Tucker Carlson: ICE Raids, LA Riots, Strong Economic Data, Politicized Fed, War with Iran?
2767 segments
Can I ask a question about the nicotine
pouches? Yes. Does it melt in your mouth
or do you have to spit it out later? You
can spit it out. You can swallow it or
you just savor it. I mean, you throw it
in like a you would a dip of tobacco.
Okay. But you just let it sit there and
then it suses your nervous system with
life-giving nicotine and it it really
does feel like the hand of God is
massaging you. But does it feel like the
high of smoking a cigarette? It's
simultaneously, if you can imagine the
Zen paradox, higher alertness
accompanied by deep relaxation.
So, you you really are No, no, it it's a
zen experience. You're like cat-like in
your readiness, but you're fully And how
long does it last? I always have one
going. Sometimes if things are, you
know, if I need it, I'll I'll put
another one in. So, I've got 18 milligs
of nicotine. But that gives me an unfair
advantage. You're banging 18 milligrams.
Woo. That's impressive. I don't like to
because it everybody else kind of
recedes into the background and I become
this kind of colossus when I do that and
I feel guilty about it. Hubris is
inevitable at that point. So I usually
keep it to one. I mean I could use a new
addiction. Oh yes. What's the gateway
drug level? Uh what would you prescribe?
sits between caffeine and they sell a 3
mig but you know there's a transition
like all all great addictions like it's
not instant you you do vomit at first
but then but then your body acclimates
it's kind of like heroin in that way you
know like when you oric you just you got
to power through IA you heat twice and
then you're addicted and then
enlightenment
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let your winners
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Rainman David
and we open sourced it to the fans and
they've just gone crazy with it. Love
you.
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All right everybody, welcome back to the
number one podcast in the world after
Tucker Carlson's amazing podcast. That's
right. Tucker is back here on the All-In
podcast with Chimath Polio Hapia, your
chairman dictator and the Zar David
Saxs. Not from the White House, he's
from the suite, but he's here back on
the program looking great. Look at the
collar. Brion. I ordered three or four
bronies after last week's show, guys. I
did. I'm getting in the Brony. Well, I
have the all- in expense accounts now.
What' you call it? Brony. Brion. He'll
be paying for it over 72 months. 72
monthly payments. the layaway. You as a
firm or CLA. Pray for that.
Hey, uh Tucker, last time you were here,
uh you famously famously gosh, we been a
year of feedback on your last
performance. Thank you for coming back.
We got a lot of crazy feedback from the
private equity housewives, but I got
more feedback.
They love me. But you know what? You're
in you're in deep. you're in deep
because I I'm here in LA and the Los
Angeles studio wives group is really
really pissed off at you because they
feel that they're the problem. They feel
they're a much bigger problem than
private equity housewives. So, Hollywood
Studio heads wives versus private equity
wives. I know some of them um and
they're absolutely a bigger problem, but
there are fewer of them. God, it's kind
of hard to get critical mass. Yeah,
exactly. They're they're a smaller
threat. They're kind of an elite unit.
You know what I They're like Delta
Force. Got it. They have less money,
too. You know, they don't get as much in
the divorce as these private equity
wives. Got it.
So, they they're coming in like a SWAT
team. If you want to send them in to
deal with a very specific issue, great.
But they're not going to cause as much
bedum globally as the private. They
cause a lot of misery though, as one
McKenzie Bezos. Exactly.
Oh my god. All right. Listen, let's get
a plug in here. All-in summit, fourth
year. Tucker's coming this year, I hope.
Uh, September 7th to 9th in Los Angeles.
The goal, have the world's most
important conversations, yada yada yada,
blah blah blah. Apply for a ticket.
Allin.com/ yada yada yada or
allin.com/summit
to apply for a ticket. Freeberg is out
this week. So, Tucker is here and my
lord, a lot going on in the news. Let's
start with the immigration protests
slash riots slash ice actions in Los
Angeles. I'm actually here last Friday.
Protests broke out after ICE raided Home
Depot, a fashion wholesaler. In total,
44 people were arrested by ICE. 10 times
as many, 400 and counting, from the
protests. They even ran into uh ICE that
is ran into a strawberry field in Oxnard
uh to just randomly pick people up. It
seems uh at least a half dozen Whimos
were vandalized and burned. 20 plus
businesses looted
and uh Whimo narrowed their area and
it's spiked to 30-minute wait times. Uh
so that's a first world problem. Riders
throwing bricks, Molotov cocktails,
shooting fireworks at law enforcement.
Completely unacceptable. Two men were
charged with throwing molotov cocktails
at officers.
Trump deployed the National Guard, 2,000
at first, then 4,000 apparently.
And uh apparently there's a battalion of
Marines here, 700 of them. Karen Bass
instituted a curfew downtown LA 8:00
p.m. to 6:00 a.m. And uh prosecutors,
federal prosecutors that is, are trying
to identify hundreds of people. Nuome
Bass denounced the raids obviously and
uh they're blaming Trump for escalating
the situation. Trump and members of the
White House responded by calling out
California's weak leadership and now we
have protests popping up everywhere
else. New York, Chicago, Austin, DC.
Tucker, you grew up in Southern
California, I think. You I did. Yeah. LA
and La Hoya. I mean, are these riots
more or less than a Lakers championship?
Uh how concerning are they to you? Who's
to blame?
Well, as measured by violence, they're
less profound than, you know, what
happened in 2020 after George Floyd
died. They're way less dangerous than
say the Watts riot um or the Rodney King
riots in LA, but they're much more
profound. I mean, it it really does.
They're certainly a bigger deal than
anything that happened in Fort Sumpter,
for sure, which kicked off the bloodiest
war in American history. The federal
government has as a core duty uh the
right and responsibility to enforce
immigration law and police the borders.
That's what the government is. That's
what the federal government is really.
And so if you contest that, it is like a
threat to disunion fundamentally. I
mean, I think there's a lot at stake.
And we reached this point because a
series of paradoxically weak federal
governments allowed sanctuary cities to
continue literally for decades. each one
its own form of insurrection against the
central government. And maybe maybe you
don't believe that the federal
government has a right to pass laws
restricting immigration. It's not in
charge of the integrity of the borders.
You know, that that's a kind of
philosophical or constitutional case I
guess you could make. But most people
accept that those are federal duties.
And once you accept that, you can't
allow states or municipalities to flout
the law any more than you could allow
Central High School in Little Rock to
keep black students out or whatever. I
mean, certainly federal troops have been
called in for much less. And I think the
longer this continues,
the greater the threat of disunion, the
greater the threat of reaching a point
where you I don't know, you can't drive
from New York to LA. We take a lot for
granted in the country. And the main
thing we take for granted, I think, is
freedom of movement between states. But
you could easily imagine that ending
like soon in the same way that you can't
drive from, and I cuz I've tried from S.
Apollo to to Rio in Brazil, pretty first
world country. It's too dangerous to do
that. You could easily see that
happening here. So, I think once the
Trump administration commits to putting
down the riots, to enforcing federal law
by force, it kind of can't back away
from that. Like I, you know, and that
raises a question, who's funding these,
etc., etc. And I think it's a really
interesting question. We should find
out. I don't think the only arrest
should be on the scene. I do think the
drug cartels are involved flexing their
authority in California. They have a lot
of control in California as I'm sure you
know, etc., etc. But the bottom line
question is, does the federal government
have a right to enforce federal
immigration law? Yes. And if states are
out of compliance with that, it doesn't
have any option but to force the issue.
Traumatha,
when you see this amount of
paramilitary, milit literal military
coming in, the dragging of, you know,
handymen from Home Depot, as opposed to
the strategic way this started, which
was, hey, we're going to go after the
felons, we're going after the gang
members, the really bad folks. And then
this time now it seems like, hey, we're
just going to roll up to a farm. We're
going to roll up to a Home Depot. Just
grab everybody. We'll figure it out
later if their, you know, papers check
out or not. Are you in favor of the,
hey, all 20 million got to go? I'll call
that the Steve Bannon position. Or are
you into in the 5% of alien, illegal
aliens who are criminals, they need to
go, but maybe a path to citizenship for
the other 19 million. I think the
president was asked a version of that
question today, Jason. And I think what
he said is there are people that have
worked for example on farms for 20 to 25
years or they work in the leisure
industry. And he said we have to take a
common sense approach to those people
because if you do take those people then
it's creating a vacuum where these jobs
could get filled by folks that are
essentially criminals or other things.
So I believe that that's a reasonable
starting point. What I would say is
where do we go?
There are seven and a half
legal, not illegal, legal immigrants in
the United States waiting for their
adjustment of status.
Those are doctors, those are lawyers,
those are scientists, those are family
members of existing American citizens.
There's an entire body of people that I
think we have to recognize that have
been waiting in line and their first act
in America was a legal action to come in
and contribute. And every time we start
this conversation,
we go to the plight of people whose
fundamental first action was an illegal
action without understanding that there
has to be actually a more balanced
approach. So yes, I think the president
is right. common sense for the folks
that have now been here for a very long
time. But we have to prioritize the
people that started by saying we're
going to wait in line properly and then
there's people in the middle. But I
think that there needs to be a way to
give those folks a chance to get their
affairs in order, but they should be
playing by the rules. Got it. And I
think it's unfair to reward not playing
by the rules. Okay. So some middle
ground between the extreme all 20
million got to go and the
one example that I saw online Jason was
give folks a stipend and a year. Yes.
The stipen's been out there for a while
right to get their affairs in order and
then Kaizen said that right Kaizen said
that exactly and I think I think
Kaizen's clip is actually the most the
most rational for the middle chunk.
But I would really focus on these legal
folks and say what are we doing about
those folks whose first action was to
raise their hand, stand in line and say
I want to contribute by the rules that
America sets. So reward them and then
punish the illegal folks coming in.
Adjudicate everybody else or adjudicate
everybody else. Love it. Okay, Sax, I'm
going to play two clips here to level
this up and we can kind of look at this
in a multi-deade way. Here's Reagan on
immigration and then followed by
Clinton. It is bold men and women
yearning for freedom and opportunity who
leave their homelands and come to a new
country to start their lives over. They
believe in the American dream. And over
and over they make it come true for
themselves, for their children, and for
others. But their greatest contribution
is more than economic because they
understand in a special way how glorious
it is to be an American. They renew our
pride and gratitude in the United States
of America, the greatest, freest nation
in the world, the last best hope of man
on earth. All Americans, not only in the
states most heavily affected, but in
every place in this country, are rightly
disturbed by the large numbers of
illegal aliens entering our country.
That's why our administration has moved
aggressively to secure our borders more
by hiring a record number of new border
guards by deporting twice as many
criminal aliens as ever before. We are a
nation of immigrants, but we are also a
nation of laws. It is wrong and
ultimately self-defeating for a nation
of immigrants to permit the kind of
abuse of our immigration laws we have
seen in recent years, and we must do
more to stop it. Okay, Sachs, my
question for you is on a party basis,
this seems to have flipped. We talked
about this before on the program,
Republicans wanted immigration, NAFTA,
legal reg uh even maybe an open border
where workers could go freely back and
forth from Mexico, kind of like the EU.
And uh Clinton
wanted to deport folks so that Americans
get could have more jobs and that wages
would go up. Now, it seems to have
flipped. Obviously, you're inside the
administration. Disclaimer, disclaimer,
whatever you however you want to
disclaim this. What's in the best
interest of all Americans going forward?
Because we have an interesting wrinkle
here which I'm sure you've been thinking
about as the AI ZAR which is jobs are
going away in a lot of key fac.
So you have to contend with what the
American people want and AI and job
destruction or displacement that could
be caused by it. So what are your
thoughts generally and and I obviously
you work in the administration so I want
to give you that chance to explain
personal versus administration position.
Well my reaction is that you're doing
everything possible to avoid the fact
that LA is on fire right now and law
enforcement is being assaulted by riers
who look like an invading army. They're
rioting under a foreign flag. Yeah.
You're showing clips of Reagan and
Clinton. What the hell does this have to
do with the fact that there are riots in
LA right now?
Oh, I was trying to This is the issue at
hand. Oh, I was trying to level up the
conversation to talk about the big
picture of immigration, but if we want
to get down changing the conversation, I
think the No, I I'm I'm trying to
expand. But Hold on, hold on, hold on.
If you're going to accuse me personally
of like having a scale here, I'm happy
to discuss law enforcement January 6th
or this one. I believe you should not
beat up cops. I come from a family of
cops. You know that we've been friends
for over 20 years. My family is cop. My
family is firefighter. We don't approve
of throwing moral tough cocktails at
cops. Period. Full stop. I am insulted
if you even insinuate that. I didn't
insinuate that, but we have not
discussed the issue at hand, which is
you can feel free to go is burning right
now. By the way, if you don't want to
get deported, try not rioting under a
foreign flag. I mean, it's just a stupid
way to advocate for your position if
that's what it is. But that's that's the
topic of the week right now. I don't
know why you're trying to uplevel this
and talk about what Reagan thought 40
years ago. It's just not relevant to
what's happening in the news today. Now,
you asked what is the quote unquote
American position if there is one. I can
give you some polling on that. So, first
of all, voters approve of the ICE raids
in Los Angeles by 55 to 37. That's plus
18. Voters support the administration's
effort to deport illegal immigrants by
5837. That's plus 21. They approve of
Trump deploying the National Guard by 20
points, 5939.
Only 36% say the administration's gone
too far, while 55% say it's about right
or too little. So at plus 19. And even
the liberal uh Quinnipiac poll found
that Democrats approved numbers are at a
new all-time low of minus 49, whereas
Trump is now up to plus six in Morning
Consult and plus eight in Rasmusen. So,
I think the American people approve of
what the administration is doing here.
And just to fact check, one thing you
said in the introduction, you mentioned
this fashion wholesaler that along with
Home Depot, you made it sound like these
raids were just happening willy-nilly,
like there's some big roundup where they
were just busting into places and seeing
who's illegal, checking people's papers.
That's not what happened. This fashion
wholesaler is a moneyaundering operation
for the Mexican cartels. This is
according to Tom Hman. and many
employees there are involved in very
serious crimes, drug gang and violence,
murder, child rape, and there were
warrants for their arrest. So, the way
that this whole thing started is ICE was
serving criminal warrants
that state and local authorities have no
right to resist. That's how this
started. It wasn't random roundups.
Okay. Okay. I was just there's reporting
that Steven Miller specifically said
just he was disappointed with the number
of people being round up and deported
and he said just go to a farm just go to
Home Depot. So I mean that's the
reporting. Okay. Well, I have not been
able to confirm that reporting. I don't
I personally don't believe it. I think
that what Tom Holman said is that they
were serving criminal warrants. That's
how this started. Okay. Now, I think
that part of the reason why the
Democrats are so unpopular here is
they're basically perceived as excusing
the lawlessness by saying that it's only
happening because the Trump
administration's daring to enforce the
law. And so once again, they're siding
with lutters, arsonists, and violent
criminals just like in 2020. And who's
who's siding? This is Democrats. Okay?
Because the Democrats, they said no
violence. So that was many times Gavin
Newsen said no violence. Karen Bass said
no violence. They they've been tweeting.
They also Okay, great. They also are
saying that this is all Trump's fault
that Trump started this. Bassid Newsome
said that the National Guard wasn't
needed because LAPD had everything under
control. But LAPD was at first told to
stay out of the protests and when the
violence erupted and that forced him to
step in, they were according to their
own chief of police, Jim McDonald,
quickly overwhelmed. So this is
McDonald. He said, quote, "We are
overwhelmed. Tonight we had individuals
out there shooting commercial grade
fireworks at our officers that can kill
you. They'll take backpacks filled with
cinder blocks and hammers, break the
blocks, and pass the piece around to
throw officers and cars, even at other
people. So according to their own chief
of police, they needed the help from the
National Guard. So that's the real issue
here is that Bass and Nuome had this
policy of of doing nothing and then
engaging in denialism, pretending like
there wasn't a problem, and then when
the problem got too big to ignore, they
pretend like it's Trump's fault for
causing it. Tucker, what's your thoughts
on should the Trump administration have
had such a show of force? If the reports
are true that they're randomly going,
you know, to a Home Depot, if that is
true, is that the right approach right
now or is it, you know, a little too
provocative and they should do this more
strategically in your personal opinion?
Uh, well, considering that we have
American troops in over a 100 bases
around the world in countries most
Americans can't identify, it's a little
weird to be shocked when on that rare
occasion they're used to keep the second
biggest city in the country from burning
down. It seems like a the point of
having a military is to keep foreigners
from burning your cities. And these are
foreigners as David said. They're
foreign nationals committing crimes
beneath a foreign flag. So that if there
was ever a time to use the US military,
it's then. And as noted earlier, you
can't allow the states to be flagrantly
out of compliance with federal
immigration law. And I have to say the
core question for me as an American is a
really a fairness question. So the idea
that, you know, people are breaking the
law, but it's cool because they're doing
essential services, like, well, you
know, I pay a lot in taxes. Maybe I pay
80% and that feels like enough to me.
And hey, man, do you really have a right
to collect the the last 20%. I mean,
isn't 80% enough? Like, back off. I
don't have the right to say that as an
American citizen to an IRS agent, I wind
up in jail if I do that or if I break
any law, by the way. It's a rule of law,
critically important. No, but not only
that, it's a double standard. And and I
live in a place where a lot of the
population subsists on food banks and
where there very few jobs and it really
is one of those places that NAFTA
destroyed whose economy NAFTA destroyed
and to see in the place where I live
immigrants get preference on housing on
jobs which is actually true and I know
that liberals watching be like that's
not really true. It is true actually and
I and I wonder cuz the real number is
not 20 million it's closer to 50
million. I think that's true uh illegals
in the United States. Clearly, they
can't all be deported by ICE. But I also
think if you have a system that hands
out
meaningful grants in effect, cell
phones, travel vouchers, housing
vouchers, free education, food stamps to
people who are here legally or who are
here legally as refugees, you are going
to draw the world's poor. And I think
it's fair to ask, do we want that? How
do we benefit from that? And are we
giving more to foreigners than we're
giving to our own citizens? And the
answer is yes. And like how dare you at
a certain point like you get a
revolution if you keep doing that.
That's too much. It's too offensive. Got
it. So I think we all agree no violence
on cops, shut the southern border and
giving crazy amount. Let me just think
the National Guard should never brought
in. You let me ask questions, don't you?
Do you think the National Guard should
be brought in? Yes or no? If the local
police can't handle what's going on, of
course they should be brought in. Sure.
I believe that during
are questioning that decision. You ask
me the question. I believe they should
have been brought in for January 6th for
BLM or for the LA riots if the local
police can't contain them. 100% I
believe the National Guard should have
been brought in for January 6th when
they were beating cops. I believe they
should be brought in now if cops are
being beaten. And I believe they should
have been brought in during BLM when
cops were being beaten. I am pro cop. I
come from a family of cops. So you can
ask me the questions. So Newsome and
Bass are out of line when they say that
the National Guard should not have been
brought in. I think well number one I
think they should call the National
Guard if they can't control it. I'm not
But that's their criticism of Trump is
that he called in the National Guard.
You agree that that was necessary. It's
obviously necessary. Just look at the
TV. The still on fire. The cops are
completely overwhelmed.
By the way, I find it comical that Well,
let me stretch this one point then you
can speak. Yeah. I find it comical that
permission the Massachusetts governor
called up the National Guard when Dantis
sent remember when he sent the 50
migrants over to Arthur's Vineyard. Yes.
And they all freaked out and they
literally called the National Guard in
because 50 migrants all of a sudden had
been flown into Marthur's Vineyard. They
did. Yeah. Okay. But was that you can
have you can have them or because there
was riots? Well, that was when Dantis
was making a point about but that was to
process them. They weren't rioting on
Martha's Vineyard. These were just
nonetheless the National Guard was
brought in and you know you can have
thousands of people though riding in LA
but somehow the National Guard shouldn't
be brought in. I we we're in agreement.
So you can try to force me to disagree
with you but I'm in agreement. Anytime
the cops are overwhelmed I think the
National Guard should be brought in.
Period. Full stop. So we're in agreement
on that. What I'm trying to get to is
Tucker, if you believe there's 50
million people, let's say the numbers 30
million. We we split the difference
between the two, 35 million, whatever it
is. My question for you, how many should
be deported by ICE at $20,000 a person,
which is the estimate that, you know,
both sides seem to agree is what it's
going to cost. Should we deport a
million? Should we deport 10 million?
And then how, Tucker Carlson, would you
deport them?
Well, I think the goal has to be
full compliance with the law for
everybody within our borders, citizen or
foreignb born, illegal, refugee, green
card holder. If you're in the United
States, you obey our laws. And if you
don't, we make a good faith effort to
enforce them despite how powerful the
political block may be. 50 million. So,
so of well, of by definition, or else
why wouldn't I apply that same standard
to my taxes, right? So, but how do you
do it? Citizenship. Yeah. Let's get into
that. Yeah. Right. So, well, that's a
hostage situation. It's like we've got
50 million here already. We've lied
about the number for 30 years now. Wow.
It's 50 million or 35 million. We need
them. everyone gets a path to
citizenship,
you know, that's a kind of crime
actually. But the first step, and the
phrase has been devalued, but
self-deportation,
if you have a system where people come
to the United States to make their own
way and take advantage of the freedoms
offered in the economy, uh, they're
allowed to participate in the economy,
then I think you could have a system
where people really admire immigrants in
the way that they did when I was growing
up and that I I still do in some ways. I
mean, some of my favorite people are
immigrants and they all tell the same
story. Came here with nothing, built
this great life, but you make everybody
cynical and you sort of destroy the idea
of the virtue of immigration when you
hand people stuff and give them
preference when they arrive. And we
don't talk enough about what that
actually looks like. We spend a lot more
than 20 grand a person right now in
subsidies to people who aren't even
allowed to be here. They pay into social
security too, right? to the tune of 100
million years. Oh, okay. Right. No, no,
that's just what was reported by our
government. If we want to get conspiracy
corner, that's I think those are fake. I
think those are fake numbers. Look, does
anybody really believe that 50 million
illegals is a net benefit to the US
economy? Are you serious? Have you been
to our cities? No, of course not. It's
not. I actually probably a large number
of them are a net benefit because
they're working in jobs that Americans
don't want to take and we're at 4%
unemployment. So, who's going to take
all those jobs if they get deported?
Chucker, aren't But weren't you just
saying that we're on the cusp of a of a
labor revolution where some you 20% of
American jobs are going away in 2 years?
It could be. Yeah. So that's the that's
the nuance in this discussion is 5 years
ago we might be dealing. It's like a
brick wall we're about to hit at high
speed. And I don't understand having
accustomed an entire generation of tens
of millions of immigrants to government
handouts what the social fabric is going
to look like when that stops. Yeah. Can
I say something cuz I I Tucker is saying
something really important which I agree
with. What should immigration be in a
highly developed nation like the United
States and my perspective is you have to
come and say well what is the goal? I
think the goal should be to maintain
supremacy. The United States is the most
vibrant economy in the world. It's the
most important military power in the
world. It's the most technically
advanced entity in the world. If we do
not focus on maintaining our supremacy,
I don't think any American wants to go
through the process of going from first
to not first.
And if you look back in history at all
of the other countries that have had to
go through that transition, that is
where revolutions and chaos happen. So
we should avoid that. So where does
immigration play a role? It needs to
play a role first and foremost in
technical, military, and economic
supremacy. The problem, as Tucker says,
is when you have five or six times the
number of illegal immigrants as legal
immigrants, all of a sudden the idea of
using immigration as a cream skimming
technique to reinforce the most capable
people in the world to come here goes
away because you can't have that
conversation. We have people languishing
for 10, 15, 20 years on visas, okay?
Their kids age out. They all go back to
India and other places.
Why? Because we can't focus on that
conversation, Jason, because we're
focused on how do we give amnesty to
folks whose initial action was breaking
the law. Absolutely correct. And this is
where the whole immigration conversation
devolves. We are missing the bigger
picture and you need to deal one second.
You need to deal with the illegal
immigration thing in an extremely
foundational way where you can defend
the decision. You started illegally
and you have to now go and conform to
the law which is where I'm trying to
steer this discussion. Number one, we
all agree on closing the border. It
seems like there's a a breaking
consensus here. Tucker wants to
eventually deport everybody. You want to
do something in the middle like Trump.
Sax, I'm not sure what your personal
position is or if you want to give it.
Do you feel we should try to have a path
to deport as many of these 20 30 million
as possible or do you believe we should
have a path towards uh citizenship for
them? What is your personal belief or do
you want to not get Well, I I remember
when you asked that question to now vice
president JD Vance at all summit and he
said that you basically address that
problem the same way that you eat a
sandwich, which is one bite at a time.
So that makes sense to me. If there's 20
million illegals, you start with the top
million who are violent criminals and
gang members and you deport those. And
that is what ICE was doing. They were
serving criminal warrants. And then
after you successfully do that, then you
see where you're at and you can address
the next bite of the sandwich. That
makes sense to me. Now, look, I I think
that we're not really addressing a
really core part of the issue here,
which is for a couple of decades now,
conservatives were demonized, and Tucker
in particular, I think you were
demonized for warning about the policies
that have created the mess that everyone
can see on TV right now. And that mess
is we have a large unassimilated
population of military-aged males who
are basically rioting right now under a
foreign flag as if they were foreign
invaders. We basically have allowed a
separatist movement into the United
States. That's what it looks like to me.
And I remember when Tucker was warning
about the the policies that might create
this on his show for years, you know,
virtually alone, probably alone on Fox
News, you know, you were called a
racist. this was great replacement
theory, blah blah blah. How can everyone
not look at what's happening on TV right
now and say Tucker was right? You know,
that was really dumb. And look, I say
this as someone from a family. I'm I'm
one of the people that Ronald Reagan was
talking about. You know, my family and I
came over here. We're immigrants, but we
came over here to assimilate. You know,
we believe in the melting pot. Be
careful. You might get canceled for
bringing up the melting pot. The melting
pot's good. I mean, I think that was the
classic American model. Melting is
totally good. You speak. I'm just saying
you could cancel. That's what you're
supposed to do. Like why do why would
anybody I came here because I wanted to
be American and everything that American
meant. If I was bigger, I would have
played football. You know, like there's
all these things that I would have done
to assimilate more and more. I believe
in the culture of the United States.
That's why people should come, right? So
we came here, we assimilated, you know,
high skill immigrants, didn't have a
lot, but had good education and willing
to assimilate. That's very different
than what you're seeing on TV right now.
And again, if the people on TV just
wanted to protest immigration policy in
the way that you're talking about, I
mean, you're describing it in this like
very nice gental way, they would be
peacefully protesting under an American
flag, saying, "We want to be here. We're
willing to contribute." I think the
issue was that's not what's happening. I
I you can see that, right? I mean, they
they look like foreign invaders. I would
say, by the way, this is like the
dumbest PR that, you know, if this
debate is really about immigration, this
is like the dumbest way for them to
present their side of the argument.
Yeah. Because who wants to keep in this
country a large unimilated population
that is proud to march, not just march,
but actually protest and riot and burn
and assault under the flag of another
nation. I would say dollars to donation.
Majority of the people who are doing the
looting and rioting are not actually
immigrants because they have the ability
to be deported. The people who are doing
that are the bad actors that we saw
during BLN. The bad actors that we saw,
you know, in LA when the Lakers win.
I've lived here for a decade and I am
here right now. I can tell you it's
contained. And those 80 90% of those
people are not the immigrants. The
immigrants are hiding right now for fear
of being deported. But let's sort of
talk about do the path. Well, where do
you where do you guys want to go with it
here? I mean, uh, I can give you my
opinion if you want. Well, Tucker, I
mean, like I I don't know. I mean, I
don't want to speak for you, but I mean,
I I I I do think that like Tucker should
feel vindicated on this issue for
speaking about so many years. You feel
vindicated?
I mean, I never doubted it. I grew up I
was born in California in 1969 and I my
family got there in 1850. I have some
sense of what the state was like um
certainly through my childhood and it
was an it was idyllic and it's it's it's
not you know the rich areas are great is
great is still great I think I mean
there are great Mount Shast is great
lots of great places in California um
but fundamentally the state is a slum
Latin American country and immigration
did that and I say that as someone who
is pretty pro-immigrant actually my best
friend's an immigrant I mean I I've
always admired liked immigrants um I'm
hardly anti-immigrant or anti
immigration, but the way we did it
destroyed the state. Immigration is what
made California into a slum, and there's
kind of no way around that. And so,
that's not an argument against all
immigration. I I'm not making that
argument. I don't feel that way. But,
uh, it's an argument against what we did
in California. And rather than learn
from that, we're doing it in every other
state. And I don't know why. And I
think, you know, if the other side had a
reasonable argument, they would profer
it. But instead, they call you names and
try to turn you into some kind of
thought criminal or whatever. I don't
care obviously. Um but it's a it's a
sort of measure of how um little they
have to say in response. They're not
actually trying to make the country
better. That's kind of the main thing. I
have always thought immigrants are great
because they did it make the country
better, right? I mean I I think that's
demonstrable. But the people pushing our
current policies don't have that as a
goal. This is a kind of punishment for
something. And a lot of it's ethnic
actually. It's a it's a kind of attack
on the people who were born here. I
don't know where that hostility comes
from. You can feel it though. And I
think it's foolish to deny it. That is a
motive. They're trying to hurt the
people who live here. And I again, I
live in a place currently where I see
that happening. Um, and it drives me
totally bonkers. And the last thing I'll
say is if you think the way we once did
immigration was good and a lot of
immigrants are awesome people and I do
think that this is discrediting all
immigration 100% and it's turning people
into pretty radical immigration
restrictionists are like look I don't
want any more immigrants. Yeah, you know
that's inevitable. Um but it's sad to
see it.
By the way what you're saying is is the
most true for immigrants. Legal
immigrants look at illegal immigration
even more negatively than nativeborn
Americans, which makes sense, right? I
mean, they waited in line and other
people didn't. You would be really upset
if somebody cut the line. Jason, what do
you think? Obviously, there's a lot of
emotion around this issue. I think
numbers help and I always look to see
what is the consensus amongst the group
here and amongst, you know, Americans.
Everybody wants the border closed. Trump
won on that. So, okay, we all agree the
border should be closed. I think 80 90%
consensus in that 80 90% of Americans
think we should deport violent
criminals. Okay, we got consensus there.
So then what's left is what do we do
with highskilled recruiting? I like to
use the word recruiting and we had that
discussion with President Trump here. He
promised to put a green card on every
degree. I agree with him on that. I
think we should be recruiting at least a
million or two million amazing people
per year. 1 to two million amazing
people. We should match that to what the
needs of the country are. If we need
energy, if we need doctors, we should
match that. Where we probably disagree
is I think the Democrats and the
Republicans share equally in this issue
that was created that Tucker pointed
out. Yes, there are 40, 30, 50, who
knows what the exact number is. That's
part of the problem. Here's a chart we
made. This just shows you under each of
the last, you know, uh 50 almost 50
years of of presidents, how many people
net uh immigrated to the country. And as
you can see, you know, it's been pretty
consistent.
You know, around 3 million per and uh
Clinton and Bush had a ton of
immigration. Both uh Bushes were paid
for a lot of their donations came from
corporates who wanted free migration.
America created this. Hold on. Let me
finish my thought. Outlier here, Jason,
though. Oh, well, yeah. Biden is the
huge outlier. We We all agree on that.
Biden let it go yolo. And I understand
people have a lot of resentment for that
and rightfully so. And if you bring in
10 million people, you're going to let
get a lot of bad guys. But you put this
all together. My belief is that this is
a country of immigrants and that this
country does great when hardworking
immigrants assimilate. I think we should
take this raw firepower of these
incredible immigrants who have been here
for decades. If you've been here for 10
or 20 decades, pay a fine, pay some
extra taxes, and we give these people a
path to citizenship. And we recruit the
top one to two million people. That's my
belief. You do that before or after the
people that have been waiting in line
get a fair shake. I think I would start
before or after. I think you have to do
it before because we created this. And I
I I know that that's not something that
people want to take ownership of, but
America created the situation. Bush
created it. created Clinton America.
Yes. The country that we live in, our
government allowed millions of people
here and the Republicans did this
specifically in order to get cheap
labor. Let me let me ask for what we did
with these people. Let's just say that
you're an international Let's just say
you're an international mathematics
olympiad winner. You get recruited to
come to the United States on a student
visa. You crush it. Let's say you go to
MIT and then you go and do a PhD at
Caltech and then you get recruited on an
OPT visa by Google and you're just
crushing. Awesome. And and you're saying
that that person Oh, no. Sorry. That's a
more subtle question. That person we
should recruit. As I said very clearly,
recruit 1 to 2 million. They're
currently waiting in line, Jason. Yes.
So, let's just So, I'm saying yes, let
them in. And yes, a path to who do you
prioritize? You have one. You can do
both at the same time. No, no, you
don't. Can of course you can we could
have one group recruiting a million to 2
million highly skilled labor highly
skilled individuals of the type you're
describing while having another group.
We can do two things at the same time.
Chimoth absolutely you can you're you're
giving a false question here. Then we
take the person who's been here for 20
years as a dishwasher as a nanny who has
been an amazing citizen who has been
paying into social security. give them a
path, a compassionate path. And we as
America and Americans should take
ownership of the fact that we allowed
this and the people who allowed it were
Republicans and Democrats. We allowed
these people to come in to work in our
restaurants and fields, which is what
Trump said today. Trump is in agreement
with me. That's not what he said. He
said something. He said he wants to not
have those people leave. It's just
amazing to me that on this podcast
during the Biden years, you were echoing
this party line that the videos of, you
know, mass migration, caravans streaming
across the border, going through the
holes in the wall. You said those were
videos cherrypicked by Fox News. You
told the party line that there was no
problem. Now all of a sudden, now all of
a sudden you're saying it was a
bipartisan problem. No, no, fact check.
I said we are we don't know because we
don't have the the metrics and we don't
have a good system, which we all agree
on. There's no good system. Anybody who
went down to the border was saying that
it was wide open, right? And as we got
that data, I said this data on the
ground shows we should shut the border.
That's always suddenly became very
empirical about the issue. I I've always
been empirical about it and I've also
been compassionate. This whole like both
sides are to blame thing kind of ignores
the fact that you had the Trump
revolution in 2016. There is some truth
to the idea that both parties neglected
the problem. If you go back far enough,
like you know, Tucker will remember this
when Bob Bartley was the editor of the
Wall Street Journal op-ed page, they
actually supported a constitutional
amendment in favor of open borders. I
mean, they really believed in this whole
idea of pull free trade, open borders,
free flow of capital and labor. Okay,
but that was a long time ago. And you
know, with the rise of Trump in 2015,
2016, it became a different party. Trump
got elected on building a wall. Yeah.
And what happened? The Democrats fought
him tooth and nail. They tied him up in
litigation. He was able to build
hundreds of miles of wall, but there
were uncompleted parts of it. And when
Biden came into office, there were large
pieces of the wall that were still on
the ground just waiting to be erected.
And Biden sold them off as scrap metal
for two cents on the dollar. Do you
remember this? And then Biden and the
Democrats proceed in favor. Hold on a
second.
Please don't frame it as I'm against
that. Okay, just forget about you. Just
you you said Democrats and Republicans
are a blamed for this. Not in the last
not in the last eight years. No. Oh
yeah. No. No. Biden Trump wanted a wall.
Yeah. Biden. Yeah. Opened up the border
and Democrats supported him in that and
they thwarted every Republican attempt
to close the border for three years.
Hold on a second. For three years they
gas lit and pretended it wasn't a
problem. Then when it became undeniable,
they claimed that Biden didn't have the
executive authority. So they would need
a new act of Congress. That was also
total nonsense. As Trump said in the
State of the Union, you didn't need a
new law. You just need a new president.
Look, if you want to go back 20 or 30
years, you can blame both parties. If
you want to talk about the last 8 years,
there's only one party to blame. One
party, the Democrats. And that is why
you look at the polling right now,
Democrats, their party all-time low. It
is, let's get the exact number, -49. 21%
approve of Democrats, 70% disapprove
because they know that Democrats cause
this problem and Democrats are the ones
denying. They're the ones basically
making excuses for the disorder and the
chaos right now. The only Democrat The
only Democrat who's actually talking
sense right now is the one with a head
injury, ironically, Federman. He's a
lone voice here. I want to pull up this
quote. Don't make
dude that's No, I mean it's amazing. No,
I mean it's it's kind of sad. But look,
I'm agreeing with Federman. Federman
says caveat that he hit his head.
I don't know what it is about Democrats.
I don't know what it is about Democrats.
It takes a head It takes a head injury
for them to talk sense. Okay. It's like
a Bullworth thing. Anyway, Federman
said, "My party loses the moral high
ground when we refuse to condemn setting
cars on fire, destroying buildings, and
assaulting law enforcement." He's
talking about January 6th. I unapolog
unapologetically stand for free speech,
peaceful demonstrations, immigration,
but this is not that. This is anarchy
and true chaos. So, kudos to Federman,
but he's the only Democrat out there.
He's a low voice condemning the
violence. And Tucker's our guest. We're
going to give Tucker the last word on
this topic before we go on to the next
one. And you are 100% correct. Biden 10
million net im immigrants and Trump 3
million which sounds like a lot but is
actually the lowest in like 10
administrations. The lowest since
Reagan. Tucker, you're our guest. Wrap
us up here. What should we think?
I think that we should measure the
health of a country at least in part by
the condition of its cities, including
the cleanliness of its cities.
And by that measure, our country is
collapsing. Our our cities are a
disaster. and the the richest part of
the richest cities are fine and the rest
of them are just absolutely awful. And
so I think that has got to be just job
one. If you want to renew the United
States, you have to make sure its
population centers are clean, safe,
orderly, but especially clean. There's
something really important and I know
that the left just instinctively
discounts that, but cleanliness is next
to godliness. And your city is a
reflection of your self-respect, how you
feel about your nation, your patriotism.
And if you allow it to become like Paris
or New York, covered in graffiti and
filth and random people from other
countries selling fruit on the street
and begging and having sex in ATM
vestibules and just like the whole
Midtown Manhattan, Central Paris
experience, like that's a sign your
civilization is going under. I think
it's really really important and I do
think you know that decay is not
entirely caused by mass immigration but
mass immigration has made it much worse
and I just know that from walking around
cuz I like to walk around cities. I
think it's a national emergency and the
riots are just the most fluid expression
of that. You know a burning car is
something you can't ignore but we do
ignore the condition of 6th Avenue at
49th Street. like how can a self or the
condition of Penn Station or you know of
our airports like how can we allow that?
Um so if I were in charge I mean I would
make you go to Dubai or Doha or Moscow
or some place that has a sense of itself
when we got soba in Tokyo remember two
years ago and we were talking about this
exact issue it just well but it's true I
mean Tokyo is the most radicalizing
experience for an American. Everyone who
goes there is like I can't even deal
with this. I'm so angry that we've put
up with what we're putting up with. I
had to talk it in. You did. Let's not
overthink it, I guess, is what I'm
saying. It's not even about the
Constitution. It's about litter. Yeah.
Okay. Tucker gets the last word on that.
And now David Saxs gets to take his
incredible victory lap. Economic data
has been objectively pretty great the
last two weeks. Tariff revenue spiked 23
billion in May, 2x from February. So
there we go. we see the impact of a
little bit of extra income. Inflation
continues to come down and uh what are
we at? 2.4%.
Across the board, there's some pluses
and minuses in there. We'll get into it
later. GDP. Okay, this is the leading
GDP prediction model from the Atlanta
Fed. Could be as high as 3.8%. Again,
this is a prediction for Q2. Q2 is
obviously not over, but this would be a
pretty big jump over Q1. Despite all
this positive data, the deficit remains
the sticky issue. Some of our friends
might have some issue with this and been
vocal about it. In May, the US had 371
billion in revenue with 687 billion in
spend. Not good. Big high burn rate,
$316 billion deficit. We paid $90
billion in May in interest on the debt
almost up to a hundred billion a month.
And uh there's a nice key chart uh which
we all like. We could double click on
that if anybody finds something
interesting in here. Here's your deficit
tracker. What I'll highlight here for
you is those first two lines 2020 and
2021. You got to kind of give a mulligan
there for the COVID years and uh purple
2025. We are a bit ahead of the last
couple of years. We're 13 our spending
now and you know obviously the debt
service is a big part of this. 13% above
2024, 20% above 2023 and 65% above 2022.
The balance sheet of the United States
is really bad right now. Sachs, I'm
going to start with you. This obviously
has been an emotional issue and uh oh,
apology. I just noticed forgot to hit
publish on last week's episode, but
let's let that go. Uh it won't happen
again. Sachs, what are your thoughts
here? Well, I mean, you'll recall that
back in early April, Jim Kramer
predicted we'd see a Black Monday in
response to Trump's tariffs. And that's
all the proof that we should have known
that we were about to get a bunch of
good economic news. Uh and it wasn't it
wasn't just Jim Kramer. I mean, Larry
Summers was on our pod with that big
debate that we did and he was predicting
doom. And what we're seeing now is good
economic news is breaking out all over.
So Q2 GDP on track for 3.8% according to
the Atlanta Fed. The May jobs report was
above expected plus 139,000. CPI, you
know, inflation down to 2.4%.
So growth is back. Inflation is low. And
what you saw over the last few months
was the elites in both parties, I'll
give you that, have they were
scaremongering on tariffs and predicting
doom and they've been proven to be out
of touch with popular sentiment and
reality. I mean, you don't want to spike
the football too soon, but things look
really good right now. Yeah. And I mean,
in fairness, when the Trump shock and
awe with the tariffs, he came out pretty
strongly, Zach, you will admit, and the
market did tank massively for about 30
days. Tucker, what's your take on the
economy today? This debt, does it
concern you? And I'm wondering what
because there seems to be a little bit
of a rift inside of the Republican party
on the BBB, not bill back better, but
the big beautiful bill. What's Tucker
Carlson's take? I'm curious, on out of
control spending, the deficit, and this
bill in relation to that. Well, I mean,
I have the world's most predictable
views. I believe in physics. So, you
know, an unpayable debt tanks your
country at a certain point. That was
pre-existing. It's accelerated as you
noted. I I don't know a single person
who's got a any kind of plan to fix it.
I think we're just going to ride it into
whatever the point of oblivion is. But I
would just say on tariffs, you know, my
you've got the reverse Kramer. David was
saying that's his measure of economic
forecasting. For me, it's the Wall
Street Journal editorial page. Whatever
they're for is poison. um generally
speaking and anything that drives them
insane is a virtue. And I just can't
imagine a policy more perfectly designed
to just make them like explode than uh
Trump's tariff announcement. And I and I
have to say, I mean, I've been kind of
pretty conventional Republican my entire
life. I remember when I decided the Iraq
war was a bad idea. That felt like an
outlaw, you know, idea.
What What led you to got Uh well, I went
to Iraq um in December of 2003 to see
where a friend of mine had been killed
and um so I was there right after the
invasion and I just immediately
recognized this is not we're we're not a
good colonial power because we won't
admit that we are. We won't admit that
we have an empire, therefore we can't
admin administer it in a rational way.
Um just the obvious stuff. But anyway,
the point is the last remaining kind of
unexamined orthodoxy in my head was free
trade. And I happened to be just by
chance at the White House the day of
that announcement. And I remember
thinking, man, if this works, what a
caper, you know? I mean, I don't know.
Worst case scenario in your mind of, you
know, this tariff negotiation.
Obviously, there have been multiple
rounds of it. I'm not gonna use the term
taco, but it does seem like we've
shifted from shock and awe to maybe like
kind of bore. It's kind of boring like
and and that does seem to be Trump's
approach, right? He in negotiations big
bang and then fall back to a reasonable
position. So, I think we're in the
reasonable position phase. What does
success willing? I I hope I pray that's
what we're seeing on Iran right now. Um
but you're absolutely right. I mean,
that's sort of the nature of
negotiations, of course. Um, and there
is nothing in writing with China, so far
as I know, and it'll be reassuring, I
think, when there is. Um, but in
general, we haven't seen what Jim Kramer
and Larry Summers predicted, and that
itself is amazing. It's amazing and it
it causes you someone like me is sort of
on the sidelines of the economic debate,
but watching carefully, it does make you
sort of wonder like what other absurd
midcentury orthodoxies about economics
have I internalized that just aren't
true, right? Cuz that was the biggest of
all. Tariffs are, you know, they caused
the Great Depression. We know that. And
and so what if like you can have a kind
of mixed approach with some trade
barriers that are tailored to your
benefit and that sort of works in a
longitudinal way. If that's true, holy
smokes. And it looks like it might be
true. So it's been true for the other
side, right? They have been doing that.
So if it's for China and South Korea and
Australia, why wouldn't it be true for
us? It seems like we're the sucker at
the poker table. Well, I think you're
right. I guess what I'm all I'm saying
I'm making a pretty pedestrian point,
but I can't get past it, which is this
is so far from what the Republican party
stood for 10 years ago, which was
neoconservative foreign policy, free
trade, um open borders, as as you noted,
maybe a little more than 10 years ago,
but 15 years ago. Um this is this is the
mirror image of it, and it just blows my
mind. And it's it's such a better
version. It's such a more reality based,
flexible, thoughtful uh version than we
had before. And I'm just really and most
Republicans in the Senate are not even
aware this is happening. They are the
most recalcitrant people in the world.
Also the dumbest. So most of them, you
know, don't accept any of this. But just
as an observer, I'm thrilled to see it.
All right, Chimath. Uh actually, can I
get Can I um Oh, yeah, sure. No, no, no.
I mean, I know you like to go right
after Tucker. It's very engaging. Oh no.
You got me thinking about these. Um,
this is his dream. When you're on, he
cannot in the group chat. He's so
excited. Tucker, when you're coming on,
it's 48 hours of Sax being like, "When
does when is the pod coming? Is Tucker
really coming?" That's how I feel about
David Saxs. Trust me, if you if you had
a camera at my dinner table, you would
hear something similar. Oh, boy. Here we
go. Go ahead, Sax. It's uh it's great to
have someone to the right of me on the
podcast for once. You know, it's not an
easy task. I we invited Alex Jones and
Steve Aman to have him respond.
Tucker got me thinking about these
unexamined orthodoxies. And that is a
good way of putting it. I mean, you
know, cuz I studied economics in college
and you know, I learned that the Smoot
Holly tariff caused the Great
Depression. And it's like in hindsight,
you're like, how can that even be true?
Like a tariff is basically a tax rate on
foreign goods. And you're saying that,
you know, increasing taxes on foreign
goods all of a sudden cause a great
depression. It doesn't make any sense
when you actually like just think about
it. Now, what caused Great Depression?
Well, I would say when thousands of
banks went under and there's no FDIC and
everyone just got wiped out by that and
it's a systemic risk. So, like one bank
failure leads to the next one. That's so
obviously what caused the Great
Depression is nobody had any money left.
They all got wiped out when all the
banks went under at the same time.
Right. Well, and then what how do we
take a something that happened in the
20s and 30s and apply it to a much more
dynamic world like today? It doesn't
make much sense. Well, I think what
happened is we had all these post-war
meaning postw World War II
understandings that kind of got
hardwired into the consciousness of our
intellectuals. And if you think about
the the era right after World War II,
the US was like the last great power
standing. Um it was us and the Soviet
Union, but they kind of were had a
different system. they were not part of
the um let's say the the free world.
They're part of this communist block. So
with in in terms of the the quote
unquote free world, we were the only
country that was relatively undamaged
and we had this giant manufacturing
base. And so yeah, obviously that the
the fewer trade barriers existed across
the world, the better it was for the
United States because it was our goods
and our factories that basically were
able to sell all over the world. And so
we proceeded to define a world order in
which we just kicked down every single
barrier to free trade because that's
what benefited us. Now, I don't know
that that means that that situation
always benefits us in all times and all
places. I mean, the big issue we have
right now is that you've got a rising
China and they have become the scale
producer in the world for all sorts of
goods. They now have this giant
industrial base that we seem to have
exported to them. And again, it was and
we exported a lot of that because of
this um free trade ideology that got so
entrenched in our thinking that we just
stopped thinking about under what
circumstances this might not continue to
be good for us. And so we've ended up
becoming dependent on them for all sorts
of goods that we now realize are highly
strategic. And we're trying to figure
out well how do we onshore these things
because it seems really dangerous now
for us to be singlethreaded on you know
on potentially adversarial power for
rare earth or you know rare earth
magnets and chips and pharmaceuticals
and all these things but you know our
intellectual class just never seems to
revisit any of its assumptions they just
kind of have these dogmas chimoth
building on Sax's sort of cottification
of truths heristics and not getting
questioned how much of it is we just
codify hey trade good you know open
borders good free trade good and how
much of it is just incentives like I
mean rich people paying off politicians
to have more free trade independent of
party seems to be what's happened over
the last 10 20 years it just made more
sense to put workers and to send jobs to
the lowest cost place to increase
profits for American companies which
let's face it although it may have
hollowed out our manufacturing and
created this weakness in the four or
five areas you point out every week that
we need to reinforce quite eloquently
the real issue is we did that because we
wanted to make money. We wanted to have
the most highly profitable companies and
we did succeed. But maybe we succeeded
too much and our companies benefited
more than the middle class. You got Josh
Holly out there saying, "Hey, we should
go to $15 minimum wage federally from
this." The wrong the wrong people won in
the early in the early 2000s. I think
that there was a war of ideas and there
was a group of people that advocated for
this reckless form of free trade and
this globalist view like every country
is going to meld into one mega monolith
country organization that'll get
governed out of New York by the United
Nations and its sleeve organizations.
And that worldview won. But it was the
wrong worldview.
And it didn't acknowledge that we have
competing philosophies, competing
priorities, competing ideals of what the
future looks like. And I think that we
need to go back and reset all of those
things. If you just take where we are,
if you can just put the Sanki diagram
back up, there's a couple things that
are really worth noting that people need
to fundamentally understand. I said a
couple weeks ago that I thought the GDP
print was going to come in hot. I think
everybody now is sort of where I am. So,
let me give you the next thing. Let me
just ask you though, why is it hot? Do
you have a thesis on why GDP spikes so
much or potentially did that's obviously
a forecast.
I don't know the puts and takes yet. And
I think when we see the print, we have I
have a way of forecasting this stuff,
which is a bunch of signals that my team
and also many macro teams all around the
world, the bond vigilantes to the hedge
fund guys, they all feed it to me. And
what I was noticing was that we were
going to come in, I said in the low 3s.
And I think, you know, if Atlanta Fed is
right, I don't think they are, but I
think it's going to be in the low to
mid-3s. is going to be meaningfully
greater than what people are expecting.
So let me just give you my next
prediction. My next prediction are two
really important things. What this Sanki
diagram looks at which is a snapshot of
the balance sheet and the health of the
United States in May misses in my
opinion two very important things that
have to change.
The first and this is a positive for the
Trump administration and the United
States economy is we are run rating 300
to400 billion dollar above forecast
in terms of our receipts meaning the
revenues that we will take in and you
get to that number by looking at the
last three months of tariffs and
forecasting forward assuming a
reasonable balance here. So, back to
Tucker's point. Yeah, we all thought
that this was like a boogeyman that you
weren't allowed to touch it and that if
you touched the stove, you were going to
get burned.
The mathematical reality is that this is
actually going to work out much better
for us than we anticipated and it's
going to be somewhere in the range of
300 to 400 billion of extra revenue per
year. That's a huge win.
So, why is that important?
That then sets up this next cataclysmic
thing that we're going to see over the
next 60 days, which is what does Jerome
Powell do?
If Jerome Powell stays politicized,
his incentive will be to keep interest
rates where they are.
If Jerome Powell looks at the conditions
on the ground, especially when you start
to see inflation stay in the low twos
and approach 2.0,
The real thing that he's going to be
under tremendous pressure to justify is
why are you not cutting?
And just to give you a sense of how
important that is, if we cut by 100
basis points, that's another $300
billion. Now, in that case, that's not
money that we get in, but it's money we
don't have to spend.
So if you add these two things together,
we are in the next 60 days going to have
to reforcast the American balance sheet
where this is or we're actually going to
be able to positively forecast an extra
600 billion. 300 billion of incremental
revenue and 300 billion of savings.
Jason, if that happens, watch out. What
does that mean? Watch out. It means that
every single risk dollar is going to run
to America. Every single one. Yum. Yum.
Forget Japan. Forget Europe. There is no
place to put your money except the
United States. So, I think that we have
to figure out
how to get Jerome Powell on the side of
America versus on the side of what could
happen
politically. Because I think that
there's probably a version in his head
that says, "My gosh, if I do this, it
helps Trump
and if I don't do it, it hurts Trump."
Practically that is true. But the
reality is the conditions on the ground
justify cutting. Okay. So you're
predicting this 300 billion two
different ways in and out 50 billion a
month. It starts cutting this deficit
pretty significantly. your claim, I just
want to be clear here, is that Powell is
playing politics, not working towards
the dual mandate, which is very clear,
controlled unemployment at the 2.0 rate
and full employment. Your belief is that
he's playing politics. Yes. I I believe
that these decisions are political. I
think that the Federal Reserve has
veered away from actually controlling
the money supply in the best long-term
interests of the United States and more
towards what benefits the short-term.
And this ties back to how I started
this. What is Powell's motivation?
Somewhere in the 2000s, Jason, we
transitioned away from having the
strategic 20-year conversation about
what's in the best interest of America.
And instead, we started to have these
uniolar globalist conversations. And the
people that got into these centers of
power, the IMF, the World Bank, the
Federal Reserve, the central banks
around the world, they all worked
towards an agenda that is now being
undone. I'll give you an example of
where this is now being undone. Just
today,
the World Bank undid a rule around being
able to fund nuclear energy. And you
would have thought, well, hold on a
second. The World Bank steps in to backs
stop all these developing countries when
they're in the middle of all this
nonsense, right? And if you think about
a country that's developing, what is the
single biggest input to that country?
Energy.
And you think for the last 40 years of
multi- trillion dollar bailouts, we
never demanded abundant clean energy in
the developing world. Of course not
because it was a political decision.
Okay, Tucker, do you believe the Fed is
playing politics here? It's kind of hard
to believe if Pal was placed by Trump
and Biden. He's there was consensus
there and his mandate is to get to 2.0
and full employment. He's kind of
trending towards that. He's made a
couple of cuts. The markets predict he
is going to make a cut. Here's poly
market for September showing 80% chance
of a cut. Let's take a look if that's
changed since the last time. Uh so in
September, no. Okay. Well, this has
changed. Uh 32. All right. So here's
your poly market fed decision in
September. No change. 53% 25 bips 43 50
bips 3.8. So you put those two together,
you're you're roughly at 47% chance of a
cut. 53% chance of no cut. So 50/50 coin
toss. Do you think the Fed is playing
politics? Do I think the Fed chairman
who who lives in who lives in Chevy
Chase is a political actor? I mean, are
you serious? What's his motivation then?
What's his endgame? Why does he not want
to cut rates or or why would he not want
to put it? Well, of course. I mean, he
lives in a world in which there is no
one who doesn't want to stick it to
Trump. I mean, I know the zip code that
he lives in very very well. Um, I know
the club that he goes to. I know the
world. No, no, I would. Of course not.
And I'm not mad at him. I'm just saying
I I I know the world well. And um of
course no uh no one in that world wants
to be seen uh helping Trump and Trump
has attacked him by the way in public.
So I don't think that helps either. I
think the structure of the Fed
governance is very weird. I think um I
I'm not exactly sure what the Fed is.
I've asked this question to a lot of
economists including Larry Summers.
Never really gotten a straight answer.
Like how is it that um this is beyond
political control? I mean, I don't know
if we're for democracy, shouldn't voters
have some say in how this is
administered? But they don't. I mean,
there's no direct mechanism for voters
to be heard um in this the single most
important institution in the American
economy. How does that which is a crypto
government organization? It's, you know,
administering US dollars. I don't I just
don't understand it. I think it's very
the idea that you're going to
depoliticize it by making its leadership
immune from the control of elected
officials strikes me as the kind of like
midcentury dumbness that got us NATO and
a lot of other bad institutions. I just
don't get it. The exact opposation
of the Fed be here I've asked this two
times. Can't seem to get an answer. What
what's the motivation of the Fed? Just
is it to stick it to Trump? Jason Jason
let me well let me give you another data
point. Okay now let's assume let's just
scenario play. Yes please. What happens
if Powell rips in a 100 basis point cut
right now? I'll tell you. So one part
which is mathematical is the interest on
the debt goes down. We save 300 billion.
But there's something else that happens
which is the Fed does control the front
end of the curve. Meaning, how do people
borrow money for small amounts of time
from one day to about two years? If you
make that cheaper, we know is it's a
test as true as time, what happens is
people borrow more money. That fuels
more growth. That will end up in GDP.
So, what actually happens if you cut
rates 100 basis points is not just the
300, but you can get this reflexive
positivity in the economy. What that
allows you to do is even if that causes
a little bit more inflation, you're
actually growing yourself out of this
whole thing. So then you ask yourself,
well, hold on a second. If the numerical
justification is there to lower rates
and it has all of these other positive
externalities for the United States
economy, why don't I do it? The only
answer is political.
I I wonder if Hold on. Let me just let
me let me teach you. Um, okay. So, we're
at 2.6% on uh inflation. He wants to get
it down to two. Feels like we're in
striking distance. Maybe you could maybe
give us a theory here, Sachs, of what
would the political motivation be? I
find it hard to believe that he's trying
to sink Trump for some reason as opposed
to maybe just being scared of inflation
popping up above that 3x handle, which
then triggers them to, you know, raise
rates. So, what's what's your theory
here? If you're pal, it's better to take
the risk of being Paul Vulkar than
Arthur Burns. I mean, that's that's
basically what it comes down to. For
people who don't Well, because what
happened is Arthur Burns let inflation
slip the leash in the 1970s and he's
remembered as a horrible Fed chair. And
then Paul Vulker came in and jacked up
rates to like I think close to 20%. And
caused a vicious recession in 1982. But
by 1983, the economy had bounced back
and inflation basically was under
control. And then the rate cutting cycle
started. And that rate cutting cycle
went for like 25 years. And then Reagan
got reelected in 1984. So you you know,
you rather be a vulker than than a Burns
if you're a Fed chair. Now you raised
the question, is pal political? Yeah, of
course he is. If you go back to uh was
it 2021? So, the first summer of Biden's
presidency, we got that shock 5.1%
inflation print of in May of 2021, if my
memory is correct. What did the Biden
administration do? They sent Janet
Yellan out to say it was transitory and
Pal got on board with the whole
transitory narrative. Exactly. And as a
result of that, he did not raise rates
for six months. And worse than that,
they continued QE. I think they bought
like 180 billion of bonds in that time
period and that's what allowed inflation
to get so out of control. Now, why is it
that Pal did that because he wanted to
get reconfirmed and yes, he was
nominated by Trump originally, but Biden
renominated him and he basically wanted
the reappointment by Biden. and he
wanted to get confirmed and then the
month after he got confirmed all of a
sudden he shifted gears and started
raising rates again once he was safely
in Wisconsin's office. So he did the
right thing in terms of raising rates in
the face of inflation once he was free
from those political incentives but for
6 months he was intensely political and
that cost the United States dearly I
think dearly dearly. So now if you're a
pal, you've got PTSD from that whole
experience and you're going to heir on
the side of not letting inflation come
back. I think what with inflation down
to 2.4%.
I think it is time to cut rates, but
he's fearful because again his
incentives are to be a Vulker, not a
Burns. Yeah. And uh you want to read a
good book? Paul Vulker is keeping at it.
great uh book about has uh Reagan going
to him and trying to get him to cut
rates. So, this is a reoccurring story
just on but you know if if he had done
the right thing in the summer of 2021 we
would never would have had that bubble
at the end of 2021. Yeah. Remember and
that that basically created a huge crash
in 2022 and we could have avoided a good
part of that if he had done the right
thing. You know like the Fed chair it's
not a hard job most of the time. I mean,
these guys sit in their ivory tower and
then once a quarter they come out and do
this, you know, and basically testify
and say a bunch of, you know, things
that no one can understand, but like
once in a while you got to get the
decision right. And he totally screwed
it up in that one time where he had to
get it right. Yep. And I would say this
could be one of those moments too where
I think he's being a little bit fearful.
I think that there's a simpler
explanation quite honestly. Like if you
look at Powell's history, he was he was
nominated as a governor by Obama. Then
Trump picked him out of the Fed to be
chair, but then he was reappointed by
Biden. If you look at the vice chair of
the Fed, Phil Jefferson, he was
appointed by Biden. If you look at
Michelle Bowman, who's the vice chair
for supervision, she was appointed by
Trump. Michael Bar appointed by Biden.
Lisa Cook appointed by Biden. Adriana
Kuger appointed by Biden.
Chris Waller appointed by Trump. So I
think the point is that there is a
balance of power here. If you look at
political affiliations that tend to
favor a
democratic
view of the political landscape and
let's be honest, what benefits the
Democrats more, a thriving economy and a
shrinking deficit going into the
midterms or the exact opposite? The
reason I'm bringing this up and I'm just
harping on it is he's a Republican who
Democrats have opposed. So I'm I'm just
trying to reconcile this grand
conspiracy that he wants to sing Trump.
I don't think it's Republican. I think
it's just a general decision. I think
these guys move the dot plots and you
can see it in the movement. Okay.
They're going away from reading the
actual data and moving in concert with
the data to giving themselves a window
to let the data play itself out beyond a
reasonable point. And my point is the
beyond the reasonable point is the key
part because when you talk to the large
sophisticated pools of money. Yeah. Many
of them are like what is going on here?
All right. Currently the big beautiful
bill is uh in the Senate pass the house
by a one vote margin. Trump said he
wants the Senate to pass the bill by
Independence Day July 4th. Uh Senate
math. Republicans have a 53 to 47
majority. As you know, they can afford
three nos on their side since Dems are
united against the bill. With 50 votes,
JD Vance can break the tie, obviously.
So, it's easier if they can get to 51.
Seven GOP senators are either no or
maybe no. Three likely nos, Rand Paul,
Ron Johnson, Rick Scott. Four maybe nos
over the Medicaid cuts. Uh Josh Holly,
Susan Collins, Marowski, Jim Justice. Uh
none of those senators have committed
either way. and Republicans are now
falling into three camps on BBB. Hard
yes, soft yes, no until it's fixed.
Obviously,
uh some friends of ours were a little
upset about the BBB and uh we had a
pretty chaotic week the last week. It
looks like the reconciliation is in.
Your take on the last week and the
reactions to the BBB and obviously Elon
and Trump's relationship. Tucker Coffin,
I hate the whole thing. This is not how
to legislate. I You shouldn't have a
bill this big. It's impossible to get
your mind around it. No one can read it.
No one understands it. It favors
professional staff over legislators.
It totally leaves the public out. It'll
be a decade before anyone understands
what it means. Um the lobbies love it.
It's just it's Washington at its
ugliest. Um not this specific bill,
though. It is an example of it, but just
this is just not the way to do it. And
it's not the way it has been done
throughout American history. I mean,
there's just no reason to aggregate it
all together like this. It becomes
totally unmanageable and totally
undemocratic.
So, you know, I mean, yeah. Well, it's
insane. It's totally insane. Do can I
mean, can can you tell me what's in it?
No. I mean, you know, like all of us
know like 11 things we've read on
Twitter or whatever, but like the truth
is even the professional staff that
wrote it couldn't if you had dinner with
them over 3 hours really give you a
comprehensive sense of what's in it. And
remember, when it passes, and I think it
likely will, um, you know, it's it's the
law. So, and that's by design in order
of course by design. Of course, it's by
design. It's just Well, I mean, look,
it's, you know, it's just it's just
overload. You can't I mean every single
part of this this is the economy of the
city that I've lived in my whole life.
Every single part of this is there by
design. It's been managed. It's been
thought through. It's been written
artfully. And by artfully I mean
deceptively.
So you can't understand its purpose or
its benefit. And literally it is years
before the ramifications become clear.
And again this is why we have
committees. you know, a committee
masters a subject and then theoretically
produces legislation that bears on that
subject with, you know, knowledge and
depth and hopefully wisdom. Um, the
Congress is not designed to pass
legislation in this way and we've
evolved to this and I guess I would um
encourage the White House to try and
blow that up. I think it'd be better for
everybody if uh you know legislation was
passed peacemeal as it always has been.
Um I think part of the problem is the
leadership in the Congress and nobody
wants to say it is just embarrassing.
It's just totally embarrassing. And I
would say the conference isn't united
either. I mean this is part of the
problem with Trump's agenda. Um, it's
the beauty of Trump's agenda in my
opinion, but it's, you know, it's so
different from what your average
65-year-old Republican was raised
believing. It's so different from what
Fox News is telling you. It's the mirror
image of what the Wall Street Journal
editorial page is telling you that there
just not that many members of the House
or the Senate who are truly on board
with Trump's message even now. And of
course, they cowtow to the man, but when
it really comes down to it, they hate
his stated agenda.
and state agenda. Unpack what do they
hate most? What do they hate most? It's
not even a close call. They hate his
foreign policy views. They hate his
foreign policy views because look, out
of 535 members of the House and Senate,
I would say 510 have given up on
improving the United States through
their jobs. Like they they know they
can't. It's like intractable. This is
their view. It's complex. It's boring.
It's difficult. And it's super hard to
solve. and the numbers in the House and
Senate make it practically impossible to
move the ball on whatever issue they
care about or were elected on. And so
they take all of that energy and they
apply it to making the rest of the world
better. Fighting for democracy or you
know the the the the grander the
description, the the less accountability
there is. You know, if we're just like
fighting for Churchill against Hitler,
like it's always a win because we don't
know any of the details. It's a simpler
Yeah, it's a simpler cause for them to
take on than looking at how do we
balance what would you like to see Trump
do, Tucker? What would Tucker Carlson
advise if you were in the White House,
which many people have requested that
you do that? If you were at the right
hand of the father, what would you tell
him to do?
Understand the politician brain, which
is reptilian by its nature. It responds
only to pain. Period. Only to pain. So,
if you want a politician to do your
bidding, it's a super simple
conversation. Do what I ask or I will
make sure you lose your job. And by the
way, Trump has the power to do that,
which is what Elon said on Twitter. Just
put it out there. No, but it's true. And
I do think if there's, you know, a
number of criticisms of any living
person, but one I would level at Trump
is he is he's nice. Like he likes to get
along with people. He actually doesn't
like to fight in person. That is true.
He likes to get along with people. No
one will believe that, but I've seen it
a lot.
And I think it's tough for him to say,
it's easy for him to, you know, go after
a reptile like Mitch McConnell like at a
press conference. You'll make fun of
cocaine Mitch or whatever. But to really
go to McConnell and say, "Yeah, listen,
son. You know, this is going to hurt in
in the following six ways unless you
obey, you little bitch." Which is really
what he ought to be saying. No, I mean
it. I absolutely mean it. And be saying
that to all of these guys. Tom Cotton,
are you joking? How does Tom Cotton have
a say in anything? You know, and oh,
I'm, you know, you're that chairman of
the Intel Committee. I'm so impressed.
Listen, Tom Cotton, you represent a
state that likes me a lot more than you.
So, if I find you undermining me, yet
again, and Tom Cotton spends an awful
lot of time undermining Trump. Like, Tom
Cotton hates Trump, actually, of course.
Um, but if I find you doing that, I'm
going to take your Senate seat away, and
that's going to be really easy for me to
do. And I really wish he would do that.
It would only take one cycle to clear
out, you know, to really get some
discipline like the French in Algeria,
you know, for the encouragement of the
other. The first guy goes out of the
helicopter and then the second guy is
super talkative. If you did that in the
United States Senate, you would have a
much more coherent
um party, I think, like in about a
cycle. A little more leadership, a
little more stick than carrot. Uh, who
wants to go next? Jam or Sax? A lot more
stick. Okay, here we go. Tucker says
more stick. Sachs, what you're feeling?
Are we still talking about the big
beautiful bill? What are we talking
about? Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, we're
talking about it all. Everybody wants to
hear, you know, about our takes on the
kurfluffle between Elon and uh Trump,
obviously, in relation to BBB. So, let's
just tackle it or you can pass on it.
Yeah, let's we got to put it out here.
We're 40 We're an hour into the episode.
Let's just talk about it. Let me speak
to BBB for a second. So, so listen, if
the question is whether I can defend a
system that produces $2 trillion
deficits every year, no, I I can't I
can't even defend the Senate rules that
require you to get 60 votes for some
things and 50 votes for other things. I
mean, it's all just seems kind of random
when you're an outsider. But those
aren't the rules is they've got these
crazy bird rules and once a year you get
to do this reconciliation bill where it
only takes 50 votes instead of 60 votes
to pass something which means you can
actually get something done without the
Democrats which is a rare opportunity
and you know you just have to basically
come up with um a nexus to a budgetary
issue and so that's what the BBB has
done and as a result of of that
conduit it. I guess you could say that
it's a way for the president to ratify
many of his most important campaign
promises from the 2024 election. And so
you've got the tax cut extension in
here. You've got full funding of of
border security for four years. You've
got no tax on tips. You've got drill
baby drill. You've got the missile
defense shield. So these are campaign
promises that are important to the
president. It's kind of a once in
a-lifetime opportunity to pass these
things. I think that Republicans would
be committing political suicide if they
don't. I mean, the polling on this, I'll
give you some numbers. So, first of all,
the bill itself is popular despite all
the bashing of it. I think that popular
with who? Well, this is a national poll
by Signal,
which actually has a bias in favor of
Democrats by plus 2.1. So, this with the
public, it's who haven't read it. I
know, believe it or not. So, um, what
does that even mean? that support for a
big beautiful bill plus six increased
funding for border security plus 35
that'll probably be even more now that
what's going on in LA work requirements
for Medicaid and SNAP plus 38 so despite
the Democrats carping on that point
people really like the idea of of work
requirements and then permanently
extending the 2017 tax cuts support plus
19 so these are very popular planks of
the president's agenda it's the only
chance they're going to have to to pass
this Look, you know, I I said this three
weeks ago on the pod the last few
episodes that I don't support the bill
because it's perfect. I support it just
pragmatically because it's better than
the status quo. And my view is that we
should take this now. We should get this
done and then come back for more later.
And there should be a big fight over the
budget at some point in the future, but
this is not the right time to do it. We
don't have the votes. We're not
organized. And it would compromise these
other promises the president's made. And
the time to really have that battle is
at the beginning of the new fiscal year,
which is October 1st. So we at some
point do need to have a big fight over
the budget. There does need to be
resistance to the deficit. We can't
continue in this current state forever,
but I don't think that's the hill to die
on right now. Chimath, your thoughts on
BBB and the Kuruffle, if you want it.
Here's what I'll say. I was sad at the
end of last week. one is my friend and
the other is my president and it seemed
like a really profound friendship and so
I was bummed.
Here's what I'll say this week though on
a much more positive note. I saw Elon on
Tuesday and I got to spend a couple
hours with him at Tesla. He let me audit
a couple of meetings with him actually.
It's always fun. Yeah. Yeah. One was
Dojo and then right after that was the
Optimus team. H one thing I'll say is
I've said this before but he attracts
these incredible men and women to work
for him. They are inspiring. Just
sitting in a meeting and hearing it what
they're doing was amazing. And then
second to see Elon in action at scale in
that way is like watching a maestro
paint a masterpiece. It's it's really
impressive. And then separately, I saw
President Trump doing a couple of
pressers and he was in his zone of
excellence. So, it seems like they're
going to find some common ground here.
They are better together. And I'll just
say Elon, amazing. Tesla, incredible.
And I would not be sleeping on this
company is what I would say. Jason, what
do you think? So,
we're not the main characters in this
story, obviously. And when I saw what
happened last week, obviously this is
one of my best friends for many decades.
And given the popularity of this
podcast, my decision was I don't want to
insert myself into this, have my quotes
or my feelings uh about Trump, about the
bill get weaponized. And that's
typically what happens when you have a
friend who's the number one story in the
world. Uh and now not friends with
Trump, but he is my president as well by
default.
What benefit does it have to me to then
speak about it and then have everybody
weaponize it? So, I know this is hard
for the audience to reconcile, but
sometimes it's better for me to just
step back. That's why you don't see me
commenting on Tesla or SpaceX publicly
all the time because people weaponize
what I say against my friend, and I just
don't like that. And, you know, it it's
happened in books. It's happens in news
stories. So, when Elon is doing
something and it's this intense, I like
to just step back and maybe take a beat.
That was my decision. That's why I
didn't want to do a pod last week.
Everybody else can speak for themselves.
That's where I'm at. How do I feel about
it? I think Trump uh is making a mistake
with BBB. I think he should push back on
it harder. I said that in a previous
episode. And I think Elon's 100% correct
about that. I also think if either of
these parties can't control spending,
there needs to be like the Nor what was
it? The Norquist um you guys would know
more about this, but Norquist pledge,
Tucker, where you you know, you agree to
not increase taxes. I think we need
something like that where a reasonable
party says we should balance the budget.
We have to control the deficit. There
should be some pledge like that that we
force our elected officials on both
sides of the aisle to take. And I'm
going to start pursuing that myself
personally. You can go to join
thereresponsibleparty.com
and I'm just going to start an email
newsletter and just talk about it. I
think there needs to be a pledge that
these politicians take to balance the
budget and cut the deficit over some
reasonable amount of time. Uh but I wish
them both the best and I'm glad that the
two of them have reconciled because
that's good for the country. We can't
have these two giants at war. The
greatest innovator in our country and a
president who's got, you know, an agenda
which I agree with twothirds of. I may
not agree with how he's doing
immigration on the margins, but I agree
with everything else. So, I'm just
rooting for the both of them because
it's so important that for America that
they get along. Great. So, in summary,
you're not centering yourself, but you
have a website www. I have an opinion.
It accepts Apple. I'm not telling you to
go to founderun university. It's $1 a
month, but if you subscribe for a year,
it's $6. Yeah, you actually threw in a
plug. I have an issue. I'm throwing a
plug in. That was insane. I I don't
care. Listen, sign up the responsible
party.com. I'm going to start my over my
own your quiz pledge, but also join.
It's insane. You're insane. I'd also
like to plug Chamat's Substack. It's
$1,000 a year to get his reports and uh
you can of course buy David
Saxquil.com/ucker.
What plugs do you have? I've never
plugged. No plugs from Tucker. Tucker,
you where what's in the merch store,
Tucker? You got to have something in the
merch store. Alp, America's greatest
nicotine pouch. That's all I've got.
Okay, here we go. Plugs central. Uh,
fantastic. All right, breaking news
here. Foreign policy looks like a major
escalation with Iran could be happening.
Maybe on Wednesday, it was reported some
US personnel were being evacuated out of
the Middle East. Partial evacuation of
the Iraqi embassy. Okay. Oil prices move
4% on the news. Later reported that
Israel is prepared to launch an
operation into Iran. US thinks Iran
could retaliate on spaces in Iraq which
explains the evacuations. Trump was
asked about the evacuation said the
following quote they are being moved out
because it could be a dangerous place.
We'll see what happens. The classic
Trump will see what happens. And then he
added they can't have a nuclear weapon.
Very simple. Okay. Poly market odds are
spiking on Israel. Action against Iran
50%. Oh boy. Uh Tucker,
can the West allow Iran to have a
nuclear weapon or is this more a WMD
situation that we referenced at the
start of the program? If Tucker Carlson
was in the White House, which many of
your fans wish you were, what would your
advice be here?
Is it up to us? Do we have the power?
Nobody wants Iran to have a nuclear
weapon. I don't think the Iranians want
a nuclear weapon right now by judging by
their actions, but it could we prevent
it is the question. And if so, how
exactly given that we just lost to
Russia and the Houthis? Um I'm
skeptical. Um but I'm amazed by how
close we are to military action against
Iran. It's no defense of Iran. Of
course, I'm not a Shiite for the record,
but I think it comes with perils that
people are not considering or willfully
ignoring. And the main one is Iran is
not Iraq or it's not Libya. It's not
isolated. It's a it's a central player
in bricks. 90% of of Iran's oil exports
go to China. It just signed an defense
agreement with Russia in January. So
it's not you know what I mean? It has
backup. It has big allies that represent
the majority of the world's population
and the majority of the world's economy
and land mass. So the potential for this
to become something much much bigger and
unmanageable is is real. It's there.
their conventional weapons are fearsome
and could do great damage to our allies
to Israel and and to American assets in
that area and also to energy production
um in countries that we we rely on. So I
think the downsides are uh are really
kind of overwhelming. I think um a
protracted meaning anything over a day
or two uh engagement with Iran would
derail the Trump agenda and the
presidency and I think it could really
sink this administration and so I pray
this this doesn't happen. I think by the
way I think the timetable is distorted.
There is absolutely no reason to the
president has said repeatedly we will do
everything we can to prevent Iran from
getting a nuclear weapon. I think it's a
completely reasonable goal. Nobody wants
that. I certainly don't want that and
the Israelis don't want it and the Gulf
States don't want it. Nobody wants that.
But it doesn't mean that it has to
happen on Friday actually and there are
other forces exerting pressure on the
administration to get this done quickly
even before Steve Wickoff, God bless
him, um meets with his counterparts in
Oman in a few days from now. So it's
like why in the world would you preempt
a scheduled negotiation with air strikes
which the United States would US is
driving is driving this and we're just
you know it's it's a it's a combination
of both and by the way Israel is a
country with 9 million people in it. I
mean it's it's the Israeli government.
Um but there also elements of the US
government. The head of SenCom you know
is in favor of this. There are a number
of Republican senators who are in favor
of this who are lying. For example,
here's one, I think, interesting point,
um, that's a statement of fact. There's
no American intelligence, this is a
statement of fact, that suggests Iran is
in the process of assembling a nuclear
weapon or within months of doing so.
There's none. And yet Tom Cotton of
Arkansas, the chairman of the intel
Senate Intel Committee, is out there
saying, you know, we know that they're
doing this. Well, actually, you don't
know that. That's not true. Whether he
believes it or not, I can't, you know, I
can't say, but that's that's a lie. Our
intel does not say that. period. So why
so they're lying because industrial uh
military-industrial complex? Yeah. I
mean I think there a whole it's not it's
not as simple as OB wants it. I mean I
think this is a very complicated
um coalition of aligned interests but
whatever their motives I don't even need
to know their motives. This is not a
timetable that we need to adhere to.
It's a completely artificial timetable.
The president has done his best to
resolve this diplomatically. That's
clearly his stated preference. He said
it a million times. And he's being
bumrushed into making a very uh
snap decision that could have bigger
consequences than we're thinking
through. So, I'm very concerned about
it.
What's your thoughts here? Can Iran have
a nuclear weapon? And should the United
States participate in if they do have um
one imminently which is a big debate
obviously
should we be involved in uh stopping
them or should we be doing negotiations
soft power etc. I think this is where
I'm glad that it's President Trump in
the seat. I think he's shown a
consistent desire to offramp all of
these conflicts and if he and Witoff
can hopefully hold the line with BB and
everybody else, I think we're way way
way better off. But you see this like
every time we're on the verge of
victory, somebody in the
military-industrial complex invents
some, you know, escalation of something
so that we can just go to war. It's the
the answer always seems to be let's go
to war or let's support a war or let's
enable a war. And the bull work to that
has been the president. If we go to war,
Tucker's right, this totally screws
everything up. I mean, you could see oil
double double. What What happens to the
economy of the world, of world GDP, of
everything, of inflation if you have oil
at 100 bucks a barrel, 112 bucks a
barrel? It's not good.
So, you have to wonder like why would
people want this escalation? Who wants
this escalation? And you see that it's
deeply beneficial for America to avoid
anything calamitous happening here. So I
hope we find an off-ramp and I hope that
the president gets his way. One thing
people should know about Iran is that
there is a massive demographic switch
happening here. You can see a chart. Is
this from your paid newsletter site? Uh
this is Yeah, this is from
chimoth.subsect.com.
$1,000 a year, $700 a month. You get to
have lunch with him twice a year. Is
this is this from choose your
responsible party.org? What's it called?
No, this is from founderun university
application coming in for around the
world. Uh here we go. Take a take your
uh nicotine patch and come to founder
university. Iran 2020 uh if you look at
the number of millennials, Gen Xers, uh
this is not a boomer country and they're
going to have a revolution when all
those 30 year olds you see there, that
big fat middle, 30 and 40 year olds who
are on VPNs right now and reading and
watching what's happening in the West.
You do not need to interfere with this
country. You just need to let those 30
year olds become 40 and 50 year olds and
take over the country. We need to
negotiate heavily. The idea of going in
there and creating a war with Iran is
exactly probably what those older people
want. Demographics are destiny. Uh and
this there's an amazing actual Anthony
Bourdain episode from Iran and it was he
said it was his favorite episode. Rest
in peace Anthony Bourdain. But the
demographics here are just going to
drive this change. Your ability as a
moderator to cover so much ground. Thank
you. Wow. Compliment. All right. This is
a hard turn to make, Tucker, but this
week's All-In podcast is brought to you
by the Trump card. Everybody go get a
Trump card and use the promo code J
promo code JCAL. And I uh just full
disclosure, get paid $500,000 every time
you buy a Trump card. But the Trump card
website is up. Use the promo code JCAL
10% off. Tucker 12% off. And Saxy Pooh
for 15% off. 15,000 15,000 people have
signed up. That's $75 billion there if
you convert them all. Let's go. I mean,
I I I'm an idiot because I proposed this
years ago for $500,000 and you know what
the genius of Trump is? He made it gold
and added a zero. You have You have
consistently proven to your friends that
you mispriced by an order of magnitude
typically two. Now I add a zero every
time. All right. Listen, thank you
Tucker for coming on. What's the website
to get our nicotine? Uh Alps. Alps.
Alps. What? I want the website. Als.com.
Alpouch.com. All right, Tucker, you got
to get us in on this. We need
alpouch.comallin.
We need an all-in branded one. Okay.
With the flavor of What's the flavor,
Chimamoth, we should do here. What's the
flavor? Can we do a burgundy money?
That's why I'm in. But how do we get How
do we How do we get promoing this? We
need to get some We need to get in on
this. I would say like it should taste
like a 2001 Meetto. Can you do that? Can
you get the team on a Metto flavor for
us? It's I'm going to send Tucker a
bottle. I am uh sending this in right
now. We're to start with barata flavored
to then go from there. I would if you
can make a coollette steak for me. A
rare koollette steak would be great as a
flavor. A wagu
would be great. Sax, what do you got for
a flavor here? Just something minty.
Maybe a little minty. Okay. Minty fresh
cuz you want to get the breath going.
This is dual purpose. Why chew gum when
you can just go right to a pouch? There.
There it goes. Clip that. I just texted
I texted the factory and I said we need
specially branded ALP for Allin.
Let's go. You think I'm kidding? We're
in BD mode. We're in BD mode. We're not
kidding either. We're in BD mode here at
Allin. Allin.com. Come to the summit.
Tucker, why don't you come to the summit
in September? What are you doing? You
want to come? Done. It'd be fun to As
long as it's not it's not the end is um
grouse season, so I can't I'm not
allowed to leave during grrow season
because I've got dogs. But um is it
before the end of September? September
8th and 789 I think it is. So yeah. Oh
brow flavor pouch. Those that's a little
g it's a little gamey for a nicotine
pouch but I'll think about it. We'll
think take it under advising. Too gy.
All right everybody. We missed you.
Sultan of science. We'll break your
chops but we wish you were here. David
Saxs the miss you buddy. See you in LA
hopefully at the all-in tequila lunch
later this month. Chamath Poly Hapatia
great to see you. Good luck with your
health and for my guy Tucker Carlson.
Alpouch.com/allin.
Get your promo codes going. This is the
number one podcast in the world after
the Tucker Carlson show. My last shout
out. I would like to thank Robin Hood
for sending me their gold card. You
finally Yeah. Sax and I have had it for
100 days. I shhat on American Express
because I think they're just trash and
then they they reached out to me and it
was so ridiculous for the black card.
No, they they didn't even offer me the
black card. They said, "Here's a chance
for you to apply for the black card."
And I was like, "This is this just
proves so insulting. So insulting." They
have no idea who anybody is. They're
nagging you. They're I mean, literally,
this is the number one podcast in the
world, bro. I mean, I generally if any
of the four of us ran a credit card
company and we decided that we were
going to have a $10,000 a year credit
card for big spenders, what you would do
is actually run a query to find who are
the biggest that you already have and
upgrade them so that they're paying you
10,000. Who who wants to do the all-in
card with us? Email jasonallin.com.
BD lines are open. We're going to
monetize this brand. All right,
everybody. Thanks again, Tucker. You're
awesome. We appreciate you and best the
greatest. See you next time. Byebye.
Love you besties. Love you. Love you s.
I got you.
We'll let your winners ride.
Rainman David
and it said we open sourced it to the
fans and they've just gone crazy with
it. Love you. Queen of Kino
[Music]
besties are gone.
That is my dog taking notice your
driveways.
Oh man, my appetiter will be. You should
all just get a room and just have one
big huge orgy cuz they're all just
useless. It's like this like sexual
tension that we just need to release
somehow.
Wet your feet. Wet your feet. her feet.
We need to get Mercury's back.
[Music]
I'm going all in.
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