Did you guys see this uh White House

video? Oh, is there a White House video?

I honestly think that was the funniest

post by a White House ever was the

Daddy's Home video.

I feel like popping bottles to this.

Come on now. Up in the club. Oh, in the

VIP popping bottle with the rainman.

Let's buy two bottles of that all in

tequila. If we get a double.

That is the best. The backstory to that

is that Mark Ruto, who's the secretary

general of NATO, called Trump daddy at

the Yeah, he called him daddy.

Guy got weird. Ragg, you missed it. We

were just up in the club. You want to go

back to the club for a second? I do. I

love the club. You ready? I love the

club. Popping some bottles with the NATO

summit. We're doing it again. Come on,

Freeberg.

Let me see you stand up, Freeberg.

your Sultan of science. What club are we

going to this weekend? Oh, daddy's home.

We are going to bring the club to us. I

think it's called Club NATO. Sash, can

you get the hot pass? You want to come

to Vegas this weekend? Uh, maybe we'll

talk about it all.

JL, come out. Where are you? Pop on a

Southwest flight. Meet us in Vegas.

[Music]

Let your winners ride.

Rainman David

and we open sourced it to the fans and

they've just gone crazy with it. Love

you.

All right everybody, welcome back to the

number one podcast in the world. The

AllIn podcast, your favorite podcast.

We're back. We got the original quartet

here and everybody's really excited

because we had a fun time on Saturday

night. What a party we had at Delilah.

All four besties there. Step and repeat.

Freeberg, you lost a bunch of money

playing bomb pots with me and Rob

Goldberg. You drank a lot. You looked

great. Your impressions of this evening.

Oh, I loved it. It was great. I think

the tequila turned out fantastic. This

tequila has been I mean you guys realize

when we first started talking about this

this was like two and a half almost

three years ago when we first started

talking about this and it is finally

here. It took forever to get through

this uh this kind of design development

process but man I think it turned out

great. I thought it was awesome.

Everybody at the Everybody at the party

was surprised by how good it was cuz

they thought that I don't know, we were

just doing this as a gimmick or

something, but we actually put in the

time to make it great. A lot of time. A

lot of time. So, talk a little bit about

the sourcing cuz I think that that

sourcing was very important. Well, we

went down to Tequila, Mexico. There's

only one part of Mexico that's even

allowed to be called uh tequila. And we

found a distillery that had been aging

some agave in American oak whiskey

barrels for 5 years. And normally

extrajo is aged for 3 years. So it was

pretty rare to find a cache of 5year

aged. And so we basically bought it all.

But there's only enough for 7500

bottles. So that's what we did. But you

know, this is not about creating some

large new tequila label. This is more

about creating something that we

ourselves like and that's what we did.

Sort of a small batch product. I mean,

the money is not going to change

anyone's life, you know, except maybe

yours. Yeah. But I don't know. Uber hit

another record today. So, with Uber past

88, you guys are all I don't need to be

here anymore. Oh my god. But look, we do

things because they're fun. And it was

fun to create this. Here, I've got the

It is fun. It was really fun. Well, look

at this thing. I mean, beautiful box.

slides open. It's back lit in the box.

So cool. So that out of the box

experience is just amazing. Yeah, it's a

great unboxing. Steve Jobs would be

proud. Tell us about the bottle design.

That was a lot of work, Sachs. I think

this probably took an extra 6 months to

get this right if I'm if I'm recalling

correctly on the schedule. This is super

complicated to execute. Well, the bottle

is designed after a stack of poker

chips. And so you can see the chips are

stacked and they're a jar. So, it's like

highly it's a lot of texture here. It's

made with glass and then there's these

black chip accents that are actually

painted onto the bottle perfectly. So,

this took a lot to get right. We went

through a lot of prototypes to get this

and it just looks amazing.

All right, there you have it, folks. The

All-In Tequila as promised. It's finally

available on our website. So, if you go

to tequila.allin.com,

you can now buy it. There's only 7,500

bottles. I think we're only going to

sell 6,000 because we're going to keep

the rest for our own personal stuff. We

sold a good chunk already. Like I think

we're So they're going really fast. We

just opened up the website. Previously,

they were only available to people who

had attended the All-in Summit. They

could pre-order it and reserve, but now

the website is open. Oh, wow. Beautiful.

There it is. Okay, there you go. Order

your bottle, limit to two, and uh go

ahead. This is, you know, this is not a

a cheap product, but you know, if you

look at the the pure competitor for this

product is the Clausul Ultra, which I

think sells at $1,700 a bottle, although

sometimes I've seen it sell for as much

as 3,000 a bottle. So, we're priced

competitively with that. There you go.

And each of the those boxes, and when

you open it up, the lights up and you

can recharge it. So, it's a keepsake,

right? There's a charging port in the

box so that it never runs out of a

battery to power the So genius. So

genius. I love that little touch. All

right, folks. There's tons in the new

look at this room service coming. I

mean, before we get to World War II,

let's get some room service at the Peep

that out. Do you want a side of caviar

with your uh besties all in tequila?

Listen, being an elitist, guys, is very

hard. That's what I was tweeting how

stressful it is. Somebody was saying

that we weren't living up to our job as

being the elite. Oh. And I was like,

man, this is it's really stressful being

an elite. You know, we need we need a

drink. Absolutely. I'll take a double.

You have no idea. So, did you get did

you go with the on your eggs Bernese

there? Did you go with the truffles or

the caviar? What did you do? Well, I I

honestly I um I went quite healthy. I

have some avocado. Okay. Very nice. I

have mango. Mhm. And I have some eggs.

Where are my eggs? Up to $72. Okay,

David, do you want to see my pillows

with my initials on them? Yeah. Oh,

lord. Here we go. This is the best thing

that the does. Shout out to our friends

at Politico.

How out of touch we are. Look, Sax, they

always put my initials. Oh, they do that

for you? They do that for me. Isn't that

incredible? Okay, here we go. All right,

there's lots to discuss in the news.

We'll shift from conspicuous consumption

and talk about the 12-day war between

Israel and Iran. It's two weeks later,

obviously a quick recap here and then

we'll get the besties take on where

we're at today, June 26 when we tape

this. Friday, June 13th, Israel launched

a surprise attack, took out a bunch of

uh Iranian military officials, some

folks who work on the nuclear program

and they traded missiles for about a

week before

everybody debating if this was going to

be World War II. And on Saturday, June

21st, quite shockingly, the US jumped in

and carried out Operation Midnight

Hammer. I've had a couple weekends in

Vegas that have been called Midnight

Hammer. Oh, yes. Midnight Hammer, also

known as Wow. There we go, folks. Um,

over a dozen bunker buster bombs on two,

maybe three of Iran's key nuclear

facilities, Fordo and Natans. These

bombs weigh 15 tons each. They'll go

deep underground. Israel doesn't have

them. And that's the reason we're given

of why we were pulled into this is

because we're the only people in the

world who could have taken these out. On

Thursday morning, chairman of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff, Dan Kaine, showed a

video. If you haven't seen it, folks,

this came out this morning. Here's the

video. It's a video of a of of what they

call a massive ordinance penetrator.

Yeah. It basically goes through the

ground. I think in this case, it's going

through a ventilation shaft and it

doesn't immediately go off. It basically

burrows to its maximum depth and then

goes off. This looks like a test to me.

This is just demonstrating it. This is a

demonstrating how it works. Yeah.

And so, uh, here's the before and after

photos you've probably seen. Kind of

hard to understand what's going on here,

except for the discolorization.

Obviously, we're going for things

underground.

And then, shockingly, Iran did a um a I

don't know what you'd call this, a

ceremonial response sacks, where they

send some missiles to one of our bases

in Qar. They gave us a ton of notice.

None of them landed. And then uh both

countries have been bombing each other a

little bit after Trump said he

negotiated a ceasefire which made our

president a little bit upset. Here's the

clip of the president not dropping a

MOAB but dropping an F-bomb. Israel. As

soon as we made the deal, they came out

and they dropped a load of bombs the

likes of which I've never seen before.

The biggest load that we've seen. I'm

not happy with Israel. You know, when

when I say, "Okay, now you have 12

hours. You don't go out in the first

hour and just drop everything you have

on them. So, I'm not happy with them.

I'm not happy with Iran either. We

basically have two countries that have

been fighting so long and so hard that

they don't know what the they're doing.

Do you understand that? You had

Trump is not happy he did the lean in.

Did you notice the lean in there, Saxs,

when he dropped the fbomb? Well, in in

fairness, President Trump's not the

first president to drop an F-bomb in

frustration with Netanyahu.

It was reported back in the '9s that

Bill Clinton, when he had to deal with

Netanyahu as being very obsinate and was

basically rejecting all of Clinton's

entreaties and plans, Clinton is

reported to have said, "Who's the

[ __ ] superpower here?" you know, in

frustration. So this is not the first

time that an American president has

gotten frustrated with Netanyahu. But I

think people reacted quite well to that

on the whole because it showed that

President Trump was willing to well

first first of all he negotiated this

ceasefire which was amazing. Then what

happens is that you know there was this

deadline and it was like in a in a fight

where they ring the bell and the

fighters keep slugging with each other.

Yeah. It's like they both want to get a

few extra hits in. Mhm. And uh that's

licks that's yeah that they got some

last licks in but President Trump

negotiated the ceasefire which was

extraordinary and then he's willing to

reprimand Israel for basically violating

the ceasefire too which you have to do

if you want to enforce it. So I think

that's basically what happened there.

Now you sax I'm sure the audience wants

to challenge you on this. You were hey

Trump is a never get involved in forever

wars. Obviously it looks like this might

not be a forever war which would be

fantastic if that turns out to be the

case. and um you were saying, "Hey, the

reason to vote for Trump is he won't get

us into another war and here we go." Uh

and obviously Tucker, Tulsi, there's a

number of people who are did not want to

do this and you were one of them. So,

how do you reconcile all of this as

somebody who did not want to see us do

this? President Trump accomplished that.

We're not in a forever war. We're not in

a war with Iran. You look at Mark Levin

today, he's apoplelectic because he and

people like him were advocating for a

regime change war and they felt like

this was the perfect opportunity to drag

the United States into such a war and

President Trump resisted that and

instead negotiated a ceasefire. So it

seems to me that he lived up to exactly

his promises on this. Look, I think

President Trump had to thread a very

difficult needle here. If you look at

polling, the vast majorities of the

American population believe in two

things. Number one, they don't want Iran

getting a nuclear weapon by like 80

something%. They also by 80 something%

don't want to get dragged into a new

forever war in the Middle East, right?

They don't want to be in a long

protracted war with Iran. President

Trump managed to accomplish both those

objectives. He took out the Iranian

nuclear sites in these highly precise

targeted strikes, but he did not get

dragged into a new Middle Eastern war.

In fact, he negotiated a ceasefire and

at least an end to the war right now

between Israel and Iran. I think there's

very few leaders who could have threaded

this needle. Imagine if Kla Harris were

president. Just do the counterfactual.

Would she have had the situational

awareness to realize that when the

Iranians struck at our base in Qatar

that it was performative, that it was

telegraphed and that it was meant to

basically be for domestic consumption

and end the war? She might have

escalated it. Certainly, you know, a lot

of the neocons who were on social media

were saying, "This is our chance,

right?" When when the Iranians engaged

in that performative hit on on Qatar,

they were saying, "We got to escalate.

We got to basically bomb all of Iran now

and get into a big war." And Trump, he

had the overall awareness of the

situation to avoid that. And this goes

back to his experience with Solommani

back in the first Trump administration.

The Iranians did the same thing where

they fired some missiles at American

bases, but they were telegraphed. We

were told in advance they were coming.

They were easy to avoid. No Americans

got harmed. And then Trump ended the

conflict there. And I think that a lot

of presidents might have gotten sucked

in to a new Middle Eastern war. Chimath,

let me pull you in here. Uh, obviously

little cognitive dissonance. Folks

didn't want to go to war, but we don't

want WMDs in the hands of Iran. How do

you reconcile all of this? Does the

outcome make it okay uh in your mind or

would you rather have seen we not get

involved in this? Can I uplevel this

slightly? I think that this has been

probably the most important

week and I would almost say most

important few months in US politics in

30 or 40 years. And the reason is that

it starts to converge

a bunch of things together that I think

are really worth putting on the table.

So from my perspective, I think what

President Trump has done is almost

single-handedly bring back the United

States as the global superpower. And I

would put that in all caps. So what does

it mean to be a superpower? I've said

this several times, but just to be

slightly redundant. In order to be a

superpower, I think you need to have

three things, but they work in a

hierarchy. The first is that you need to

have technical supremacy. And then from

that technological supremacy, you need

to establish and project economic

supremacy and military supremacy. So if

you look at the first one, you saw a

tactical demonstration of technological

supremacy with the B2 bombers. But

taking a more general step back, if you

look at the largest companies in the

world, who are the ones that are

actually driving the world forward,

these are all American companies. I

think these last few months you've seen

America firing on all cylinders

technologically

economically. At the same time, you now

have the stock market back at all-time

highs. You have interest rates

incredibly starting to compress even in

the absence of the Federal Reserve

willing to act on data. So, you're

projecting economic supremacy. And then

these last few weeks, frankly, have been

a pretty clear-cut case of military

supremacy. And so I think what's pretty

simple now is like the US is essentially

telling the world our words carry weight

again. We're going to shape the global

order. Countries will now have to

calibrate their actions around what the

US is willing to tolerate and what it

isn't willing to tolerate. And in the

case of Iran, the president made those

lines, I think, really crystal clear. He

warned them a 100 times where the line

was. And he was clear, you cannot build

nuclear weapons. And when the line was

crossed, and look, I think the the CNN's

of the world want to debate that the

line wasn't crossed. All I can tell you

is I don't know because I don't have

access to the intel. I believe what he

and Tulsi Gabbard and JD Vance and Marco

Rubio and Pete Hexith are saying is that

they crossed the line and then he showed

that he will use decisive military force

when that happens. But then here's

what's crazy, and this is where I think

you become a real superpower. It's what

happens after once you cross the line,

you notice that he doesn't try to

humiliate or dominate Iran. He tells

Iran that he wants them to stabilize

themselves. He told them that he wants

to see them trading oil with China. He

wants to see them improving the lives of

their people because he realizes that a

stable Iran is a stable Middle East. So,

I think it's really amazing. And then

the the fact that he was able to bring

Israel and Iran, who's been on the verge

of some kind of conflict for decades,

and broker a ceasefire, it's a really

important moment, I think, in American

history. I really do think that if you

look at my little framework, it is the

closest thing for us to being able to

say that we are truly a clearcut

singular hegeimon global superpower

again. And that's really exciting.

Well, he did he definitely did provide

that golden bridge for Iran to to cross

over to and maybe move into another

phase. But Freeberg, maybe you could

steal me the other side of this just for

the discussion here. This could have

gone another direction. We could be

sitting here and there could be

terrorist attacks or sleeper cells, you

know, in the United States. It could

turn out when we do the postmortem here

that they weren't close to having a

nuclear bomb and we did this and we got

goated into it. So maybe obviously

things have gone well to date, but

things might not have. So maybe you

could steal man the other side of this.

What's the argument for not having done

this? And uh what if things had gone

another way? How bad could this be?

Um I don't know if this is over and so

well that's my point. Yeah. I mean,

we're kind of in the middle of a

choose your own adventure book here, and

I've got to imagine

that the Israelis and Netanyahu, who's

been pretty vocal about this regime

that's been shouting for decades now,

death to Israel, death to the USA,

needs to change, is going to suddenly

say, hey, let's take a beat and walk

away from this, and we'll all kind of

have peace in the Middle At least I

think we've got to expect that there is

another page to turn that's coming. And

I don't know if you guys heard I don't

know if it's genuine or if it's

authentic or not. Did you hear that

audio of one of the kind of Mossad or

IDF people calling an IRGC commander and

telling him that he has 24 hours to

leave Iran with his wife and child? Did

you guys hear that? Yeah. I have not. I

saw it. Yeah. I mean, I heard it. It's

pretty incredible. And

I've got to imagine that there's going

to continue to be effort to destabilize

whatever regime remains in Iran by

Israel, Mossad, and this isn't going to

be kind of a a quiet peaceful

transition. There's going to continue to

be more conflict. Whether these guys are

going to be trading missiles back and

forth tomorrow, I think, you know, we

don't really know. But this isn't over.

And I do think that the next set of

actions is going to be critical. But

what I was pretty surprised by, I did

not like everyone was saying, "Hey,

we're on the brink of World War II." I

mean, there was some serious

statesmanship that must have gone on to

keep China. And I have no idea. I've had

no insight or conversations with anyone

to give me any sort of proprietary

access to knowledge about what's going

on here. But I've got to imagine there

were calls to China and Russia that kept

them in the loop and kept them in play

on how this all played out. because

China and Russia, the whole fear was

this was going to create this magnet in

the Middle East that everything was

going to rush in and we're going to

catalyze World War II and it didn't

happen. So, I do think that, you know,

first of all,

nothing that folks predicted actually

happened and no one predicted what did

happen. So, I I'm not going to sit here

and try and I'm not going to sit here

and try and predict what happened next.

And I will say if I'm thinking about

like, you know, game theory optimal

poker play, I got to give credit to this

president because it was completely

unpredictable what was coming next. And

I don't think that there was a really

clear path on what he was going to do.

Just like was what has happened

repeatedly. Everyone always slams a

table and says he's starting World War

II. He's driving economic collapse.

Everything's about to end. And then it

turns out he kind of ducks and weaves

and finds his way through. And

everyone's like, "Holy [ __ ] I didn't

expect that to happen." And that was

it's very unpredictable what's going to

happen next. So I am not going to sit

here and try and estimate what's going

to happen next. I can tell you I don't

think the Israelis are going to sit by

quietly and allow this Iranian regime to

continue to go out and build up a

military that's constantly shouting

death to Israel, death to the USA. And I

think that they've taken their first

shot and I don't think it's their last.

So we'll see how this all plays out. I

really don't know. Well, I'm sure I'm

sure that's right. Let me just tee up

one person who did get it right. Here's

John Mirshimer at the All-In Summit just

nine months ago. Let me play this clip

here and get your reaction. Saxs, to

counter the Iranian escalation scenario,

the fact is Iran does not want a war

with the United States and the United

States does not want a war with Iran.

And it's the Israelis, especially

Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been trying

to sort of suck us into a war because he

wants us, the United States, to really

whack Iran, weaken it militarily, and

especially to go after its nuclear

capabilities because, as you well know,

they are close to the point where they

can develop nuclear weapons. So, the

Israelis are the ones who want us to get

involved in a big war with Iran. That's

the escalation flash point. And the

$64,000 question is whether you think

the United States and Iran kind of

colluding can work together to prevent

the Israelis from getting a that that

question will be answered based on the

next who who who leads the next

administration. Well, if you believe

that it matters who leads the next

administration, that's true. And there's

Saxs, there's you laughing for this

incredible insight, which is as you were

saying last year and and Mir Shimemer's

been saying this was manifest destiny.

This was going to happen no matter who

was president and here we are. So your

thoughts on Mir Shimer sort of I mean

wow he just nailed it there. And that

was to your question Freedberg by the

way. So well done uh to Freedberg. We

didn't put your question at the

beginning because he he went on for five

or 10 minutes there. But go ahead, your

reaction to Mir Shimemer's incredible

prediction. That's Professor Mir Shammer

being prophetic as as usual. But let me

go back to a point that Freeberg was

making to Freeberg's point here. This is

not over. Iran and Israel are mortal

enemies and we have a ceasefire here. We

have a pause in the action, but it's

going to flare up again at some point.

The question is what US policy is going

to be. And I think that what President

Trump did over the past two weeks is

make it clear that number one, the

United States does not want to see Iran

get a nuclear bomb and that we are

willing to take military action to

prevent that, but that that action would

be narrowly targeted as narrowly

targeted as possible to achieve that

objective. Number two, that the United

States does not have an interest in

going to war to basically achieve a

regime change. If the people of Iran

want to make Iran great again by, you

know, rising up and toppling the

government, then that's up to them.

Certainly, I think we would welcome

that. But the Trump administration

rejected all of the calls over the past

week or so for the United States to

plunge into a regime change war in Iran.

And that's why the neocons right now are

not happy at all. So that's point number

two. Look, I think Trump found the right

balance here, which is we are going to

be narrowly focused on preventing a

threat to the United States, which is

Iran having a nuclear bomb. But we're

not going to go plunging into another

forever war, another regime change

operation. We've had plenty of

experience with that in the Middle East.

None of it worked. Every time we went

for regime change, it backfired.

Backfired in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya,

and on and on. So, there's no reason to

believe regime change would work. And by

the way, there's no way to get regime

change in a country unless you send in

American GIS to basically keep that

government propped up in in power

because it's almost certainly going to

be perceived as a puppet of the United

States. I mean, if you put, you know,

Raza Palavi or something, the Shaw's son

in power in Iran, he's going to face an

insurgency right away, and there's no

way that his government's going to stay

in power without the American military

protecting him and keeping him in power

at the end of a rifle barrel. So this

whole idea that you can achieve regime

change without its evil twin, which is

nation building, is a total fantasy. You

can't do it. You would need an American

occupation going on for decades. And I

think that the Trump administration

wisely rejected all of this giddy talk.

Remember, in the first couple of days of

that Israeli surprise attack where it

was Israel who hit Iran and there was

all this talk about decapitation, that

the Iranian regime was about to

collapse. It just needed a little bit of

a push. Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Gra.

That's what Lindsey Graham said. That

was all heady talk that turned out not

to be true. There's no question that the

Iranian regime took some damage, but

they did not collapse. And in fact, if

you look at history, one of the things

Mir Shmer's pointed out is that you

don't get regime change just through air

power alone. It takes boots on the

ground. And most Americans are not

willing to put boots on the ground in

Iran to change the regime there. We

believe that is sufficient just to keep

Iran from having a nuclear weapon. And

that's what American policy should focus

on. Yeah, I really fell for this. What

do you think? Well, I really fell for

this check raise from Trump who was

like, "Yeah, no, we're not doing this.

We're not doing this." And all of a

sudden, he does it, right? Nobody

expected him to do it. Everybody thought

he was going to not intervene. And um I

as a Gen Xer like you, Saxs and and I

guess Freeberg and Shimath as well. When

I saw them building the case here, the

Lindsey Grahams, you know, the Hawks,

etc. reports of WMDs that were imminent.

Who knows if that's true. These people

support terrorists. They're trying to

assassinate the president became part of

this. Uh remember that for last time

with Bush Senior spreading democracy in

the Middle East, the regime changed

stuff. That made me all very nervous.

And I think the most important next step

here is that this administration explain

in detail to the American people so we

don't have another dem WMD situation.

Just honestly the truth like did we hit

them? Did we hit some of them? Was there

imminent? Was it sort of imminent? We

just need to have full disclosure here.

I don't like the attacking the press for

a leak inside of the administration.

It's the administration's, you know,

responsibility to not have leaks. And

it's the press and the opposing party,

whoever opposes this action to really

vet this. And we need that part of the

democratic process. I hope we don't shut

that down and we just blindly follow,

you know, uh, the leader because it went

well. Because this isn't over, number

one. Number two, it did go well. Huge

credit to Trump for that. If it does go

well and he ends the war in Russia's

invasion of Ukraine, like, give him the

peace prize. I'm all for it. Fantastic.

But let's get the disclosures here and

let's not blame the press for getting a

leak. Let's actually look at this and

explain to the American people what we

accomplished, what didn't get

accomplished, and what the realistic

next step is. And I I give him a lot of

credit for telling Israel where the line

is and giving the golden bridge to Iran.

They will have a revolution on their own

timeline, but we should not be part of

that. Right. That's the lesson we

learned to your point, Saxs. We can't be

the revolution in Iran. They have to

come from the bottom up. Absolutely. Let

me Let me also disagree with one other

thing you said, which is you you said

you were starting to get nervous about

the the the stampede towards war. I

think you were correctly perceiving what

was happening in the media. I mean, and

this includes Fox News, especially Fox

News. There was all this talk about how

easy it would be. It' be a cakewalk,

that the government was on its last

legs, that it was weak, that it was

basically almost toppled. We just need

to push it over. You're right about the

WMD talk, the talk about the

assassination. This is all like a

literally like a carbon copy of the

arguments that were made back in 2003.

It's the playbook to get us into the

Iraq war. But look, I think two things

are different now. Number one is

President Trump is not George W. Bush. I

mean, that was made abundantly clear.

Number two is we now have alternative

media that even though the mainstream

media and Fox News was basically acting

like this was 2003. You had alternative

media and you had people like Tucker

Carlson speaking out and Steve Bannon, I

have to give him credit on this and

others who are who are pointing this out

and making the case that this would not

go well. And I do think that it's been

very helpful to have those chorus of

voices as a rebuttal. Yes. You know, you

correctly felt that we were being pushed

into war, but I think this was different

now because 20 years later, people

remember what happened, at least enough

do, that they're able to make the

counter case. And I think that

fortunately, we have a decision maker

and chief who also remembers and listens

to those arguments. All right, I think

we've made some good progress here.

Let's move on in the docket. We've got a

lot of other uh topics to talk about.

Obviously oil prices, Chimap, you had

talked about those in relation to this

action. You said, "Hey, if this goes

poorly, we could be looking at a $100 a

barrel oil."

Quite um interestingly, while it did

spike a little bit up to $74, almost hit

your $100 chimoth, racing up from the

$60 mark, you know, we come back down

now. And I think people our energy

independence here in the United States

makes us not immune to this, but we're

somewhat protected. And I think that's

the great thing about energy

independence.

But here we are. The markets have

digested this, priced it in, processed

it in a way that I think maybe none of

us thought it would. So maybe you could

unpack your thinking now on the market's

reaction to the war. The fear that I had

was that if there was um protracted

conflict, what you effectively would see

is a bunch of supply go offline. And if

that supply went offline and as long as

the demand stayed even roughly the same,

you would see prices go up. My thought

was that the price of oil could double.

I think Goldman had it slightly under a

doubling. So that was definitely the the

fear

what folks had going into that weekend.

But coming out of it, this is where I

think you have to be very respectful of

the fact that the market is really the

sum of many, many, many millions of

informed opinions. And I think what they

saw was that Iran was not really in a

position to do anything but capitulate

and give up.

And I think that what they also saw,

whether you agree with the Israeli

policy or not, was that they had

systematically

gone from where they are and marched

eastward. Essentially, they effectively

decapitated Hamas. They effectively

decapitated Hezbollah. They effectively

decapitated the Houthis.

I think finally putting a nail in the

coffin of this Iran nuclear ambition

program was not just important for them

but it's critical for Saudi and the UAE.

You know MBS had an incredibly powerful

quote which was if Iran gets a nuclear

weapon we will have no choice but to get

our own. Right? So by taking all of that

risk off the table, what you're now

talking about is an enormous supply that

could essentially service world

productivity needs unhindered because

it's not just Iranian supply. You're

talking about Emirati supply and you're

talking about Qatari supply and you're

talking about Saudi supply. So, I think

what the market realized was, okay, now

the Middle East is the closest it's ever

been

to fully monetizing the oil that they

have and to invest

aggressively into their own people. The

second thing is that Steve Witco

spoke about the fact that you should

expect the Abraham Accords to expand. So

if you think about that one-two punch,

not necessarily from a geopolitical

lens, but from an economic lens, the

first punch is neutering the Iranians

ability to be chaos monkeys in the

region. But the second punch is the one

that then now creates normalization

across the region with Israel.

It double and triples down the ability

to monetize oil and start to invest

those returns in future projects that

have a much better ROI. All of that

leads to cheaper energy and Iran becomes

the odd person out here in this new, you

know, federation of people in the Middle

East who want peace and normal

relations. I think it's a phenomenal

question, Jason, but I think that's what

the market sniffed out and I think

that's what the market is now saying

like that this is a chapter that we can

close and move on. This could be a big

paradigm shift and framework, the major

part of this paradigm shift that we're

seeing here comes from an investment in

energy in the United States since the

Iraq war, since the Afghanistan war. We

now are energy independent. We're a net

exporter. We've invested in solar. We've

invested in wind. We are doing more

drilling, nat gas. And this week, uh I

think we saw some new starts for nuclear

as well. So this time around when we

look at our Middle East policy, it is

not informed by our need for that oil.

Is that correct Fber? In your mind?

Well, I think you have to look at it on

a global basis. Iran exports $60 billion

a year and about 55 billion of that goes

to China and that number is up from I

believe sub 30% just a few years ago or

sub 20%. So the relationship between

Iran and China and the importance of

that relationship to China's economy and

productivity I think cannot be

understated. So independent of the

United States on a global stage, the

situation with the supply of energy and

the partnership on energy with what is

effectively the US's largest rival now

is critical to take into account when

doing the calculus on how to resolve

forward here. Which is also why and I

don't think that we have perfect

information. I don't think the public

has been given perfect information about

the statesmanship that's gone on between

the United States and China or the

conversations that gone on at a high

level between the US and China or at a

high level between the US and Russia

regarding what is the right way to

transition the region. When I look at

the region and when you'd hear about

other leaders in that region speaking

publicly, the King of Jordan, MBS from

Saudi, the Omanis from Bahrain, all of

the other leaders in that region, even

the Qataris who seem to kind of try to

straddle both sides here, they all seem

to have a very strong imperative and

incentive to modernize the Middle East,

to bring those economies into the global

stage, to bring them into kind of a

modern economy. Well, Jason, I know

you've talked about this and you've

visited and the rest of us obviously

have relationships there, but there's a

strong demand and a strong interest in

this region and modernizing. And that

modernization is going to benefit the

world because they will ultimately be

net exporters. They will ultimately net

net producers of things that everyone

else will buy and participate in. And

they will also be very big consumers.

They are already very big buyers of

American technology and American

businesses and also big financiers of

global capitalism. So in that context, I

don't think it's just about, hey, we got

to go get the oil, or hey, we got to go

get the energy. It's about how do you

balance China's need for energy, how do

you balance the Russian incentives, and

how do you help the rest of that region

modernize? And I think that's where

there's a very complex dance underway

that we have very little insight into

the details of those conversations. And

I'm not going to just sit here and be

like very flippant about, oh, we should

do this or we should do that because

there's a lot at play. And I think that

that is in my opinion the net calculus,

the bigger picture calculus that's

underway in trying to transition the

region. Sax, let me ask you a question

here. Leveling it up pretty well known.

The Israelis have nuclear weapons and

many of them and they have for some time

even though they're not part of any of

the treaties and they will claim they

don't or or be a little koi about it.

What is the argument for nobody else in

the region being allowed to have one if

the Israelis have many? And would you be

okay with Saudi having nuclear bombs?

And what is the argument we would make

to them as the West, Americans, people

who have nuclear

weapons, Russia, China have them? Why

can't Saudi have them? What's your best

argument to them of not acquiring them?

If is the Israelis have dozens to

hundreds? Well, nuclear proliferation is

not in our interest. We don't want more

countries getting nuclear weapons.

Obviously, some countries have them, but

if you use that as the rationalization

for everyone being able to have them,

then you're going to end up with 200

countries have nuclear weapons. So, I

think the nuclear non-prololiferation

regime is in the interest of the United

States. We all understand the danger of

these weapons. The more countries that

have them, the more dangerous the world

becomes. Now, it is true that

unofficially the Israelis have nuclear

weapons, but like you were saying

before, if Iran gets nukes, then Saudi

Arabia will be forced to get nukes and

so on down the line. And so there will

be a domino effect with each country

that gets nuclear weapons. More

countries around them will feel the need

that are threatened to have their own

deterrent. And the question is just

where you stop this. And I think we just

want to stop it here. We don't want more

countries getting nuclear weapons,

particularly ones that we have hostile

relations with. Yeah. And the the last

country to give up their nuclear

weapons, Ukraine. Really bad decision

perhaps, I think. Well, that was in the

'90s, actually. Yeah. Another country

gave up their nuclear weapons program,

which was Libya. Y and what happened to

Gaddafi? He got killed by rebels who

were being backed by the United States

after he gave up his nuclear weapons

program. Yeah, I think that was a really

they had them though. They actually had

the weapons, not just a program, right?

But there's some there's some truth to

that, but that's a little bit

simplifying the situation because what

happened is at the end of the Soviet

Union, there were a bunch of Soviet

nukes that were in Ukraine. But as I

understand it, the launch codes were in

Moscow. So these were Soviet nuclear

weapons that happened to be on Ukrainian

soil and then when the Soviet Union came

apart they were there but they were

always under the control of Moscow. And

so I don't think that the Ukrainians

gave up much because they were never

their nukes. It's not clear they could

have used them. And one final point on

this is that it was the Russian

government and the American government

that pressured Ukraine to comply because

we don't want more countries having

nuclear weapons. Okay, let's um get on

to this Democratic socialist who's on

the verge of becoming New York City's

mayor,

littleknown New York State Assemblyman,

Zoron Mam Donnie, took the internet by

storm this week. Shocked the world,

beating out Andrew Cuomo for the

Democratic nomination. Here's the poly

market chart. Just crazy. One month ago,

Cuomo was at 93%.

Zoron

had a 6% chance. My lord, what a flip.

A couple of things happened that led to

this. Obviously, a bunch of viral

moments. He's a great speaker. Reminds

me of Vake in in that regard. Really

good uh you know, in debates and and

speaking publicly. Started rising in the

polls. Got a ton of endorsements from

millennials, Gen Z, AOC, endorsed him as

well. And uh now he is mom Donnie is the

75% favorite to beat Eric Adams. But

looks like Eric Adams is gonna get a

shocking amount of support because

people don't want a democratic socialist

who's got some really unique and

colorful history

of becoming the mayor of one of the

greatest cities in the world, my

hometown. He wants to have free buses.

Doesn't sound like that big of a deal.

He wants to freeze rent and triple the

development of affordable housing.

City-owned government grocery stores.

That sounds crazy. a $30 minimum wage.

New York's at$,650, by the way. Uh he

wants to defund the police, replace the

cops with social workers in high crime

areas. A bunch of really wacky,

interesting proposals. And uh you were,

I think, on to this early. Freedberg, in

your predictions last year, you saw this

coming. Again, if you listen to the

number one podcast in the world, you're

gonna get this information a year

earlier than everybody else. That's why

we are the number one podcast in the

world. Freeberg, maybe you talk a little

bit about your prediction last year and

uh where we are right now and your

reaction for this. I don't know,

perplexing, shocking. Is this

perplexing, shocking, or obvious to you?

For me, it feels like actually a little

bit of a beginning of a wave that's

going to continue to sweep over this

country starting in cities. And I think

that we're at the very early stages. I

think we'll look back and I jokingly say

that Kla Harris is going to look like a

conservative candidate pretty soon. And

I do think that this is a broad kind of

reaction to the economic condition of

the United States. And I've talked a lot

of people don't quite recognize and see

how important the debt and the deficit

is with respect to how it's ultimately

going to lead to socialism as it has

every single time in history when you've

had a free voting democracy, a

representative democracy that becomes

encumbered with too much debt. So Nick,

if you'll pull up this chart, it'll just

show you a microcosm of it and

specifically how it played out in New

York and how it will continue to play

out in cities. This is the total amount

of student loan debt in the last 20

years. is the student loan debt has

ballooned from 500 billion to 2

trillion. 4 million college graduates

per year in the United States. About 40%

of them have student loan debt that they

leave. That means that in the last 20

years, 80 million people, young people

have graduated from college. And they've

accured $ 1.5 trillion of new debt. And

based on the percentage and the

distribution, that means the average

debt for these individuals is sitting

around $60,000.

So you're a young person. Where do those

young people go? Where do they live? And

remember, there's about 32 million of

them. They live in cities. They don't go

back to rural towns. Most of that

population sits in cities. It sits in

New York, sits in Los Angeles, sits in

Seattle, sits in San Francisco, sits in

Portland, and sit in Chicago. And what

we're seeing in those cities is a

massive political shift. People call it

left, but it's actually quite different

than just being more traditionally left.

It's really a revolution against the

system that brought them to this moment

because the promise that we gave in

America, the American dream was if you

will go to college, you will graduate,

you will have income, you will have

stability, you will be able to buy a

home. And what we did is we increased

the government's role in making that

dream possible. And in doing so, we

created effectively a system where we

gave unrestricted access to capital

which inflated the cost of education.

People could go to school like Zoran and

major in African studies at Bowden

College. They could get a a loan and

graduate with 200 $300,000 of debt and

then never get a job. The guy has not

had a real job. And this is the truth

for 32 million young Americans. They

find themselves living in places where

they cannot afford to pay their bills

every month and they will never get out

of the debt cycle that they were thrust

into and believe that they were going to

be able to graduate from and excel in

the world and increase. They all have

what is called negative capital. They

have debt and they will never be able to

get out of that cycle. So where do you

turn in that moment? You don't go turn

to corporations to solve your problems.

You don't go turn to your friends and

your siblings and your family. They're

not going to bail you out. You turn to

the voting booth and you hear a guy like

Zoran show up and say there can be a

better path forward. The better path

forward is the government can and should

do more to help. And in doing more to

help, we will increase government. We

will tax the rich. We will tax the

corporations. We will take all of that

capital and we will redistribute it in

the form of services and checks and

support for all of the people that find

themselves unable to take care of

themselves. And this becomes a tipping

point when the majority of the voter

base ends up in that situation where

they're that deeply in need where they

have negative capital. And that is the

situation America finds itself in today.

There is no easy answer and there is no

easy solution out of this. But I can

tell you one thing for sure that in

historical perspective we have seen it

time and time again across dozens of

countries that have embraced socialism

to get out of the debt cycle that

ultimately absorbs and and swallows up

the young. It swallows up every family.

It swallows up every person in the

working class with debt. They're

swaddled with it. And they all try and

get out of it by increasing government

and embracing these socialist concepts.

And it has never ever worked. More

government is not the answer. Less

government is. We can get into that. But

if you look at the results, Zoran won 61

to 39 with college educated. Young

people voted for him. Old people did not

as much. White people voted for him

because they went to college. Non-white

people did not as much. At the end of

the day, young collegeed educated white

people elected this guy and that is the

beginning of a wave that will sweep over

America. And I really do worry about

where this takes us. So way to go for

dummies.

Yeah. I mean the you're correct. He won

amongst Asians why it's college

educated. And to put a finer point on

it, Freeberg, it really isn't just

college. It's the cost of college.

Increases in the cost of college degrees

have outpaced the wage growth of

entry-level salaries by 10x over the

last 20 years. You could go 300,000

400,000 not in debt, but that might be

what you paid for those degrees in those

major cities and you don't believe in

capitalism anymore and you believe that

you need to tax the rich. Just one

warning for people in these states, in

these cities. We saw this sachs in San

Francisco. We saw the the the doom

spiral. You and I worked on the Ches

Bodin recall and now they have Dan Lori

there and things are starting to slowly

turn around a bit in Los Angeles. We saw

this with Karen Bass. They didn't vote

for Rick Caruso. He would have been an

amazing mayor. They voted for

incompetence. And these people are

voting for incompetence and a plan that

will not work because twothirds of the

tax base in New York is paid for by the

top 10% who are leaving. People will

leave. They will see that Austin and

Miami are fantastic cities to live in at

half the price, a third of the price,

and you get a tax break, and you can

always go back to New York and

California and hang out for a month and

get whatever values left in those cities

that hasn't been destroyed by these

socialists and the incompetent people

running them. Saxs, what are your

thoughts on what's happening in New York

City specifically? Well, you're right

that every generation seems to need to

learn this lesson for themselves because

they don't study history and they they

don't see that socialism always fails

wherever it's tried. San Francisco went

through this. I mean, it was a doom

spiral. Uh now, I think we've turned the

corner. LA is in the midst of going

through it and a large portion of LA

just burned down because there's no

water in the fire hydrants. Basically,

all the public services have been looted

and New York is about to learn this for

themselves. So it just seems like every

generation just has to learn this.

There's no way to teach them. So I do

think that that is one thing that's

going on. I I do agree with Freeberg

that a big underlying root cause here is

the student debt is the fact that these

kids have negative capital. They've got

no skin in the game. They graduate from

college with worthless degrees and

massive amounts of debt. That debt was

not used to make their education better.

Universities have been using the

spiraling tuitions to fund massive

amounts of bureaucracy, you know, for

DEI and woke and all sorts of stuff like

that. And these kids have no prospect of

getting out of debt or being able to buy

a home. So, they just have no skin in

the game. And so, this is part of why

they're they're turning against

capitalism. One thing we need to do, by

the way, is we need to make the student

debt dischargeable in bankruptcy. is one

of the only it's the only kind of debt

that you can't get out of through

bankruptcy. And if we were to make that

change, at least these kids would have a

way out. They have no skin in the game.

The universities have absolutely no

incentive to keep prices down and create

a competitive or economic incentive for

making sure that their degrees work. The

only group that possibly could would be

true capital lenders. People like banks

or underwriters that are saying, "Here's

a loan because I expect you to be able

to pay it back." There's no underwriting

in student loans today. There's no

underwriting. The student loan program,

the federal student loan program needs

to go away because when it goes away, if

it goes to zero and people might say,

"Oh, that's awful. You're taking away

education." What will happen is the

capital markets will flood to fill that

hole. Banks and lenders will show up and

they will say, "You know what? We'll

underwrite the loans." But they'll

underwrite it by saying good colleges

get the get get loans and bad colleges

don't. Good degrees get the loans, bad

degrees don't. And people that are

expected to pay back the loans will now

get loans. and all of the rest of the

money that's caused everyone to end up

in this debt spiral will stop and we'll

be able to kind of recover from it. It's

ironic that a problem that is being

caused by government is going to lead to

socialism. It's going to lead to maximum

government which will then create the

next spiral of problems. But I agree

with you. I think this is very sad. But

let me let me me also say I think

there's one other thing going on here

which is beyond just sort of the lack of

skin of the game here which is the

failure of the Democratic establishment.

It's basically completely antiquated,

desiccated and out of touch. And who was

Mam Donnie running against? Andrew Cuomo

who is really a perfect avatar for this

establishment. He's a retread. He's been

around for decades. He'd probably be

finishing his fourth term as governor

except for a harassment scandal that

forces resignation.

He's 67, which is something of a spring

chicken by the standards of Democrat

gerontocracy, but he's twice the age of

my dami, who's 33. And Cuomo hasn't even

lived in New York City for three

decades. He wanted to mount a political

comeback that no one was asking for. And

the Democratic establishment just fell

in line rather than having a proper

contest to choose a less damaged, more

dynamic candidate. He's a Nepo baby too,

right? So, you know, does this sound

familiar? I mean, this is exactly what

happened with Biden is that no one

wanted him to run again. He was

obviously a a very weak candidate, but

the Democratic establishment just fell

in line and covered up his weaknesses

and they use lawfare to take out his

opponents totally rather than trying to

find a more dynamic candidate. And by

the way, one of the reasons why Maami is

set to become mayor is because the

Democratic establishment used lawfare

against Eric Adams to basically weaken

him and take him out over some plane

tickets. I thought this was a very weak

corruption. There were upgrades. There

were upgrades even like it was so

insane. It's it's a pretty crazy pretty

crazy by political scandals. This is a

really lame one. Yeah. And it was done

because Eric Adams stepped out of line

and was willing to criticize unions and

buck unions and he was for the police.

He was basically a Democrat who was

willing to take contrarian positions on

a lot of things and they took him out

with lawfare and that is now they got

something much worse. Did you see Chuck

Schumer and Bill Clinton put out ringing

endorsements and congratulations to

Mandi this morning which you know I

think the Overton windows blown open on

this. Now, I do think that the

Democrats, to your point, Saxs, are

embracing the socialist agenda as the

new agenda that is clearly going to win

the youthful vote for them. At a 70

rating, they finally woken up to the

fact that they can't have no agenda.

They can't have nothing that they stand

for, which is effectively my read on

what's been the case for the last year

and a half, two years for the Democratic

Party. They now have something to stand

for, which is these principles of

socialism, which they call justice and

equity and fairness and redistribution

of capital and all these other features

that were kind of rung out at the

Mandani campaign and everyone embraced

and ran to. The Democratic leadership

perked up like a bunch of prairie dogs

popping out of the ground like this is

now going to be the way we're going to

win. Great. We're all over it. Let's do

it. They're accepting the inevitable.

Look, the Democratic party right now is

the Democratic establishment is in the

process of being remade now the way that

the Republican establishment was remade

a decade ago. So remember a decade ago

the Republican party was dominated by

people like Dole and McCain and Romney

and various Bush retreads and it was

antiquated and out of touch and Trump

came in there and remade it as a

nationalist populist Republican party.

And I think in a similar way, you now

have these socialists who've come in in

the Democratic party and they are

remaking the Democratic party in the

same way that that Trump replaced

neoonservatism with populist

nationalism. They are replacing

neoliberalism with you could call it

populist socialism. Yes. And those are

the choices for the future. Let me tell

you, you can basically go with you're

going to have a a populist socialism in

the Democratic party or you're going to

have a populist nationalism in the

Republican party. And to all my friends

on the tech right, your choices in the

future are not going to be neoliberalism

or neoconservatism. It's going to be do

you want republican nationalism or do

you want democrat socialism? Those are

going to be your choices. So I would get

with the program here because your

choices are MAGA or socialism. Which one

do you want? I there is a third way. But

Chimath, what are your thoughts here in

terms of there is since we're here,

there is actually a path out of here

which is telling the truth to young

people. Your college degree is not going

to get you an amazingly high-paying job.

What will get you an amazingly

high-paying job is excellence,

learning skills, and having radical

self-reliance. Being reliant on the

state, being reliant on the government

is a path to nowhere. It's a path to

pain and suffering. to constantly be

looking for this guy to create a bread

line in his own series of Costos, which

is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

That he thinks that you're going to be

able to create in New York City a series

of government-run stores. Does anybody

have any sense to the arc of history

that he wants to create breadlines and

and literally have the state provide you

with food at this promised discount?

It's absurd. Leave the state. Vote with

your feet. go to Austin, go to Miami, go

to another state where radical

self-reliance and your ability to create

your own opportunities and not get

suckered into this debt spiral. That is

the path out and that will be a new

party that will emerge at some point.

Some rational group of people are going

to say get skills, don't get debt.

Shimoth, what are your thoughts on all

this? And then we'll move on to the next

subject. I think the three of you guys

are a little exaggerated to be quite

honest. I mean, all the rhetoric sounds

very clever, but I don't think it's

accurate. I think the way that I see it

is more nuanced than this. I think

what's happened is that Zoron Mdani

is very smart and is running a playbook

to win like all politicians do based on

a formula that has been winning in large

cities for the past decade.

And so I don't know if he really

believes in this rhetoric or not, but

it's worth noting that most of his

platform is copied and pasted from

London and Chicago.

So the things that he's talked about,

universal basic free meals, affordable

housing, freezing the cost of

transportation, public grocery stores,

all three of you are reacting like these

things were pulled out of thin air.

They're not. These were the public

platforms of the mayors who have won in

London in Vienna in Havana, Cuba and in

Chicago. So I think the reason why this

works is that these are small pockets in

the end of a large political spectrum.

Even though New York feels big, it isn't

that big in the context of the United

States. And what you see is that when

you try to take those policies in a

city, take London,

and then level it up at the national

level, there's a quick schism that

happens. So if you look at labor and

labor trying to scale up the policies of

a Sadi Khan in London throughout the

country, Labor is now at the absolute

the Labor Party the absolute lowest

approval ratings in the UK of any party

ever in this moment in time after an

election. So I think what you're

probably seeing is quite a sophisticated

AB test. And I think that the political

wingmen and the money people that want

to be in control

know how to run candidates on platforms

that can win. And this is a clear

winning strategy in left-leaning major

metropolitan centers. So what I would

say just to refine what you guys are

saying is that this platform is not new.

I've seen it for the last decade. I

think you're going to see it for the

next few decades. it doesn't work.

And so you're going to see the same

results in New York City that you've

already seen in London, which has become

unlivable sadly. One of my favorite

cities in the world. If you don't

believe it, go visit there.

Chicago, which I haven't been to in 15

years and will never go to. It's a

disaster. So my my point is it just

doesn't work. So you can win.

It actually isn't very effective and it

doesn't scale to the national level.

When do you think it returns, Jimat?

Like what's the reversal? Like do you

think the reversal is everyone has some

experience with crime? Is the reversal

like the city's bankrupt? Is the

reversal your house is burning. You

don't have you're unemployed.

Unemployment hits with water in the

pipes. I'll tell you something which is

my view. My view is much more basic.

It's it's much less sophisticated than I

think what you're saying. My extremely

simpleton view of things is that humans

swing in a pendulum-like fashion between

poles and over multi-deade arcs you go

between the thing that works to the

thing that should work now because it's

not the thing before. So, I suspect what

happens is that New York takes a 40 or

50-year journey and at some point it

will look like New York of the 80s. And

at that point, you'll have an Ed Cook-l

like figure. You'll have a David

Dinkens-like figure. You'll have a

Michael Bloomberg like figure. You'll

have the broken windows theory of

policing reemerge as the cause celeb

and the cycle will repeat itself. So, I

tend to think that these things are just

between two poles. We've spent a lot of

time in this more independent

self-reliance poll.

A lot of people will want to experiment

with this other thing. It just doesn't

prove to work. And in the absence of

something cataclysmically bad, I don't

think it's going to change. Having lived

there and experienced Dinkens and, you

know, Cotch to Dinkens and then Giuliani

to Bloomberg, I can tell you it's going

to be reallying miserable to be in a

Dinkens era. The city was chaos. It was

dangerous. If you got off the wrong

subway stop, it was going to result in

you getting robbed at gun. They're gonna

have to go through They're gonna have to

go through that. That's London today.

The the London subway cost $35 to go

from the suburbs of London into the

center of London. $35. Okay, that is

ridiculous, right? You can't walk with

your cell phone in central London

anymore cuz there are more cell phone

thefts than anything. There's knife

attacks everywhere.

Why is that?

Well, you've had an agenda that was

meant to be this socialist left-leaning

let's resolve all these problems for

everybody and it turns out to not work

at a very basic factual level and every

time it's been repeated over the last 15

years, it still hasn't worked. So, if

you think that this guy is going to be

the exception that proves the rule in

New York, I wish him the best of luck.

But I would be short New York real

estate. I think it's going to crash and

burn and then we'll pick up the pieces

and we'll reset. All right, let me pick

up on on something Jamal said about U M

what's his name? Zoran

say the Zoron.

Do you guys remember that movie Big and

he would go to the arcade and wasn't it

called Ask Zoron and you and Zoron?

Ask Zoron, can I have free pizza? I'm

going to run for New York mayor and I'm

offering everybody free pizza and

bagels. I'm going to win. Let me let me

let me pick up on on what said about

Zoran running an effective campaign

because it is true. And I think one of

his best moments was during a debate

where the moderator asked the

candidates, "Which foreign country would

you visit first as mayor of New York

City?" And the other candidates said,

"Ukraine or Israel?" They're basically

virtue signaling. And then they get to

Mamani and he said, "Nowhere. I wouldn't

go anywhere. I would stay in New York

City. I would work for the people here.

I wouldn't be going to foreign capitals.

And he just crushed that answer. Now,

his political solutions, his programs

are not going to work. But the reason

why he's catching fire is partly because

he is putting New York first. The same

way that President Trump is putting

America first. The American people are

sick and tired of the politicians

focusing on far away places instead of

their problems at home. Yes, it's like

the Biden administration going off and

defending the border of Ukraine while

leaving the border of the United States

wide open. And I think that even, you

know, over the last couple weeks, you

saw that substantial majorities of the

American people did not want to get into

a new Middle Eastern war. And I think

this is the failure of both the

neoliberals and the neoconservatives,

which aren't that far apart. They are

clinging to this postw World War II

fantasy of America being this global

empire where we have to be the global

policeman while America back home is

collapsing or at least rotting suffering

and they suffering they want the

politicians to be focusing on our

problems back 100% and Karen Bass is

that moment like if you need to

understand that moment she's in Ghana

she knew this place was going to go on

fire she extends her trip she doesn't

come back like just to the highest

degree all All right. There's a lot of

other stuff on um the docket. I I we

could go two ways, but I I think

Freeberg, I want to get you involved

since I know you got to get to a

meeting. Can we go to the AI story,

which I think you would care most about,

or you want to go Marcus Freeberg?

Lady's choice. Freeberg, you choose. Or

do you want me to do Science Corner real

quick cuz then you guys can keep going.

I love Science Corner. Absolutely. Uh

ready guys, it's time for a bathroom

break. I'm sorry. Science corner. Uh for

It's time for Sax. Is that funny? Here

we go. I don't get why that's funny.

Two. One. Science. He's taking a leap. I

think he's taking a leap in a bottle.

Did he finish the tequila bottle?

Sacks. Get back on camera. I don't get

it. I need the head of science. He's

drinking. That's it. When Science Corner

starts, we all do a double of that allin

premia premium tequila tequila. So

smooth. It makes you forget about

science corner, right? It even makes

Science Corner less sufferable. I'm not

feeling any pain. No pain. No pain.

Zach, you know you're in charge of

science for the government, right? I am.

Under duress. Under duress. No, that's

that's Michael Pratzios. I just do my

two issues. I've got AI and crypto. All

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We're not doing any private promos on

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He's got his own side deals. Exactly.

He's doing a side deal right now. He's

doing his deal. It's called Wet Your

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the guy at the valet stand who's putting

the tips in his own pocket instead of

putting them in the kitty. It's called

entrepreneurship. It's called

entrepreneurship. You want your car out

front. Nick, I want I want to bleep. I

want to bleep and blur out all of that

stuff. Yeah. Pixelate this. Just

pixelate it. You guys want to talk about

age reversal? Okay. Yeah, let's talk

about age reversal while I hit this. As

is the case with most cutting edge

science nowadays, it is coming out of

China, not out of the United States. So

this research study was done on age

reversal. We've talked about using these

Yamanaka factors to change the epigenome

of cells and make them youthful again.

In this particular case, the study was

done on engineering stem cells that were

then placed into the bodies of monkeys

and reverse the age of these monkeys on

the order of what would be the

equivalent in humans of several decades

of age reversal. It's a pretty amazing

and astounding result. So cell therapy

is the modality that would be kind of

employed at scale for humans to utilize

this tool. There's a lot of work that's

been done in age reversal in mice, some

work in primates, some work in humans

now, and there's obviously a few

startups doing this based on the studies

and research around Yamanaka factors. So

kind of changing the epigenome and

effectively getting cells to act

youthful again. In this particular case,

this team focused on a specific gene

that it is known that when this gene is

expressed or overexpressed, meaning the

gene is turned on, it actually creates a

whole bunch of signaling molecules,

little tiny molecules that then get

absorbed by other cells and tell those

cells to start to act young again and

reset those cells. And that gene is

called FOX03.

So what this research team did is they

took stem cells

And they engineered them using crisper

to get them to overexpress FOX3. And so

now these cells start making this FOX3

protein. And when that cell starts

making that FOX3 protein, it actually

makes a whole bunch of other molecules,

little small proteins, little molecules.

They then get packaged up into what are

called exoomes. These are like little

packets that get spun out of the cell

and they get absorbed by other cells and

trigger those cells, we don't know how,

we don't know why necessarily to start

acting young again. So they engineered

these stem cells, overexpressed FOX03

and then put these stem cells in these

monkeys. And these monkeys were kind of

the equivalent of being 60 years old.

And then they looked at what happened.

So what happened? Well, they looked at

tissue, they looked at blood, and they

did MRIs and scans of the brain. And

what they found is that the monkeykey's

brains effectively started to get

completely rewired and act like young

brains again. They were able to increase

their memory, increase their

responsiveness. Their age related

atrophy reversed. So their brains

actually grew. Uh their bone started to

grow, their muscle started to grow,

their blood cells started to reverse

aging signals. So across bone

degeneration reversed. They looked at 61

different tissues from 10 distinct

systems in the uh the bodies of these

monkeys after they received the stem

cell treatment and uh 54% of the tissue

examined showed reversal of age. In the

case of lungs they saw in monkeys it was

a four-year age reversal which is 12

years in humans. Skin reversed by 6

years which is the equivalent of 18

years in humans. So imagine a

60-year-old person taking this suddenly

they're 40 years old in their skin.

skeletal muscle went by 5 years in the

monkeys, which is the equivalent of 15

years in humans. So imagine going from

being 60 years old to having the body of

a 45year-old in terms of muscles, the

spleen, the brain, all across these

different systems. They saw significant

signals of age reversal. And then they

identified these little exosomes. These

are like little sacks that are spun out

of the cell and then they go into other

cells and they start to trigger all of

this age reversal cascade that happens.

And by the way, they saw no side

effects. They saw no negative health

effect. There was no increase in cancer.

These are the sorts of things you

typically look for. And in tissue, in uh

blood cells, in MRI, across the board,

they saw age reversal. So, it was a

really kind of incredible result. And I

think that it opens up the door for this

idea of using cell therapy based on stem

cells that are engineered to be injected

into blood to actually reverse aging in

humans. And I think that we should

expect over the next couple of years

these sorts of trials to kind of begin

to see if we can see similar results.

There's a lot of background work by the

way in FOX3 in this particular gene. A

lot of background work in engineering

stem cells. A lot of background work

obviously in Yamanaka factor and other

age reversal that predicated this. But

this particular paper, I think, put a

lot of things together and showed some

some pretty nice results. Do you think

Yamanaka factors

are the thing still, or do you think

that there's going to be a lot of other

genetic manipulations that

advance age reversal before Yamanaka

factors do? The latter is more of this

what we call like a complex cascade of

proteins and molecules that we haven't

identified yet, that we don't know how

or why they do what they do. That's what

we just saw with this study. We don't

know what's in those exosome sacks and

we don't know why they cause other cells

to reverse their age. We don't quite

understand the mechanism. It's really

hard. So I think that this becomes sort

of call it an easier path. Whereas with

the Yamanaka factors, if you apply too

much, the cells don't just rejuvenate,

they can become, you know, cancerous.

Let me let me ask it more directly.

Other than the novelty of all of this,

do you think there will be something in

the market, some injectable or something

that's average people like us can take

in the next 5 or 10 years to solve a

problem that we have or to live longer

with higher health? Yes, there are

clinicals underway right now and I know

of the clinical trials that are underway

like in stage three, you're saying phase

three clinical trials early stage one in

humans like 1A. Yeah, very early. So

maybe a decade from now. I think that's

right. Well, look, I mean, let's see

what the FDA does, but the FDA is trying

to accelerate outcomes here, as you

know. Blake Buyers came to my house for

poker.

He's sponsoring a study at UCSF, which I

thought was incredible. You know, the

gene that allows Donald Trump to sleep

four hours. Yeah, they've isolated that

gene. Yeah. Clinton had that gene, too.

and Blake is sponsoring a trial to

basically

edit a handful of subjects who want that

gene to see if they can sleep 4 hours

and be rested. So, I don't know if you

guys know this and he explained this to

me and it makes so much sense, but I

didn't realize it. We sleep 20 years of

our life we're sleeping. Yeah. And so,

if you can cut it in half, you get an

extra 10 years of living. If you think

about it like that way, that is an

incredible reason to, you know, do the

gene editing to get the Trump gene.

But the the thing that nobody knows what

the Well, this is all day and play poker

all night. The thing that they don't

know is, you know, Trump and Clinton

were born with that gene from day one.

And what they don't know is what could

go wrong if you injected and manipulated

yourself in the at the age of 30 or 40