus swing to expect to see, you know, Florida and Iowa.

31:19by the way, there has been some polling that has shown Angie Nixon, you know, with the shot in Florida, which I think everybody had sort of written the state off. I still think that's a very long shot. But when you look at that level of a swing, you have to say, OK, that actually wouldn't be totally crazy. And I've seen some interesting things in terms of polling coming out of the state and dissatisfaction with Trump on economics and also on immigration in particular in the state. So in any case, that's kind of where the national landscape is. And, you know, Some individual state-by-state differences are going to be the key, whether it's candidate quality or specific economic conditions.

31:55But you're looking at some pretty dire situations here for Republicans when you're talking about a state like Iowa being not only in play, but potentially tilt Democratic. That's a pretty wild situation. And even if they do win it, they're going to have to spend an ocean of money to do so. And they're also dumping money in places where you talked about Ohio. I was just looking. There's not a single poll in the last month that has Sherrod Brown not winning by a significant margin. Like not one. Did you see the Amy Acton, Vivek Ramaswamy ad about Alzheimer? No, I haven't seen it. It's devastating.

32:28It's about the drug that he funded. And it's a man who lost his wife to Alzheimer's. And he's like, you scammed me. And yeah, I just want my wife back. It's brutal. I don't know the specifics or any of that. I did see Vivek out today with one of his long essays on Twitter. He's like, how we can attack the gas prices. The word Iran, I believe, did not appear a single time. So, I mean, that's a good example. And actually, you know, even better. I mean, in fairness, as governor, it's not like you're going to be voting on the Iran war. For sure. But then why'd you run for president and say Trump is your best friend, right?

33:01It's like, this is one where it's like, well, you have a bunch of opinions about foreign policy. It's like, but now you want to run for governor. And don't forget, a governor is exactly the type of race where blowouts in both sides are actually more likely because when the stakes are not national, people don't care nearly as much. Republican states are much more willing to elect Democratic governors than they are Democratic representatives because they're not taking up or down votes whenever it comes to the big national issues or supporting Trump. I actually think that they could be in bigger trouble than the Republican candidate on the Senate ballot, specifically just because of the way things have worked there.

33:34And it's like Ohio, again, from what I understand, the economic situation, very similar, I think, to some of these other Midwestern states. It's not great. And the general approval of Trump and everything on the ballot there has not been good. The governor and the previous governor has bucked Trump pretty significantly. And that's the way that he was able to maintain his popularity. But they cannot do that because he literally ran for president. Yeah, he's a bad candidate. He just has a lot of issues about him that people do not do not like. Well, that's actually a good transition. Sherrod Brown is facing a wave of cash coming in against him from the crypto industry.

34:07So it's a good transition to talk about crypto and AI spending in the election with Alex Boras. 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. 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 Did you know every 36 minutes A child in the U.S.

34:52is diagnosed with cancer? Which means some of the bravest warriors you'll ever meet Aren't professional athletes or superheroes They're the kids in this fight That's why I'm 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. Let's bring every warrior home. Join our fight at HyundaiWarriors.com. We know kids don't hold back, and I wouldn't want them to. Get in there, make a mess, slide for home, bring on the stains.

35:26I've got OxyClean Versatile Steam Remover. It works on over 100 stains, and it's America's number one stain fighter additive brand. It's color-safe and chlorine-free, so I use it on whites, colors, and dark fabrics. And OxyClean isn't just for laundry. Mix it with water for use all around the house, kitchens, bathrooms, and even floors. When my kids go all in, I say go for it, because I've got OxyClean to get the stains out. It's not clean unless it's OxyClean. So we've talked a lot about Israel Lobby spending on this show. we wanted to dig now into a large source of midterm spending, which is coming from the tech world.

36:02There are a lot of very interesting dynamics at play here. And we have literally the perfect guest to talk about what is going on in some of these races. Alex Boras is a New York State Assembly member. He also ran for Congress and had$8 million in AI Super PAC money spent against him in that race and unfortunately narrowly lost, I'm sure in part because of that money. But Alex, great to have you.

36:25Alex Bores:Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Yeah, of course. So let's start by talking about why you earned the ire of these super PACs. Let's put B4 up on the screen. You have been a major advocate for state-level AI regulation in your role as a New York State Assembly member. This Politico article is saying that New York is moving forward with some of the landmark AI legislation that you have helped to draft and push forward. So just talk a little bit about what's going on at the state level in New York. The states are the only level that's actually regulated AI. So when I came into office, I was the first Democrat elected in New York State at any level with a degree in computer science.

37:03Alex Bores:And so I did a lot of things around tech, many of which were big consensus items and not seen as strongly aggressive. And initially, that's what the Rays Act was too. But that is the bill that really drew the ire of the tech industry. The RAISE Act was setting very basic safety standards on frontier AI development, the most advanced companies. So, you know, not by name, we did it by complexity and spending, but Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta, that's really who we were talking about in that bill. And it required them to have a safety plan that they made public to to report critical safety incidents, which when we were arguing this bill in 2025, they said this was all theoretical.

37:52Alex Bores:I think the summer shows it very much was not theoretical. Yeah. And put some other requirements on them, originally requiring third-party audits as well, although that got stripped out as we worked through the legislative process. And the fact that I had dared to put any regulation on this sort of development made me oligarchy enemy number one. And so they declared me their top target in the country. pledged to spend at least$10 million against me at the start of it to send a message to anyone else thinking of regulating AI that, you know, at least the industry thinks that's a mistake. Let's put, what is it, B3, please, on the screen, which details some of this big tech spent millions on this single U.S.

38:35congressional race. And it won't be the last time some$8 million of pro-AI political action money was funded towards you. Can you speak, Alex, a little bit about who these groups are? Because as I understand it, this is a bipartisan phenomenon. Some of this is also extremely concentrated amongst Democrats and specifically to try and prevent any sort of legislation or even comment in the vein that you just made. So why don't you break that down for us?

39:06Alex Bores:Where they are spending is bipartisan. They're spending in Democratic races and Republican races. Their funding is not that bipartisan. I think the only prominent name Democrat was Ron Conway, who contributed something like$500 ,000 out of their$100 million plus that they are raising. It's really coming from three people primarily, which are Ben Horowitz, Mark Andreessen, who in the last time was the RNC's single largest megadonor, And Greg Brockman, the president of OpenAI, who in a previous filing was Donald Trump's single largest megadonor. And so this is why feelings about AI are actually quite bipartisan.

39:49Alex Bores:Democrats and Republicans universally want there to be more regulation on AI. I think you're seeing the Democratic Party start to wake up to that. And Republicans are mixed. You've had some really good comments coming from some, but there's just so much more Republican mega donor money pushing against any regulation that I think it's been tougher for them to listen to the American people. So, Alice, break this down for me because it's been a little bit confusing to me. You have leading the future is the pack that you're referring to that dropped millions and millions of dollars into your race to try to make an example of you.

40:23There's another and that's sort of open Greg Brockman, open AI. It's sort of seen as like open AI aligned. Then you have Public First Action, which is seen as more Anthropic-aligned. In fact, Anthropic has given millions of dollars to that super PAC. You also have a new group called Guardrails Alliance, which is made up, actually, it's more grassroots made up of a lot of tech employees, including some OpenAI employees who have come out and said, we want to do something very different from what a lot of the executives at our company want to do. So can you break down for us, like, what is Anthropic doing?

40:58How is their thing? different than the open AI aligned thing? Help us understand what these various dynamics are.

41:05Alex Bores:The biggest divide is between the employees and the executives across every company. I think the vast majority of people who are working in the AI space actually want there to be regulations. They're the people who are closest to the technology. They see how powerful it is. And so both in terms of contributions to me, but in contributions to groups like Guardrails Alliance that exists to counteract leading the future, you're seeing a lot of people at all of the labs say, yeah, we want regulation. This is a intellectually challenging problem that we're building something really powerful, but the question of who decides how it should be used and what the limits are shouldn't be made just in Silicon Valley or just by their CEOs.

41:50Alex Bores:Now you have some of the executives who don't want there to be any regulation whatsoever. And so they're willing to spend big in order to get that. You also have Chris Lehane, who's the head of global affairs for OpenAI, who helped set up Leading the Future, although he's now stepping back or claiming to step back from it. And so you have like a small executive group that is willing to spend big to have their way with regulation. And then you have the vast majority of Americans, but even just the vast majority of employees that are saying, no, no, no, that is not how we should have democracy here.

42:26Alex Bores:We should actually let the people decide where this is going. So how do open AIs, like the way they're actually spending money, the way they're lobbying, the PACs they're funding, how does that square with Sam Altman now coming out and being concerned and we need to do something and embracing the call to slow down the pace? which, you know, in my opinion, if you're racing towards a cliff, you should just stop, not just slow down the pace. And I don't think we should leave it in the hands of these guys to decide whether or not they feel that the product is safe or not. But in any case, how do his words and theoretical concerns about safety square with what the money is actually doing?

43:03Alex Bores:They don't. And I want to be very clear about that. They absolutely do not square. And so when the words are different, the time is for the time comes for actual action. And so if OpenAI is changing their tune, if the executives at OpenAI are changing their tune and want regulation, Greg Brockman should defund leading the future. They should declare that they're not going to give any money to build American AI, which is the separate C4 that leading the future established that can spend tens of millions of dollars and is doing that as well to make sure there's no regulation. That is the biggest obstacle to getting real safety passed.

43:42Alex Bores:And as long as executives at OpenAI are going to continue to fund both of those organizations, they're talking out of both sides of their mouths. You mentioned there Ron Conway. And so that immediately piqued my interest because former presidential candidate Kamala Harris actually just celebrated Jay Carney, who, you know, tripped back in time, was the press secretary for President Obama. He left. He went to go work for Amazon. Carney has now actually joined Mr. Conway's new firm to run an initiative called Project Blueprint. The purpose was to, quote, rebuild bonds between leaders in AI and Democrats who are demanding new rules to regulate the technology.

44:24This was hailed by Kamala as a step in the right direction. However, you just mentioned Conway is one of those people who actually helped fund the organization lobbying against you. So what do you make of this Carney-led initiative, which appears to be kind of an Obama and a Kamala Harris way of adopting AI safety type legislation?

44:46Alex Bores:I was pretty confused by the announcement of the initiative. Not of Kamala or Obama saying good things about someone they used to work with. I think that's a pretty normal human thing. But the announcement from Jay Carney was that he's going over there to repair relationships between the Democratic Party and tech. No, thanks. And the confusing thing to me is like if you look at donations from the tech industry, number of donations or volunteers or any sort of engagement, tech workers are pretty democratic. There doesn't need much repairing there. So maybe what he's referring to is repairing relationships with the few executives that are spending tens of millions of dollars to stop any regulation from happening.

45:33Alex Bores:I don't think we need to repair relationships with those people. I think we need to beat them. Yeah, I think I would like to see more antagonistic relationships with those particular individuals personally. You know, Alex, they really tried to make an example of you by dumping all this money into your race. And because you were such a prominent advocate and because you yourself have the computer science background, that's what made you a target. Put B1 up on the screen. You now have this Politico report saying that Democratic consultants are telling candidates, like, maybe just don't talk about AI.

46:06Like, maybe let's just downplay that because we don't want, and this is now I'm reading between the lines, we don't want what happened to Alex to happen to you. So do you think that their attempt to effectively make an example of you, was it effective? Did it work? No.

46:21Alex Bores:And this is, you know, politics 101 from the super PAC side. If you just want to bury one candidate, you just don't announce it. You spend a whole bunch of money three weeks before the election and then you wait until later and see what happens. They announced eight months before my primary that I was going to be their number one target and they were going to spend upwards of$10 million against me. That wasn't to beat me. That was to send a message to everyone else in the country, don't talk about this issue. And when you hear Democratic advisors echo the advice that is coming from the people who are threatening candidates, it's pretty disappointing.

47:01Alex Bores:I think what my race showed was that actually standing with the American people, again, regardless of party, we are remarkably unified on this issue. But standing with the American people is actually an electoral boost. And so you're seeing more and more candidates who are being asked about it in their town halls, being asked about it by voters on the street and realizing, wait, this is a core concern and I need a real answer to this. You know, I wonder if your primary was now, if the result wouldn't be different. Like you were just a little bit ahead of the concerns because you can see the way that now people are really paying attention to what's going on.

47:38Do you do you have the same sense?

47:40Alex Bores:It may be. You know, there's always these if ands or buts. As I said on primary night, the message that we were trying to send in our campaign was far more important than the actual person that is in this seat. And the message that we sent came through loud and clear that it is time for the American people to have a say in the direction of AI, that doing so is both the right policy and the right political boost. And I've been very pleased to see that more and more candidates are taking up this mantle. And I am still the only person in America that Leading the Future has spent money against. They've realized that strategy isn't working and their money isn't there.

48:19Alex Bores:And hopefully I'll be the last candidate that Leading the Future ever beats. All right. Let's put B2 up on the screen because it's not just AI coming from the tech world. You also have the crypto industry dumping tons of money in particular into this race against Sherrod Brown. You know, they're they're angry at him for some of the work that he did previously in the Senate. They had already spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat him successfully last time around. And now they want to make sure that he remains in retirement. You know, what do you see in terms of how Democrats feel and approach the crypto industry?

48:57Because not only do they make an example of him, also Katie Porter had a ton of crypto money spent against her and they were successfully able to defeat her. Did these sorts of things also put a chill into Democratic candidates who may have previously been open to more regulation, more scrutiny of the crypto industry?

49:15Alex Bores:anytime there is a you know eight figure or nine figure effort in politics i assure you everyone in dc is taking notice of that i think what's interesting in this spending is they did not announce they announced they were going after sherry brown who is not in the senate and so didn't just have a vote on clarity but not going after susan collins in maine who voted against the clarity act which is their stated reason so it feels like maybe there's some partisan undertones here. I would also point out that Ron Conway famously gave to Fairshake and broke with them because they went after Sherrod Brown.

49:49Alex Bores:And he thought that Sherrod Brown was a good candidate. And so maybe this is a time again where we are seeing a break and what was an ideological vehicle is just becoming a partisan one. We'll have to pay attention. But the big difference between crypto and AI is crypto doesn't affect everyone. There's a small subset of America who works in crypto. And so they are the voters who are most tuned into it. AI is affecting everyone's kids, everyone's job, everyone's environment. It really is an entire country discussion. And so my guess is that the money that is being spent there to convince Americans not to believe their lying eyes will be even less effective.

50:28Yeah. I know you were at the event with that Bernie and famously Steve Bannon. We're both at as well. You know, how are you feeling about the prospects of getting some sort of meaningful legislation passed on, you know, what would likely need to be a bipartisan basis at some point?

50:45Alex Bores:I'm optimistic, though cautiously optimistic. I mean, at that event, you had not just Bernie and Steve Bannon, but you had Greg Cazard, chair of the CPC, and Republican Congressman Chip Roy both speaking at the same time. You've had comments from Republican senators like John Kennedy saying that AI threats are real and need to be taken seriously from Kevin Kramer in North Dakota, who said that Trump's position on AI is the least popular political position in America. So you're seeing bipartisan voices call for real action here. That gives me a lot of optimism. The one bit of caution is that I think leading the future and build American AI have realized how much momentum there is.

51:28Alex Bores:And even if they could stop the federal government from taking action, they know that the states are going to continue, right? Where we started this conversation is the states are the only level that has regulated AI. And the RAISE Act was minor compared to what is going to come in 2027 and 2028. I'm very optimistic about that. But Build American AI has realized that. And so they've changed their tune. And they've started tweeting and putting out messages of we need to do something this year. The undertone being that something has to include preempting the states from taking any action in the future.

52:02Alex Bores:And that has to be just an absolute red line for those in Congress. Do not take away the one level of government that has been successful in regulating AI. That is akin to taking away Americans' voices. Well said. Alex Boras, thank you so much. That's very helpful. I appreciate it. Thanks, man. Thank you. 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. Odoo is the all-in-one platform that replaces them all.

52:38CRM, 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. Did you know every 36 minutes a child in the U.S. is diagnosed with cancer? Which means some of the bravest warriors you'll ever meet aren't professional athletes or superheroes. They're the kids in this fight. That's why I'm 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.

53:21But we're not done yet. Let's bring every warrior home. Join our fight at HyundaiWarriors.com. We know kids don't hold back, and I wouldn't want them to. Get in there, make a mess, slide for home, bring on the stains. I've got OxyClean Versatile Stain Remover. It works on over 100 stains, and it's America's number one stain fighter additive brand. It's color-safe and chlorine-free, so I use it on whites, colors, and dark fabrics. And OxyClean isn't just for laundry. Mix it with water for use all around the house, kitchens, bathrooms, and even floors. When my kids go all in, I say go for it because I've got OxyClean to get the stains out.

53:54It's not clean unless it's OxyClean. Turning now to China, previewing a big summit. President Xi Jinping of China will land here in the United States. He'll attend the United Nations but also attend a state reception in Washington with President Trump where they're literally rolling out the red carpet and bending over backwards to try and to please Xi in this high-stakes clash between the two leaders. Let's put C1 up here on the screen. Clearly, the number one topic of discussion, at least in the interim, will be AI. And so Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, previewed some of this, saying that the U.S.-China AI dialogue will start ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting.

54:39The Treasury Secretary said sides are working towards a, quote, shared vision after talks with his Chinese counterpart. In fact, Some of the details of this are kind of fascinating. Let's put C3 up there on the screen. This was from Fox Business. Presumably it was leaked by the Treasury Secretary's team. They say,

55:25week before meeting with President Xi. The reason why that's interesting is that that literally only exists for deconfliction in the military. And obviously the historical precedent for it is the Cuban missile crisis and the hotline between the two countries. So despite all of Trump's talk and all of that, the proposal itself is now already arising to the way that we have governance of nuclear weapons. And it is interesting because if you'd gone back six months, I don't think AI would have been the number one thing on their agenda. It would have been trade. And let's not forget, I mean, that if you want to talk about what's going to affect you today, like that is actually what it is.

56:00China is not buckling at all. In fact, from what I've understood, I've been reading some of the analysts about how they're coming in. They truly believe that they have won the negotiation. Because if you'll remember after the immediate, like we're going to 100 percent, they're like, OK, we're going to 150. We don't care. Is that they believe that their ultimate Trump card, if you will, was rare earth minerals, is that they think that the threats over the export control on rare earth minerals effectively stopping a number of critical industries in the U.S. and Trump's AI bet mean that they have a stranglehold on the U.S.

56:36economy. I don't think they're wrong. So they're coming in with this kind of theory where they have the upper hand in the trade negotiation and on the AI negotiation, which is basically you don't tell us what to do. if you want to keep this export control thing up, we can play the exact same game. They have, from what I understand, they have two goals that they want more than anything. They want at least some sort of detente on the trade war. And the number one for them, biggest agenda item, which is the biggest question mark, is Chinese cars. They want to be able to have the kind of deal that we have with Toyota and all the other Japanese companies where as long as they build here in the United States, they're allowed to sell here.

57:16So that is number one, at least one of the number one items for President Xi to get a Chinese car factory in the United States. Yeah. I think the AI thing is actually very encouraging. I mean, I don't want to, like, oversell it. Like, it's not, obviously, it's not everything that we need. But there are two parts of it that I find encouraging. First, just you have to build on some small wins. Right now it feels so impossible. Oh, my God, how could we do, coordinate an international slowdown? How could we regulate the pace of the frontier, recursive self-improvement or any of these things because we've got China to deal with?

57:50When you have these little moments of collaboration, you're able to build some goodwill and then those things can build on each other. So it's just an encouraging reminder that it is possible as human beings existing in the world to be able to collaborate and institute some sort of global regulatory regime as we did with nuclear weapons. And I'm not going to say that, you know, anti-nuclear proliferation has been perfect, but the world still exists. We haven't blown each other up yet. So that seems like a win to me. And I the other piece of this that encourages me is the fact that they do seem to be using that as a sort of model.

58:28And I think it is the right model based on what we have in history. You know, it's not going to be exactly the same, but at least it's the sort of framework that mentally our lawmakers can work with and start to build out some of this apparatus. so that because this is a global development for all of humanity and it has to be dealt with in that manner. There's some funny details side by side here of how much Trump is bending over backwards to meet Xi. So I have it here in front of me. Trump will actually be waiting for Xi Jinping on the tarmac, which Xi did not do for him whenever he visited China earlier this year.

59:04Then there will be a flyover by B-2 and F-22s and a meeting then between Xi's wife and Melania Trump. None of that happened whenever Trump visited Beijing. Xi was not waiting for him. There were no flyovers and there was no meeting of the first ladies. And, I mean, I know this all sounds like stupid, but in Chinese culture in particular and their diplomatic protocol, everything is reciprocity. And so they famously did this, I think, with Obama, where they made him use the back staircase instead of the main staircase on Air Force One. They're all subtle status games that have been happening in diplomacy for quite some time.

59:45But then why is Trump bending over back? He needs them. Like, he really does. He needs to strike some sort of a deal. What did we open our show up with? Iowa and how much they're getting punished. The Chinese are not stupid. They know all of this. And so what they're doing is they're setting the tone to try and to actually get as much as they can out of Trump when he's in a vulnerable position. The other thing, which nobody genuinely would have predicted, both in the – remember, the original meeting between Trump and Xi was supposed to happen I think in April. It gets moved by a month because of the disastrous Iran war.

1:00:18Well, what do they need right now? They need China who's providing all this satellite imagery and all of this technology and all this assistance to the Iranians. They're going to press them to stop. China says, OK, maybe. But if we do, we're going to need something out of it. And also, let's point to what the Trump administration actually gives us a view into what they also see very important in this dinner. And that comes back to AI. Put C4 up here on the screen. They have invited now Elon, Sam Altman and other, quote, AI giants actually to the state dinner. And, you know, this is actually pretty important because the state dinner, where they do these state dinners, I've been in this room.

1:00:58It is not a big room. They're really, you can't fit that many people. This is part of why Trump wants to build his ballroom because he thinks they should be bigger. I like the fact that they're small. I think that it makes it better. But one of the people that they're inviting are all of these, you know, Jensen Wang, Elon, Sam Altman, people who have tremendous business interests already existing in China or who have, you know, people who have like various thoughts and or roles in the A.I. race. For example, like Dario Amadei, Sam Altman, all of these other figures who appear to have at least gotten an invitation in the interim for this state dinner.

1:01:35Not Dario, but Sam Altman and some of the other A.R. figures. Dario's invite got lost in the mail, I guess. Well, it's not like she would want to see him. He's like, Dario's the biggest China hawk that there is. I just think that when you put it all together, what fascinates me is about the role in which she is coming to Washington. like it is in a role from his position. And I would agree with it is a position of strength is that they have, you know, they have control over the eye industry. We'll get to that here in a second. They are willing to meet the United States on equal and only equal terms.

1:02:07In fact, you have the U S president rolling out the red carpet kind of, if you will. And the U S president is a much more vulnerable position with more immediate asks. Whereas their ass from the Trump administration are much more high level. Trade, AI, and cars. The cars one is the biggest one. That'll actually be, in my opinion, I mean, it's the one I'd be the most excited about to be able to have their cars here in the United States. But it actually would have tremendous impact in Michigan because Detroit is freaking out. This is their number one ask of Trump. It's understandable. Yeah, I get it.

1:02:42They're dead. I mean, when I was in Spain, I was able to ride in BYD because a lot of the Ubers are BYD's. Very nice car. Way cheaper than Tesla. Like, it's a no-brainer. I did not see a single Tesla while I was there. It was all BYD. And they were very, very common. You know, that was a lot of the cars on the street were BYD. So, no, it would be devastating to the American auto industry if we just fully let them in. I was also remembering, you know, just recently Trump was asked about China, in particular reports that China was assisting Iran with their satellite information to help targeting, including some of the targeting in Jordan that led to the deaths of American service members.

1:03:22And Trump just, he kind of brushed it off. He's like, yeah, well, I think they behaved reasonably well. That's what he said. And I think he may have even done one of those things. Well, yeah, we do some similar things as well. I mean, yeah, what? The Ukrainians are pummeling Moscow by themselves? Like, be real. Yeah. It's like what? They got space satellites? But it's just an indication of the dynamics of that relationship, where he's clearly in a mood to try to placate them, recognizes that, yeah, we threw the gauntlet down with the trade war, with Liberation Day. China said, OK, fine, then you don't get our rare earth minerals.

1:03:55And we blinked pretty darn fast. So I don't think it's even a question that China has the most important trump card, which is there is rare earth minerals. And so everything has to be handled in a much more different and less aggressive way than maybe it would have been in, you know, if the situation were slightly different. So in any case, I think, you know, I'm encouraged by the AI talks. I think you're right that this would maybe have not been a central focus up till just a few months ago. I think the fact that they are, you know, we'll see if anything more comes out of this. Trump's trip to Beijing basically resulted in like literally nothing came out of that whatsoever.

1:04:34So I wouldn't get my hopes super high for a lot of developments here. But obviously, this is the most important relationship in the world right now. So we have to watch it carefully. Yeah. And from what I'm looking at, you know, right now, there is there's not going to be any real declaration on anything. I mean, look, it's general. It's good for, you know, for these leaders to meet and we get these small steps. But anybody expecting a large breakthrough, it's not really going to happen. I did want to note this one thing because it's just fascinating, let's put C6 up here on the screen, is one of the most important people in the Chinese military establishment has now been expelled from the party and alleged of serious corruption.

1:05:12This is from Reuters. It's all been confirmed and put out by the CCP. But from what I understand, he was one of the last remaining members that was on this kind of committee, which would oversee the Chinese military commission. And by expelling two of these top military leaders, it is genuinely pretty extraordinary. He was the vice chair of the Central Military Commission and second only to Xi Jinping in the military hierarchy, along with the chief of staff for the commission's Joint Staff Department. So the equivalent of our, I guess, semi-equivalent of our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

1:05:46The two men accused of being disloyal and dishonest to the party, as well as abusing their power to help others with promotions and improperly accepting gifts, enormous amounts of money. They seriously violated political discipline and political rules, and their cases are now referred to military prosecutors, probably never to be seen again. And so what does that mean? I think in terms of the message that they're trying to send, they don't do anything without wanting to send a message. This is a message internally. I obviously will understand that a lot less, but I also think it's a message to Trump of, I have control.

1:06:23I have control of our military, not just Trump to the world, where his ability now to either purge or remove so many members that had preexisted either his relationship or kind of a previous era of Chinese politics, the full-blown cult of personality, almost Maoist kind of takeover of the Chinese military establishment is fascinating from a lot of the analysts that I have seen. And actually, what's interesting too is one of the chief complaints around the CCP prior to him coming to power was corruption. And so using corruption there as a reason for taking out a lot of these people, again, I think it's a message to the world.

1:06:59And in the way that we look at this, it's kind of the same way whenever we remove top generals, you're like, wow, it's a big deal, right? It's like whenever you prosecute these people. And yeah, I mean, there's not a ton to say because we don't know it a lot and we never really will know a lot of these things. But this is the second time actually that we've covered something like this. And I saw an image where one of the last people that remains there is actually somebody I did a monologue about, one of the most fascinating people in modern Chinese politics who really believes in this clash of civilizations between the U.S.

1:07:31and China and this kind of fascinating technological communism and why it's the best system for what it is. And so the fact that she remains at the top and in total control along with some of the people there, we can see the ideology that they seem to believe and what the clash and all of that looks like. Yeah, it is very fascinating. Let's get to media. Zillow.

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