RFK Gets Grilled By Congress, Trump’s Insane Start To His Presidency, & DeepSeek Starts An AI War
01:25:45 Share

You're asking me not to sue vaccine companies. No, I am not. RFK testified this week before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. It's nice to have a skeptic there on this stuff. He's like a bit of a loon. And now he's in a position of power. We're going to get back to Phil.

Yeah? How do you know me? I mean, we've never seen a president so prepared in our lifetime. It's like they are all cowards and unable to actually decide who the adult in the room is going to be. When people tell me that I'm going to be replaced as a writer, like, well, first of all, no, I'm not. I'm not.

What's up, guys? Welcome back to the pod. We've got Zach and Liz in the house today coming at you hot from Reason Magazine. They've got their own pod as well. We'll link it down below. Do you guys want to maybe just shout it out right now really quick before we get started? Yeah, just asking questions.

We have our own YouTube channel. We just spun off from Reason's main YouTube, so definitely subscribe if you're interested. I've actually been on it. It's fantastic. I guess in the previous incarnation when it was still over at Reason, but they're great. They're libertarian.

a little more libertarian than me thinks Mike is spicy today I am anticipating it especially with you Mr. Zach we also have in the house Miles this is the final this is the final finalist for Pirate Idol and Miles is here he's looking sharp I might say

Last round. Thanks for having me back. Look at that. Really, it's like a new man. Very excited. We've got a lot to cover. Polymarket segment coming up. RFK. I mean, let's just actually, there is a lot and I want to cover it all. Let's jump into the RFK of it all. Riley, break down the first topic, please, for the day.

Yeah, so RFK testified this week before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, featuring members like Elizabeth Warren as part of his confirmation process to become our new HHS secretary. And once again, a commission with a Warren on it proved to be pretty troublesome for the Kennedy family. RFK was grilled pretty strongly by the Democrats on the panel, with some of the highlights being questions on his prior comments about Lyme disease being possibly engineered.

Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon? I probably did say that. Did you say that? I want all of our colleagues to hear it, Mr. Kennedy. Just being a conspiracy theorist in general, of course, questions about his position on vaccines.

Bernie Sanders at one point held up pictures of onesies that said like unvaxxed, unafraid on them that I guess RFK's organization was selling all of this while Megyn Kelly was laughing hysterically in the background.

But one notable exchange came when Elizabeth Warren asked him, quote, Will you commit that when you leave this job, you will not accept compensation for a company, a medical device company, a hospital system or a health insurer for at least four years?

to which RFK was like, yeah, all those people hate me. Why would they give me money? And it prompted some sleuths on X to dig up data on just how hypocritical some of these senators were. So according to Open Secrets, Elizabeth Warren received $822,573 from the pharmaceutical industry,

for her 2019-2020 election cycle. The second most for anyone in the Senate behind only Bernie Sanders, who I guess received over a million dollars. So a bit of hypocrisy for sure from some of these senators grilling RFK. What did you guys make of that?

Zach's a bit of an expert on RFK. Why don't we start there? As a man who Liz was just talking about before we started, you've interviewed him, you know him, I think you have maybe a nuanced perspective on him. What was your read? Yeah.

Yeah, well, I'll just give my overall perspective on RFK, which is that he is a fascinating mixture, a fascinating grab bag. Like there's something in RFK, I feel like for everyone to love and everyone to hate. And from my libertarian perspective, I mean, I think he does have a real

appreciation for just individual rights. I saw him give a speech actually at the Libertarian Convention on the Bill of Rights. So that's an unusual thing to hear these days from someone who just yesterday was a Democrat. On the health and vaccine front, there's a lot there. To comment on the Elizabeth Warren exchange, though,

I would say I hate to say it, but I think Elizabeth Warren has a point here because you always hear, you know, the drum that RFK has been banging is that the pharma companies are greedy and the government is in bed with pharma. And there's a revolving door between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry, all of which has a lot of truth to it.

But you do have to flip that question around, as Warren did, and say, well, RFK, do you actually stand to profit if some of these companies go down, given your association with these law firms? And I think the answer is potentially yes. And what she was asking is that he commit to a four-year break after he gets out of government.

with being able to collect fees from these sorts of lawsuits and then kind of gave a list of different ways that he could make life harder or make it easier for these kind of lawsuits to succeed by using the power of the state. And I think those are all legitimate questions to consider when you're putting someone in front of an agency as powerful as HHS.

Yeah, I mean, he has an incentive to drive these lawsuits forward. It's still a really bizarre place for Democrats to focus, I think. To have a Democrat up there. I mean, effectively, he turns it immediately back on her and was saying, you know, you're asking me not to sue pharmaceutical companies. And she was like, she was the angriest of anyone in the entire meeting. She was like, no, I'm not. I'm not doing that. You have said- You're asking me, Senator, you're asking me not to sue pharmaceutical companies. No, I am not.

Yeah, you are. That's exactly what you're doing. It's like, honey, that's exactly what's happening here. Now, I think it's valid, like the way that you said, that it is an incentive of his and it's worth considering. But you are asking him not to sue them and you are taking money from them. I think it's a little bit complicated. Bernie Sanders created up when he was attacked. Isn't the mechanism that he's collecting fees from clients who have been referred to

to take part, I believe, I'm not sure whether it's class action lawsuits or whether they're individual lawsuits. Yeah, RFK, we're getting fees from clients being referred to a law firm that's suing, like, for example, there's Merck, the makers of the Gardasil vaccine. And so there's a little bit of like, I don't know, at least like my libertarian heart, on one hand, I'm like, politicians are totally fucking corrupt on this front. And there really is this crazy revolving door between Congress and becoming a lobbyist right after. And that's a huge issue.

But also at the same time, like what RFK is doing, we like we do this all the time, right? We advocate for we do this at Pyro Iris, we do this at Reason. We get paid to advocate for things that we also happen to believe. And it ends up being this very lovely thing. And like that kind of makes the entire world go round. And so it does seem a little bit bizarre to say to RFK, oh, well, you can't do this thing that's just like a very missional and sort of like capitalist behavior that is kind of natural that we all do to different degrees. Right.

That said, it is kind of sticky, right? Because Warren kind of stands to gain from this, right? Like if she's making money off of big pharma and RFK is this huge antagonist to it and this huge opponent, well, Elizabeth Warren has something at stake here too. She's not a disinterested party. Right. Everyone does. And I think that's such a good point and such a strange point for people to wrap their heads around. But I have thought about this before in my own personal experience.

maybe not personal life, but professional life where it's like, yes, we've invested in a bunch of different things that I love and know a lot about. And so when I'm talking about them, it's like, well, you're biased. You have this incentive to defend it. It's like, yes, but that...

That belief system is why I'm there. The belief system in venture, in the concept of investing in companies is why I'm in... It's like, that's why I'm on this side of things is because those are my ideals. Still, it does color... I think it's just like these things are worth knowing about and I'm glad we did. Much more interesting to me is kind of like the overall...

RFK, like what he represents. And there's this question, I mean, obviously he's being framed as a crazed conspiracy theorist, but he's spitting facts on different studies and complications in the studies and the background on pharma and the link between pharma and Congress. And it kind of got me thinking, you know, what is it about

Because there are these things that he says, and I'm like, wow, thank God someone's saying that. But then also I'm like, I don't know that Lyme disease is a bioweapon that was released into the wild. I'm not sure. I haven't researched it. I know maybe you guys know more about it. I would love to hear if any of you have researched it. But for me, it's like, I think he's

I think he's really, really good at identifying flaws in the system and identifying flaws in really granular things like in research and things like that. But then he is really overconfident in the way that he pieces the puzzle together and constructs narratives on sort of like what it all means. And that's why he sounds crazy. I think he's probably wrong a lot about his sense of

what's really happening, but he's right about when things are really broken. And then sometimes he'll probably be right about the sort of what it is all is question too, but I think it's important. There was one exchange in particular on, and I'm nervous about talking about this, 'cause I think that YouTube might demonetize, like shut, not even demonetize us, but like shut us down for talking about . I think even on vaccine science, it's complicated. Some of them are newer, some of them are older. We know different things about different things and we're wrong about some stuff and right about some other stuff.

With mental health, I don't understand the confidence that people have, the lack of humility that people have when they're talking about things like mental health drugs, which are solving a problem that we don't even understand. We're talking about depression and things like this. We don't understand how the human mind works. We don't know what consciousness even is. I really...

am suspicious that we've like cracked the case on things like Adderall and all of the other like depression and anxiety meds. And also we do know that they're super addictive, some of them. This is like the stuff that almost destroyed Jordan Peterson's entire life. Like this is like, there's just off the top of my head. Like we know that these things have an impact. And I think that he represents just kind of, it's nice to have

a skeptic there on this stuff, though, I mean, it's like, we've criticized-- I've criticized him personally before. He's like a bit-- a bit of a loon. I mean, and now he's in a position of power. I mean, I think you're right, though, that he's tapping into something deeper. Um, and it's this belief that...

this belief that I think is true that we've moved past the era of certitude where the whole, the science is settled mantra that we heard throughout the 2010s, that's over because we all know that it's not so settled. There's a lot of more contested area than what, than the gatekeepers. It's a use that phrase, uh, wanted us to acknowledge because the complications of,

then open up the door for kind of loony explanations. And so there's been gatekeeping of even asking the questions. I mean, that's partially why we playfully named our podcast Just Asking Questions, because we're like, yeah, it should be allowed and legal and even encouraged to ask questions, even for questions that, you know,

90% of people think are settled. Even if questions like, was Lyme disease a bioengineered weapon? I don't know the answer to that either. I know there's a book about it and a documentary about it. But it is like, you know...

the reason that question sticks in your mind is because, well, we just had a virus wreck the world that probably came from a lab. And maybe we should be thinking at least we should be thinking in that direction. Like, is it a good idea to devolve,

developing these kinds of viruses and labs and bringing them to city centers. So like just asking the question itself has value where it starts to get into dangerous territory, which I think you're nodding at there, Mike, is that then once you have RFK, who's so confident with his often wrong answer, making policy decisions, then we're getting a whole different orthodoxy kind of

handed down to us from on high that could bring a whole host of other problems. I'm old enough to remember when Zach got in trouble on the internet and many other people got in trouble on the internet for daring to question the early COVID orthodoxy as to where exactly it had originated. And now I think it's a little bit more of a clear consensus, even embraced by many people who are the loudest voices against it, that it did in fact originate in the lab and

was leaked to the world. But like, remember for such a long time, that was a heretical thing to say something that was censored from major social media platforms. I mean, that in and of itself is a real problem. But one of the things that I think about a lot with RFK Jr. and specifically,

The autism question and the vaccines that he links to that there was a line of questioning that I thought sum this up very nicely and it was from Senator Maggie Hassan and her questioning was basically pointing out she was basically gesturing at like the OG vaccines cause autism study which I think was like.

early 90s. And she was saying, look, this was originally based off of a really tiny study of like some 12 kids. The actual study design was not especially good. I think she got like emotional because her kid has cerebral palsy or something along those lines. Something unrelated. I was just, I just can't make an emotional argument. No, that's, I think that's very fair. But she basically was talking about how, okay, so here's the quote.

you know, I was really worried that the vaccine had done something to my son. And over time, the scientific community studied and studied and studied and found that it was wrong, referring to the link between vaccines and autism. And the journal retracted the study because sometimes science is wrong. We make progress. We build on the work and we become more successful. And when you continue to sow doubt about settled science, it makes it impossible for us to move forward. Do you notice how with that entire soundbite at the beginning, she's like accurately describing science as this like iterative act.

And then at the very end, she contradicts herself by calling it settled. Right? Like to me, that encapsulates. Settled science. Yeah.

To me, that encapsulates so much of the problem with the modern Democratic Party, where it was like I was I was nodding along with her roughly up until that very last bit where she sort of contradicts herself. And it's like, well, you just decide from on high which science is settled and which is not. I think that actually like actual scientists with integrity would very much disagree with you. And so RFK, I think smartly taps into that. He taps into the fact that people know that that's bullshit. Right.

But at the same time, the things that RFK offers after calling that bullshit, I don't think is very good. And I think he really latches onto, like, I don't know whether he has an especially sophisticated understanding of the study design of some of these things, or even like, you know, the things that he points his finger at as the sort of obvious culprits, which he defends with some intensity, like the Marisol vaccine preservatives, which have since been removed from vaccines out of sort of an abundance of caution. Another one of those terrible phrases, but like,

we don't actually have a ton of evidence at this point to establish that the Marisol cult was causing huge problems with autism, right? Like that's still just a theory and RFK acts like some of these things are far more settled or far more, far better established with more weight behind them than they in fact are. But it's kind of like nobody on either side actually knows how to talk about this in an intelligent way. I think a lot of scientists would probably be like, what the hell are you even referring to?

Yeah, this is like the microplastics people as well, where it's this thing that we know really nothing about and we've constructed entire certainties. I mean, I'll be honest, I've stopped using plastic wherever I can. I'm like, "I don't want that shit anywhere near me." But I don't know anything about it. It's like my version of astrology or something. And maybe there's something to it, but I don't really know. And I think it really is the thing about this, what you're addressing that I think is just so important to drive home for me at least is,

He is right to be skeptical and wrong when he stops being skeptical. And it's like, this is science that we're talking about. And scientists and scientific discussions should always be conducted through the lens of skepticism. The autism thing is so interesting. And I know we're going to get destroyed because we're using words like autism and vaccine. But I didn't even...

I think the average person does not even know about these studies. Oh, there's a debunked study or a study that was small or whatever. The average person has been told, don't you dare discuss this. It's like, if you even mention this topic, you are an anti, you're like a Luddite crazy person. And I think there's,

certainly enough in the realm of this stuff to talk about it. And with vaccines, we know that there are trade-offs in all different ways. There are dangers to certain vaccines. And it's like, they're acceptable risks, you think, because the benefit outweighs the risk or something. But to pretend that there are no risks is why people don't trust you when you try and sell them on these things. And it's why someone like RFK has so much success then coming up with his

crazy other shit. It's like, well, they were lying to you about all this stuff. Here's what's really happening. Um,

I still think it's probably meant healthy. Go ahead. I mean, I think it's healthy to the degree that it causes some sort of social revision. You know, on the microplastics thing, since there's a lot of unknowns around that, if people voluntarily start using metal water bottles more, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And maybe that will end up being a good thing if it turns out

microplastics are as harmful as the critics say they are. The asymmetry that I see with RFK is he comes from a law background, right? And so he knows how to work a jury. He even proudly says, they come in with their experts. I come in with my experts. So who's to say what's right? And he knows how to throw enough doubt in there and enough theatrics to win an argument in a

courtroom maybe. And this is exactly what happened to the vaccine industry back when everything got screwed up. Like the whooping cough vaccine got pulled from the market because there were all these lawsuits against it because it's, in a sense, easy to persuade a jury with questionable science. And then studies only later came out. A lot of this is documented in a book by Peter Huber called Galileo's Revenge.

and that basically undermined all that stuff that was introduced in the court.

But it was too late by then. The damage had been done. They paid out the claims. And then the federal government panicked and was like, we have no whooping cough vaccine. So we need to give all the vaccine manufacturers a liability shield, which I think has then created a lot of the problems in terms of incentives, because I think that's a quite inelegant solution to the problem of externalities. Right, which sounds to me similar with COVID, if I recall.

recall, like the COVID vaccine. That was the discussion. It was like, well, you can't sue them and things like this. To me, honestly, a big part of the issue here, like all of this is great. And I think that that's a good point about RFK's legal background. But like the fundamental thing that keeps really bothering me is

He is not being appointed to have oversight over one specific small little division. It's all of health and human services. So a huge chunk of his job is actually going to be overseeing the administration of Medicare and Medicaid programs, which in these hearings he demonstrated he kind of knows nothing about.

it would almost make more sense for RFK Jr., if you're a fan of his or whatever, to have him being put up for head of the FDA or something that's a little bit more narrow. But he's going to have USDA oversight. He's going to have Medicare and Medicaid oversight. It's a massive chunk of the federal budget. And it's not clear to me that he actually knows how these programs work

or really has the sort of managerial experience that you would really want for somebody to be able to competently oversee. I think it's what, 20% of the total federal budget? It's some like massive, massive chunk. It's shocking. And so it's a question of like, okay, like his vaccine views aside, has he demonstrated competence in these other areas? And it seems like repeatedly the answer is just no. But I think he's still gonna get confirmed because it's not like competence really matters that much these days, right? Yeah, I'm not actually expecting much change there.

I think it's like, he reminds me a lot of what Trump was in 2016, where very popular among, you know, a large group of people represents a lot of things, but has no like bureaucratic state power.

He's not going to be able to navigate it, but maybe I'll be wrong. Miles, I do want to know what you think about the Lyme's disease super weapon. Is it a bioweapon? Well, I'm wondering. I would like to get to the bottom of it because my honest sense is there's probably more to this story

then it's not made up from nothing right there's gotta be i think there's some smoke there i'm gonna have to check the science on that but i also thought the clip of him talking about the aids in africa is different than the aids in america or two different do you recall saying that aids is a different disease in africa than it is in the united states i looked up that passage in my book

and found that indeed the diagnostics for AIDS are very different in Africa than in the United States. The list of symptoms is almost completely different. Yeah, he does a lot of this thing where he asks questions and I'm like, I have to research another thing now. There's too many fucking things. I can't have all these hills that I'm dying on. It's just like, I don't want to even know that.

I did think your tweet today about the acting that these hearings are doing, that it's not even about the health. They're like clip farming for their social media, not really trying to get... Having a proactive conversation. I mean, they're really just trying to...

gotcha moments. Yeah. And for the Democrats specifically, I think it's a huge problem. They're doing this huge... It's this massive performance. They're performing, hey, we're trying to stop the bad man. They're not in an election year and they're going to have to be soon. They're totally lost right now. I have no sense of what the Democratic Party even is. That was made abundantly clear when you see people like Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders defending pharmaceutical companies. That's really confusing for their

what is left of the Democratic base. Like, who even are they anymore? Donald Trump is a populist on economics. He is anti-crime and anti all this sort of like woke gender stuff. That's the Democratic, that was the Democratic base. That was like, that's what a working class Democrat was for decades.

ever. Who are they now? Is it just these masked up, blue haired craze? I don't think that's even true. I actually don't know the answer to the question. I know that they have to figure it out. That is actually what they should be focusing on. They should just say yes to whatever's going on in Trump. They already lost the election. They're not going to stop him in this blitzkrieg of executive orders right now. They need to think about who they

who they are and how they're going to win the next election in two years. They don't even know either. Chuck Schumer was standing up for the police when he was coming out talking about the federal funding cut. He's like, oh, the police are going to be defunded now. Yeah. With the J6 stuff, they were doing the same thing where they were like, these people attacked the police and whatnot. And I'm like, I agree. That was my position. I was like, yeah, they rioted. Not a big fan. Wasn't a big fan of the last six months of rioting.

but that wasn't your position. So what exactly do you believe right now? Who are you appealing to? It's not clear. They have this empty suitism problem where it's like nobody's actually seemingly across vast swaths of not just the Democratic Party and the Democratic establishment, but also all realms of progressive politics, whether it's academia or activist circles or the sort of nonprofit industrial complex. It's like they are all

cowards and unable to actually decide who the adult in the room is going to be and be able to tell either the youths or whomever it is who's influencing this like, hey, actually, we look really weak and sort of pathetic when we continuously change our position every few years. Actually, we're just going to be in favor of this thing and we're going to be focusing on, you know, a pragmatic solution to it. But like the degree to which I think so many people

parts of society, parts of liberal inflected society became very wrapped up in the sort of like 2020 progressive fever dream. It's really hurting them in a major way. I mean, I think that that's the significant part of why Harris didn't really end up finding a sort of good and resounding message is to some degree, because she just looked like somebody who flip flops and is just doing whatever people tell her, not like somebody powerful enough to be the adult in the room and say, here's what we're about.

Like, you're either with me or you're not, you know? Yeah, and it wasn't just a look. It was just, these are facts. I mean, she had, like, totally opposite views on things and couldn't defend them or retract. She couldn't even, she was not even willing to get on camera and say, listen, that time I said we should give illegal immigrants free sex change operations...

That was crazy. And you know what? I was having a bad day. I don't believe that. Right now, I promise you, I'm not for that. She couldn't do that because she doesn't have views. And that style of Democratic politics and Republican politics, but they lost it. Republicans, Donald Trump killed that style of Republican politics on the stage in 2016. The Democrats have not lost it until now, and now they have to lose it. And I'm kind of frightened to see what comes next, which we'll talk about a little later in the pod.

Unfortunately, I would posit that there's basically no legal immigrants who want sex changes anyway. Like we're talking about traditionally more conservative cultures. It's not like there's like a bunch of Guatemalan men who are coming across the border being like, I really want to be a girl. Like that literally doesn't exist. Give them a minute in the free California public schools. Brown and Roden. Don't learn. They'll learn how we do things in this country. Liz, you need to see Amelia Perez before you make this proclamation. Which is a fascinating

about a cartel leader transitioning. So this stuff, this reminds me a lot of, or it's very related, I think, to...

what is happening with just the way that Trump has taken office and the executive orders that he's been blitzkrieging through and the way he's been approaching immigration and deportation. What might go down as the most consequential first 10 days in the presidential office, Trump has been traveling to Asheville to visit flood victims who were abandoned by FEMA and to LA to embarrass the mayor. Also, the highly anticipated ICE raids are underway with Trump showing 92% drop in border crossing numbers.

Kristi Noem was in New York City with a bulletproof vest helping with raids and for some reason Dr. Phil was too. Look at Dr. Phil. Yeah? How do you know me? Nah, I seen Dr. Phil, you know, on TV. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. What the fuck is he doing there? I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up Selena Gomez weeping on the timeline. Colombia also, Colombia refused US military deportation flights. Trump sent out a message saying,

"Emergency 25% tariff on all goods coming into the United States. In one week, the 25% tariff will be raised to 50%, a travel ban and immediate visa revocations and sanctions on the Colombian government officials and all allies and supporters, all party members, family members, and supporters of the Colombian government." And the problem was magically resolved in a couple hours. And then on top of all that, he signed over 30 executive orders and some highlights of these includes

revamping Guantanamo Bay to send the worst of the United States illegals there in a 30,000 bed facility, offering federal workers a chance to take deferred resignation, which would mean they agree now to resign and get paid through September. And they expect a 5% to 10% of all the federal workforce to quit, which could lead to around $100 billion in savings. Or the other option for them is to come back to the office. Some other ones are canceling affirmative action for federal contractors, which

An American Iron Dome, federal grants and loans funding freeze, declassification of JFK, RFK and MLK assassination files and changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which is actually already happening.

But even if the president... Which I didn't know was going to... Like, he said some shit and I was like, well, that's not going to happen in the campaign. I'm like, there's no way. And then it was the first thing he talked about. I'm like, well, now he's talking about it, but it's not going to change. And then now it's changing. And I'm like, wait, what? You can just do that? What else can he do? It's... Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, we've never seen a president so prepared...

in our lifetime come through and just lay down the hammer in this way. It was really, I think, the Democrat... By giving him those four years to prepare, this is something we've talked a little bit about before, and I kind of want to focus more on the immigration stuff since we've got some libertarians in the House. It's like he...

went into the hyperbolic time chamber in Dragon Ball Z, and he had this one day in there, it was years out here, and he's just been training and training and training, and he popped out like just a totally different person. And you can see the difference truly in the two portraits that he chose for himself as president.

The first one in 2016 is that's a reality television star who, oops, accidentally became a president. And the second one is the man that you just put in prison or tried to, who came out with his mugshot. I mean, that shot looks like his mugshot picture. And he's like...

How do you know me?

on their way out of the country, but I appreciate it. What have you guys made of it though, Liz and Zach? Are you actually in favor of all of the deportations, really? I'm in favor of anyone who is in the country illegally not being in the country illegally. And I want to start with criminals for sure. I'm totally in favor of the criminal thing. I don't know why it's even a question, to be honest. Well, so that's the thing that I think is bothering me. I felt like, I mean, I'm a Trump voter, right? I'll put my cards on the table. But I do feel like

The traditional talking point on this, which was embraced by Vance and at times Trump as well, was we're going to deport people in an orderly fashion. We will start with criminals and we're going to be doing this in sort of a sensible way as to like who is the greatest threat. And at least from my perspective, I'm not feeling so good about this, especially as I see Trump beginning to go after like TPS recipients, which, yes, that's a temporary program. Totally get it.

But, you know, a lot of the TPS, you know, people here on TPS status are currently legal residents or currently legally here. It's a legal program. They're longtime residents. They've really been struggling to find work authorization. And for TPS holders, there aren't a ton of really, really good pathways for them to establish that. A lot of employers are not willing to take a chance on them. And a lot of people are going to be like returned to fucking socialist Venezuela. It

It's really making me frustrated because I feel like the manner in which deportations are happening and the specific immigration policy crackdowns, it feels a little bit like Trump is doing his classic showmanship thing of being like, yeah, we're done with TPS. We're done with birthright citizenship. And I'm a little bit like, wait a second, hold on. I would like it if you actually made sure that illegal immigrants were not using my tax dollars as a New Yorker.

And being on welfare for forever. And I would also like it if you made sure that people who are active threats to the communities around them and active criminals, they're the ones I want gone first. But I'm not totally sure why the Venezuelan TPS recipient who's been here for eight years and who's really, really wanting to find a pathway to citizenship, but like is currently unable. Like, why are they going after them? It doesn't make me feel so good.

I agree. Just I think in terms of where we both want this to start, I agree. I don't know enough about this. And I think that we're in a bit of a fog of war right now. There's a lot of media coverage about it that is created by people who are just fundamentally against the anti-

against the deportations, period. So I don't know quite enough. My sense of it was not that. I've just been kind of absorbing the information and it seemed very criminal heavy, which I'm just like super in favor of, but I don't deny that you've seen that. I think probably I don't want to start there either. But at the end of the day, it's like if people are...

and they're not supposed to be, and you don't do anything, that incentivizes something that I really don't like. Um, Riley just broke a story-- Or not broke a story, I'm sorry. He wrote a take about someone else who broke a story on this woman who's being ar-- Who just got a prison term for facilitating birthright citizenship tourism from China. And it's like, that's the kind of stuff that is just crazy. And to me, I don't want that-- I don't want that here. It seems like an obvious flaw in the system. And-- No more Asian babies? What?

We can have Asian babies. There are plenty of Asian Americans. They can have babies. We don't need to have this weird loophole. I want imported Chinese babies. I'm a good pronatalist and I'm a mom, so I really like cute Asian babies. We can import them to American families. We don't need to have spy babies running around.

which is obviously the problem when you're dealing with a country like China or Russia having birthright citizenship, and then they go back to their country and they've got, they're technically Americans forever, but they're actually Chinese. Like, I think that you, there are some basic realities like that, that I'm concerned about. Zach has angry face on. I want to hear what Zach has to say about spy babies. I think that that,

gets to the the bigger question which is what kind of immigration system do we want at the end of all this because the biden administration left this in the worst possible spot if their if their objective was to welcome you know peaceful immigrants to the united states this is the worst possible way to hand things off to trump with these this chaotic border and you know record crossings and like not knowing what is going on exactly you just kind of

clear the deck for Trump to come in with this slew of orders. And you're right. Like he, he was just like locked and ready to go. Um, and, um,

I, you know, that this first round will probably be very criminal heavy and you're not going to get any argument for, from me about deporting criminals. Although you will get an argument for me, uh, about sending them to Gitmo, which we libertarians were saying back in the Obama administration should have been shut down. Uh, and then you didn't do it, Obama. Look what happens when you don't listen to libertarians. No, but, um, then, uh, the thing is that, uh,

After all that clears, then we need to ask, well, who do we want to come to the United States? Yeah. And...

what sorts of people... Already this question is bubbled up with the infamous Vivek tweet and the debate over H-1B visas. And then this birthright citizenship order that you were referencing kind of raises the question of how do we determine who deserves to be an American? And my fear about taking away something like birthright citizenship across the board is

is then that really undermines just a fundamental aspect of like, I don't know, the American dream, upward mobility, because the whole idea is, you know, your parents come here,

And then the next generation is really the ones that make it as an American. And then if you have that sort of uncertainty, your parents could come here as American, though, your parents, your parents should immigrate as Americans legally. And then you're like that. I don't agree that it's part of the American dream to have a an anchor baby.

Well, it can be. I mean, it's it's and it's not it's not just about, you know, there's these cases that you're talking about, about Chinese nationals abusing the system, going to some far flung U.S. territory, having a baby and then jetting the hell out of there just to get the citizenship. Maybe those kind of cases, there's some sort of targeted rule that can go after that.

I'm talking about kind of the broad sweep of the order that says that, you know, even people who are here on a on a visa and have been working here for years and have a baby before they obtain full citizenship, that their parents are now not protected or ambassadors and so forth. You know, a lot of this was like seemingly targeted to make it be like, oh, Kamala Harris is not really a U.S. citizen because of our interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

So there is some aspect of that like Trumpian mentality at play here, I think. But overall, that's what I worry about with the kind of broad sweep of this orders is that we're really going to. Yes, we will get the criminals out, but we're also just going to really undermine something fundamental about what it means to be an American. You mentioned the Biden thing, which.

You know, he left immigration in a disastrous state. Or not only him, honestly. It's the people around him who managed him, who were actually quietly running the country. Whoever they were, giant question mark, they fucked everything up. It's impossible to have a conversation about this now because...

it's a disaster. It became a disaster zone. And when it's a disaster zone, you're in... Me, personally, the way I think about immigration is I'm in triage mode. I need to stop everything until we figure out what the hell is going on. And I think about two things. One, the Vivek thing is interesting context. Maybe we can get into that in a second. The other one that really draws it to light for me is Ocasio-Cortez immediately coming

to Twitter in the context of the Columbia stuff to talk about the increased price of coffee, which one, I don't believe that's going to happen. Two, if it did, it's not as important to me as getting Colombian criminals out of our country. And I think that the average person looks at that, not even the average person, I look at that. I look at someone in a position of power who is

siding with Colombian drug lords over Americans is, in my opinion, the safety of Americans because of, she says, the price of coffee, which I don't even... That's crazy, but I don't even believe that's the answer. I think she's just fundamentally against borders. But I see that and I think you guys are so far off the mark that we have to just go to a totally different extreme and

clear this up and change the discourse on immigration in America. And then we can talk about what it should look like. I mean, we still have legal immigration channels right now. They're narrow, but we can talk about that. I think just like once this basic stuff is taken care of, sorry, Riley and Miles, you guys have not gotten in yet. Anything bubbling up on your side on this topic?

Uh, just one thing from the press conference that Caroline Leavitt gave, um, she got pushback from, uh, a reporter who was saying like, oh, I thought you were only going to go after the criminals first. And then Caroline Leavitt's response was sort of like, well, they are criminals because they broke into the country illegally. And I think a lot of Americans like really resonate with that, um, opinion. Like they are criminals, like aside from the people who are on like worker visas and things like that, but the people who broke our laws to enter our country, I think they're

you get a lot of Americans who resonate with that idea that like, hey, they broke a law when they first arrived here. And I think the fact that Trump won by such a landslide in the last election is a testament to the fact that he does have a lot of widespread support for that position. Well, for this, this is why he won. This is why he won in 2016. It was this issue and he did nothing about it. And then he talked about it a lot again in this election. This is what people... I would say if you took immigration off the table, I don't know that Trump would have won this last election if that was not

a conversation. I think that people were really, really upset about it. And how could you... Again, they're not upset about... Well, no, they're upset about a lot. I am personally not as upset about the people who are coming here to labor, but also a lot of Americans are. And that was what you saw also in the H-1B thing. So it's like a broad gut

But do you think that is... How do you think that is going to play out? Because there is the side of MAGA... Who's going to pick our strawberries kind of conversation? I mean, not just that, but all up and down the labor scale, right? I think we'll find out. And it'll happen slowly. And as things get out of whack, we'll know. But I don't think the fear-mongering... I saw a woman on CNN yesterday talk about... She's like, I just can't wait until...

until white American women find out that they can't buy blueberries because the blueberry pickers are gone. I can't wait until American women can't get blueberries for their smoothies. I cannot wait until there is a full crackdown on all small businesses as if that's going to be the solution to the immigration problem. How do you not hear that you were talking about these people like

slaves, basically. You were talking about them like, first of all, if that's happening, if we have to import a class of an underclass to do jobs for menial pay or trivial, small amounts of pay, like,

There's something wrong there, I think. I think that the market should not have this weird loophole where you can just access cheap labor from the third world and pick blueberries for cheap, if that's even true. But I'm just suspicious of that. I think this stuff will work itself out.

through like automation and stuff like that? Is that automation? Well, that's a good reason not to be bringing in more engineers from India and China or not even China, but India. I'm saying is that, is that what your expectation is? Is that the labor shortage that we are experiencing and likely will continue to experience as fertility goes down? Like that is, uh, going to just like automation is going to be the kind of solution that patches that hole. Um,

I think that there are lots of Americans who want those jobs too. And I think that this stuff just

figures itself out. I don't think that Trump is going to, or anyone in America, suddenly the cost of all groceries skyrocket. This is like a very crazy, almost conspiratorial... I don't believe, I simply don't believe that if we have immigration laws, Americans will starve to death, which is kind of how it's being framed on CNN. Like, let's just take it step by step and deport the criminals and then see what happens as we go forward. Well, okay, two things on that. One, like...

I think that that's a little bit of a sort of like intensely affirming, right? Like, I believe in having immigration laws, too. But I believe that our laws ought to allow for seasonal migrant visas, we ought to allow for low skilled workers to come here. Like, I think we do have intense labor needs in this country, some of which will be solved by automation.

But I think that currently, like there would be a massive shock to the system in terms of poultry processing plants or berry farms or avocado pickers, you know, avocado farms, like whatever area of produce and sort of the food industry you want to point out. There really would be massive disruption if we attempted to revoke agriculture.

if we cracked down not only on illegal immigrants, but also even attempted to revoke the seasonal migrant visas that people are currently using to do that. That would create a massive shock to the system. Right now, we're also seeing a shock to the system with egg prices, right? So that's not a life for right now. What is going on with eggs? Because I keep not being able to find eggs. I got a stockpile. I'll send you some. Give me your address. What is going on with eggs right now?

Zach is actually an egg farmer. So Zach is like basically doing migrant labor in addition to like high skilled white collar labor, like all the time. This is why the issue is so important to you. There's a fair point, which is like, yeah, okay. People won't starve overnight, but I do think that creating mass chaos and shocks to the system would be really bad. But furthermore,

Furthermore, the way that Democrats are messaging this, I'm not sure whether it was the CNN panel where there was that insufferable commentator or where it was, NBC, MSNBC, whatever. The way they talk about this is really, really stupid, right? Because...

I don't think it's a very winning argument, though it may be technically true to say we really need Nicaraguan blueberry pickers on essentially modern day plantations in the United States in order for white women to have their Erewhon smoothies or whatever. That is true. And that's a really bad argument because part of what I think people really want to believe and what has in fact been true is that the American dream is all about being able to in the past

come to this country, ideally legally, and be able to do that menial work that, frankly, I don't want to do and that many other Americans do not want to do and be able to then have children here and the children get a good education. And you are able to slowly work your way up and become a part of a community somewhere. Ideally, take advantage of private charity, not government welfare and social services, but be able to actually really make something of yourself and be able to have the peace of mind of knowing you're not going to get kicked out tomorrow.

and that you have a certain amount of due process protections, that you have legal recourse in this country, and that you can have the expectation of some amount of safety here in a way that you didn't have in your home country. I just reject the idea-

That's the American dream though. You don't want to do that. Okay, fair. To say that is like the reason, if there's a good reason that people don't want to pick berries, it's because they're not getting paid enough. Then I think that they should be paid more to pick berries. And then there are other classes of job, like construction, for example, where my dad was in construction. It was a great job. And importing lots of cheap labor to fuck that up, I don't think that works in the benefit of all Americans. Maybe it...

I mean, it should have decreased the cost of labor and the cost of building, but it didn't. Everything just gets more and more expensive, even if it did. I don't know that that's not a fair trade to me. I get what you're saying, and I'm very sympathetic to this idea of we don't want to create a permanent underclass of Americans who feel as though their only path forward in this country is to sit at home watching online porn and shit.

off and doing a legal or now legal online sports betting, right? Like, like that sounds horrible. I want good industrious, um, lives for the wealthiest among us and the poorest among us. And like, we should consider what's in our natural national interests in terms of making sure that sure that even the poorest people here have a dignified life. But I think, I think

we're getting at kind of the same thing, which is that like you want a dignified existence for the poor Rust Belt whites or, you know, people in Detroit who the car manufacturing industry has totally basically done away with. And, you know, I want that too. I also want a dignified existence for the migrants to this country who work these really menial low wage jobs. But I think fundamentally, like we're committing a little bit of this like

Honestly, it's a capitalist sin or a libertarian sin where it's like we don't get to be the central planners and decide that we know what's best in these different industries. I think it's fair to say that when setting immigration policy for our country, we ought to be considering current American citizens and what will best serve them. But also at the same time, I think that we all understand how foolish it is to become overly meddlesome in any industry and to try to protect it and keep it static as opposed to dynamic and passive.

I mean, I think people also talk in these terms when it comes to automation and using AI. But I think that we run a little bit of a risk when we act reflexively opposed to the dynamic change in these industries. We don't know exactly what the future holds, and there very well might be some winners and losers. But I think that it is probably possible to craft policy that attempts to honor the dignity of

poor people, whether they're born in this country or not, but also attempts to not try to keep these industries frozen in time in a way that ultimately I think really cripples innovation here, right? This is a hard thing to balance. And I just don't think that Trump's approach is getting it quite right. Well, we'll have to see. I do like to see those, those, uh,

I do like to see the criminals in the car crying about it. And I think probably a lot of other people do. I do want to move on to something Zach, you brought up, which is automation. Let's talk about DeepSeek. It's kind of perfectly positioned in this conversation. Riley, you want to break it down for us? Yeah, sure. So the latest version of Chinese AI company DeepSeek got released recently. Quickly impressed AI experts and the tech community broadly shot to the top of Apple Store downloads.

Our stock market freaked out in response. $2 trillion of market cap was erased Monday, although I believe things have since rebounded. But the thing about DeepSeek is that they claim the model was developed at the low cost of just $5.58 million. And it raises questions about just how many NVIDIA chips they have, since the only way they would be able to get around that and build up a huge stockpile of NVIDIA chips is going around export controls.

But regardless, the development shows that our AI race with China is definitely going to be a competitive one. That's a sentiment that David Sachs, our new AI and cryptos are. I believe that's his official title. That's something that he shared this week. And then meanwhile, Trump said in a speech...

The release of deep seek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake up call for our industries that we need to be laser focused on competing to win because we have the greatest scientists in the world. Even Chinese leadership told me that they said you have the most brilliant scientists in the world. And I am very suspicious of the chip of the chip thing.

I don't know how many chips they have that they shouldn't have. If you look at their... I'm not just coming with it myself. I did a lot of talking to people who I respect a lot in the field. I won't say their names because they're technically on background. All of the research that you can look at that the company is...

produced is about getting around the compute problem. And so it seems to me that the constraints force them to innovate, which is shocking to me as well. You don't see Chinese companies innovating almost ever. You see them stealing a lot. And I think they probably have also stolen. I think that there's almost no doubt that they've stolen from OpenAI. I think there's almost no doubt that there are spies in all of our companies. And there's probably something to the idea of like,

a really hot Chinese girl coming up to an engineer at a party in San Francisco who's a super nerd and being like, you're cute. Don't worry, I'm not a spy. There's something in that worth just maybe letting it sit there. We can address it later. I think they've been spying. And I think it doesn't matter. I think at the end of the day, they now have a company that is proving

these companies can be built. There'll be a lot of them, not just one. That kind of changes the game and they can be done possibly with less compute. Though I think probably with when you have more compute, you can just do more in general. I don't know that this is necessarily like an anti-NVIDIA story to me yet, but it's,

It's like you said, it's like China is, they're right there with us. No matter, they're right there with us on the path to building AGI. Like, do you want that? Do you want China to have the AGI before you do? I don't, I don't personally. Would you be fine with sexy work, happy hour espionage if it increased the birth rate in America? What a trade-off. That's a good question. That is a good question. Like a hot Chinese girl comes up to engineer. I don't know. Is there an opportunity here perhaps? Yeah.

I think I'm in, I'm in favor of sex generally. Like let's get them, let's get the kids fucking again. We got to get back. We got to get back to the basics in this country. I do think you have to be careful. I do think you, and I've been careful myself. Like, like in my current relationship, I was like, you're really hot. Like what this is. I don't know necessarily that I trust this. We've had conversations about it actually, where I screwed, I like flooded it casually. I was like, Hey, so,

He's not Chinese, but I was like, maybe an Israeli spy or something. I'm a little bit suspicious generally. My profile's a little bit higher. Maybe they want to access my tweets or something. You backed a hot Israeli spy? Mike, that's incredible. I'm so excited. Well, he's actually German. But anyway, this is too much. I don't know. But I was nervous about it. And I think it's perfectly fine and fair to always be a little bit

suspicious of that, gentlemen. Like, always be looking inward and being like, is this person out of my league? And if they are, what are they really after? Zach, any problems with you in the spy department? It's been a long con, if so, because I've been married for like 15 years. Zach's wife is a babe, so she is a little out of his league. But I think she's fine, though. I think she's not a spy, probably. Yeah, but I mean, I...

This does tell me that whatever the case, whether there's some sort of deception about how much compute is being used or it's the story as it is on its face that they found a workaround to make it more efficient. I mean, it's clear that export controls are not the thing that's going to get it. Like you're not going to be able to export control hard enough to stop this. And it seems like David Sachs has, with his statement, he has that in mind that it's got to be like kind of

pressing down on the accelerator and full speed ahead, like straight head up, straight up head to head competition is like the only way to get out of this. And I mean, it's interesting to me that China is the country that has taken the open source approach and we are like, they had to. Yeah. And like, they just had nothing else. Yeah. They had to. Yeah. Yeah.

But that seems like maybe that's a bullish sign for open source going forward. I don't know. What I would love your libertarian perspective on, both of you, is when you talk about a head-to-head competition with China, the Chinese government is backing these companies. To have a real head-to-head competition, the US government will have to be backing our own AI companies. How do you guys think about that?

Why is that? Why do you think that the only way to out-compete China is for the federal government? Well, that's what a fair competition would be. It would be our government protecting the interests of our companies in the same way that China is around, not just in China, but in our country as well and around the world. You have to have basically a more mercantilist approach to the relationship between government and industry if you're going to compete with a country where this powerful centralized state is...

behind everything that's being exported? It would have to be directed towards, you know, purely, you know, defensive uses, which there are lots of for, you know, like, I'm sure that going through that there's going to be lots of military funding going to AI for and already is going to AI. And I don't see a big problem with that. Um,

The problem that always pops up when you have big federal agencies funding any sort of science is then it gets bureaucratized. And like, that's what happened to NASA, right? And the only thing that kind of broke that apart was allowing scientists

you know, starting to re starting to privatize that. And so I, I worry about like, but not in a head to head race. The head to head race was famously, it was, it was, it was a space race, right? The space, it was a space race. And it was two, it was two companies funding their science programs in a head to head, head to head combat. Yeah.

I honestly think that attempting to get the US government to partner with current AI companies in order to be competitive with China on this front would be almost akin to like trying to do a sprinting race, except that the US government backing these companies would be like tying a bag of sand to your leg, right? Like I don't see that as actually necessarily being helpful to these companies, but

in any way whatsoever. I could see that being a hindrance. - It's like regulate, certainly we can cut through it. Like they can just do this, like, you know, we're cutting away all of the bureaucracy. We're giving you special tax treatments. We're gonna give you, we're gonna protect you. Like should, let's get, we should, Miles, you have one comment and then I'm gonna get to our Polymarket read because it's about the next question I'm gonna ask you, Liz, on how we should treat Chinese companies.

Yeah, if it is a race, what stops China from just copying AGI once we get AGI? So I feel like government will eventually have to take it over like a nuclear weapon or like Russia, Sputnik Russia. Did they make it to the moon? Well, if it's as powerful as they're saying. I mean, it depends on who you believe. If you have people in AI, right? It's like the same moments in the world where like,

we're going to have to reimagine the social contract. It's going to be such a total transformation. I mean, this is also, I sort of believe this myself. When people tell me that I'm going to be replaced as a writer, like, well, first of all,

No, I'm not. But if you are saying that you have a robot that is capable of writing like me, you're actually saying that you have a robot that's capable of thinking like a human. And if that is the case, then the world is so fundamentally different that I don't even know how to predict it. It doesn't matter that I'm losing my job as a writer or a media company owner. Everything is so radically different than what we see now that we have to start from scratch in terms of how we use...

The main thing that makes me think that Sam Altman is full of shit and the AGI is still pretty far away is that like, I try to get ChatGPT to write like Liz Wolf sometimes, and it does a terrible job. And then every once in a while, I'll try to have Zach write like me. And Zach does like a pretty good job, which is actually very disturbing. But I mean, we're basically saying that like, like ChatGPT ends up being less sophisticated than Zach Weissmuller. Like, I'm sorry, but like, I just don't think we're there yet. And I don't really get the sense that

writers like us are going to be replaced anytime soon. But maybe that's just a self-serving narrative. If anything, I think it would become more powerful. There are lots of things that will be replaced, but what you can't replace is taste and a perspective and a compelling and now in this very anti-human world, a human voice. I have this feeling that it might be the opposite of what some of these people are predicting. And suddenly media companies that are run by people

personalities that people really like become much more precious and valued. Finally, I get what I'm deserving. Let me just read this Polymarket read really quick. Polymarket, well,

Welcome to our Polymarket segment. This is a paid partnership. Thank you guys for supporting the work that we do here. We're going to take a look at the betting markets and how they've been thinking about the DeepSeek problem and also just the government's reaction to it. So Polymarket odds currently give a 14% chance that DeepSeek will be banned in the US before April and an 8% chance that it trained its models on NVIDIA chips.

A ban would reflect broader concerns about foreign AI firms competing with US companies while operating outside American regulations. Speculations about how DeepSeek trained its model ranges from stockpiling the Nvidia chips before restrictions to finding a workaround, spying.

The markets are actually basically on the side of what I've heard in tech, which is like, the Nvidia chip thing is not what's happening here. But banning the company from operation

That seems a little more likely. And in a world where all of our stuff's banned in China, how do the libs in the chat room feel about it? Of banning DeepSeek? Is that the proposition? Well, I mean, I'm taking this out further. I'm like, I'm ready to shut it all down until they open up their market to us. But what are you thinking about the DeepSeek? But I mean, it's an open source piece of software, right? Well, on the app stores and things like this. Yeah, you could shut it down on the app store.

Right. You're basically slowing down the widespread distribution. I just want to be clear that you can't really ban this sort of thing. What people are talking about now is the data harvesting, which they've acknowledged. I saw this one. It was actually crazy. Matt, you should pull it up. There's a clip.

from praying for exits where he goes through his search query and deep seek starts to answer. And then it gets to, it goes to North Korea, then it gets to China, then it stops. And it says that it can't, it can't answer. It's too sensitive. They're going to get better at hiding that. And actually, I mean, these are, it's great to see them make mistakes like this. Cause I have a sense of what's going on with the app, but once they get really, really good and artful, I would say at dodging questions and altering reality, that's,

That's a tool that is worth talking about in the hands of, I mean, you know, potentially a hostile foreign government. I'm really worried about this trajectory of banning the government, kind of making the idea of banning things from being easily available, digital tools easily available, becoming more and more normalized and on the heels of the TikTok ban, just because

it just opens up the floodgates for whatever quote-unquote adversary to be defined. Any tool that I think kind of is deemed inconvenient or subversive to the government, that sort of definition can kind of like become increasingly... I don't think it's subversive. I mean, it's inconvenient or it's bad for us. It's bad to have a population learning about the world from...

a chinese propaganda platform what is your problem and if you do think it's a problem how would you address that if not government yeah i agree that it's like i think tiktok is bad um i've never had it on my phone um i would not advise my kids to have it on their phone i guess like a compromise position i could reach is like you could treat it like like a labeling thing like if if the government was proposing like uh

a label pop up and be like, you are about to open Chinese spyware on your phone or something. Like maybe I can't be down with that on cigarettes. Right. Yeah. If you smoke these FYI in Europe, it's like they show you the picture of the black lung. And it's funny. Cause that like did not stop the French. They're like, well, yeah, but it's like the, the, the kind of, you know, tools of encryption,

communication and especially married to encryption, I think these are ultimately going to be the safeguards for us as AI becomes more advanced because AI is a tool that can bombard us and trick us and surveil us.

And, you know, we see we already see like on the perimeter, these things happening. We see Pavel Durov getting arrested in France. We see these guys getting arrested in the United States for operating Tornado Cash, which allows you to anonymize your Bitcoin. Like those are the very tools like that I feel like we need the most at this moment. And the more that we're kind of opening the door to people

national security outright bans. I really worry about mission creep regardless of the specific example of DeepSeek. I want to read the room or I want to take the room's temperature on something. So I assume you guys saw Palmer Luckey's tweet about whether... So DeepSeek is backed by a quant hedge fund.

There's some thought out there, and Paul Merlicki was talking about this in one of his tweets, that perhaps they're maybe developing a real and legit product, but also a big part of the motivation is that they're seeking to short NVIDIA. Do you guys have any thoughts on whether this is a little bit more...

of sort of like a stock market play than necessarily, like are we perhaps missing sort of the point here and freaking out about something that ends up not being a red herring, but that's sort of tangential and they're attempting to in some way short a profit off of Nvidia stocks plummeting? I think that people were genuinely shocked at how good it was and that freaked them out. And in a moment of mass freakout,

all sorts of theories come together. I don't know. Maybe. I mean, I would... I trust Palmer. But he... Like, I would say I'm like now 50% on that. But, um...

I saw stuff about, you know, obviously the company was dropped on the same day as the inauguration. And then it was like a certain amount of years before the first COVID case and stuff like that. And it just feels like people are a little bit bothered right now because we're talking about something that for years people have referred to as the new nukes. You know, this is just as impactful and paradigm altering as a nuclear bomb. And we're saying, hey, an adversary is basically

right behind us now on this. And they did it. It didn't seem that hard. It was very fast that they got there. Also, I mean, if they're also innovating and they're not just stealing, which they have, there has been innovation here, then they're capable of getting their...

before us, you know? And I certainly didn't think that. I genuinely never thought that until this. And then I thought, whoa, I misjudged this. I didn't fully understand what was happening in China. And so anyway, that's what I think is mostly happening with all the different theories surrounding it. And in reality, it's like we should just do something to... I'll just do something. I think we have to change the way we think about this. There's going to be a little more urgency and we have to work together a little bit more and actually get there first. I really do think that. I think there's no stopping AGI development. So we do have to get there first.

Big concern I have about wrapping it all in it. Now it's like we're going to do a Manhattan Project for AI. That's kind of how it seems like you're training us. Yeah, I don't know exactly what I mean by that. I don't know that we don't need a Manhattan Project for AI. Our companies are crushing it. It's probably something like, I do think some amount of export controls. I do think probably some amount of secrecy, maybe encouraged at least. I think probably help with regulatory stuff, help with trade stuff. Maybe just...

I don't know. It's a question mark for me because I don't know exactly what the companies need from the government right now, but I think they can assist them in ways that are not, we're going to run this. Even though, by the way, I mean, we do have a history of the Manhattan Project and Apollo. These are the two things that we're constantly talking about here because those are the two most impactful sort of science technology projects of the 20th century, and they were run by our government. I don't know that we can do that anymore, but I'm not advocating for that.

Are you at all concerned that, let's say, the government goes all in on Gemini and OpenAI, and now these become the quasi-governmental AI companies? We're partners in this together.

I'm not saying that, though. I'm not saying that they should be government companies. I'm saying that our government should assist them. And I'm saying that I think they should assist all of our companies. I think that when Europe goes after Google, I think Trump should threaten tariffs. And it should be like, that's our... You can't just...

create these bullshit fines and steal billions of dollars from American companies and expect us not to do something. They're playing a game and China's playing a game that we're playing without playing. We are in the game whether we want to be in the game or not. I think we have to act with agency in this dynamic.

But you don't think they should be given any special privileges over companies that do not have that? That's what I'm most worried about. Within America? No. I'm more concerned about how we can have DC and Silicon Valley work together as needed.

Yeah. To get us over the finish line before China, generally speaking. I would not like anything that would benefit, that would hamstring startups or things like that. I'm opposed to that. As opposed to most of the AI regulations that we're going to, those are mostly like safety regulations and things like this that I'm not.

not super well that's kind of what i'm worried is that it's like there's going to be one that there will be one set of safety regulations for the big guys who play ball with the government and then everyone else because that that i feel like that is that that would be the competitive disadvantage it's like we need to have a robust competitive ecosystem everything that his administration did for our corporations was to to disadvantage that he actively assisted foreign uh uh

He actually actively assisted European countries in pursuing our companies for antitrust,

purposes. He was crafting legislation that would have totally hamstrung our startup ecosystem, not just AI ecosystem, but startups in general. When you start talking about the different taxes and things that he was interested in, he's just anti-business in general. And Trump is not, and I'm very grateful for that. He sees our companies as an asset. And I think that we, I am aware of, I think most of what you're saying, and I probably share most of your concerns about the way that this could go off the rails. I just think that we saw that more before. That's not what I'm advocating for. I'm advocating for something

that we've maybe not seen since, I don't know, when we were mercantilists? Was that like the Robber Baron era? I'm down for that. Like, bring it back. I love that shit. The top hats and the monocles? That's me, man. Give me a couple years. Yeah, I think the framing of the race is weird because if we get AGI, excuse me, they're able to copy it.

Then they'd copy AGI. So then it would turn into like a mutually shared self-destruction situation. And then the government would have to step in and get involved. At that point, it's probably too... I mean, what do we mean also with AGI? They keep changing the definition of AGI. And now it's like... Or like AGI maybe. There's an AGI new acronym that we're using for SuperGob, which is what I always thought AGI meant. It was like, this thing goes off. It's like, it starts to improve itself. Once it can improve itself, it becomes...

incomprehensible almost instantaneously. And we enter this weird shift in human society. And that's what I thought AGI was. I don't know that you could even have time to copy it at that point if things change so rapidly. Again, this is something where we just don't know. It's this huge, really scary, unknown question.

Also exciting, but I mean... Balaji had a good tweet. He said it might turn out that the GPT wrapper was more remote than GPT itself. Do we still listen to Balaji anymore after he lost his bet? Was that the million dollar one? Yes, it was the million dollar Bitcoin bet. He ended up having to write a check to an online leftist, unfortunately. Yeah.

Poor one out for biology. That must have hurt. That would have hurt me, but I wouldn't have made that bet. I think eventually we're going to get there. So does Jack Dorsey, who I interviewed and he said, of course, a million dollars is definitely going to happen. So I'm waiting for it.

Jack Dorsey, he's like the white whale of just asking questions guests. We would love to talk with him. Oh my goodness. I'm a fan of Jack's and I get a lot of shit for it, but he deserves it. That's a whole other topic. We're approaching the end here. Do you guys have last thoughts on deep seek, mercantilism, the war against China? Before I get to that, I mean, really, we've got some incredible news out of the White House press box.

Let's move on. I do have to go in the next five minutes or so. All right. Well, you can just vanish as you go and we'll say, we'll tip our hat. Um, Riley, later, break down the new rules. Brief us on the briefing. Brief us on our new home. Yeah. Uh, so Caroline Lovett, she held her first press conference, um,

And some of the highlights were the immigration exchange that I mentioned earlier. But most notably, she said that the press briefing room would now be opening up to not just mainstream news outlets or even news outlets at all, but also to, quote, independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers and content creators.

before sharing a link where those people could then sign up to apply to join the press briefing room, which of course I did instantly. I sent that application so fast. So fingers crossed we get our very first PirateWire's White House correspondent in the briefing room. What's the first question you would ask?

moon statehood obviously we're doing greenland we're doing so many places when is moon statehood miles uh what do you make of the trend towards influencers in the white house yeah i wish there was multiple chairs it'd be crazy to get just insane rows of the influencers i was wondering what you guys is who you want to see in there besides yourselves obviously who your top three

you want to see asking your questions? There are some regular... Not just... Obviously, it's like there's something funny about Cat Turd with a microphone demanding evidence of some weird conspiracy. But I think that people like...

Matt Tybee have really earned their space there. These real journalists who have done a lot of work over the last five, six years at a very hostile moment in the country for people like them. I would like to see them get a little action. But also, I mean, let Libs of TikTok spice it up. Let's see what happens when Libs of TikTok and Taylor Lorenz are both asking questions in the briefing room. I think it should be...

a little bit of a mix and you need a little bit of that in there. And I also think that like, you know, PirateWire's, we're closer to a lot of the stuff than any of the outlets that are covering the stuff that we cover. So I think that we'll have much better questions. And I think that there's stuff like that in the new media ecosystem everywhere that you look, where influencers actually are very keyed into certain questions. And if they are just introducing people

Based on that, let's say we're covering something create. AV, we just had this plane crash, unfortunately, this week, this horrific thing that is happening, ongoing tragedy right now.

There's going to be a briefing on it and get some aviation influencers in there who are actually very keyed into what's going on and can ask smarter questions than a journalist who's just learning about the history of plane crashes for the first time this week. They're like Wikipedia actively so they can ask a question like bring in some real experts, I would say, who are e-

eating and breathing and sleeping this stuff, which is what you see, again, more and more online. I think it's really cool. It was an inevitable change. I think it's going to be Brandon, who's not here today, he said it was like, it's going to be

like it's like sort of dystopian, but also probably mostly good. And it'll probably be clownish, but there'll be some really important stuff asked and I'm stoked for it. Zach, what do you think? Yeah, I think that it's still somehow underrated the degree to which Trump's success grew from his deep,

intuitive understanding of media. Like obviously the him winning in 2016, uh, was both a showcase of his mastery of television, uh, and then also Twitter. And then 2024 showed his understanding of the changing media landscape in the form of podcasts. Like why he, he jumped right into that flow, apparently with a little push from Baron, um, and it paid dividends for him. And it,

It's just mind boggling to me how far behind the Democrats and kind of, I guess the DC establishment still is in this regard. Like it kind of harkens back to what miles was saying earlier with the, the kind of clip fests coming out of the RFK hearings. Like, yeah, they're everyone involved with that is speaking with an awareness that it's going to get clipped and it's going to get circulated on social media and

But the difference is that somehow now the people being questioned are more savvy than the senators. Like the senators were always the ones sitting in the position of authority. They're up higher. They can intimidate you. But RFK, like he handled it like a champ. And I was just watching a little bit of cash. You're so right. It's such a good point. They're like really savvy at this.

And so Trump, he knows how to handle himself depending on what the media environment is. He's surrounded himself with people. His spokespeople are all kind of come from that world and understand it. And it's...

You know, whether it's good or bad, it's inevitable. And the question is, when are the Democrats going to actually catch up to this? Like in the 2028 cycle, are they actually going to put forward somebody who can handle themselves in that environment, who can go on four hour podcasts and, you know, have fun and be like a real person? Or is it going to be more like incredibly stilted, staged, managed stuff that everybody sees through?

it's hard for them, I think, to let go of what they used to have. That press briefing room is filled with people who are just their allies. It's like ABC and CNN and, of course, NBC and places like this, The Washington Post. They're allies. And I even, as I write about this stuff, I have a hard time understanding the impact anymore

of that camp versus the new media stuff. For years, it was, oh, you know, the mainstream media was very powerful and I would talk about them as this incredible fount of power. And now I'm like, I don't, I'm actually not certain how powerful they are, even as just this other thing in the New York Times, the top, of course, but all the others, like even as if they're just in this fragmented media ecosystem and they're speaking to Democrats, are they really speaking to Democrats as much as Republicans

like Joe Rogan is speaking to his audience. And I don't, I don't really think so. It's only intensified with the, you know, the, the Musk Twitter to X transition. I just saw someone posting a screenshot today of just the incredibly depreciated reach that all these leftist organizations have, uh,

from fleeing X over to blue sky at the top of the list, weirdly of all things was the ACLU can't handle a free marketplace of ideas. And it's like, they've got one and a half million Twitter followers over on blue sky. It's like, you know, I don't think even a hundred thousand. And so they're, they're like perp, they're like intentionally kneecapping themselves and, and,

you know, pushing themselves further and further to the fringes. And I think it's going to be the people who resist that, that pull, the pull of the echo chamber who kind of emerge over the next four years. You know, you see that a little Bernie Sanders, uh,

um, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, John Fetterman, very different people. Fetterman's very different than the other two, but they're all very engaged with the new media ecosystem. And in people like Ocasio, we were talking about the Columbia stuff before, and I see in her someone who's, that's such a clownish opinion to be siding with criminals from a different country that I don't

see her as the future of the party in a way. I'm waiting for the leftist who, like a Trumpian leftist who is a populist, who's very savvy politically or very savvy in the new media ecosystem and whatever that is. With some charisma. Yeah. It's going to be scary, I think. I think that's the future of the Democratic Party. We haven't quite seen it yet, but it will be very effective. The left has no swag. I don't know if it will be...

Not yet. I don't know. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, unless we're entering this, like, sorry, go ahead, Zach. Oh, well, you mentioned Fetterman. Um, I don't know if it will be Fetterman, but it will be someone kind of like that, who it's like, it's just weird that he's the guy who's out there, like sitting down with Joe Rogan and having this very public transformation from what he used to be. Like it's, I,

I don't think it's going to be Fetterman, but I think Fetterman is like a preview of coming events. In a strange way, Fetterman is the only... He's one of the most statesman-like figures that we have now. He's not just on Rogan. He's talking to the ladies of The View. He's calling... What did he say? It was like pins and whatever. It was some sports reference. But basically...

He is calling out Democrats and Republicans for similar behavior. I remember he was very early to the Menendez, the Senator Menendez, Senator Goldbars, the corrupt dude. He straight away was like, this man needs to resign. This is fucking crazy. There's no place for this in politics. Now, he looks like a total slob. But what he's saying is this very...

He reminds me of maybe McCain a little bit in that way. And people respect calling out your own side. I mean, that's what that's what also drove Trump. Right. He went up on stage and embarrassed all his fellow Republicans. So there's got to be a like Democrat pantsing moment, too, at some point. Maybe that's what we're all waiting for. I am. I mean, how do you not criticize Trump?

It's so easy for Democrats man. Like all you had to do is be against crime like you the the populace I would love for the pop of the populist economic issues to not be popular, but they are and It's like if you just did that plus you weren't totally crazy on the gender stuff and you were like, yeah Police should exist and crime should be illegal You would not they would not be here But they weren't capable of it which means the next version will be that in the UK like old days the labor

Movement was super anti-crime. And I think that maybe that's

Well, we'll see. I guess we just have no idea, but- You had the perfect room for that overlap too. Bernie Sanders used to be very against immigration precisely because he's like, "I know this is going to have economic impacts and now that is just a thing of the past." So he's very tuned in to that. Yeah, there's integrity there. I think that he still has integrity, but yes, he's super committed to this group of people, the working class American people. And so he's been very keen into issues like this, for example, the immigration thing, because he knows that they care about that.

whether or not Zach, you agree with it. It's like that's they care about it. And he knows that he definitely he definitely lacks. He definitely lacks some awareness that like he doesn't have that Trump thing. He doesn't have the Fetterman thing of being aware of

Oh, yeah, no, I agree where he is and what he is doing. I mean, getting totally embarrassed with the onesie thing is just one example of him, him being kind of like pushed aside on stage during the Black Lives Matter protests. It's like that is the Bernie Sanders that we all know and cringe at. So it's not going to be him. But you're right. There are certain characteristics that maybe the next iteration will take. I think it's going to be someone

in that orbit though who's young and charismatic like miles said and good looking who gets the internet it's going to be like someone horrible like hassan and it's just like that's like the end of the world miles uh who do you want to see in those seats i want to see the most radical people on the internet i went nuts in there like hassan that's a good one

You're like, bring him in. Let's just accelerate the dystopia. Yeah. Andrew Callahan with Channel 5. That'd be cool. And then I don't know what's another crazy one. Sam Hyde. Oh, is Andrew Callahan the guy who trolls the rallies? He doesn't really troll them. He's more just sitting there interviewing people. They're sort of trolling theirself in a way, just like spewing crap in his mic. And he gets them to really open up.

Oh yeah. So someone like that, who's good at man on the street, uh, I think that would be, uh, excellent to have. Yeah. There's another one. No cap on God. He's a new channel. Very similar to what I was thinking about. That's what I was thinking about. That guy's funny. Taylor, Taylor Lorenz.

It's inevitable. Taylor will find her way in there. But she's with a big media company already. Would they let her in? Is she? I'm not sure. She's been cast down into the bowels of Substack where she is currently struggling. Well, folks, it's been real. PowerWires obviously will be in that chair. Nothing's been confirmed yet. It is confirmed. I have hope. It's confirmed. I have a hope and I have hope that

justice will prevail. And if there's justice in the world, you'll see one of us with a microphone up there. Maybe Zach, have you guys applied? We haven't yet, but we got to get our thinking caps on. We need a libertarian perspective in there. Get in there. I agree. I agree.

Well, it's been real, guys. Liz, Zach, thank you for joining us. Miles, Pirate Idol, it's been real, my friend. Thank you for having me. And to the rest of you, rate, review, subscribe. Please comment. Tell us that you love us. Yell at people who are going after us in the comments. I'd love to see our listeners just dogpile the naysayers. It's been real. Have a great weekend. Catch you here next week.