Putin's Bunker, the Drug Economy and Kamala's Comeback: Answering Your Questions

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0:27Call a commercial banker today. Member FDIC. Hello and happy Friday from Newsweek HQ at the top of the WTC in NYC. This is the 1600. I'm Carlo Versano. This country was stone cold dead. We've got a special mailbag, much anticipated. Well, I don't know if it's anticipated. Anticipated by me at least. Mailbag episode for you guys to get you into the weekend groove here. We've got producer Mickey back in the cut today. Mickey and I were wading through my inbox trying to get some questions for this. We got a lot of them. So if we didn't get to yours, we'll get to it next time. We got over, I think, 100 responses, which is a lot for us.

1:06So without further ado, Mickey, go through the mailbox and let's see what kind of cues we got. OK. Your first question is, what's the deal with Putin and hiding out in a bunker in fears of assassination from Smitty? Smitty, my boy. OK, so there have been reports that Putin – that there's worries within sort of like the Putin ecosystem within the Kremlin that there's going to be a coup attempt against him. We've heard these sorts of things before and they never amount to anything. I think what you've got to remember when you see these stories is – there's some informational warfare at play, right?

1:43I think it's – this story I believe came from an anonymous source in a European intelligence agency. I believe that was the genesis of these reports, which sort of tells you – sort of gives away the ghost, right? So this is European intel trying to make the – trying to sort of manufacture, in my opinion, manufacture news that Putin is at risk of assassination from within because he's so deeply unpopular, because the war in Ukraine is going poorly. And perhaps that's true. I mean, maybe, probably not. I mean, he's been around this long without managing to get himself killed. So I think that he has a pretty good system of reinforcements behind him.

2:24So yeah, I think when you get to hear these stories about a coup attempt against Putin or him being in fear for his life, take it with a grain of salt, understand that that's probably Western intelligence trying to not just manufacture the news, but sort of like manufactured the possibility that this actually is true by putting it in Putin's head and people around Putin in their heads that maybe he's at risk. That was my instinct when I first read that story. Don asks, what does Putin hold over Trump? Putin questions. I guess we were talking about Zelensky in the newsletter this week. Maybe that's why.

3:04People have been saying Putin's got like compromise on Trump. for, they've been saying it for like 12 years now. Golden dossier. Yeah, the pee tape, the dossier. None of it ever materializes into anything real. I don't think Putin has anything on Trump. I don't think Netanyahu has anything on Trump. He's the other one that you hear this a lot about. I think that what they are, these two people are masters at manipulation and they know how to manipulate Donald Trump better than anybody else, whether that's speaking to his ego or his vanity. I think that's all it is with a guy like Putin. I don't think he's got some sort of thing over Trump or else it would have come out by now.

3:48That's sort of my lame answer to that. Okay. Russell says, if you were Iran, what would your next move be? That's a good question, Russell. Thank you. Okay, well, think of it this way, right? Right. The war – Trump needs an out in this war. He understands I think this was a mistake. Gas prices are high and going higher. I don't think he really cares that much about that because I don't think he actually cares about the midterms. But I think there's no question that he wants an out to this thing. So if you're Iran, how do you give him that out? Well, you create conditions where Trump can declare victory.

4:29So what does that victory look like? Like, again, for Trump, who's – his vanity rules all and he's sort of a shallow thinker in these terms. You got to get a place where he can literally wave a piece of paper in front of the cameras and say Iran agreed to X, Y, Z. Therefore, we're moving out. The war is over. So if you're the Iranians, I think you sort of continue this – continue what they're doing. Honestly, I wouldn't do that much different from what they're doing, which is maintaining strategic leverage over the Strait of War moves by sort of keeping it closed but also letting just enough ships pass that the entire global energy market doesn't collapse.

5:11And then in these negotiations that are happening in Pakistan probably, you offer some little bits and pieces of something that Trump can take back and look as though it's a win. The most important thing for Trump is that he gets something that is better than what Obama gets, what Obama got in 2015. So that's – if you're the Iranians, to the extent we even know who's running the show in Iran right now, that's what you have to – that's what I would be thinking about. What can we give to Trump that makes it look like he got a better deal than the deal we made with Obama? And then once that thing is signed and Trump moves on to the next thing, then you rush to get a nuclear weapon because if there's one thing that this war has taught you, nuclear deterrence is pretty much the only thing that matters in this kind of dog-eat-dog world of geopolitics right now.

5:59If you don't have a nuke, you are at the whims of a madman, frankly. So if I were the Iranians, I would make some sort of deal that makes Trump look like he can get a win, and then I would figure out how to get a nuke, whether that means starting over from scratch, clandestinely, or the easier way presumably would be to find a nuclear scientist in Pakistan or somewhere, and bring them over to get working on it. So easier said than done, but I think that the endgame of this is not going to be Iran gives up its nuclear ambitions. It may look like that in whatever deal is made, but they're going to get a nuke eventually.

6:37I mean, if you were them, wouldn't you? Hey, guys, sorry for the interruption. Just going to take a quick ad break here, and we'll be right back. Russell followed that up by saying that you can now grade yourself a five-star general because no one at the Pentagon seemed to consider what you just said. Oh, okay. Well, thank you, Russell. I appreciate that. Secretary Hegseth, if you need any war planners, call me up. Okay. Kimberly wants to know, why don't top Democrats host a nationwide rally slash conference slash podcast fully laying out what Dems can do for its citizens? Then she asks, or she says, we need a charismatic leader with a real slash optimistic platform.

7:15Where is he slash she? Well, that's a great question. I wish I had the answer to that. I mean, look, I think that I think that she's making a good point, which is that basically where are the Democrats right now? The Democrats are nowhere to be found. Partly that's by design, because I think that the you know, the polls would suggest that they don't really have to do anything. And Trump is just, you know, his his base of support is collapsing so much that if they just sort of stick back, you know, on the sidelines that they won't have to do much. There's nothing the Dems like better than not doing anything.

7:45So if they sort of let Trump continue to get his polls into the 30s, the low 30s, they don't have to do anything. They're going to win big in November. 2028, I think that's a tougher sell. I think that they actually are going to have to find some candidates who people actually want to vote for in the next election. I don't know yet who that is. I mean I told you – I've said before I think that John Ossoff is the black – is the sort of the – what do you call it? The black horse? Black swan? Black horse. Black horse? I don't know. Anyway, I think Ossoff's the man to beat, but he has to win on November 1st.

8:21But yeah, I mean, look, the Democrats, they should do, I don't know if a podcast is the answer, but I think that they do need to get out there more and give an actual vision for what they want. They cannot just run on, we're not Donald Trump again. It's just not going to work. I mean, maybe it works in that a Democrat gets elected, but it'll be a bad Democrat and it'll just start the whole cycle again because the Dem will come in and not do anything and then people will be upset by it and then they'll elect another Trump. So, yeah, we need a transformational candidate on the left, whomever that is.

8:54But I think that it would be nice to hear more from the quote-unquote leaders of the party, like Barack Obama, for instance, to be out there more talking about not just what's so bad about Trump but what is the future of the Democratic Party? What are they trying to do? What are specific things the party is trying to do for voters? Because honestly, I follow this stuff for a living and I could not tell you right now. Right? I mean, could you? No. Right? No. Why do you think people are so hung up on the podcast thing? What do you mean? Like, why do people keep saying, where's our Joe Rogan for Democrats?

9:26I mean, because they don't understand that there could never be a Joe Rogan of the left because that person would get canceled immediately because they would violate some liberal shibboleth. And the whole point of Rogan is that he's not actually a Republican or even a right winger. He's just kind of, you know, goes with the where the winds take him and says things that, you know, other other actual activists of either party are too afraid to say. So you can't you can't manufacture a Rogan. It has to be natural. And look at the closest thing the left has is Hassan Piker, probably. And what's the conversation been with Piker over the last couple of weeks?

9:59It's been, oh, this guy said X, Y, Z on a past podcast or on a past media appearance. Therefore, Democrats running for office shouldn't speak to him, which of course is – say what you will about the guy, but it's just the wrong attitude. Democrats have got to get better about talking to anybody and everybody who they can get their message out via. Some are saying that you're the left Joe Rogan. Oh, yeah? Who's saying that? You? I don't think so. I would be a pretty bad leftist Joe Rogan because I'm not a leftist. But anyway – You're a poster boy for Dark Woke. Dark Woke? OK. I don't know what that means.

10:34Look into it. Dark woke. I think you'd align with it very closely. I kind of like that dark woke, Carl. Okay. Jeff wants to know how will Trump react if the Democrats win the House majority and begin to rake him over the coals with investigations? Look, I've written about this before. I think I don't think Trump gives a s*** about the Democrats winning the midterms at all. I mean, he's acting like he doesn't. So, I mean, we should sort of take him at his actions, right? But I think also he – I think in some ways he would like the Democrats to win again because – again, I've written this before.

11:09He needs a foil. Trump operates best when he has a foil and right now he doesn't have one. So that's why he starts to do crazy stuff like post memes of himself as Jesus and get into a fight with the pope. If he has a foil – and a foil being somebody with actual power on the other side, in this case it would be probably Hakeem Jeffries who would become the speaker. That's better for him. I think he understands that in terms of the investigations. The man's already been impeached twice. You think he's worried they're going to impeach him a third time? Like he's not going to be removed from office.

11:38So, yeah, no, I think that honestly, the lizard brain of Donald Trump is probably secretly hoping that the Democrats at least take the House. And then he can he can spend his next, you know, his final two years in office, you know, continuing to be sort of like, you know, this corrupt elder statesman of the party, but also fighting Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats and playing victim, which is what he does better than anybody. Next question, Christine asks, the question I want to hear you discussed is what the heck are Democrats thinking when they are talking about Kamala Harris running again?

12:12Oh, God. I voted for her the first time, but she had her chance and lost big. Perhaps it was the Biden hangover. Perhaps it was other things, but I don't believe that she would make a good candidate in 28. Adlai Stevenson, is that what she's talking about? Yeah. I don't think that Harris will – I actually don't even think she's going to run. I mean I do not think she would get through a primary under any circumstance. So I think the chances of her being the Democratic candidate are virtually zero. That being said, I mean the – right now she's leading the polls along with Gavin Newsom. The reason for that is because of name recognition.

12:44I mean we were just talking to a guest on the show today earlier and he was making the point that if you go back to like 2004, 2005, The top Democrat in the polls was Joe Lieberman, who was Al Gore's vice presidential candidate in 2000. Jeb Bush was the Republican guy to beat up until 2016. Again, so name recognition goes a long way in these early polls. Harris, again, this is something I wrote in the letter this week. I don't know why she didn't just run for governor of California, because she would have cleared that field, which is a total disaster, that race. And that would have been like a cake job for her, right?

13:25She's from California. That's pretty easy. I don't know why, if she actually really wants to run for president again, who in her orbit would tell her that's a good idea? I mean, I'm sorry. She lost the most winnable election in modern American history. Wasn't all her fault. A lot of it was the fault of her boss, Joe Biden. But it doesn't change the fact, right? She lost a presidential election against a convicted felon. Sorry. Next. Yeah. Okay. Jean says, I am writing you today with a question regarding social media safety for children. Oh, I love this topic. Many parents believe their children are safe, yet dangerous incidents continue to occur.

14:04For example, a 14-year-old girl was recently kidnapped after meeting a 51-year-old man on the app Scout. She was missing for 19 days before being rescued. It seems that companies like Meta often shift responsibility to their parents rather than implementing stronger protections against predators. in your view who should be held accountable for the inherent dangers of these social media platforms and what steps can be taken to ensure children are better protected from harm whose rights are being preserved okay there's a lot there gene um look putting aside the issue of like predators finding their prey on social media that's a very specific problem um the issue of who should be held liable for the harms of social media it's unquestionably the social media platforms, right?

14:49I mean, if you build an airplane and the airplane crashes, you will be held liable for that, as you should be, even if you didn't mean for the plane to crash, right? And the fact that these tech companies are protected from something called Section 230 that we've talked about before that keeps them from being held liable for the effects of their product. So, I mean, one thing you could do that you should do is, you know, reform Section 230 and make it so that these companies, if they are willingly – there's ways to do it so it's not just that they have to be held liable if somebody – they don't have to be held liable for every single thing that happens on their platform, which is basically impossible, right?

15:32You've got billions of people using these apps now. But what we can do is make them held liable for using their algorithms to promote certain content. So you've got to go after the algorithm. That's the thing. The algorithm is the thing. Companies like Instagram that use the algorithm and the recommendation engine to serve content about body dysmorphia content to teenage girls who have eating disorders or are, you know, could have eating disorders. Like that is a no-brainer to me. Like if you are using your technology, your code, to actively promote that content to people that you know from the data you have are prone to XYZ, eating disorders, that to me is a no-brainer.

16:22You should be allowed, that person should be allowed to sue that company. So, yeah, I think you've got to go after the algorithms and the recommendation engines. And in terms of like legislation, first of all, nothing of this will ever happen because these companies are too big, too powerful, have too much money, too much influence in Washington. But you shouldn't be able – one thing you could do is honestly go back to the chronological feed. Remember like back in the day? Like I don't use Instagram anymore because it's garbage. It's just like promotional content. Back in the day when it first started, it was valuable because it was like, oh, I wonder what my 10 friends did today.

16:57or I want to keep up with this person who just had a new kid. I want to see pictures of their new baby. And you would go on and you would sort of like scroll through the photos of the people you follow and then it would literally come to an end. It would say, you've reached the end. And there was nothing else to do. Whenever that was that they flipped it so that now it's an infinite scroll. It doesn't ever end. And the content isn't people you know anymore. Maybe they sprinkle some of those in but it's mostly companies or influencers or whatever. That would be, to me, the most obvious fix is if not banning the for you feed, the algorithmic feed, at least putting in some sort of way to make it so that children can't use social media that way.

17:43OK. Ken says, why does the press allow Trump to insult them? Why don't they push back? It makes them look weak, small, something Trump loves to do, being the bully that he is. It can't be that their network bosses will fire them. And if they did, the blowback would be tremendous. That's a good question, Ken. It's true. I mean, you see it all the time. Trump likes to hold these little impromptu gaggles, usually on Air Force One. And that's where he tends to be particularly insulting to the media, particularly women. It's almost always women, calling them Miss Piggy or whatever. He says like this all the time.

18:19The question of why don't they push back? Well, first of all, I don't think it has anything to do with their bosses. Having worked in this industry a long time, it doesn't really work like that. I think what happens is covering the president is a big prestigious job in the media. If you're part of the press pool, you don't want to get kicked out by the president himself or the White House or the Correspondents Association. Not that that would happen. But there's just you're in a position where the power differential is so big that, you know, you have the president of the United States calling you piggy or fat or whatever to your face.

18:59It's not so easy to just be like I've never been in this position, but I can imagine it's not so easy to just be like, hey, why are you being such an a**? Right. Which is what you would say if that happened to you in any other if any other person said that to you in like a working environment. Can you imagine? So I think it's fear more than anything else. I think a lot of reporters don't want to become the story. They don't see their job as like fighting with the president. And I think a lot of them would argue like, look, we're just there. We're there to ask questions. If he's going to insult us to our faces, well, that's going to reflect poorly on him rather than us, which of course is true.

19:34But the problem with that is that there's a big chunk of this country, probably 30 percent of this country that thinks of the media, as Trump says, as the enemy of the people. So seeing the president of the United States call reporters names and insult them to their face, they actually see that as a win. Right. That's the that's the problem. That's why Trump continues to do it. His base likes it. So, yeah, it's a it's a complicated issue. It's not it's not as simple as like being afraid that they're going to be fired. I don't I don't think that's it at all. I think it's you know, it's it's tough.

20:01It's it's it's scary to be up there. President United States calling your names. Okay. Kevin asks, why should the Fed be more worried about unemployment than inflation?

20:14Good question. I agree with the premise. I do think that at this point, the Fed should be more concerned with unemployment and inflation. So the Fed has a dual mandate. Keep prices relatively stable and keep the employment, you know, keep labor, keep the labor market tight but not too tight. Right now, inflation is down significantly since its peak of 9 % or whatever percent it was in 2022. But it's not where they want it to be, right? So it's like relatively 3 % versus 2%. Meanwhile, the job market is really all over the place. It's hard to, you know, you hear about these big white collar layoffs that are happening, particularly in the tech sector, which they're blaming, these companies are blaming on AI, but actually just cover for them to get rid of some of the overhiring they did during COVID.

21:05I think that the Fed is too sensitive, in my mind, on the inflation question and not sensitive enough on the labor market question, especially because when you start seeing real sustained unemployment, that has all sorts of knock-on effects that are arguably worse than inflation. People lose their jobs and they can't make their mortgage payments, yada, yada, yada. It becomes a big self-fulfilling cycle. So to answer your question, yeah, I think that they probably should – I mean if I were the Fed chair, I would probably be more inclined to worry about the employment situation than the inflation situation.

21:42The other thing is most of the inflation we're seeing right now is supply sites coming because of the tariffs. That's not – the Fed can't really do anything about that. That's on Trump. demand-side inflation, they can maneuver with changing interest rates. So yeah, I mean, I think if Trump was gone and they just got rid of all the tariffs, you would see a significant decline in the headline inflation rate right there. Yeah. Barbara wants to know, why do illicit drug makers lease their products with fentanyl if it kills off a significant number of their client base? This makes no financial sense from a business model standpoint?

22:19You know, Barbara, it's funny you ask that question because I have had the same question before and I have looked into this. It's interesting. So first of all, fentanyl is like, as we all know, super, super, super potent, right? So like a tiny... And highly addictive. And highly addictive. So those are the two most important things. Because it is so potent, you know, in the sort of like market of drugs, it can get stepped on at all these different, you know, the drug in question, whatever that is, can get stepped on at all these different places. So if you're buying, you know, if you're buying drugs off the street, that drug dealer isn't, probably doesn't even know what he's selling you.

22:59They don't know, right? There's just, if there's a little bit of, you know, they're making it, you know, in conditions that it's not like they're making it in like a McDonald's or something where there's like food safety, preparation safety, you know, guidelines. Like they're, it's getting created in some like disgusting bath. Ever seen Breaking Bad? Yeah, exactly, right. So part of it is they don't know. But the more important thing, I think, and the more interesting thing is that, look, drugs are a great business, which is why the cartels make their money that way. It's a great business because addiction is totally elastic, right?

23:35You have a potential customer base of virtually everybody on earth. So if you kill off somebody because the drug, you're selling them was too potent for them, okay, you lost a customer. But there's many more where that person came from. And again, I'm not a drug dealer, never have been. Allegedly. Allegedly. No, I've never, I've done drugs, I've never sold them. No, the point I'm trying to make is that it's more important, I think, if you're a drug dealer, if you're a drug kingpin, that your drug is seen as potent and strong, right? If you're a fentanyl addict, you're going to have a lot of tolerance built up in your system.

24:17So you're going to want the stronger stuff. This is not business advice, by the way. No, absolutely. This is not legal or business advice. No, so you're going to want stronger stuff. So if you're the dealer that's known for having the strong stuff, the real addicts are going to come to you. And if one of them gets knocked off every once in a while, frankly, they don't care, right? They'll find somebody else. I think that's the sort of brutal honesty behind that. Because it's a very good question. People have asked that a lot. I have too. Okay. Last question, a very sweet one from Molly. She says, how do you explain news of the world and your own personal recent news to your precious daughter?