9/23/25: Trump Links Tylenol To Autism, Homan Denies Cash Bribe, Electricity Prices Skyrocket

25:43But second, from Jay Bhattacharya, was like, we're going to throw a lot of money at these studies. That was the solution the whole time, right? At least, again, to me. Because relying on observational Swedish study or this Harvard study, it's like these are not run currently massive data sets other than the Swedish one, which didn't find the link. And it also was not controlled properly or funded by the government. Like if you just cut all these mRNA, which fine, you should at least try and channel it into these same things to find some scientific evidence and then see where the data takes you.

26:16But it seemed to me like they started off with a conclusion that they were under kind of intense pressure on the autism question. They didn't want to go fully down the road of pulling the MMR vaccine, or at least for now. That's still kind of up in the air. Again, separate question, which we could spend hours on here if we wanted to. But broadly, it just seemed to me like they were under the gun. They needed to come up with something. They needed a big press conference, maybe to distract from certain other things that are going on here. And this was like their big banner to start a conversation.

26:48So with that, let me play this. A6, let's take a listen. Today, the FDA is filing a federal register notice to change the label on an exciting treatment called prescription lukevorin so that it can be available to children with autism. You know, autism may also be due to a autoimmune reaction to a folate receptor on the brain, not allowing that important vitamin to get into the brain cells. It's a fairly established, mature pathway. Again, we have a duty to let doctors and the public know we are going to change the label to make it available. Hundreds of thousands of kids, in my opinion, will benefit.

27:24One study found that with kids with autism and chronic folate deficiency, two-thirds of kids with autism symptoms had improvement and some marked improvement. All right, so that's the new drug that they are touting here, A7. We can go ahead and put it up there on the screen. I apologize if I butcher this. I'm not good with drug names, but it's Leucavorin inside the drug, giving new hope there to, quote, autism parents. They're saying that it's, quote, an answer to autism, and it's a form of vitamin B9, also known as folate, that's been prescribed to protect healthy cells from the toxic side effects of previously used in chemotherapy and to enhance chemo and to treat cerebral folate deficiency.

28:04Folate, as Dr. Macri is saying there, is needed for brain development, and they have found that some children with neurodevelopmental disorders show signs of cerebral folate deficiency, a shortage of B9 in the brain. Again, I am not a doctor. Do not take medical advice from me. I wouldn't take medical advice from them either. That's part of the difficulty, I think, of this entire kind of conversation. I mean, that's what chat GPT is for, right? Chat, well, okay, let's talk about that. And this is one of the, I hope, maybe potential benefits of COVID. Now, a lot of the doctors and all these people are upset.

28:37I read everything for myself now at this point, and I'll take their consideration. I will not dismiss it out of hand. I probably, you know, more biased earlier, let's say two years ago, really in the heights of the COVID mania, I would have been like, I don't believe a word that you people say. But, you know, presented with this, I'm like, well, I don't know. That's the counterargument. I'm like, well, yeah, right. So it's like maybe I'm going to do my own research. And by doing my own research and all that, and you read the data and the trials and stuff for themselves, actually the Swedish study is a good reminder to people.

29:07Something I tried to do was I stopped looking at America because the question is always about corruption, either ideological or pharma. So I would look to countries where they have universal health care. They largely are not woke. So I'm mainly shouting out Japan here. And then I would look at their health outcomes, right? And I would compare U.S. advisories. Sushi is a great one. No sushi or any of that. I'm like, well, the Japanese are pretty smart and they eat a lot of sushi and raw fish. So what's going on over there? And they're like, you're an idiot. Everyone here eats sushi. Again, don't take medical advice from me.

29:43Read the book and read the guidance and all that for yourself. But on their vaccine schedule, you can compare the U.S. It's easy. Actually, with ChatGPT or any of these, compare the U.S. vaccine schedule to the Japanese vaccine schedule. You can make up your mind for yourself. You can also go and take a look at various other European countries. Keep in mind, a lot of these pharma companies are European-based, so there's still some potential for corruption. But by and large, some of their data is better than ours, or they publish more population-wide stuff, and they have less ideological kind of influence going on there.

30:14So that's part of the difficulty for me personally, Ryan. Like I saw the American College of Obstetricians come out and be like, this is dangerous and all of that. But considering how we've seen them previously talk about the COVID vaccine or, I mean, Chris only got into a nice big debate yesterday on trans, but like considering some of the stuff that, let's say, the American Academy of Pediatrics has said there too, I'm like, yeah, I don't trust you at all, right? So like I really think a lot of parents, they need more information. And the government, it did not do that today or yesterday in their announcement.

30:45They did not give people, in my opinion, more information. They didn't say they were going to study. They made a declarative statement. And as you said, maybe the doctors wrote it a little bit differently, but the president straight up said don't take Tylenol. Yeah, the headline is clear. Yeah, like he said don't take it, which by the way, their stock is now plunged. Let's put A5 up here on the screen. Tylenol maker Kenvu has plunged on reports that the White House has planned to link the drug to autism. The news spurred an 8 % sell-off in shares yesterday for Kenvu. Their shares, I believe, are not yet open while we were recording this.

31:22So keep you guys updated. The company's now year-to-date loss of 21%. So I don't know. By the way, it does remind me there was a great documentary called The Tylenol Killer, which was super interesting on Netflix. So that's the last thing. Anything you want to say more on Tylenol, autism, any of that? No, I think that pretty much covers it. Yeah. I think it's a sad state because one of the things that they cite, that RFK cited in particular was like the grief of a lot of these parents. And I think, first of all, I think the medical establishment has done a lot of these people a disservice by saying like, not lying to them, but like kind of lecturing them being like, it is what it is, you know, get over it, right?

32:02And no parent, especially as a new parent, is going to quote, get over it. They're going to want answers. That doesn't mean that you have to give them what they want to hear or a easy explanation. that's kind of what I think the government did here. And I also think that they should have considered that for people, for women who are pregnant in America today, it's really not easy, especially people who are working. And so for them, I do really fear, like you said, Ryan, this will kind of spur a level of hopelessness of, I can't take Tylenol. You know, the last thing you want when you're pregnant is stress, right?

32:41And now it's about Tylenol, Advil, diet, prenatal. There's already so much pressure on these people. And what I would say is make it easier at a system-wide level. And let's not put all the blame on the mothers or all of the responsibility necessarily on them. I think it should be on all of us as a society, medical system, et cetera. Okay. Yeah, go ahead. Rachel Bedard has an interesting point on here, which is I'm curious for your take on this, that both Trump and RFK Jr. were kind of boxed in by their very early declarations that they were going to basically get to the bottom of this. Yes. And had to come up with - Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

33:19I read it this morning. Yeah, had to come up with something. And it would have been much more damaging if they just concocted some vaccine link, which is far even more spurious than this. Well, what it would do is they would have to prove it, right? Is that for this, they didn't even really prove it. They just said may. And by the way, I mean, look, Tylenol use, I do think, you know, could be important, especially if you're suffering, you know, from a lot of pain. So just talk to your doctor. Think of this as like a harm reduction. Right. That's kind of what I was like. That's that was from getting over your skis that if what they really wanted to do and what they you know, the Maha people desperately want is they want the MMR vaccine to straight up just be pulled.

33:57And Trump even basically said he's like, I think the MMR should be split up. I think it has problems. Get your M, get your R. Whatever. Yeah, exactly. I mean, let's put his comments to the side, like an actual guidance from the CDC, the FDA, and the US government from HHS telling doctors and all that, pull the MMR vaccine. That is actually just a whole other level because not only would you have to prove it, but then you would have any potential consequences on your hands around measles. Epidemics all over the place. Right. And look, I'm not an expert on MMR. I have read all the anti-vax books.

34:29I also read all the Provax books. I recommend that you do that too so you can actually, frankly, both have some horrible argumentation and really do address a lot of each other's points. One thing I think is critical on this, again, is that more information and more data. One of the things RFK pledged was about more data. But the thing is, is that making macro decisions for the entire nation without any new data, that seems a big problem for me. So they threw Tylenol under the bus. Versus Tylenol. We'll see. I mean, listen, I mean, they laid the ground pretty hard on MMR and on the rest of them.

35:03And so my response would be the same one that they give to the vaccine companies, which is true. Prove it, right? Prove it. So there you go. That's what I think the standard of evidence should be there in science. Shortly after I enrolled at Rasmussen, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was like a bomb had just been dropped in my life. I reached out to Rasmussen. They immediately were like, Rosa, take what time you need. You can come back when you're ready. We are cancer-free today, and I'm just so grateful for Rasmussen for all of their support throughout my journey and for my own village.

35:39Rasmussen University. Find your seat and start now at rasmussen.edu. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The July Savings Event from Apple Vacations is here. Book by July 23rd and save up to$400 off your flight and hotel package to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, Hawaii, or Europe. From all-inclusive escapes to bucket list adventures, Apple Vacations makes it easy to create memories with the people who matter most. Start today at AppleVacations.com or contact your trusted travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. You're building your career, your routine, your future.

36:18But this summer, that's for you. This season, escape into stories that feel like golden hour, rooftop drinks, and the kind of love that sneaks up on you when you least suspect it. Sourcebooks' Summer of Romance brings together the rom-coms everyone's talking about. From Laugh Out Loud favorites by Lucy Score and Megan Quinn. To binge-worthy reads you'll want to finish in one sitting. Find your next summer read at Sourcebooks.com. That's Sourcebooks.com. Alright, let's get to Homan, shall we? This is pretty crazy. And it does tell us a lot about the country where we are today, because it's not just Tom Homan here, who, by the way, allegedly, because he denies it.

37:02But one of the things, he kind of denies it. It strikes to the heart of bribery laws in this country and how basically bribery is legal after the Supreme Court ruled in 2024. Let's go and put this up here on the screen. You had a new report from NBC News. They say Tom Homan was investigated for accepting$50 ,000 from undercover FBI agents. Trump's DOJ shut it down. The FBI justice officials closed the investigation of calling it a deep state probe in early 2025. The details are as such.

38:02Quote, closed the investigation. It's unclear what reasons FBI and DOJ gave for shutting down, but a Trump Justice Department appointee called the case a, quote, deep state probe. The investigation was launched in West Texas in the summer of 2024 after a separate investigation claimed that Homan was soliciting payments in exchange for awarding contracts for Trump should he win the presidential election. The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of Texas, working with the FBI, asked the DOJ to join its ongoing probe into the former border czar and the former acting director of immigration and ICE, Tom Homan, based on the evidence of payment from the FBI undercover agents.

38:42What they said is that Homan, who served as the acting director of ICE early in Trump's first term, was openly claimed during the 2024 campaign he would play a prominent role. Thus, during the investigation, they allegedly, on September 20th, with hidden cameras recording the scene at a meeting spot in Texas, caught him accepting some$50 ,000 in bills, according to this internal summary. They then took the matter no further in the final months of 2024. Now, one of the reasons why I think that is important is that it was obviously in September in the lead up to the presidential election, but that the quid pro quo, if you will, had to be proven because of the way that the bribery laws are written.

39:21Simply accepting cash does not in and of itself mean that it's bribery because you actually have to deliver. OK, because we've changed the way the bribery works in this country. Tom Homan did address this last night on Fox News. Here's what he had to say. I want to give you a chance to address this article that came out over the weekend. And it was on our always reliable MSNBC. And they said that you took$50 ,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent to help them win government contracts in Trump's second term. The DOJ said they concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing. But nevertheless, that story is out there.

40:05And I imagine you want to respond to that. Absolutely. Look, I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal. And there's hit piece after hit piece after hit piece. And I'm glad the FBI and DOJ came out and said, and, you know, said that nothing illegal happened and nothing, you know, no criminal activity. You're talking about a guy who spent 34 years enforcing the law. I mean, I left a very successful business that I ran to come back and work for a government again. I'm back on a government paycheck. Not only did I sacrifice my family sacrifices. I make sacrifices every day. I got more death threats than anybody.

40:41I got a security team around me, but guess what? My kids don't. My wife don't. I mean, I haven't lived with my wife in months because I don't want her to be here right now with all the threats. So after all the sacrifices, after serving my nation all these years, they want to come out and dirty me up. And it's not going to end. There's a hit piece on me every two weeks. But keep coming because you know what? Tom Holman isn't going anywhere. Tom Holman isn't shutting up. And Tom Hulman is going to keep doing what he's doing because we're going to President Trump's the greatest sign of my life. We're making this country safer again every day.

41:09We're going to keep doing it. Kind of a non-denial denial there because what he didn't say is I never took the money. What he said is I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal, which, I mean, technically true, right? So far. So far, yeah. It does raise the question, though, about those tapes and whether they exist, honestly, or not. So, you know, if you're in the FBI, it's time to put up or shut up. You should release it. But if not, I mean, according to them, they've got it on camera and they've got it on tape. Now, maybe the FBI, listen, you know, you wouldn't put it past this FBI to delete it.

41:38But the reason why it is important is that Homan has always stressed his impartiality and his government service and that he would never accept any quid pro quo or anything in service of his potential servicing government. Here's what we previously said on Bill Maher's show. If you want to send a message to the whole world, cross the border illegally. It's a crime, but it's OK. Have due process, get order removed by an immigration judge. Don't leave. It's OK. Just don't commit another crime. You're good to go. If that's the message we send to the whole world, people are going to keep coming. And let me tell you something.

42:14There's a whole illegal immigration is not a victim's crime. But that's what you have to show. There's consequences, because if you send a message, there's no consequences. And you want to reward illegal behavior. That doc wants to stop. So that's the question there about rewarding behavior if you don't show any consequences. And then finally, the White House itself also issued a flat denial that it never took place ever. A little bit, again, different than what Tom Homan said. Take a listen to Caroline Levitt. Did the president ask the Justice Department to close the case? And does Homan have to return the$50 ,000?

42:45Well, Mr. Homan never took the$50 ,000 that you're referring to. So you should get your facts straight, number one. Number two, this was another example of the weaponization of the Biden Department of Justice against one of President Trump's strongest and most vocal supporters in the midst of a presidential campaign. You had FBI agents going undercover to try and entrap one of the president's top allies and supporters, someone who they knew very well would be taking a government position months later. Mr. Homan did absolutely nothing wrong. And even the president's Department of Justice, even Kash Patel's FBI, looked into this just to make sure they had a number of different prosecutors and FBI agents who looked into this, they found zero evidence of illegal activity or criminal wrongdoing in the White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100 percent because he did absolutely nothing wrong.

43:38And he is a brave public servant who has done a phenomenal job in helping the president shut down the border. They say Mr. Homan never took the$50 ,000. So, Ryan, that seems to be the crux of the question. So I think I think there was a string on the cash. And so when he wasn't looking they kind of reeled it back in i do want to talk about the bribery laws but first yeah my spidey sense is up on this story okay for a couple of reasons here did you notice who broke the story ken den land no oh sorry he's the second byline carol lenning yeah who for 25 years she was the washington post star investigative reporter right with three pulitzer prizes under her belt now she so she leaves the washington post after this long storied career and then within a month has published this massive story about tom homan obviously she did not leave the washington post and then have some source say i was just waiting for you to go to msnbc to give you this incredible right tip and then she writes it with ken delanian no she clearly had the story.

44:46For some reason, she did not write it at the Washington Post. There is obviously a story there. That's a good flag. Why did she not write it at the Washington Post? You should investigate that. Separately, in the original reporting, it said that Homan was caught accidentally. He was kind of swept up in a broader FBI investigation. um and so this happens in september 2024 even though uh uh it's you know they don't have they let's say they don't have the crime or the indictment yet they could still leak it it's september of the election year this is just be a big problem for trump right they decided not do that so they didn't leak it and he was swept up kind of accidentally by chance in this investigation That means whoever or whatever they were actually going after was much bigger than Tom Homan.

45:40Oh, interesting. And Tom Homan's a big fish. Yeah, he is big. So what kind of fish is bigger than Tom Homan? And if Lenning had this for a significant amount of time, chances are not just there's a story within the Washington Post, but she too was probably hunting like, what's the bigger story here? Like, this is a good story. Right. See, for people who are listening or watching, that is very important for the inside kind of TikTok of how this stuff happens. Because this happened a year ago, right, at this point. Almost. Almost a year ago. Wow, it's a year ago. It's September 23rd that we're recording right now.

46:15So how long has she sat on it, right? You would think if you get caught on camera and I'm Biden, I'm leaking that tomorrow. Yeah. You know, before they – so yeah, what's going on with that, right? I mean, I'm not saying that's a just thing. It shouldn't work that way, but let's be honest. in the lead up to the election. I mean, Trump would leak it. Right, of course he would. Yeah, I mean, you kind of would be an idiot not to. In fact, they are idiots not to. Yeah, so you, yeah, wow. So yeah, what were they chasing that was bigger? Also, did you note the jurisdiction, West Texas? Yes. That's weird, right?

46:46And the reason why that's weird to me is like that is deep red country. That's like R plus 55 country. So even the US attorney, and I get it, they're political, probably Democrats, et cetera. But even there, that's like some sensitivity and the FBI agents and jurisdiction and all of that. So, yeah, I would have to try and put it together. Yeah, they must have been running buck wild in West Texas. Which is classic for West Texas. Exactly. It's culturally appropriate. Just assuming that they're on a landman and there are no laws. They're just going to bring the National Guard out to fight. There are no laws out there, Ryan, because there's no lawmen.

47:24That's the main lesson of landmen. And so somehow some lawmen got out there and were like, whoa, this is still the United States of America. And then somebody was like, actually, no, it's not. Right. This is West Texas. Well, listen, let's track it. My response is release the tapes, man. Now we've got some more tapes. If you did nothing wrong, release it. Let's see it. Let's see what happened, your interaction with the FBI agents and all that. People have a right to know whether the people in charge are corrupt. Plot twist, they are. But, you know, look, also it's cartoonish. Anybody who is dumb enough to accept$50 ,000 in cash in a kava bag, like you have no reasonable – you shouldn't even be close to power, okay?

48:05Right, because one argument would be, well, it's a consulting contract. Yeah, in cash? In cash in a kava bag. In a kava bag? Yeah, right. The only thing I want in my kava bag are my Harissa chips. That's right. Real kava heads know the shout-out. They're so good. They're so good. They're so good. All right, let's talk about bribery laws. I want you specifically to explain some of this down to me. Let's put this up here on the screen from SCOTUS blog. This is June 2024. We covered this heavy at the time, actually. The Supreme Court has now limited scope of anti-bribery laws. So what they ruled is that the federal anti-bribery law does not make it a crime for state and local officials to, quote, accept a gratuity for acts that they have already taken.

48:42They wrote for a sixth justice majority that the state and local government's officials already have to regulate gifts to officials. So the federal law does not supplement those state and local laws by subjecting some 19 million state and local officials up to 10 years in federal prison for accepting even commonplace gratuity. But this builds on other Supreme Court decisions, including that Virginia governor case about – what was it, Bob McDonald, right, where it eventually was overturned because the standards now are – it's kind of like defamation for media. Like you have to prove that not only were they accepting the money, they were doing so for an explicit quid pro quo, that that quid pro quo was real, it was promised, and it was deliverable.

49:23And all of this is being caught on audio, on video, where they're like, I am accepting this so that you will get X, Y, and Z. It's no longer even like the original Menendez case where it's obviously corrupt to be flying around on private jets. And then help a guy out. And help a guy out. I mean, come on. You would know that for anybody, but that didn't rise to the level. Well, that case, I think they were found guilty because it was a little different. In the McDonald case, they also redefined what a, quote, official act is, if you remember. Yes, that's right. It's so important. What McDonald did, he made phone calls for the guy.

49:58He had a meeting at the governor's mansion for him. This is basically a supplement maker. Yeah. gave him like 175 grand worth of gifts. And in exchange, McDonald, and also arranged meetings with lawmakers that he wanted. So McDonald calls up and says, hey, like my guy's got a problem. Can you meet with him and fix this problem? And what the Supreme Court, and they did it. And he paid for that. What the Supreme Court says, none of those are official acts. It's like what, the governor? Right. Arranging a meeting with the lawmen? The scope of the definition in all of these cases makes it so impossible.

50:40You have to have a contract. I was talking with Crystal about this, and her theory was that one of the reasons Biden and them didn't bring the case was the same thing. He's like, well, he didn't deliver the quid pro quo. We're not going to win, right? What official act? He's not even a government official. Right, exactly. He's not even a official. I don't know. It's sick, honestly, the way that we've basically legalized corruption here, but whatever. So that's the story. You can track it for what it is. Maybe it's a deep state hit job or not. Easy way to prove it. Just release the tape. Just tell us what's in the tape.

51:11If you're caught on camera accepting the$50 ,000 cash in Kava bag, you're corrupt in my eyes. That's just maybe not in the eyes of the law. And I think that public officials should, of course, be held to the highest standard. If a media official did that and it ever leaked from Projes Veritas or whatever, we'd be like, hey, come on. What's going on? Can't do this? Yeah. It was like, we can't do this. You're bringing people to the news. And it's like 10 ,000 times less important than actually running the government. I think something that makes me well-studded to be a nurse is my empathy. Growing up with a big family, I think I've always kind of been a caregiver.

51:46When you care give, you get to know the family and the patient and you get really close. And Rasmussen University, they did a very, very good job of giving us the resources that we need. So just being able to apply the knowledge that I've retained to my daily life has been so amazing. Learn more at rasmussen.edu. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. The July Savings Event from Apple Vacations is here. Book by July 23rd and save up to$400 off your flight and hotel package to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, Hawaii, or Europe. From all-inclusive escapes to bucket list adventures, Apple Vacations makes it easy to create memories with the people who matter most.

52:29Start today at AppleVacations.com or contact your trusted travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. You're building your career, your routine, your future. But this summer, that's for you. This season, escape into stories that feel like golden hour. Rooftop drinks and the kind of love that sneaks up on you when you least suspect it. Sourcebooks Summer of Romance brings together the rom-coms everyone's talking about. From Laugh Out Loud favorites by Lucy Score and Megan Quinn. To binge-worthy reads you'll want to finish in one sitting. Find your next summer read at Sourcebooks.com.

53:06That's Sourcebooks.com. All right, let's get over to the economy. We're going to start here with a story that Ryan flagged. Representative Don Bacon from Nebraska sounding the alarm on tariffs, potentially showing some other broader problems in the economy. Let's take a listen. Most people will tell you this is not emergency power is what he's doing. And is it hurting your constituents? Yes. We heard just yesterday, we have a company that makes combines. They're moving all of their manufacturing that makes combines for Canada to Europe. Because of the tariffs from going to the U.S. to Canada are too high, they can't compete.

53:44So they're going to move all the manufacturing for Canadian combines to Europe. That's hundreds of jobs right there. Iowa and Nebraska are really struggling right now with our farm economy. We're not growing markets for corn and soybeans. The president's making trade deals, but not a single country that I can see has bought more corn and soybeans. And that's what we really need right now. Tariffs aren't working, at least with coffee. I mean, I went and bought coffee, but I came back from my apartment. And it was up$4, the bag that I buy, right? That's not a success right there. What did you make of that, Ryan?

54:18Don Bacon? I mean, let's contextualize him. He is, you know, to say Republican, it's like - Moderate. Republican. Come on, not moderate. Like massively pro-Ukraine. Liberal Republican? Yeah, there you go. No, but it's because it's not social. It's like pro-Ukraine, neocon, low taxes, all of that. So I just want to contextualize that for the audience. That said, any retiring Republican has a lot more ability to speak freely, ask Tom Tillis. So I'm finding it interesting, some of the things that they're saying, potentially about, blinking red lights, not just in the economy, in their district and potentially for what that could mean for the midterms.

54:53And he also has his finger on the pulse of the economy back in Nebraska. Yeah, that's fair. Of course. And so I called a couple of combine. There's not many combine manufacturers out in Nebraska. And I found the one because there haven't actually been any news reports. And the guy that I talked to on the phone, it seemed like they were like, ooh, Bacon kind of. Oh, he kind of let the cat out of the bag. Yeah, we were just kind of letting him know. And now all the workers are finding out about it, you know, through him telling Monogu on CNN. But the company I can report here is called Klaus. Okay.

55:24It's a German company that was founded in like 1913 that opened its Omaha plant in 1999. Does have hundreds and hundreds of employees. They said they're going to try to get me a statement. We'll see if it comes in by the end of this segment. on the details of what's going on. And he said, you know, the impression that he left was that they're closing the entire plant. But if you listen very closely to what he said, the manufacturing that they're doing of combines for Canada is being moved to Europe. So it's not the, so if you work in this plant and you work on combines for the domestic market, then your job might be safe.

56:09but the plant itself is going to shrink significantly because if you are a manufacturer you are trying to not just build for the american domestic economy you're trying to export your products too and think about it if you're an european company and you're making for the canadian market you want to open a plant up in nebraska so that after you make the combine you throw it on a truck. Not cheap to move a combine. Of course. Huge. But if you're in Nebraska, it's a little bit better. And so for the last 26 years, it made sense for them to make combines for the Canadian market right there in Nebraska.

56:53And now they're saying because of the tariffs, that doesn't make sense anymore. And they already have manufacturing capacity in Europe. They have a France production. There are German companies that have got German plants. So they're going to hire more European workers. And then they'll pay a little extra on the shipping just to put them on a boat. Not that much. Get them on the boat and get them over. And then you sell them to Canada. And we're out. And those Nebraskans are then out of work. At the same time, John Deere, Caterpillar, all these others have said that they are suffering because farmers can't sell.

57:33Farmers keep talking about how by this time of the year, they're starting to do soybean harvesting. They have usually locked in contracts for two-thirds. And that's a big Chinese market, just to explain to people. Like China eats something like two thirds of soybeans in the world. And they buy a huge amount of that from the U.S. and from Brazil. And this year they have booked and it shows how effectively China can control its commercial sector. They have booked zero contracts in the United States. Right. And now all these American farmers are sitting there with soybeans. I mean, so they are then not buying combines and tractors and other capital upgrades for their farms for the coming years.

58:18And actually, we can get to, I think the White House responded to that, but we can go to C2 here. Speaking of the kind of economy kind of and Trump's management of it coming apart, it seems like, you know, they recently he was frustrated by. he was ironically frustrated that the BLS data was showing a weaker economy than he wanted. And there were some revisions that were downward. I say ironically because it was those downward revisions and the lower numbers that finally gave him the thing that he wanted, which was the Federal Reserve interest rate cut. But he was so outraged at the low numbers that he brings in a new BLS guy, absolutely just objectively unqualified for it, and now he's just out here postponing without explanation.

59:11Yeah. The BLS said – here's what they said. The annual release of consumer data set for Tuesday will be rescheduled to a later date. We will update users when more information is available. Then they said that the report was being delayed to a, quote, data quality issue and will now be out October 30th. So the day before Halloween. So I guess it will be a fun day to actually cover what's going on. As you said, Ryan, very – by the way, great job. Very interesting story there on the combine, kind of a microcosm of some of the ill-conceived way that this is all going down. On the spending level, we're also seeing some of this.

59:50Put C4 please up on the screen. Low-income Americans are slashing spending, a worrying sign for the economy. We talked about this a little bit earlier, but I just want to continue to hammer it home. Spending is softening in a fragmented way, with wealthy Americans also scaling back in some ways. They say U.S. consumer spending is not just softening overall. It's doing so in a fragmented way. If the benefits and the pressures are not shared broadly, then we're not looking at a balanced or healthy state of the U.S. consumer base. Working-class Americans already up against waning wage growth, rising house and electricity costs are burned by any increase in grocery prices, tariff-fueled increase on household staples, apparel, and furniture, increasingly dipping into savings, racking up more debt, pulling back on discretionary spending.

1:00:36Meanwhile, those in the middle and upper income tiers are being more strategic about when to make big purchases, buying in bulk and shopping at cheaper retailers. Moody's retail analyst said that the Walmart dollar generals of the world have told investors they are picking up share among wealthier consumers who are themselves also looking for bargains, and that the highest earners still are the only people holding up consumer spending and accounts for some 70 % of gross domestic product. So it's a narrower base. The top 10 % of earners making$250 ,000 or more annually account for some 49.2 % of spending in the second quarter.

1:01:12that is up from 45.8 % during the same period two years ago. So top 10 % spending 50 % of the money. That's a problem. And some of that change is going to be sticky. Those rich people get into Walmart, they're going to be like, this place is pretty good. Yeah, maybe they'll stick around. They've got a lot of stuff in here. I wouldn't go it's pretty good, but it does the job. Good isn't the work. Yeah, yeah. I love Walmart. But what's really punching people in the face, and we can put up this next element, I think this is C5, are people's electric bills. This is really a totally under-discussed thing.

1:01:44Nobody in mainstream media is talking about this. It's crazy. Yeah, it is totally crazy. If you look, and so 2022, you guys have been watching this program. You can probably figure out what happened there. Russia invaded Ukraine, and that sent natural gas and broadly sent electricity prices. Absolutely skyrocketing. They then level off. After that, you're looking at a confluence of things, data centers and the gobbling up of electricity by AI being a significant part of it. And as we warned about on this program, while Trump was and Republicans were working on the big, beautiful bill, they actively stripped away subsidies for clean energy.

1:02:35Over the last several years, clean energy has represented something like 70 to 80 percent of new energy brought onto the market. So if you're not bringing on that new energy and you're not actually ramping up, like you're not, it's not as if people think, you know, Biden was stopping them from drilling or whatever. No, they were drilling like crazy. Like there's not actually, you're not actually going to drill anymore. And ironically, and Sagar, you'll like this, the way that, so we've cut off, you know, we're telling Europe and other places, do not buy Russian natural gas, buy our natural gas.

1:03:10And as a result, we are paying more for natural gas. Yes, I highlighted this. Ryan, I talked about this until I was blue in the face at the time. I go, why are we exporting natural gas? We're the one, we make all the natural gas. Why are we screwing Russia? Why don't we just use it for ourselves? And they're like, oh, well, that's not how the global commodity markets work. And I was like, okay. Okay, well then tell this chart that's not how the global commodities market works. Well, no, they were like, well, you can't do that because it would disrupt the global commodities market, et cetera. And I was like, OK, well, then put a tariff or something on it and make them pay more for it at least, right, to make sure that we have to pay a little bit less.

1:03:46Nope, that's totally out of the question. Let's all just eat it so that the Dunbar region can be 5 % more Ukrainian for a month. That's basically what the U.S. policy was. It still drives me nuts. It's not all Ukraine. It was largely back in 2022. But nowadays, it's data centers. We got to go and put C6 up here on the screen because this, again, is one of the most under-discussed issues, which is these data centers are popping up everywhere. Actually, here where we live, Ryan, this is data center capital of the world because of the government. And Amazon and all these people have all these contracts.

1:04:20The government has the largest data centers in the world on top of the big tech companies like Meta and Google, everybody in the AI race. You've got the NSA here. NVIDIA. Yeah, we have the NSA and all of that. But I'm talking about it's not just a Northern Virginia problem or a Maryland problem now. It's like American. It's down in Texas, which has its own grid that's separate from everybody else. But what we know is that increasing numbers of states are under major pressure from households and from normal businesses who are saying, hey, these people are buying all the power and our rates are going up like crazy.

1:04:54And these data centers actually strategically often pick low-tax, more rural areas, which I wouldn't you, if you're for business purposes. But that puts a huge strain on the – like Texas specifically, right? Like, look, Texas, the grid situation down there, it's a disaster. We can fight about that all day long, whether we should go nuclear, renewable, whatever. The point is we need more power, all right? And what is interesting about it is that it's starting to become a ground-up campaign of just normal people looking at their electric bills and like, hey, this is out of control. This is totally crazy.

1:05:29And it's California, Texas, Wyoming, you know, I mean places out in the middle of flyover country, which often will have a data center parked there. And then two to three years later, they're just watching the spike go up. And actually, they have all kinds of other problems too with data centers that are nearby. and it's the trade-off where, of course, it's great for Silicon Valley, it's great for NVIDIA's stock price, but maybe it's not so great for the rest of us. And maybe if you're going to be buying, if you're going to be building these data centers and supposedly pumping all this money into the local economy, it's like, well, maybe you should be required to invest a little bit into power and all this other stuff.

1:06:02But we would never think of that, would we, Ryan? No, and also the way that a lot of these counties work, it's legal for some of these county commissioners to be consultants at the same time. I mean, state lawmakers, like in Florida, for instance, are literally able to draw a salary as a state lawmaker and also be lobbyists for some data center company or whatever. And so then you only have to, if you are building a data center somewhere in Wyoming, you'll give three county commissioners 100 grand each for a consulting fee. Yeah. What do they do for the consulting fee? They vote yes on your data center.

1:06:40And then the company writes the rules so that they get access, they get privileged access to cheap energy, but also reliable energy. Like if, I just said if, but you know what, it's when. It's when we don't have the power to feed both the residential homes and the normal businesses in that area and the data center. The data center will keep running and y 'all will get a rolling blackout. Yeah, one of the highlighted stats here, which is just to put this in perspective, some of these data centers require more electricity than cities the size of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or New Orleans, make huge factories look tiny by comparison, pushing policymakers to rethink a system that has spread transmission costs among classes of consumers proportional to electricity use.

1:07:32Yeah, and then they rethink and they're like, let me look at that contract. And they're like, oh, this contract is not good for us. Time for my daily China Does It a Better Way. I follow these AI researchers and others that go to China and they kind of report back for the US financial industry. Just check back and they're like, hey, what's China doing? And they ask because they presume that everybody else has our problems. They're like, what are you guys going to do about power? They're like, what do you mean? We have plenty of power. They're like, we're not worried about power. They said, quote, electricity here is a solved problem.

1:08:05Now, it's dirty, all right? I mean not all of it's nice. Some of it's solar, which is filthy to create. They get a lot of hydro too. Some of it's hydro. Some of it's coal. They don't give a shit whether it's coal, nuclear, or anything. They don't have any of the Sunrise people campaigning against nuclear power plants or any of that stuff. But the point is is that that's possible elsewhere in the world. They don't think about power. They think it's cheap, plentiful. And the reason why that's important is that if you want to build a future on top of something, that's what infrastructure matters for.

1:08:37That's what the original grid system of the United States of America was kind of laid out after the post-New Deal era is like the backbone of which all of us can build better lives on top of, not to be kind of commoditized and bought entirely by some data center and then spread the costs to the rest of us. And the Big Beautiful Bill actively, aggressively targeted renewable energy projects for destruction. That's true. It said, and it was loosened up a tiny bit at the very end, but it basically said, if your project is not operational, like producing energy within like 60 days of the passage of this bill, you're done.

1:09:18Forget it. Which is none of them. Like that you don't just, you know, people are trying to figure out ways to fake it. Like, okay, well, we'll plug in like a car battery to a solar panel and say we're producing energy. But that's basically, but most companies are like, all right, well, America is not a place that supports the development of new energy projects. So we're going to go somewhere else. I mean, the big, beautiful bill thing, I don't disagree with you. I think that was a very stupid way. Which also funded AI out the zoo. I was going to say, it's not all like it also. So my issue more with it is that they go all in on solar and wind.

1:09:51I've done endless number of segments here why solar and wind I think alone are not the answer. I think nuclear is the obvious answer. By the way, the Trump administration, hey, make big promises on nuclear, still haven't seen a damn thing happen on it just so everybody knows. So it's like they are delivering. The net effect is basically a gift to the oil and gas industry, which, look, I'm not ideologically opposed to the oil and gas industry. I just don't think it's nearly as efficient as a lot of other different types of power. And they don't need subsidies. Yeah, right, exactly. It's just like everyone, I think, should compete on its own, and we can make the most efficient type of power.

1:10:21It seems to me that nuclear is obviously the answer, and yet we have all kinds of ideological reasons for why that doesn't happen. But that's kind of the issue is if you just take away and you don't add, then prices are just going to continue to go up. Right. That's the key thing. That's my problem. The bill tilted the playing field against clean energy. It wasn't that it said, okay, we're all going to compete on a level playing field. It was like, no, we're going to make it easier for fossil fuels and subsidize them. We're going to make it harder for this. Like, why are you making harder for any energy when - Right, yeah, we just need more power.

1:10:50You need more power. Yeah. So we're getting rolling blackouts and we're just going to have to deal with it. I don't know if we're going to get rolling blackouts, but we will get rolling - What happened before the rolling blackouts in California? It was like sky high bills, right? You know, people were paying like$400 in like 2002 money. Yeah, right. Which is like$2 ,000 today for their electric bills. Man, I don't even know.

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